Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, February 22, 2008

BBC's "Monopoly" on anti-semitism

Many other JBloggers have been dealing with the issue of Jerusalem on the Monopoly board during this past week. As CNN summarizes:

Monopoly, the world's best-selling board game, is going global. A simple idea, substituting the iconic properties of the original game with hallmark cities of the world.

Hasbro is letting people vote on its Web site for which cities to include in the new game.

In this celebration of capitalism, would-be moguls could buy up properties in cities such as Moscow, Russia; Tokyo, Japan and Jerusalem, Israel.

Wait. Nix that last one -- at least the Israel part.

Given the white-hot controversy over Israel -- the world's most fought-over piece of real estate -- should the board game refer to "Jerusalem, Israel" even though Palestinians say Jerusalem will be the capital of any future Palestinian state? Should it say "Jerusalem, Palestine?"

Instead of rolling the dice, parent company Hasbro is taking the middle ground.

The company is letting people vote on its Web site for which cities to include in the new game -- "Dublin, Ireland" for example. It recently removed "Israel" after "Jerusalem" and then eventually removed all of the country names.

Hasbro told The Associated Press that a mid-level employee decided on her own to take out "Israel" after pro-Palestinian groups and bloggers complained -- sparking even more protests from the other side.

"It was never our intention to print any countries on the final boards and any online tags were merely used as a geographic reference to help with city selection," Hasbro said in a written statement. "We would never want to enter into any political debate. We apologize for any upset this has caused our Monopoly fans."

The BBC, when talking about the issue a few days ago in a "diary" by Tim Franks, decided for some bizarre reason to use it as a springboard to accuse Israeli Jews of racism:

Yehiel Leiter is the director general of One Jerusalem, a group that, in its mission statement, declares a single objective: "Maintaining a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel."

The Monopoly campaign, says Leiter, "puts Jerusalem on the table. It has people not avoid Jerusalem because it's contested".

The group also says it has handed out 128,000 golden ribbons on the streets of Jerusalem (the colour is because of the song, "Jerusalem of Gold").

Mudi had a golden ribbon fluttering from the wing mirror of his taxi, until recently.

But Mudi is unusual, in that he is an Israeli Arab.

"The truth is," he told me, as I sat alongside him in his taxi, "Jewish people, especially religious people, won't stop any taxi driven by an Arab."

But when they see a golden ribbon, says Mudi, "they know no Arab guy would have it on his car".

Mudi has another advantage: he says he does not "look" like an Arab, and he speaks Hebrew fluently. Passengers mistake him for a Jew.

"And very, very few people are not prejudiced," in what they say to him. At least, that is the case in Jerusalem.

"In Tel Aviv," he says, "it is exactly the opposite. They don't care I'm an Arab".

When his Jerusalem passengers disembark, Mudi says he tells them that his name is, in fact, Mahmoud.

He says, though, that he has not felt "comfortable" with the ribbon. Indeed, the other day, when he was washing his taxi, he ripped it off, and so far has not replaced it.

Still, many of his Arab colleagues continue to tie a ribbon around their rear-view or wing mirrors, in order not to put off potential customers.

Some, says Mudi, even wear a yarmulke (Jewish skullcap).

Our intrepid BBC reporter, of course, bases his accusation that Jews refuse to go into Arab taxicabs based on a sample size of one, and many Israelis wrote to comment that the reporter was a bit off:

I am an Israeli Arab and I also tend to be a bit concerned when near the Palestinian controlled areas when geting into a taxi, as for the rest of Israel there are no such problems. Please don't try and make some racialist stories out of Israeli Jews, they are my fellow citizens!
Dr Moukie Fallah, Herzalia Israel

Firstly, the taxi story is obviously made up. Most taxi drivers here are Arabs, so waiting to find a Jewish one would take for ever. Also there is no way of telling if the taxi is driven by an Arab or a Jew and quite frankly we dont care! Secondly, even as a voter of Israel's most Left wing party, there is still no denying that J'lem is Israel's capital...so why not have it listed like that. Most Arabs in Jerusalem want to stay part of Israel and most are rushing to get citizenship.
Yoni, Jerusalem, Israel

I spent two years in Jerusalem and never heard of anyone avoiding an Arab taxi!
Avi, Manchester, UK

About the Mudi story: who cares who drives? In my work place most of the drivers are Israeli Arabs - and nobody cares. The story don't reflect nothing about the general situation here.
Shimon, student, Ben Gurion University, Israel

I am a non-Jewish American who lived in Jerusalem for over a year recently, and I still travel there several times a week to go to school. None of my Jewish Israeli friends has ever expressed any reservations about taking cabs driven by Arabs. We're students, and life in Jerusalem is not cheap, so we usually take the first guy who gives us a fair price. As others have pointed out, you can't necessarily tell at first whether he's Arab or Jewish or Klingon anyway.
Taybeh Chaser

The reason many Jerusalemites avoid Arab taxis is not, as you insuate by your lack of explanation, because they are racists. Most people do it out of fear of being driven into Arab East Jerusalem or Ramallah, for criminal or terrorist / political purposes. Jews in Tel Aviv are not fussed by the affiliation of their taxi drivers because there are no dangerous areas near Tel Aviv.
Shaya, Manchester, UK

I am Jewish & religious. I lived in Jerusalem for 28 years. Although I don't live there any more my parents do. I have used taxis all my life so I find Mudy's story awkward and strange. Never in my life, I checked up if the taxi driver is an Arab or not. Most recently I was sitting in a cab and the taxi driver's name was Muhamed, we discussed all the way to my parents' house and eventually finished our conversation blessing each other. So BBC, please stop this nonsense!
Joseph Elboim, Beit Shemesh, Israel

Something is not quite right in the Mudi story. All Israeli taxis have a prominent notice showing the driver's name, licence number and photograph. Consequently it would be very difficult for him to disguise his origins.
Victor Leaf, London, UK

Clearly, the BBC reporter decided to use the Monopoly story as a means to get in some old fashioned anti-semitism into a "respectable" article. It would never occur to him that "Mudi" is the one who shows the most bigotry - because the BBC doesn't want to, God forbid, accuse Arabs of racism.

Only Jews.

Benny Morris' letter to The Irish Times

Historian Benny Morris wrote a nice letter to The Irish Times in response to an January 31 op-ed by Irish Senator David Norris and a letter by David Landy (not online for free) Here it is (hat tip Solomonia):

Madam, - Israel-haters are fond of citing - and more often, mis-citing - my work in support of their arguments. Let me offer some corrections. The Palestinian Arabs were not responsible "in some bizarre way" (David Norris, January 31st) for what befell them in 1948. Their responsibility was very direct and simple. In defiance of the will of the international community, as embodied in the UN General Assembly Resolution of November 29th, 1947 (No. 181), they launched hostilities against the Jewish community in Palestine in the hope of aborting the emergence of the Jewish state and perhaps destroying that community. But they lost; and one of the results was the displacement of 700,000 of them from their homes. It is true, as Erskine Childers pointed out long ago, that there were no Arab radio broadcasts urging the Arabs to flee en masse; indeed, there were broadcasts by several Arab radio stations urging them to stay put. But, on the local level, in dozens of localities around Palestine, Arab leaders advised or ordered the evacuation of women and children or whole communities, as occurred in Haifa in late April, 1948. And Haifa's Jewish mayor, Shabtai Levy, did, on April 22nd, plead with them to stay, to no avail. Most of Palestine's 700,000 "refugees" fled their homes because of the flail of war (and in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders). But it is also true that there were several dozen sites, including Lydda and Ramla, from which Arab communities were expelled by Jewish troops. The displacement of the 700,000 Arabs who became "refugees" - and I put the term in inverted commas, as two-thirds of them were displaced from one part of Palestine to another and not from their country (which is the usual definition of a refugee) - was not a "racist crime" (David Landy, January 24th) but the result of a national conflict and a war, with religious overtones, from the Muslim perspective, launched by the Arabs themselves. There was no Zionist "plan" or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of "ethnic cleansing". Plan Dalet (Plan D), of March 10th, 1948 (it is open and available for all to read in the IDF Archive and in various publications), was the master plan of the Haganah - the Jewish military force that became the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) - to counter the expected pan-Arab assault on the emergent Jewish state. That's what it explicitly states and that's what it was. And the invasion of the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq duly occurred, on May 15th. It is true that Plan D gave the regional commanders carte blanche to occupy and garrison or expel and destroy the Arab villages along and behind the front lines and the anticipated Arab armies' invasion routes. And it is also true that mid-way in the 1948 war the Israeli leaders decided to bar the return of the "refugees" (those "refugees" who had just assaulted the Jewish community), viewing them as a potential fifth column and threat to the Jewish state's existence. I for one cannot fault their fears or logic. The demonisation of Israel is largely based on lies - much as the demonisation of the Jews during the past 2,000 years has been based on lies. And there is a connection between the two. I would recommend that the likes of Norris and Landy read some history books and become acquainted with the facts, not recycle shopworn Arab propaganda. They might then learn, for example, that the "Palestine War" of 1948 (the "War of Independence," as Israelis call it) began in November 1947, not in May 1948. By May 14th close to 2,000 Israelis had died - of the 5,800 dead suffered by Israel in the whole war (ie almost 1 per cent of the Jewish population of Palestine/Israel, which was about 650,000). - Yours, etc, Prof BENNY MORRIS, Li-On, Israel. February 21, 2008

His point that two thirds of the Arab "refugees" were not even real refugees at the time is well-founded. They were just displaced, as were many Jews during the war; many were displaced and ended up in Israel anyway and the UN did not consider those "refugees" in its arbitrary definition.

That Palestinian Arab prison system does it again

From Ha'aretz:

A group of 14 Palestinian militants escaped from a Palestinian Authority prison in Nablus Thursday, Palestinian sources reported.

The prisoners, members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, had been involved in fighting against the IDF in recent months and were hiding in Nablus' old city, the Kasba. Some six weeks ago, the group turned itself in to the PA, following a comprehensive IDF operation in the Kasba.

The IDF agreed to let the militants, who are wanted by Israel, stay in the Palestinian prison on condition that the Palestinian security forces keep them incarcerated and deny them weapons and contact with terror organizations until Israel pardons them.

So far, however, Israel has refused to include the men in the pardon agreement for Fatah fighters, under which Palestinians give up their arms in return for an Israeli amnesty.

Thursday afternoon the entire group broke out of prison, apparently with the help of their Palestinian wardens. One of the escaped prisoners is Mahdi Abu Ghazale, commander of the Al-Aqsa Brigades' Night Horsemen.

Ghazale announced Thursday that the group had decided to leave after the prison authorities reneged on the conditions they had agreed on when they turned themselves in. Ghazale and his group were set to hold a news conference in Nablus but apparently canceled, fearing for their safety.

Palestinian journalists who visited Jneid Prison recently reported that the militants had been kept in real prison conditions. They had mobile phones but were not allowed to contact militant organizations and their calls were being monitored.

Among the other fugitives are Omar Akub, Ala Akub, and Sufian Kandil. PA officials have tried to persuade the militants to turn themselves in.

An Israeli defense source said that as far as Israel knew, only nine militants had broken out of the prison. The IDF warned the PA that if it did not capture the escapees within 24 hours the army would take action against them, as at least some of them are seen as a risk to Israel's security.

So, Palestinian Arab prisoners can pretty much decide to leave whenever they want, they keep their own mobile phones, and get all the help they need from their guards.

And, of course, these were from Nablus, where the PA announced months ago that they had gotten rid of all terrorists and the US rewarded them with $1.3 million.

Do you think it came with a money-back guarantee?

PalArabs continue to lie about Gaza patient deaths

We've discussed the bogus statistics of blaming Israel for roughly one death a day of sick patients in Gaza - and, indeed, the number of patients who do cross from Gaza to Israel daily is not insignificant:

Across the street at the Rose Flower Shop, two young women, one dressed in a black Islamic robe and head scarf, bought a bouquet of roses, a rare sight in Gaza. The shop had managed to bring in 500 roses from Israel, using Gaza medical patients treated in the Jewish state as "mules," and had about 50 roses left.

To think that a single flower shop knows enough medical patients to bring back 500 flowers in the days before Valentine's Day indicates a brisk underground economy in Gaza based only on daily patients going to Israeli hospitals, a story that is ignored in the world media as they talk about the "siege."

But today, once again, Palestinian Arabs have blamed Israel for the death of a child. And once again, the story is a lie.

From IMEMC:

Palestinian medical sources announced on Tuesday evening that one child died at a Gaza hospital after the Israeli Authorities barred his transfer to a hospital abroad for further medical treatment as the siege on Gaza continued to cripple all hospitals in the coastal region.

The child was identified as Sa’id Al Ayidy, 2, from Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. He suffered from a kidney infection. His death raised the number of Palestinian patient who died due to the siege to 98, including 17 children.

So why did Ayidy die? Let's see that PCHR has to say:

On 19 February 2008, Sa’id Mohammed Sa’id al-‘Aaidi, 1.5, from al-Junaina neighborhood in Rafah, died as his health condition deteriorated. He had not been able to travel to an Egyptian hospital to continue medical treatment. The child had received medical treatment in December 2006 at Nasser Institute Hospital and Abu al-Reesh Hospital in Egypt. He was suffering from an inborn failure in his liver, and the lack of testicles in the scrotum, inflation in the abdomen and delayed growth. He came back to the Gaza Strip at the end of the first stage of medical treatment, and he was supposed to start the second stage in 6 months. However, he had not been able to travel to Egypt due to the closure of Rafah International Crossing Point. His health condition had deteriorated since 7 July 2007. He was repeatedly admitted into the Gaza European Hospital.

So he was already a patient in an Egyptian hospital and he expected to return there for treatment - and was stopped by the Egyptian authorities, not Israel.

But that doesn't stop Palestinian Arabs, who value the life of Ayidy far more for its propaganda value in his death than in his actual life, from using him to score political points against Israel - something that no reporter on the planet will bother to research or mention.

The return of the evil Zionist pigs

Ma'an reports:

Wild boars released by Israeli settlers have attacked and seriously wounded a Palestinian man in the northern West Bank, Palestinian security sources said.

53-year-old Hikmat Abdul Mu'ti from the town of Beit Rima was hospitalized ten days ago after the animals attacked him while he was walking to his fields. According medical sources at Yasser Arafat Hospital in the city of Salfit, the man sustained a 'deep wound,' and is still in the hospital.

The security sources said that settlers from the Ariel settlement deliberately release wild boars, especially in Kana valley fields which belong to the West Bank village of Deir Istiya. In the past these boars have been known to damage crops in that valley and frequently attack farmers.

The Palestinian police reported about another similar attack by a boar against a woman and her child from the village of Sarta near Salfit.

The evil Zionist geniuses have managed to breed wild boars that specifically can distinguish between Jews and Arabs, and between Jewish and Arab crops, only attacking Arabs.

And, of course, they give these wild animals to "settlers" who domesticate them until they are ready to release them to attack random Arabs.

One wonders why the IDF doesn't use these weaponized pigs, as they are effective and deadly.

Ma'an reported on a similar phenomenon last year, proving yet again how gullible and biased the most objective of Palestinian Arab media is.

Islamists attack Baptist school in Gaza

Palestine Press reports, in somewhat broken English (slightly cleaned up):

Local sources in Gaza Strip said that unidentified gunmen broke in to the Baptist School in Gaza Strip late last night.

The sources pointed out that the assailants broke into the Baptist School hit and opened fire against its guards, resulting in the injury one of the guards in his leg.

The assailants destroyed a number of classrooms and warned the guards not to resume their work at the school once again, the sources added.

It is noteworthy that the library of the YMCA in Gaza Strip was subjected to a similar attack two weeks ago, the attack resulted in destroying some eight thousand school text books.

In a similar attack un identified gunmen attacked the Campus of the American School, northern of Gaza Strip.

It is note worthy that the Christian places and properties in Gaza Strip are being exposed to a fierce attack since Hamas took over control of Gaza Strip last June , assailants who claim affiliation to Al Qa’eda organization announce their responsibility over such attacks in attempt to terminate the Christian existence among Palestinians in Gaza Strip.

Hamas Spokesman in Gaza Strip Ehab Al Ghsein announced earlier that a number of the assailants who attacked the Christian Library were under arrest, pointing out that the assailants belong to ‘Al Islam Army’ led by Momtaz Doghmush.

However, the sources revealed two days ago, that the defendants have been set free after Momtaz Doghmush threatened Hamas to attack a security position under their control .

Yesterday they reported on an attack from the Army of Islam against Hamas, saying that the Dagmoush clan threw a grenade at Mahmoud Zahhar's house that didn't explode.

The National Post yesterday elaborated on the fear that Christians live under in the Palestinian Arab territories - and not only in Gaza.

Hate taught in British Muslim school

From This Is London:

A prestigious Islamic school in London was forced to shred 2,000 textbooks used to poison pupils' minds with lessons of hate, a former teacher claimed yesterday.
Colin Cook, who taught English at the King Fahad Academy for 18 years, told a tribunal how "incompetent" Ofsted inspectors reported that the school's teaching of Islamic studies was "mostly good".
But their report was wildly inaccurate, he said, because pupils as young as five were being taught by rote from Arabic textbooks describing Jews as "monkeys" and Christians as "pigs".

Colin Cook outside the Saudi school which sacked him for misconduct
Mr Cook said that when he exposed the racist teaching, the school's head Dr Sumaya Alyusuf lied on television, insisting that hateful passages had never been taught.
Under public pressure the Academy eventually agreed to destroy 2,000 books but photocopied them first for future use, he told the tribunal.
The school, in Acton, West London, opened in 1985 for the children of Saudi diplomats and is funded and controlled by the Saudi government.
Its 1,250 pupils have included the five children of jailed claw-handed cleric Abu Hamza and those of Abu Qatada, who was said to be Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe.
Mr Cook, 58, said that when he queried how the preachers could be paying school fees when they were said to be on state benefits, he was told to mind his own business.
Giving evidence to the hearing in Watford, Mr Cook claimed the school was seen as an extension of the Saudi Embassy rather than part of the UK, with Saudi teachers even enjoying diplomatic immunity.
He said some pupils made "inappropriate" remarks about killing Americans and praised the 9/11 attacks.
"When I heard such nonsense I challenged and tried to reason it through with the pupils," he added.
He said that misbehaviour by Saudi pupils was sometimes overlooked.
A school trip to Arsenal Football Club's museum in December 2005 ended in chaos when some King Fahad pupils chanted "Saudi, Saudi, Saudi" and fought with non-Saudi pupils, Mr Cook told the hearing.
"Apparently we were the first school ever to be thrown out of the museum, which was humiliating. None of the Saudi pupils was challenged over their behaviour by management."
Mr Cook, of Feltham, South London, is claiming unfair dismissal, race discrimination and victimisation, which the school denies.
He was earning £35,000 a year and is seeking £135,000 in compensation for lost earnings, injury to feelings and aggravated damages.
The school has vigorously denied encouraging any form of racial hatred. It insists that the offending passages in the books were "misinterpreted".
After Mr Cook's allegations in February last year, Dr Alyusuf went on BBC2's Newsnight and told presenter Jeremy Paxman that she was aware of the books but refused to withdraw them because they had "good chapters that can be used by the teachers".
Mr Cook told the hearing: "Dr Alyusuf simply lied about her knowledge of the contents of the books and tried to pretend that the books were not taught in the school. She failed to repudiate the racist views expressed in the books.
"The truth is she cannot go against the Saudi ministry of education. She is their puppet."
Mr Cook said the Ofsted inspection in March 2006 failed to identify major issues including parental complaints, unqualified teachers and indiscipline.
He added: "The Ofsted report was very inadequate. This is partly due to what the Academy did not tell the inspectors and partly due to, at best, incompetence by Ofsted."
He says he was sacked on trumpedup grounds in 2006 after he blew the whistle on the school for covering up cheating by pupils in a GCSE exam.
"In any normal workplace, an employee would not be sacked for whistle-blowing or indeed treated as a second-class citizen for not being Saudi Arabian," he said.
"However, as the head of human resources put it, 'This is not England. It is Saudi Arabia'."
He said he had to teach 28 lessons a week when Saudi colleagues had between three and 12. He said that when he realised the school was not going to carry out a proper inquiry into the alleged GCSE cheating, he took his complaints to exam board Edexcel.
The school claimed Mr Cook failed to observe proper procedure and fired him for gross misconduct.
The hearing continues.

Maan (Arabic) has a story about a ring of counterfeiters making Israeli 10-shekel coins. They can be identified by the sound they make when clanged together.

Since they are not worth much, the main victims have been the poorer Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, and children, who get paid with these coins and then find out that they are worthless.

Ma'an notes that Hamas had counterfeited other currencies to pay Egyptians for products when Rafah was breached last month, and beyond that some sources say that the Gazans paid the Egyptians literally with Monopoly versions of Israeli currency that the Egyptians were not familiar with.

Wow, do Iranian leaders have one-track minds

Yesterday, the eminent President Ahmadinejad made a series of colorful statements about Israel:

* He called it a "dirty bacteria"
* He compared it to a "wild beast"
* He called it "a scarecrow, (meant) to keep the people of this area under control."

The last one implies that he considers Israel's Arab neighbors to be like stupid, frightened birds.

Anyway, the over-the-top insults just keep on coming:

Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel said here on Wednesday that the establishment of the Zionist regime was the greatest catastrophe for the Islamic world.

“At a time when industrial, scientific, and military development was arrested in the Islamic world and Islamic states were dismembered, Muslims suffered huge losses from the enemies’ conspiracies, the greatest of which was the establishment of the Zionist regime.”

The word "obsession" comes to mind.

Not to mention "psychotic."

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami had this to say about the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh:

“The fire of malicious rage, which sees its existence in the demise of others, this time entangled a dear person whose faith in God and whose love for human freedom and glory had made him famous in the history of mankind and Islam,” Khatami wrote.

He added that Mughniyeh “was martyred to flow blood in the veins of the 'storm-hit Middle East’, especially Lebanon and Palestine, through a death only deserved by a great man like him.”

At least one Iranian leader thinks that Mughniyeh deserved to die!

Egypt's violent reaction to idea of expanding Gaza into Sinai

A few weeks go, Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yona Metzger called on a Palestinian state to be established in an expanded Gaza that would extend into the practically-empty Sinai desert:

According to Metzger, the plan would be to "take all the poor people from Gaza to move them to a wonderful new modern country with trains, buses, cars, like in Arizona - we are now in a generation where you can take a desert and build a city. This will be a solution... they will have a nice county, and we shall have our country and we shall live in peace."

Of course, the reaction has been furious, saying that Metzger is calling for "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinian Arabs (although no one quite offers an alternate solution for Gazans who are always being characterized by these same people as bursting at the seams.)

Egypt's reaction is telling. Palestine Today reports (autotranslated):

Egyptian circles rejected a proposal aimed to transfer the population of Gaza as a first step to the Sinai in preparation for the transfer of Palestine to the West Bank and Jerusalem, in an area of a thousand square kilometers by the extreme view of the insane, insane one in the Jewish state.

The official spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Hossam Zaki, said that "The rumors about setting up an alternative homeland for the Palestinians in the Egyptian territories is a sick imagination of the people who are not responsible and not holding the decision or call for decision, the only decision-makers in Egypt alone as the Egyptian Sinai ground no one can be forced to waive a single Egyptian grain of sand."

The Chairman of the Committee for Arab Affairs Egyptian People's Assembly (parliament), Major General Saad beauty, said that "Egyptian national security is a red line that can not be crossed. The Sinai is critical to Egyptian national security... If we proceed in dealing with the Palestinian issue from our national pillars to belong to Arabism and Islam and the Arabs, it does not give a justification for the claim that the compromise on our national security and our lands for the sole purpose of helping others to seize the territory of others unjustly...

"If the Arabs and Palestinians have made concessions to Israel by allowing them to live on land seized by the year 48 and earlier, compared with the territories it occupied in 67, including Jerusalem the capital of the Palestinian state, this does not give the right of the Zionist entity to ask for more concessions from the Arab states and Palestinians."

Strategic expert Major General Ahmed Abdel Halim stressed that the importance of the separation of emotional issues and feelings of nationalism in dealing with the Palestinian issue as a national focus defend nor waiver by pointing out that "talk on the establishment of a homeland for the Palestinians in the Sinai is Jewish nonsense; we do not agree to it ...President Hosni Mubarak reiterated more than once that Egypt will not give up one grain of sand of the Sinai."

No one seriously expects Egypt to invite one and a half million Palestinian Arabs into the Sinai, but the vehemence of the reaction shows yet again that Egypt's commitment to help the lives of ordinary Palestinian Arabs is nonexistent.

Egypt may spout rhetoric about solidarity with Palestinian Arabs but in reality it, along with most other Arab countries, doesn't want to actually do anything concrete to help them. On the contrary - these statements prove that Egypt views Palestinian Arabs as their enemy, people who would compromise their national security.

And indeed, Egypt indeed treats Palestinian Arabs more as enemies than as brothers. Their support for PalArabs extends only to the amount that they can inflict damage on Israel.

Who says that Olmert doesn't protect his people?

From Ma'an (Arabic):

Sderot residents might not be protected from falling objects, but at least Abbas is.

Mahomet, 1869

Since the Danish cartoons are in the news again, I stumbled upon the controversial Wikipedia article on "Depictions of Mohammed" and from there to the excellent Zombietime Mohammed Image Archive.

But being the person I am, I wanted to find a heretofore unknown depiction of Mohammed from older times.

I found him in an illustration of a biography of Mohammed by famous American writer Washington Irving, called Mahomet and his Successors. The books seems to have been written in 1849; this edition was published in 1869:

Google Books hasn't yet censored this one.

Syrian army kills Lebanese kid; no one cares

From Naharnet (Lebanon):

Syrian border guards on Tuesday opened fire at a Lebanese child killing him, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The short report said Abbas Abbas, 13, was shot and seriously wounded by Syrian border guards at the Grand River borderline in north Lebanon. He died later at hospital.

The development is the second of its kind in about a week.

AP refers to the victim as a "farmer" even though it notes that he is a minor.

But, luckily, the dead kid is an Arab who wasn't killed by Jews so this story will get no traction whatsoever and a potential international incident will be swept under the rug.

UN has no idea who is responsible for Qassams

The UN seemed to have a "flying pig" moment last Saturday when a top humanitarian representative condemned rocket attacks against Israel:

The United Nations humanitarian chief today voiced his concern at the impact of indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israel during a visit to the town of Sderot, an area severely affected by bombardments from the Gaza Strip.

“The people of Sderot and the surrounding area have had to live with these unacceptable and indiscriminate rocket attacks for seven years now. There is no doubt about the physical and psychological suffering these attacks are causing,” said John Holmes, who is on a five-day trip to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, his first as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

“I condemn them utterly and call on those responsible to stop them now without conditions,” added Mr. Holmes, who is also UN Emergency Relief Coordinator.

While in Sderot, Mr. Holmes met with the city officials, including the Mayor, who briefed him on the difficulties faced by local civilians as a result of almost daily rocket attacks. Over the past seven years, a number of houses in the area have been damaged, the local economy has suffered, and some 12 per cent of the city's 22,000 residents have left.

“There are no military targets in this city. These victims here are innocent civilians. There is no time to lose in putting an end to this vicious circle of violence. More violence will not bring peace to the people of Sderot,” Mr. Holmes said.

A couple of things are interesting about this UN press release.

Firstly, it didn't bother to mention that many residents of the Negev have been injured or killed by Qassams - only that there has been property and economic damage. Even as Holmes condemns the rockets, he is minimizing their actual effect.

Secondly, notice what is missing from this - and essentially all - UN statements on Gaza?

There is no mention of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, the Al Aqsa Brigades, or any of the other groups who actually fire them. The UN just mouths words condemning the attacks themselves without saying a single critical word about any specific group.

The UN has no problem condemning Israel explicitly, but when it comes to criticizing any Palestinian Arab group by name, the UN becomes mute. It is as if the United Nations is either too stupid to know who is responsible or too scared to say their names in fear of retribution.

The mere mention of Hamas would guarantee that UN statements get taken seriously by Hamas and the other terror groups as they would be forced to respond and show their own hypocrisy to the world. As it is, the UN seems to be only placating its critics with a worthless "condemnation" while staying away from any real criticism of the groups who take explicit responsibility - and pride - in shooting these rockets at civilians.

Internal Hamas coup plot against Haniyeh?

The anti-Hamas Palestinian Press Agency is reporting that internal Hamas divisions are so bad that the radical members headed by Mahmoud Zahhar are planning to assassinate "prime minister" Ismail Haniyeh.

According to the Arabic article, Zahhar and one other extremist head (autotranslated as Siam Said, and I don't know who it really refers to) hate Haniyeh for betraying Hamas principles. The article claims that the plan has six steps:

1. Kill Haniyeh sooner rather than later so as not to expose internal Hamas divisions publicly.
2. Blame Fatah for the assassination, thus killing off the remaining Fatah opposition in Gaza.
3. Start a defamation campaign against Abbas in the West Bank as being against Palestinian Arab unity by ordering the hit.
4. Make it appear that Hamas is the victim and Fatah the aggressors to weaken international support for Fatah.
5. Regaining support from the Muslim Brotherhood which has been critical of Hamas for going away from core principles.
6. Any remote chance of negotiating with Israel on any topic like a long-term truce will be scuttled forever.

While the article is fairly long and detailed, and PPA has been pretty accurate lately, one cannot discount the possibility that this article is really meant to deflect last weekend's news that Hamas accused two Fatah members of plotting to assassinate Haniyeh, along with "confessions" aired on Hamas TV.