Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 03, 2007

New Statesman (UK) equates IDF with terrorists

In a most reprehensible example of journalistic bias, a column today in the New Statesman looks at Israeli IDF camps aimed at foreigners and compares them to Hamas camps that indoctrinate campers in terror:

The British children who train to fight in Israel

How each year scores of British teenagers go to the Middle East to learn about soldiering and defending Israel

Matthew Holehouse
In 2001 shocking reports surfaced from Gaza of summer schools being organised by Islamic Jihad, which were teaching Palestinian adolescents to become suicide bombers. The Israeli government denounced the camps as evidence that a new generation was being brought up to hate and to kill.
What went unreported was that at a purpose-built barracks in the Negev desert, every summer hundreds of Jewish teenagers from Europe, Mexico and America pay to spend nine weeks saluting, marching, firing guns and otherwise pretending to be soldiers.

Marva, run by the Educational and Youth Corps of the Israel Defence Force and conducted entirely in Hebrew, simulates the basic training of Israeli conscripts for 18-28 year old members of the Diaspora. Dressed in boots and olive fatigues, and obliged to carry an M16 assault rifle at all times, school leavers on gap years do push ups in the dust, perform night marches with laden stretchers, maintain civil defence shelters, fire machine guns at paper figures and simulate military manoeuvres, as well as taking classes in Jewish identity and the history and values of the IDF. Karaoke and dance-offs also feature.
With the security situation improving, increasing numbers of British Jews, through youth groups such as RSY Netzer and Federation of Zionist Youth, are signing up to one of the four 120-strong sessions held every year. One half are girls, and large numbers come from public schools in Manchester and North London.
Blogs written by participants revel in the camouflage-induced machismo. "By the end of the first week we were beginning to look like soldiers" writes American Joseph Fisher. "Strict discipline is enforced by our mefakdim (commanders). There is a great atmosphere of camaraderie."
Participants deny that the course was overtly anti-Palestinian. "I never heard that sort of comment from an official source – although there were some very right wing individuals taking part," says Mark Fitch, a Manchester student who took the course last year. "There was a lot of debate about the IDF, and whilst obviously by going on Marva they implicitly endorsed the army, a lot of people said that they were torn about using guns and running about."
Since the start of the Second Intifada some aspects of the course have been reconsidered. Sessions on house-to-house fighting have been dropped, as have re-enactments of the Battle of Ammunition Hill, one of the bloodiest engagements of the Six Day War, has been cut. "They're very aware of looking politically correct," says Fitch. "When discussing the Middle East they really do try to present both sides of the story and the overriding message is of striving for peace.

Most recently, British 16 and 17 year olds have been able to take part in Gadna, the week-long course taken by Israeli schoolchildren in preparation for military service and which has recently come under fire for becoming increasingly militaristic. "Shooting an M16 gun… physically lying on the land of Israel, learning how to defend it, gave me an immense sense of pride" writes a breathless Aimee Riese, a London schoolgirl and recent participant, in the Jewish Chronicle.

And this, really, is the objective.

...There's not much to be won in games of moral equivalence and assertions as to which side's indiscriminate attacks on civilians are the more reprehensible. But ask yourself this question: If these were British Muslim 19 year-olds firing machine guns and running assault courses in Pakistan or Yemen, would we not have them all arrested at the airport?

Now, let's take a short look at the Islamic Jihad camp that was reported on in the summer of 2001, and see if you can spot any differences - because apparently Mr. Holehouse cannot:

The Islamic Jihad is running a summer school - to teach boys the benefits of becoming suicide bombers.

A new generation of children, Palestinian boys aged between 12 and 15 years old, is growing up amid conflict and violence.

The boys are told not only that it is good to kill, but also that it is good to die.

They learn that suicide bomb attacks have proved the most deadly way to hit the Israelis.

Mohammed, a 14-year-old boy, draws himself with explosives strapped to his body, ready to blow himself to pieces if it means killing Jews.

"Yes," he says, when asked if he wants to be a suicide bomber. "I want to liberate Palestine and be part of the revolution."

The boys are shown pictures of those who have already died in the conflict with Israel.

They are taught that to give their lives is to be guaranteed a place in heaven.

And to be a suicide bomber is one of the highest forms of martyrdom.

They will be greeted in paradise by 70 virgins.

"We are teaching the children that suicide bombing is the only thing that make the Israeli people very frightened. Furthermore, we are teaching them that we have the right to do it," said Islamic Jihad member Mohammed el Hattab, one of the teachers on the programme.

"We are teaching them that after the suicide attacks, the man who makes it goes to the highest state in paradise," he said.

So this moral midget Holehouse is comparing a program that indoctrinates 12-15 year olds into killing Jewish civilians with one that mimics basic training for adults (plus a very short course for 16-18 year olds that he didn't bother mentioning very much.) He finds it supremely offensive that Israel might want to instill pride in Jews worldwide. He implies that the IDF is based on a hatred of Palestinian Arabs even as he quotes denials, while the Jihad camp is clearly based on hating Jews. The IDF course stresses peace and the Islamic Jihad course stresses death -but Holehouse cannot be trusted to report that small inconvenient fact.

And finally he explicitly equates training with the IDF, probably the most moral army in the world, with terrorist training camps.

(Oh, and Hamas camps teach children to fire weapons at the age of 8.)

Obviously Holehouse knows the facts - clearly he read the articles in 2001 about Islamic Jihad - so his specious comparisons are not done out of ignorance but out of pure hatred for Israel and for Jews who identify with Israel.

Update on Olmert's effectiveness against Qassams

In late November, Olmert said "we are a little disappointed" that Qassam attacks continued even during a "cease fire" that Israel held to unilaterally.

The Qassams continued.

In December, Olmert wrote a letter to the UN, saying "this restraint cannot continue for much longer."

The Qassams continued.

In February, Olmert said, "We are not going to restrain ourselves forever. The continued attacks challenge Israel's patience. In the end, if the attacks continue, we will respond."

The Qassams continued.

In April, Olmert said "[Israel] cannot continue to ignore the Qassam lunching [sic] and infiltration attempts of terrorist cells."

The Qassams continued.

Finally, in May, Israel gave up on the fictional "cease fire" and started targeting Qassam launchers.

Even so, the Qassams continued.

Month after month after month. Every single rocket causing celebrations and congratulatory articles in Palestinian Arab newspapers and websites.

Now, the Sderot schools are open and the number of Qassams is increasing.

And what does Olmert say?

"We will not come to terms with it and we will not let it go by."

Sderot's parents have a pretty good reason to be skeptical about Olmert's empty words. They're keeping their kids home from school tomorrow.

Hamas stops Gaza farmers from exporting potatoes

According to the anti-Hamas Palestine Press Agency, Hamas prevented 7 trucks containing 25 tons of potatoes from leaving Gaza. The reason is that the produce was to leave through the Kerem Shalom crossing which is controlled by Israel:

The illegal Hamas militia prevented seven Palestinian trucks loaded with 25 tons of potatoes to export to the outside of the Gaza Strip through the crossing Karam Abu Salem southern sector.

Well-informed sources in Gaza [said] the quantity of potatoes are surplus in the domestic market, explaining that the Palestinian Authority obtained approval to export the Israeli side this quantity of potatoes across the crossing Karam Abu Salem, but the Hamas militia prevented the entry of trucks loaded to crossing Karam Abu Salem for purely political reasons grounds that the government of Hamas, the article dealing with this crossing.

The sources said that "all goods entering the Gaza Strip to pass through crossing Karam Abu Salem, and this is a clear contradiction in the allegations Hamas prevent export and acceptance at the same time the entry of goods through the crossing!" .

The sources confirmed that farmers ground berries, tomatoes and flowers affected by the decision to prevent Hamas response through Abu Salem, asked "of the embargo imposed on the Palestinian people Is the government of President Mahmoud Abbas legitimate traders to facilitate the export of goods and the entry to Gaza, or Hamas, which prevented traders export pretext of Israeli control over the crossing! . "

Last week the UN said that a shipment of export potatoes did cross Kerem Shalom.

In the past, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have attacked Kerem Shalom with mortars in order to close it.

The UN recently released a report on the state of the Palestinian Arab economy. It blamed Israel for closing Gaza crossings and did not mention the word "Hamas" once.

September Qassam Calendar

Earlier calendars:
August
July
June
May
April
March
February

PalArabs hate "human rights" organizations too!

Plenty of observers have noted the anti-Israel and pro-terrorist bias that "human rights" organizations and NGOs have. One might think that the Palestinian Arabs who are beneficiaries of the money and publicity that they hand out would be a bit appreciative.

However, even as long ago as 1950, the Palestinian Arabs have been distrustful of international aid agencies, viewing them as Western plots against them. Not so much as not to accept the billions of dollars that they have consistently doled out, but enough to be resentful.

According to a Ma'an (Arabic) reader poll, that antipathy towards international aid organizations is alive and well.

The poll question is:

Human rights organizations working on Palestinian territories:
24% Operate freely and sincerely to serve the public
67% Hypocrisies of the party without further as interest
9% I do not know

An insult to Islam

Insults are funny things.

In order for an insult to be effective, two things must occur: the insult must have at least a kernel of truth, and the person being insulted must be sensitive about the insult's subject.

For example, if I would scream to Shaquille O'Neal during a game, "Hey, skinny, watch that you don't get knocked over by the ball," besides the fact that this is a lame insult, it is unlikely to be effective in getting on his nerves because O'Neal is clearly not a skinny person.

On the other hand, if I would shout "Hey, Shaq, getting a little spare tire around the middle?" it has a somewhat better chance of getting under his skin, because there is a decent chance that he cares a great deal about staying in shape and that he would be sensitive about any comments that may play upon his deepest fears of losing his edge. However, not knowing Shaq in the least, it is entirely possible that he is supremely confident about his physique and such an insult would roll off him without a twinge of pain.

When you think about it, insults only hurt people who are not well-adjusted. A balanced person who knows his or her strengths and weaknesses would hear an insult and either disagree, in which case it doesn't matter, or agree that this is an issue that needs to be raised. Telling Kristie Alley that she is fat today would probably elicit a reaction more like "well, I used to be a lot worse, and talk to me in a few months." The successful Jenny Craig spokeswoman's public persona has been redefined by her successful struggle to lose weight so even if she hasn't reached her goal yet she knows quite well where she is at, and again an insult like that would not have the same effect that it could have on many women who are obsessed with their shape.

People who get insulted easily, though, are those who tend to have low self-esteem to begin with - they already have grave doubts about their own abilities, or skills, or belief systems, and insults hurt them because they bring pre-existing internal painful feelings to the surface and force them to face the truth.

Bullies are notable because they will take insults very seriously, and then they will tend to lash out back at the insulter, often using force. Their own egos are so fragile that they feel that they need to prove their superiority in at least one level, and often that is achieved by using raw, physical violence.

One of this site's themes is that groups of people tend to think in similar ways. When a group of people get insulted to the extent that they threaten violence, then it may be surmised that the entire group suffers from some sort of mass psychosis.

In the past month alone, I can count at least five "insults to Islam" that made the news:

A quite unfunny Opus cartoon was pulled from some American newspapers because it had the potential of being an "insult to Islam."
A Malay man made a YouTube video which, among other things, said that a Muslim call to prayer near his house at 5 AM was singing out of tune and sounded like a rooster. This elicited protests.
Soccer balls decorated with flags of many nations were distributed to Afghans, and many Muslims were insulted because the Saudi flag depicted on the ball includes Allah's name.
A Swedish cartoon depicting Mohammed with a dog's body was strongly protested by Muslims worldwide as a huge insult to Islam.
A female Bangladeshi author was assaulted by Muslims for her writings, after a fatwa was issued for her death, and even the Muslims who were against her being threatened felt that she should be deported for her blasphemous works. Here's a video of the attack:

Some of these incidents are no doubt real insults to Islam, just as there are daily insults to Judaism and Christianity and other religions, not to mention other groups of people.

One difference is in the reaction to these insults. A violent reaction to an insult is a sign of mental instability, and a mass violent reaction is evidence of a pervasive mental health crisis within that group.

To give a simple example: One of the favorite targets of Islam-bashers is Mohammed's relationship with his child bride, Aisha. Now, I have no doubt that referring to Mohammed as a "child molester" is a very deep insult to most Muslims. A mature reaction could be to calmly explain that it is unfair to subject seventh-century figures to 21st century morals, especially since popular concepts of morality can change every decade. (Or to ignore the provocation.) While that explanation may not assuage the insulters, if the person insulted truly believes that he is right, he is unlikely to react violently.

But those Muslims who, deep down, think it is a little bit sketchy for their prophet to be marrying a child are more likely to turn the insult around into a violent reaction.

The other difference between the Muslim reaction to insults and those of most others is hypersensitivity. Muslimshave created an atmosphere where they are insulted at even the slightest provocation, as in the Malay or Opus cases, or in the case of the Afghan soccer balls, being deeply aggrieved at what was clearly an innocent mistake. Such hypersensitivity to the most minute perceptions of the whiff of blasphemy must mean that the supposed insultees' own belief systems are so tenuous to begin with that literally anything can set them off. This is not a sign of piety; it is a sign of serious insecurity.

(For completeness sake, I should mention that there is a third kind of insult that is much harder to brush off, and that is an insult to one's loved ones. The natural anger that results from this kind of insult is partly due to the fact that the subjects cannot defend themselves. But if the mighty Islamic god or prophet is considered too fragile to be able to handle insults on their own, this shows even more strongly that the Muslims who rush to defend them are not very secure in their own belief in their power.)

Palestinian Arabs lead extremist groups in Lebanon

The AP has just published a backgrounder on the new breed of Al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist groups that have taken over PalArab "refugee" camps in Lebanon, and it seems that they really are mostly Palestinian - a fact that's been glossed over in the media for months.

(And kudos to AP for covering the story - I criticized AP two months ago for ignoring these facts and it appears that they have corrected themselves.)

The Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh on the edge of the southern city of Sidon is where most of the Palestinian radical groups are based and where plots against Israel and Western influence in Lebanon — and against Lebanese foes — are believed to be hatched. It's the largest of the 12 camps in Lebanon, housing about 45,000 of the 400,000 Palestinians whose exile dates from Israel's creation in 1948.
Bearded men in battle fatigues and carrying Kalashnikovs or pistols freely roam around the densely populated camp or guard the offices of the various groups.
Radical Islamic militias in the camp include Asbat al-Ansar ("Band of Partisans"), Jund al-Sham ("Soldiers of the Levant") and the Islamic Struggle Movement. Washington has accused Asbat al-Ansar of being linked to al-Qaida, and it and the Jund al-Sham are said to have close ties to Fatah Islam in the Nahr el-Bared camp.
Membership in each group probably numbers dozens.
While the relationship between the Sunni fundamentalist groups and al-Qaida is unclear, at the very least they are inspired by the movement's global appeal and share its philosophy of "jihad" against what it regards as American and Western attempts to dominate the Muslim world....
"We converge with al-Qaida and approve its role in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Sheik Walid Sharif, spokesman for Asbat al-Ansar. "Sheik Osama is our sheik, may God protect him."
Sharif says he has sent more than 300 Palestinian and Lebanese recruits to fight in Iraq alongside Ansar al-Sunnah, an Iraqi group with close links to al-Qaida, and that he has been in contact with al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, which is believed affiliated with bin Laden.
About 25 of his men have died in operations in Iraq, including suicide bombings, Sharif said.
Another Palestinian radical leader, Sheik Jamal Khattab of the Islamic Struggle Group, pointed out that not every Muslim fighting American occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan is with al-Qaida. He also sought to distance his group from the loss of innocent lives in Iraq.
"We support anyone who fights America or Israel, but we are against ... killing of innocent civilians," he said.
In Lebanon, intelligence officials blame radical Palestinians in Ein el-Hilweh for at least two recent attacks, a rocket fired into Israel in mid-June that caused damage but no casualties and a car bombing a week later that killed six Spanish members of UNIFIL, the peacekeeping unit monitoring the shaky truce between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.
Authorities say members of Fatah Islam have confessed to bombing two buses near Beirut in February in which three people died and 20 were wounded, and the government has accused the group of planning other attacks. But the Lebanese army did not move against the group until after its fighters ambushed more than 30 army soldiers.
The group's strength had grown to hundreds of fighters — Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs — and the battle with the army was the worst violence Lebanon has suffered since its 1975-90 civil war, killing some 150 soldiers, an unknown number of militants and more than 20 civilians.
In Nahr el-Bared and the other refugee camps, the rise of the radical Islamic groups has further cut the influence of the secular Palestine Liberation Organization, which once controlled the camps but saw its power wane after its fighters were driven out by Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Goksel, the former UNIFIL officer, fears the real danger is that the radical Islamic movements will keep recruiting fighters in the poor, overcrowded camps and carry out more attacks until they finally get the backing of their would-be patron, al-Qaida, while authorities miss a chance to squelch the jihadists.

The Ap captions in the file pictures meant to accompany the article are more explicit:

Palestinian gunmen of Ansar Allah, Arabic for Partisans of God, stand alert as they prepare to deploy in the refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh in the southern city of Sidon, Lebanon, June 5, 2007 to prevent further Jund al-Sham frictions with the army after clashes. The Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh on the edge of the southern city of Sidon is where most of the Palestinian radical groups are based and where plots against Israel and Western influence in Lebanon — and against Lebanese foes — are believed to be hatched. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

During the major fighting in the Lebanese camps, the West was bending over backwards to imply that the terrorists were anything but Palestinian - usually blaming Syria. The picture is still murky but getting clearer.

Remember also that the reason that Palestinian Arabs are so amenable to being recruited to these terror groups is because their host countries refuse to integrate them into society, and keep them imprisoned for generations.

Peaceful PalArab weekend

Hamas shot and killed a 17-year old protester at Rafah.

Hamas abducted 8 Fatah members on Friday.

A Hamas member's car was blown up.

A lawyer in Ramallah was attacked and threatened.

Hamas said that any people who participate in the now weekly Friday demonstrations against Hamas in Gaza are "sinners." 11 worshippers were injured by Hamas this past Friday.

An editorial cartoonist in Gaza was threatened with being shot if he doesn't make his cartoons more acceptable.

PalArab journalists were attacked three times in the past week in Gaza and at least once in the West Bank.

Our PalArab self-death count for the year is at 514.

UPDATE: 2 explosions in Gaza, no injuries.

Fatah abducts 19 Hamas members in the West Bank.

UPDATE 2: A 30-year old was murdered in Khan Younis. Hard to understand the translation but he may have been accused of being a "collaborator." 515.

UPDATE 2: Palpress reports on a murder south of Nablus as a group of masked gunmen killed Amer Hashem, 33. 516.

Carpooling is a crime in Dubai

Just more nuttiness from the Arab world.

I can understand cracking down on non-licensed livery drivers, but the fact that they are also fining carpoolers shows that the government is thoroughly corrupt:

The Road and Traffic Authority in Dubai has doubled the fine imposed against motorists who illegally transport passengers without a livery permit. Residents from low-income background decried such measures saying that this is making transportation difficult for them.
Many residents of Dubai and the northern emirates benefit from these illegal taxis, as their prices are low compared to the licensed ones.
Another widely used form of transportation, which is also punishable by law, is the car pool. It is a system in which office workers with cars pick up their colleagues from their homes and drop them at work and vice versa for a fixed amount of money. The car pool is heavily advertised in the classified pages of the local newspapers.
These illegal systems benefit commuters who have no alternative means of transport other than expensive taxis or irregular buses. Dubai, which is revamping its public transportation system by adding hundreds of new buses, is considered better than the neighboring emirates that do not have such systems in place.
Mohammed Obaid Al-Mulla, CEO of Public Transport Agency at the authority, stated that the fine has been raised to AED5,000 from AED2,500.
“Statistics gathered from a series of field campaigns launched since 2004 up to July 2007 show that this phenomenon has several characteristics; namely: it is widely practiced and virtually covers all areas in the emirate of Dubai. However, it is noticed that passenger smuggling is habitual in certain locations well known to both smugglers and passengers, but rarely does it take place at sides of main roads. Moreover, these locations are constantly being changed to avoid reporting campaigns. In fact, it is rather difficult to assess the actual magnitude of this practice as it involves several categories of vehicles, at the top of which come private vehicles, rented cars, commercial transport vehicles and private-companies vehicles,” commented Al-Mulla.
Informed sources at the Public Transport Agency revealed that Franchise and Performance Control Section at the agency launched a new campaign aimed at heightening the awareness about passenger-smuggling in Dubai with a view to curb this phenomenon, which is inflicting heavy losses on the public transport sector.
He also noted that this practice retracts when reporting campaigns and fines are announced, but is usually matched with the entry of fresh smugglers, while those who were in the business return after a short break. He further added: “It is noted that upon streamlining of taxi activity in other emirates, taxi drivers switched their vehicles as private vehicles and deployed them in passenger-smuggling business in Dubai. More drivers are expected to engage in this practice following streamlining of transportation activities in various parts of the UAE.”
As to the losses inflicted by this practice on Dubai Taxi Agency, Al-Mulla stressed that it results in material losses to the agency as well as jeopardizes the standing of the agency as a service-providing body seeking to deliver optimum services in innovative methods in line with the best global practices applicable in this vital field. “Smuggling of passengers is viewed as an uncivilized practice incompatible with the standing of Dubai as a commercial and economic center in the region. Such a phenomenon is capable of undermining the efforts of the RTA to expand and develop the transport sector, let alone the resulting losses suffered by various service, tourist, social and other sectors,” added Al-Mulla.

Rather than improve their public transportation and taxi services to do a better job, they penalize its competition and call it "smuggling."

What a cute little Palestinian Arab girl - with a submachine gun

A Palestinian girl holds a weapon next to militants from Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militia linked to the ruling Fatah movement, during a rally in the Old City of the West Bank city of Nablus, Friday, Aug. 31, 2007. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Child abuse is just so precious when you have an Arab stringer taking the photos.

Another peaceful image from this rally:

Palestinian gunmen from Al-Aqsa brigades of Fatah movement fire their weapons during a rally in the West Bank city of Nablus August 31, 2007. REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini (WEST BANK)

I like when they fire guns into the air while there are people climbing buildings right above them.

I wonder when they'll start firing RPGs in the air to show how happy they are during these rallies? I mean, since they fire guns as a symbol of their manhood, wouldn't a bigger gun mean that they are even more macho?

The prospects for peace with the "good" Fatah terrorists have never looked brighter!

In Saudi Arabia, 28-year old women can't run away from home

Another strange story that illustrates the bizarre misogyny in Saudi Arabia:

Following negotiations between the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) in Jeddah and the Family Protection Committee at the Makkah region’s Social Affairs Department, six sisters, who had run away from their drug addict father in Riyadh, were given a women’s shelter in Jeddah on Wednesday night.
The girls had previously run away from their drug addict father and stayed at a shelter in Riyadh.
They then ran away from the shelter in Riyadh and arrived in Jeddah looking for help from their maternal uncle.
The father of the six sisters, the eldest of which is 28, pressured their uncle to send his daughters back to Riyadh. Fearing a return to Riyadh, the girls ran away from their uncle’s house and sought help from the NSHR. The society called the Social Affairs Department in the Makkah Region and reported that the girls allege they were sexually harassed.
“The girls now are considered to be runaways — such cases get transferred to the police and the general prosecution to check their claims. They then get transferred to shelter homes in their own region,” said Saeed Al-Ghamdi, general director of the Social Affairs Department in the Makkah Region.
“Until now we have no proof of abuse. We only have what the girls have said. We still have to check their father’s case,” he said.

So girls who are being sexually abused can only leave their abusers' homes if they can prove abuse, and of course the father's word is worth far more than six sisters.

And the 28-year old is simply not allowed to live alone and take care of her sisters in Saudi Arabia - such a solution is so far beyond possibility that it is not even entertained. Even she will be forced to return to her abusive father's home if he claims that he never touched her!

Which means that in Saudi Arabia, women are legally children no matter how old they are until they get married.

Notice also how the Arab News tastefully waters down sexual abuse to be merely "alleged sexual harrassment." By the Western definition of sexual harassment, every single female in Saudi Arabia is being harrassed. It is obvious that here we are talking about a father who is using his daughters for his own perverted gratification, and it is equally obvious that he can easily get away with it, because the testimony of the girls are almost automatically discounted.

What a sick, twisted society.

Palestinian Arab cavemen (really) and Reuters' bias (again)

This morning, Reuters released a bunch of pictures of "Palestinian cave residents:"

Palestinian cave residents belong to the al-Hawamdeh and al-Daghamin clans cook "Mansaf" for a party lunch, south of the West Bank city of Hebron August 31, 2007. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun (WEST BANK)

Usually, photo essays like this are associated with a feature article, but not in this case.

Luckily, Reuters in January published a classic piece of biased journalism that used these cavemen to bash Israel that explains who these people are:

Home sweet home for Suleiman Hawamdeh, a 73-year-old father of 10, is a deep cave in a barren West Bank hillside separated by a barbed-wire fence from a modern Jewish settlement.

Note how the author contrasts the cave dwellers with the "settlers" - and it soon becomes apparent why.

Hawamdeh and 120 other Palestinians inhabit the cluster of caves known locally as Quina Foq, which straddles the so-called "Green Line" that separated the Jewish state and the West Bank before the 1967 Middle East war.

They draw their water from wells and gather wood for cooking much like their ancestors, who first settled here during Ottoman rule more than a century ago.

You will never find Reuters referring to Jews descended from First Aliyah Zionists in this fashion, because the reporter is trying to evoke a sense of how these people have lived there forever, while Jews who have lived there just as long will always be thought of as usurpers. The use of the words "ancestors", "Ottoman rule" and "more than a century ago" all have the same purpose - but in the Middle East, a century is barely the blink of an eye.

Quina Foq's inhabitants eke out a living farming and herding sheep in the rocky hills about 40 km (25 miles) south of the West Bank city of Hebron. Many of the children go to school in the nearest Palestinian town, As-Samu': an hour's donkey trek.

The cave dwellers share a satellite dish and a television set, which is powered a few hours each night by a car battery.

Israeli authorities prevent them from building on the land, and the barbed-wire fence, which separates Quina Foq from the Jewish settlement of Shani, limits their access to a nearby forested area where wood for cooking is plentiful.

Notice how the article tries to imply that the Jewish residents are the cause of the fence being built, and that they are the threat to the Arabs.

Hawamdeh and other residents complain about the Israeli restrictions, but say they live in these caves by choice and have no intention of leaving.

"We belong to this land. It's the land of our ancestors," Hawamdeh said.

Once again, evoking history in a way that Reuters would never use for Jews.

His cousin, 31-year-old Ahmad, said: "I can't live in the city -- it's a big jail. I prefer to be here next to my livestock."

A few hundred yards away, Jewish settlers live in red roof-topped homes, some with backyard swimming pools.

Now, what relevance does this sentence have in a story meant to be about the cave dwellers? The cave people have made it clear that they do not want to live in towns or in houses. Yet to the Western audience of Reuters, this sentence reinforces the wire-service narrative that Jews are taking advantage of Arabs and keeping them in primitive conditions.

One of the oldest residents of Quina Foq, 70-year-old Yusef Kailil, said his grandfather was among the first Palestinians to settle in the caves in the 1800s.

Of course, in the 1800s they were Arabs who settled there from elsewhere, and nobody called them Palestinians. Reuters again is evoking the idea that these people have been there forever and carrying on a noble way of life threatened by Israel, when in fact they have been there for only a few generations, no longer than the first Zionist settlers and significantly less time than many Jews who lived nearby in Hebron.

"I was born here and I will die here," added 60-year-old Mohammad Rawashdeh.

Israel erected the barbed-wire fence about a year ago -- an extension of the barrier being built by the Jewish state in and around the West Bank.

In other areas, the barrier -- which Israel says helps stop suicide bombers but which Palestinians call an attempt to grab land, is made of concrete.

Again, an irrelevant fact meant for nothing else than to make Israel look evil. And notice how "Israel says" the barrier helps stop suicide bombers, rather than stating the facts that support that assertion.

Palestinian residents of Quina Foq say they have mixed feelings about the fence. On the downside, it prevents them from freely accessing the forested area below Shani as they have for generations.

But it also keeps the settlers at a distance, which has helped reduce the occasional hostilities which took place before it was erected.

It is the Jews who cause all the troubles with Arabs who just want to live in peace, according to Reuters.

The typical Quina Foq cave is 60 metres (197 feet) deep. The opening is carved from stone.

The caves are divided into three areas: a living space, a storage area and a kitchen.

Residents of the caves sleep on blankets and mattresses on the rocky floor. There is no running water and no electricity. They have no furniture and, apart from the shared television, no modern appliances.

In winter, they keep warm in the caves with small wood fires.

They say they sleep outdoors during summer to avoid snakes and scorpions that seek shelter from the heat.

Quina Foq has four water tanks, one for the people and three for their animals, which live in the caves during winter.

"We have water problems during the summer. We don't have other alternatives," said Mosa Rawashdeh, 27.

Except for moving out of caves, a practice that is hardly ancient according to their own testimony.

Beside the caves, the only permanent structure is a tent that serves as the television room. The Israeli army has told them to take the tent down because building on the land is prohibited.

"They are living in crisis," said Abdul Hadi Hantash, who handles land issues for the municipality of Hebron.

An Israeli army spokesman said the army was working with regional planning authorities, issuing orders to remove "illegal structures" in the West Bank built both by Palestinians and Israelis.

Israeli authorities occasionally allow one Palestinian with a donkey cart to cross the barbed-wire fence and gather branches that have fallen from the trees near Shani.
The Palestinians complain that they are required to gather all of the fallen wood, whether it is good for cooking or not.

So the evil Israelis have taken down a structure that these people - who willingly live without electricity and running water - can watch TV. And when Israel allows them to go through the dreaded barrier to get wood, it is in an evil way.

And if their community straddles the Green Line, that means that there was a border within their own community before "occupation" - yet there are no Reuters' stories crying about that.

Even though this article is seven months old it is a classic representation of how Reuters, arguably the most influential news service in the world, has no interest in balance or fairness - even when reporting "human interest" stories.

Israeli technology poised to save more US troops - again

Yet again, Israel has developed technology that has the potential to save countless American and allied soldiers' lives:

Rafael Armament Development Authority, one of Israel's largest defense firms, has unveiled its next-generation "add-on armor technology" for combat vehicles: the Multi-Threat Armor Protection System.
"We anticipate the successful integration of M-TAPS in the MRAP II (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles) and MPV programs," Nehemia Shachar, the company's head of the Protection Systems Sector of the Ordinance and Protection Division, said via a company statement.
He added that the installed system can deflect rocket-propelled grenades, improvised explosive devices, explosively formed projectiles, "high-speed fragments from artillery bombs and armor-piercing projectiles from heavy machine guns."
These "make up the majority of threats to troop vehicles in Iraq, Afghanistan and in other current conflicts," Shachar noted.
Shachar told UPI in a telephone interview that the company expects to sell the system, which is integrated into the combat vehicle itself, to "everyone," especially "coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"The earlier (armor) product was a lower level of protection," Shachar said, so the company worked to upgrade the system, which provides protection for trucks as well as combat vehicles.
The M-TAPS armor is the only product of its kind currently on the market, Shachar told UPI...
According to the company, M-TAPS has undergone extensive testing at the firm's facilities and by the Israel Defense Forces.
"M-TAPS ... is an upgrade of Rafael's ... Insensitive Reactive Armor system that has been successfully applied to the U.S. Bradleys (armored fighting vehicles), IDF vehicles and a variety of NATO APCs (armored personnel carriers)," according to Rafael.

A Psychological History of Palestinian Arabs, part 13

The stateless Palestinian Arabs became more and more fragmented as the 1960s dawned. As their numbers increased, so did their value to the ever-growing number of Arab leaders who wanted to act as their leaders.

The Arab world at this time was far from unified. By 1960, there were at least three major players bidding for leadership of the Arab world: Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, King Hussein of Jordan and Abd al-Karim Qasim of Iraq. Each of them tried to out-do the others in claiming to be the leader of the hapless Palestinian Arabs, now numbering over a million.

Qasim opposed Nasser's plan for a pan-Arab state with himself as leader, pushing instead for a looser confederation of Arab states. He proposed a Palestinian Arab republic in the West Bank and Gaza, directly challenging Nasser's non-stop rhetoric claiming to help the Palestinians as well as Jordan's annexation of the West Bank.

Nasser, who was now head of the United Arab Republic of Egypt and Syria, responded by setting up a "Voice of Palestine" radio station and a newspaper called "Akhbar Filastin." In addition, Nasser set up a pseudo "Palestinian army" in Gaza and formed a quasi-government in Gaza that recalled the ill-fated Gaza government of 1949. Qasim responded by setting up his own "Palestinian Liberation regiment" in Iraq.

King Hussein, for his part, offered citizenship to any Palestinian Arab, not just the ones in Jordan, as he wanted to equate Jordan and Palestine and was against all attempts to establish an independent Palestinian Arab state.

Meanwhile, the clashes within the Arab world were not only confined to the Palestinian Arab problem. Coups and assassinations happened often - Jordan and Iraq were allied until the 1958 coup and assassination of King Faisal that brought Qasim to power, and Qasim was overthrown and killed himself in 1963 from a Baathist coup (in which 5000 were killed over two days.) There were many assassination attempts against King Hussein. Egypt became embroiled in a civil war in Yemen in 1962.

It is no wonder that these leaders tried to use the Palestinian issue to their advantage. Claiming to support Palestinian Arabs against Israel was an easy way to score political points, as the one thing that all Arabs could agree on was the need to destroy the Zionist state.

The Palestinian Arabs themselves were fragmenting into four major groups:

The Gazans were in many ways in the worst shape of all Palestinian Arabs. Completely dependent on UNRWA handouts and completely immersed in Egyptian Nasserite propaganda, they tended to support Nasser wholeheartedly even as he would use them purely for political points.

The fatalists were the ones who stayed in refugee camps, even more than a decade past their leaving Palestine and with little intention of leaving. They were happy to be living on the UNRWA dole, getting free education, medical care and food. They tended to support Nasser as well, and his vision of a pan-Arab nation in which they would become equal citizens again with their Arab brethren took strong hold of their imagination.

The pragmatists were the ones who left the camps and settled their families in Jordan, taking jobs and living in honor. They tended to be more supportive of the King and they didn't agitate nearly as much for a return to Palestine.

Finally, there were the ambitious Palestinian Arabs. This group tended to move further away from old Palestine and make their own way in life. In many ways, these were the spiritual and sometimes literal descendants of the hundreds of thousands who moved to Palestine in the first half of the century for purely economic reasons. Most of them moved to the Gulf states that were beginning to reap the benefits of the oil boom, although a significant number moved to Central and South America.

By the tens of thousands they moved to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Dubai, taking jobs. The Kuwaiti economy and infrastructure was built to a large degree by Palestinian Arabs. They tended to be more educated, more highly-skilled and harder-working than their other Arab counterparts. Even so, they were not allowed become citizens of these nations that they were helping so much.

Starting in the late 1950s, some of these former residents of Palestine and their supporters started forming small groups dedicated to defeating Israel by force. Fatah was founded by Khaled Yashruti (born in Acre) and Yasir Arafat (born in Cairo) in this time period, and as early as 1959 it was publishing manifestos relying heavily on Arab concepts of honor and shame as their motivation:

The youth of the catastrophe (shibab al-nakba) are dispersed... Life in the tent has become as miserable as death... [T]o die for our beloved Fatherland is better and more honorable than life, which forces us to eat our daily bread under humiliations or to receive it as charity at the cost of our honour... We, the sons of the catastrophe, are no longer willing to live this dirty, despicable life, this life which has destroyed our cultural, moral and political existence and destroyed our human dignity.

The members of Fatah were mostly living in the Gulf states, as well as Algeria, and were not living in the camps that they so eloquently describe. They and the other nascent Palestinian Arab leaders were just as willing to use the Palestinian Arab masses as pawns for their own purposes as the Arab national leaders were.

In addition, in 1960, something called the "Palestine Liberation Army" that was based in the UNRWA camps engaged in terror acts against Israel, although it is unclear whether it was a home-grown Palestinian Arab group or one that was sponsored by an Arab country. (This is different than the Palestinian Liberation Army, created a few years later as a military wing of the PLO.)

Although Fatah styled itself early on as a "liberation movement" it did not start off with any aspirations to create a new independent Palestine, rather, its initial goal was simply the destruction of Israel for pan-Arab purposes. It initially intended to be completely independent of Arab governments that it mistrusted in the wake of 1948 and the refugees, however by 1964 it was effectively taken over by Syria in exchange for military training and weapons.

Meanwhile, other terror attacks against Israel continued. Most of these were also state-sponsored, usually from Egypt or Syria although often from Jordan as well. At this point the fedayeen trained by the Arab nations were much more deadly and brutal than Fatah - even as early as 1954 Jordanian terrorists shot each passenger in an Israeli bus point-blank, killing eleven of them. No matter what the methods or effectiveness, the goals were always the same: the eradication of Israel (and not necessarily the establishment of an Arab state in its place.)

The Palestine Liberation Organization was launched in 1964. Ostensibly, it was formed as a result of a meeting of the "Palestinian National Council" that held its first meeting only a few days beforehand, but in fact it was created by the Arab League in its Cairo meeting in June of that year. The PNC itself is a more subtle example of Arabs using Palestinian Arabs as pawns in their plans - the vast majority of delegates to the PNC are from the Palestinian "disapora," not from those who are actually suffering in camps.

The first leader of the PLO was Ahmad Shukairy, who was born in Lebanon. He drafted the "Palestinian National Charter" in 1964 with an eye towards Nasser-style pan-Arabism, not an independent Palestinian Arab state. The original charter itself denies the legality of the UN partition plan and indeed any British or international declaration that gave any land at all to Jews anywhere in the world, and it denies as well any Jewish connection to Israel:

Article 18: The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate System, and all that has been based on them are considered null and void.The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism, because it is a divine religion, is not a nationality with independent existence. Furthermore, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are citizens to their states.

The Charter also betrays the thinking of the Arab leadership on exactly what being a "Palestinian" means. It strongly implies that identifying people as "Palestinian" is not a statement of fact, but rather one of convenience in the efforts to rid the Middle East of a Jewish state, as can be seen in the following sections:

Article 5: The Palestinian personality is a permanent and genuine characteristic that does not disappear. It is transferred from fathers to sons.

Article 6: The Palestinians are those Arab citizens who were living normally in Palestine up to 1947, whether they remained or were expelled. Every child who was born to a Palestinian Arab father after this date, whether in Palestine or outside, is a Palestinian.

Article 11: The Palestinian people firmly believe in Arab unity, and in order to play its role in realizing this goal, it must, at this stage of its struggle, preserve its Palestinian personality and all its constituents. It must strengthen the consciousness of its existence and stance and stand against any attempt or plan that may weaken or disintegrate its personality.

Article 12: Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine are two complementary goals; each prepares for the attainment of the other. Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, and the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity. Working for both must go side by side.

Articles 5 and 6 attempt to arrive at a definition of "Palestinian" that is independent of self-identification. A people who truly have strong cultural and communal ties would not require such a definition, and its effect is to keep the Palestinian issue alive. By defining a Palestinian personality separate from the more general definition of Arab, the effect of the charter is to do everything possible to avoid Palestinian re-integration into Arab society.

Those two articles are effectively contradictory with Articles 11 and 12, where Arab unity is stressed right after Palestinian separateness.

Most telling is the section in Article 11 where the charter comes close to admitting that preserving what can only be described as precarious Palestinian "personality" is only important "at this stage of its struggle." This strongly implies that once Palestine is "liberated" from the grips of the Jews, the national aspirations of the Palestinian Arabs would disappear and become subsumed into a more general unified Arab state.

Putting these paragraphs together, the original purpose of the PLO and the PNC becomes clear: to keep the Palestinian Arabs from ever assimilating into the Arab world as long as they can remain useful to pressure Israel internationally. Once this usefulness disappears, so would the Palestinian people. It was not an organization that was interested in the welfare of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in need, rather it was fixated on how to use them to destroy Israel.

Another interesting paragraph in the charter seems at odds with the original Fatah viewpoint regarding the dignity of Palestinian Arabs. While Fatah decried Western aid to Palestinian refugees as an affront to Arab honor and dignity, the PLO regarded it as a right:

Article 19: Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goal, racist in its configurations, and fascist in its means and aims. Israel, in its capacity as the spearhead of this destructive movement and as the pillar of colonialism, is a permanent source of tension and turmoil in the Middle East, in particular, and to the international community in general. Because of this, the people of Palestine are worthy of the support and sustenance of the community of nations.

This also shows that the PLO was not at all interested in Palestinian Arabs themselves and that its platform was more aligned with the Arab League than with the people it was claiming to be defending. The Arab League showed no more interest in alleviating Palestinian Arab suffering in 1964 than it did when it announced its first disastrous boycott of Jewish goods and services in 1945. And although Ahmad Shukairy's father was Palestinian, his career up to this point was being a diplomat for both Syria and Saudi Arabia as well as working for the Arab League itself.

Yet another article shows even more clearly how national aspirations were entirely absent from a "National Charter:"

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

The British borders of Palestine were occupied by four countries (the Himmah area is a section of Mandatory Palestine that was seized by Syria in 1948) and yet the founding national charter of the PLO was only concerned with one of them.

The second Arab summit, held in Alexandria in September 1964, endorsed the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and quickly acted to establish a Palestinian Liberation Army as a military wing to the PLO.

Fatah, not yet a part of the PLO, established its own military wing called al-Asifa in 1965. Fatah's first attack against Israel occurred that year, as they tried to bomb Israel's National Water Carrier. This was followed by a number of other (mostly unsuccessful) attempts to attack Israel's infrastructure.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12

Human Rights Watch's amusing advice for Iran and Syria

Human Rights Watch just published a report that shows, not surprisingly, that Hezbollah targeted Israeli civilians during the Lebanon war. Even though this was fairly obvious, HRW used a couple of interesting methods to prove it - for example, Hezbollah's urging Arabs on August 9 in Haifa to evacuate shows that they were clearly targeting civilians and only wanted to kill the Jews.

One of the stranger sections of the report was in HRW's recommendations section:

We urge the governments of Syria and Iran, as longtime supporters and reported arms suppliers to Hezbollah, to:
• Not permit the transfer to Hezbollah of weapons, ammunition, and other
matériel, including rockets, that have been documented or credibly alleged to
have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Lebanon or
Israel. Do not provide funding or support for the acquisition or use of such
weapons in the absence of concrete steps by Hezbollah to ensure their use in
a manner consistent with international humanitarian law.
• Use their influence to ensure that Hezbollah forces do not undertake attacks
that violate international humanitarian law. Impress upon Hezbollah that its
obligation to respect humanitarian law does not depend on reciprocity;
violations by Israel do not justify its own violations.
• Condemn attacks not only by Israel but also by Hezbollah when they target
civilians or cause indiscriminate harm to civilians.

Disingenuously, HRW pretends that Iranian and Syrian support for Hezbollah is only for the most peaceful and pure purposes. Asking them to use their influence to pressure Hezbollah to act within human rights law, when the entire purpose of Hezbollah is to act as a terror proxy for those states, must have required world-class mental acrobatics.