Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, September 10, 2009

HRW/Garlasco roundup from NGO Monitor

NGO Monitor does a nice job rounding up all the latest findings about Human Rights Watch's Marc Garlasco and his fetish for WWII German memorabilia.

Hamas leader brags about weapons smuggling

Palestine Press Agency quotes Khaled Meshal, on a trip to see his buddies in the Sudan, bragging that Hamas still managed to smuggle weapons into Gaza despite the Israeli blockade:

"Despite the siege and closure, harassment, and conspiracies of the East and West to prevent us from getting weapons, we thank God we buy weapons and smuggle arms and make weapons [ourselves]"

It is telling that this is Hamas' priority - smuggling weapons. Not food, not paper, not clothing - but explosives and arms. The fact that their obsession with killing Jews is hurting a million Gazans doesn't bother them at all; on the contrary, it provides the opportunity for their pals in the media to do their part and pretend the tunnels are merely for toys:

Yesterday, a Hamas terrorist was killed, and others injured, in a smuggling tunnel under Rafah on what they called a "jihad mission." That doesn't make the news, only pictures like this one.

This is something the media misses when they talk about Gaza. Hamas is not a government in the sense that they try to protect and serve their people. On the contrary, Hamas is concerned with only two things: staying in power and building a terror infrastructure. To them, Gazans are pawns to be used as needed, and sometimes that means they like to see the people killed for propaganda purposes.

Islamic Jihad, as radical as ever

There is an interview with the Islamic Jihad spokesman in Gaza in Palestine Today. Here are some excerpts:

We in the Al-Quds Brigades reject [any thought about a Palestinian Arab state in the 1967 borders next to Israel], and confirm that Palestine has well known names and borders, from the sea to the river by God's orders.

As far as Jerusalem and all the occupied Palestinian cities: what was taken by force will be restored only by force.

We also need to rearrange our ranks and take advantage of our mistakes to be ready to face any new Zionist crap.

What is happening today to stop the martyrdom operations, but there is a particular tactic is being studied by Al-Quds Brigades, and perhaps that the barriers and the apartheid wall and security coordination between the power of Oslo West Territories and the Zionist intelligence services, all of which had prevented the implementation of dozens of suicide bombings, particularly in the last war.

What is happening today to where we have stopped the martyrdom operations, but this is a particular tactic is being studied by Al-Quds Brigades. Perhaps the barriers and the apartheid wall and security coordination between the power of Oslo West Territories [PA] and the Zionist intelligence services, all of which had prevented the implementation of dozens of suicide bombings, particularly in the last war.

We emphasize that the Al-Quds Brigades suicide bombers can enter into the heart of the Zionist entity. It is difficult but not impossible to send suicide bombers and car bombs everywhere in our territory. There are soldiers at the disposal of the House the political and military leadership, and it depends on what is happening on the ground of the violations, as required by the Palestinian interest.

With God's grace our technical and manufacturing division is developing missile capabilities. If [we desire,] the lives of members of Zionist settlements - all of them - will be hell, God willing.

Besides the fact that PIJ will never moderate and can veto any agreements made by any other Palestinian Arab party, I once again marvel at Palestinian Arabs' grasp of geography.

Before 1920 or so, Palestine was considered to be on both sides of the Jordan. The "river to the sea" mantra has nothing to do with restoring any fantasy of an ancient land called Palestine and everything to do with destroying Israel.

At least Islamic Jihad is honest about it.

From the German Combat Awards forum. The members are introducing themselves, and HRW's Marc Garlasco posts this picture of himself. The discussion afterwards:

Skip: Love the sweatshirt Mark. Not one I could wear here in germany though (well I could but it would be a lot of hassle)

Flak88: Everyone thinks it is a biker shirt!

Skip: Yeh, were you come from but imagine walking around in Berlin with "das Eisene Kreuz" written across your cheat. Either you get beaten to pulp by a group of rampaging Turks or the police arrest you on suspicion of being a Nazi

Yeah, this is what a serious military historian looks like on his day off.

Open thread

It seems the right thing to do....

B'Tselem releases Gaza report (UPDATED)

From YNet:

A new report published Wednesday by rights group B'Tselem reveals that the IDF killed 1,387 Palestinians, 773 of whom were non-combatants. On the other hand, a report published by the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center shows that at least 1,000 of the Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip were Hamas combatants or were suspected of being combatants, and were therefore marked as targets by the IDF. [Here is an earlier ICT report - EoZ.]

According to the B'Tselem data, 773 of those killed did not take part in the hostilities, 320 of whom were minors under the age of 18 and 109 were women (above the age of 18). The rest of those killed were 330 armed combatants, 245 Palestinian policemen – most of whom were killed in aerial bombings of the police station – and 38 others whose participation in the hostilities could not be determined.

The report itself is not yet on B'Tselem's website so I cannot see all the details, but it is supposed to list the names of all the victims so it will be interesting to compare it to the PCHR, PMoH and Al Mezan lists.

Just from this summary we can see that B'Tselem seems to not consider whether those killed were members of terror groups; they are only looking at evidence that they were armed at the time they were killed. While this is understandable - one has to define "civilian" somehow, and this definition seems in line with international human rights standards - it necessarily means that terrorists who were hiding as civilians would be undercounted. For example, I have previously posted a video showing terrorists dressed as civilians shooting a rocket from the middle of a tree-lined street in Jabalya and running away after the fuse is lit. If they were killed a minute later by the IDF, without any weapons on them and two blocks away, B'Tselem's methodology would presumably call them "civilians."

For better or for worse, it is more reasonable and probably more accurate to assume that all members of terror organizations were de facto militants at the time they were killed rather than make a presumption that they were civilians.

Hopefully the report will be on-line soon and we can look into the details and see how it jives with the research that Suzanne, t34zakat, PTWatch and I have been doing. But since we have so far found 656 legitimate targets, compared to B'Tselem's number of between 575 and 613, we can determine that B'Tselem is being liberal in its definition of "civilian."

It also shows that they are more intellectually honest than the PCHR, which defined Hamas policemen - most of whom were al-Qassam Brigades members - as civilian by default.

UPDATE: It turns out that the ICRC wrote its own interpretation of how to define combatants when dealing with non-state actors who don't wear uniforms. They are to be commended for at least tackling the issue.

They write:

As has been shown above, in IHL governing non-international armed conflict, the concept of organized armed group refers to non-State armed forces in a strictly functional sense. For the practical purposes of the principle of distinction, therefore, membership in such groups cannot depend on abstract affiliation, family ties, or other criteria prone to error,
arbitrariness or abuse. Instead, membership must depend on whether the continuous function assumed by an individual corresponds to that collectively exercised by the group as a whole, namely the conduct of hostilities on behalf of a non-State party to the conflict. Consequently, under IHL, the decisive criterion for individual membership in an organized armed group is whether a person assumes a continuous function for the group involving his or her direct participation in hostilities (hereafter: "continuous combat function").

Continuous combat function does not imply de jure entitlement to combatant privilege.52 Rather, it distinguishes members of the organized fighting forces of a non-State party from civilians who directly participate in hostilities on a merely spontaneous, sporadic, or unorganized basis, or who assume exclusively political, administrative or other non-combat
functions.53

Continuous combat function requires lasting integration into an organized armed group acting as the armed forces of a non-State party to an armed conflict. Thus, individuals whose continuous function involves the preparation, execution, or command of acts or operations amounting to direct participation in hostilities are assuming a continuous combat function. An individual recruited, trained and equipped by such a group to continuously and directly participate
in hostilities on its behalf can be considered to assume a continuous combat function even before he or she first carries out a hostile act. This case must be distinguished from persons comparable to reservists who, after a period of basic training or active membership, leave the armed group and reintegrate into civilian life. Such "reservists" are civilians until and for such time as they are called back to active duty.54

Individuals who continuously accompany or support an organized armed group, but whose function does not involve direct participation in hostilities, are not members of that group within the meaning of IHL. Instead, they remain civilians assuming support functions, similar to private
contractors and civilian employees accompanying State armed forces.55 Thus, recruiters, trainers, financiers and propagandists may continuously contribute to the general war effort of a non-State party, but they are not members of an organized armed group belonging to that party unless their function additionally includes activities amounting to direct participation in hostilities.56 The same applies to individuals whose function is limited to the purchasing, smuggling, manufacturing and maintaining of weapons and other equipment outside specific military operations or to the collection of intelligence other than of a tactical nature.57

Although such persons may accompany organized armed groups and provide substantial support to a party to the conflict, they do not assume continuous combat function and, for the purposes of the principle of distinction, cannot be regarded as members of an organized armed group. 58 As civilians, they benefit from protection against direct attack unless and for such time as they directly participate in hostilities, even though their activities or location may increase their exposure to incidental death or injury.

I need to read the whole thing, but I believe that the vast majority of terrorists that our group identified would fit under these criteria. The Hamas and PIJ obituaries list exactly what heroic deeds they were doing at the time they were killed, for example. Most of the others were identified as members of specific brigades, which means that they would be (IMO) considered equivalent to uniformed army.

A couple of al-Qassam Brigades people, like a cook and a group of singers, might be considered civilian by the ICRC definition.

Notably, many experts were upset that the ICRC refused to define voluntary human shields for military targets as combatants.

HRW: The can of worms (Ma'ariv)

Israel Matzav translates Ma'ariv's article about the problems at Human Rights Watch, which include the new information about Marc Garlasco's Nazi-paraphernalia hobby:

If it were one case, one could argue it was a coincidence. Even two are not proof. But the more about that is disclosed about Human Rights Watch (HRW), the most important international body to protect human rights, the more that it seems that something really stinks there. No, that's not a delicate word, and certainly not diplomatic one. But it is doubtful that there is a better word to describe the can of worms that is gradually being dug up there. ...Now Marc Garlasco, who is HRW's senior military analyst, and who was the linchpin of past poisonous reports against Israel, joins the party. For example, Garlasco is the man who determined that an Israeli shell caused the deaths of an entire Palestinian family in Beit Lahiya, on the Gaza beach, in June 2006, and who made various other charges related to the Second Lebanon War and to Operation Cast Lead. Garlasco has made so many mistakes that they cannot be counted. But he is against Israel. And that is permitted. It is not clear yet whether Garlasco himself is a Nazi. Those claims deserve close scrutiny, but it seems possible to make do with what we already know. We're talking about a Nazi memorabilia collector. This is not an innocent collection. In many cases, the collectors are expounders of a clear ideology; there are no sane people there. ...What is clearer is that HRW is being disclosed as a dangerous group, which needs a serious shakeup. Human rights in the world deserve much better protectors than a terrorist-lover like Stork or collectors of Nazi memorabilia, like Garlasco.

Read the whole thing.

How's the Arafat "murder" investigation going?

At the sixth Fatah conference, a committee was set up to investigate Yasir Arafat's "murder."

Yesterday, Fatah leaderAbu Othman mentioned that there is only one thing that is slowing down the investigation: evidence.

Apparently, the poison that they are so convinced killed Arafat is undetectable, so they cannot determine for sure if it killed him via skin contact, or food, or (just guessing here) high-powered Joo-Rays. * This of course makes it difficult to know exactly what killed Arafat, but one thing is certain: Israel killed him to destroy the Palestinian Arab political movement. Which, as you may recall, was riding so high while Arafat was holed up in his compound with an assortment of terrorists he was protecting.

Othman goes on to say that the murderers didn't count on the wonderful leadership abilities of Abu Mazen/Mahmoud Abbas. You know, the guy whose "leadership" consists of "lets sit here and wait until we are given a state on a silver platter."

So the investigation continues, and as long as the lack of evidence is not an impediment, we can be sure to find out the truth of the murder very soon now.

[*I wrote that phrase above remembering accusations of Arabs being killed by nefarious Joo-rays, and I was trying to be as outlandish as possible here, but a search showed that indeed, a PA representative once accused Israel of murdering Arafat in that very manner. Once again, it is difficult to parody Palestinian Arabs when they say things that are more outlandish than any parodist could imagine.]

HRW responds, and so do I

Human Rights Watch is providing an offense (in every sense of the word) to defend their researcher Marc Garlasco. Earlier this evening I, and other bloggers who commented on the story of Garlasco's obsession with Nazi artifacts, received a canned response from HRW:

Several blogs and others critical of Human Rights Watch have suggested that Marc Garlasco, Human Rights Watch’s longtime senior military advisor, is a Nazi sympathizer because he collects German (as well as American) military memorabilia. This accusation is demonstrably false and fits into a campaign to deflect attention from Human Rights Watch’s rigorous and detailed reporting on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by the Israeli government. Garlasco has co-authored several of our reports on violations of the laws of war, including in Afghanistan, Georgia, and Iraq, as well as by Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

Garlasco has never held or expressed Nazi or anti-Semitic views.

Garlasco’s grandfather was conscripted into the German armed forces during the Second World War, like virtually all young German men at the time, and served as a radar operator on an anti-aircraft battery. He never joined the Nazi Party, and later became a dedicated pacifist. Meanwhile, Garlasco’s great-uncle was an American B-17 crewman, who survived many attacks by German anti-aircraft gunners.

Garlasco own family’s experience on both sides of the Second World War has led him to collect military items related to both sides, including American 8th Air Force memorabilia and German Air Force medals and other objects (not from the Nazi Party or the SS, as falsely alleged). Many military historians, and others with an academic interest in the Second World War, including former and active-duty US service members, collect memorabilia from that era.

Garlasco is the author of a monograph on the history of German Air Force and Army anti-aircraft medals and a contributor to websites that promote serious historical research into the Second World War (and which forbid hate speech). In the foreword he writes of telling his daughters that “the war was horrible and cruel, that Germany lost and for that we should be thankful.”

To imply that Garlasco’s collection is evidence of Nazi sympathies is not only absurd but an attempt to deflect attention from his deeply felt efforts to uphold the laws of war and minimize civilian suffering in wartime. These falsehoods are an affront to Garlasco and thousands of other serious military historians.

It is hard to tell how much of this is HRW being obtuse and how much is them pretending to be obtuse.

Most of their argument is strawman and irrelevant.

I never accused Garlasco of being a Nazi or even a Nazi sympathizer, and as far as I can tell most bloggers who took up this story didn't either. HRW's tarring us with that brush is, frankly, offensive, and it serves to detract from the real issue that they studiously ignore:

HRW's poster boy for human rights research nurses a serious obsession with, and fascination for, the worst human rights abusers in history.

Saying that this is him doing "research" is an insult to everyone's intelligence. He is a collector of Nazi-era German objects like daggers, Iron Crosses, swastikas. He has written hundreds, maybe thousands, of posts on forums dedicated to the topic. He has written a 400 page book on the topic. Writing a monograph on German medals does not make one a "historian" in any real sense; it makes him a rabid collector. I am fairly sure that his purchase of many of these items would be illegal in many European countries. To deflect those disturbing facts by saying that he also owns a few American air force memorabilia is to dodge the real issue.

It is extraordinarily bad taste and truly offensive that the same person who habitually castigates the Jewish state to a worldwide audience has a creepy obsession with the symbols of those who tried to destroy all Jews.

No amount of doubletalk and misdirection can take that away.

Reason for cynicism about Egypt's new love of synagogues

Last month I mentioned that Egypt was restoring an ancient Egyptian synagogue. Even though it sounds like a great idea, I was somewhat cynical as to Egypt's motives.

It looks like my cynicism was correct, even as my guess as to motive was somewhat misplaced:

Egyptians generally do not make any distinction between Jewish people and Israelis. Israelis are seen as the enemy, so Jews are, too.
Khalid Badr, 40, is pretty typical in that regard, living in a neighborhood of winding, rutted roads in Old Cairo, selling snacks from a kiosk while listening to the Koran on the radio. Asked his feelings about Jews, he replied matter-of-factly. “We hate them for everything they have done to us,” Mr. Badr said, as casually as if he had been asked the time.
But Mr. Badr’s ideas have recently been challenged. He has had to confront the reality that his neighborhood was once filled with Jews — Egyptian Jews — and that his nation’s history is interwoven with Jewish history. Not far from his shop, down another narrow, winding alley once called the Alley of the Jews, the government is busy renovating an abandoned, dilapidated synagogue.
In fact, the government is not just renovating the crumbling, flooded old building. It is publicly embracing its Jewish past — not the kind of thing you ordinarily hear from Egyptian officials.

“If you don’t restore the Jewish synagogues, you lose a part of your history,” said Zahi Hawass, general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, who in the past has written negatively about Jews because of the clash between Israel and the Palestinians. “It is part of our heritage.”
So why the sudden public display of affection for Egypt’s Jewish past?
Politics. Not street politics, but global politics.
Egypt’s minister of culture, Farouk Hosny, wants to be the next director general of Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In the context of this conservative Islamic society, Mr. Hosny, 71, is quite liberal, running afoul of Islamists when he criticized the popularity of women wearing head scarves, for example.
But to appease — or please — his local constituency, he said in 2008 he would burn any Israeli book found in the nation’s premier library in Alexandria. He has apologized, but that has done little to end the attacks on his candidacy to lead an organization dedicated to promoting cultural diversity.
So his subordinates sped up the restoration process. After a year of study, the work began in June. They pitched a blue tent, and held a news conference — two, in fact — right inside the old synagogue around the corner from Mr. Badr’s shop.
For Egyptians like Mr. Hawass, speaking about Egypt’s Jewish past with pride has required a degree of finesse. Mr. Hawass has in the past refused a suggestion by the American Jewish Committee to consider building a small museum to house Egypt’s historic Jewish artifacts, as the government has done to preserve many of Egypt’s Christian artifacts.
“If you make a museum like that while Israel is killing Palestinian children, people will kill me,” he said.

Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood gets more radical

There was a major meeting of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood over the past month, and one of the most contentious topics was whether it should maintain an official relationship with Hamas.

Some members, considered "doves" in the context of extremist Islam, wanted to distance themselves from Hamas and the clear damage it has done to the Palestinian Arab cause. It also looks like there was some disagreement as to the extent of the Ikhwan's cooperation with the Jordanian government, which the hawks blame for having a peace treaty with Israel.

It appears that the "hawks" won the day, and amid much contention four of the "dove" leaders have resigned from the Muslim Brotherhood's executive council.

This might bring Jordan's Brotherhood more in line with Egypt's branch, which was the source for every radical Sunni Muslim group in existence today.

HRW researcher's disturbing hobby

Marc Garlasco, the HRW senior military analyst who has written a number of reports harshly critical of Israel and whose own expertise has been called into question, has a side hobby:

Collecting Nazi memorabilia.

I noticed his obsession yesterday, to the point that he has even written a book on the topic. He has written a number of posts on various forums about Nazi memorabilia, such as daggers, Iron Crosses and the like.

While this may not be illegal or immoral, it does raise some disturbing questions about his Israel obsession.

I mentioned my findings to Omri at Mere Rhetoric, and he now has many more details to show the connection between the HRW researcher and the Nazi war buff. Read the whole thing.

UPDATES: See also Solomonia and Yaacov ben Moshe.

And the CAMERA blog.

This is getting some traction.

The people who are on Marc's forums are upset, saying that they do serious research and this does not prove he is a Nazi. However, no one is accusing Garlasco of being a Nazi; the question is whether there is a connection between his twin obsessions of Nazi paraphernalia and Israel's right to defend itself - and whether HRW sees this as a problem for their vaunted "objectivity."

UPDATE 2: Noah Pollak from Commentary talks about this as well:

A Nazi-memorabilia hobby sure is a strange one for a professional human-rights activist to have. Are there any senior staffers at PETA who moonlight as collectors of fur coats and leg-hold traps?

UNRWA appeals for Zakat funds

Even though UNRWA is exclusively concerned with helping Palestinian Arabs, the bulk of its funding has always come from Western countries. Arab nations, even oil-rich ones, pledge far less than many European countries, and they often ignore their pledges. Even special UNRWA appeals to Arab nations are ignored.

After the Gaza conflict, UNRWA appealed again to rich Arab nations to help, asking for over $180 million, and only one stepped up:

UNRWA spokeswoman, Elena Mancusi Materi, says most of that money came from traditional Western donors, except for one generous contribution from an Arab country.

"We received $34 million from Kuwait. Then we received $400,000 from Qatar," Materi said. "We received, I think, $100,000 from Saudi Arabia … But, it is nothing major apart from the very big and generous Kuwaiti donations for Gaza."

Meanwhile, the US pledged $81 million.

This year, UNRWA is trying something new - appealing straight to Muslim Arabs to donate to UNRWA.

Palestine Today reports that UNRWA started a special Ramadan appeal for the $181 million it says it needs for Gaza by advertising in major Arab newspapers saying donated funds would fulfill their Zakat obligations during Ramadan.

The ads include a background image of a mosque destroyed during the fighting. I wonder if it was this one:

It will be interesting to see if ordinary Arabs, who are weaned with pro-Palestinian Arab propaganda from birth, will respond as stingily as their host countries do.

Pro-Gaza activists being harassed - by Egypt

From the Daily News Egypt:

A Palestinian mother of two detained at Cairo Airport has expressed anger and confusion at her treatment.
Manal Timraz, 39, and her two teenage sons were stopped by a member of airport security bodies immediately after they passed through passport control at 1 am on Monday.
Timraz is involved in humanitarian relief work for Gaza, and in May joined a European-organized relief convoy which passed the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza. She also initiated the One Million Candles for Gaza campaign after she lost 15 relatives — including 11 children — in a single Israeli bombardment of the Jabalya refugee camp, Gaza in December 2008.
An article about the campaign was published in national state-run daily Al-Ahram in February 2008.
Timraz’s experience is the third in a series of similar incidents involving individuals stopped at Cairo Airport who have participated in pro-Gaza activity.
In April Laila El-Haddad — who blogs under the name Gazamom — and her two sons were prevented from entering Egypt en route to Gaza and held at the airport for two days.
US citizen Travis Randall, who lives and works in Egypt, was prevented from entering the country earlier this month. Randall was involved in a pro-Gaza march in Egypt in February of this year.

We'll see what kinds of international criticism Egypt receives for harassing Gaza activists.

PalArab media roundup 9/7/09

Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman reportedly told Hamas leader Khaled Meshal that Hamas must release Gilad Shalit if it expects the Gaza siege to be lifted.

The Palestinian Bureau of Central Statistics released data showing tht the levels of illiteracy among Palestinian Arabs is far lower than for the Arab world at large, 5.9% vs. 28.9%. Within the territories, Jericho has the highest illiteracy rate (8.3%) and Gaza has the lowest (4.4%).

There has been a recent mini-uproar over allegations that the UAE has been expelling hundreds of Palestinian Arab workers. The UAE and the PA representative there deny any such policy but Farouk Kaddoumi is trying to gain political points by complaining about it.

Palestine Today has an adoring interview with Islamic Jihad members in the West Bank who are in hiding to avoid arrest by Israel and the PA, and mentions their steadfastness in being away from their families during Ramadan.

Now that Gaza children are safe from the evils of Holocaust education, a "human rights" activist is trying to ensure that they learn about PalArab prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Jordanian agriculture minister, admitting that he doesn't have the legal authority to stop Israeli imports of fruits and vegetables, is mandating that all such products be labeled "Made in Israel" so that consumers would have a choice of whether to boycott them or not. The ministry would heavily penalize any importer who tries to hide that goods came from Israel.

Palestine News Network reports that Islamic Jihad is not happy with Hamas' Islamization of Gaza, believing that it is premature to start imposing such rules on the citizens. But it doesn['t want to criticize Hamas publicly for fear that the perception of infighting will look bad.

During Ramadan, there has been a huge demand for watercress in the PalArab territories. Apparently, there have been rumors that watercress improves sexual performance in both men and women and everyone has been buying them up for their evening iftar meals, leading to shortages.