Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Gaza gets over half of the PA's budget

As for the Gaza Strip, where Hamas, not the Fatah-controlled PA, hold power, Abbas said that more than half the PA's budget still goes to the Strip.

This statistic begs for more detail. Is the PA still paying salaries of the "police" in Gaza? How much money ends up in the hands of terror groups? Where is all of that vaunted international oversight and transparency in the PA budget? Is this the decision of the "moderate" Fayyad? Is the PA actively trying to court Hamas with cash?

It certainly looks like we now know where Hamas is getting much of its money to smuggle weapons and explosives into Gaza.

(h/t Eye on the World)

Hypocrisy, thy name is "Arab"

Arabs have been unanimous in rejecting the idea of Israel being a "Jewish state." Their reasons are that, by definition, a Jewish state would be discriminatory against Arabs and Muslims.

If you define "Jewish" in purely religious terms, that would mean that any state that defines itself as "Islamic" is, by definition, equally guilty of this discrimination. If you define "Jewish" in ethnic or national terms, then any state that defines itself as "Arab" would be equally guilty of the racism that Israel is being accused of.

Time to check out the official hypocrisy of Israel's critics, and note the deafening silence towards this supposed Arab and Islamic racism:

Jordan's constitution:

Article 1
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an independent sovereign Arab State. It is indivisible and inalienable and no part of it may be ceded. The people of Jordan form a part of the Arab Nation, and its system of government is parliamentary with a hereditary monarchy.
Article 2
Islam is the religion of the State and Arabic is its official language.

Egypt's constitution:

Art.1*: The Arab Republic of Egypt is a Socialist Democratic State based on the alliance of the working forces of the people. The Egyptian people are part of the Arab Nation and work for the realization of its comprehensive unity.
Art.2*: Islam is the Religion of the State. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).

Libya's constitution:

Article 1 [Principles]
Libya is an Arab, democratic, and free republic in which sovereignty is vested in the people. The Libyan people are part of the Arab nation. Their goal is total Arab unity. The Libyan territory is a part of Africa. The name of the country is the Libyan Arab Republic.

Article 2 [State Religion, Language]
Islam is the religion of the State and Arabic is its official Language. The state protects religious freedom in accordance with established customs.

Morocco's constitution:

Preamble
The Kingdom of Morocco, a Muslim Sovereign State whose official language is Arabic, constitutes a part of the Great Arab Maghreb.
Article 6 [State Religion]
Islam is the religion of the State which guarantees to all freedom of worship.

Yemen's constitution:

Article (1) The Republic of Yemen is an Arab, Islamic and independent sovereign state whose integrity is inviolable, and no part of which may be ceded. The people of Yemen are part of the Arab and Islamic nation.

Article (2) Islam is the religion of the state, and Arabic is its official language.

Article (3) Islamic Shari'ah is the source of all legislation.

Syria's constitution:

Article 1 [Arab Nation, Socialist Republic]

(1) The Syrian Arab Republic is a democratic, popular, socialist, and sovereign state. No part of its territory can be ceded. Syria is a member of the Union of the Arab Republics.
(2) The Syrian Arab region is a part of the Arab homeland.
(3) The people in the Syrian Arab region are a part of the Arab nation. They work and struggle to achieve the Arab nation's comprehensive unity.

Article 3 [Islam]

(1) The religion of the President of the Republic has to be Islam.
(2) Islamic jurisprudence is a main source of legislation.

Saudi Arabia's constitution:

Article 1
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God's Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God's prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution, Arabic is its language and Riyadh is its capital.

Kuwait's constitution:

Article 1

Kuwait is an independent sovereign Arab State. Neither its sovereignty nor any part of its territory may be relinquished.

The people of Kuwait is a part of the Arab Nation.

Article 2

The religion of the State is Islam, and the Islamic Sharia shall be a main source of legislation.

Algeria's constitution:

Article 1 [Democracy, Republic]
Algeria is a People's Democratic Republic. It is one and indivisible.

Article 2 [State Religion]
Islam is the religion of the State.

Bahrain's constitution:

Article 1 [Sovereignty, Constitutional Monarchy]
a. The Kingdom of Bahrain is a fully sovereign, independent Islamic Arab State whose population is part of the Arab nation and whose territory is part of the great Arab homeland. Its sovereignty may not be assigned or any of its territory abandoned.
Article 2 [State Religion, Shari'a, Official Language]
The religion of the State is Islam. The Islamic Shari'a is a principal source for legislation. The official language is Arabic.

Oman's constitution:

Article 1 [Sovereignty]
The Sultanate of Oman is an independent, Arab, Islamic, fully sovereign state with Muscat as its capital.

Article 2 [Religion]
The religion of the State is Islam and the Islamic Shariah is the basis of legislation.

Tunisia's constitution:

Article 1 [State]
Tunisia is a free State, independent and sovereign; its religion is the Islam, its language is Arabic, and its form is the Republic.

Article 2 [Arab Nation, Treaties]

(1) The Tunisian Republic constitutes part of the Great Arab Maghreb, towards whose unity it works within the framework of common interests.

Mauritania's constitution:

Preamble:...Conscious of the necessity of strengthening its ties with brother peoples, the Mauritanian people, a Muslim, African, and Arab people, proclaims that it will work for the achievement of the unity of the Greater Maghreb of the Arab Nation and of Africa and for the consolidation of peace in the world.

Title I General Provisions, Fundamental Principles

Article 1 [State Integrity, Equal Protection]

(1) Mauritania is an indivisible, democratic, and social Islamic Republic.

Iran's constitution:

Article 1 [Form of Government]
The form of government of Iran is that of an Islamic Republic, endorsed by the people of Iran on the basis of their longstanding belief in the sovereignty of truth and Koranic justice,...
Article 2 [Foundational Principles]
The Islamic Republic is a system based on belief in:
1) the One God (as stated in the phrase "There is no god except Allah"), His exclusive sovereignty and right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to His commands; 2) Divine revelation and its fundamental role in setting forth the laws;
3) the return to God in the Hereafter, and the constructive role of this belief in the course of man's ascent towards God;
4) the justice of God in creation and legislation;
5) continuous leadership and perpetual guidance, and its fundamental role in ensuring the uninterrupted process of the revolution of Islam; 6) the exalted dignity and value of man, and his freedom coupled with responsibility before God; in which equity, justice, political, economic, social, and cultural independence, and national solidarity are secured by recourse to: a) continuous leadership of the holy persons, possessing necessary qualifications, exercised on the basis of the Koran and the Sunnah, upon all of whom be peace;
b) sciences and arts and the most advanced results of human experience, together with the effort to advance them further;
c) negation of all forms of oppression, both the infliction of and the submission to it, and of dominance, both its imposition and its acceptance.

"Palestine"'s constitution:

ARTICLE 1

Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation. Arab Unity is an objective which the Palestinian People shall work to achieve.

ARTICLE 4

1. Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect and sanctity of all other heavenly religions shall be maintained.
2. The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be the main source of legislation.

So why, exactly, is a Jewish state (whose record of equal rights far surpasses those of any of the Arab nations) morally worse than the large number of Arab and Islamic states?

Haniyeh getting nervous; "moderates" show their colors

From AP:

Gaza's embattled Hamas leaders are seeking a cease-fire after months of Israeli attacks and sanctions that have left the area isolated and mired in poverty — going so far as to make an unprecendented [sic - EoZ] appeal through the Israeli media, a government official confirmed Wednesday.

The gesture came Tuesday after an especially bloody day in which the Israeli air force killed 12 militants, including a top commander. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to continue targeting the leaders of militant groups whose rocket fire has tormented the lives of thousands of people in southern Israel.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh reached out to Israel in a phone conversation Tuesday with a reporter for Israel's Channel 2 TV, said spokesman Taher Nunu.

Haniyeh spoke of a truce and said Israel must halt its offensive in Gaza for the cycle of violence to end. "The occupation should stop its attacks and siege," Nunu said. "Then a truce would be possible, and not unlikely."

The reporter who spoke to Haniyeh, Suleiman al-Shafi, told The Associated Press that the Hamas leader complained that Israeli attacks have foiled his attempts to halt the rocket fire. Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group, has been responsible for most of the rocket fire out of Gaza since Hamas seized control of the area last June.

"I am always trying to stop the rockets from all factions, especially Islamic Jihad, but Israel's assassinations always catch me off guard and spoil my attempts," the reporter quoted Haniyeh as saying.

Hamas officials said they have also sent overtures to Israel through unidentified third parties.

Every previous time that Hamas has floated ideas of a temporary truce has been in response to Israeli offensive actions. Clearly, Haniyeh respects violence far more than diplomacy.

His absurd lies about how Israeli actions ruin his negotiating an end to rocket attacks are amusing, though.

Tellingly, the pro-Abbas Palestine Press Agency is all over this story - not from the perspective that Haniyeh is turning peaceful, but that he is a hypocrite.

The commenters on the site are calling Haniyeh a collaborator with Israel and its army of dogs and pigs and prostitutes. None of the "moderate" Fatah supporters on the site are welcoming the possibility of a truce.

Similarly, Fatah is accusing Hamas of negotiating a "secret deal" with Israel where Hamas leaders are spared assassinations.

PalPress also linked to a wonderful video at YNet showing the missile blast that killed Islamic Jihad leader Majed al-Harazin. The "moderate" commenters are without exception mourning the Islamic Jihad terrorists, as are Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank. Clearly, their hatred for Hamas cannot be mistaken for a desire for peace with Israel, because even when Israel successfully kills known terrorists - with no civilian deaths, and even when the video shows how Israel refrained from firing until there were no cars around - Israel is universally condemned by "moderate" Palestinian Arabs and they support the even more radical PIJ over Hamas.

The 2007 Splodie Awards

It is time for our First Annual PalArab Greatest Hits awards, known affectionately as the Splodies. Here is where we honor the very best of the (soon-to-be) 600 Palestinian Arabs who died from their brethren's violent acts this year.

So, without further ado, I present the 2007 Splodie Awards, in chronological order:

January 3: A bodyguard for the PA Interior Minister decided to moonlight as a bombmaker, since that is a respectable side job for a government aide. Unfortunately his bomb blew up a bit early, and his paycheck turned into life insurance payments for his family mostly paid for by the West in either case.

January 18: At the El-Bashiti wedding in Khan Younis, Gaza, one of the happy celebrants lost control of his assault rifle. He killed the groom's brother and injured three others, including one of those ubiquitous "security officers" and two teenage boys. No word about whether he shot anyone else the next day at the funeral.

February 23: A PalArab policeman, chasing a car that didn't stop at a Palestinian Arab checkpoint (we never hear about those, do we?) fired his gun - and killed a bystander. Human rights organizations condemned the act in the strongest possible terms. (Just kidding.)

April 26: Mohammad Khalil, 27, from the An Nasser Salah Addin Brigades (PRC) blew himself up in Beit Hanoun. They had to change the sign at the entrance to Gaza back to "0 days since the last work accident."

May 10: A "beauty queen" strangled her husband in Hebron, in what became one of the few dishonor killings of the year.

May 30: Two terrorists were killed and two others wounded when the explosives in their car went off a bit early in Nablus. Since it is not in Gaza, we know that the explosives were only meant for peaceful purposes.

June 10: Hamas threw a Fatah member off of a 15-story building. Not to be outdone, Fatah threw a Hamas member off of a 12-story building.

June 13: Two Palestinian Arab UNRWA workers were murdered, thus opening up two new jobs for the starving people of Gaza.

June 14: Hamas blew up a car, killing 4 kids. No tear-jerking documentaries were produced about these children.

June 15: Some very religious Muslim freedom fighters entered a hospital in Gaza and executed one of the patients, as well as shooting two women who were with him, no doubt for honorable reasons.

October 3: A tunnel collapsed and killed one of the diggers inside. But this wasn't a Rafah arms-smuggling tunnel - this one was at Beit Hanoun, apparently meant to tunnel into Israel to kidnap Israelis. Drinks all around.

Also, an RPG accidentally got fired and killed a 20-year old Hamas terrorist. Mother always said it is impolite to point.

October 7: After ignoring numerous death threats from members of the Religion of Peace, a Christian bookstore owner in Gaza finally got murdered. Well, it isn't as if he wasn't warned.

October 27: Two women and a four year-old girl were killed when their house blew up in Khan Younis in a "work accident." They were sorely disappointed when they entered Paradise.

October 29: A (possibly Western-trained) Gaza "policeman" accidentally shot himself to martyrdom.

November 4: A man who went through an oppressive checkpoint was shot in the back and killed. But since it wasn't a Zionist checkpoint and he wasn't "humiliated," there were no screaming headlines about it.

November 7: Hamas shot and killed a man at a funeral, thus saving his family untold burial expenses.

December 4: To allay any fears of sexism in the Palestinian Arab territories, a man was executed - for family honor.

December 18: During a funeral in Gaza, the celebratory gunfire severed a power line above, resulting in a live wire falling into the crowd, killing one and injuring eight. Hamas was impressed with the precise cutting power of the machine guns and is considering using them to help manufacture Qassam rockets.

Get your nominations in early for the 2008 Splodies!

Dershowitz anecdotes

From Powerline, December 8:

Professor Alan Dershowitz, of the Harvard Law School, spoke before friends of the Hudson Institute in New York [yesterday]. Hudson Institute is a major think tank that conducts research to advance global security, prosperity and freedom.
Among other things, Professor Dershowitz revealed that Noam Chomsky, the radical leftist, had once been his camp counselor. Apparently, Counselor Chomsky did no lasting harm to Counselor Dershowitz.

Another thing Professor Dershowitz revealed tells us much about former President Jimmy Carter. It seems that when Carter appeared at Brandeis to plug his book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, he pledged to answer any questions that students e-mailed him afterward. Many took him up on the offer, and Carter did answer every question... except one. That one was this: Did you advise Yasser Arafat to reject the peace offer Israel made at Camp David, at the end of Clinton's term? According to Professor Dershowitz, some 15 students e-mailed that question, and they were the only students not to be answered.

Hmm.

Professor Dershowitz also recalled his visit to the University of California at Irvine, which is a hotbed of anti-Israel agitation. He spoke to a large crowd, and first asked those who considered themselves pro-Israel to raise their hands. About 250 hands were raised. He then asked them if they would accept a Palestinian state, side by side, living in peace with Israel. Every hand went up.

Then he asked how many considered themselves pro-Palestinian. About 150 hands were raised. Finally, he asked this group whether they would accept a Jewish state of Israel, living side by side in peace with a new Palestinian state. Not a single hand went up.

Number 599

From Arutz-7:

A high-voltage power line fell over Tuesday during the Gaza funeral for two terrorists killed by the IDF Monday.
The line was severed by shooting in the air.
One person was killed and eight injured by the live wires.

This makes 599 Palestinian Arabs violently killed by their own actions this year, by my count.

Israel is sending video tapes showing Egyptian policemen assisting Palestinian terrorists along the Egypt-Gaza border to the United States Congress as part of an effort to influence the legislative body into clamping pressure on Cairo to stop weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip.

The video footage - which shows Egyptian security forces assisting Hamas terrorists cross illegally into Gaza - is being transferred to Congress through diplomatic channels and is intended for senior congressmen and senators who can have an effect on the House foreign aid appropriations process. Israel believes this can be an effective way of pressuring Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak into clamping down on Hamas smuggling activities.

Of course - why should Israel expect its "peace partner" to stop smuggling weapons meant for terrorists to kill Jews just because it's wrong? No, since the entire Egyptian "peace" is just because of American money and not because of any real desire for peace, only threats to withhold money may make Egypt act as if it cares about Hamas terrorism it helps facilitate.

Then again, why should Egypt act better than Israel itself?

The terrorists who killed 29-year-old Ido Zoldan near Kedumim last month used weapons the Palestinian Authority received from Jordan with Israel's approval, a government official said Monday.

No need for smuggling - the terrorists get weapons with the full transparency of Israel's approval process. And not for the first time, either.

All in the name of "peace," of course.

PaLogic

Of course, the PalArab terrorists in Gaza had to respond to Israel's successful elimination of twelve of their own this morning, so they shot more mortars - at the Kerem Shalom crossing.

Which is, of course, the main crossing point where not only do they get their food and fuel from, but also where hundreds of Hajj pilgrims used to cross through Israel into the West Bank and onto Mecca.

Once again, the Gaza "crisis" is self-inflicted. But the machismo of the PalArabs is far more important than the lives of their people.

Nice shooting (2)

A very good followup to my last Nice Shooting post....

A Hamas operative was killed Tuesday when an IAF aircraft fired a missile at a Hamas post in southern Gaza, officials from the group said....

The latest airstrike came after ten Islamic Jihad operatives were killed overnight Monday and early Tuesday as the IDF stepped up its operations against terrorists in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

...Palestinians also reported that the brigades' Jenin commander, Tarik Abu-Ra'ali, was killed during an exchange of fire with troops in Kabatiya.

Ha'aretz counts 13 terrorists, zero civilians. This is a record that is enviable for any moral army on the planet (excluding, of course, Arab armies whose goal is to kill civilians.)

Ha'aretz' Bradley Burston, hardly a right-winger, comments:

The IDF, it must be said, killed the Islamic Jihad men without shedding the lives of innocent Gazans. One of the men killed, Majed Harazin, has for years been one of the central commanders in the Jerusalem Brigades, the Jihad's armed wing. He and another Jihad commander killed in the Monday night raids were key figures in Qassam production, targeting, and launch against civilian targets and innocent populations. A third Jihad man killed was the wing's commander in the northern West Bank.

They were war criminals. More to the point, they were also soldiers. Soldiers in a war in which they are declared combatants, and in which we, civilian non-combatants, are the declared targets. It was our right to kill them. It was our responsibility.

After the deaths of Harazin, rocket mastermind Karim al-Dahdouh and the others, the Jihad e-mailed reporters, threatening to retaliate with a wave of suicide bombings inside Israel, effectively greatly escalating attacks against Israeli civilians. "The assassination of the general commander will open the door wide to a wave of martyrdom operations," the e-mail read.

In a second announcement, Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza told reporters at a mosque, "The blood of our comrades will be the fuel for the rockets that will bring death and destruction to the Zionists."

That how it is with lies. You can't have it both ways. You can't call yourselves Soldiers for Palestine, lovers of death, cravers of martyrdom, incinerators and dismantlers of Israel and the Zionist enterprise, and, at the same time, profess outrage and anger that we would have the temerity to kill you.

You're soldiers. Grow up.

The New York Times reports that the Islamic Jihad commander's car appeared to be filled with explosives, and the secondary explosion wounded some passers-by.

Time to send the IDF some more congratulatory pizza.

Conditional - or conditioning?

In 2003, the Financial Times reported about EU aid to the Palestinian Authority:

The EU has worked throughout the bloodstained months of the intifada to keep a Palestinian administration alive and to drive a process of reform within it. Often in the face of sharp criticism at home and abroad, the EU supported the Palestinian Authority with direct budgetary assistance at a time when its revenues were withheld by the government of Israel. Between November 2000 and December 2002 the EU granted nearly Euros 250m ( £170m) to keep the administration alive and to sustain the most basic of public services. Without our assistance there would have been no Palestinian interlocutor for the negotiations now under way.

At every step, the EU's help was made conditional on reforms that would make a viable Palestinian state a reality one day and in the short term make the Palestinian territories a better, safer neighbour for Israel.

It is largely because of such leverage from the EU that the Palestinian Authority now has a credible and transparent internal accounting system, that its budget can be controlled throughout its departments and that the recruitment of staff has ceased to be a covert form of social security. It is thanks to conditions that the EU imposed that a law was passed granting independence to the judiciary, and that progress is being made towards a legal base for the elections foreseen in the road map. Today we have a Palestinian Authority making a serious effort to reform itself and determined to continue doing so.

The EU was quite self-congratulatory about how well it had reformed the PA in 2003, while Arafat was still alive and stealing money. As Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote later that year:

How is it possible that the International Monetary Fund, CBS, the BBC, and even the PA itself were all able to document the PA's misuse of funds while Commissioner Patten failed to acknowledge it?

Despite thousands of the PA's own documents — some signed by Yasser Arafat himself — Patten, Swoboda, and many other MEPs not only continue to deny that European tax money has funded Palestinian terrorism, but also claim that the PA documents, authenticated by American, German, and Israeli experts — and even by the Palestinians themselves — are "forgeries produced by Israel."

The IMF report "Economic Performance and Reforms under Conflict Conditions," released last September in Abu Dhabi, was based on the same PA documents that the Israeli government had earlier provided to Patten and the European Parliament. The report concludes that at least 8 percent ($135 million) of the PA's annual budget of $1.08 billion is being spent by Arafat at his sole discretion — and does not even take into account Arafat's control of 60 percent of the security-apparatus budget, which leaves him with at least $360 million per year to spend as he chooses. In addition, the report states that $900 million in PA revenues "disappeared" between 1995 and 2000, and that the 2003 budget for Arafat's office, which totaled $74 million, was missing $34 million that Arafat had transferred to pay unidentified "organizations" and "individuals."

Patten and many of the MEPs constantly deny that EU funds have been misused. They refuse to acknowledge that the PA leadership is corrupt and uses its aid money to fund terror, choosing instead to grant the PA ever more aid. According to the IMF report, much of this money continued to be misappropriated even under the PA's reform-oriented finance minister, Salem Fayyad.

The EU's moral standing and fiscal accountability are also questionable. For the ninth year running, the EU Court of Auditors refused to approve the EU's €100 billion annual budget because the auditors could not account for 90 percent of the funds to the PA. The MEPs claimed that it was not the EU but the IMF and the CIA that supervised the PA budget. But the IMF has publicly denied this responsibility many times, and there is no evidence that the CIA has had anything to do with EU funds to the PA.

As for evidence that aid money was used to pay homicide bombers, Swoboda insisted that "there is no proof that any terrorist acts they committed were ordered by the PA — they may have been acting alone. Only if the DNA of the suicide bombers will match the DNA of those who received euros will we accept it as evidence."

But still the EU insisted that its program of "conditional" aid was paying off big time. It reported in 2005:

Conditional aid drives reformThe EU’s financial package for 2005 totals nearly € 250 million. The main focus remains on reforming and strengthening Palestinian institutions including the judiciary, fighting corruption, supporting the democratic process through elections, and addressing emergency and humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population. As before, it will carefully monitor the aid to ensure there is no abuse.

The EU also set up in April 2005 an EU Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support to assist the Palestinian Authority to assume responsibility for law and order and improve its civil police and law enforcement.

Since then, of course, the PA's wonderful police that the EU assisted so much lost Gaza with barely a gunshot, continues to employ moonlighting terrorists and is used as a jobs program where the workers do not have to work.

But the aid was "conditional"!

Rewarding the no-longer democratically elected "emergency" government of the PA, which still refuses to disarm its own Fatah terrorists, has become a habit, and today the EU added another $650 million in aid to the billions it has already wasted on the PA.

Apparently, the Palestinian Authority has managed to train the world to give it money whenever they ask for it. The aid isn't conditional - it is conditioning.

It's a real mystery, I tell ya

From Deutsche Presse Agency:

Ramallah - More than a quarter of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians or some 27 per cent say they cannot take current conditions any more and seek immigration, a public opinion poll published Monday has found.

The poll, conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, found that only 5 per cent of respondents gave a positive evaluation of economic conditions in the Gaza Strip and 8 per cent described conditions as good or very good.

On the other hand, 47 per cent gave a positive evaluation for economic conditions in the West Bank and only 31 per cent described conditions as good or very good.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) says already bad economic and living conditions due to Israeli closure policy and restriction on movement in the Palestinian areas since late 2000, have worsened with the landslide victory of the Islamic militant group Hamas in legislative elections in January 2006 and its violent takeover of power in the Gaza Strip in June.

Addressing a conference of donors to the Palestinians in Paris on Monday, Acting Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said that 'over the last seven years, the Palestinian economy has been on a continuous decline and by mid 2007 it was on the verge of collapse.'

It's really strange. In the years following Oslo, from 1993-2000, the Palestinian Arab economy was booming. Investors were lining up to build industrial parks, there was plenty of employment both in the territories and in jobs that PalArabs had in Israel itself, and there was a healthy amount of trade between the PA and Israel. Arabs were illegally moving from Jordan to the West Bank by the tens of thousands in order to grab a piece of the action.

Yet, something must have happened seven years ago to turn this around, to start this precipitous decline in the PA's economy that forces it to now admit that it is close to bankrupt and to beg for billions of dollars from the rest of the world.

For the life of me, I cannot find any news stories that describe what this event might have been seven years ago. It must be Israel's fault, of course, but what exactly happened then?

Honest Reporting UK notices this strange pattern as well.

Child abuse in Palestinian Arab "refugee" camps

From Media Line:

Azzmi, eight, limps along the corridors of al Hussein camp clinic, in the heart of Amman, to have an X-ray.

The little Palestinian refugee tells the doctors he fell from the roof of his house.

"What about the bruise on your back? asks a nurse, who recognizes the frail-looking child.

"When I fell on the ground, a piece of metal hurt my back," Azzmi replies.

This is the fifth time this year that this boy has visited the infirmary seeking medical attention, says the nurse, who is speaking to the press on condition of anonymity.

The clinic is run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Patients coming to this small clinic are either residents of the squalid al Hussein camp or crowded neighborhoods in the dreary eastern part of Amman.

The refugees, whose areas lack basic services and whose infrastructure is worn out, offer an incongruous backdrop to the posh parts of Amman, just on the other side of the road.

"I know he was not telling the truth because his wounds carry the hallmarks of physical abuse. But informing the police or referring the boy to social care cervices would aggravate the problem," says the nurse, who knows there is little he can do to help Azzmi.

"The boy would not tell us about the true source of his injuries. Taking him to the police would only make things worse for him and his family," he says.

Health-care staff working in government-run hospitals and UNRWA clinics receive extensive training from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on how to identify injuries related to abuse.

Ideally, abused children are referred to the nearest hospital for further investigation. In severe cases, police are notified and children are sent to special care centers set up by the government or NGOs.

Doctors and other clinic staff prefer to handle abuse cases discreetly. Parents are summoned to health centers to guide them on how to avoid violence when dealing with children.

"Parents tend to be receptive when we talk directly to them. Involving the government or the police could backfire," says a doctor from Baqaa camp health center, who also refused to be named.

Childcare experts admit that in a tribal country like Jordan it is hard to implement child protection programs according to the book.

There are no official records on the magnitude of the problem of child abuse at refugee camps, but experts believe the rate of mistreatment at the impoverished compounds is higher than anywhere else in the kingdom.

"Children at refugee camps suffer the most due to the deteriorating living conditions. These places are very crowded with a high percentage of unemployment, "admits Hemsi.

Leaders at refugee camps believe the cure for child abuse in refugee camps is simple – improve living conditions and provide jobs for the unemployed.

"We need to have better services. Unemployment is high and poverty is increasing, therefore it becomes only natural that people are frustrated and tend to resort to violence to solve their problems," says Walid Abu Salem, a tribal leader in Baqaa refugee camp.

And why are the living conditions so rotten in the camps?

Because the Arab leaders want to keep the Palestinian Arabs in miserable conditions, because otherwise their weapons of "Palestinian unity" and unhappy "refugees" disappear!

Child abuse is just one more price Arabs are more than willing to pay in order to be able to score political points against Israel.

Israeli Arabs' self-inflicted misery

Many people complain about the discrimination that Arabs in Israel suffer. But how much of that discrimination is from Zionist intolerance, and how much from how that community decides to act itself towards its country?

The Jerusalem Post interviews a "moderate" Israeli-Arab Islamic leader:

Israeli Arabs will never agree to do national service for the State of Israel because it would call into question their loyalty to the Palestinian cause, the founder of Israel's Islamic Movement, Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish, said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

"Any type of national service, no matter what it is, would be perceived by the Palestinian people as military service," said Darwish, speaking at his home in Kafr Kasim.

"He [the Israeli Arab who volunteers for National Service] would be seen as an enemy to the Palestinian people.

"To prove his loyalty to the Palestinian cause, he would be forced to join the Palestinian resistance movement against Israel. I do not allow my young people to enlist in organizations that fight for the Palestinian cause. But do not expect me to allow them to join the Israeli cause," added Darwish, who heads what is considered to be the more moderate southern wing of the Islamic Movement, created in the late 1990s.

If an easily-identifiable group decides to identify with a nation's enemies, what nation would treat them equally?

Even with the existence of a hostile, anti-state minority, Israel tries to bend over backwards to accommodate them, although Kadima at least seems to be a bit impatient:

Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter christened the first Kadima chapter in the none-Jewish sector Sunday, in the northern city of Shfaram.

"Even if they (heads of the Israeli-Arab community) choose not to celebrate our 60th anniversary, they will celebrate our 70th and 80th anniversaries, simply because we and the Muslim and Druze and Circassian and Christian citizens have no other country. It is as much theirs as it is ours," said Dichter.

When asked when he thought about the Israeli-Arab sector commemorating the "Nakba" – meaning the "catastrophe" of the establishment of State of Israel – every year, Dichter repeated his early statement, saying that the continuance use of such terminology is not in the sector's best interest.

"Anyone crying over the Nakba year after year can't be surprised if they end up with one… the Nakba won't give anyone better education or create new jobs."

Kadima, he added, rejects any kind of radicalism: "Any talk of transferring Israeli-Arab citizens to the Palestinian Authority is nothing but pure nonsense."

Contrast this with something else that happened this weekend:

President Shimon Peres and Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger met with Druse leaders in the western Galilee Sunday as part of the Id al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) celebrations.

Peres said that the state of Israel was proud of the Druse's contribution.

"Among Druse there is 0% draft dodging and 100% dedication to Israel's security," the president said. He said that 54% volunteered for combat duty.

Metzger said that "we are not just brothers in arms, we are brothers in peace and coexistence and love. I come to you with a request that you allow every person to live among you in peace. If a Druse comes to Tel Aviv to live, I will accept him with a blessing. If a Jew comes to Peki'in, accept him in a similar way."

Metzger was referring to a violent incident staged by residents of the Druse village of Peki'in against Jewish residents there.

It sure seems strange that the chief rabbis and president of a "racist state" celebrate a major Muslim holiday with some of its non-Jewish citizens.

Can the difference between how the the Druze and Israeli Arabs are treated have more to do with how they themselves act (despite the Peki'in incidents that chased 9 Jewish families from the town) and not as much to do with the supposed Israeli "racism"?

UPDATE: Treppenwitz has a great post on this same topic.

Saudi Arabia doesn't consider PalArabs a good investment

The Independent (UK) notes:

Saudi Arabia has so far refused to commit to budget support for the emergency government set up by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a political move casting a shadow over Monday's international donors' conference in Paris.
The kingdom, along with the Gulf states which normally follow its lead, has declined ahead of the conference to promise around half the $1.4bn (£700m) a year needed to meet the Ramallah government's annual deficit, according to diplomatic and Palestinian sources. One key reason is thought to be Saudi Arabia's reluctance to be seen to be throwing all its weight behind one of the two parties to the coalition deal which it brokered and which then collapsed in bloody internal conflict and Hamas's seizure of control in Gaza in June.

The pro-Hamas IMEMC adds:

Of $421 million in support pledged by Arab nations for this year's Palestinian Authority budget, only $80 million has been delivered.

Arab nations have in the past pledged big and delivered little to their Pali brethren:

Many nations will be assembled at the Paris donor conference, but unfortunately the countries that could contribute the most -- the Gulf states -- have done the least. It will be interesting to see whether Paris marks a new departure for these countries. For all their statements on behalf of their Palestinian Arab brethren and how important the peace issue is to progress on other regional fronts, the Gulf Arabs have contributed very little financially to the Palestinians in recent years. According to World Bank officials, the annual Saudi contribution to the Palestinian Authority has been $84 million for most of this decade, while the other Gulf countries have given less or nothing at all. Despite their joint pledge of $660 million per year at an emergency Arab League summit in 2002, when oil prices were a fraction of what they are today, little has actually happened. Similarly, a Saudi promise last year to provide $300-$500 million was never fulfilled, according to U.S. and Arab officials.

The minute amount that Saudi Arabia gives is even more telling in light of its huge oil revenues. As the Washington Institute for Near East Policy notices:

The shortage of Gulf aid to the Palestinians certainly does not result from a lack of wealth, which has reached staggering proportions due to the quadrupling of oil prices since 2002. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the IMF, oil revenue for the six Gulf Cooperation Council states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain) should reach about $400 billion this year, half of it belonging to the Saudis. This would make their joint contribution to the Palestinians only 0.04 percent of their annual oil revenues. Adding to that wealth is their cumulative current account surplus since 2003, which will reach $700 billion this year.

And although this question is not meant to be rhetorical, it really is:

Do Gulf Arabs really think that the U.S. mortgage market and similar opportunities represent better investments than funding the economic infrastructure and future well being of the Palestinians, for whom they have campaigned for decades?

As Arabs who have watched the Palestinian Arabs whine and fritter away opportunities for peace and stability for decades, the Saudis know far better than the West how supremely bad an investment the Palis are. Money given to them has historically, invariably been thrown away. Decades of UNRWA aid as well as Western aid has not improved things one bit - their leaders still choose terror rather than peace, living in "camps" rather than permanent housing, and investing in weapons rather than infrastructure.

The Saudis know a bad investment when they see one. Too bad that today, in Paris, the West is likely to continue to throw out billions of dollars on a people whose leaders will use that money to fund death.

UPDATE:Treppenwitz has a great post on this topic.

Iraqi kidnapping ring:"Stealing money from Christians is OK"

From the Christian Post:

Iraqi police in Kirkuk have captured all four members of a gang of brothers who specialized in kidnapping Christian doctors.

The men, who appear to have no link to terrorism or Islamic extremism, were arrested in a number of raids between Dec. 11 and Dec. 13. All of the men have confessed to kidnapping doctors.

According to AsiaNews, the men said they started kidnapping Christian doctors to “make easy money.” Furthermore, they added, "according to sharia (Islamic religious law), taking money from a Christian is legitimate.”