Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, August 14, 2009

Hamas battles "radical" faction in Rafah (UPDATES)

There is a virtual curfew in Rafah today as Hamas battled members of the Jund al-Ansar Allah Salafist faction over control of a mosque. 15 were injured so far. YNet reports at least 3 killed and mortar fire from both sides.

Hamas banned journalists and photographers from the area of the mosuqe and set up roadblocks and checkpoints.

The leader of the Salafist group, Dr. Sheikh / Abdul Latif Bin Khalid Al-Musa, was holed up in the mosque. He declared in his sermon today that he intended to turn Gaza into an Islamic emirate.

The two groups clashed a few weeks ago as well. Jund Ansar Allah say they are inspired by Al Qaeda.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count mounts...now at 141. (A 14-year old was axed to death today as well.)

UPDATE: 6 dead, 144.

UPDATE 2: 8 dead, including a girl. 146.

UPDATE 3: Ma'an has a bulletin that Hamas has blown up the home of the leader of the Salafist group. Will we be getting a 67-page report from Human Rights Watch about this horrendous crime? You know, with all the keywords like collective punishment, impeding freedom of religion, disproportionate force, shooting at houses of worship, distinction between civilians and militants...

UPDATE 4: 13 dead. 151. Qaeda guys might have done a suicide attack against Hamas! How's that for irony?

UPDATE 5.5: Palestine Press Agency says 16 dead, over 100 wounded. 154. Palestine Today says that it is expected that the toll will go over 20 and that the leader of the group was killed. PalPress disagrees, saying the leader escaped in a tunnel connected to the mosque.

Trouble in Fatahland

The Fatah conference, that stretched from three days to nine and still has not finished counting the votes for the Revolutionary Council, is still under attack for voting problems.

The Arabs that attended are a lot more skeptical about its success- starting with former "prime minister" Ahmed Qurei:

Qurie, 72-year-old former chief negotiator with Israel, earlier said the Fatah congress election “from the outset ... did not meet the minimum principles of transparency.”

Better known as Abu Ala, he was one of 10 veteran Central Committee members who sought re-election. He was a central committee member for years and worked on organising the long awaited sixth congress, which he chaired at its opening in Bethlehem on Aug. 4.

Critics said Fatah clearly bent its own rules to ensure that another veteran, Abbas aide Tayyeb Abdel-Rahim, got a seat on the executive.

He lost by two votes but after a recount Fatah said he ranked equal with the 18th member on the winners’ list and would duly take his place, while the number of appointed members would be reduced by one to three.

Among irregularities [Qurie] noted were 10 ballot boxes for the Central Committee instead of one; a 24-hour delay in announcing the result; many ballots in the same handwriting; armed security men present while the count was going on.

Qurie said he expected challenges to the results of voting for the parliament of the secular party, the Revolutionary Council, that are to be announced today.

“There will be no trust in the results,” he said.

The National (UAE) summed up the conference this way:

After a week of contentious, sometimes raucous deliberations, Fatah, the foremost Palestinian nationalist movement, has managed to elect a new leadership committee. This is no small feat for an organisation that most Palestinians see as fractious, corrupt and without compass. Indeed, the Sixth General Congress was mired in controversy and infighting that threatened to erode further the credibility of a party arguably on the wane. Senior Fatah officials in exile denounced the very holding of the conference in Bethlehem, in Israeli-occupied Palestine, and alleged that Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah and chairman of the Palestinian Authority, was merely mounting a power grab by stuffing the audience with obedient followers.
In a sense, they were right.

As usual, Fatah is so pre-occupied with navel gazing and corrupt power grabs that it has no clue how it is fading into irrelevance. The West still holds onto the romanticized image of Fatah as a moderate, practical group that can lead the Palestinian Arabs to peace, ignoring not only the obvious infighting and fissures but also how sick the average Palestinian Arabs are of the corruption and apathy that Fatah has shown for their welfare.

The people are not passionate for Fatah; quite the contrary. Relying on a fractured, faded and irrelevant party whose members cared more about showing up in the proper limousines than in helping the Palestinian Arab people is the West's major mistake in the Middle East.

Happy Blogoversary to Me!

Tomorrow will be the fifth anniversary of this blog.

Over the years, my readership has steadily risen. Now the blog averages around 1400 hits every day.

(When looking at this graph keep in mind that we still have over four months left for 2009.)

Sometime later this year I should get my millionth hit.

My comments section has also grown dramatically, showing that there is a real community here, which I try to keep reasonably civil. I have over 23,000 comments over the years.

The blog has over 6400 posts now, averaging 3.5 a day (over 4.2 a day if you don't count the days I don't post, Shabbat and holidays.)

My usual goal with the blog is to post things that people are unlikely to have seen in other blogs or in the regular news. Even when I post something that was in the mainstream media, I try to add my own hook or observations. I think that I have been successful in this, although it remains frustrating to have had so many scoops and little recognition. Then again, I am not big on self-promotion. I am most gratified to hear that some prominent authors and commentators do read this blog.

I'm toying with the idea of placing ads on the site, but I am concerned that if I do that my choices for stories might change a bit, as I subconsciously look more for sensationalism. Controversy gets more hits than nuance.

I'm also still fantasizing about writing a book or two (reformatting the Haggadah I put together last year as well as editing my posts into something cohesive.) I never seem to have the time, though.

For those who started more recently, feel free to go back to my older posts from 2006 and 2007 and browse; there is a lot of stuff there you might enjoy.

Anyway, thank all of you for reading the blog!

Tiny news item says it all

From the Jordan Times, in its entirety:

King congratulates Iranian president
AMMAN (Petra) –– His Majesty King Abdullah on Thursday sent a cable to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad congratulating him on his re-election as president of Iran.

The West has allowed the farce of the Iranian elections to stand, and the publicity surrounding Ahmadinejad stealing the election has died down. The extremists have won, knowing that they could wait out the Western anger.

Now the Arab world, which had hoped the West would keep the pressure on Iran, is stuck with the results, and has to play nice.

Egypt arrests man for FGM

From Al-Arabiya:

An Egyptian man has been charged with illegally circumcising a young girl on Thursday, making him the first person to face the law since Cairo criminalized the controversial practice of female genital mutilation, or FGM.

Ahmed Gad al-Karim, 69, was charged with inflicting injury on an 11-year-old girl after a local hospital notified the police when the young girl was brought in suffering from heavy bleeding following a circumcision.

The Upper Egyptian governorate of Minya, 600 kilometers south of Cairo, was told that the girl's mother gave Karim 150 Egyptian Pounds ($ 27) to circumcise her daughter, who remains in critical condition.

Karim's arrest is the first since Egypt passed law number 126 in 2008, which criminalizes FGM due to the physical and psychological damages it inflicts on the victims.

In 2008, the law was met with objections by the Muslim Brotherhood and independent MPs, who argued that female circumcision is part of the Shariah law as it protects a woman's chastity.

But Dar al-Iftaa, the government institution in charge of issuing religious edicts for contemporary issues, ruled that circumcision is not part of Islam and is a cultural practice.

The good news is that there was an arrest.

The bad news is that it appears Egypt has no interest in enforcing the law, as the only reason there was an arrest in this case - a year after the law passed - is because the poor girl was almost killed.

Fatah Revolutionary Council voting fraud revealed

The Fatah conference isn't quite done, as they are counting the votes for the second-highest ruling body, the peacefully named Revolutionary Council.

They were planning on having all the votes counted by Friday, but apparently they discovered some irregularities in the vote counting...after they hired local teachers to help out.

According to Palestine Today, counting was suspended on Wednesday night when the fraud was discovered.

Google introduces localized "Palestine" search engine

Nothing terrible, but it is here at www.google.ps .

When they localize news, that will be interesting.

Hamas threatens human rights commission

From PCHR:

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) expresses its concern regarding statements made by the Government in Gaza against the Independent Commission of Human Rights.

In a workshop it organized in Gaza City on Tuesday evening, 11 August 2009, the Commission called for its lawyers to be allowed to visit detainees held by the Internal Security Service and to reveal the places of their detention. The Commission called also for the immediate release of political prisoners and to compensate and rehabilitate victims of torture.

In response, the Ministry of Interior in Gaza issued a press statement on the same day considering the Commission's positions as non-neutral, and accusing it of dual treatment with regard to cases in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Ministry also considered the Commission's position as a political security escalation rather than a legal one.

In the same context, the Ministry of Information in Gaza issued a press release on Wednesday, 12 August 2009, rejecting the Commission's "accusations" and demanding that the Commission withdraw "such accusations. It also demanded that the Ministry of Interior take legal action against the Commission. The press release also stated that the Ministry should consider boycotting the Commission "because it has proven on several occasions that it is not independent and not neutral in many situations." The Ministry demanded the Commission "move back to the right legal work" and warned it and others of "moving away from the legal methodology in dealing with the Palestinian situation," which implies a threat to all human rights organizations.

Even though that commission was created by Arafat, it criticizes the PA as well.

HRW will believe anything (UPDATED)

HRW just came out with a report claiming multiple cases where IDF soldiers killed, in cold blood, innocent civilians holding white flags. I cannot speak to all the details of the report right now, but one part is clear: HRW fully believes the "eyewitness" accounts of liars. They interviewed the Abed Rabbo family, whose previous statements to reporters were found to be incredibly inconsistent. The fact that HRW is so credulous when many have noted the inconsistencies shows that their research is pretty shoddy. At the very least they should have addressed the issue, but of course that is not HRW's aim. One simple example: HRW says that

Seven neighborhood residents who spoke to Human Rights Watch said that major fighting in the area had stopped by the morning of January 7, although sporadic exchanges of fire may have continued after that.

Time magazine's report mentions a salient fact that HRW chose to ignore:

Most residents of Jebel al-Kashif claim there were no Hamas fighters in the area at the time of the alleged incident, but a middle-aged farmer in a battered army jacket took me aside and said, in a near whisper, that Hamas had been firing rockets from the vicinity of where the episode took place.

Now, who is more credible? The farmer has nothing to gain by lying, but the Abed Rabbo family - who are members of Fatah and who had earlier told a PA newspaper that Hamas was using them as human shields - just might not want to antagonize their tormenters. Why are none of these facts mentioned by HRW when it relates the story of the Abed Rabbo sisters told by a family with very shaky credibility? The reason is, of course, that HRW wants to find human rights abuses and "war crimes," and will ignore evidence to the contrary. NGO Monitor's critique of the report can be found here. UPDATE: Here's video of a terrorist trying to get away from the IDF by using a white flag, something HRW seems to not have known about during the past seven months.

(h/t Richard Landes of Augean Stables via email)

The crack Palestinian Authority police have a tough case to crack. From Ma'an:

A Palestinian boy died of seven gunshot wounds to the head in what sources say is either a tragic accident of a case of filicide.

The incident occurred in Az-Zawiyah village south Nablus on Wednesday, when Palestinian security sources uncovered the death of 15 year-old Jihad Shukeir.

Jihad was pronounced dead at the Rafidia Government Hospital; medical sources said he had sustained seven gunshot wounds to the head and died while he was being transferred to the hospital.

Sources said police are investigating two tracks, the first a scenario where the boy was playing with this father (a Palestinian Authority police officer)’s weapon, and the second a case of gun cleaning gone awry, where the gun was in fact in the hands of the father.

Tough to choose between those scenarios. Did the boy continue to shoot his own head seven times, or did the father not notice that he was shooting his son in the head while he happily continued to clean his gun?

Two equally good theories. Everything else is far fetched.

Dutch activist blames bird flu on Jews

From Haaretz:

A journalist from Holland who linked Jews to the recent outbreak of a flu pandemic drew heavy criticism from a prominent Dutch Jewish organization this week, which said her claim was tantamount to an anti-Semitic blood libel.

Holland's largest daily, De Telegraaf, last week printed an interview with Desiree Rover, 61, who proposed the bird flu pandemic, caused by the virus H5N1, was part of an international conspiracy to reduce the world's population. (Swine flu, or H1N1, is a related virus.)

Rover is quoted saying the conspiracy can be traced back to descendants of the Khazars in the Caucasus believed to have converted to Judaism 1,200 years ago. De Telegraaf quotes her saying these descendants are now "praying to another god; Lucifer, Satan or however you want to call him" and "are called Rockefeller, Rothschild, Brzezinski and Kissinger."

The original article in Dutch frames her as an anti-vaccine extremist, and she has a bunch of conspiracy theories about how the West unleashed H5N1 on the world, but the anti-semitism is blatant, if not the focus of the article.

I predict that the Arab press will pick up on this within 24 hours.

Does this 3000 year old Egyptian bust look familiar? (Especially the missing nose...)

Al Arabiya has the story, as does the Chicago Sun-Times.

Is this what "multi-faith" means?

From "Ice News" of Iceland:

With the rapid approach of the holy month of Ramadan, a prayer room has opened for Muslims at the University of Iceland. A student in the Finnish language department at the university made a formal request at the Student Council for a prayer room which was later approved by the university. A Holy Quran and prayer rugs were set up in the university’s Chapel making it into a multi faith prayer room, making Icelandic history in the process.

“We are really very happy that we have a prayer room at the University of Iceland,” Head of the Islamic Association in Iceland Salmann Tamimi told IceNews. “It gives the opportunity for Muslim students who have to pray 5 times a day to be able to perform it at the right times. It helps the other non Muslim students and teachers to have a better understanding of Islam, which we are really in need of.” Salmann Tamimi is a graduate of the University of Iceland.

There are about 20 to 30 Muslim students at the University of Iceland from all over the world as well as Icelandic Muslims.

(Photo/Prayer room at University of Iceland, photo provided by Islamic Association of Iceland)

It doesn't sound very multi-faith to me; it sounds like only one faith in this room.

(The article does mention that it is in a "chapel" but the question is, are there any religious objects from any faith outside Islam in this room?)

Major Arab reporter calls for Palestinian Arab resettlement

In a stunning series of four articles in Al-Hayat (London), columnist Daoud Al-Shiryan looks at the reality of how Jordan, Lebanon and Syria keeps Palestinian Arabs in misery. MEMRI translates much of them, here are some highlights:

Objecting to [refugee] resettlement is no different than objecting to peace. It is nothing but an unrealistic slogan. The Arabs have agreed to peace, although they realize that there cannot be peace without [refugee] resettlement. But they disregard this fact, viewing the refugee issue as a point of controversy, when it is [actually] a central and key issue in the peace process. The fear [of being accused of renouncing the nationalist] slogans [calling for] struggle, resistance, and casting Israel into the sea - slogans which emerged at the outset of the peace process with Israel - and the link that has been established between the issue [of resettlement] and ethnic and political problems in some [Arab] countries - have [all] become an obstacle to a realistic and honest approach to the issue.
Arabs who object to the [refugee] resettlement plan contend that they are motivated by their zealous devotion to the Right of Return. But they have not lifted a finger to keep this right alive in the consciousness of the Palestinian 'detainees' in the camps of abasement. As a result, this spurious devotion has evoked the opposite reaction: a Palestinian [refugee] now hopes to emigrate to America, Europe, Canada, or Australia in order to escape the hell of the Palestinian refugee camps, which have played a part in killing his will to live.
It follows that [refugee] resettlement is [already] underway, despite [all the] slogans promoting the Right of Return that have become an [integral] part of the speeches of these countries' politicians.
There is no doubt that our next campaign [should be aimed at] defending the [refugee] resettlement program and demanding that it be implemented… [The host countries] must open up the refugee camps, which are not fit for human [habitation]. [They must] prohibit the trading in the lives of these people, whether this trading was in the name of security and or in the name of terrorism, and they must make it possible for Palestinians to work, to send their children to [public] schools, and to make a living without conditions or limitations. Without real change in the conduct of the countries 'detaining' the Palestinian [refugees], the number of those demanding resettlement will [only] increase. Opposition to [refugee] resettlement is specious; it is tantamount to the slow murder of the Palestinians…"

These countries must stop treating the Palestinians like a plague, using slogans which, as we all know, have become nothing but empty utterances in a loathsome struggle. We must break the isolation of the Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. A Palestinian should be made to feel like a welcome and dear guest - before some external intervention comes along and grants him the right to live in dignity, to everyone's consternation. "We must support the Palestinians like the West supported the Jews. We must reassess the whole idea of refugee camps, before they collapse on top of us. Be God-fearing [in handling the issue of] the refugee camp dwellers. Stop fighting at the expense of the Palestinian people's dignity.

Then he tells an amazing story:

[A] [Jewish] Lebanese woman, Hannah [Efraim], invited a Palestinian woman, Umm Bilal, to come spend the weekend at her house… [saying], 'I want you to help me pack my things, since I have decided to emigrate to the U.S. As you can see, the political and social situation after the 1958 [Lebanese civil] war does not encourage one to stay [in Lebanon], and intensifies sectarianism here. I prefer my son to live far away from Lebanon.' [Shortly thereafter,] Hannah left [Lebanon] and lost touch with Umm Bilal.
Upon her arrival in New York, Hannah received assistance from Jewish organizations. A short time later, she received U.S. citizenship, enrolled her son in a private school, and started working in a bank, earning a good salary. [Her son] Avraham grew up, finished university, and advanced at his job, becoming director-general of a reputable bank. Ten years after completing his degree he married, had three children, and bought a fine house in a New Jersey suburb [for himself], and another for his mother.
In 1995, Hannah decided to visit Lebanon and spend her summer vacation there. She arrived in Beirut and moved into a luxurious hotel. The next day, she asked her driver to take her to the refugee camp where Umm Bilal lived. She entered the camp and inquired after her. By nightfall, she managed to find her - [living] in a dilapidated hut with fabric-covered windows, her body ravaged by tuberculosis.
Hannah asked Umm Bilal about [her husband], Abu Bilal; Umm Bilal replied that he had died in the civil war. 'And what about [your son] Bilal?' [Hannah asked]. [Umm Bilal] replied, 'He is working at a bicycle repair shop down the street. His salary is barely enough to cover my basic needs and those of his three sisters.' 'Is Bilal married?' Hannah asked. 'In this hole, where would we get the money to feed another mouth?' [answered Umm Bilal].
'Aisha [Umm Bilal] is just one example among the thousands of Palestinian mothers [like her], and Hannah is just one example among the Jewish mothers [like her]. The Arabs kept the Palestinians in refugee camps and made into a people defeated both morally and materially. In contrast, the West welcomed the Jews and made them a leading [force] in science, arts, literature, economics, and politics.
Are we capable of reassessing the idea of the refugee camps, [thereby] saving the next generation of Palestinians from a fate [similar to that of] Bilal and his contemporaries? There is still an opportunity to do so.

What a concept - noticing that Arab governments treat Palestinian Arabs like dirt, and asking them to give them basic human rights! Too bad the West cannot perceive these obvious facts and believes the Arab lies that Israel is responsible for PalArab misery today.

American captive in Iran mixed up with yeshiva student

From the Jewish Week (NY):

In a widely disseminated error by news outlets and bloggers, Joshua Fattal, 27, currently a captive in Iran, is being confused with Joshua Fattal, a teenaged local yeshiva student who has written two articles for Fresh Ink, the high school supplement of The Jewish Week.

The case of mistaken identity has led to speculation that the older Fattal may be charged with being a “Zionist” spy.

Iran seized the older Fattal on July 31, along with two other Americans, Shane Bauer and Sara Shourd, after they allegedly strayed across the Iran-Iraq border near Kurdistan.

Although the captive Fattal attended college at the University of California at Berkeley, and has no connection to The Jewish Week or to any yeshiva, the mistaken
identity led Aljazeera.com, the Arab news service, to headline on Aug. 8: “Three Americans Held in Iran Are all Jews: Were They Spies?”

After perfunctory Internet searches for “Joshua Fattal,” several bloggers and news services apparently discovered the younger Fattal’s bylines for The Jewish Week, most recently for a June 3 article on the film “Defiance,” and falsely concluded that the captive Fattal is a Jewish journalist and Zionist, making him all the more vulnerable in Iran’s volatile political climate.

Al Jazeera reported that the captive Fattal “is a researcher in the American Jewish center and works for the Jewish magazine ‘The Jewish Week.’” An Iranian television station also identified the captive as “an extreme Zionist.”