Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Elder of Ziyon
Tuesday, January 29, 2008Elder of ZiyonChief of the Gaza Strip's union of fuel companies, Mahmoud Al-Khizindar affirmed on Tuesday that the fuel companies refused to receive the fuel shipment from Israel to the Gaza Strip save the natural gas and the fuel for running the electricity generating station.What a desperate humanitarian crisis it must be for the poor, starving, candle-lit Gazans to have the luxury of not accepting that much-needed fuel.
He pointed out that Israel reduced the fuel supplies to 10% of the needed amounts of fuel. As a result, all gas stations in the Gaza Strip closed and cars remained dependent of the fuel which has been brought from Egypt after the border walls in Rafah have been opened by force.
Al-Khizindar also explained that so far Israel has shipped 2.8 million litres of diesel over the past 12 days to the power generating station, and they were supposed to ship 2.2 million litres per week. As a result, the station could not operate in full capacity.
Over the past 12 days, Israel has been sending 50 thousand litres of gasoline per day, 10 thousand of which goes to the UN. The Gaza Strip usually consumes 120 thousand litres per day, and that reduction coerced the fuel companies to abstain from receiving the fuel supplies.
As for diesel, the Israelis have been shipping 350 thousand litres per day while the Gaza Strip needs 700 thousand litres per day.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008Elder of ZiyonI have succeeded in making peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In an interview preceding the Annapolis Conference, Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiator Saeb Erakat claimed that peace could be delivered in half an hour. The basis, everyone already knows, is the Clinton draft: two states with border adjustments and division of Jerusalem. In my case, peace took two hours -- or, well, two years. I delivered it in 2009. I watched the express train glide through the Safe Passage from Gaza to the West Bank. I brought together Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian farmers; we are planning a tri-state organic cooperative. Jerusalem is the capital for all. Euphoria!This is amazing - a blueprint of roughly what Kadima is very possibly planning to do in the guise of a computer game, together with absurdly optimistic results from these "wise" decisions (not to mention the wishful thinking of an 80% approval mark.) Starry-eyed dreams abounds even as it pretends to tackle reality. It even includes Olmert's decision to push off talking about Jerusalem until he can pretend that it is going to solve itself.
How did I pull this off? As a subscriber to the Israeli daily Haaretz, I received, in advance of Annapolis, a computer game from the workshop of the Peres Peace Center. It begins with a survey of the conflict from 1922 until the end of 2007. I was offered the choice of being either the Israeli or the Palestinian leader. I chose the former. The game set me the goal of lowering the level of violence, providing Israelis with a feeling of security, and improving the economy. In addition, I was supposed to make life easier in the occupied territories and advance toward a peace agreement. I was provided with a range of tools, including the "stick" of selective assassinations, air strikes, curfews, etc. and the "carrot" of opening roadblocks, granting permits to work in Israel, and economic cooperation (as a reward to the PA for combating terrorism). I could also expand or dismantle the settlements and initiate projects to improve the Israeli economy, such as tax breaks or aid to the elderly.
On the international scene, I worked with the US (which always cooperated), the UN (most of whose members were skeptical about my intentions) and the European Union (which was not especially helpful).
The game is complex. If your disapproval rating climbs beyond 70 percent, it's all over and you go home to feather your nest. It was no coincidence that peacemaking took me two years. It was very hard to supply security to the Israelis and prosperity to the Palestinians while sticking to the rules and conditions, which reflected actual events.
Every time I rewarded the Palestinians, my disapproval rating in Israel soared, but do you think the Palestinians were satisfied? Not at all. They just wanted more. Because of them I almost lost my coalition.
Right at the start, on the day I took office, there was a major suicide bombing: 18 dead and 40 wounded. I turned to the PA president and demanded he take action against the militants (my disapproval rating in Israel jumped to 20 percent). He said I had a lot of nerve to demand such a thing after destroying his security apparatus. I offered to help and build it anew -- but got clobbered by him and my own right wing. My Israeli disapproval rating climbed to 30 percent. I added roadblocks and performed a few selective assassinations. Israeli disapproval dropped accordingly to 10 percent, but Palestinian disapproval now rose to 20 percent. In order to stabilize the situation, I gave a speech for peace in English (the pundits were underwhelmed). I turned to the US president for help in restarting negotiations, and I let in 5,000 Palestinian workers. The settlers raised a ruckus, but I managed to calm them. I initiated a tax cut to spur the economy. My approval rating rose by five percentage points on both sides, Israeli and Palestinian.
Then I spent half a year learning how to make a stable government. Conclusion: fight terrorism as if there are no peace negotiations, and negotiate peace as if there is no terrorism!
For two years I went back and forth between selective assassinations and dismantling illegal settler outposts, between getting American aid and stabilizing the PA president by restoring his economy. I handed out a lot of work permits.
By the 18-month mark I was getting approval from more than 50 percent of Israelis and Palestinians. I could afford to absorb a suicide attack here and there, because the economy was stable on both sides of the Green Line and the Palestinians had something to lose. The PA president grew stronger and began to suppress the militants. When at last we ran the train between Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas caved in. I understood that we had passed the point of no return. I then started dismantling settlements. The settlers again raised a ruckus, but I clobbered them. A few cabinet ministers jumped ship, but the Zionist Left gave me backing to continue. I added joint patrols in order to raise the feeling of security, and I reached the 80 percent approval mark. I got word that in Nablus people had started to smile. I was euphoric. I agreed to allow 100,000 Palestinian refugees into Israel, and I released prisoners with blood on their hands. To my great surprise, this didn't seem to bother the Israeli public. I came to the end of the game. I didn't have to trouble myself about dividing Jerusalem. I received an announcement on the screen that it was already divided, accompanied by a notice thanking me for bringing peace. Now the game suggested that I play the part of the Palestinian leader.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008Elder of Ziyon
Tuesday, January 29, 2008Elder of ZiyonThe situation of the Palestinians in Gaza, and the barbaric oppression from which they suffer, are saddening. But it is equally saddening that they live under a leadership that does not understand that the role of a leadership is to protect the people and guarantee their security and livelihood... Today there is no choice but to tell the truth... instead of continuing to [exploit] the Palestinian cause..."
"What is the point of these [rocket attacks]... that increase the suffering of 1.5 million Palestinians, but do not cause Israel any military harm or induce it to make political concessions? Hamas' rocket [attacks] amount to a suicide operation that sacrifices the security of all the residents of Gaza. What is the point of all this spilt Palestinian blood and all this suffering? All those rockets [fired by] Hamas did no more than injure 10 Israelis. Where is the war that Hamas is talking about?...Not only that, but a recent poll taken of Palestinian Arabs finds that 59% of PalArabs disagree with Hamas' shooting rockets into Israel and 61% say Hamas should recognize Israel, both higher numbers than in the past. 70% prefer the PA strategy to Hamas'."Hamas' stupidly [only] caused harm: it gave Israel the opportunity of [forcibly] retaliating against the launching of a few rockets that are nothing but pieces of scrap metal.
"Previously, [Hamas] committed another grave crime against the Palestinian people, by carrying out a coup against the Palestinian Authority.
"The people of Gaza have suffered greatly as a result of Hamas' behavior..."
Monday, January 28, 2008Elder of Ziyon
media biasIsrael began tightening its blockade of the Gaza Strip after an increase in rocket attacks by militants targeting its settlements near the border.
As CAMERA notes:
Israel withdrew its military and civilian settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Sderot--the prime target of Palestinian rocket and mortar fire--is a city in the western Negev, well within Israel's pre-1967 borders. Yet it is still a "settlement" to BBC journalists who consistently label Israeli settlements "illegal under international law". Does this mean that BBC now considers all of Israel to be "illegal under international law"?Alas, the BBC is not the only one to do this. Check out this passage from an op-ed in the Telegraph (UK):
This massive demonstration of people power continued again all day yesterday, as thousands more made their way across the border to buy much-needed goods and supplies. These have been in short supply in recent weeks after the Israeli military intensified its stranglehold on the enclave, following a series of rocket attacks on nearby Israeli settlements.And AP, quoted in the Jerusalem Post:
Israel sealed off Gaza last weak, halting fuel shipments and shutting down its only power plant, which provides electricity to about one-third of Gaza's 1.5 million residents after militants launched rocket attacks on Israeli settlements.No doubt these media outlets would argue that they are using the word "settlement" in its more general sense, but (for better or for worse) that word is now a keyword referring to Jewish towns and villages that happen to be built on disputed land, and the word is almost always used in a pejorative manner by these same media.
Monday, January 28, 2008Elder of Ziyon"We would like to take this opportunity," the letter says, "to rectify a historic missed opportunity which unfortunately took place in 1965 when you were invited to Israel. Unfortunately, the State of Israel cancelled your performance in the country due to lack of budget and because several politicians in the Knesset had believed at the time that your performance might corrupt the minds of the Israeli youth."One can only imagine what would have happened had the Beatles arrived...
Monday, January 28, 2008Elder of Ziyon(autotranslated)Palestinian merchants who crossed in the last few days to the Egyptian territories for the purchase and needs to clinch deals to supply humanitarian needs of the sector, dealers Egyptians "The Hamas movement illegally provided a number of traders and citizens with counterfeit currencies to be used in Egyptian territory to the needs of wills and goods ".One of the commenters gave the names of two alleged Hamas counterfeiters in Rafah.
He added traders and citizens that "elements of the militia movement Hamas provided currencies amounting to" hundreds of thousands of dollars that were "forged for inclusion in the Egyptian market and access to the goods and return trade deals have these militias share in these deals."
They pointed out that they have already managed to introduce these funds to the Egyptian market and the purchase of goods and basic needs and delivery of assistance to the Gaza Strip militia movement Hamas.
Monday, January 28, 2008Elder of ZiyonInternational law authorizes Israel to initiate military countermeasures in Gaza. If Gaza is properly seen as having independent sovereignty, Israel's use of force is permissible on the grounds of self-defense. If Gaza is properly seen as lacking any independent sovereignty, Israel's use of military force is permissible as in other non-international conflicts.
- The rule of "distinction" includes elements of intent and expected result: so long as one aims at legitimate targets, the rule of distinction permits the attack, even if there will be collateral damage to civilians. The rule of "proportionality" also relies upon intent. If Israel plans a strike without expecting excessive collateral damage, the rule of proportionality permits it. Israeli attacks to date have abided by the rules of distinction and proportionality.
- Israel's imposition of economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip is a perfectly legal means of responding to Palestinian attacks. Since Israel is under no legal obligation to engage in trade of fuel or anything else with Gaza, or to maintain open borders, it may withhold commercial items and seal its borders at its discretion.
- The bar on collective punishment forbids the imposition of criminal-type penalties to individuals or groups on the basis of another's guilt. None of Israel's actions involve the imposition of criminal-type penalties.
- There is no legal basis for maintaining that Gaza is occupied territory. The Fourth Geneva Convention refers to territory as occupied where the territory is of a state party to the convention and the occupier "exercises the functions of government" in the territory. Gaza is not territory of another state party to the convention and Israel does not exercise the functions of government in the territory.
- The fighting in Gaza has been characterized by the extensive commission of war crimes, acts of terrorism and acts of genocide by Palestinians, while Israeli countermeasures have conformed with the requirements of international law. International law requires states to take measures to bring Palestinian war criminals and terrorists to justice, to prevent and punish Palestinian genocidal efforts, and to block the funding of Palestinian terrorist groups and those complicit with them.
Sunday, January 27, 2008Elder of Ziyon
Sunday, January 27, 2008Elder of ZiyonA Wall Street stockbroker fears for her life after she rebuffed a Brooklyn imam she met on a Muslim dating Web site.
In an explosive $50 million lawsuit that blows the lid off the wacky world of Muslim dating in New York, Cherine Allaithy alleges the religious leader promised he would make her one of four future wives and boasted of a cousin in al Qaeda. When she dumped him, he trashed her reputation in the Arab press.
The imam, Tarek Youssoff Hassan Saleh, 42, says Allaithy is a loose, mentally unstable woman. He has filed criminal charges against her in Brooklyn for allegedly destroying two computers at the Oulel-Albab mosque in Bay Ridge. He also claims she threatened to frame him for rape.
Allaithy, 32, says she met the imam, who goes by the name Sheikh Saleh, online at the Muslim Matrimonial Network site in May 2007. They courted for a month.
In June, she claims in court documents, Saleh proposed marriage, telling her she would have to start wearing a veil and be subservient to him.
When Allaithy rejected the sheik's proposal, she alleges, he suggested they have a temporary marriage, or mu'ta, so they could have sex without committing a sin.
Allaithy again declined. In the meantime, she started dating Bessem Elhajj, an engineer also living in Bay Ridge.
Saleh said Allaithy two-timed him with Elhajj. She came to Saleh in August, the imam told The Post, distraught that Elhajj had broken up with her.
Saleh insists he is single and not actively seeking four wives. Allegations contained in the court documents say he used Arab-language newspapers to accuse Elhajj of being a womanizer bent on luring Muslim women into temporary marriages.
Allaithy attempted to reconcile with Elhajj and in August went to the mosque, where Saleh lives, to beg him to stop the newspaper stories. He told her she would be exposed next in the press, according to court papers.
In order to prevent her name from being smeared, she said, she ran into his bedroom, grabbed two laptops, and threw them in the sink.
Saleh responded by beating her up, she claims in court papers.
In another article referenced in the complaint, Saleh alleged she came to the mosque to threaten to have him charged with rape.
According to Allaithy's court claims, the sheik sent her an e-mail describing her as "a trashy and lustful woman, a weeping and cursed Jewish woman."...
"This is a dishonor to my entire family, every member. My parents disowned me. Basically, he's ruined my life," she told The Post. "I have to clean my name."
Worst of all, she fears she is now a target for an "honor killing" by al Qaeda, according to court papers. Saleh admitted to The Post that a distant relative is a member of the terrorist organization, but said he has had no communication with him.
Elhajj, the man in the middle, said he has washed his hands of both of them.
"He's crazy," he said of the imam. "He says he's a holy man, but it's just a cover to go after women."
And of Allaithy: "She's a child, she's stupid. She went to him to come after me, but it backfired. He went after her instead."
Sunday, January 27, 2008Elder of ZiyonPeople don’t usually receive condolence messages for the death of animals. But Abdullah ibn Fahaad Al-Fasam Al-Dossari, owner of the most beautiful camel in the world, Mashoufan, received many such messages from camel lovers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries after his camel died last week following a disease.Saudi beauty pageants are a big business:
Mashoufan, which had won first prizes in camel beauty contests for a number ofyears, was valued at more than SR17 million before its death. Its progeny include 60 male and 40 female camels.
The most beautiful among them include Mashoufa, Zalban, Masruban and Mazaal. Mashoufa won second place in a contest and is likely to get the title of the most beautiful female camel in the world, according to Al-Madinah daily.
The legs are long, the eyes are big, the bodies curvaceous.At least the Saudi ideas of honor for their females is not limited to humans.
Contestants in this Saudi-style beauty pageant have all the features you might expect anywhere else in the world, but with one crucial difference -- the competitors are camels.
"In Lebanon they have Miss Lebanon," jokes Walid, moderator of the competition's Web site. "Here we have Miss Camel."
Camels are a big business in a country where strict Islamic laws and tribal customs would make it impossible for women to take part in their own beauty contest.
Delicate females or strapping males who attract the right attention during this week's show could sell for a million or more riyals. Sponsors have provided 10 million riyals ($2.7 million) for the contest, cash that also covers the 72 sports utility vehicles to be will be awarded as prizes.
"Beautiful, beautiful!" the judge mutters quietly to himself, inspecting the group. Finalists have been decorated with silver bands and body covers.
"The nose should be long and droop down, that's more beautiful," explains Sultan al-Qahtani, one of the organizers. "The ears should stand back, and the neck should be long. The hump should be high, but slightly to the back."
Some females have harnesses strapped around their genitalia to thwart any efforts by the males to mount them. One repeat offender called Marjaa has been moved away.
Sunday, January 27, 2008Elder of ZiyonAcademic fraud, book review[T]he U.N. General Assembly voted by more than a two-thirds majority in favor of partition and the establishment of Jewish and Arab states. The Palestinians and the Arab states rejected the resolution and vowed to prevent its implementation. Throughout the Arab world the cry went up for "jihad." On November 30, 1947, the day after the partition vote, Arab gunmen ambushed two Jewish buses near Petah Tikva, killing seven passengers and wounding others, and Arab snipers began firing from Jaffa into Tel Aviv's streets, killing a passerby and wounding others. These attacks marked the start of the war. The Arab Higher Committee, the Palestinian Arab community's "government," called for a general strike, in the course of which an Arab mob poured out of Jerusalem's Old City and looted and torched the New Commercial District. The civil war had begun.Similarly, Khalidi spends much time describing how poorly equipped and organized the Arab armies and Palestinian Arabs were compared to the Zionists:
Although it was not initially apparent, in the fighting during the first phase of the war between the Hagana and its Arab opponents, the former were considerably superior to the latter in weaponry, numbers, and organization. Their most important assets, besides these advantages, was unity of command.Morris, the only one of them who is a true historian of primary sources, describes things quite differently:
In truth, the forces in Palestine during the civil war half of 1948 (November 1947 to mid-May 1948), were more or less evenly matched in terms of armed manpower. The roughly eight hundred Arab villages and towns of Palestine had, between them, some 25,000 to 30,000 armed men (albeit with inadequate ammunition stockpiles). Add to this the reasonably well-armed roving bands and the ALA, and one gets a force about equal to the Haganah's. The Haganah probably had fewer arms, but they were better munitioned.This next section shows Khalidi's biases and disregard for truth - while trying to be technically accurate - even more starkly:
But the real difference lay in organization and mentality. The Jews were relatively well organized, and thought and acted like a nation. The Palestinians were not organized, and mostly acted out of a village-centered mentality: there was no national mobilization; each village fought alone, and fell alone, and those not engaged kept their distance from the trouble. The Palestinians had only themselves to blame for their poor preparation and performance in 1948.
For the first few months of the fighting, until March 1948, the Palestinians nevertheless appeared to be holding their own. They maintained control over most Arab-inhabited regions of Palestine, and managed repeatedly to cut the roads linking major cities and some of the isolated Jewish settlements, including at the end of March the critically important road from the cost to Jerusalem. However, as soon as the Haganah and its allies went on a nationwide offensive early in April 1948, on the basis of a military plan for linking up most of the major Jewish-inhabited regions of the country, known as Plan Dalet, they rapidly showed their overwhelming superiority. By the end of their offensive, they had overrun the major coastal cities with large Arab populations, Haifa, Acre, and Jaffa, as well as Tiberias, Beisan, and other cities and towns, and scores of villages, and set hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on the road to exile.Compare with Morris' much more complete and accurate narrative:
...This hodgepodge of irregulars managed by late March 1948 to halt Jewish convoy traffic and to besiege, and to mortally threaten, isolated Jewish communities, notably Jerusalem. By then, tens of thousands of Arabs and Jews, fearing war's fury, had moved out of embattled or vulnerable urban and rural areas. For the Palestinians, this marked the start of the refugee exodus.Morris accurately describes how the fighting began - how the Zionists remained on the defensive while the Arabs attacked at will, starting the day after the partition vote. Khalidi describes the Hagana's defensive posture against brutally aggressive Arab attacks as the Palestinian Arabs "holding their own."
Between November 1947 and March 1948, the Jews remained strategically on the defensive, and did not conquer or destroy Arab villages. (There were two exceptions, Qisariya and Arab Sukrir.) Things changed radically in early April 1948: the Haganah, with its back to the wall, especially in Jerusalem and along the roads, and facing imminent invasion by the Arab states' armies, switched to the offensive, and within six weeks overran Arab areas, including Jaffa and (Arab) Haifa, and defeated the Palestinian militias, inducing chaos and mass flight.
...the only Arab armies that actually entered Palestine were those of Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, and Syria." Moreover, by prior agreements between King Abdullah ant the Jewish Agency, and between 'Abdullah and Britain, the most powerful and combat worthy of these armies, the Transjordanian Arab Legion and the Iraqi forces that were under'Abdullah's command and control), never crossed into the territory allotted to the Jewish state. These two armies fought Israeli troops only in the area originally assigned to the Arab state, or in the area of Jerusalem —which according to the partition plan was supposed to have been an international corpus separatum -and thus they never invaded the territory of the Jewish state.Notice how the impression one gets from reading this is that no Arab army invaded the Jewish state, although he doesn't really say it - Khalidi's hallmark of giving impressions at odds with the facts.
The Syrian Army, after invading Israel and before being bested at the Deganias, conquered and destroyed two kibbutzim, Masada and Shaar Hagolan, on May 18, inside Israel; the Iraqi Army invaded Israeli territory and unsuccessfully assaulted Kibbutz Gesher and nearby positions before moving to the northern West Bank; and the Egyptian Army, while halting, or being forced by the IDF to halt, at Isdud (Ashdod) in early June 1948, invaded and conquered Israeli territory between the Gaza Strip and Beersheba and between Majdal (Ashkelon) and Beit Jibrin. Lastly, while the Jordanian Army did not invade Israeli territory, it did much more than take up "defensive positions" in the Old City of Jerusalem. It conquered, and razed, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and took up positions in Latrun, Lydda, and Ramle, blocking the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road and laying siege to the holy city. And on May 12- 14, before the pan-Arab invasion began, the Legion attacked and destroyed the settlements of the Etzion bloc.Perhaps Khalidi's greatest misrepresentation is with regard to the comparative amount of land that the Jews and the Arabs owned:
In short, the neighboring Arab states (save for Lebanon) and Iraq simultaneously, on May 15, attacked Israel, its settlements, and its territory. One of their aims was to destroy, or at least to mortally wound, Israel, if not to eradicate the Yishuv. The documentary proof is abundant. The Arab armies' actions in mid-May speak louder than a thousand atlases. That the Arab armies were "ill-prepared" and incompetent does not diminish the fact of their aggression. And there can be little doubt that had the invading armies, including Jordan's, encountered no or weak resistance, they would have pushed on to Tel Aviv.
[The Zionists] knew full well that as late as 1948, Jewish-owned land in Palestine amounted to only about 7 percent of the country's total land area (and only 10.6 percent of its privately owned land, including much of the country's best arable land), that the vast bulk of the country's privately owned land and much of its urban property was in Arab hands.Again we see a combination of choosing convenient sources and purposefully ignoring salient facts. Morris again:
In reality, Jews owned about 6 to 7 percent of Palestine's land surface, and the Arabs owned around 20 percent, and the rest was public or state-owned.Notice how easily one gets the impression that 90% of the land belonged to Arabs from Khalidi's description, as he ignores the amount of public land that shows that Arabs didn't own most of the land of Palestine - exploding one of the biggest and most pervasive myths there are from the Arab narrative.
Sunday, January 27, 2008Elder of Ziyon
Sunday, January 27, 2008Elder of ZiyonAcademic fraud, book reviewIn fact, access to those levers (of state power) was systematically denied to anyone of Arab background. The low ceiling that Arab functionaries came up against is best illustrated by the case of George Antonius, an urbane, articulate Cambridge-educated (but Lebanese-born) official of the mandatory government, who...was repeatedly passed over for responsible posts, as mediocre British subordinates were promoted over his head, until he finally resigned in disgust. Similar limitations did not apply to Jewish officials, if they were British by origin rather than Palestinian: among them were the first high commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel and Norman Bentwich, attorney general of Palestine until 1930, both deeply committed Zionists. By way of contrast, although a few senior British officials might well be considered anti-Zionist, pro-Arab, or even anti-Semitic, from the beginning of the British occupation of Palestine in 1917 until its bitter end in 1948, none of the top appointees of the mandatory administration outside the judiciary were Arabs.Khalidi's dishonesty is subtle but representative: he decries the lack of Palestinian Arabs in high positions of the mandatory government but rather than contrast that with the number of Palestinian Jews (which would be the exact analogy) he instead mentions that some of the officials were British Zionists. He then goes on to admit that some of the senior British officials were pro-Arab - the exact analogy with those who were pro-Zionist. In other words, from parsing his sentences one can see that he has proven nothing about British pro-Zionist leanings from his proofs; he purposefully conflates British Zionists with Palestinian Zionists and he refuses to do the same between British Arabists and Palestinian Arabs, thus subtly using his command of the language to give an impression that is not borne out by his own facts, but one that the reader could be forgiven for not noticing.
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PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
