Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Point/Counterpoint on Israel (The Onion):

Point
The Israeli Conflict Is Far Too Nuanced And Complex To Sum Up In One Op-Ed

By James Berillo

For as long as I can remember, the Israelis and Palestinians have been in conflict. And for as long as I can remember, there have been myriad opinions about who is right and who is wrong. They are often convincing opinions—passionate, personal, and eloquent. But the violence, the bloodshed, the senseless intractable hatred, is far too complicated to be explained by one newspaper column or a single on-air commentary, no matter how well composed. The names and dates in the latest violence are new, but the scars are from wounds that reach back more than a century—countless families across many generations, each with their own deeds and stories, all with their own reason to carry on the conflict.

Opinions can be dangerous. They can provoke a people to take action, when that action might not be just. Opinions can be powerful. They can shape the way a nation sees a problem, when that one perspective might not be enough. Opinions are imperfect. They are based more in politics and preference than in facts, though facts are what matter most. And those facts remain, buried beneath the rubble in the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem. Facts and truths that only the men and women at the heart of the conflict can uncover for themselves—not professional journalists on a tight deadline or amateur bloggers with an ax to grind.

No. The skirmishes fought in the desert are as ancient as the mountains that loom above and as complex as the eddies that swirl in the rivers below. The world must address this struggle with a measured approach that takes all sides into account and acknowledges the decades of conflict.

It would be far too difficult—and far too arrogant—to attempt to sum up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in one op-ed.

Counterpoint
Not If You Hate Jews!

By Frank Haas

Interesting, but I really dislike the Jewish people, so this whole "unending conflict with no easy answers" thing doesn't seem very complicated to me at all. In fact, summing up the "delicate and multifaceted situation" in the Middle East couldn't be simpler: I hate the Jews, therefore everything the Jews do is automatically wrong, therefore I hate the Jews.

Bam! Complex and nuanced issue resolved. Chalk another one up for blind, sweeping prejudice.

Now, I know what you're saying. "How can you take decades of cyclical violence, and with no prior understanding of historical context, come to a tidy conclusion on the matter?" Well, kind of like this: I absolutely abhor every member of the Jewish race. Voilà. Done. Moral ambiguity cleared up. And with plenty of time for me to go on with my hateful day!

It's easy as pie, really. For instance, when trying to parse out the conflict in the Middle East, there are many arguments for one to consider. There's the right to a homeland. There's the question of original sovereignty. And there's the fact that all Jews are inherently greedy and that I'd like for their whole godless country to burn in eternal hellfire. See? When you break it down like that, there's no uncertainty at all.

Listen up, United Nations! You can learn a thing or two here.

Don't get me wrong. It's not like I love the Palestinians. After all, they're Muslims, and all Muslims are trained to be suicide bombers at an early age. So, I don't like that. Also, the way they pray frightens me, and their skin color is different from mine, so that doesn't bode well for them, either. However, I can't start hating the Palestinians as much as I hate the Jews, because then how am I supposed to carelessly assign blame to one specific group of people? I'd be right back to square one!

No thanks. I'll stick to vilifying the Jews, if you don't mind. Makes the whole entire thing a lot easier to sort out.

Sure, I suppose I could probe deeper into the issues at hand, but I prefer to make up my mind based on myths I picked up from my father at the age of 12. After all, every moment spent deciding who took what land away from whom, and who fired retaliatory strikes against whom, is time that could be spent spouting off at the mouth with unrestrained vitriol. And isn't that what having an opinion is all about anyway?

Now who wants to go egg a synagogue and run away like little schoolgirls before someone comes to the door?

No Israeli fire hit UNRWA school

Remember all the headlines claiming that Israel shelled a UNRWA school in Jabalya earlier this month? Remember how indignant the UNRWA was that Israel would strike at a school whose coordinates were clearly known to the IDF?

Well, it turns out that the school was not hit at all:

Physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses, including a teacher who was in the schoolyard at the time of the shelling, make it clear: While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed.
Stories of one or more shells landing inside the schoolyard were inaccurate.

While the killing of 43 civilians on the street may itself be grounds for investigation, it falls short of the act of shooting into a schoolyard crowded with refuge-seekers.

The teacher who was in the compound at the time of the shelling says he heard three loud blasts, one after the other, then a lot of screaming.

The teacher, who refused to give his name because he said UNRWA had told the staff not to talk to the news media, was adamant: "Inside [the compound] there were 12 injured, but there were no dead."

"Three of my students were killed," he said. "But they were all outside."

The Globe and Mail article goes on to assert that "no witnesses said they saw any gunmen," but of course the AP quoted witnesses who did see a group shooting mortars from the exact spot that Israel struck back:

Two residents of the area who spoke by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school, the Associated Press reported. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, the AP said. The residents said the two brothers were known to be low-level Hamas militants. They said a group of militants - one of them said four - were firing mortar shells from near the school.

The truth, which was murky at the time, is becoming clearer. Terrorists shot mortars from the middle of a busy street and Israel responded, apparently killing at least two of them, Imad Abu Askhar and Hassan Abu Askhar, along with the unfortunate Gazans who were being used cynically as human shields. The UNRWA school was not hit at all (at the time I wondered why we saw no pictures from inside the school of the damage - no holes in walls or roofs that one would expect.) The "refugees" who were in the school are all alive.

A tragedy, but not at all what Israel was accused of.

(h/t Brad Brzezinski)

Did the IDF use "killer robots" in Gaza?

A Russian news agency is quoted in Palestine Today as saying that Israel deployed its "VIPeR" robot in Gaza.

The VIPeR is sweet. From Popular Mechanics, June 2007:

The VIPeR can climb stairs (right) and open fire on targets with a submachine gun. At left, the 9-in.-tall drone is fitted with a bomb-disarming water gun.

Very few drones are built to kill. Even the missile-firing Predator UAV was originally designed for aerial reconnaissance, with some units later modified for combat duty. But for the Israeli-manufactured VIPeR (Versatile, Intelligent, Portable Robot), delivering firepower isn’t an afterthought — it’s practically job one.

Designed to act as a partner to dismounted troops in urban environments, the 9-in.-tall, 25-pound VIPeR can accept various sensor packages, including infrared cameras and software that maps buildings as the drone moves through them, as well as an explosives sniffer and a device that shoots jets of water to disarm bombs. But it also can open fire with a mini-Uzi submachine gun or release grenades from a 4-ft.-long robotic arm.

At just 18 in. wide, and equipped with innovative treads that change shape to help boost it over obstacles, the tiny drone can navigate cramped hallways and climb stairs to seek out targets. It can’t open fire autonomously, like South Korea’s Intelligent Surveillance & Security Guard Robot, essentially an armed guard tower that can target potential intruders.

VIPeR is remotely controlled via a harness and helmet-mounted display, with a human operator ultimately deciding whether to pull the trigger. According to its manufacturer, Elbit Systems, VIPeR will be deployed by Israel Defense Forces infantry after field testing.

Here's a video:

The terror-supporting PalToday ludicrously implied that VIPeR is an illegal weapon, and it illustrated the story with this picture.

I have no idea if the IDF deployed VIPeR in Gaza, but it is a great idea for the terrorists to believe that Israel has an army of invincible killer robots.

The enablers

In relationships, an enabler is someone whose actions allow another to continue his or her self-destructive behavior. It is most often seen in families where one member suffers from alcoholism or some other addiction and the other members cover up for that person rather than forcing him to directly suffer the consequences. The maladaptive individual does not have to be an addict, though - an example would be a 26 year old son who refuses to look for a job while his doting mother continues to make his bed and bake his favorite cookies.

The enablers will no doubt say that they do this out of a sense of love, or obligation, or protection.

This is exactly what UNRWA does.

Originally charged with providing temporary aid for Arab refugees from Palestine and then with finding a lasting solution based on resettlement and jobs programs, UNRWA has become the adoptive parents of millions of able-bodied adults who refuse to grow up and take responsibility for their own actions.

UNRWA's perspective has been warped over the years from a well-meaning agency meant to solve a problem to a huge, pathetic, self-perpetuating bureaucracy . This metamorphosis can be seen in its annual reports to the UN and its public statements today.

In a strange way, the UNRWA's acting as an uncritical, enabling parent is natural.

When one gives of oneself unconditionally to another, he or she tends to become emotionally attached to the recipient. Over time this often turns into love.

The UNRWA's goal is not to do what is best for Palestinian Arab refugees and their endless descendants; it is to unconditionally provide for them in perpetuity. Generations of this unselfish giving from an endless supply of international cash tends to change not just the recipient but also the giver, in this case into someone who will defend their helpless charges against all enemies. Now, we have a situation where most UNRWA workers are Palestinian Arabs themselves and the agency has become part of the family.

In Arab culture, the clan looks out for itself against all enemies.

This explains UNRWA's statements and actions.

Last year, in my first correspondence with the UNRWA's spokesman, I asked him to comment on the reports that the UNRWA was forced to close their own offices in response to threats and attacks by Palestinian Arabs. It was reported in the Arabic media but nothing was mentioned in the UNRWA website about it. Here is the response I got:

There had been problems but these have now been avoided for the time being.

Here we have a UN agency being literally attacked by mobs of people, but the reaction is to minimize the importance of the story to such an extent that its expansive PR machine remains silent.

My more recent emails with UNRWA, trying to see if they can find anything negative to say about Hamas' hijacking of aid trucks over the past year - events that even Hamas has acknowledged - results in the same stonewalling and avoidance.

One does not publicly embarrass one's family. The UNRWA might not be thrilled with Hamas actions, but even when they interfere with UNRWA activities - such as by firing rockets from next to or inside UNRWA facilities - they are excused, downplayed and redirected to hatred of the enemy. UNRWA might not be directly supporting Hamas terror, but it is enabling terror.

Just like enablers in families, the UNRWA cannot conceive that they are doing anything wrong.
They are convinced that they altrusitic, they are loving, they are helping defend their people against the world that cannot possibly understand what things are like on the inside.

The only way to break this cycle of enablement is to force the maladaptive member of the family to face up to the consequences of his actions. However, this is not a part of the UNRWA's charter. On the contrary, if the UNRWA would force Palestinian Arabs to act like adults who can solve their own problems, then they would be violating their own rules of providing perpetual aid.

Their enablement is enshrined for perpetuity.

One more UNRWA email chain (updated)

After the UNRWA spokesman sent me his latest denial that Hamas diverts or steals aid, I sent him this:

Thanks, but my original question and all followups were asking not only about UNRWA aid but also about aid meant for other NGOs, such as Red Crescent. In at least one case UNRWA was the alleged recipient of the diverted aid, as reported in the Arabic News last February:

Hamas says it seized Jordan aid to keep it safe
Palestine-Jordan, Politics, 2/12/2008
Hamas government in Gaza acknowledged on Saturday that they had seized 16 trucks of aid supplies from Jordan to keep it safe from Palestine Authority.

Hamas government's Social Affairs Minister Ziad Zaza said that the government will hand it over to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees.

He said that Hamas wanted to prevent the aid supplies from falling into the hands of the Palestinian Red Crescent, which operates under the Palestine Authority led by Mahmud Abbas.

"This sort of aid never reached the Palestinian people in the past but was instead monopolized by a single party," al-Zaza said.

Zaza said that Hamas had secured Jordanian agreement to hand over the supplies to UNRWA.

Israel imposed a complete lockdown on the Gaza Strip on January 17 blocking even fuel, foods and medicines.

But in a population of 1.5 million that is largely dependent on foreign aid without any independent income, many families remain desperately short of basic goods.

Jordan said on Saturday the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas has confiscated a convoy of humanitarian aid sent to people living under an Israeli blockade in the Gaza Strip.

Minister of State for Information Affairs Nasser Joudeh said Hamas government on Thursday seized 16 trucks carrying emergency supplies into Gaza.

"We are surprised it should be confiscated and distributed in a manner based on political considerations...this only penalizes those who really deserve this aid," Joudeh said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
So while your statement makes clear that you deny the claims that aid trucks meant for UNRWA were diverted by Hamas, but I must ask you again: are you aware of any incidents where Hamas diverted, interfered with or stole aid meant for other NGOs, including the example cited here where Hamas admitted diverting aid to your agency?

In addition, a UN press release yesterday says that "The Under-Secretary-General also emphasized that Hamas must refrain from any interference with the movement or distribution of humanitarian goods" which indicates that at least John Holmes is aware of such incidents in the past. Do you know what he might be referring to?

Thanks so much,

The answer was terse:

I speak only for unrwa. C

Even though the example I cited had the aid going to UNRWA.

So I just emailed one more time:

I understand; can you confirm the February incident cited where the Jordanian aid was diverted to UNRWA? Did UNRWA accept a shipment that was meant for another NGO, or is Hamas not telling the truth when they said they would send it to UNRWA?

Thanks

The reply:

Cannot confirm

I may sum up what I've learned soon...

My UNRWA correspondence adventures can be seen here.

Nothing's changed

A fantastic find from Simply Jews, apparently the work of a Swiss cartoonist in 1956.

A tacit UN admission of Hamas stealing aid? (updated)

While UNRWA adamantly denies that Hamas is stealing aid in Gaza, contrary to reports from Israeli, PA and Jordanian officials, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes has just said something intriguing.

In a report to the UN on the situation in Gaza, where he criticizes both Israel and Hamas,

The Under-Secretary-General also emphasized that Hamas must refrain from any interference with the movement or distribution of humanitarian goods.

Why would this UN official ask them to refrain if they hadn't done anything?

It appears that those on the ground in Gaza know the rules: you don't directly criticize Hamas for doing things it does not admit to doing on its own. Everyone denying that Hamas steals aid happen to be in Gaza under effective Hamas rule; everyone who charges Hamas with these crimes are safely out of its reach.

UPDATE: I just got the official UNRWA denial via email:

There have been reports in the media and elsewhere that UNRWA aid for Gaza is being stolen, confiscated or diverted. These reports are entirely baseless. UNRWA has a system of closely monitoring our aid pipeline; from the port of Ashdod in Israel, our warehouses in the West Bank and the aid arriving in Gaza from Egypt and Jordan, through the crossings into the Gaza Strip, to our storage facilities in Gaza itself and finally to our distribution centres where recipients with authorized cards receive our assistance. At every stage our aid is checked by UNRWA officials. From this monitoring and our constant vigilance, we can say with certainty that no UNRWA aid in Gaza has been stolen, confiscated or diverted. If such eventualities were to occur, UNRWA would be aware and immediately take the issue up with any relevant parties and ensure redress.

Central to our obligation to assist and protect Palestine refugees is the duty to ensure that the relief provided by the international community reaches its intended recipients, namely, Palestinian civilians rendered vulnerable by the closure of Gaza’s borders and by the elusiveness since 1948 of a just and lasting solution to their plight.

I asked some very specific followup questions, which will be posted here if/when I get a response.

Hamas Baby Armor!

From The People's Cube, h/t Israellycool:

PalArab news roundup 1-28-09

The rumors that have popped up in the past day that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might have some Jewish ancestors - probably cooked up by his political opponents - is resonating in the Fatah-linked Palestine Press Agency. Its readers are not surprised, as they consider all Shiites to be really Jewish.

In PalArab self-death news, a Qalqiya resident was found shot to death in Hebron. A Gaza man was tortured to death by Hamas. And I had not yet counted yesterday's reports that a former B'Tselem worker was also killed by Hamas earlier this month. My latest gross count based on newspaper articles came before that death, so I don't think it is double-counting. So the 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 41.

The PA's Minister of Social Affairs now counts 63 trucks of aid hijacked by Hamas on the 19th and 20th of this month, something that UNRWA calls "utter nonsense." Which story makes more sense?

Hamas had promised to act like Hezbollah and pay families thousands of dollars in compansation for lost relatives or damaged homes. So far, the families that Hamas paid have received only a fraction of the promised amounts.

Meanwhile, the PA pays - and protects - terrorists

Hamas is being portrayed in the media as representing the "extremists" among Palestinian Arabs and Mahmoud Abbas' PA is consistently viewed as being "moderate." The Gaza operation has seemingly shown that the two sides are polar opposites, and has made many consider that it is now more important than ever to prop up the PA as Israel's only viable peace partner.

A little research shows that the idea of the PA and Fatah being anti-terrorism is a gross error.

It is true that the PA stayed largely on the sidelines during the war, and even seemed to passively support Israel against Hamas. It is equally true that there is no love lost between Hamas and Fatah over Hamas' violent, bloody coup in Gaza in 2007.

However, this antipathy must not be considered proof that the PA leaders are against terrorism.

The JCPA just released an important study about the Western hopes of the PA retaking Gaza and the PA's shortcomings. A couple of salient facts emerge:

In 2009, thousands of "unemployed" Fatah militiamen, such as members of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, still hold weapons that they conceal in their homes. In their current dormant status, they also continue to receive monthly salaries from the Palestinian Authority on the instructions of Abbas and Fayyad,¹⁵ who are eager to avoid conflict with these groups and to protect themselves from the death threats made by the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas against them.¹⁶

Remarkable and ignored in Western diplomatic circles is that Fayyad has continued to pay the monthly salaries of between 6,000 and 12,000 Hamas Executive Force operatives in Gaza, in line with the 2007 Mecca national unity agreement that brought Hamas under the umbrella of the Palestinian Authority for budgetary purposes.20

It is widely believed in Western diplomatic circles that the PA in Ramallah was only paying the salaries of civil service employees in Gaza to encourage them to stay at home to avoid working with Hamas, especially after Hamas' expulsion of Fatah in June 2007. This is incorrect. The PA, and indirectly the U.S., and international donor countries have continued to pay monthly salaries to Hamas security operatives (Read: terrorists) and their commanders from the PA's $120 million monthly budget allocation to the Gaza Strip.²¹ The height of irony in this regard may have been seen during the Gaza war when Hamas fighters received their salaries from the PA at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital which was immune from IDF fire.²²

Fatah's armed wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, announced on January 19, 2009, that its men in Gaza fought against Israel alongside Hamas, together with Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Battalions. The Al Aksa Brigades said they fired 102 rockets and 35 mortars, and detonated explosive devices that wounded a number of IDF soldiers.⁷²

Another recent article reveals an even more egregious display of support for terrorists by the PA:

Col. Radi Assidah, the Palestinian Authority's security commander in the Jenin area, said over the weekend that his force is protecting and providing shelter to Islamic Jihad fugitives.

A number of Islamic Jihad activists wanted by Israel recently handed themselves over to the PA security forces in the city out of fear that they would be killed or arrested by Israel, Assidah said.

Assidah said the Islamic Jihad men arrived about five months ago at the headquarters of the PA security forces in Jenin to seek sanctuary until their cases with Israel were resolved.

"They sought refuge with us," he said. "Since then we have been hosting them in our headquarters. They are not prisoners and they are entitled to leave whenever they want."

Assidah also revealed that the PA government of Salaam Fayad was paying the wanted Islamic Jihad men monthly salaries.

The PA is not only indirectly financially supporting terrorism by sending most of its budget to Gaza and freeing Hamas to spend money on weapons, it is also directly paying terrorists from Hamas, Al Aqsa Brigades and Islamic Jihad! And it is actively protecting wanted Islamic Jihad terrorists from jail!

To call this outrageous would be an understatement, yet the West - which is bankrolling the PA to the tune of some $2 billion a year - remains supportive of these corrupt, terror-supporting so-called "moderates."

Ironically, the Gaza operation makes the terrorist-leaning PA seem even more of a strategic partner for "peace," and the EU, US and current Israeli government is encouraging such thinking.

As Western money goes directly to people sworn to murdering Israelis.

Saudi Vice, episode 24: Wild college women

Al Yamamah College, a Saudi Arabian institution of advanced learning, hosted a British University Fair last Sunday. At this fair, representatives of 25 British universities could interact with potential students and tell them all about their programs, and the students could ask questions.

The organizers of the fair might have had good educations, but they didn't think about the moral implications of such a sinful gathering:

* Some of the British representatives were - women!
* Some of the potential Saudi students were - women!

Our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice wasted no time to stop this outrage. They barged into the fair, posing as government representatives, and immediately demanded that any Saudi women attendees leave the fair immediately.

They then went to the British whores, I mean, university representatives, and told them to stop all their interactions with the remaining male students.

The British fair organizers caved to the clear moral imperatives that the Muttawa politely demanded of them and told their women to leave the fair.

Thanks to our heroes, Saudi women cannot go abroad to study, where they would inevitably become corrupted by the evil infidels, and virtuous Saudi men cannot be seduced by the loose British women who dare enter Saudi Arabia under the pretense of marketing their universities, those dens of iniquity.

And Saudi Arabia is safe and moral again!

Previous episodes can be seen here.

All you need to know about UNRWA

A former UNRWA legal advisor, James Lindsay, just wrote a report detailing the problems with UNRWA with specific recommendations. His history and analysis of the organization look to be spot on. While he finds few specific examples of UNRWA employees engaging in terrorism, he details the political tilt that UNRWA has been showing towards Hamas based on their statements. For example:

In 2008, UNRWA issued comparably fewer calls for engaging Hamas. Instead, it has focused on criticizing the Israeli blockade of Gaza (which targets all items except humanitarian aid).64 In this regard, the agency echoes the Hamas view of the conflict with Israel. For example, when UNRWA ran out of fuel supplies in late April–early May 2008, it implied that its shortage was caused by the Israelis (who were blocking deliveries to Hamas but not to UNRWA) rather than by Hamas’s actions (which included allowing demonstrators to prevent delivery of fuel to UNRWA as well as intimidation of the Petrol Station Owners Association, which subsequently refused to distribute fuel delivered to Gaza by Israel).65 This propensity to echo Hamas views extends to other issues as well. As mentioned earlier, Commissioner-General AbuZayd has referred to Qassam rockets being fired at Israeli civilians from Gaza as a response to Israeli military incursions.66 Regarding the resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem, UNRWA’s sympathies are not with resettlement or “repatriation” to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, but with “repatriation” to Israel.67 And in May 2008, during an interview with Iranian Press TV, Commissioner-General AbuZayd reportedly proclaimed that Hamas was “free from corruption” and “more popular than ever.”68 Even if true in the sense she meant—by “corruption,” she was presumably referring to theft for personal gain—her claim demonstrated something of a disconnect from earlier reports that Hamas was stealing fuel and items intended as humanitarian assistance.69

Lindsay is harshly critical of UNRWA's prolonging of the "refugee" problem and has specific suggestions to reduce it, as was the original purpose of UNRWA.

The entire report is available for download.

Melanie Phillips goes into much more detail on more recent criticism of UNRWA, including UNRWA denials that Hamas steals aid (a fact touched upon in Lindsay's paper as well, from early 2008.) Phillips is much more negative than Lindsay; Lindsay strikes me as a bit more fair in his criticism. Even so, UNRWA was quite upset at his paper, as he writes in his epilogue - yet they refused to detail any supposed mistakes when he sent it to them last year. (YNet also seems to exaggerate Lindsay's claims.)

It is notable that AP reported today on a UNRWA teacher specifically advocating violence and terrorism to his eight year old students:

In one classroom Saturday, when UNRWA schools reopened, a Palestinian teacher was filmed asking children about their trauma during the war. The unidentified teacher then told the children that Palestinians have to "wage war against them (Israelis) until they leave their land," and asked her students, aged about 8, how they should react.
Two children in the class suggested hurling stones or rockets back at Israel. "Okay," the teacher said, apparently summing up her class' position. "We throw rockets at them, we throw stones at them," she said.

UNRWA denies stories

I just asked Chris Gunness, UNRWA spokesman, two questions:

I would like to follow up on my earlier inquiry about the Jordanian aid truck meant for UNRWA that had been reportedly been hijacked by Hamas. Did you ever confirm that this happened, or that any aid truck was hijacked by Hamas?

Also, I just found a story from Palestine Press Agency from last April that quoted sources as saying that residents of a camp in Khan Younis were complaining about Hamas digging a weapons bunker underneath a UNRWA school there. (http://www.palpress.ps/arabic/index.php?maa=ReadStory&ChannelID=29137 ) Could you comment on whether this was ever investigated and, if so, what was discovered?

He answered:

The stolen aid story is utter nonsense. The bunker thing I have only heard once before and it was wrong.

Completely useless trivia question

If you could have your choice of 100 pounds of dimes, quarters, half-dollars or old Eisenhower dollar coins, which one should you choose?

And how much would they be worth?

-----------------
Joem figured out the answer. From his comment:

Assuming face value, in purely mathematical terms, they would be equivalent, based on:

100 lbs = 45359.237 grams

dime = 2.268 g = 199996.6358 coins = $1,999.66
quarter = 5.670 g = 79998.65432 coins = $1,999.66
half dollar = 11.340 g = 39999.32716 coins = $1,999.66
Eisenhower dollar = 22.68 g = 19999.66358 coins = $1,999.66

But, since you can't have part of a coin, you'd have to round off the decimal of the coins, so you would be best off with dimes, since you would have $1,999.60. With the quarters or half-dollars you would have $1,999.50, and the dollars would leave you with just $1,999.00.

The question that popped in my mind that prompted this was if I had an arbitrarily sized piggy bank, what coin would be best to fill it with? Once I started figuring it out I was surprised to see that the quarter, dime and half-dollar had the same weight/value ratio. The current dollars, of course, are worth more per gram, but on a hunch I looked up the Eisenhower dollar and sure enough it was the exact same ratio as the dime/quarter/half-dollar.

In case you care, 100 lbs of pennies is $181.43, of nickels it is $453.55 and of current dollar coins it is $5,599.

"Martyr posters" suggest a high terrorist death toll

From AP:

Some were killed when tank shells hit their homes. Others died when bombs erased their offices. Still others _ like Islamic Jihad fighter Mohammed Bedawi _ met their end battling Israeli troops.

"The drone hit him," said his cousin, Abed Bedawi, 21, referring to the unmanned surveillance planes often seen in Gaza's skies. "He was laying a bomb for a tank when the drone fired a missile at him."

Now they are all memories, their faces rolling off the presses at the Nibras print shop.

The shop prints customized, full-color posters and banners commemorating the dead _ a Palestinian tradition for people killed by Israel. In the wake of Israel's 22-day Gaza offensive _ which killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians _ the shop is one of Gaza's few businesses experiencing a postwar boom.

...While not comprehensive, the posters enter a new element into the debate over how many militants were killed by Israel. The Israel military says it killed 700, while Hamas and other militant groups say they lost 158. In its final report on the death toll, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said 223 of the 1,285 killed in the war were fighters.

Although the shop hasn't kept records, al-Hor guesses he has done posters for 350 people since the war's end, about 250 of them militants, suggesting the militant groups lost more fighters than they acknowledge. Other say the groups often claim the dead as members of their movements even when they were not.

Fatah was known for creative accounting of its billions of dollars; Hamas is known for its creative accounting of dead terrorists.