Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 08, 2009

The "magic key"

King Abdullah told US President Barack Obama during last week’s meeting that Arab patience was “running out” and that solving the Palestinian issue was the “magic key” to finding solutions to all other problems in the region, according to sources quoted by Arabic daily newspaper Al-Hayat on Sunday.

Here are some news stories from today's Al-Arabiya:

* Two people were killed in demonstrations inYemen
* 88 people were arrested during recent unrest in Iran
* Four policemen and two civilians killed in Afghanistan
* Mortar rounds hit the Green Zone in Baghdad. Also a bus station was bombed, killing 7.
* More fighting in Somalia
* Syria is accused of sending drugs to Gulf states via Jordan
* Egyptians fear a coming wheat shortage
* Hezbollah was defeated in the Lebanese elections

Obama could have asked a reasonable question on exactly how resolving the "Palestinian issue" would magically solve all these other problems. But of course, he didn't.

Because, based on his statements, he really believes it.

Once he showed his belief in magic keys, the least he should have done would be to ask the Saudi king for a magic carpet, too.

Egypt bans marriage to Israelis

President Obama said in his speech in Egypt that "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance."

Was he aware of this when he spoke those words?

After the verdict was read in the Cairo courtroom, Nabih al-Wahsh, an Egyptian attorney, jumped for joy and received an avalanche of telephone calls from friends congratulating him on his latest legal victory.

Al-Wahsh has managed to extract a ruling from Egypt’s Administrative Court — which rules in disputes between citizens and the state — that would force the Egyptian government to strip Egyptians married to Israelis of their Egyptian citizenship. The May 19 ruling was met with the cheers of millions in this populous Arab country.

“This is an historic ruling,” al-Wahsh said to reporters after the ruling. “Egyptians married to Israelis are dangerous to Egypt’s national security, acting in ways that contradict the constitution of their country and Islamic laws,” he said.

Calls flooded into TV talk shows discussing the verdict and readers posted comments on Web sites of newspapers that wrote about it.

Everyone appeared united in elation at the ruling, as well as in hatred of the Jewish state and everything that related to it, even if it was originally Egyptian.

“Israel clamors to become an integral part of the Arab world and to do so it lures Egyptians to get married to its women,” one reader wrote to a local newspaper, commenting on the ruling.

A second writer warned against Israeli plans to use Egyptians married to Israelis as spies, while a third said the sons and the daughters of these people would one day claim property in Egypt, something that would “ease Israel’s hegemony over Egypt yet again.”

It turns out that this verdict from late May affects mostly Egyptian men who marry Israeli Arab women.

Shukri Shazly, who has lived in Israel for the last 15 years, says he won't be stripped of his Egyptian citizenship without a fight.

Shazly, who is married to an Israeli Arab and has four daughters here, was "embarrassed" but not surprised by the Cairo Administrative Court decision last week that called for the implementation of an old law that would strip citizenship from Egyptians married to Israelis, as well as from their children.

"This judge didn't study the issue correctly. And that is the reason for my embarrassment and regret. This is all ignorance and backwardness… Egypt is like that," he told The Jerusalem Post Thursday from the home of an Egyptian friend.

"The superficiality is clear from the decision... They always forget human rights. They always forget about freedom… They always do everything according to their mood and their feelings. But laws should be the determining factor, not our moods, nor our opinions."

Only the eldest of Shazly's four daughters has Egyptian citizenship, while the others are Israeli citizens. While he prefers that his daughters only have Israeli citizenship, he believes no one has the right to strip him or anyone else of their Egyptian citizenship.

"I don't care about the certificate [passport] but we are Egyptian," he said. "Being Egyptian is something inside of us."

Shazly, who is the president of the Association of Egyptians in Israel, estimates that he is one of between 6,000 to 7,000 Egyptian citizens married to Israeli women and living in the country legally.

He believes that another 4,000 to 5,000 Egyptians, either married or single, are living in the country illegally.

So there are about 10,000 Egyptians living in Israel.

There are about 100 remaining Jews living in Egypt.

What a great example of Islamic tolerance!

(Arab comments from Al Arabiya on this story are classic.)
(h/t Andre)

PalArab woman facing death for "collaboration"

From Ma'an:

A Palestinian woman is currently on trial on charges of collaborating with Israel, court officials told AP on Sunday.

The woman could face the death penalty for passing information to Israel, according to the same report. It is rare for women to be convicted as Israeli spies.

Court officials told AP that the 22-year-old woman was recruited as a collaborator after obtaining a divorce from her husband, who forced her to work as a prostitute, making her a social outcast.

The issue of collaborators is sensitive, because Palestinian fighters have been jailed or killed by Israeli forces based on information supplied by spies.

Of course, many innocent Israeli lives have been saved because of "collaborators," but you won't ever hear Palestinian Arabs consider that a good thing.

Also, does anyone think that her ex-husband is in jail or under investigation for forcing her into prostitution?

The elephants are still in the room

In January 2008, I wrote a post called "Ignoring elephants" that listed ten major issues that those who are hellbent on a "peace process" find convenient to ignore. With the new administration's emphasis on this same failed "peace process," it is worthwhile to update it.

Sadly, seventeen months later, it requires very few changes, and we can even add a few.

In the reckless chase for Middle East peace, the number of elephants in the room is increasing exponentially. But the ability of the "peacemakers" to ignore them rises to the occasion.

Elephant 1: Hamas controls Gaza

Every peace plan includes Gaza in a Palestinian Arab state, and none of them has any provision on how to handle the fact that Gaza is a terrorist haven, in much worse shape since Israel uprooted the settlements there, controlled by a terrorist group that has no interest in restraining the even-more extremist terror groups that thrive there. Peace is impossible with this elephant, so it is easier to pretend it isn't there.

Elephant 2: Palestinian Arabs elected a terror government

In the only fair, democratic elections in the territories, the Hamas terrorists were chosen by the people. Poll after poll shows that Palestinian Arabs support terror in Israel itself. The elections proved that the conventional wisdom was wrong - and the conventional wisdom proceeded to ignore it.

Elephant 3: The current PA government was not elected

This corollary to Elephant 2 means that the current people negotiating for the Palestinian Arabs do not represent the people. Even if they sound moderate or compromising, they have no mandate. Negotiating with them is, literally, meaningless.

Elephant 4: The current PA government has almost no power

Outside of Ramallah, the Fayyad/Abbas government has little popular support and little power. Hamas is a very real threat to the PA in the West Bank and is quietly building its base. The attitudes that forced the PA to abandon Gaza - a lack of passion by people for its positions - could very well play out in the West Bank as well.

Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods

The PA budget is bloated from "payroll" of non-working workers - but if they would slash the payroll, the people on international welfare would revolt. So the very basis of the organized Palestinian Arab workforce is a fiction being kept barely alive by ever-increasing infusions of cash with no real plan to fix the problem.

Elephant 6: Fatah remains a terrorist group paid by the PA

Despite the recent claims that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has dismantled, it is a joke meant to appease the wishful-thinkers. There has been no serious move by the PA against terror except for its tit-for-tat arrests of Hamas members in the West Bank, and its moves have been almost wholly cosmetic and aimed for Western consumption rather than real fighting against terror.

Elephant 7: The first - and second - stages of the roadmap were never implemented

The entire point of the road map was to slowly build confidence, starting with the end of terror and incitement on the Palestinian Arab side, afterwards building a "provisional" state and only then going to final-status negotiations. By skipping to Phase III as if the other two phases were already in place, the entire exercise is simply a joke. Incitement remains at full blast and the slight lull in terror is tactical, not a sea-change in Palestinian Arab attitudes.

Elephant 8: The PA's goal remains the destruction of Israel

Whether it is by "right of return" or not changing the Fatah charter or by printing map after map showing no Israel, even the most moderate Palestinian leader clings to the idea of destroying Israel, and looks upon a Palestinian Arab state as only one stage in the process.

Elephant 9: Jerusalem

Most Israelis want a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Most Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept anything less than all of Jerusalem as the capital of a Muslim state. The positions are not compatible and a compromise will not reduce the chances for violence - it will increase it.

Elephant 10: What happened to Gaza

Forgetting Hamas for now, the time period between Israel's dismantling settlements in Gaza and the Hamas takeover is instructive as to how Palestinian Arabs take advantage of territory they gain. They didn't build new houses or communities to reduce the "refugee camp" population, no schools or hospitals. They destroyed the greenhouses purchased for them by American Jews; they turned beautiful former settlements into training camps for terror - in other words, Israel's last major concession not only didn't help achieve peace, it ended up encouraging terror. Any claims that something similar wouldn't happen in the West Bank is the triumph of wishful thinking over experience.

Elephant 11: Palestinian Arab "unity"

Related to Elephant #1. No peace plan can work unless Hamas and the PA/Fatah reach some sort of unification agreement. This is not possible in the foreseeable future. Moreover, Hamas is powerful enough that any such agreement must include a hardening of positions that would be completely incompatible with the basic demands for peace - renunciation of terror, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements.

Elephant 12: The Palestinian Arab "diaspora" and Arab intransigence

Any final peace agreement would mean that Arab countries could no longer justify keeping Palestinian Arabs in "refugee camps" not could they justify their continued refusal to discriminate against Palestinian Arabs from becoming citizens of their countries should they want to stay. The millions of PalArabs in the Middle East becoming citizens would not be accepted by many Arab countries as it would endanger their own tenuous holds on power.

Elephant 13: Economics

Some 16 years after Oslo, the economy in the territories is still close to non-existent and wholly dependent on foreign aid. Not only is there no free market, there is no incentive to build one as the very mentality of Palestinian Arabs and their leaders is one of welfare rather than responsibility. All the plans to create a Palestinian Arab state do not consider Day 2 and how such a state would be able to sustain itself. The expected influx of hundreds of thousands of people from "refugee camps" would make it even worse. It would take at least a generation to turn the poisonous attitude of entitlement around.

Elephant 14: Gaza demographics

Gazans have no room to expand as their numbers continue to grow. Theoretically they could move to the West Bank but only a small percentage would. This is another Day 2 powder keg that is being ignored in the interests of a "solution" of a "Palestinian state."

Elephant 15: Palestinian Arab leaders never showed interest in independence

The West assumes that the goal is an independent Palestinian Arab state where Arabs no longer have to live under "occupation." But the actions and words of Palestinian Arab leaders have never borne that goal out; they have not worked towards building the institutions and infrastructure that would be necessary in an independent state. Their insistence on "right of return" and "Jerusalem" as issues that must be resolved before independence betray their thought processes - inconsistent with independence (neither of which require those two issues to be resolved) and consistent with a desire to destroy Israel in stages.

Interesting Photoshop at Palestine Today

I just saw this picture illustrating an Arabic story in Palestine Today about the "peace process."

At least some Palestinian Arabs are feeling that Obama is on their side....

Saudis confiscate, destroy women's camera phones

From the Saudi Gazette:

Women teachers and schoolgirls in Al-Ahsa were taken aback by a surprise inspection tour of their schools and the confiscation of their camera phones by the Eastern Province’s General Administration for Education.

Dr. Muhammad Al-Milhim, Director of Girls’ Education Administration in Al-Ahsa, said these inspection tours came after the administration had received a number of complaints from the guardians of schoolgirls and women teachers regarding violations taking place in schools including the taking of pictures by some female students and teachers.

Al-Milhim pointed out that education inspectors confiscated the camera phones of schoolgirls and women teachers in schools. He added that only camera phones having women’s pictures were destroyed. However, camera phones that did not contain any violating pictures were handed back to the guardians of the female owners of the phones after making the women and schoolgirls sign a pledge not to violate the regulations.

Al-Milhim added that if schoolgirls and women teachers are caught in possession of camera phones, the penalty for the student might be dismissal from school while a deduction would be made from the salary of the teacher. He stressed that all must abide by the regulations.

Al-Milhim said his administration would continue to carry out inspection tours. He warned against camera phones being taken into girls’ schools in order to protect the interests and rights of both teachers and students.

You read that correctly - the Saudi Education Administration is saying that they need to destroy the private property of women, and punish those who are in possession of camera phones, in order to protect the women's rights!

Notice that they didn't return the "non-offensive" phones to the girls, but to the girls' male guardians. Because, after all, how can they trust such sensitive electronic equipment to mere females?

Rule 5 Sunday (early edition): A Lebanese hookah

(Rule 5 Sunday is my occasional attempt to gratuitously show pictures of attractive women, a la Rule 5 of The Other McCain, while still trying to keep to the themes of my blog, whatever they might be.)

The Arabic Al Quds newspaper often goes out of its way to publish gratuitous pictures of beautiful women, and its readers react in interesting ways.

Here is an article about how cheap tobacco is in Lebanon, how the health warnings are too small to read and how children can get cigarettes easily.

And here is how it was illustrated: with a picture of a woman in a bikini smoking a water pipe poolside at a hotel:

The autotranslated comments are mostly impossible to understand but amusing nonetheless:

By God, it Mowoowoowoowoowoowoowoowoowoowoz Mezzeh Mezzeh

Zail, but you, Al-Quds Al-do an annex of the girls who Ptaamln sex phone numbers and addresses and Heck Petkonowa Yedioth Ahronoth as Srth

Thank you for this photo-Hulwah

God and the strangulation of a girl Btaknq Iajmall

Time God's time,,, put in pictures, there is no picture of this naked for the expression of smoking in Lebanon . Time Aalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllah

If the rest of Cyebsit all the best for that Bacon Bacon uninteresting

They just don't get it

From the Lebanon Daily Star:

US Central Command Chief General David Petraeus told Al-Hayat newspaper in comments published on Monday that the administration of US President Barack Obama considered Hizbullah a terrorist organization, adding that the party did not participate in fostering stability in Lebanon. "Hizbullah's justifications for existence will become void if the Palestinian cause is resolved. Reaching an agreement over a peace process in the Middle East will eliminate several groups' justifications for existence," he explained. Petraeus added that resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will pave the way for Arabs and Muslims to help the US in its war against terrorism.

The biggest single mistake that well-meaning Westerners make when analyzing the Middle East is when they assume that everyone thinks the way they do.

To a Westerner, it seems obvious that organizations that have no logical reason for existence would become irrelevant. In the Arab world, things are quite different.

Westerners look at problems and instinctively try to find optimal, logical solutions. They want to draw a straight line from point A to point B. They create project plans, hold conferences, debate issues, and attempt to make everybody happy - all with the underlying mindset that everyone is like them.

Arabs do not think like we do. Westerners have to stop trying to place the square Arab peg in the round Western hole and actually understand an entirely alien mindset.

(This is not to be judgmental. I am not saying that either way of thinking is superior, just that they are vastly different.)

Westerners need to understand the Arab attachment to symbolism, to pride, and to religion before making such wrongheaded analyses.

To Western eyes, Hezbollah has had no reason to exist ever since Israel withdrew to the UN-drawn Blue Line nearly a decade ago. Yet they do exist today, and they are more powerful than ever. This should be reason enough to look again at what Hezbollah is all about.

The direct method is often the easiest. This is from the Hezbollah Charter:

Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.

Experience has shown that when Arab terror organizations make statements like these, they never retract them.

From an Arab perspective, the "justification" for Hezbollah is crystal clear and explicit: they will continue to exist until Israel is destroyed. For a large number of Arabs, a peace treaty would be, by definition, between Israel and Arab traitors - a useless gesture whose only possible purpose would be to destroy Israel by stages. To them, Israel's very existence is an unpardonable affront to their honor as Arabs. Hezbollah is not Palestinian.

Even forgetting about Israel, Hezbollah has two other purposes that keep them relevant after any "peace treaty:" they aim to turn Lebanon into a fundamentalist Islamic state, and (more recently) they are enabling Iran to increase its influence in the Middle East. (Syria also finds Hezbollah useful to advance its own interests.)

Looking at things from this perspective - most of which Hezbollah says in very clear language - the idea that a Palestinian Authority peace treaty with Israel would weaken Hezbollah is laughably, and dangerously, naive.

UPDATE: Barry Rubin noticed the statement as well.

Obama's deceptive Muslim advisor

The Arabic press is noting that one of the people who worked on Obama's Cairo speech is Dalia Mogahed, an American Muslim advisor of Obama's who wears a hijab "as she walks through the corridors of the White House."

While I have no problem with women wearing a hijab, I do have a problem with Dalia Mogahed.

Mogahed works for the Gallup organization, and last year co-wrote a book called "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think." As I noted in my Amazon review, the book is an opinion piece masquerading as science. She knowingly and deceptively cooked the numbers to make it appear as though a much smaller percentage of Muslims support terror and justified 9/11. She wrote articles claiming that her research showed that "only" 7% of Muslims were "radical" when her own numbers showed that over one third of Muslims found 9/11 to be either completely, mostly or partially justified.

Her reputation as an objective expert gives her all sorts of prestige and influence, yet she has been proven to be a fraud in interpreting her own data. The fact that she is Muslim, rather than validating her as a shining representative of her co-religionists, actually suggects the distasteful idea that Muslims cannot be trusted in reporting objective facts.

NYT repeats an Egyptian journalist's lie

The New York Times surveys reactions to Obama's speech and quotes an Egyptian journalist's blog:

The US President emphasized the historical relationship binding the US & Israel, and condemned the “violence” of Palestinians “who fire rockets at sleeping children” and the “bombing of buses full of innocent civilians and elderly passengers.” It must be remembered that the last Palestinian suicide bombing took place in November 2004, and that their primitive home-made rockets usually don't kill Israelis.

The Times, of course, doesn't bother fact-checking what this "journalist," Jano Charbel, writes.

Well, he's only off by four years and 12 suicide bombings. Since November 2004 we have:

Jan 18, 2005 - An ISA officer was killed, an IDF officer seriously wounded, and 4 IDF soldiers and 3 members of the ISA were lightly wounded in a suicide bombing attack at the Gush Katif junction in the central Gaza Strip. While search procedures were being carried out, the suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body detonated himself. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
Feb 25, 2005 - Five people were killed and 50 wounded Friday night, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Stage club on the Tel Aviv promenade at around 11:20 P.M., on the corner of Herbert Samuel and Yonah Hanavi streets. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

July 12, 2005 - Five people were killed and about 90 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside Hasharon Mall in Netanya. The bomber was identified as Ahmed Abu Khalil, 18, from the West Bank village of Atil. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Aug 28, 2005 - A suicide bomber detonated himself outside the Beersheba Central Bus Station. Two security guards who stopped the bomber were severely wounded and about 50 people were lightly wounded or treated for shock. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Oct 26, 2005 - Six people were killed and 55 wounded, six seriously, in a suicide bombing at the Hadera open-air market. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 5, 2005 - Five people were killed and over 50 wounded in a suicide bombing at the entrance to the Sharon shopping mall in Netanya. The terrorist detonated the bomb when he was stopped by security guards, one of whom was killed. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 29, 2005 - Lt. Ori Binamo, 21, of Nesher was killed when a terrorist en route to carry out an attack in Israel detonated himself at roadblock set up near Tulkarm following an intelligence tip. A second intended suicide terrorist was also killed in the blast as well as the taxi driver and a third passenger. Three soldiers and seven Palestinians were wounded.

Jan 19, 2006 - Thirty-one people were wounded in a suicide bombing in a shawarma restaurant near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv. The Jerusalem Battalions of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mar 30, 2006 - Four people were killed when a suicide bomber hitchhiker disguised as an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student detonated his explosive device in a private vehicle near the entrance to Kedumim.

Apr 17, 2006 - Eleven people were killed and over 60 wounded in a suicide bombing during the Passover holiday near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv, at the Rosh Ha'ir shawarma restaurant, site of the Jan 19 bombing. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Jan 29, 2007 - Three employees of a bakery in the southern city of Eilat were killed in a suicide bombing. The Islamic Jihad and the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

Feb 4, 2008 - Lyubov Razdolskaya, 73, of Dimona was killed and 38 wounded - Razdolskaya's husband critically - in a terror attack carried out by a suicide bomber at a shopping center in Dimona. A police officer shot and killed a second terrorist before he detonated his explosive belt. A Hamas statement from Gaza praised the attack, calling it an "heroic act".

And of course there were other fatal terror attacks that were not suicide bombings.

Normally, a lying, terror supporting Egyptian blogger is not worth much attention, but when the NYT uncritically quotes him saying something factual, people will believe the fact.

(The rest of the posting by Charbel also praises terror attacks and pretends that the right to terrorism is enshrined in something called the Common Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights and of the International Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights - which he quotes, showing it says no such thing.)

More Gaza culture, kids' edition

At the very same place as yesterday's Islamic Jihad Arts Festival came the end-of-year ceremonies for the Dar al-Huda School.

Here is a dramatization of "What I Want To Do When I Grow Up":

The evil Israelis don't only attack people, but also adorable teddy bears!

"And after we kill the Jews, we can start killing each other! Allah Akbar!"

The 70 virgins start preparing for their weddings:

The future terrorists in the audience weren't impressed with the quality of virgin:

The audience, however, seems just as bored as they are at any other commencement exercises.

Which just goes to show that children wielding rifles, simulated murders and animal abuse just can't excite jaded audiences like this.

Some reactions to the speech from Commentary

Commentary has some nice articles.

Jonathan Tobin:

Speaking of the Arab-Israeli conflict, he says: “If we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth.”
But there is more than one type of blindness. The search for the truth is not merely an exercise in which all grievances are considered the same. To assert the truth of the Holocaust is appropriate — if unfortunately necessary when addressing an Arab audience — as is calling on the Palestinians to “abandon violence” and to cease “shooting rockets at sleeping children” or blowing up old women on buses.

But the problem with this conflict is not that both sides won’t listen to each other or give peace a chance. That might have been a good point to make prior to the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1993 when Israel recognized the legitimacy of Palestinian aspirations and began the process of handing over large portions of the area reserved by the League of Nations for the creation of a Jewish National Home for the creation of a Palestinian equivalent. But Israel offered these same Palestinians a state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza as well as part of Jerusalem in 2000 and again in negotiations conducted by the government of Ehud Olmert just last year. So, the problem is not that the Israelis don’t want the two state solution that Obama endorsed in Cairo. Rather, it is, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in Washington only a week ago, that the Palestinians aren’t interested in negotiating with Israel.

Even more obnoxious than this refusal to see that the truth about the conflict isn’t to be found through an even-handed “plague on both your houses” approach is his comparison of the Palestinians’ plight to that of African-Americans in the United States before the civil rights era. Israelis have not enslaved Palestinians. The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians rests on the latter’s unwillingness to come to terms with the former’s existence. The plight of Palestinians in Gaza is terrible but it is a direct result of their own decision to choose war over peace, not a lack of understanding on the part of the Jews. By going to the Middle East while ostentatiously avoiding Israel and picking a fight with its leadership sends a message that will resonate throughout the Arab world. His signal that America is now an impartial broker rather than Israel’s ally can only encourage a Palestinian people that continue to reject peace.

Jennifer Rubin:

So where does Obama go now? Back to broadcasting his complaints about Israel and insisting on a settlement concession, which is unacceptable to the wide political spectrum in Israel? Or does he declare the whole trip a grand success and go on his way? All of the grand talk and gestures are not simply useless. They convey to our friends and enemies that the administration does not think more than one move ahead, over-values the president’s personal charisma, and is so stymied by the real issues (e.g. Iran’s acquisition of nuclear arms) that it must spend its time excoriating its one true ally in the region. It is an embarrassingly naive episode which, I am sure, will not go unnoticed by foes and allies alike.

David Hazony:

More important, is the weird language about settlements:

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

What is unclear here is whether he is referring to new construction, new settlements, or the very existence of settlements at all — meaning, are the homes of a quarter million Jews in cities and towns, including throughout Jerusalem, now illegitimate? This would mean a radical break from previous American policy. What on earth could the phrase “It is time for these settlements to stop” mean? Stop what? Existing? Expanding? In so carefully crafted a speech, the ambiguity here seems deliberate.

Rubin again:

The next long section of the speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tour de force of moral relativism — one of the least honest parts of the speech. He is in the even-handedness business so he must distort and shade history to make it all come out even. No mention of the wars against Israel, no mention that Israel offered up the Palestinians a viable state in 2000. No, it’s some sort of weird replay of the American civil rights movement. And sometimes it is downright incoherent...

The Palestinians are enslaved American blacks? Well, we fought a civil war about that for starters so it’s not helping his pacifist theme. Moreover, the analogy is offensive and inapt in multiple ways.

The moral equivalence festival continues: yes, the Palestinians must give up violence and the Jews need to give up the settlements. It’s all one and the same.

Max Boot:

There were other examples of attempts to build false equivalence between the Western and Muslim worlds. For instance, he said: “Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.” Of course most Israelis don’t deny Palestine’s right to exist as a Muslim state as long as it is willing to live in peace, whereas Palestinian leaders have shown no comparable willingness to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Another example of moral equivalency: “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.” That is accepting the (false) narrative of the Iranian Revolution, which holds that America’s role in overthrowing Mossadeq more than half a century ago — a development that would not have been possible had the leftist prime minister not lost support in the Iranian street — is just as bad as the campaign of mass murder and kidnapping that Iran continues to support at this very moment.

Obama also twisted history when, for example, he mentioned how “Islam has always been a part of America’s story.” He said: “In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, ‘The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.’ ” That made the treaty sound like a celebration of American-Muslim partnership when in reality it was a treaty whereby the U.S. paid substantial bribes to the ruler of Tripoli in return for a cessation of attacks on American shipping by his corsairs. Tripoli didn’t keep its promises, and the result was America’s first overseas conflict — the Barbary Wars fought against the Muslim states of North Africa.

Ira Stoll:

During the campaign I had actually defended Obama against those who felt he would be a disaster for Israel. This speech makes me think that may have been a mistake. The only chance now is that this speech will be mere rhetoric, like so much in the Middle East, intended only for public consumption. But if Obama really means it, it is bad news for the Jews in Israel and America, not to mention for American national security.

Carter acting as Obama emissary to Hamas?

It doesn't sound likely, but there are Palestinian Arabic reports that Jimmy Carter's upcoming visit to Gaza in the middle of June will include him bringing a letter from President Obama to deliver to Hamas.

Another article in an Egyptian newspaper claims that Obama met with members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington two months ago:

Special sources reported to Al Masry El Youm, that a delegation from the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Association met with US President Obama, in Washington, two months earlier. This meeting was arranged in response to a request made by the MB's leaders in regards to the MB wanting to express their views concerning a number of current political issues.
The sources added that the delegation was joined by an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood member who was living in the United States of America, as well as an Egyptian political leader who was living in a European country.
The sources referred to the fact that "The Muslim Brothers had requested that this meeting be confidential." In their talks with Obama, the MB delegates informed the US Presidents that the Muslim Brotherhood Association is a moderate association that was developed to fight against extreme religious ideas and who base their beliefs strongly on democracy, power circulation and fighting against terrorism, stated the source.

Both stories need to be taken with a large grain of salt, but they are interesting nonetheless, especially in combination.

2 Hamas men killed in today's infighting

Besides the PA policeman killed by Hamas this morning, the PA has killed two of the three Hamas men holed up in a Qalqiliya building:

A daylong standoff between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas gunmen has ended with three people dead in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya on Thursday.

PA security officials said they moved into the building where the clashes took place to find the dead bodies of two men, and a third injured, believed to be members of Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. The two were apparently gunned down.

The [PA] spokesperson did not confirm reports that the Hamas fighters were killed by waste water pumped inside a tunnel the men were hiding in, nor that poisonous gas was used against them.

Well, that's one way to recycle.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 95.

Quick notes on Obama's speech

No time for a full dissection but here are some troubling parts:

More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims...

Is he including Israel as one of those colonial states?

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.

Revealed is a deliberate word choice to make it appear that Islam is the true religion! "Founded" would be more accurate.

And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

Worldwide? Is that the American President's responsibility? I don't think he is too concerned about most other kinds of stereotyping worldwide.

Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President.

Now he uses his name to score points; he sure downplayed it during the campaign.

In Ankara, I made clear that America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.

A majority of Muslims seem to think that killing Israeli women and children are justified. They like to point to imams who decried 9/11 but how many condemned theMercaz HaRav massacre? I'm not aware of a single one.

...it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.

And why exactly are there still "refugee" camps in Gaza and the West Bank? Is Israel somehow stopping Palestinian Arabs from leaving these camps and buying homes?

That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest.

This may be the first time a sitting American president referred to the Palestinian Arabs as if they already have a country.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding.

Is he comparing Palestinian Arabs to slaves???? And Israelis to white slaveowners????

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's.

See above. How exactly this "right to exist" came about is a bit....murky.

All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.

PBUH....this is dangerously pandering.

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.

Oh, please. That tradition is exclusively when Islam is dominant and they are "tolerant" to people who explicitly accept second-class status.

For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.

I'm not sure what he is talking about here, but it appears that he will loosen up the US rules of what a charity is to include what Muslims consider charity. Holy Land Foundation, anyone?