Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Today's PalArab press roundup

Condi Rice is coming back to the Middle East next week. Saeb Erekat is preparing a bunch of papers for her that boil down to a complete rejection of any compromise with Israel on every issue and the scorning of any "partial" agreement that doesn't address every core issue. He is telling her "all or nothing." What a negotiator!

That same moderate negotiator accused Hamas of seeking a "long term truce" with Israel and of abandoning the Palestinian Arab people's rights of armed resistance, Jerusalem and the "right of return." Hamas denied this, and said that the PLO has been negotiating since 1974 and has yet to gain a centimeter of land as a result. Notice how the "moderates" and "extremists" both vie with each other in Arabic as to who is more dedicated to terrorism as a strategy.

Meanwhile, Abbas is prepared to tell Condi Rice of his own tough decision: to whine that the US doesn't sufficiently pressure Israel to cave on every issue.

There are reports that Olmert told Abbas that it might be a good idea if Palestinian Arabs who have lived in Lebanon for decades under horrendous conditions would become normal citizens of the country most of them were born in. Abbas, of course, rejected the very notion, because the happiness of his people is the least of his concerns.

In a similar story, another report was released about the dire conditions of Iraqi refugees of Palestinian Arab descent who are stuck in miserable camps onthe Syrian border, saying that the 2000 that are there are suffering a "slow death." No Arab nation has shown the slightest interest in taking these people in, although they have taken in hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis.

Other reports claim that Egypt is losing patience with Hamas' negotiating stance, and that it threatened to assassinate Hamas leaders itself if they don't get with the program.

Another Hamas spokesman again accuses the PA of the worst crime he can think of - of collaborating with Israel.

Australia is seeking to stop broadcasts of Hezbollah's Al Manar satellite TV on Indonesian satellite channels.

Egypt seized another half-ton of TNT near Rafah.

An Egyptian man divorced his wife after she actually made contact with TV star and heartthrob "Muhannad."

Gazans denied that intermittent rocket fire from Gaza was being done by black-market smugglers who are attempting to keep the prices of goods artificially high in Gaza, as the increase of goods crossing into Gaza from Israel is hurting their business.

And today is the anniversary of an Australian Christian's attempt to set fire the the Al Aqsa mosque in 1969, causing the usual gnashing of teeth.

UPDATE: A civilian was killed in Gaza as Hamas was performing live-fire exercises near a residential area.

There are claims that a little girl was similarly killed a week ago but I didn't see it in the newspapers.

The PalArab self-death count is at 153 for 2008.

A new twist on an old libel

The Chamber of Commerce in Riyadh is warning against using items smuggled in from Yemen. These items include pesticides, fertilizer, children's games, cans, perfumes, cigarettes and some sweets and juice cans.

What is the problem?

According to Palestine Today, they are smuggled from Israel. Naturally, since they come from a Jewish source, they must cause cancer.

This is a new twist on the "Jews poisoning the wells" meme that's been so popular since, um, the Bubonic Plague.

Who said Arabs don't change with the times?

Autotranslation of the day

"For the first time in Palestine .. Women judges swimsuits ..."

This is the headline in a Firas Press article. But rather than talking about a beauty contest, it in fact seems to be saying that for the first time, women applied for jobs as judges in the PA.

I have no idea how the "swimsuits" line go in there. Any of my readers who know Arabic, please kindly translate:

المراة قاضياً شرعياً...

Bibi's points about JBlogging

I caught the last half hour or so of Binyomin Netanyahu's Q&A with Jewish bloggers at the first JBlogger's Conference happening now.

Some of what he said resonated strongly with me, because it is a lot of what I am trying to do with this blog.

The first point was that the way to fight the lies is with the truth. Yes, there is no shortage of websites, blogs, social networking sites that are filled with lies about Israel, but the major weapon against them is the simple truth - not embellished, not exaggerated, but the simple facts, that need to be repeated over and over, and the lies exposed.

The second point is that the narrative has been too long centered on Palestinian Arab "rights" versus Israeli "security." The fact is that there are Jewish rights on the land as well, that history is also on the side of the Jewish narrative. Bibi quickly outlined the fact that Jews remained the majority in Palestine for many centuries after the Roman conquest, and that the first time they were physically dispossessed from the land itself was by the Arab conquest in the eighth century. And it is not inaccurate to describe pre-Zionism Palestine as a backwater of the Arab world, certainly not as the important center of Islamic and Arab culture that it is represented as nowadays. These facts need to be understood better, not only by the world at large but even by supporters of Israel.

To expand a bit on Bibi, there is no reason to be put on the defensive no matter how the argument is framed. "Occupation," "settlements," "ethnic cleansing", the USS Liberty, Rachel Corrie - all of the common attacks that are used against Israel can be used not to react defensively but also pro-actively, with context and pure truth. And it should not be embarrassing to link today's Zionism with the historic and deep religious connection of Jews to the land, something that is in the collective Jewish DNA. The emotional and religious component of the Jewish attachment to Israel is something that is inherently understood by many Christians and observant Jews as well as Israel's founders, but it seems to be treated as vaguely irrelevant by too many of today's Zionists. Without the religious and historic components, there is no reason for Israel to exist on historic Jewish land - the Uganda option is equally valid.

This is the reason that Muslims not only emphasize their own tenuous connection to "Palestine" but also the reason they try so hard to disconnect modern Israel from Judaism and Jewish history. The liberal West might relate better to a secular Israel but they cannot argue against an religio-emotional argument that is inherently a-logical. The Jewish argument for historic Palestine is so much more compelling and obvious than the Muslim connection that it is strange that it is so often backpedaled. And this is a shame.

PalArab press roundup

A Hamas spokesman says that the PLO is no longer authorized to speak on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs. I believe that he is stating this now in reaction to reports that the draft Fatah-Hamas reconciliation plan written by Egypt tries to re-affirm the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the PalArabs.

Yet another PalArab 'expert" is claiming that Israel is digging another "secret tunnel" under the Al Aqsa mosque. These claims surface all the time. Of course, the only digging taking place there is from Muslims who are trying to destroy any evidence of a Jewish Temple ever being there.

The Shura Council in Egypt, part of the Egyptian parliament, had a large fire, pictures here.

A bomb exploded in front of the house of a Hamas leader in Gaza.

A PA leader is freaking out over Israeli cameras pointing towards entrances to the Temple Mount, claiming that this is a form of "terror" and that they help "Judaize" Jerusalem.

Similarly, another PA official is warning against an Israeli census of Jerusalem, calling it a form of "ethnic cleansing." I'm surprised that it isn't a "Holocaust" as well.

Al-Manar is reporting that more and more countries are establishing unofficial contacts with Hamas in light of the lack of unity among PalArabs and the apparent failure in leadership by the PA.

Flash cat

I was walking outside this evening and saw a cat in a neighbor's yard. I happened to have a camera and snapped a photo.

The flash reflected back from the cat's eyes in a pretty sinister way...

Hamas threatens to kill Shalit

Firas Press reports that the spokesman for Hamas' "Al Qassam Brigades," Abu Obeida, said that if Israel doesn't meet Hamas' demands for releasing thousands of prisoners soon, Gilad Shalit's fate will end up the same as Ron Arad's, the IAF officer who apparently died in Lebanon while being held hostage by Hezbollah.

It should be emphasized that since the "calm" began - a deal which Israeli leaders insisted Shalit was part of - Israel has released hundreds of prisoners, both Hamas and Fatah members, including some with blood on their hands. Israel also released high-profile Hamas politicians who were arrested right after Shalit's abduction. In addition, Israel eased up on the Gaza siege commensurate with the reduction of rocket and mortar fire, and is now allowing shipments of fuel, clothing, cement, lumber and other items. A crossing that Israel had closed after a fatal terror attack has been re-opened.

Although Hamas claims many violations of the "calm" by Israel almost none of those reports (of shooting at fishing boats, of occasional excursions into Gaza by armored vehicles) have been confirmed by any legitimate source.

While this threat is probably just a tactic, it should be responded to by a suspension of some of Israel's "goodwill gestures" - perhaps the re-arrest of Hamas "lawmakers." A gesture is meaningless if the other side treats it as worthless, so maybe it is time for Israel to indicate that the flip-side of goodwill gestures is a return to how things were.

Finally, a photo of Muslim cross dressers

From the Saudi Gazette:

Two illegal Yemeni immigrants, disguised as women, were arrested at a checkpoint near Asir. Lt. Col. Abdullah Bin Ayidh Al-Qarni, spokesperson for the Asir Region Police said the vehicle was stopped at an Al-Majaridah checkpoint with the two ‘women’ as well their driver. The third unidentified man said the two women in his car were his wife and sister. Police discovered that the ‘women’ were in fact men and arrested the three.

Do you think their mustaches gave them away?

Muslims don't like anniversaries, except when they do

According to the MEMRI blog:

Saudi Mufti Abd Al-'Aziz bin 'Abdallah Aal Al-Sheikh has called marking anniversaries and birthdays a false Christian custom.
He said that a Muslim must thank Allah if his son is alive, healthy, and well, or if he has had a stable married life over the years.

It is one thing to say that it is an unIslamic custom; that implies that it is better for Muslims not to do it. But by calling celebrating anniversaries and birthdays "Christian" the Mufti is now saying explicitly that celebrating these occasions is an act of apostacy, and the implication is that it would be justified to kill Muslims who do this.

More amusing is the fact that the Palestinian Arab calendar is filled with anniversaries. Just this month:

8/5 Shefa-'Amr massacre anniversary
8/15 Anniversary of Hezbollah "victory"
8/21 Anniversary burning of Al Aqsa mosque
8/27 Anniversary of assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa (PFLP)

These anniversaries use the dhimmi Christian calendar to calculate the days, not the holy Muslim calendar.

Perhaps it is halal to celebrate only certain kinds of anniversaries....

Question for my readers

Since we are all about customer service...

One of the problems with this blog is that it takes a long time to load. If I cut out some of the more problematic sidebar functions, things will speed up at the possible expense of convenience. Could you please let me know which sidebar features you like to use and which you never look at?

Here's how I would answer:

Recent Comments - all the time
Wikio Rank - never
Browse Zioblogs - I don't use it
Jblogosphere Search - Occasionally
Favorite Links - Sometimes

Self Death Count - Always
Twitter - I like it for now
Recent Visitors - Not really
Giyus Widget - Never
Blogroll - Not really
TTLB Rank - Almost never

Thanks!

More proof that Palestinian Arabs don't want a state

Since the Israeli press "leaked" a description of what the Olmert government offered them for a state, there has been a steady diet of criticism by Palestinian Arab leaders about the plan saying it is wholly unacceptable. From Erekat to Fayyad to Abbas, all agree that nothing less than 100% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is acceptable, period, not to mention the phony "right of return."

It is useful to compare the continued stonewalling and utter refusal to compromise with another plan that was once offered, the 1947 UN Partition Plan.

In 1947, the UN drew up a plan to divide up Palestine between Arabs and Jews. The Jewish section included three disconnected sections. While the Jewish section was to include some 5500 square miles, most of it was desert. It included no major Jewish historic or biblical sites. Over 40% of its residents would be potentially hostile Arabs. It was utterly indefensible.

Why didn't the Jews at the time reject this plan? Why didn't they demand to include Jerusalem and Hebron and Bethlehem, to make the sections all contiguous, to allow as many Jews as possible to immigrate freely (as a "right of return") to the Arab state?

The answer is obvious. The Jews truly wanted a state. Even a deeply flawed, indefensible, checkerboard solution was better than none at all. The Jews knew that they were in no position to "demand" anything because this was the best they could hope for in a negotiated settlement. The point of Zionism was to have a Jewish state, a safe haven where persecuted Jews worldwide could live in freedom and dignity, and even if it wasn't to include all of their dreams it was still a worthy goal.

The contrast with Palestinian Arab nationalism could not be starker. They don't want a state for their people, they don't want an end to the "refugee" problem, they don't want to build a nation. If they did, they would have been working on it tirelessly in the 15 years since Oslo when they have been enjoying far more autonomy than Jews did in Mandate Palestine. If they wanted a state, they would be building permanent housing to replace "refugee" camps in their territories.

If they did want a state, they would be making counteroffers to Israel rather than reject everything offered outright. They would do everything they could to build even an imperfect state to help their people.

But they don't. They only understand their supposed "rights", but none of the commensurate responsibilities (nor the rights of anyone else.) They care about slogans and honor, but not about their own people. They want the money and the recognition and the headlines but they don't want to work.

Chaim Weizmann once said that the Jews should accept a state even if it was the size of a tablecloth. That is how people who truly yearn for independence act.

And what the Palestinian Arabs want, from the "extremists" to the "moderates," is not the creation of a state for Palestinian Arabs but the destruction of a state for the Jews. That desire might be dressed up as a temporary compromise for Western consumption but it is as clear as the maps they publish to this day.

Peaceful PalArab news

There are reports that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal will be traveling to Jordan for talks; official Fatah reaction was positive but privately they are ticked off.

More explosives meant for Gaza found in the Sinai by Egypt.

Al-Jazeera is demanding that Ha'aretz apologize for saying that Al Jazeera apologized for their fawning coverage of Samir Kuntar. Al Jazeera said they violated their own code of ethics but denies apologizing for it.

So far this year, 260,000 Palestinian Arabs crossed from the territories into Jordan. 197,000 came back. The number of those coming back are expected to rise as school starts, however.

Israel opened up Kerem Shalom crossing. Israel allowed lumber to enter Gaza for the first time in a year. A Gaza cement factory re-started operations. And Islamic Jihad and other terror groups are claiming that the "calm" is only benefiting Israel and are threatening to increase their attacks. (Sorry, the last few were from yesterday and I don't have the links handy.)

UPDATE: A man was found murdered in his house in Qalqiya. The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 152.

Where welfare mentality and violent pathology mix

Palestinian Arabs in general, and Gazans in particular, have a strange mentality.

They firmly believe that the world owes them everything, that it should be handed to them on a silver platter, that they should not have to expend the slightest amount of effort to get anything. They "deserve" free food, medical attention, a salary independent of actual working, (plus, of course, a state or perhaps two.)

At the same time, they are taught from birth that the solution to their problems is in violence. The charter of the PLO says so explicitly, and their heroes are the people who have killed the most. They don't plaster pictures of soccer players on their walls and websites; rather they have pictures of terrorists.

Put the two pathological mentalities together and you see stories like this:

The popular committees in the refugee camps of the northern West Bank have decided to shut down the offices of UNRWA, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees, saying that UNRWA failed to fulfill a commitment to the committees regarding the distribution of aid.

“The agreement signed between the UNRWA and the refugee camps states resuming distribution of aid portions for refugees three times a year as follows: [Families with] (1-3) members get one portion, (4-6) members get two portions and (7) members above get two portions plus 200 shekels," the committees said in a statement.

The committees said that they would shut down the offices of UNRWA directors, UNRWA Social Affairs offices, but would exclude medical facilities from the protest.

The committees warned that they would escalate beyond this initial protest if their demands are not met.

If they aren't getting all the free food and money they demand, why, they'll shut down the offices of the people who are trying to give them free food and money!

This is not the first time that PalArabs have attacked UNRWA - the one agency who is dedicated to not only helping them forever but also to perpetuate their fake "refugee" status. They were attacked and threatened last April as well, but hushed it up.

To anyone in the civilized world, the idea that people who are dependent on an organization would attack that organization and hurt themselves in the process would be considered insane. To Palestinian Arabs who have been raised with the twin pathologies of violence and entitlement, it makes perfect sense.

The world is funding Hamas

One of the major reasons that Hamas remains in power despite the international "boycott" is because the boycott is a joke.

The infrastructure of Gaza is paid for by the PA, which gets its money from the same governments that pretend to not fund Hamas. Hamas is then free to do whatever it wants without worrying about people getting too upset.

A new study by the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (not yet available in English) shows some stunning numbers:

The PA employs 150,870 staff, of whom 78,000 employees are in the Gaza Strip, including 31,350 military personnel and 45,650 civilian staff. So more than half of the paid employees of the PA "work" in Gaza, which has roughly one third the population. Not only that, but the Gazans get paid more: right now 68.5% of the PA wages get paid to Gaza employees.

335 million shekels flow from the PA to Gaza every month, and Hamas gains tens of millions more from its own taxes - none of which go back to the PA. Outside donations give Hamas another 77 million shekels a month.

PECDAR goes on to estimate that the PA pays some $368 million dollars annually to employees in Gaza who do, literally, nothing.

When Israel still occupied Gaza, Gaza was responsible for 30% of the PA's GDP - because of the jobs that the evil Zionists provided to the Gazans. Now the number is virtually zero. Yet the percentage that the PA spends in Gaza has increased, from less than 50% in 2005 to the 68.5% now.

The reason Hamas prospers is because the world, via the PA, is funding it. Hamas is free to concentrate on weapons and smuggling because it doesn't have to worry about schools and water and all the normal civic responsibilities that every government has.

Is there any wonder that Arab nations are now balking at funding the PA?

Egypt: Hijab women get more harassment

The Sacramento Bee has a fluff piece about an Islamic booth at the California State Fair:

"Just out of curiosity – and I don't mean any disrespect," asked Cassidy, who lives in Cool, "but why do you (Muslim women) cover your heads?"
Salihah Bustamam, 25, smiled and answered that it is wrong to think that their religion subjugates women.
"It holds women in high regard," said Bustamam.
According to the WhyIslam Web site, for Muslim women who veil themselves or practice hijab, it represents an act of obedience to God. It also represents a step toward freedom from being judged by their looks rather than their intellect.

Well, this might not be quite true. From the Washington Post:

Surprisingly, some Egyptian women say that their veils don't protect against harassment..., but fuel it. A survey released this summer supports the view.

"These guys are animals. If they saw a female dog, they would harass it," Hind Sayed, a 20-year-old sidewalk vendor in Cairo's Mohandisseen district, said, staring coldly at a knot of male vendors who stood grinning a few feet from her.
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In accord with her interpretation of Islamic law, which says women should dress modestly, Sayed wore a flowing black robe and black veil. Together, they covered all but her hands and her pale face with its drawn-on, expressive eyebrows. Despite her attire, Sayed said, she daily endures suggestive comments from male customers and fellow vendors.

"I think a woman who wears hijab can be more provocative to them," Sayed said. "The more covered up you are, the more interesting you are to them."

Zuhair Mohammed, a 60-year-old shopper on the same street, said she long ago stopped wearing the traditional Islamic covering, in part for that reason.

"I feel like with the hijab, it makes them wonder, 'What are you hiding underneath?' " Mohammed said.

Mona Eltahawy, a 41-year-old Egyptian social commentator who now lives, unveiled, in the United States, said that as a Muslim woman who wore hijab for nine years and was harassed "countless times" in Egypt, she has concluded that the increase in veiling has somehow contributed to the increase in harassment.

"The more women veil the less men learn to behave as decent and civilized members of society," Eltahawy wrote in an interview via Facebook. "And the more women are harassed, the more they veil thinking it will 'protect' them."

Female travelers consider Egypt one of the worst countries in the world for harassment on the streets -- second only to Afghanistan, where the Taliban forced all women behind the veil and into seclusion in their homes.

And it's not just women's perceptions. The United States and Britain both warn female visitors in travel advisories that they may face unwanted attention, or sexual attacks, in Egypt.

When Egyptian lawmakers objected to Britain's advisory this summer, calling it a slur, Britain responded that more female British tourists were harassed and assaulted, even raped, while in Egypt than in any other country.

A new survey by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights makes harassment on the streets appear not a risk, but a virtual certainty. According to the center, 98 percent of the foreign women and 83 percent of the Egyptian women surveyed said they had been sexually harassed in the country.

About half of the women, Egyptian and non-Egyptian, said they were harassed every day as they went about the streets. The survey polled 2,020 Egyptian men and women and 109 non-Egyptian women.

Foreign women identified Egyptian policemen and other security officials as the most frequent harassers.

Two-thirds of the Egyptian men surveyed admitted to harassing women, in actions ranging from staring openly at their bodies, shouting explicit comments, touching the women or exposing themselves.

"It makes a woman happy when I call to her. It makes her know she's attractive," 20-year-old Alla Aldin Salem said on the sidewalk in Mohandisseen, after going out of earshot of the glaring fellow vendor in hijab.

"The woman herself is the one who makes men harass her," said Fawzi Tahbet, a 50-year-old man selling kitchenware on another stretch of the sidewalk, under the shade of a tree. "If she's walking, swinging as she goes, of course it will happen."

In fact, the survey's results challenged a stereotype, according to Nehad Komsan, chairwoman of the women's rights center.

While both men and women surveyed said that short skirts and tight clothes triggered harassment, the survey found that women in hijab were the most frequent targets of unwanted comments and touching on the street.

Among Egyptian women, 72 percent of those who described incidents of harassment said they were veiled at the time.

"It surprised me," said Komsan, who wears hijab. "It doesn't matter what you wear."

Egypt's most notorious case of harassment occurred last year when two fully veiled Gulf Arab women were surrounded by dozens of men on a street and molested.