Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, August 19, 2007

An intriguing letter from Haniyeh to Bashir Assad

Ma'an Arabic reports on a letter that Hamas leader Haniyeh sent to Bashir Assad, dictator of Syria.

First, some background:

There are a few refugee camps on the Syria/Iraq border, and the Palestinian Arabs who live there have fled Iraq in terror. Syria is not letting them in. Syria is certainly not letting them become citizens, as one would expect "brothers" to act.

There is a good, historic reason why Syria and most other Arab countries refuse to help out Palestinian Arabs and allow them to settle permanently in their countries. Since 1948, they have been dead-set against allowing them to become citizens because they don't want the refugee problem to go away - they want refugees to fester in dire conditions to use them as pawns for the West to pressure Israel.

The Orwellian twist is that the Arabs do this ostensibly to preserve Palestinian Arab nationalism and unity. If the refugees would have been absorbed as refugees throughout history have been, then there would no longer be a "Palestinian cause." The fiction that Arabs have been telling each other for some 60 years is that their mistreatment of Palestinian Arabs has been for the PalArabs' own good. This narrative has been so universal that no Arab, Palestinian or otherwise, dares to disagree with it. Instead, they twist their thought processes around in remarkable ways to allow them to think that mistreatment is a good thing.

Now, there are hundreds or thousands of people whose ancestors came from Palestine, who have lived in Iraq for decades, who have never been allowed to become Iraqi citizens and who now are truly being persecuted, unlike the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs who have been getting free food and education courtesy of the UNRWA. These people really do need help, and the obvious people to help are those who rule the Arab countries that border Iraq.

Now we can read the letter and see the hoops that PalArabs have to jump in order to pretend that being mistreated for decades is all for the best: (autotranslated):

Gaza-together - Prime Minister Ismail Haniya article, a letter to Syrian President Bashar Assad price of the Syrian leadership's position towards the Palestinian cause and to serve the Palestinian people.

Haniya called on the Syrian leadership to intervene immediately to take decisions that end suffering of Palestinian refugees in camps and Walid Al-Tenf, and the Sphinx.

Haniya said in the letter "we value your positions nationalism advanced toward the Palestinian cause, and greatly appreciate your hard work and continued in service of the Palestinian people, you know, Your Excellency, the President enormous suffering experienced by your brothers, your sons in the camps Walid, and Al-Tenf Sphinx and some airports and seaports Arab, they hope Your Excellency to intervene. Personal decisions that end suffering complex and interrelated and accumulated by allowing them to live a decent under your auspices in your venerable, an extension of the proceedings in support of issues of national homeland in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and other Arab countries, as we bring you security broken, we call Bvkhamtkm that this interesting case and special care of yourself and the appointment of a representative of your Excellency to pursue the matter or what you deem appropriate, your brothers Palestinians caught in these camps and your Kararakm waiting. "

By asking Assad to let them into his country, to ask him to treat them like human beings, Haniyeh knows that he is upsetting the status quo of Arab nations treating PalArabs like dirt. But since that treatment is for the greater good of their cause, he has to ask nicely for the Syrian dictator to break the rules and not treat them quite so badly.

This is a remarkable illustration of the convoluted Arab thinking that accompanies the standard Palestinian Arab "refugee" narrative.

Palestinian children hold candles during a power cut in Gaza city August 18, 2007. Israel plans to open a Gaza Strip crossing for several hours to let fuel be transported to the territory, the army said on Saturday, a day after power generators there shut down due to a fuel blockade. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (GAZA)

Poor Gazan children forced to use candles because racist Israel is blockading fuel to Gaza?

Funny, other wire services seem to indicate otherwise:

Israel opened the Nahal Oz crossing in central Gaza to allow fuel into the Hamas-controlled coastal strip, but power plant officials said the private Israeli fuel company Dor Alon had yet to deliver any fuel.
Palestinian officials said a European Union aid program, which funds fuel for the plant, has not sent monitors to the crossing to facilitate the shipment as required.

An EU diplomat said an assessment of the funding program was being made and a decision was likely tomorrow.

Dor Alon had no immediate comment, but officials said the supplier was delaying the shipment because it was unclear who would pay for it.

About half of Gaza's 1.5 million residents will be affected by the plant's blackout, power plant officials said.

Israel stopped fuel shipments through Nahal Oz late last week, citing security threats.

Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the decision to resume deliveries was for Dor Alon to make.

“This is a private company that probably received a security warning from the Defence Ministry. That is why, and rightfully so, the fuel shipments were halted. I assume fuel will start flowing again in a day or two,” Ben-Eliezer said.

Ben-Eliezer said that Israel, which supplies 70 per cent of Gaza's electricity, was in the process of adding a new power line into the territory.

Israel supplies most of Gaza's electricity as part of past interim peace deals.

So Israel supplies most of the electricity into the Gaza statelet that is sworn to destroy it, it allows private companies to sell fuel to Gaza, and the EU is dragging its feet in its role in resuming shipments.

Doesn't sound like a very effective blockade, does it?

The only places I saw the words "fuel blockade" were in a quote from the Palestinian Electric Company, an article from Qatar, and, of course, in the regular Reuters' article on the situation.

Peaceful PalArab weekend

A Gaza man missing for 8 days was found, tortured and shot multiple times, in the evacuated settlement of Netzarim. He died shortly thereafter.

Hamas arrested and reportedly tortured seven Fatah members in Gaza, including an employee of the UN Development Program.

Hamas admits that, sure, it tortures people sometimes - including in prisons - but it is not nearly as bad as the media says.

There are claims that Hamas has been stealing the possessions of Gaza citizens waiting at border crossings.

Three brothers were injured, apparently from a Qassam rocket that fell short in Khan Younis.

The PalArab self-death count is now at 508 for the year.

UPDATE: A Gaza Fatah leader's home was firebombed.

UPDATE 2: Palestine Press mentions the name of an 18-year old murdered in the Jabaliya camp. 509.

Walt and Mearsheimer redux

People are all excited that Walt and Mearsheimer are coming out with their book expanding on their paper last year about how nefarious the Israel Lobby is and how the United States would be better off if we just stopped all support for Israel.

Since their arguments have not become less idiotic over the past year, I see no reason for the counterarguments to have changed either. I discussed the kerfuffle last year here and here.

Peaceful Palestinian Arabs attacking UNRWA

From Ma'an:

UNRWA has on Friday called for the intervention of the Palestinian Authority to prevent its employees being repeatedly subject to threats.

A number of UNRWA employees were detained for several hours in Nablus on Thursday.

In a statement received by Ma'an, UNRWA demanded that the Palestinian Authority intervene immediately to stop those who are attempting to drag UNRWA into the ongoing Palestinian internal conflict.

UNRWA made clear that threats and harassment are hindering their ability to carry out their humanitarian assistance in the Palestinian Territories. Exposing the UNRWA staff to danger limits their ability to continue working, the statement added.

The UNRWA website doesn't say a word about this, not even in theor press release section, and neither do any other newspapers. I guess when the UNRWA criticizes Palestinian Arabs they try to keep it a lot quieter than when they criticize Israel.

Who detained the UNRWA workers? Hamas? The PA? No idea. Ma'an doesn't have any previous articles about this and seems to be purposefully vague about what happened.

Readers of my Palestinian Arab history series will recall that PalArabs attacked the UNRWA as soon as it was set up in the 1950s.

Did Peres just give Hamas more legitimacy?

Unlike previous presidents of Israel, which is a largely ceremonial position, Shimon Peres has been making political statements supporting his suicidal ideas of "peace."

According to Palestine Today (Arabic), Peres has just stupidly opened up a window for European recognition of Hamas, as he spoke to a delegation of US Democratic members of Congress: (autotranslated, slightly cleaned up)

Israeli President Shimon Peres said today that there is a possibility that Israel would offer assistance to Hamas if they focused their activities on economic and humanitarian aspects after their takeover of the Gaza Strip.

During his meeting with a delegation comprising 20 members of the American Congress from the Democratic Party, Peres added "if the Palestinian factions, including Hamas against Israel Fessnerd strongly (?), and if Hamas took the humanitarian field, we will help them."

I usually try to find verification for Palestine Press articles but there is indeed a delegation of members of Congress to Israel happening now who met with Peres.

While the part that was untranslated may mean that Peres put in the standard caveat about recognition of Israel and stopping violence, his words can strengthen the Europeans who are lobbying for recognizing Hamas without the pre-conditions that the Quartet laid out.

PalArab turns Israeli teen into sex slave for PA officials

More news from the group that the West and Kadima think will lead a peaceful PalArab state:

A Palestinian from Ramallah turned an 18-year-old Israeli girl he met on the internet into his sex slave, Ynet reported on Friday.

A few months ago Tal (not her real name) met who she thought was her prince charming in an internet chat room. Following a brief period of online correspondence, the two met in person. The Palestinian took Tal out to restaurants and showered her with gifts, and the unsuspecting Israeli teen thought she had found the man of her dreams.

Within a month of their first encounter she was already in love with him, and did not hesitate for a second when he asked her to move into his home in Ramallah. But shortly after the two began living together the man approached Tal and asked that she “comfort” a friend of his. She agreed to sleep with the friend as a one-time gesture for her beloved boyfriend, but was forced to have sex with others as time went by.

Tal was then brought to a lavish villa, where she and several Muslim women granted sexual services to senior Palestinian Authority officials on a regular basis. Eventually Tal managed to escape and return to Israel.

A volunteer in an organization that offers help to Israeli teenagers who have experienced similar traumas told Ynet that Arab girls from Jaffa have also been lured to the territories under false pretenses.

“The Muslim girls are afraid to return to Israel because they lose their virginity there. When they meet the person in a chat room they are certain that it will lead to marriage. Their families in Israel don’t want them back because they have ‘brought shame’ upon them,” she said.

The volunteer said the victims are usually lonely people from a low socio-economic background.

There have been many documented cases of Arabs sweeping Israeli women off their feet and then abusing them, often marrying them, and there are organizations in Israel dedicated to helping these women escape. In a rare case yesterday, an Israeli court ruled that a woman who escaped should have custody of the children, still in a West Bank village, and the IDF helped save them (this story from Ma'an):

Israeli military vehicles stormed into a house in a village in the West Bank in the early hours of Thursday morning, taking two children from their Palestinian father to be given to their Jewish Israeli mother.

Forty-four-year-old Jabr Issa had been ordered by an Israeli court to hand over the two girls, aged 4 and 1. The Israeli forces were sent to the village of Beit Oula, south of Hebron, to take the children after Issa had not complied with the court order.

Issa was not in the house at the time but the girls' grandfather was unable to stop them being taken away.

Local villagers said that Issa had married the girls' mother, Rifqa, 35, an Israeli citizen, in Turkey in the year 2000. They moved to the village where Issa worked in the construction industry.

One neighbour told Ma'an that problems between the couple began 3 or 4 months ago and Rifqa left the village.

Yousef Taye'a, one of the village residents said "Rifqa used to come to our house. She used to be happy and she speaks very good Arabic."

Issa's brother, Jamal, 37, is also married to a Jewish Israeli woman.

Arutz Sheva had a series of articles about this phenomenon a few years ago, stating some of the problems Jewish women have when they marry Arabs - they are more likely to be beaten than Arab wives, for example.

The right to feel offended (Judea Pearl)

I'm not sure I agree with everything in this piece, but - at least for Jewish liberals who allow their friends to spout casual anti-Israel rhetoric - Judea Pearl (Daniel's father) makes some very good points. Here's part:

We, as Jews, have been grossly negligent in permitting the dehumanization of Israel to become socially acceptable in certain circles of society, especially on college campuses. Our silence, natural resilience to insults and general reluctance to confront colleagues and friends have contributed significantly to the Orwellianization of campus vocabulary and the legitimization of the unacceptable. Most of our assailants are even unaware of the shivers that go down our spines with utterances such as "apartheid Israeli regime" or "brutal Israeli occupation."

But if we take seriously the moral basis for our right to take offense and exercise that right broadly and consistently, a reverse process of de-Orwellianization will ensue.

If instead of avoiding confrontation, swallowing our insults or letting ourselves be dragged into defensive arguments, we simply halt the conversation and assert with honesty and dignity, "Sorry, this is offensive to me," or "This is unacceptable," we will reclaim the respect that our adversaries plan to trample.

History and decency have given us that right.

If we act on it proudly and resolutely, the word will quickly come around that good company no longer accepts smearing Israel with apartheid or bashing Zionism as a crime.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Zionist Youngster elaborates on what bothers him about the article.

How to raise a generation of mass murderers

Click here to see an extended version of a horrific video from Hamas, showing Nahoul the killer bee and his strange sidekick Saraa first saying that when they grow up they will "take revenge upon the criminal Jews...by means of morning prayers, blood, sacrifice, and pain, by means of martyrs, and with endurance." (I couldn't figure out how to embed it.)

Nahoul then goes to torture cats and lions with children laughing in the background (much to the annoyance of PETA), and after some minutes of this Saraa reminds him that the prophet isn't thrilled with that sort of behavior.

This is pretty much a video manual on how to raise a generation of people who only want to kill and torture before they themselves get martyred in glorious, bloody ways.

Lessons from the bombings in Iraq

The recent horrific car bombs in Iraq, targeting an obscure religious sect that presumably doesn't meet some Muslim clerics' standards, illustrate a point about Israel that bears being made explicit:

If Israel would do all the things that the Left demands - if Israel would take down the fence, if all Palestinian Arabs were allowed to move where they wanted to in Israel, if Israel stopped all raids and arrests and roadblocks, if it opened the borders to Gaza - then the Jewish sections left in the area would look the way Al-Qataniyah and Al-Adnaniyah in northern Iraq look today.

The interesting thing is that, intellectually, the Left must realize this. They might mouth predictions that Israeli concessions would bring a happy, peaceful Palestinian Arab society in its wake but no one can seriously believe it. The Jews would be treated far worse than the Yazidi were this week if the terrorists are given half a chance. The unremitting terror attacks from 2001-2004 in Israel is proof of that, and if Hamas and Fatah had access to bigger and better explosives, they would have used them as well.

Even given these obvious facts, the Left seems to prefer an insecure, terror-ridden Israel that meets their standards of "morality" to a state that actively protects its citizens from the surrounding, hostile millions. They would prefer the inevitable resulting mass murders in Israel to having Israel do anything defensive that might, possibly, violate the "rights" of anyone else.

Is it anti-semitism? Is it self-hate for Western culture? Is it the complete absence of sense? I don't know, but whatever it is, a clear picture of what they advocate can be seen today in Iraq.

Former PalArab legislator convicted of involvement in 2002 terror attack

From Jerusalem Newswire:

A member of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction of the PLO, and a former legislator in the PA parliament, was found guilty Wednesday of sending a "suicide" bomber to Tel Aviv in 2002.
The attacker blew himself up in a coffee shop in the coastal city, killing Rachel Tcherkhi, an Israeli woman.

Jamal Tirawi was convicted of sending the bomber and thus of deliberately murdering Tcherki.

Remember - this guy is part of the group that the West supports as "moderate."

YNet adds:

According to the indictment, the suicide bomber that blew himself up in a coffee shop in the city in March 2002 made his way to Israel from the Nablus home of PLC member Jamal Tirawi.

The Fatah member is also accused of recruiting potential suicide bombers.

A little factoid about him from before the terror attack:

Like other leading activists, Mr Tirawi is mindful of the long arm of Israeli intelligence. Behind the lace curtains of his living room, he sat surrounded by 16 of his men. All were armed with M-16s or Kalashnikovs, and his six-year-old daughter played with a Belgian-made pistol.

But despite the assortment of weapons, Mr Tirawi said he was against vigilante justice for suspected Israeli agents.

While he might be against extrajudicial killing of "collaborators," it doesn't stop him from using the idea to do that recruiting he wants:

Wanted Tanzim terrorist Rabi'ah Abu Alil originally tried to employ the boy as a suicide bomber after he and his father quarreled over money. The boy refused, and was taken to an apartment by Abu Alil and another wanted Arab terrorist, Jamal Tirawi. Tirawi is also a high ranking Palestinian Authority (PA) intelligence officer, the IDF said.

"Despite the youth's pleas that he be released to his home and left alone, Tirawi and Abu Alil threatened him that if he did not cooperate, they would kill him and distribute a communique claiming he had been collaborating with the Israeli army," the IDF announcement stated. Terrorists photographed the boy wearing a vest and holding a rifle and a copy of the Koran.

Now, try to find a Palestinian Arab "moderate" who is willing to condemn this guy. Good luck with that.

Celebrity deathmatch: Tzipi Livni vs. Julia Roberts

Tzipi:

Ms Livni, a key figure in Israel's contacts with the new Abbas-established administration, said: "I know that it looks tempting and I know that the international community is eager to see a kind of understanding between Hamas and Fatah." But she warned at a news conference with her visiting Japanese counterpart, Taro Aso: "This is wrong. This is a mistake. Big mistake. Huge."

Julia: (as Vivian in Pretty Woman)

Vivian: You people work on commission, right?
Shop assistant: Yeah.
Vivian: Big mistake. Big. Huge. I have to go shopping now.

I think Julia has the edge. She comes off as more self-assured.

Hamas: Buses legit targets, no Jews in Palestine before 1917, goal to wipe Israel out

From MEMRI via Front Page:

The following are excerpts from an interview with Hamas representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan, which aired on Al-Kawthar TV on August 6, 2007.

To view this clip visit: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1527.htm.

Interviewer: "Islamic law has forbidden aggression during jihad – by forbidding the killing of women, children, the elderly, clerics who devote themselves to the worship of God, and other noncombatant civilians who do not serve in the enemy's army. Do you consider all the Jews in Palestine to be combatants who have plundered the land? We've witnessed martyrdom operations that targeted buses and restaurants."

Osama Hamdan: "First of all, let me clarify something very important. What is the ruling regarding those who live in Palestine, in the so-called Israel, and who are aggressors and plunderers of the land? The way we see it, they all came to Palestine from abroad, whether before the declaration of the Zionist entity or after it. If you were to conduct statistics within the Zionist entity, you would find that all these people have their origins in other countries – they came from Europe, Eastern Europe, from America, South America, or other places."

Interviewer: "In other words, there were no Palestinian Jews?"

Osama Hamdan: "No, there were no Palestinian Jews. When the British Mandate began in 1917, there was only one settlement on Palestinian land, which included several dozen Jews, who were living there in violation of the law at the time. I would like to mention that under the Ottoman state – regardless of the many reservations we have about it – there was a law that prohibited the Jews from staying in Palestine for over a month.

"Their passports and personal documents were taken away from them, and they were given an Ottoman permit at the border, which allowed them to stay for a month on Palestinian land. The only group that can be called Jewish was the one in Nablus. They still live there to this day. The Palestinians regard them as part of the makeup of Palestinian society, and they number no more than several hundred. As for those who immigrated from various countries – they are not Jews.

"Anyone who comes to live in a war zone is a combatant, regardless of whether he wears a uniform. That's one thing. Secondly, neither Hamas nor the Palestinian resistance force intentionally killed civilians. You mentioned the buses. What's an easier target – a bus, which is protected by various security measures, or a school [or] a theater, or a stadium, for example? These civilian targets – in which the killing of women and children is intentional – were not targeted by
"Why were buses targeted? Because they are the means of transport used by the soldiers as well. The Zionist soldiers, who go from their homes to their bases and back, use public transportation, because it is free or almost free. In my opinion, the occupation soldiers also have a security motive in using public transport: They shield themselves behind the so-called 'civilians' within the Zionist entity.

"Therefore, the way I see it, they need to stop using public transportation, or else society should prevent them from using it, because it is the soldiers who are targeted. Just to prove it, in the dozens of operations that were carried out, the Zionists never announced, for example, that 20 children were killed, or that 50 women were killed. On the contrary, if you were to examine who was killed in martyrdom operations that targeted buses, you would find that 70% were occupation soldiers, and they may even have been in uniform at the time of the operation." [...]

"The Final Goal of the Resistance is to Wipe This Entity Off the Face of the Earth"

"We are making the preparations for a confrontation. This is not because we need to be prepared for an Israeli act of aggression – after all, aggression is intrinsic to this entity – but because the final goal of the resistance is to wipe this entity off the face of the Earth. This goal necessitates the development of the capabilities of the resistance, until this entity is wiped out."

Interviewer: "Do you think that Mahmoud Abbas, who has found himself in the crisis of the confrontation with Hamas, plays the role of a policeman, who is thwarting the Intifada, the resistance, and the jihad against the Zionist occupation in the Palestinian lands?"

Osama Hamdan: "He plays a role that is even worse than that. Mahmoud Abbas is doing this out of ideological conviction. He has been calling for a settlement ever since 1973. It was Mahmoud Abbas who created the Oslo Accords, and who was brought in by the Americans to serve as prime minister in order to confront Arafat. In my opinion, he plays this role willingly and out of conviction, which is worse than if he were doing it out of commitment to the occupation."

The number of lies per sentence in this little interview is even higher than the usual number that comes out from Arab terrorists.

And if you are curious about the Jews in Nablus that he's talking about, he's referring to Samaritans. It is possible that by defining them as Jews he is also defining the Jews who have lived in Palestine continuously as infidels, not dhimmis, meaning that they are all legitimate targets for being killed.

Of course, we cannot expect too much consistency from people who rewrite history at will, and who conveniently forget terror attacks against schools, shopping malls, discos, bar mitzvahs, cafes, pizza shops, and hotels.

PalArabs celebrate their 11th honor killing this year

From PCHR:

at approximately 18:00 on Monday, 13 August 2007, the body of En’am Jaber Deifallah (37) arrived at Shifa Hospital. The victim is from El-T’wam area in northern Gaza City, and was a mother of one child. Medical sources indicated that she was killed by beating with a sharp object on the head. The victim’s family informed PCHR’s fieldworker that one of the victim’s brothers killed her inside her house in a murder motivated by “honor.”

It is noted that “honor killings” have increased over the past few years in the Gaza Strip. Deirallah is the 11th victim of such crimes this year.

See how much they honor their women?

Google News has nothing about this. The only news source I've seen mention this so far is Ma'an Arabic.

Our PalArab self-death count is now 507 for 2007.

Dr. Mamdooh Fahmy was a surgeon at the Albyaan Menfhoh Medical Center in Riyadh. His colleagues noticed that he didn't seem to practice Islam and they started trying to convince him to become Muslim and practice a religion that despises coercion.

After some time of enduring their repeated invitations to become Muslim, Fahmy finally told them that he was a Coptic Christian, and he would not be changing his beliefs any time soon.

Soon thereafter, Dr. Fahmy received a friendly visit from our heroes, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. They insulted him in front of patients and staff, confiscated his car keys, cell phone and wallet, handcuffed him and shackled his feet, and dragged him to a car where they nicely drove him to his house. They then raided his house and confiscated all his written materials, took him to the police station and placed him in solitary confinement.

After five days of this Muslim hospitality, they started interrogating him and referring to him as an 'infidel'.

His crime: Fahmy was accused of missionary activity. It seems that not allowing oneself to be pressured into becoming a Muslim is equivalent to asking people to become Christian, in Saudi Muslim thought.

When the Muttawa finally released him and he tried to get back to his home in Egypt, the Saudi government refused to give him a visa.

Finally, after months calls and letters, Saudi Arabia allowed him to go to Egypt this week.

Once again, the Commission has shown its hatred for vice and its promotion of virtue. Saudis can sleep soundly at night knowing that such zealous defenders of their lifestyle are on constant watch, ready to pounce at even the slightest whiff of infidelism.

Last episode here.