Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 09, 2009

Arab pride again trumps people

From the NYT (h/t EBoZ):

Scores of Palestinian patients being treated in Israeli hospitals, a rare bright spot of coexistence here, are being sent home because the Palestinian Authority has stopped paying for their treatment, partly in anger over the war in Gaza.

Hadassah Hospital says that for the past week no payments have come in and Palestinians whose children are being treated there have been instructed by Palestinian health officials to place them in facilities in the West Bank, Jordan or Egypt.

“Suddenly we have had 57 patients dropped from our rolls,” lamented Michael Weintraub, director of pediatric hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplantation at Hadassah. “We have been bombarded by frantic parents. This is a political decision taken on the backs of patients.”

The Palestinian health minister, Fathi Abu Moghli, said he was examining the entire referral procedure because he was tired of adding to what he called Israel’s “oil well,” meaning the payments for Palestinian patient care. In particular, he said, he had no desire to see the injured from the Gaza war get Israeli care.

“We already pay $7 million a month to Israeli hospitals,” he said in a telephone interview. “Since the first day of the Gaza aggression I said that I will not send to my occupier my injured people in order for him to make propaganda at my expense and then pay him for it.”

An Israeli clinic set up with great fanfare on the Israeli-Gaza border the day the war ended on January 18th has already been closed since both Hamas, the rulers of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority essentially boycotted it. The Palestinian Authority pays for the care in Israel of its citizens — or much of it — out of its budget.

As the article goes on the show, there are many patients - cancer patients especially - who simply cannot get comparable care in Palestinian Arab hospitals. And Israel's hospital costs are one quarter that for comparable care in the West.

Once again, the so-called "leaders" of the Palestinian Arabs are not only willing, but eager, to sacrifice the life and health of their own people in order to score rhetorical points. Projecting their own hatred onto Israelis, they feel that the Zionists only care for Arabs for propaganda purposes and they would rather remove that perceived, imaginary gain by Israel - and let their own children die.

This is no different than how Palestinian Arab leaders have made most of their decisions in their short history - looking at everything as a zero-sum game and assuming that what is good for Israel is bad for their people, and vice versa. And then they make decisions that are the exact opposite of what their own people would prefer.

After all, no one is forcing Palestinian Arabs to choose Israeli hospitals to treat their people. They obviously want to - but their wise health minister can't stand it and would rather have some of them die.

Even the most obvious win-win cannot be stomached, because one of the sides that wins is the hated Jewish side. This kind of hatred is pathological.

Did UNRWA engineer the Hamas "hijacking?"

YNet reports:

The United Nations said on Monday that Hamas has returned all of the aid supplies that it seized from the agency in the Gaza Strip last week.

But one of the sentences at the end of the article is more interesting:

The UN is under pressure to show international donors that it is independent of Hamas as it seeks funding to rebuild the territory after Israel's crushing three-week military offensive.

Indeed it is. There have been prominent calls for Congress to withhold funding UNRWA until it proves it can audit UNRWA more effectively, and a bill has been introduced to increase oversight over UNRWA and investigate its ties to terror.

There is increasing evidence that UNRWA and Hamas have worked together, not officially but as de facto partners. If we take UNRWA's statements at face value, Hamas has avoided stealing UNRWA goods while it has taken supplies from other NGOs over the years; if we are more skeptical, then UNRWA has been covering up Hamas crimes against the agency. Either way, it looks more like collusion than an adversarial relationship.

Additionally, Hamas has admitted to diverting Palestinian Red Crescent aid to UNRWA.

Much has been written about known Hamas terrorists in UNRWA, and perhaps those accusations aren't entirely fair, as UNRWA has argued. However, instead of looking at the relatively low percentage of verified terrorists among the thousands of UNRWA employees in Gaza, we can get a more complete picture by looking at the UNRWA union. In 2003, more than 90% of the vote for the UNRWA workers' union was won by Hamas - and this is way before Hamas' Gaza coup. Hamas won every UNRWA union election since 1990.

After years of what can only be considered a symbiotic relationship between UNRWA and Hamas, where a Hamas-dominated UNRWA controlled the majority of aid in Gaza allowing Hamas to import weapons, it seems strange that Hamas should suddenly openly steal aid from UNRWA.

In the context of the new spotlight on UNRWA ties to Hamas, between the aforementioned congressional pressure and the recent report by James Lindsay on UNRWA's many shortcomings, is it possible that UNRWA engineered this "hijacking" of aid? UNRWA now appears to be upset at Hamas (and the UN genuinely is,) it gets Hamas to back down and admit its "mistake" - something Hamas never does - and the Hamas now shamefully returns the aid, also something Hamas has never done before. The idea that Hamas and UNRWA work together seems much less likely and this could be enough to allow that relationship to survive another couple of years without serious oversight.

I'm generally not big on conspiracy theories, but UNRWA seems to have benefitted greatly over this while Hamas has lost little.

Lunch links

Michael J. Totten files a dispatch from the Gaza border

Meryl Yourish goes much further than I did in taking apart Jimmy Carter's latest screed

Soccer Dad presents his 12th edition of Shiny Happy Dhimmi

Yaakov ben Moshe covers some amazing ground in The Biggest Honor Killing of All (h/t Augean Stables)

And some more garden-variety British anti-semitism

The Egyptian Madoff

The Daily News Egypt reports:

Broker Mahmoud El Boushi of Optima Securities Brokerage, who allegedly pilfered around $68,422 million and €200,000 from his clients, was arrested earlier this week in Dubai, but was granted bail after he reached a settlement with an Egyptian businessman in an AED 5 million dud check case.
However the same businessman filed another complaint involving AED 21.9 million [$2.5m -EoZ], according to Khaleej Times, a UAE-based newspaper.
Over 48 Egyptians, including high-profile public figures, had also filed complaints to Egypt’s Commercial and Financial Affairs Prosecution office against Mahmoud El Boushi, accusing him of fraud.
Last Tuesday, the Interpol requested from the Emirati government to hand over El Boushi to the Egyptian authorities, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, Major-General Khamis Matter Al Mazeina, said.

Last week there were some articles about this Boushi, who swindled millions from Arab celebrities, but only now do we see that the amount he stole might be significantly worse than Bernie Madoff's alleged $50 billion.

The comparisons are eerie. Like Madoff, Boushi promised high returns to his clients (actually much higher than Madoff - 40%) and he targeted high-profile clients:

The list includes famous actress Laila Olwi, said to have lost more than $500,000 dollars, Mervat Amin, another cinema star, losing almost the same amount, and her ex-husband, actor Hussein Fahmi, who lost $2 million.

Mahmoud al-Khatib, former footballer and the current vice chairman of Egypt's Al-Ahly Club (lost $6 million) and Hassan al-Gabali, the brother of Egypt's Minister of Health Hatem al-Gabali (lost $12 million) are also among those named as victims, according to the list published by Rose al-Youssef Egyptian daily.

I can only find the huge $68 billion figure from the Khaleej Times, but it if is true, this could have a huge impact in Arab financial circles.

And of course we can expect plenty of articles about Arabs agonizing over how Boushi could besmirch all Arabs by doing this, how embarrassed they are that he shares their culture and religion and how it will increase Islamophobia. Right?

UPDATE: Almost certainly I was reading the decimal point wrong, and it is $68 million, not billion.

Another two Gazans killed by Hamas

Hot on the heels of Hamas accusations that Fatah tortured a Hamas member to death, Fatah announced that Hamas abducted a 48-year old father of ten in Gaza named Nehad Saadi Aldbaki three days ago and tortured him to death.

Palestine Press Agency also mentions another person killed by Hamas a few days ago I had not counted, a member of the PFLP named Shaqqura.

My "self-death" count of Arabs violently killed by other Palestinian Arabs in 2009 rises to 22.

Natan Sharansky has a blog

My favorite thinker, Natan Sharansky, has a blog.

Spend five minutes now to read his section on human rights.

Throughout the site one finds true gems, such as this:

Hamas is not the only Palestinian group at fault. In 2005, shortly after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, I met with the chief of staff to the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. My question to him: Now that we have uprooted thousands of Jews and empowered Gazans to be masters of their own fate, can we hope that within a year’s time there will be fewer refugees in the camps? “Absolutely not,” he said. “The refugees will be relocated only in the context of the final status [agreement]. How can we move them if we do not know where they will live? Maybe they will live in Israel.”
In withdrawing from Gaza, Israel made painful concessions for peace by forcibly removing Jews from their homes. And yet even the Palestinian Authority, the most moderate among Palestinian political groups, would not consider easing their own people’s plight in the wake of Israel’s compromise. This is because the suffering of the refugees is essential to their broader political struggle.

How does the West respond to the obvious exploitation of Palestinian refugees? Soon after my meeting with Mr. Abbas’s chief of staff, I met with the ambassador of one of the West’s most enlightened countries. I asked: Why are the Palestinians not willing to help their own refugees? “I can understand them,” he answered. “After all, they don’t want the refugee problem to be taken off the agenda.”

The world needs such clarity as Sharansky's.

Freedom of religion, Saudi-style

From the Saudi Gazette:

Establishing houses of worship for non-Muslims is a sensitive issue but the Kingdom does not restrict non-Muslims to practice their religion in private, a senior human rights official said here Saturday.

Zeid Al-Hussein, Vice President of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, said the Kingdom is not only an Islamic state, but it is also the cradle of Islam and of Islamic civilization. It is the land of the Two Holy Mosques and the destination of Muslims from around the world.

Therefore, he said, the Kingdom is charged with the responsibility of preserving Islam, its rituals and its sanctities.

Regarding not allowing the establishment of places of worship for non-Muslims in the Kingdom, Al-Hussein said, we believe that Islam is the seal of religions and that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the cradle of Islam, the land of the Two Holy Mosques, and the destination of 1.5 billion Muslims.

Therefore, the religious peculiarities make it difficult to establish worship places in the holy land.

However, non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia are completely enjoy the freedom of worship and can practice the rituals of their religions in their own places.

Imagine the outcry if an Israeli "human rights" official said that "Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people and the object of their prayers and devotions. As a result, there can be no churches or mosques, but everyone is free to practice their religion in private." Or a similar statement from Rome disallowing synagogues and mosques there.

The Saudi article has some humorous sections about Islam and human rights, like this:

Islam supplements, rather than undermines, international human rights standards and Saudi Arabia derives its values from all sources provided that they are compatible with the objectives called for by the Islamic Shariah, Al-Hussein said.

The Shariah pays special attention to the rights of vulnerable groups, such as, minorities and non-Muslims, and, in fact, the Shariah grants women extensive rights.

We all know that Saudi Arabia is hardly a mecca (pun intended) for freedom of religion, but for the "Human Rights Commission" official to justify it in the name of human rights is more than a little hypocritical.

Update on UNRWA West Bank "strike"

A Ma'an report last week said that UNRWA workers in the West Bank went on strike, so I emailed UNRWA:

Is there any comment about the UNRWA workers' strike reported in Ma'an? http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=35542

Which workers are striking? How is it affecting UNRWA services? How many are on strike? What is the minimum and average salaries for UNRWA workers in the West Bank?

Chris Gunness replied that he was much too busy to reply, but this morning I received an answer from Sami Mshasha, denying any strike:

1- Who are striking? No one.

The UNRWA West Bank Staff Union issued a circular last week calling for ‘protest activities’ to protest:

a-UNRWA not wanting to move its field operations work week from a six-days into a five-days work week. The Union believes that this is possible and would not affect services. UNRWA—and large segments of the population benefiting from UNRWA services—thing otherwise.

B- Increase in salary to correspond to cost of living increases and

c- compensating losses in the staff’s provident fund (retirement fund).

2- So far direct assistance to the refugees are not being affected. If and when the Union decides to go on strike, education, health and social services stand to be affected.

3- UNRWA employs some 5,000 staff members. Almost all of them are union members.

4- UNRWA’s salary scale is set on a scale of 1 to 20— Grade one being the lowest and grade 20 the highest (for nationally recruited staff).

Salary for grade one (average): Jordanian Dinar (JD): 370

Grade 20: JD1200.

Average salary: JD530.

I'm not sure if the 5000 workers are for all of UNRWA or just the West Bank.

A Jordanian dinar is worth about $1.41, so this means that the union employees average $9000 a year. Management, however, seems to make over ten times that amount.

PalArab media roundup 2-9-09

A Hamas member, who was arrested on Friday, died in a PA prison. The PA claimed that he committed suicide but Hamas and his family are saying that he was tortured to death. His brother says that his body showed bruises around his waist. He had not been charged officially with any crimes. (I am going to count this as a 2009 PalArab self-death, the 20th this year. The suicide story seems farfetched, and the PA tortures people as regularly as Hamas does.)

Hamas' expulsion of Al Arabiya correspondent Wael Essam is making ripples, as many Arabs are criticizing the move. MEMRI has two of his recent reports on arms smuggling and rocket production. Essam, who has Palestinian Arab ancestry, is interviewed here, where he says that he has been kicked out of war zones before (he reported from Iraq and Lebanon) but never by his own people.

Gunmen opened fire at the PA Minister of the Interior in Nablus. Attacks on PA members and institutions seem to be increasing in the West Bank, possibly as a result of the increased prestige Hamas enjoys there for managing to hide most of its fighters for a few weeks.

Hamas is now reacting to the withering criticism it received when it floated the idea of a replacement fo rthe PLO. Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar now says that Hamas doesn't want to replace the PLO but it does want to have a much greater role in it, including the reversal of the PLO's supposed revocation of the articles in its charter that call for the destruction of Israel. Khaled Meshal says that the PLO should not only be represented by Fatah.

UNRWA is still waiting for Hamas to return the goods that it stole. Commenters at Palestine Press Agency are skeptical.

$2.2 billion of PA cash went to Gaza

From Ma'an:

The Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah has channeled 2.2 billion dollars to the Gaza Strip since Hamas took full control of the coastal territory in June 2007, said Ramallah-based Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Sunday.

At the very moment that the West decided not to fund Hamas, the PA gave twice as much money per capita to Gaza than it did to the West Bank - indirectly funding Hamas by allowing it to use its own cash from Iran and elsewhere to buy weapons and build bunkers instead of take care of the day-to-day duties of governing Gaza.

And the PA gets virtually all its money from the West.

U. of Rochester moonbats pretend to act tough

Ma'an reports:

University of Rochester students and community members began an occupation of campus buildings Friday afternoon.

It then goes on to detail their demand - divesting from companies who sell weapons to Israel, twinning with a Gaza university, and so on.

But it turns out that the moonbats didn't act quite as disobediently as they are pretending.

The UR chapter of Students for a Democratic Society issued a news release tonight saying it was occupying Goergen Hall — the biomedical engineering and optics building — “to show the university we are serious about supporting our brothers and sisters in Gaza.”

The group characterized its actions as occupying the campus building, but a university spokeswoman said the group had reserved the space in advance.

And when the time for the reservation was up?

UR Dean of Students Matthew Burns negotiated with the students Friday night and the two sides apparently reached an agreement to continue talking about the students’ demands. That agreement avoided a possible confrontation that loomed at midnight, when the university said it was planning to close the building.

So essentially the students reserved a space, made some noisy "demands," lied about their actions, lied about their victory in gaining concessions, and left the building before even a hint of confrontation could occur.

This wasn't even civil disobedience - it was civil obedience.

Wow, what bravery!

Links!

The 203rd edition of Haveil Havalim is up at Esser Agoroth, and two of my postings are included.

Soccer Dad links to a number of stories about the parties vying to lead Israel in this week's elections.

Backspin notices the MSM waking up about Hamas war crimes.

Someone shot at the Al Hayat al Jadida PA newspaper building, and Ma'an hints that they think it was the Jooooz - even though Al Hayat itself blames Arabs (by calling on the PA police to investigate, not asking for IDF help.)

Taking the Ziyonist conspiracy to the next level

If you like the stories I find and want to help spread them, here are some things you can do:

The easiest is to use the social-networking bookmarks using the tool I place after every story that looks like this:

When you mouse over that you can then submit stories you like to various sites, some of which generate lots of traffic. You of course need to join Digg or Reddit or any of the other sites to be able to submit the story to begin with.

Twitter also has tools to easily grab a webpage you are on and tweet it.

If you are more ambitious, you can join one of the increasing number of "citizen journalism" websites, where you can write your own stories, or sometimes link to them. Just for fun I joined NowPublic and posted an article, although I didn't link back here. It was very easy.

Even easier are sites like Newsvine where you can add a button to your browser to submit a story. A couple of my readers have done this, often generating more comments there than here. See this page for a pro-Israel Newsviner.

Wikinews is completely generated by users, although it goes through a review process to keep its quality up. It is also indexed by Google News.

Keep in mind that many of these sites are already infested with Israel bashers and it is easy to get sucked in to their conversations. I think it is better to post, let others do the commenting.

Carter: "The Israel lobby doesn't want peace"

Jimmy shows his hatred for Israel again, in the middle of an interview with The Houston Chronicle:

You have to remember that the major Israeli lobbies, they’re not in favor of peace. They never have professed to be. What they are in favor of is protecting the policies of whatever government is in charge in Israel. If you look at their Web sites, they make that quite clear. So they’re for Israel, they’re not for peace between Israel and its neighbors.

There you have it - according to Jimmy, it is impossible to be pro-Israel and pro-"peace."

Of course, if you define "peace" the way he does, where Israel surrenders everything in exchange for worthless promises, I guess that is true.

But if you define peace correctly, this is pretty slanderous.

(In case you are interested, the word "peace" is mentioned over 6000 times at the AIPAC website, about 200 times at the ZOA website, and as far as I can tell none of them are against "peace," although I'm sure they have qualms about the "peace process," which is hardly the same thing.)

PalArab news roundup 2-7-09

My bad: Hamas claims that they cleared up all their misunderstandings about stealing 300 tons of aid from UNRWA. UNRWA replies, um, first return what you have stolen before you announce that things are copacetic.

Extremism is fine, in moderation: Mahmoud Abbas says that the PA doesn't ask Hamas to recognize Israel, but he does want it to be part of a unity PA government. Which means that the PA won't really recognize Israel any more, but no one is really mentioning that part. "He also asserted, in line with his statements since mid-Gaza war, that the Palestinian people have the right to resist occupation as long as they live under it." - the exact opposite of the Oslo agreement.

Remember, he's the "moderate."

The brave little wimp: Mahmoud Zahar emerged from hiding and plans to lead a Hamas delegation to Cairo. Haniyeh is still underground.

Freedom of the press, Hamas-style: Hamas is expelling Al Arabiya reporter Wael Essam because they didn't like his coverage of Gaza.

Cash is king: There are reports that the millions of dollars that Egypt found in Hamas' members' bags last week are a small percentage of the money that Iran gave Hamas' Damascus leaders recently.