Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 10, 2009

Fatah still calls to "liquidate the Zionist entity"

From the BBC:

International observers have been watching to see if Fatah, which committed itself to peace negotiations in the early 1990s, would rule out armed struggle.
But according to conference delegates, most of the movement's old charter was maintained, including its call to "liquidate the Zionist entity".
A commitment to "two states for two people" was added, specifying that a Palestinian state be established on the basis of 1967 borders - meaning all of the West Bank and Gaza, delegates said.
Fatah members said a clause was also included stating that "peace is a strategic choice", but Fatah "maintains the right of resistance... by all means possible", in line with a statement made by Mr Abbas on Tuesday.

How can these be reconciled?

The 4th Fatah conference in 1980 was one time that Fatah used the terminology "liquidate the Zionist entity," and it made no doubts about what it meant then:

“Al-Fatah is an independent national revolutionary movement, whose aim is to liberate Palestine completely and to liquidate the Zionist entity politically, economically, militarily, culturally and ideologically.

The battle for liberating Palestine is part of the nationalist (pan-Arab) struggle and, therefore, it is the duty of the entire Arab nation to support this battle with all its moral and material means.

“The only way to achieve our aim is through the armed popular revolution. The armed revolution of the Palestinian Arab people is a decisive factor in the battle of liberation and the liquidation of the Zionist presence.

“This struggle will not stop until the Zionist entity is liquidated and Palestine is liberated.”

Its call to merely liquidate the Zionist entity seems positively moderate by comparison!

So one needs to be very skeptical when Fatah supposedly also says it supports "two states for two people[s]." It has made very clear that the idea of a Jewish state is anathema, so it cannot possibly mean a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. More likely, it would be a Palestinian Arab state within the Green Line - created by a massive forcible "return" of Arabs to Israel - besides the Palestinian Arab state in the territories. The words "two states for two peoples" does not mean that it cannot be 40% of a state for one people and 60% of a state - plus another 100% of another - for the other.

Which fits in with the idea that "peace is a strategic choice" - one that they hope, via demographics and the cynical "right of return," would lead to the destruction of Israel.

The only modification from the 1980 platform is the third paragraph shown above: they see that a fake "peace process" is an additional way to achieve the aim of liquidating Israel, not only "armed popular revolution."

Another Hamas prisoner "commits suicide" in PA prison

In February, a Hamas member died in a PA prison. Hamas accused the PA of torture; the PA claimed that it was a suicide, by hanging. The PA investigation found - surprise, surprise - that this religious Muslim did indeed commit suicide, and there were no signs of torture on his body (even though other witnesses said they had seen evidence of torture.)

Now we have an incredible case of deja vu:

A Hamas-affiliated detainee died while in the custody of Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces at Juneid prison in Nablus, a security official told Ma'an on Monday afternoon.

Hamas said his death was the result of torture.

According to the PA's version of events, Hamarna was found dead after he hung himself with a bed sheet tied around his neck.

What a coincidence!

Bias

Everyone is biased.

This statement seems self-evident, but some people seem to insist that their favorite sources - whether it is CNN, the New York Times, the BBC, Amnesty International, the IDF, the PCHR or Pakistan Daily - are above such things, and truly look at things with an unbiased eye.

This is absurd and dangerous.

When testing the veracity of someone's reporting or claims, there are a number of things to take into account: what their bias might be, whether they ignore any facts and highlight others, and how the facts inform their opinions.

NGOs have a vested interest in appearing unbiased, but they also have a vested interest in pushing their agendas. Above all, "human rights" organizations need to justify their existence. The main reason is in order to continue to receive funding, often from governments. A highly important secondary reason is that there is no value to them of investigating alleged abuses and finding that things are not so bad, or can be put into context. From their perspectives, their job is to find human rights abuses, not to expose context or nuance.

A clear result is that they will have a bias towards believing the claims of those who allege HR abuse and a bias against those who deny it or contextualize it. If they throw enough resources at an issue, they'll find things to report, no matter what, and in the absence of facts they will rely more on shaky testimonies or "experts" who have little real experience.

Of course, governments and armies have biases as well. In order to find the truth, one must look at what both parties have to say and see which one has more facts on their side. Looking only at parties who have a clear agenda to find abuse is not only inadequate but fallacious.

When looking at the Gaza operation, it is easy to fall in the trap of saying that Amnesty International or HRW or Physicians for Human Rights are unbiased, and that anything that the IDF says in response is by definition biased. How can you possibly find an unbiased human rights organization that would place the same weight on what the IDF says as to what a seemingly homeless old man says?

I am biased as well, obviously. But when looking at the competing claims of the human rights groups and the IDF, along with their supporting evidence, it is clear that the HR organizations allow their biases to push the directions of their reports. It is also clear that they haven't the foggiest notion of how wars are fought. For Amnesty to make blanket statements that the IDF killed hundreds of unarmed civilians, with the clear implication that somehow they could have fought a war without that happening, borders on the irresponsible even as it is factual. To them, every single civilian death is somehow a human rights abuse on the part of Israel, and the millions of dollars and thousands of hours Israel spends to minimize those deaths (as well as to help the injured) is irrelevant.

That is not an unbiased view; that is slander. Not to mention ignorant of the realities of war.

Today, the IDF responded to a PHR report on Gaza. It pointed out that many of the PHR claims were, simply put, lies. Similarly, the IDF report on Cast Lead showed that many of the claims made by the media and human rights organizations were inaccurate or false.

If the human rights groups were truly unbiased, they would go through each of the IDF claims one by one and try to prove them wrong as well - and, when appropriate, admit their own mistakes and shortcomings. But they never do, because they already have their "comprehensive" reports and if they would admit mistakes it would impact their fundraising efforts.

Truth is not their goal. Those who think otherwise are just fooling themselves.

(In the case of some NGOs, like PCHR, of course the bias is far deeper and simply anti-Israel to begin with. And one cannot discount the inherent anti-Israel bias that the people who gravitate to these sorts of organizations tend to have. But even without that, the bias is there and must be examined just as critically as the bias that the IDF has towards its own people.)

Fatah Follies, day 6

The Fatah conference continues, having been extended from its intended conclusion on Thursday to this coming Tuesday. And the stories leaking out indicate that Fatah is still a corrupt, terrorist, disorganized mess.

Early in the conference there was controversy about allowing a leader of the supposedly-defunct Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades from attending, probably just a snafu. He told the conference on Thursday that Palestinian unity is important - even if they have to use violence to get it. Of course, he added, Fatah should use terror against Israel as well.

Serious procedural problems emerged, as the printed lists of candidates for the two major committees (the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council) were inconsistent, sometimes with leading candidates missing and some with candidates listed twice. Marwan Barghouti's name was missing in three of five lists distributed. Slates of candidates who hate each other were presented as if they were in the same sub-party. People spread false rumors that candidates had withdrawn their names hours before voting, affecting their chances. The Lebanese contingent suffered a serious split as two competing leaders ran for major positions. Conspiracy theories abound.

Another Fatah leader accused the conference of "rigging the vote" against the Gaza attendees.

On the other hand, there were moves to heal the rift between Mahmoud Abbas and Farouk Kaddoumi, his Tunisian-based terrorist rival and secretary-general of the PLO, who accused Abbas of conspiring to assassinate Yasir Arafat. It appears that Kaddoumi got some of his candidates running for major positions.

Meanwhile, Hamas not only stopped Fatah leaders there from attending, but they even confiscated their cell phones to stop them from voting! Some articles have assumed that Iran is behind Hamas' actions to try to sabotage the conference.

All in all, Fatah has proven it cannot even govern itself. Why do people still think they can lead anyone else?

Saudi Arabia closes Lebanese TV outlet for sex talk show

From the BBC:

The Jeddah offices of a Lebanon-based TV station which broadcast an interview with a Saudi man boasting about his sexual conquests have been closed.
Saudi Arabian authorities said the offices had been shut by order of the country's deputy prime minister.
The 32-year-old Saudi man's interview shocked conservative Saudi society, prompting calls for him to be punished.
Mazen Abdul Jawad talked about his sexual conquests and how he picks up women in the kingdom.
A spokesman at the information ministry confirmed the decision to close the offices of the LBC TV station in the kingdom's commercial capital.
"It was because of the interview with Mazen Abdul Jawad," Abdul Rahman al-Hazzaa said, according to AFP news agency.
Saudi media say officials are considering whether to charge Mr Abdul Jawad over the interview, which appeared on a programme called Red Lines and challenged Saudi taboos.
The Saudi daily newspaper al-Watan said authorities had also closed other offices of the channel, which is mainly owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Pre-marital sex is illegal in Saudi Arabia and Mr Abdul Jawad could face imprisonment or flogging.

Officially, it was closed for "operating without a license."

Baitullah Meahsud - Zionist?

If you want to know how completely nutty much of the Muslim world is, read Pakistan Daily. There you will find no shortage of conspiracy theories, naked Jew-hatred, and an endless supply of baldfaced lies that get believed by tens of thousands of credulous morons.

Today's idiocy is claiming that Taliban leader Baitullah Meahsud, recently blown to bits by a US drone, was really killed because he was a Zionist who knew too much:

Yesterday, the Zionist top media outlets, CNN, BBC, and FoxNews, etc. gloated that Pakistan’s most wanted Taliban leader, Baitullah Mahsud, has been killed by a US missile. It suppose know that could be used an excuse to prove that Baitullah Mahsud was not a CIA, MOSSAD and RAW asset, as claimed by Mahsud’s former close aid, Haji Turkistan Betani on Pakistan TV Geo News. Haji also claimed that Baitullah Mahsud got Benazir Bhutto assassinated for his American, Israeli and Indian masters.

Previous insanity and lies from that newspaper have been discussed here , here and here.

A few times a week, our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice arrest practitioners of a truly horrible crime: magic.

Magic, of course, is not allowed under Shari'a law. What is strange though is how many Saudi Muslims seem to believe in magic anyway.

Here are some articles from just the past couple of weeks in the Saudi Gazette:

An Arab-African male accused of “conning clients” with his claims to magic powers enabling him to “break spells, win over hearts, and divide couples” [was arrested by] the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai’a) in Makkah Tuesday.

The Makkah Hai’a spokesman said that the detained man managed to obtain “large sums of money” from “women and innocent people” through his claims to have superhuman powers. The spokesman thanked the public for their help in detaining the man and their “understanding of the role of the men of the Hai’a in containing unwanted phenomena”.

Here was a sting to catch the criminal in the act:

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai’a) in Jeddah arrested an African man and handed him over to police in the Al-Jami’a district of the city Sunday on accusations of practicing magic. A Hai’a official was sent to the man, who claimed to be able to break spells, posing as a client seeking a solution to a marital problem in order to expose his activities. Hai’a spokesman Salim Al-Sarawani said the magic practitioner extracted prayer beads from his pocket and muttered unintelligible phrases before asking his client for his name, the name of his wife, and 1,000 riyals. He then promised that the issue would come to an end within three days. As the fees for his services were being handed over Hai’a officials made the arrest and transferred the man to police authorities.

The vigilance against magic extends to the regular police, who call the Muttawa for backup:

Police patrols attending the scene of a minor accident in the north of Qassim Saturday called in the Hai’a after finding one of the driver’s cases to be “full of talismans and items used in acts of magic.” Officials conducted a search after noticing the driver’s “nervous behavior” and took the man to Qasiba’ Police Station where the Hai’a were summoned to “take a look at the contents of the case and check if they were used for practicing magic.”

The magicians manage to penetrate the highest levels of Saudi society:

The Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai’a) in Jeddah detained Monday an African man charged with conducting acts of black magic and sorcery on over 50 persons, among them businessmen, local officials and scholars. A Hai’a raid uncovered a long list of names, among them women, of persons who he would contact exclusively via mobile telephone text messages in order to maintain secrecy. Also found were numerous books on magic arts and some strange inscriptions. The man was found upon investigation to have been involved in a similar case two years previously.

Plus one more incident that I already posted about.

We are truly fortunate that the Muttawa is vigilant in eradicating the scourge of magic from the Kingdom. But it is an uphill battle...it appears that the number of sorcerers are increasing.

But that couldn't be because these arrests give the magicians and their acts more legitimacy in the eyes of the average Saudi Muslim, and therefore increase the number of potential customers. No, that couldn't be the case.

Fatah conference officially endorses terror

Even though we have seen Fatah speakers and attendees insist that terror is desirable, they have now made it official.

Al Quds reports that the political platform of Fatah was ratified on Saturday night:

1 - Fatah stands as a national liberation movement aimed to eliminate and defeat the occupation and achieve independence for the Palestinian people, which is part of the Arab liberation movement from the world powers seeking freedom and independence of peoples.

2- The Fatah movement stresses its opposition to the Israeli occupation and that any inconsistencies are minor discrepancies resolved through [internal] communication and dialogue with the retention of the right to use all available means to defend the national unity and Palestinian legitimacy and the independent Palestinian national decisions.

3- The Fatah movement will remain faithful to the martyrs and the sacrifices and struggles for the freedom of prisoners, and reaffirms its adherence to the parameters of the Palestinian people on the land, Jerusalem, editors [?}, the removal of settlements, and the refugees and their return.

4 - In spite of our choice of just peace and the quest for completion, we will not disregard any of the choices, and we believe that all forms of resistance are a legitimate right of the peoples of territories in the face of occupation.

5- This declaration is an integral part of the political program of the Sixth General Conference of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement "Fatah".

And in case you want to minimize the fourth paragraph, Al Quds headlines the article:

Fatah approves political platform which emphasizes the right of all forms of resistance

No doubt, apologists for Palestinian Arab terror will mention that the 1988 conference explicitly mentioned "armed struggle" so will point to the more general "all forms of resistance are a legitimate right" as proof of "moderation."

They just cannot accept the simple fact that the mainstream of Palestinian Arab political thought celebrates and endorses the murder of Jews.

Fatah's token Jew

Believe it or not, a Jew attended the Fatah conference as a delegate and was nominated to Fatah's very peaceful sounding Revolutionary Council.

Uri Davis is exactly what you would expect: a far left, socialist British academic and professor of "peace studies" who passionately hates Zionism and Judaism (he just married a Muslim woman, his fourth marriage.)

Davis rejects Zionism as "racism."

Yet his position in Fatah is as an observer member (non-Palestinian) of the Palestinian National Council, to which he was appointed by Arafat in 1984.

Note the "non-Palestinian" part of his observer status. It just so happens that Davis was born in Jerusalem in 1943 - so he is a Palestinian by any reasonable definition of the term. The only possible reason that Fatah considers him "non-Palestinian" is because he is...drumroll, please....Jewish!

Apparently, this is not "racism" and not worthy of being criticized. One, because it is not against Israel, and two, because it could lead to his being assassinated. Besides that, Fatah is obviously very inclusionary.

The cluelessness of Israel bashers truly knows no bounds.

UPDATE: Davis converted to Islam in 2008. (h/t Israellycool)

UPDATE 2: His chances are slim. The Revolutionary Council has only a couple of dozen seats, and there are 617 candidates.

Great moments in Palestinian Arab democracy

On Friday, it was announced that Mahmoud Abbas would be "elected unopposed” without a formal vote as Fatah's "general commander."

Fatah might need a refresher course on what the primary definition of the word "elected" is.

Meanwhile, the peaceful Palestinian Arabs started shooting at each other near the conference - in a dispute over parking. Not just regular citizens, of course, but the best and the brightest of Palestinian Arab society: the gunshots were between members of the Presidential Guard and members of Palestinian General Intelligence.

The world's largest kosher restaurant chain? Subway! (UPDATE: No.)

From JTA:

What’s the largest kosher restaurant chain?
Mendy’s? Six branches, seven if you count the meat and dairy counters at New York City's Grand Central Station.

Dougie’s? Five branches in New York and New Jersey.

Don’t even bring up Nathan’s Famous -- it stopped making kosher hot dogs altogether.

The dark-horse winner is Subway, the made-to-order sandwich giant poised to open its ninth kosher franchise Aug. 18 inside the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center in North Miami Beach, Fla. New Subways opening in Indianapolis and Skokie, Ill., will make it 11 by the end of the year. Five more are planned for next year.

Subway is not the only fast-food chain with kosher branches. Dunkin’ Donuts, the world's largest coffee and baked goods chain, has 33 kosher franchises, mostly in New York, according to company spokesman Andrew Mastrangelo. They serve dairy breakfast sandwiches, but not full meals.

I ate once at the downtown Manhattan Subway before it closed, and I loved it. And last week I had the opportunity to eat a kosher "cheese"steak at the Baltimore kosher Subway shop, also quite good.

UPDATE: James points out that Burgers Bar has 27 locations in Israel and Ben adds an additional one in Brooklyn. Sorry, Subway, but you are still the biggest one in America.

"J Street" against peace

AIPAC authored a letter being signed by members of Congress asking President Obama to push Arab states into recognizing Israel.

Should be a no-brainer, right? And to 70 Senators, it is.

But some left-wing Jewish organizations are outraged. For example, J Street writes:

Defenders of the unworkable status quo are whispering to the White House and Congress that supporting the President's thoughtful and balanced approach to the Middle East could hurt them politically.

And they're supporting a sign-on letter in the Senate, authored by Senators Bayh (D-IN) and Risch (R-ID), that directly undercuts the President's policy, asking that President Obama press only Arab states. The letter doesn't even mention the need for Israel to stop building settlements or for Palestinians to end incitement to violence against Israel!

So, let's get this straight: J Street feels that Arab governments should not recognize Israel at this time. They feel that their improving their relations with Israel should be dependent on Israel's settlement activity, and should not occur just because Israel exists and is a nation like any other.

I wonder, do they also feel that Israel should not recognize a Palestinian Arab state because such a state would be Judenrein? Should no state recognize any other if they disagree with their policies? Is the existence of Jewish communities in historic Jewish lands a bigger crime than the human rights abuses that China or Syria practice daily - actions that J Street do not consider to be worthy of diplomatic isolation?

Their absurd suggestion that Israel's being recognized should be dependent on other factors is outrageously offensive and it shows the moral depravity that these organizations have. They claim to want "peace" but a straightforward call for Israel to be at peace with her Arab neighbors, without preconditions, is denounced in no uncertain terms.

How, exactly, can these jokers [perhaps that is what the "J" stands for] claim to represent any segment of Judaism or Zionism, let alone a majority? Their position is identical to Saudi Arabia's. Is that how people who claim to be "pro-Israel" should act?

Must-read: Yaacov Lozowick

Yaacov Lozowick, who has quickly become perhaps my favorite blogger, wrote a 20-page paper analyzing the IDF report on Operation Cast Shield. It makes my instant but comparatively tiny analysis look pathetic. He sums it up like this:

The authors of the document recognize, accept, and embrace international law. Their thesis is not that it interferes with Israel's ability to defend itself. On the contrary, it supplies Israel with the tools to legitimately combat its enemies while demanding the support of the international community. Anyone who respects international law must step forward to Israel's side as it follows the letter and spirit of the law in rejecting criminal attacks on its people.

A more refreshing position can hardly be imagined. If anyone should be apologizing, it
should be Israel's critics. Their entire narrative is turned on its head; the report documents how they cynically employ the terminology of international law in contradiction to its intent. Rather than conflicting with the right of the Jews, it reinforces them.

He contrasts the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the IDF report with the comparative frivolousness and shallowness of the reports of Israel's critics. It is a great summary of the report.

Similarly, he had other great posts this week:

America Doesn't Acknowledge

Maybe Distance Matters

(h/t joe5348)

Quickies

Tunnel collapse! One more killed in Rafah.

An absurd article in Foreign Affairs argues that Hamas is moderate, pragmatic and should be engaged by the West. It appears that the author doesn't read any Arabic and places his faith in Hamas op-eds in the Washington Post. Meanwhile, mainstream Palestinian Arabs are decrying Hamas for its "Islamization" of Gaza. I guess PalArabs need to read "Foreign Affairs" to understand Hamas better.

The Forward does a great takedown of Roger Cohen. (h/t EBoZ)

The Other Israel: a must-read at YNet.

Soccer Dad finds a quote that sums up the "peace process."

Arabs sick of Fatah and Palestinian whining

Yasir Arafat's Fatah never fails to live up to its reputation of being a corrupt, ineffective joke. Mahmoud Abbas' decision to convene the sixth Fatah conference this week appears to prove how clueless he is about the organization that he thinks he leads.

The infighting within Fatah continues at the conference. The young guard versus the old, the ones who want Fatah to take responsibility for losing Gaza versus the PA leaders, Dahlan vs Jibril, Gaza vs. West Bank, Ramallah vs. the "diaspora," and Abbas vs. Kaddoumi (the major hawkish Fatah leader who is boycotting the conference and planning his own alternative!) has resulted in a disorganized joke.

The only thing that the delegates could agree on is that Israel assassinated Arafat. In other words, the Fatah movement that the world considers a viable peace partner with Israel can only agree to lies.

This disarray has not gone unnoticed in the Arab world, both within the territories and far beyond. The UAE National writes:

Fatah has become a party of strongmen and mandarins whose vested interests are often at odds with the wellbeing of the population. Its most popular figure, Marwan Barghouti, sits in an Israeli jail, while its current leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has had to fend off challenges to his authority – although he has been the president of the PA for four years and should be defending a record of achievement.

Another National article interviewed Palestinian Arabs about the conference:

“I didn’t see this happening,” said Khader Khader, an analyst with the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre. “I thought things would be calmer.”

The idea had been, said Mr Khader, for Fatah to close ranks around Mr Abbas and appease the younger generation of leaders by including them, along with the current leadership, on the Central Committee and Revolutionary Council. The fact that that hasn’t happened showed “something is wrong with [the Fatah leadership’s] calculations”.

While that may have surprised analysts and organisers, it elicited no raised eyebrows from three customers at a coffee shop not far from the conference in Bethlehem yesterday.
One, Adnan Mohammad, 27, went so far as to say that Fatah “is finished and has been for a while”.

Another, Eyad Radwan, 28, said he was a Fatah supporter, but he too accepted that the movement was “in a mess”.

The Arab world applauded a letter that Saudi King Abdullah wrote to the conference, decrying Palestinian Arab divisions. Even though he was mostly referring to the Fatah/Hamas split, it applies doubly so to Fatah's own divisions:

King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia summed up the sentiments of the entire Arab and Muslim worlds well when he said that Palestinian divisions constitute a greater danger to the Palestinians and their cause than all the threats and acts of aggression committed by Israel.
In a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas marking Fateh’s first congress in 20 years, the Saudi king stressed that all Palestinian factions need to come together to make an independent Palestinian state possible.

The Saudi monarch went on to say that Israel was not able, during years of continued aggression, to damage the Palestinian cause as much as the Palestinians did themselves in the past few months. The Saudi king concluded that if the international community agrees to establish an independent Palestinian state, this will not happen as long as the Palestinian house is deeply divided.

The Arab world's impatience with Palestinian Arabs has been growing, and the PalArab leadership is thoroughly clueless as to the fact that they have made themselves irrelevant. They see the US pressuring Israel and think that they can just sit back and do nothing. The West Bank and Gaza split widens every day, the Hamas/Fatah divisions are deepening, more than half of the PalArab people themselves still support terror against Israel, and the number of opportunities for peace that the PalArab leadership has ignored or insulted prove that their platitudes are simply lies and that the wellbeing of their people is their least concern.

This is why Arab nations aren't paying up on their pledges of monetary support to the PA. They have to support the PalArabs verbally but their patience has gone a long time ago.

The West remains clueless as to how incompetent and counterproductive Israel's "peace partners" have been. They still place their blind faith in Fatah and in a nonexistent "peace process," acting as if it is a good luck charm that will magically solve all problems.

The world should have woken up decades ago to the fact that Palestinian Arabs have no ability to make peace and that the mess they are in today is wholly their fault.