Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 15, 2009

Today's PalArab news roundup 6-15-09

Palestinian Arab negotiator Saeb Erekat continued his rejectionism by criticizing Binyomin Netanyahu's peace speech, saying it didn't address "outstanding historical grievances of 1948." Which pretty much tells you everything you need to know - Palestinian Arabs aren't interested in peace, but in grudges. (See more here.)

Hamas, meanwhile, accused Netanyahu of "racism" by demanding that Israel be known as a Jewish state. No word on the "racism" of the many Arab states that officially declare they are Muslim in their constitutions - including "Palestine."

A Hamas detainee died in PA custody. Hamas accused the PA of torturing him to death; the PA is claiming that he jumped out of a window and died. It is entirely possible that both are correct - that he jumped out of the window to escape torture.

The PA found explosives in the home of a Hamas member in Hebron.

A Palestinian Arab woman was given a 20-year prison sentence for "treason" for "collaborating" with Israel. Trials for "collaboration" seem to be more common that those for murder, rape or theft, based on reports in Palestinian Arab media.

A man was killed in a drive-by shooting in Gaza. The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 104 (I am not yet counting the prisoner who died.)

Let's hear Abbas' peace speech

First we heard what Barack Obama had to say about peace in the Middle East. Then we heard Binyomin Netanyahu's vision of peace.

But we have no idea what the Palestinian Arab vision of peace is.

We certainly know that it is utterly incompatible with Israel's:

A top Palestinian official dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy speech as “a zero” on Sunday.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, the secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, said the speech was empty of any content and pointless.

He explained that the speech would impede any progress toward a balanced peace settlement. He said Netanyahu is "a swindler, a fraud, and a liar who makes up tricks [about] achievement of this peace."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said that he would not resume negotiations with Israel until all construction in the settlements is stopped.

Meanwhile, chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said those who know the Israeli mentality should not be surprised to hear such a speech. He called on the Arab world to take the right stance toward the speech by freezing the Arab Peace Initiative.

All we hear is rejectionism.

It is obvious that the Americans and Israelis should be giving deep thought about peace, its parameters, its limitations and its potential.

So wouldn't it be reasonable to expect the Palestinian Arabs to describe their own, detailed vision of what a peace agreement would look like? Why wouldn't Abbas give a specific plan of how he envisions a peace agreement to work?

The reason is as simple as it is unpalatable to well-meaning Westerners. Palestinian Arab leaders have never wanted real peace with Israel. Their statements have made it abundantly clear that they regard any peace agreement as a temporary step in their quest to claim the entire area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.

It is time to call their bluff. If they are going to criticize Netanyahu's plan, let them come up with their own plan that they consider realistic. Let us hear Abbas make a public policy statement at a university in the West Bank. If he refuses, perhaps the West will start to realize that he is not serious about peace. If his plan includes flooding Israel with millions of Arabs, if it includes the banning of Jews from visiting holy sites the Old City of Jerusalem and Hebron and Bethlehem and Shechem, if it demands Israel's removing 100% of settlements, if it includes giving PalArabs the rights to fire missiles at Israeli civilian airliners - then the Western world might start to wake up to the fact that a peace process is stillborn without a peace partner who is willing to make compromises.

Abbas has already made clear that he feels no pressure to make any concessions as long as Obama is in office. He is happy to wait as long as it takes. Which means the last thing he wants to do is to make a public statement that could paint himself in a corner.

President Obama can go a long way towards the cause of real peace by demanding that Abbas put forth his plan, not in soundbites but in real detail, a plan that culminates in full relations between Israel and a Palestinian Arab state.

Because his plan would invariably show that he is not the "moderate" he is made out to be.

Jimmy Carter's "truth" versus reality

In Ha'aretz, Jimmy Carter repeats one of his more obvious lies about Gaza:

To me, the most grievous circumstance is the maltreatment of the people in Gaza, who are literally starving and have no hope at this time.

So I must remind my readers that I have been following the news from Gaza very closely, in both Arabic as well as English, and have yet to see a single person who starved to death.

But I have seen pictures like these from Gaza - published the same day as Carter's interview:

Notice the despondency, the distended stomachs, the flies that they are too weak to swat away, the sense of being treated like animals in a huge open-air prison that Israel created, that Carter is referring to.

Today's PalArab news

Ma'an reports of another smuggling tunnel death (this one an electrocution) .

Also, a missing man was found dead in Beit Hanoun and a 60-year old man was found hanged in the West Bank, but so far we do not know if either was the victim of foul play.

PalArabs killed a few wild pigs in the West Bank, certain that they were sent by Israeli settlers - to spread swine flu. (Ma'an is still reluctant to say that explicitly but the implication is clear.)

There were a couple of non-fatal stabbings in the West Bank, one a teenager who stabbed a food vendor. Ma'an adds the reason why Palestinian Arab youth like to act violently - they are clearly bored:

Ramadan Awad sent a message to Palestinian parents and child centers, insisting on the necessity of filling children’s leisure time during the summer holiday with programs aimed at improving their talents and teaching them voluntary skills.

In Palestinian Arab culture, apparently, too much leisure time is an invitation to acting on inherently violent tendencies, according to Ma'an.

"Proof" of that Mossad/Al Qaeda connection

Iran's PressTV reports:

An American al-Qaeda member and militant spokesman told on an internet video, of his descent from a Jewish background.

On Saturday, the American-born al-Qaeda operative, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, said he had "Jews in his ancestry, the last of whom was his grandfather," confirming the genealogy for the first time, CNN reported.

He made the remarks in a video posted on Saturday on the website of al-Qaeda's media wing al-Sahab. He has appeared in such postings before voicing threats of terrorist attacks on the United States.

Why does Iran's media consider this newsworthy? Because it knows that its readers will make this natural "logical"leap:

He is a mossad agent
that is why al-Q never atatcked Israel.

its the jews! get the jews! - presstv user

Mad Iranian
Just as I have always suspected.

connect2raza
HAHAHA THIS MOTHERFCUKER THREATENS TO ATTACK AMERICA THIS ASSEHOLE IS A MOSSAD CIA AGENT THE AMERICANS ND ISRAELIS R PLANNING ANOTHER INSIDE JOB IN AMERICA JUST LIKE 9/11 IN ORDER TO GET A PRETEXT TO ATTCK IRAN OR PAKISTAN AMERICANS WAKE UP UR COUNTRY AMERICA IS RULED BY THE ZIONIST JEWS WHO R THE GODFATHERS OF ISRAEL.

For some reason, PressTV didn't bother to quote this paragraph from CNN:

"Let me here tell you something about myself and my biography, in which there is a benefit and a lesson," Gadahn says, as he elicits support from his fellow Muslims for "our weapons, funds and Jihad against the Jews and their allies everywhere."

The evil Zionists keep choking off Gaza

...with a brand new fuel pipeline:

On, June 11, 2009, an Israeli construction team finished its work on a new pipeline for the transfer of fuel and natural gas from Israel to the Gaza Strip. The decision to build the pipeline was made in accordance with decisions made by the Israeli Government, following security assessments and as a result of the coordination between the Civil Administration and the Palestinian side. The construction was performed by both Israeli and Palestinian construction crews.

Reuters adds its spin:

Israel says that since its December-January offensive against Islamist militants in Gaza it has opened the border to larger amounts of food and medicine.
Gazans have also imported some supplies, including fuel, through smuggling tunnels that run under the border between the coastal territory and Egypt.

Indeed - to Gazans, explosives and weapons smuggled under Rafah are simply considered "supplies."

Reuters now doesn't even bother mentioning weapons smuggling into Gaza - the very reason there is a blockade to begin with!

Osama Bin Laden ready for peace agreement!

As a followup to my previous post about how Joe Klein ecstatically latches onto a Hamas leader's use of the word "Israelis" instead of "Zionists" as proof of his moderation, I just found this transcript of an Osama bin Laden videotape from 2004:

I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.
The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorized and displaced.

Bin Laden used the word "Israelis," not "Zionists"! This must mean that he has become more amenable to reaching a peace agreement with the US and Israel, and that he is signalling to the West his willingness to be flexible!

Not only that, it proves that Bin Laden is more moderate than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who still only uses the word "Zionists" to describe Israelis.

Not that Ahmadinejad is completely fanatical. After all, he has used the word "Israel" on occasion and not "The Zionist entity":

"Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury."
"Remove Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations."
"The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map."
"If the West does not support Israel, this regime will be toppled. As it has lost its raison d' tre, Israel will be annihilated."
"Israel is a tyrannical regime that will one day will be destroyed."
"Israel is a rotten, dried tree that will be annihilated in one storm."

Yes, it appears that every radical Muslim who calls for the destruction of Israel is really just posturing, and really is playing to their own audience but in fact want peace. And it takes the finely attuned ears of the Joe Kleins of the world to correctly interpret their rhetoric and make the rest of us understand that the words and actions don't matter - just the hopes of those who interpret them over-optimistically.

A case study in replacing facts with wishful thinking

There are many people, including many Jews, who wish no harm to Israel and really want peace. Their problem is that they will ignore facts that make peace unlikely and will vastly exaggerate any shreds of hope they come across that support their hopes.

Clearly, the number one obstacle of the many obstacles to real peace is Hamas. Hamas is an unrepentant terror organization, that separated itself from the PA, that controls a good portion of the hoped-for Palestinian Arab state, that not only will not but cannot recognize Israel by its very existence. Their words and actions have been consistent, explicit and undeniable in their desire to destroy Israel and murder all Jews who want self-determination in the Middle East. To say that Hamas' existence is antithetical to any real chance of peace would be an understatement.

Yet, Joe Klein finds a way to ignore terror bombings, Qassam rockets, calls to genocide against Jews, daily incitement to hate and terror - and grasp a silver lining in his interview with Khaled Meshal:

Halfway through my interview with Khaled Mashaal, about an hour after Barack Obama's Cairo speech, I realized that the leader of Hamas was calling the Israeli people, and their leaders, Israelis. That seemed new. The usual term of art used by Islamic militants is "Zionists" or worse. A few days later in Iran, for example, I watched Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad say in a debate, "I don't like to call them Israelis. Their leaders are so unclean that they could wash themselves in the cleanest waters and still be dirty."

A Hamas leader used a word that Klein had never heard! Could this indicate a sea-change in Hamas' attitudes? Is this the beginning of a new era where Hamas embraces peace? Please? Pretty please?

Um...no:

I asked Mashaal if his language implied that he accepted, de facto, a Jewish state called Israel. "Don't conclude this," he said. "These are the names they call themselves ... Once the Palestinians are enabled to have a sovereign state, then they can be asked whom they recognize."

But Klein noticed it, and, dammit, if he is as smart as he thinks he is, then it must be more significant than even his interview subject would admit:

And yet, calling Israelis by the name they call themselves seemed a different sort of body language. The meaning of this new tone can be debated. Part of it may be attributable to the terrible military defeat Hamas suffered in Gaza, a recognition, finally, that Israel is simply not going away. Or Mashaal may be trying to present a more sympathetic face to contrast with Benjamin Netanyahu's recalcitrant Likud government in Israel. Whatever the reason, it certainly seems time to reassess the West's unwillingness to deal with Hamas.

So Klein noticed something that he thought was new. He had zero evidence that it had any meaning. The interview subject explicitly denied that it meant anything. Yet he goes on not only to ascribe meaning to it, he uses his own personal fantasy as a reason that the United States should change its policy towards Hamas!

Klein is hardly the only person to do this. In fact, most Western politicians and journalists do this routinely, although not usually so obviously. They "know" that peace will cause a domino effect of goodwill through the Arab world, they "know" that Israel must make concessions that would inevitably be followed by Palestinian Arab concessions as well, they "know" that Hamas will inevitably be part of the solution - so they will fine-tune their ears and eyes to find moderation among terrorists even as they routinely find extremism among the Israelis who truly want real peace.

But Klein's attempt at sleigh-of-hand in the paragraph above shows in detail what others do more subtly, day in and day out, when looking at Israel and her Arab neighbors.

Followup: Bin Laden is a moderate!

Dem Jews, dem Jews, dem - "Zionists"

A couple of days ago the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, President Obama's old mentor, made a statement that made headlines by highlighting his anti-semitism:

In an exclusive interview at the 95th annual Hampton University Ministers' Conference, Wright told the Daily Press that he has not spoken to his former church member since Obama became president, and he implied that the White House won't allow Obama to talk to him.

"Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me," Wright said. "I told my baby daughter that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ...

He has since "apologized," and his apology proves the point - by saying that he likes some Jews:

MARK THOMPSON: Of course people are keying in, Dr. Wright, on the statements you made regarding Jews.

REV. WRIGHT: Well let me say…I misspoke. Let me just say, Zionists.

And I quote Jews when I say that… I quoted Jews before the Society of Christian Ethics. I quote Mark Ellis a Jewish rabbi…and I quote Ilan Poppe [sic], a Jewish historian who wrote the book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine…and when I quote Jewish authors… persons who are Zionists call them “self-hating Jews” …. I am not talking about all Jews, all people of the Jewish faith. I’m talking about Zionists.

In fact Mark Ellis’ book is entitled Judaism Is Not Israel, and he talks about in his book the ethnic cleansing – Mark Ellis, a Jewish rabbi, the guy who wrote The Jewish Liberation Theology of the Palestinians and refers to Ilan Poppe’s book which details the ethnic cleansing that started in 1947 and 1948 and continues to 2009.

I’m talking about fact, historical fact. I’m not talking about emotionally charged words or the fact that like Jimmy Carter’s book, because he used the word that Jews themselves use – “apartheid”– and he gets labeled as anti-Semitic. Now they can jump on that one phrase if they want to, but they can’t undo history, and they can’t undo the facts of Jewish historians and Jewish theologians who write about what’s going on. .

MARK THOMPSON: …I want everybody to be clear that when you say… “them Jews won’t let him talk to me” you were specifically referring to Zionists.

REV. WRIGHT: Exactly.

This ridiculous and offensive non-apology, where he embraces self-hating and publicity-seeking Jews who are beyond the pale, is still being called an "apology" in the press.

This is exactly like how Arabs will never say they hate Jews in English but the truth comes out in Arabic. Wright's real feelings about Jews are clear, and he is resorting to the same "anti-Zionist" fig leaf that we've seen become fashionable in the past decade or two.

The "improbability" of victory (Barry Rubin)

A sober observation by Barry Rubin:

President Barack Obama says the most shocking things and then is protected by the media. He also says profoundly revealing things that are allowed to pass by.

Here's one I can't get out of my head. In the commemoration of the anniversary of the D-Day landings in France, Obama remarked on "the sheer improbability of this victory."

To me, this screams out something profoundly important about Obama. He doesn't believe in victory. Either he assumes that the battle is not worth fighting given the cost or that it won't be won any way.

Defeat radical Islamists? Force Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons? Win the ideological battle with anti-American forces by confronting their arguments with a strong defense of the United States.

And wasn't that, in a sense, what happened in his Cairo speech: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, as the expression goes.

So, yes, Obama is amazed that the Allies won in Normandy in June 1944.

Here's the implication of that: suppose he had been around in the late 1930s ,given his world view. He would have assumed the "improbability" of victory over Germany and taken the appropriate action in that case of avoiding any confrontation.

Referring to the "improbability of this victory" is revealing of a defeatist attitude.

This makes him the perfect person to preside over the abandonment of America's superpower status and world leadership.

Perhaps he believes in "Yes we can!" domestically, but internationally he believes, "No, we can't."

Unfortunately, the enemies of America, democracy, and liberty have the opposite standpoint. They believe in the certainty of their victory.

As bad as this is, Rubin might not be going far enough.

The impression I get from some liberals is not so much the inadvisability of any sort of war - it is the immorality of winning a war.

Winning a war implies that you are going to impose your own vision on someone else by force. This ends up sounding like what imperialists and colonialists do, and there is little more evil than coloniaism. It seems impossible for the West to wage and win a moral war according to this thinking. The best you can do is to repel an attack to maintain the status quo - to go even a little beyond that is, simply, evil, according to this thinking.

Does Obama subscribe to such a worldview?

Open thread question

I have a number of valued pro-Israel liberal readers and this question just popped in my mind for them:

Is there any substantive difference between Obama's viewpoints on the Middle East and Jimmy Carter's?

Reference material: Carter: U.S. must 'find a way' to include Hamas in peace process

Hamas attacks and confiscates Gaza charity

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas attacked and took over a charity in Beit Hanoun.

Quoting the Mezan Center for Human Rights, it says that medical aid given by international organizations to the charity (possibly called the Society for the Rehabilitation of Disabled People) were meant to be distributed to some 2000 needy Gazans. Hamas gunmen took over the aid and its distribution.

Since Hamas took over Gaza, it has been methodically taking over institutions - medical, political, educational and charitable - and installing its own people to run them, with ideology being more important than competence.

A new type of "honor killing" - and an old one

Usually so-called "honor killings" are against women whose actions embarrass their families by spending too much time with unrelated men.

Now there's a new twist: families who kill their own flesh and blood because they allegedly spend too much time with Zionists:

Fifteen- year-old Ra’ed Sawalha was tortured and hung by his family members who accused him of collaborating with Israeli forces, the Palestinian police reported Thursday.

Brigadier General with the police forces Adnan Ad-Damiri said several arrests were made, all of them family members of the slain boy. The men and women apparently admitted their crimes under questioning, but justified their acts by explaining that Ra’ed was a “spy” for Israel.

And as with "honor killings," any prison time will no doubt be vastly reduced because their crime is quite justifiable by their community's standards.

Meanwhile, another women was found killed outside Hebron, very possibly another "honor killing." Together with the "honor killing" of a woman yesterday in Gaza, the 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 101, with 20 of them being women or children.

UPDATE: We also have another Gaza smuggler tunnel death, this one where a man accidentally strangled himself with the rope he was using to drag his booty - weapons? motorcycles? TNT? - into Rafah. I count tunnel deaths in my self-death count, so the 2009 tally is now at 102.

Another honor killing in Gaza

A young woman was killed in Gaza by her father in an apparent "honor killing."No details on the circumstances yet but it was reported both in Palestine Today and Firas Press.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 99.

Holocaust Museum shooter a real nutcase

Today, a crazed white supremacist, anti-semite and Holocaust denier shot and killed a security guard at the United States Holocaust Museum.

I just glanced at the first six downloadable chapters of a book he wrote, called "Tob Shebbe Goyim Harog - Kill the Best Gentiles" (a fictional quote that he ascribes to the Talmud) and this guy is really crazy, although not obviously crazier than many other people who have many other similar websites.

The book hits all the high points of Jew-hatred. Here's the table of contents:

1. The Conspiracy
2. Khazars Invent Judaism
3. The Illuminati
4. Money
5. Spirochetes of Jew Syphilis
6. The “Holocaust” Hoax
7. Mendelism
8. The Negro
9. The Aryan Force
10. Parasitism USA
11. Pathology and Synthesis
12. Summing Up

Within he thoughtfully includes a summary of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion just to make sure that he has all his bases covered. Not to mention covering the Illuminati and Trilateral Commission. He also consistently capitalizes all the letters of the word "Jew", for example:

President Bill Clinton, with an Ivy League-Rhodes Scholar-Marxist indoctrinated mind, and subject to both blackmail and extortion, appointed many JEWS/CFR/TRI
to sensitive positions in the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, including: SUPREME COURT JUSTICES Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Stephen Breyer, JEWS; SECRETARY
OF STATE, Madeleine K. Albright, JEW; UNDER-SECY STATE, Stuart Eizenstat, JEW; ASST. SECY. STATE, Stanley Roth, JEW; SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, William
Cohen, JEW; SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT, Rahm Emanuel, JEW; WHITE HOUSE ATTORNEY, Bernie Nussbaum, JEW; CEO CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA), John Deutch, JEW (now under investigation for treason); NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, Sandy Berger, JEW; SECRETARY OF
THE TREASURY, Robert Rubin, JEW; HEAD OF THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA), Daniel E. Golden, JEW; SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR, Kenneth Apfel, JEW;....

Page after page of similar insanity fills this tome, which no doubt now is getting far more readers than the author ever could have hoped to reach without murdering a man.