Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, October 14, 2007

HH CXXXVI

Haveil Havalim #136, a compendium of the best of the JBlogosphere, is out at Soccer Dad.

This week I am honored that he chose my posting on Misoziony. My thirst for the power of coining a new word continues unabated - Google now has 11 listings for that word, almost all of them from automated aggregators that picked up on my postings, but still...

Check out HH!

Terrorists for Hillary

Excerpts from an article by the incomparable Aaron Klein in the Jewish Press:

There is a tendency to think of terrorists as living like barbarians in caves. Actually, a lot of terrorists, certainly those in Gaza and the West Bank, reside in well-decorated apartments with all the trappings of a modern production company. They have some of the most advanced communications equipment in the world and are quite Internet-savvy.

While terrorists spend much of their time in the field carrying out or planning attacks or undergoing or leading military training, they also find the time to follow the news media closely....

I was stunned by how closely some terrorists follow U.S. developments – how familiar they are with our political system and a lot of the top players. The day after the April Democratic debate, I happened to call Abu Jihad, one of the leaders of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror organization, for an article I was writing about Palestinian rocket capabilities. Out of the blue during our interview, without any prompting on my part, Abu Jihad commented on how thrilled he was with the Democrat debate.

"We see Hillary [Clinton] and other candidates are competing on who will withdraw from Iraq and who is guilty of supporting the Iraqi invasion. This is a moment of glory for the revolutionary movements in the Arab world in general and for the Iraqi resistance movement specifically," said Abu Jihad. "I think Democrats will do good if they will withdraw as soon as they are in power."

...One of Abu Jihad’s bosses, Nasser Abu Aziz, the deputy commander of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank, said the debate proved "the invasion of Iraq was judged by Allah to be a failure. America needs to stop letting its foreign policy be dictated by the Zionists and the Zionist lobby. The Democrats understand this point and want to prevent this scenario." He declared it is "very good" there are "voices like Hillary and others who are now attacking the Iraq invasion."

With America heading toward 2008 presidential elections, I talked with the terrorists about which parties they favor and who specifically they want to see in the White House.

Overwhelmingly they told me they hope Americans sweep the Democrats into power, in part because of the party’s position on withdrawing from Iraq – a move, as they see it, that ensures victory for the worldwide Islamic resistance.

"Of course Americans should vote Democrat," said Jihad Jaara, an exiled member of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades and the leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. "This is why American Muslims will support the Democrats, because there is an atmosphere in America that encourages those who want to withdraw from Iraq."

...Regarding the Democrat debate, Ala Senakreh, chief of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank, said making statements is not enough, but Democratic policies make him hopeful.

"It is not enough to compare Iraq to Vietnam. There must be a big campaign to start this withdrawal. What is happening now in the Congress is encouraging, it gives hope for a change, but I am afraid that it will still take time. As for us, this proves that the resistance always succeeds by the end of the day."

I read to the terrorists an interview on CBS’s "60 Minutes" in which then-House Minority Leader and now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stated, "The jihadists [are] in Iraq. But that doesn’t mean we stay there. They’ll stay there as long as we’re there."

Muhammad Saadi, a leader of the Islamic Jihad terror group in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, laughed. "There is no chance that the resistance will stop," he said.

An American withdrawal from Iraq, Saadi explained, would "show the resistance is the most important tool and that this tool works. The victory of the Iraqi revolution will mark an important step in the history of the region and in the attitude regarding the United States."

Abu Ayman, an Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin, said he is "emboldened" by those in America who compare the war in Iraq to Vietnam.

The exiled Al Aksa member Jihad Jaara said an American withdrawal would "mark the beginning of the collapse of this tyrant empire [America]." He added that America’s vacating Iraq would also "reinforce Palestinian resistance organizations, especially from the moral point of view. But we also learn from these [insurgency] movements militarily. We look and learn from them."

Hamas’s Abu Abdullah argued that a withdrawal from Iraq would "convince those among the Palestinians who still have doubts in the efficiency of the resistance."

...I asked them about particular presidential candidates. Overwhelmingly, they favored Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Brigades chief Ala Senakreh, who planned and orchestrated multiple suicide bombings and has himself carried out at least a dozen shooting attacks against Israelis, told me he "hope[s] Hillary is elected in order to have the occasion to carry out all the promises she is giving regarding Iraq.

"I hope also she will maintain her husband’s policies regarding Palestine and even develop that policy. President Clinton wanted to give the Palestinians 98 percent of the West Bank territories. I hope Hillary will move a step forward and will give the Palestinians all their rights."

Abu Hamed, leader of the Al Aksa Brigades in the northern Gaza Strip, said,"...The Iraqi resistance is succeeding. Hillary and the Democrats call for withdrawal. Her [Clinton’s] popularity shows that the resistance is winning and that the occupation is losing. We just hope that she will go until the end and change the American policy, which is based on oppressing poor and innocent people."

Ramadan Adassi, leader of the Al Aksa Brigades in the Anskar refugee camp in the northern West Bank, said he also backs Hillary. With a straight face, Adassi said he was worried that if Hillary defies Israel she will be brought down like her husband, claiming White House intern Monica Lewinsky was an Israeli implant sent to lure Bill Clinton into a sex scandal after he pressured the Jewish state to evacuate territory to the Palestinians.

"If Hillary goes too much against the Zionist interests she will face the same conspiracy like her husband who fell into the trap of Lewinsky," said Adassi. "I have no doubt [Lewinsky] was planted by the Zionists, who wanted to send a message to all future American presidents – do not go against the Israeli policy. Bill Clinton made the Oslo agreement and promoted peace but the Israelis did not give him a chance."

The notion of Lewinsky as an Israeli agent is commonly believed in the terror community. It came up many times in my conversations and interviews with Palestinian terrorists.

The terrorists weren’t familiar with the particulars of some of the other presidential hopefuls, but they all knew of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. He is quite famous in terror circles for the time in 1995 when he booted Yasir Arafat from an invitation-only concert at New York’s Lincoln Center celebrating the UN’s fiftieth anniversary. ...

"Giuliani doesn’t deserve to live or even to be mentioned," said Brigades leader Ala Senakreh. "He wants war and he will most probably receive war. He hates Palestinians and we hate him. He hates Arafat and I tell him that it is Arafat who brought us to be very close to our independent state after decades during which Israel and your government did everything in order to prevent us from having our state."

Ramadan Adassi threatened Giulani: "If I had the occasion to meet him, I would hurt him. For the sake of the American people Giuliani shouldn’t be elected. He is a disgusting guy and I think Americans must think very hard about their future and their soldiers who will be killed when they come to elect their leaders."

A few notes on Coulter

The Ann Coulter/Donnie Deutsch kerfuffle has elicited a lot of comment in the JBlogosphere, with the battle lines seeming to mostly depend on the political leanings of the specific blogger. Right-leaning Jews tended to defend her, saying that her comments were simply a statement of her beliefs which coincides with that of many Christians. Left-leaning Jews tended to label her anti-semitic. At least one crossed party lines but then came back (although his viewpoint seems to be far more nuanced than most.)

While it appears that her "replacement theology" is not necessarily universal Christian thinking, I think we can safely make the assumption that she was espousing a set of personal beliefs that many other Christians share. For a Jew who is secure in his/her beliefs, this should not pose a problem - everyone who has a belief system, by definition, thinks that others are wrong.

Her comments were not anti-semitic by any means, but they were offensive.

Jews who grow up as a minority in a largely Christian nation often must fend off unwelcome but well-meaning attempts by Christians to embrace their beliefs, and, yes, to become "perfected." This can be considered a minor annoyance or a major offense, depending on the temperament of the receiving party, but in no case are these considered welcome. Religion is a personal thing and when others feel it is their right to try to enlighten you, they are by definition causing offense on some level. The fact that most religions condone proselytizing is no excuse for actually proselytizing in a multi-religious society - as with one's fist, the right to swing it ends at my face. Most Christians know this. Coulter cannot be unaware that while her beliefs are not offensive, describing them to a mass audience is offensive to Jewish listeners.

Coulter is a very intelligent woman. Unfortunately, as with most loudmouthed pundits, intelligence does not equal wisdom, and Coulter is far from wise.

IQ-type question

What is the next number in this series:

1,0,17,27

Bonus: What's the ninth number in the series?

The Iranian inferiority complex - Nobel Prize edition

According to the Iranian Fars news agency:

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2007 was awarded to Doris Lessing, an English writer of Iranian origin.

Lessing who was born in Iran's western province of Kermanshah is now a citizen of Britain.

Now, her real biography says:

Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran) on October 22, 1919. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

She may have been born in Persia (not Iran), but she is far from Iranian. As the BBC says, she was a "child of the British empire," and she is British through and through.

For Iranians to have such a compelling need to pretend that a prestigious prize has anything remotely to do with them betrays a massive inferiority complex. Reading the Iranian press shows this to be true - the smallest accomplishments are trumpeted as huge victories and Iran is especially sensitive in the area of scientific and military research, trying mightily to show how advanced it is.

While the Iranian psyche is not the same as the Arab psyche - Persians are much harder workers and value education more - this inferiority complex is a trait that Iranians share with the Arabs. The common denominators is probably the honor/shame culture combined with the West's supremacy in practically every cultural and scientific sphere. The fact that Iran and the Arab world "loses" in most of these "battles" (as they would think of them) is a constant source of pain to their pride, so whenever they actually accomplish something, no matter how trivial or peripheral, it takes on a huge symbolic importance.

Life in honor/shame cultures is a zero-sum game - if they "win" a Nobel Prize, for example, they think they have also caused the West to "lose" it and therefore they think that they have "humiliated" the West. This is of course their projection of their own thoughts every time a Westerner (or, especially, an Israeli) does something that is way beyond their own abilities.

Peaceful Palestinian Arab Eid al-Fitr

Today's the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, and what better way to celebrate than violence?

Ma'an reports in its headline (no link yet) that a family feud in Hebron resulted in one dead and two injured.

Hamas claims that PA security forces stormed a mosque in Nablus.

A Hamas car was bombed in Gaza injuring a man; Hamas blamed Fatah.

A 16-year old boy took down a Hamas flag in Deir al-Balah in Gaza; a number of Hamas forces severely beat him.

Hamas was accused of stealing medical supplies from a hospital in Gaza.

One injured in Hamas/Islamic Jihad clashes in Rafah.

My count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by other Palestinian Arabs this year is now at 538.

UPDATE: A 22-year old and a 5-year old were killed in Qalqiya in what appears to be a clan clash with some "security forces." 540, and the number of women and children killed so far this year is at 70.

Free speech for the intolerant: The anti-Israel rally in London

Some delicious irony at The Guardian, with the usual amount of leftist cluelessness:

By Peter Tatchell

In London, this year's al-Quds demonstration - held last Sunday - had the themes of: "End Child Killing! End Oppression! End Israeli Apartheid!" It was supported by the left-wing Respect Party, 1990 Trust, the Muslim Association of Britain, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Federation of Student Islamic Societies. The post-march Trafalgar Square rally was addressed by the Respect Party MP, George Galloway, and by the former Daily Express journalist, Yvonne Ridley.

As a long-time supporter of justice for the Palestinian people, I decided to join the protest. I am against Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank, its divisive Berlin-style wall, its illegal nuclear weapons programme and its often indiscriminate military operations that kill innocent Palestinian civilians.

But I object to the way the al-Quds Day marches invariably hijack the Palestinian cause and use the occasion to also support the tyrannical, Holocaust-denying Iranian regime and its fundamentalist, terrorist offshoots, Hamas and Hizbullah - two organisations that mirror the Israeli disregard for international law, human rights and innocent civilians. Defenders of Hamas and Hizbullah claim that these two movements have popular support. True. So did the Nazis. Hitler won the most votes in the 1933 elections. But that did not make him right or justify his anti-humanitarian policies.

By aligning justice for Palestine with the injustice of the Iranian autocracy, al-Quds Day undermines international sympathy and support for the Palestinian people. While it suits the public relations purposes of the tyrants in Tehran to pose as anti-imperialists and defenders of an oppressed people, Iran's support for Palestine is the kiss of death.

The London al-Quds march was almost exclusively Muslim and fairly devout, judging by the preponderance of hijabs and beards. I joined the marchers, carrying two placards. One with a Palestinian flag and the slogan "Free Palestine", and the other emblazoned with the words: "Oppose the government of Iran, Support the people of Iran."

The latter placard included a photograph of a 16-year-old Iranian girl, Atefeh Rajabi Sahaaleh, who was publicly hanged in 2004 in the city of Neka for "crimes against chastity", after having been sexually abused during her early teenage years. Tehran hanged the female victim of abuse, not the male perpetrators. Then the ayatollahs lied that she was 22, to cover up the fact that they had hanged a minor, contrary to international human rights laws that Iran has signed.

This case of state-sponsored murder is, of course, just one aspect of a much wider pattern of human rights abuses by the Iranian regime, including the arrest and torture of student and trade union activists; the execution of Sunni Muslim leaders and ethnic Arabs and Baluchs; the closure of newspapers and detention without trial of journalists; and the arrest of more than 100,000 women for the crime of dressing "immodestly" (such as letting a few wisps of hair show from under their hijab).

The Iranian regime has all the characteristics of fascism, albeit in a clerical form. Its suppression of human rights is on a par with Franco's Spain, PW Botha's South Africa and Pinochet's Chile. But whereas the latter three dictatorships provoked global protests, Tehran's tyranny elicits mostly silence and inaction from left and liberal opinion. Why the double standards?

As soon as I turned up at the al-Quds demo, I was subjected to a barrage of violent, threatening invective from large sections of the crowd. Some started chanting: "Tatchell is a Zionist, Tatchell is a paedophile. Get out! Get out! Get out!'"

This paedophile slander was accompanied by allied falsehoods that I support "western attacks on Muslim lands" - despite my long-standing opposition to Russia's war in Chechnya, the war in Iraq and plans for a US attack on Iran.

Such lies show the moral depravity of many Islamists, who readily borrow from the tactics of Stalinists and the BNP to smear and discredit anyone who disagrees with them. Indeed, some fundamentalist leaders have admitted that it is morally acceptable for Muslims to lie in order to defeat "infidels" and to advance the Islamist cause.

I was treated to a torrent of hatred all the way from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square. Some of the al-Quds marchers shouted things like: "You are all Zionists and CIA agents. How much money did Bush pay you to come here today?" Others claimed: "Stop posing as a supporter of Palestine. You have never supported Palestine" - malevolently disregarding the fact that I was a founder member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in 1982.

Six of the al-Quds marchers made attempts to physically attack me. It was only police intervention that stopped them.

What I found odd is that the people who abused and attacked me were supposedly ultra-devout Muslims. Yet their manner was more thuggish than pious. Like their Iranian mentors, they no doubt claim to represent true, pure Islam. In my view they behaved in a most un-Islamic and unreligious way; offering very negative, unattractive caricatures of the Islamic faith and the Muslim community.

Many of the marchers appeared to identify with pro-Iranian Shia fundamentalism, which preaches a gospel of hatred and violence against Jews, gay people and even against other Muslims who disagree with their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.

None of my Muslim friends believe this bigoted nonsense, and most Muslims in Britain reject such intolerance. In my prison and asylum work, helping many gay and straight Muslims, I am constantly encouraged by imams who show great compassion and tolerance. They happily work with me, despite my atheism and gayness. This is the kind, gentle face of Islam that never seems to be newsworthy.

A different kind of Muslim predominated last Sunday. Many of the marchers were carrying Hizbullah flags and chanting: "We are all Hizbullah now." When I pointed out that Hizbullah kills innocent Israeli civilians, and endorses the execution of women and gay people who transgress their extremist version of Islam, I was told things like: "That's good. Society has to have order. These punishments are necessary for the good of society."

To Taichell's credit, he recognizes that human rights issues should apply to all. His characterizations of British Muslims appear to be a bit too sunny, as I would guess that most of those who treat him with respect have very little problem with Hamas or Islamic Jihad targeting Israeli civilians. Moreover, the fact that the British leftists who co-sponsored this hatefest did not speak out against physical attacks by the protesters on one of the few non-Muslims marching.

And just imagine - if, in the UK, a die-hard supporter of Palestinian Arabs gets physically attacked in public during a rally with many police around, how safe can Jews feel walking around Trafalgar Square? It appears that Great Britain is replacing a free culture with a fear culture.

This violent, hateful rally did not get any coverage in the mainstream British press, nor was there any condemnation of the sponsors.

Blogger Edgar Davidson was there and mentions:

What amazed me was that, on what should have been a lovely Sunday afternoon for London's tourists and shoppers alike to enjoy the centre of town, the police not only allowed this demonstration but actually closed the whole of Piccadilly and the streets around it for what turned out to be several hours. Anyway, when we got to the demonstrators we held up some Israeli flags; the police told us to put them away (although, to be fair, they did tell us that there was a counter-demonstration we could join). But it is a bit ironic that the Islamafascists are allowed to carry Hizbollah flags and placards inciting terrorism (all funded by a regime that is killing British soldiers in Iraq) but the police would not allow an Israeli flag to be held up for 'fear of inciting them'. I cannot begin to describe how disgusting were the scumbags on this march. Their contempt for Western values and hatred of Israel, was accompanied with a barrage of vicious anti-semitic abuse. Make no mistake this lot (despite the Neturai Karta idiots walking alongside them) were openly calling for death to Jews (not just Israel). They chanted "Kill, kill kill the Jews at us when they saw us with the Israeli flags.

Harry's Place blog shows the counter-demonstration, which was really an anti-Iran demo, not a pro-Israel one.

The British and the Wall

Yisrael Medad points out that the PalArabs are claiming ownership of the Western Wall and notes the claimed basis for this in international law, from a British commission in 1930 that was established in wake of the 1929 Muslim pogroms against Jews. Read his posting first.

From reading the report, I believe that one of the reasons that the British sided with the Muslims is because the very idea of "ownership" of the holiest place on the planet was so totally repugnant to the rabbis who testified as to its Jewish character:

The Jewish Side do not claim any proprietary right to the Wall. The Jewish Counsel are of opinion that the Wall does not constitute a property in the ordinary sense of that word, the Wall falling under the category of res divinum or res extra commercium. On the basis of that point of view the Jewish Side protest against any and every form of innovation in the structure of the Wall and its immediate surroundings carried out by the Moslems. The Jewish Side have submitted to the Commission a detailed "Note on recent Moslem innovations at the Wailing Wall," which is annexed to this document (Appendix XI). The plaintiffs refer to a pronouncement made by Sheikh Hafez, when he was examined as a witness before the Commission, with reference to the properties dedicated as Waqfs (pages 711-712), to the effect that some learned lawyers and some jurists would say that such property is the property of God while some say that it is the property of nobody. In this connection the Jewish Counsel ask the Commission to accept the above definition which would have the advantage of solving entirely the problem.

In other words, the Jews' intense knowledge of the extreme holiness of the Temple Mount was interpreted by the secular British as an admission of non-ownership, thus strengthening the Muslim case.

The Muslims, on the other hand, had no problem claiming complete ownership:

It is here a question about property which has belonged to the Moslems for many centuries.

Obviously, from a legal perspective the Jewish claim was not the best argument, but it proves beyond a doubt to whom the area is more important.

But interestingly, the current Arab claim that the Wall is theirs under international law based on this document is contradicted by their very own words in the document itself:

The Palestine Arab nation have rejected continually and in every opportunity the British Mandate over Palestine, and therefore they cannot be bound by any arrangement or regulation derived from that. Mandate; nor can they be bound by anything pertaining to what is known as the national home policy. My statement in this direction should not be taken as indicating any departure from that attitude which was adopted by this nation in exercise of its right to determine its own future.

Second: Moslems state that all contentions relative to Moslem sacred places should be dealt with only by competent bodies as prescribed by the Sharia Law. Other bodies can have no jurisdiction whatever by the Sharia Law. Other bodies can have no jurisdiction whatever on these places.

The Muslims, in their arguments before the Commission, already said that they do not consider the Commission to have any legal right to determine anything. It is rather hypocritical for them now to claim that they have the right to the Wall under international law when they themselves explicitly reject that document itself by their own words in this very report.

"Do what we want or we'll kill you" redux

This seems to be a recurring theme....

From al-(ha)Aretz:

Also Thursday, senior Fatah official and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia warned that if the upcoming regional peace summit does not yield results, Palestinians are likely to respond with a third, more intensified uprising, Army Radio reported.

"If the talks fail, we can expect a third and much more severe intifada," Qureia, who is also known as Abu Ala, was quoted as saying. Qureia currently heads the Palestinian negotiating team.

He warned that there would likely be heavy bloodshed in the case of failed talks at the summit, which is scheduled to take place in November in Annapolis, Maryland. The Second Intifada began shortly after the Camp David accords in 2000.

This is standard operating procedure for Arabs and Muslims, in venues throughout the world. And when the threats aren't as explicit as this, they are always there - because the West knows that when there's a pissed-off group of Arabs, violence is never far behind.

And when given a choice to pressure the reasonable, compromise-minded Israelis or the blackmailing, terror-threatening, take-it-or-leave it Arabs, is it any wonder that the world chooses to push Israel to make more concessions? Israel's not going to attack the world if it doesn't get its way, and Arabs have already proven that they are more than happy to threaten mass murder - and follow through.

(h/t Eye on the World)

Today's Walt/Mearsheimer lie

From JPost, on a W/M talk at MIT:

"A critically important issue when talking about America's terrorism problem is the matter of how US support for Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians relates to what happened on September 11," said Mearsheimer, who played the role of attack dog, while Walt set the stage.
Mearsheimer suggested that the notion of payback for injustices suffered by the Palestinians is perhaps the "most powerfully recurrent in [Osama] Bin Laden's speeches," who, he said, had been deeply concerned about the plight of the Palestinians since he was a young man. He said that Bin Laden's concern had been reflected in his public statements throughout the 1990's - "well before 9-11." Citing the 9-11 Commission report, Mearsheimer and Walt argued that Bin Laden wanted to make sure the attackers struck Congress because it is "the most important source of support for Israel in the United States," adding that Bin Laden twice tried to move up the dates of the attacks because of events involving Israel. Mearsheimer and Walt went on to argue that 9-11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences in the United States as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with US foreign policy favoring Israel. "Its hard to imagine more compelling evidence of the role US support for Israel played in the 9-11 attacks," said Mearsheimer.
"In short, the present relationship between Washington and Jerusalem is helping to fuel America's terrorism problem," he went on to say.

I addressed the purposeful misreading of the 9/11 Commission Report, that time by Walt, last year. The 9/11 Commission emphatically said that OBL's animosity towards the US was at best only peripherally affected by US support of Israel.

Notice also Mearsheimer's sleight of hand - by saying that OBL was "deeply concerned" about Palestinian Arabs he is implying that this was his main motivation for 9/11. This logic is flawed - would they say that OBL's fighting the Soviets was also motivated by his "deep concern" for Palestine?

Most of all, Bin Laden's own statements make it clear that his concern for US support of Israel is almost an afterthought. Two fatwas from the 1990s can be found online calling on Muslims to kill all Americans. The 1996 fatwa is named "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" which makes it abundantly clear that it is American troops on holy Muslim soil that got his panties in a bunch, not its support for Israel - he buries that reason in the long text. And his 1998 fatwa spelled out his major three reasons to kill Americans, and support for Israel was a distant third:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.

The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless.

Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So now they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.

Obviously OBL and his like-minded Islamists hate Israel with a passion. But they also hate America - possibly even more - for reasons quite independent of Israel, as OBL's words make clear. These "academics" once again fall into a trap of creating a theory to begin with and then finding facts to support that theory afterwards, ignoring any counter-evidence. This is not scholarship.

In short, Walt and Mearsheimer are liars when they say that support for Israel is the major reason for Islamic terror against America. Anyone who reads the entire OBL fatwas would see that clearly - but W/M know that most people won't bother. And the inconvenient facts that terror attacks in the UK, France and elsewhere cannot be so neatly explained by their absurd theory are just not going to be mentioned.

Tunnel collapse in Gaza - another mega-attack thwarted?

From Ma'an:

Gaza – Ma'an – A tunnel collapsed in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday, injuring a number of people.

The casualties are believed to have suffocated in the incident, according to Mu'awiya Hassanain, the director of emergency and ambulance department in the Palestinian ministry of health.

Tunnels on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt are frequently used for smuggling goods, particularly weapons into Gaza from Egypt.

The last sentence seems irrelevant. The Al-Bureij camp is in central Gaza, far from the border with Egypt.

It is, however, relatively close to the Israeli security border in Gaza (see here for a huge detailed map.)

The most obvious explanation is that a large effort was underway to tunnel under the border to attack Israeli civilians, or to attempt to kidnap another Israeli soldier. Judging from the map, it could easily have been a mile long.

Imagine what Gazans could accomplish if they put their energy, creativity and talents to purposes other than killing Jews?

cross-posted to Yourish

Lakewood attacker screamed "Jew! Jew!" - WCBS

More details on the attack:

LAKEWOOD, N.J. (CBS) ―
A New Jersey rabbi on his way to synagogue was brutally beaten with a baseball bat just steps from his home and left a bloody mess on the ground, police say, and many believe he was targeted because of his religion.

Gauze and rubber gloves still litter the ground where 53-year-old Lakewood rabbi Mordechai Moskowitz was savagely attacked with an aluminum bat. His face and head were so badly damaged that the paramedic who responded was his own nephew and didn't even recognize him.

"You wouldn't recognize him. It doesn't look like him, like anything like he used to look," said another one of Moskowitz's nephews, Moshe Rotberg.

Rotberg spent all night at the hospital with his uncle, who had to be placed into a medicated coma because of his condition.

"This was totally instigated by somebody's either sickness or hate," said Rotberg.

Moskowitz was attacked under the darkness of night in the middle of Princeton Avenue near 12th Street in Lakewood. While he was being attacked, residents tell CBS 2 they heard his attacker yelling at him.

"He started screaming, 'Jew! Jew! Jew!' Every time he hit him with the bat he banged and screamed 'Jew' again," said a neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous.

Lakewood police say they have no evidence that the attack was a hate or bias crime, but were able to find the baseball bat used and have a description of the attacker.

The suspect is being described as a black male, 30- to 40-years-old, clean shaven, wearing a dark plaid shirt and dark baggy pants. He is described as being approx. 5-foot-10 to 6-feet tall. He was last seen running south on Princeton Avenue.

Meanwhile, the principal at Lakewood Cheder School where Moskowitz teaches third grade says the children there are anxious for their favorite teacher to come back.

"They know that he was wounded, that he was in the hospital. I think most of them knew he was beaten. We're just hoping and praying for him that he should recover quickly," said Lakewood Cheder School Rabbi Yehuda Pirutinsky.

Moskowitz remains in critical condition at the Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

And more, which contradicts the story above:

Six people saw the attack on Mordechai Moskowitz, 53, of Lakewood, just before 8 p.m. Tuesday, at Princeton Avenue and Carey Street, police said. Neighbors said he was heading to a synagogue on Squankum Road, said Detective Lt. Joseph Isnardi.

Witnesses told police they did not see or hear any apparent reason for the attack, Isnardi said. There was no evidence to classify the assault as a bias crime, police said Wednesday, and nothing was stolen from Moskowitz.

The victim's nephew, Moshe Rothberg, said he did not believe his uncle was targeted because of his religion. However, he said he was eager to see what police uncover.

Isnardi said Moskowitz is conscious and able to speak.

Rothberg, of Lakewood, said his family was comforted by more than three dozen people who came to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where Moskowitz was taken Tuesday night.

Another college newspaper article blaming Israel for all evil

The author of this article, for the Daily Campus of the University of Connecticut, takes pains to appear objective in his brief history of the Arab/Israeli conflict - but he really tries to demonize Israel as much as possible.

Here was my reply:

It is literally impossible to describe the conflict in such a small space, but that doesn't mean that George Maynard has the right to be extraordinarily selective in some facts and wrong in others.

This history completely ignores Arab attacks against Jews in Palestine that started as early as the 1880s and continued through pogroms in 1921, 1929, and 1936-39. This context is critical in understanding why Palestinian Jews even armed themselves to begin with.

In 1967, Israel had very few arms from the US - they was mostly from France - and Maynard again chooses to ignore the extreme rhetoric and daily threats to destroy Israel by Egypt's Nasser and other Arab leaders. He also ignores Nasser expelling the UN troops from Sinai and closing the Straits of Tiran from Israeli ships, an act of war. It is also disingenuous to refer to the West Bank in 1967 as "Palestinian territories" as Jordan had annexed them, with Palestinian Arab approval, around 1950. And his characterization of Israel somehow "causing" Jordan to join the war is laughably biased - Israel warned Jordan repeatedly not to attack and Nasser lied to King Hussein that he was winning the war to bring him in.

UN Resolution 242 does not call for Israel to withdraw from all the territories.

It is fascinating that Egypt and Syria's sneak attack on Yom Kippur, 1973 doesn't rate a mention in this history. Neither does Israel's peace treaty with Egypt, giving up the Sinai, with its oil fields and air fields and dismantling settlements, all for peace. Perhaps these events don't put Israel into a bad enough light for Mr. Maynard?

This "history" goes on and on - ignoring the constant Palestinian Arab terror attacks against Israel as well as the West in the 1970s, the Palestinian attacks from Lebanon that sparked the first Lebanon war, mischaracterizing Camp David and the beginnings of the intifada, and generally whitewashing Palestinian Arab crimes while twisting history for his own purposes.

It would be far more accurate to say that for nearly a century, Jews have attempted to live in peace with their Arab neighbors and the Arabs have been a bit less amenable.

For a series I am working on about the history of Palestinian Arabs, see my blog entry here: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2007/05/psychological-history-of-palestinian.html

If you can find any errors of fact in there, I would be most happy to correct it.

It takes time to correct articles like this, and the number of people who read it is probably tiny, but it is far worse to leave them unanswered.

My Qassam numbers are very low

The IDF just announced that since Hamas' takeover in Gaza there have been about 350 rocket attacks and 650 mortar attacks against Israel.

My count of Qassam rockets, looking only at articles I happen to catch in the Israeli press, is roughly half this number in that time period.

Which means that not only do Israelis have to worry about rockets coming at the rate of nearly 3 a day, but also that the attacks happen so often that many do not even get into the news.

Misoziony, hate speech and freedom

Continuing on my musings of misoziony...

If we accept at face value the claim that the rabid misoziony of Israel-bashers is not motivated by Jew-hatred, would it still qualify as hate speech?

To wit: Yesterday there were protests at Columbia University supporting a black professor who saw a noose hung on her office door. It is obvious that this was a purposeful act of hate, a veiled threat of violence and a purposeful evocation of historic lynchings of blacks.

Why isn't anyone considering this free speech? Why is such an act not protected as is offensive art or flag burning is?

The answer seems to be that there is a visceral horror at the pure racism that this event evokes. We have become conditioned to treat racism and selected other types of bigotry against ethnic or religious groups as reprehensible.

Now, there is no doubt that if someone left a sign on her door saying "death to blacks" or, more likely, a worse word this would also be considered beyond the pale and a clear example of hate speech. So would "death to Arabs" or "death to Italians" or "death to Jews" (at least in America.)

Would "death to America" or "death to Israel" qualify?

A quick Google on "death to..." various countries found that the vast majority of references were to Israel and America, with a fair number for the UK and Canada, a few for Western European countries and a smattering for Arab countries. Practically all of the links referred to Arabs and Muslims saying these words. (For example, there was an uptick of "Death to Denmark" references in the wake of the Mohammed cartoon kerfuffle.)

It is a fair bet that when Arabs say "death to..." some nation, they are advocating actual deaths of human beings, not an abstract concept. The fact they celebrate actual deaths of Israelis and Americans would seem to prove that point (notwithstanding that Sami al-Arian claimed otherwise.)

Is this hate speech? Is the hatred of a nation - and its people - as reprehensible as the hatred of an ethnic or religious group?

Last year, Salt Lake City allowed a "death to Israel" rally to take place. The same words can be heard at leftist rallies across the nation, by people who wholeheartedly support Palestinian Arab "resistance" - meaning terror against Israeli civilians.

Saying "death to Israel" is not just an expression; it is a call for mass murder and it is just as bigoted and hateful as any threats against any group. The question is, why is it so easily tolerated as free speech when equivalent expressions against other groups are considered disgusting hate speech?