Sunday, January 06, 2008

When used in wartime, the word "collaborator" is a loaded term. Like the words "traitor" and "treason," "collaborator" is pejorative by its nature, but its negative implication is only in the subjective context of the labeler.

Hillel Cohen, in his fascinating book "Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948," consciously uses these words in the context that Palestinian Arabs use the words today. As a firm member of the post-Zionist historians, perhaps this is not surprising, nor his use of the word "Nakba." But to Cohen's credit, despite his constant use of these terms without scare quotes, he is an honest enough historian to show that the supposedly treasonous behavior done by countless Palestinian Arabs between the Balfour Declaration and the founding of Israel was often anything but.

Reading this book, with Arab appellations being applied to situations where the Arabs end up looking very bad, is an exercise in whiplash. The exact same facts could have been used in a book called "Arab-Zionist Friendship, 1917-1948" but Cohen's use of the pejorative lends a sense of unreality to his terminology.

The book itself is a remarkable historical work, with much use of recently declassified Israeli archives showing the extent of the early Zionist Shai intelligence operations and methods, together with the large numbers of Palestinian Arabs who, to some extent, decided to work with the Jews rather than shun them, often at the cost of their lives.

"Army of Shadows" follows a roughly chronological history of Arabs who willingly sold land to Zionists, who traded with them, who worked for them and who at times employed them, even who married them. It follows the rise of Hajj Amin al-Husseini and elaborates on how his anti-Jewish policies often alienated the silent majority of Arabs and sometimes drove them to become even closer to the Zionists. It shows an overlooked aspect of the messy history of the competing desires of the Husseini-style Arab absolutists, Nashashibi-style pragmatists (who were no less nationalist), the pro-Abdullah camp who wanted a federation with Transjordan, the Arab labor unions, farmers, village elders, land dealers, economic opportunists, criminals, loyal friends to Jews. Yet, again, Cohen's terminology is exclusively the one used by the most extreme Husseini camp, and is now considered normative by Husseini's political heirs of Fatah and Hamas. In some ways, that terminology is almost Orwellian newspeak where it has become forbidden for today's Palestinian Arabs to even think that there could be something positive about cooperating with Israel.

In the 1920s, there were some Arab parties who were explicitly Zionist - the Muslim National Associations and later the Farmers' Parties. Cohen brings some evidence that Zionists were instrumental in helping these parties start and grow, but he implies that there would not have been any pro-Zionist sentiment altogether without this outside influence, a much weaker argument (and one that is slightly demeaning to Arabs, that they could not possibly have been independently anything but anti-Zionist.)

Cohen irritatingly ascribes noble motives to Arabs who want to become and remain friends with Jews, but he almost never gives the Jews the same credit. He consistently emphasizes the Zionist intelligence organization and how it manipulated Arabs but doesn't seem to think that it was possible that Jews could honestly be friends with the Arabs without ulterior motive. The paradox is that Cohen himself grew up friends with neighboring Arabs and those friendships helped him to go into the field of history; his enlightened post-Zionism cannot admit the possibility that early Zionist Jews could possibly have been as open-minded as he himself is.

But for all his faults, Cohen is scrupulously honest - he does not hesitate to tell anecdotes and facts that contradict even his own assumptions and biases. Even as he describes Husseini-style nationalism as being normative he is quick to mention that their opponents also felt they were acting with the best interests of their people in mind, and that they even accused Husseini of being the traitor to their cause.

The 1929 riots ended the explicitly Zionist Arab parties but there remained a significant number who were willing to work more covertly with the Zionist establishment. Some were opportunistic or greedy, some were idealistic, some were simply loyal to their friends. The collaboration included finding land that was for sale, providing intelligence from the Husseini nationalist camp, and quietly championing a more pragmatic relationship with the Zionists who many thought were too powerful to defeat anyway. The Husseini clan was most concerned about land sales, yet they often engaged in such sales themselves.

It was a combination of the Husseinis' intransigence, hypocrisy and their own terror campaign against their political rivals that paradoxically ended up pushing more Palestinian Arabs away from the extremist nationalism of the Husseinis. They didn't become Zionist but they were more willing to accept partition and accommodation. Yet even during the darkest days where the Husseinis were assassinating political rivals and suspected collaborators based only on suspicion, land sales to Jews continued and even increased. Even after the White Paper severely resticted land transfers, the Arabs and Zionists found loopholes to continue to sell land to Jews.

Early in the book, Cohen appears to conflate pan-Arab nationalism with Palestinian Arab nationalism - the former of which was far better established than the latter - and somewhat weakens his case when he claims that most Palestinian Arabs were nationalists. But by the end, when he takes a closer look at Palestinian Arab nationalism and its failure to stop collaboration with the Jews, he gets closer to understanding the truth - that specifically Palestinian Arab nationalism was always a shallow movement that didn't interest Palestinian Arabs themselves enough to fight and die for their own cause. Palestinian Arabs were more loyal towards their clans and villages than towards any sort of national cause, and even the nationalists were split between the absolutists, the ones that favored partition, the pan-Arab Greater Syrians and the Abdullah-oriented "Jordan option" advocates. (The relative ease in which the West Bank Arabs allowed themselves to become annexed to Jordan shows that the purely Palestinian Arab nationalism was weak even in their epicenter.)

Often, the outside Arab armies seemed to be more interested in fighting Zionism than the supposed victims of Zionism themselves. Cohen brings a number of examples where Arab villages fought to keep outside forces away, and many made peace pacts with nearby Jewish settlements. These pacts are part of the reason many Arabs stayed safely in Israel.

Cohen's reasons for the failure of Palestinian Arab nationalism dwells on these divisive factors and the relative success of Zionist intelligence and organization. He is too post-Zionist to entertain the notion that Palestinian Arab nationalism's failure was because it was from the start a negative movement, not a positive one - it was always more to stop Zionism than to build an independent Palestinian state. This is the real reason that it was so shallow and vulnerable to so many divisions - it was not an ideology so much as a violent reaction to a different ideology. No national movement can sustain itself if it is based mostly on the negation of another national movement.

Despite its flaws, this well-researched book is a very important addition to the history of the Palestinian Arabs and of Zionism.
  • Sunday, January 06, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
2008 has been relatively quiet since New Year's, but I still keep finding out about 2007 deaths. From Ma'an:
A corpse found in a landfill in near the West Bank city of Hebron has still not been identified after nine days of investigation, police sources said.

The body was found in the town of Nuba, west of Hebron.

Hebron Police Chief Majid Hawari said no one has reported a missing person in the area. The police plan to take a DNA sample before burying the body.
So the 2007 total goes to 612.

UPDATE: At least it doesn't appear to be an honor killing.

From PalToday (autotranslated):
Palestinian medical sources reported that a Palestinian woman was killed by stray bullets during the evening today, Monday, as she and her husband were passing near a quarrel between two families in the path of Saladin leading Central Province [of Gaza.]

The sources said that Nagwa Abdel Al, 45 years old, mother of nine children, arrived in the city of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital Deir el-Balah central sector lifeless body after it was hit by two bullets in the chest and neck.
This makes the 2008 self-death count 4 for 2008.
  • Sunday, January 06, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
On January 3, Fatah accused Hamas of using arrested Fatah members as "human shields" against Israeli attacks. A Fatah member who fled Gaza during the Hamas takeover was caught by Hamas sneaking back in through Rafah; Hamas arrested him and placed him in an area in Tel Sultan where, with his hands and feet bound, he died in an Israeli attack while the Hamas members fled.

New details in the Palestinian Arab press show that other Fatah prisoners are being held in different locations in Gaza, seemingly for the purpose of increasing the number of casualties in case of Israeli airstrikes against Hamas buildings. (I wouldn't call them human shields; rather human statistic padders. Their purpose isn't to stop Israeli airstrikes but to score propaganda points.)

A Palestinian Arab human-rights organization confirmed Fatah's accusations today, adding that according to Palestinian law the only place in Gaza that prisoners can be held is the Gaza Central Prison.

Yet the only non-Israeli and non-Palestinian Arab reporting of this accusation is in a small UPI story that, as far as I can tell, wasn't picked up by any newspaper. AP, Reuters, AFP, the New York Times, the BBC - all quick to publish similar accusations against Israel - are silent.
  • Sunday, January 06, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
A recent book by Matthias Küntzel called "Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11" has caused a minor kerfuffle over at FrontPage Magazine where Andrew Bostom critiqued Küntzel's book, Küntzel responded and Bostom responded back.

The New York Times just reviewed the book as well. (I have not yet read it.)

It appears that Küntzel's thesis is that the virulent brand of anti-semitism that Islam has espoused since after the first World War was the result of Haj Amin al-Husseini's philo-Nazism, and the Nazi bankrolling of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Bostom seems to take exception to the implication that today's Jihad is of a more recent vintage, rather than a continuation of the ancient forms of jihad. Both of them seem to be talking past each other, as the point of Küntzel's book is specifically to discuss the influence of Nazism over current Islamism while Bostom wants to emphasize the continuous historic evolution of jihad.

It sounds to me that, from the specific viewpoint of anti-semitism, Küntzel has a valid point. Traditional Islamic anti-semitism was not nearly as hateful as Christian anti-semitism has traditionally been, and the current Islamist caricatures and accusations against Jews and Zionism are virtually identical to Nazi imagery. The Muslim Brotherhood does represent a newer strain of Islamism than had been prevalent beforehand, and even if they had ancient hadiths to back them up that doesn't mean that those same hadiths were given the same importance in Islamic thinking before the 20th century.

I think, with my tiny amount of research compared to both of Küntzel and Bostom, that the influence of Christian Palestinian Arabs cannot be ignored - they seemed to take the lead in the anti-semitism in early 1900s Palestine, and the Muslim Arabs took some of their ideas before the Brotherhood asserted its influence throughout the Arab world. Similarly, Husseini's Jew-hatred pre-dates Nazism but was no less toxic. In Egypt, though, Küntzel seems to have a valid point.

The NYT excerpts part of Chapter One, and it includes some fascinating tidbits about early Arab-Zionist relations that I hope to write about more in my upcoming review of Army of Shadows. Here is part of it:

On November 2, 1917 the British government, through its Foreign Minister, Lord Balfour, announced its support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The Balfour Declaration has since then been accepted as the starting point for the Jewish-Arab conflict.

This view, however, overlooks the fact that important representatives of the Arab world of the day supported the Zionist settlement process. They hoped that Jewish immigration would boost economic development thus bringing the Middle East closer to European levels. For example, Ziwar Pasha, later Egyptian Prime Minister, personally took part in the celebrations of the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Five years later Ahmed Zaki, a former Egyptian cabinet minister, congratulated the Zionist Executive in Palestine on its progress: "The victory of the Zionist idea is the turning point for the fulfilment of an ideal which is so dear to me, the revival of the Orient." Two years later the Chairman of the Zionist Executive, Frederick H. Kisch, travelled to Cairo for talks with three high-ranking Egyptian officials on future relations. These officials "were equally emphatic in their pro-Zionist declarations", noted Kisch in his diary. All three "recognized that the progress of Zionism might help to secure the development of a new Eastern civilization." In 1925 the Egyptian Interior Minister Ismail Sidqi took action against a group of Palestinians protesting against the Balfour Declaration in Cairo. He was at the time on his way to Jerusalem to take part in the opening of the first Hebrew university.

Twenty years later scarcely anything remained of this benevolent attitude. In 1945 the worst anti-Jewish pogroms in Egypt's history were perpetrated in Cairo. On November 2, 1945, on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, demonstrators "broke into the Jewish quarter, plundered houses and shops, attacked non-Muslims, and devastated the adjacent Ashkenazi synagogue before finally setting it on fire." The event left some 400 people injured and a policeman dead. Meanwhile in Alexandria, at least five people were killed in the course of even more violent riots "which according to a British embassy official were clearly anti-Jewish and, to his relief, not directed against the British." A few weeks later Islamist newspapers "launched a frontal attack against Egypt's Jews as being Zionists, Communists, capitalists, bloodsuckers, traffickers in arms, white slave-traders and, more generally, a 'subversive element' in all states and societies", and called for a boycott of Jewish goods.

In the following sections, we shall look at the reasons why, between 1925 and 1945, a shift in direction was effected in Egypt from a rather neutral or pro-Jewish mood to a rabidly anti-Zionist or anti-Jewish one, a shift which changed the whole Arab world and affects it to this day. The driving force behind this development was the "Society of Muslim Brothers" (Gamiyyat alikhwan al-muslimin), founded in 1928. The significance of this organization goes far beyond Egypt. For today's global Islamist movement the Muslim Brothers are what the Bolsheviks were for the Communist movement of the 1920s: the ideological reference point and organizational core which decisively inspired all the subsequent tendencies and continues to do so to this day.

It would be a bit simplistic to ascribe the sea change in Arab opinion towards Zionism to the Muslim Brotherhood, as it is a bit dishonest to represent the Arab world's reaction to Zionism, depicted here, as being wholly positive. Nevertheless, it appears that this is an important book in showing how Al Qaeda's antecedents may be just as much Hitlerian as Koranian.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

  • Saturday, January 05, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
The EU-BAM press and public relations officer has responded to my inquiry:
Dear (Elder, I used a fake name),

Thanks for your interest in EUBAM and to get in touch with us,

As you know and despite the RCP being closed since the 9th of June, the European Union decided to maintain the European Union Border Assistance Mission - Rafah (EUBAM) in the area. Due to the prevailing political and security situation the Mission has been downsizing even if it maintains its full operational capacity. At present moment EUBAM strength is a total of 42 composed by the 34 International staff from 17 different EU states members and 8 locally contracted staff members. In June 2007 the Mission had 96 Mission members in total.

Since the beginning of the Mission in November 2005 we have had our Headquarters in Ashkelon is still in here where the Mission is based and from we continue working. Our task nowadays consists in looked at ways to increase further the EU's support to the Palestinian Authority, and in particular in helping to build up an effective Palestinian civilian and border police force. As you know the EU is playing an important role in training and mentoring the Palestinian police and this is an essential element in developing the structures of a Palestinian state.

About the annual budget I’m afraid that this is not public information, but I can tell you that part of it is paid for each Member State . In this way part of my salary is paid by Spain and in this way it differs from my colleague’s salary.

Concerning the Hajj pilgrims who traveled trough Rafah it is obvious that is not our task to condemn any action in the area. In this regards I would like to remind you that our Mission is an operational one and all policy decisions are made in Brussels . I take the opportunity as well to inform you that we are not an executive Mission and the Rafah Agreement was signed between the EU the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority but not by Egypt .

I hope that this information will be useful for you if not, please feel free to contact me at any time.

About the late response and as you can probably understand most of the Mission member including myself belong to the catholic tradition and we have been celebrating Christmas and New Year with our families. In this respect I take the opportunity to wish you a happy New Year.

With my best regards,


Maria Telleria
Press & Public Information Officer
EU BAM Rafah
Mobile: +972-(0)54/2247250
Fax: +972-(0)8/6845740
E-mail: maria.telleria@eubam-rafah.org
Visiting address: Dan Gardens Ashkelon Hotel, Ashkelon
I wasn't aware that Egypt was not part of the agreement, that this means that Egypt and Hamas can completely go around the EU's and international community's wishes for Rafah. It is interesting that the EU, so keenly interested in a Palestinian Arab state, seems to have nothing to say about this.

UPDATE: According to a report in London Al-Quds al-Arabi, Israel has written letters to Washington and the EU requesting taking over Rafah again and giving the EU observers control again over people crossing over.

Friday, January 04, 2008

  • Friday, January 04, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
Palestine Today (Arabic) says that onlookers did a double-take when they saw an Arafat look-alike at a Fatah rally:
Looks like he is already attracting the attention of those handsome young men that the real Arafat liked to spend so much time with.
  • Friday, January 04, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
Some of the presumably unemployed academics of Gaza decided to crunch some numbers to see which terror groups has done the most terrorizing between June 15 and November 30th (why they chose those dates will have to remain a mystery.

Here are the numbers, courtesy of Palestine Press Agency (Arabic):

760 armed attacks
30% Al Aqsa Brigades (Fatah)
24% Al Quds Brigades (Islamic Jihad)
18% Salah-Din Brigades (PRC)
11% al-Qassam (Hamas)
9% DFLP
8% PFLP

Number of joint operations: 165

They count: "Engagement with the occupation forces, launching missiles at settlements and military groupings and mechanisms, and blowing up bombs, sniper soldiers and settlers."

Of course, there are no "settlers" near Gaza, so they mean Jewish civilians.
  • Friday, January 04, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
Yesterday, Israel revealed that it found two rockets being built in Nablus.

Israel's raids into Nablus has upset PA leader Fayyad. Palestine Press Agency reports:
Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister, said "The Israeli military operations in Palestinian territories, especially in the governorate of Nablus, would destroy Palestinian efforts in the area of security."

Fayyad stressed that the Israeli attacks had a significant negative impact on the intensive efforts Palestinians and the Arab world and internationally to revive the peace process.
But the PA leadership is in a pickle - they claim that they have the ability to secure Nablus, and in fact have already done so, and yet Israel is discovering weapons that can significantly alter the status quo where the PA has some nominal autonomy.

It is with this background that we can read this story in Ma'an:
Palestinian security services revealed on Friday that a new type of explosive material has been discovered in Nablus, believed to be part of a Hamas arsenal to be used in a coup against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Palestinian intelligence officer Abdullah Kamil said the explosives were discovered in a bomb-making factory in Nablus.

He added that Palestinian security services had also found a large quantity of weapons belonging to Hamas in Nablus. He said that "sleeping cells" belonging to Hamas in Nablus were planning to use the weapons and explosives to stage a coup in the West Bank.
Ma'an Arabic adds:
Abdullah Kamil, Palestinian intelligence official, told Ma'an that Palestinian security services revealed the existence of explosive materials that is the most serious discovery of its kind in the history of the Palestinian National Authority in the governorate of Nablus in recent months, believed to be belonging to Hamas.

He told Ma'an that these explosive materials were found in one of the buildings in Nablus, which are used to manufacture bombs were designed to strike Israeli targets "serve partisan agenda contrary to the national interest" and the objectives of the National Authority.

He noted that a Palestinian Intelligence press conference will be held next Sunday to reveal details of what was carried out by the security services to detect cells and find weapons belonging to Hamas.

He pointed out that the Israeli daily incursions did not produce anything, so Israel decided to do a big, and thanks to the Authority and the security agencies and citizen awareness of the security agencies would continue to work to provide adequate internal security of the citizens of Nablus.
This sounds very much like a couple of months ago when the PA claimed, to much fanfare, to have discovered rockets in the West Bank - that turned out to have been pipes kids set up to imitate rockets. They are trying very hard to falsely show effectiveness of their huge security services when it is politically convenient when in fact they have done nothing against terror, and only have acted against some crimes like car theft.

(Notice also how they exclusively blame Hamas for weapons and explosive caches in the West Bank and don't say a word about Fatah's terror cells there.)
People love to talk about how al-Jazeera changed the face of Arab journalism. This is no doubt true, but as the New York Times notes, this hardly a matter of press freedom:
When a Saudi court sentenced a young woman to 200 lashes in November after she pressed charges against seven men who had raped her, the case provoked outrage and headlines around the world, including in the Middle East.

But not at Al Jazeera, the Arab world’s leading satellite television channel, seen by 40 million people. The station’s silence was especially noteworthy because until recently, and unlike almost all other Arab news outlets, Al Jazeera had long been willing — eager, in fact — to broadcast fierce criticisms of Saudi Arabia’s rulers.

For the past three months Al Jazeera, which once infuriated the Saudi royal family with its freewheeling newscasts, has treated the kingdom with kid gloves, media analysts say.

The newly cautious tone appears to have been dictated to Al Jazeera’s management by the rulers of Qatar, where Al Jazeera has its headquarters....

The policy also illustrates the way the Arab media, despite the new freedoms introduced by Al Jazeera itself a decade ago, are still often treated as political tools by the region’s autocratic rulers.

“The gulf nations now feel they are all in the same boat, because of the threat of Iran, and the chaos of Iraq and America’s weakness,” said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. “So the Qataris agreed to give the Saudis assurances about Al Jazeera’s coverage.”

Those assurances, Mr. Alani added, were given at a September meeting in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, between King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and top officials in the Qatari government. For the meeting, aimed at resolving a long-simmering feud between the nations, the Qataris brought along an unusual guest: the chairman of Al Jazeera’s board, Sheik Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani.

Repercussions were soon felt at Al Jazeera.

“Orders were given not to tackle any Saudi issue without referring to the higher management,” one Jazeera newsroom employee wrote in an e-mail message. “All dissident voices disappeared from our screens.”

The employee noted that coverage of Saudi Arabia was always politically motivated at Al Jazeera — in the past, top management used to sometimes force-feed the reluctant news staff negative material about Saudi Arabia, apparently to placate the Qatari leadership. But he added that the recent changes were seen in the newsroom as an even more naked assertion of political will.

“To improve their relations with Qatar, the Saudis wanted to silence Al Jazeera,” he wrote. “They got what they wanted.”
One of the things that make interpreting news from Arab news outlets difficult is having to know the spin that these sources use to begin with and filtering out the lies. Minstream journalists don't even seem to try.
(h/t EBoZ)

Thursday, January 03, 2008

  • Thursday, January 03, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ha'aretz:
Israel Defense Forces troops operating in the West Bank city of Nablus discovered Thursday evening two rockets that were in the process of being assembled.

The rockets, which resemble the Qassam rocket that has plagued communities along the Gaza Strip for years, already had fins and rods that were apparently intended to function as a launcher.

There have been several attempts in recent years to fire rockets at Israel from the West Bank, although in the past the rockets have only traveled a few dozen meters.

A military source said the secret cache was discovered thanks to IDF's freedom of operation in the West Bank, which has allowed it to thwart Palestinian attempts to develop rockets in the area.
And last night:
The al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, announced on Wednesday evening that it had launched a rocket at the Shaked settlement in the northern West Bank. There has not been any report of a rocket falling in the area.
It sounds like the second story is probably greatly exaggerated by the terrorists, but the first one sounds like it is only a matter of time before rockets hit Israel's center.

But meanwhile, in the south, ten rockets were fired on Thursday, including a Katyusha. Estimates vary on how many Katyusha rockets have been smuggled into Gaza under the watchful eyes of our friends the Egyptians, so far the number appears "small," perhaps a dozen or so. Of course, a Katyusha is more than just a deadly weapon - it is a terror weapon and can place all of Ashkelon under the same intolerable situation that Sderot is now in.

The escalation is clear. Israel's long-term reaction is far muddier.
  • Thursday, January 03, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
I've posted a bit about EU-BAM Rafah, the EU program to monitor the Rafah crossings. Its website has no press releases since September when it announced:
EUBAM Rafah maintains its full operational capability despite the closure of Rafah Crossing Point since 9 June 2007.

In remarks to journalists after the meeting Mr. Solana congratulated mission members for their excellent and important work which constitutes an essential aspect of the EU's support to the Palestinian Authority.

I have been wondering what exactly these people are doing. I dug up one other document on the EU website from December concerning their current activities; mostly they are now helping out another EU group called EU-COPPS.

And as of mid-November, they were still hiring.

It would be reasonable to get more details about this group that clearly has not done anything related to its mission for six months now, especially since there are multiple employees still on the EU payroll. So I emailed both the public relations head and deputy:

I am a blogger, following the news stories of Palestinians crossing the Rafah border in both directions since Hamas took over Gaza. My understanding from your website press release in July was that EUBAM has not completely given up on monitoring Rafah and keeps observers in the area. But I have been struck that there has been no official EUBAM comment on the reported violations of the original Rafah agreements between Israel, the EU, the PA and Egypt.

Specifically, I am referring to the Hajj pilgrims who traveled through Rafah to Egypt in mid-December, the possibility that they will return (since confirmed) through the same crossing (perhaps including known terrorists and millions of dollars,) as well as the reported movement of over a hundred members of Hamas and other militant groups from Egypt to Gaza through Rafah in September and October.

Is there any official EU-BAM comment on these activities? Are they condemned? In light of these activities, why are the observers still in the area? How many observers are there and who pays their salaries while they are waiting to re-deploy?

How many EU-BAM employees are there? What is the annual budget? Where are the EU-BAM employees still deployed in the Middle East staying?

Thank you very much for any response you can give.
I first emailed them on Sunday, and then twice more. The deputy email address bounces back. The main public relations person named Maria Telleria, who is living in the Dan Gardens Ashkelon Hotel on the Mediterranean, has not responded after repeated attempts. (Her number is 972 (0) 542 247 250.)

Anyone out there want to give it a try?
  • Thursday, January 03, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
This is an actual title of an article in the Yemen Times. To ensure that no one can accuse me of editing it to make it look worse than it is, here is the entire article - all I did was highlight some of the passages:
There must be violence against women
By: Maged Thabet Al-Kholidy majed_thabet@hotmail.com

This title may sound strange, but it’s actually not just a way to attract readers to the topic because I really do mean what it indicates. Violence is a broad term, especially when used regarding women. In this piece, I want to shed light on those instances where violence against women is a must.

First, we should know the meaning of the word violence. Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English defines violence as “behavior that is intended to hurt other people physically.” However, the term violence mustn’t be confused with other concepts and terms such as gender inequality or absence of women rights.

Occasionally – if not daily – we hear about events occurring in Islamic and Arab societies. Some human rights organizations recently have attacked violent acts against women, standing against any type of violence – even that between a father and daughter – and citing the cases of some women as examples.

Consequently, they offer solutions such as complaining to the police, taking revenge or leaving them men, who are either their husbands, fathers or brothers – with no exceptions.

One such case involved a woman whose husband allegedly had beaten her. Without revealing the husband’s reasons for doing so, such human rights organizations immediately urged the wife to complain to the police and the courts, while at the same time generalizing the instance and other similar solutions to any type of violence.

If a man and woman are husband and wife, the Qur’an provides solutions, firstly reaffirming any logical and acceptable reasons for such punishment. These solutions are in gradual phases and not just for women, but for men also.

For men, it begins with abandoning the marital bed, by opting to sleep elsewhere in the house. After this, they may discuss the matter with any respected person for the husband’s or the wife’s family, who could be in a position to advise the wife. If this also does not work, then the husband yields to beating the wife slightly. They do this because of a misunderstanding in the Quran, as the word says Darban, which is commonly understood today as beating. However, in Classic Arabic it means to set examples or to announce and proclaim. The more accurate meaning of this last one is that the husband finally has to set forth, to make a clear statement or proclamation, and if these measures fail, then divorce is preferable.

Similarly, wives may take actions such as abandoning the marital bed, following by leaving the husband’s home for that of their parents, brothers or any other relatives. They may do this more than once, but if such action fails, they may not continue to live with their husband and via their relatives, they may request a divorce.

Despite such instructions, beating is considered a type of violence, according to human rights organizations, which urge women to complain to the police. I just wonder what kind of families our societies would have if Muslim women started doing this regarding their husbands.

Relationships between fathers and daughters or sisters and brothers also provoke argument from human rights organizations, which propose the suggested solutions for all relationships. Personally, I don’t think fathers or brothers would undertake such behavior unless there was a reason for it.

Fathers are responsible for their daughters’ behavior, but human rights organizations deny this too. Brothers also should take action regarding their sisters’ behavior, especially if their parents are too old or dead. If a daughter or sister makes a mistake – especially a moral one – that negatively affects the entire family and its reputation, what’s the solution by such organizations?

According to them, women should complain to the courts about any type of violence against them. Likewise, should fathers and brothers complain to police if their daughters or sisters violate moral, Islamic or social norms?

Fathers should handle their daughters via any means that suits their mistake; thus, is it better to use violence to a certain limit or complain to the police? Shall such women then complain to the police against their fathers or brothers? It’s really amazing to hear this.

In some cases, violence is necessary, but there must be limits. Those “good human rights organizations” don’t make any exceptions in their solutions because their aim is to serve society. Will it be a better society once we see wives, mothers, sisters and daughters going from one police station and one court to another, complaining against their husbands, fathers, brothers and even sons?

As the proverb goes, “If the speaker is mad, the listener should be mindful.” This proverb is good advice for every man and woman not only to keep their ears open, but also to avoid the misleading propaganda of such organizations, whose surface aims hide other destructive ones to destroy society’s religious, social and moral norms. This matter requires consideration.

Dear readers – especially women – don’t think that I hate or am against women; rather, I simply mean to preserve the morals and principles with which Islam has honored us.

I hope my message is clear, since it’s really quite relevant to the future of our societies, which must be protected from any kind of cultural invasion.
Here we see justifications for wife beating, honor killings and child abuse, all in the name of "preserving morals."

The author is too obtuse to ask whether, using his exact logic, women have the right to use violence against men who are straying from their upstanding, Islamic character or otherwise violating "social norms."

UPDATE: I didn't see that Jihad Watch had already taken this article apart very nicely.
  • Thursday, January 03, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
From AFP:
An Egyptian woman is seeking clarification from a court on whether her husband's declaration of divorce by text message is legally valid, a state-run newpsaper reported on Thursday.

After missing a call from her husband on her mobile phone, Iqbal Abul Nasr received a text message from him saying "I divorce you because you didn't answer your husband," Al-Akhbar said.

In line with sharia (Islamic law) men do not need to go to court to file for divorce. A unilateral declaration of divorce by a man, repeated three times, formally ends a marriage.

It was the third time Abul Nasr, an engineer from Cairo, received a divorce text message from her husband, prompting her to seek a legal decision from the a family court on the status of her marriage.

If the court declares the couple divorced, it would be the first reported case of divorce by SMS in Egypt.

The subject of divorce by SMS has been highly debated across the Muslim world and some Islamic countries like Malaysia have banned the practice.

According to Egypt's state-run statistics bureau, a couple files for divorce every six minutes in Egypt.

In case there are any women out there I might have accidentally married the last time I was in Vegas, I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you.
  • Thursday, January 03, 2008
  • Elder of Ziyon
As much as "moderate" Arab countries try to present the West with the impression that their problem with Israel is merely the "occupation" from 1967, it doesn't take too much digging to find out the true aim, even today - the utter destruction of Israel.

Today's proof comes from a throw-away sentence in the Yemen Times, mourning the loss of its parliamentary speaker Sheikh Abdullah Bin Hussein Al-Ahmar.
Sheikh Al-Ahmar is one of a few personalities that gained sincere respect and highest consideration from all the Yemeni people, as the deceased proved to be ‘a man of national compromise’, thanks to his key role and direct contribution to resolving multiple national issues and defending the Yemeni Revolution since its early stages....

Throughout his life of struggle, the late sheikh played an effective role in addressing issues of the Arab and Islamic nations. Despite difficulties encountering his efforts, the man has been ever present with an effective contribution to addressing all the vital issues of high concern to the Islamic world. Palestine, for instance, had been always present and immortalized in the man’s mind until he passed away. Over years, the man used to give a top priority to purifying the Arab land from the Zionist occupation and dominance.
The idea of an Aryan-like "purification" of "Arab land" is not assumed to be objectionable or controversial; it is a given that the Yemen Times readership will, in total, agree with that aim. The existence of a Jewish state is considered a pollution of the great Arab nation, something that must be excised completely. Almost certainly, all Arabs would prefer to see the entire country uninhabited than to have Jews control it. It is not a political issue nor an issue of putative "justice" - one doesn't use the word "purification" in a political or judicial context. It is Arab shame that drives their thinking, and everything else is a smokescreen to justify what is in the end a visceral hatred.

This is what can be found not far beneath the surface of all Arab thinking; perhaps as a temporary measure they will insist publicly for the end of the "occupation" but their real aims are pretty easy to still discern, as they were before 1967.
A number of JBloggers have already talked about the outrageous ruling by public security minister Avi Dichter that Jews are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, or at least move their lips in prayer:
Dichter wrote his interpretation of Israeli law "is in line with the rationale that bans Jews from praying at the site, in light of serious concerns that this will serve as a provocation, resulting in disorder, with a near certain likelihood of subsequent bloodshed."
This is eerily reminiscent of the British rulings in wake of the 1929 Arab riots that Jews blowing a shofar at the Western Wall after Yom Kippur was also a "provocation" and cannot be allowed (my images of newspaper clippings are missing but the posting is still there.) Not to mention the more recent arrest a year ago of Jews blowing a shofar at the Kotel haKatan on Rosh HaShanah.

What Dichter doesn't understand is that by stopping these "provocations" he is not appeasing anybody, so not only does he hurt Jews who want to worship - an egregious human rights violation - he is not even accomplishing what he intends to.

The Arabic press is not reporting this as a victory - they are upset that Jews are allowed to go to the Temple Mount altogether. From Ma'an Arabic:
warned Sheikh Mohammed Hussein General Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian - Preacher of the Holy Al Aqsa Mosque - from the occupation authorities to allow any of the extremist Jewish settlers and prayer in the Al-Aqsa mosque yards.

This came in response to a request by two members of the Knesset, the Israeli occupation authorities to allow them to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and demonstrate linkages.

The Mufti told a press received "Together," a copy of which, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in all precincts and accompany the mosque to worship Muslims alone may not be the object of this was to change the situation or interfere in the affairs of the mosque to impose a new reality, the occupation authorities blaming the serious consequences of such These prayers, which comes in the context of repeated incursions to the mosque.

He called on citizens and Mufti Ebrahim Al-Aqsa mosque to take more caution and prudence of heroes and the failure of such schemes.

The Mufti rejection of this aggressive designs against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, reminding Balaguetham done by Sharon before eight years of Al-Aqsa Mosque and led to the occurrence of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, stressing that the Palestinians and Muslims will keep a firm barrier against any attempts to interfere with or harm the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and its facilities.

Mufti also called the Arab and Islamic leaders and peoples, governments need to move to shoulder their responsibilities religious and historical preservation of the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque and with the increasing Israeli attempts to attack by all ways and means of the occupation authorities against the Palestinians and sanctities.
And from Palestine Today (Arabic):
For his part, Sheikh Ekrema Sabri warned President of the Supreme Islamic in the occupied Jerusalem in the press statement following the meeting the immediate urgency of the body yesterday of the imminent danger posed to the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Sheikh Sabri described this statement as a serious development betrays a right-wing Israeli government's intentions that are subject to the wishes of pressure groups and Jewish religious extremist, calling on the Palestinians to overcome their internal differences and pay heed to these threats to the Al Aqsa Mosque.
By acceding to absurd Muslim demands in the name of religion, Dichter is giving Arabs veto power over anything that happens anywhere, as they use the fig leaf of "religion" to accomplish political goals. This is another way that terrorism has won - the supposed "Al Aqsa Intifada" has pushed Israeli leaders who don't care about their own religion to violate the human rights of Jews who do care to toe the line, accept second class status and keep the shtetl mentality of not upsetting the gentiles - all in the name of an illusory "peace" that will never, ever come.

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