Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Today's PalArab news (11/3)

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar was quoted in a Kuwaiti newspaper as saying that accusations of Hamas collusion with Iran are just an attempt to lump Hamas together with America's enemies, adding that Hamas gets support from European Christians. (Iranian aid is a touchy subject for Hamas as Fatah regularly refers to Hamas derogatorily as "Shi'ites.")

Hamas sentenced another "collaborator" to death.

Two more cafes were firebombed in Gaza, presumably by Islamic extremists.

Egypt is arranging for Gaza pilgrims to get flights from El Arish to "the Holy Land" for Hajj. (Of course, the Holy Land is - Saudi Arabia. ) The planes will be from the "Palestinian National Airlines" and will have a Palestinian Arab flag. Some 4500 pilgrims will travel that way, and it is being done in cooperation with the PA.

A Gaza family is forced to live in a cave by the beach in Khan Younis. They've been there since 1966. Somehow, Israel is being blamed.

Hamas preventing children from getting treated in Egypt

Palestine Press Agency reports that the Palestinian Ministry of Health has condemned Hamas for not allowing injured Gaza children to travel to Egypt for medical treatment.

This is not the first time that Hamas refused allowing sick people from going to Egypt. Hamas has previously stopped patients from traveling to Israel for treatment. They also prevented patients from going to an Israeli field hospital after Cast Lead.

Interestingly, the Palestinian Ministry of Health still maintains a list of "martyrs" who died in Gaza from medical conditions as a result of the "Israeli blockade." Even when they admit that Hamas stops patients from getting treated, and that Egypt only rarely opens the Rafah crossing for patients, for the purposes of the body count they only blame Israel.

UNRWA responds, halfheartedly

In response to my inquiries about the UNRWA strike and the UNRWA teacher murdered in Ramallah, none of which is mentioned on UNRWA's website, I received this email from UNRWA:

On the strike. This is what we, as UNRWA, have to say:

“ UNRWA regrets the Staff Union's decision to suspend services in a staggered fashion to protest the alleged failure to meet a promise to improve end of service benefits for staff. In addition, the Staff Union are opting for disruption of much needed services to Palestinian refugees demanding an increase in salaries and other work benefits. UNRWA believes that these work stoppages are counter-productive, disruptive and sends all the wrong messages to refugees, donors and to the staff themselves. Staff Union demands come at a period the Agency is in dire financial straits struggling to meet the basic needs of the refugees with dwindling resources and a widening budget deficit. All indicators at hand clearly show that the salaries of its 30000 staff are well above the average salaries of the host countries' employees (the Agency's official comparators). UNRWA's comprehensive health insurance to staff, the generous provident fund and end of service benefits plus an annual salary increase is considered to be one of the most competitive in the region amongst the public sector employers. This costs huge amounts of money and the remainder goes to support the actual delivery of vital services to refugees. UNRWA calls on its staff to maintain dialogue with the Agency and not to deny refugees access to services.”

-----------------

- John’s letter to staff is not out as far as I could tell. UNRWA will issue an official letter to its 30,000 staff in the five fields soon.

- On the staff member killed: No official statement. Do not know the details of his killing but it was not UNRWA related.

The statement on the strike mirrors much of what I had translated from the John Ging letter although it was not as detailed (and pointedly didn't mention the Arab countries' refusal to pay their pledges to UNRWA, a very significant admission.) It is not visible on the UNRWA website.

The response about the UNRWA teacher that was murdered is interesting. Although the murder is not UNRWA related, somehow I doubt that UNRWA would be silent if he was murdered by a random Israeli Jewish criminal.

Both of these incidents show that UNRWA will do whatever it can to downplay anything that makes the agency, or Palestinian Arabs, look less than perfect.

Goldstone widget

Daled Amos wrote a widget to keep up with all the blogs that have Goldstone-related posts. You can view it on my right-hand sidebar.

Daily Goldstone 11/2

As I mentioned this morning, Richard Goldstone wrote a letter to Howard Berman and the other sponsor of US HR Res 867 saying that the resolution has what he perceived as some mistakes.

Berman has written his own response to the response. Interestingly, his response seems to be to the letter that may have been written by Morton Halperin, advisor for J Street. Here's only a small part of his response, which is really a fisking:

[Goldstone:] “9. Paragraph 13:This is the first suggestion that I have come across to the effect that we should have investigated the provenance of the rockets. It was simply not on the agenda, and in any event, we would not have had the facilities or capability of investigating these allegations. If the Government of Israel has requested us to investigate that issue I have no doubt that we have done our best to do so.”

Response: As noted, Justice Goldstone’s Report went beyond its mandate in several respects; looking at the roles of Iran and Syria in assisting Hamas certainly would have provided critical context to the Report. Iran and Syria enable Hamas’ terrorism. The assistance Hamas receives from outside actors allows the Hamas terrorist organization to attack Israel incessantly, certain in the knowledge that its arsenals will be replenished.

Hamas’ support by state actors makes it a formidable foe. The report should have considered that geopolitical context.

[Goldstone:] “10. Paragraph 14: This is a sweeping and unfair characterization of the Report. I hope that the Report will be read by those tasked with considering the resolution.”

Response: The Report uncritically attributes numerous statements to “Gaza Authorities” (meaning, Hamas), while often casting doubt on information derived from the international and Israeli press and from non-government-affiliated Israelis.

For example, the Report criticizes the fact that an Israeli Government web-post cites a Newsweek article reporting on Hamas depredations against its own population and casts doubt on the accuracy of the article. According to the Report, the citing of the Newsweek article, far from being an effort to invoke a neutral source, is merely evidence that Israel itself finds the Newsweek report unconvincing, since Israel does not adduce evidence from its own internal sources (p.143 paragraphs 612-614). This is an odd criticism, since intelligence information, no matter how compelling, is only rarely disclosed to the public.

Perhaps most tellingly, the Report appears only to cite Israeli statements when it finds such statements a useful basis for criticizing Israel. For example:

Section 41 – “The Mission examined the mortar shelling of al-Fakhura junction in Jabaliyah next to a UNRWA school, which, at the time, was sheltering more than 1,300 people (chap. X). The Israeli armed forces launched at least four mortar shells. One landed in the courtyard of a family home, killing 11 people assembled there. Three other shells landed on al-Fakhura Street, killing at least a further 24 people and injuring as many as 40. The Mission examined in detail statements by Israeli Government representatives alleging that the attack was launched in response to a mortar attack from an armed Palestinian group. While the Mission does not exclude that this may have been the case, it considers the credibility of Israel’s position damaged by the series of inconsistencies, contradictions and factual inaccuracies in the statements justifying the attack.”

Section 702 – “The Mission views as being unreliable the versions given by the Israeli authorities. The confusion as to what was hit, the erroneous allegations of who was specifically hit and where the armed groups were firing from, the indication that Israeli surveillance watched the scene but nonetheless could not detect where the strikes occurred, all combine to give the impression of either profound confusion or obfuscation.”

By contrast, the Report is far more forgiving when discussing contradictions in Palestinian evidence:

Section 1092 – “There are some minor inconsistencies, which are not, in the opinion of the Mission, sufficiently weighty to cast doubt on the general reliability of Majdi Abd Rabbo. There are also, not surprisingly, some elements of the long account which appear in some versions and not in others. The Mission finds that these inconsistencies do not undermine the credibility of Majdi Abd Rabbo’s account.”

Read the whole thing.

(h./t Israel Matzav)

UNRWA workers in Gaza on strike

Palestine Press Agency is reporting that UNRWA workers in Gaza are striking for higher salaries. A letter from John Ging, director of UNRWA operations, to the strikers is reproduced there.

Ging expresses sadness that services to Gazans are being disrupted by the strike.

Among other things, he claims that UNRWA workers get paid far more than their Palestinian Authority counterparts doing similar jobs. For example, UNRWA teachers with 20 years experience get 30% more than similar PA teachers, a school deputy directors get nearly double the salaries of PA workers doing the same thing.

If I am reading it correctly, Ging is also saying that UNRWA workers in Gaza can get up to $200,000 in a retirement fund.

Interestingly, Ging says that he understands their concerns, but mentions that between the global economic crisis and the fact that Arab countries have not fulfilled their pledges to UNRWA, he cannot address all of their concerns.

I emailed UNRWA (a different person than Chris Gunness, who seems to not be answering emails) to clarify these facts and to follow up on my earlier questions about the reported murder of a UNRWA teacher.

Goldstone/J-Street/Soros connection?

OK, I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories, but this is really interesting.

There is a House Resolution 867 that should be voted on tomorrow:

Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the "Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict" in multilateral fora.

According to Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard, Goldstone responded to the resolution with a memo detailing what he considered to be mistakes in the facts. Goldfarb gives a link to a Word document that he says is circulating around Capitol Hill that starts off this way:

FROM: RICHARD GOLDSTONE
TO: INTERESTED PERSONS
RE: HR 867

Here are some comments on this resolution in an effort to correct factual errors:

Here's where it gets interesting.

The Microsoft Word document properties do not show Richard Goldstone as the author, but rather "Morton H. Halperin." As Goldfarb notes, Morton Halperin "serves on the J Street advisory council and is a senior adviser at George Soros's Open Society Institute.

Is Goldstone working with J Street and Soros in defending his report? More importantly, is J Street really discreetly backing the report while it says publicly that it is not opposing the congressional resolution?

Right now, the only source for this Word document is Goldfarb's column. I found a different letter written from Goldstone to the sponsors of the resolution, dated two days later, that also addresses perceived mistakes in the text, but not as a Word document. I presume that Goldfarb received his memo from a congressional aide, but we don't know his source.

Either way, it is worth finding out whether there is any connection between Goldstone and Halperin.

(h/t EBoZ)

Blood libeler Bostrom not sorry, lies to Ha'aretz

Swedish "reporter" Donald Bostrom, who claimed that the IDF kills Palestinian Arabs and harvests their organs, is in Israel. He chose the most insanely left-wing journalist he could find, Gideon Levy, to interview him. (Even Levy calls Bostrom's article "problematic.")

Are you sorry about anything?

"I'm sorry there are so many lies about me. Like for example that they say I wrote that the soldiers hunted for youths so as to take their organs. It's obvious that's a lie. Even the Palestinians don't make a claim like that. And the other side attributes anti-Semitism to me. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry I've become a political tool. I'm sorry the article caused damage to the struggle for human rights here. And above all, I'm sorry that no one took the article seriously and that they did not examine the suspicions. In Sweden too they didn't take it seriously."

In other words, he's not sorry at all that he wrote an article that indicates that Jewish Israelis are bloodthirsty, greedy, cold blooded killers. He's just sorry that they were offended by it.

Would you write it differently now?

"If I were writing it again, I would stress that the IDF liquidates so many youths without a trial and that they take bodies and conduct autopsies on them without the permission of the families. My article created confusion and was incorrectly interpreted. I admire your democratic courage to invite me to explain myself here."

Do you think the IDF killed people to get body organs?

"I don't think soldiers behaved like that. I don't think they killed in order to gather organs. The truth is that they kill them without a trial and their bodies are taken to Abu Kabir. We don't know whether they take out the organs. That has still to be further investigated. No one opened up the bodies after they were returned and only one man knows the truth, Prof. Yehuda Hiss, the director of the forensic institute.

Some Swedish children go missing every year in the very same country that he eats his meals. I don't know whether Bostrom butchers and eats small children for breakfast. He might be eating them. He might not. I'm just pointing out that children are missing, Bostrom eats every day, some people are cannibals and accusations have been made. No one witnesses his eating habits. It has to be further investigated. There are a lot of question marks.

So why did you publish baseless accusations?

"I think the article led to good things and bad things, but now it is on the table. Israeli journalists must investigate. You have done good things in the past. Haaretz gives better coverage of the conflict than the Swedish papers, so go on investigating this. There are a lot of question marks."

What Bostrom doesn't address (and Levy is too solicitous to ask) are his public statements quoted by the Algerian Press Service that over a thousand organs have been harvested by Israel, that Israel also takes organs from other foreigners killed in Israel and that the organ harvesting began in 1960. He made these additional claims as he accepted a $5000 award from Algeria and was feted by Algerian officials for this article.

Even if the APS misquoted him, it was obvious that the only reason he received this $5000 award was because his Algerian hosts understood his article as proof that Israel does kill Palestinian Arabs specifically to steal their organs. Bostrom certainly didn't say anything while he accepted his award to clarify his position or deny those claims; indeed he expanded on them.

He's clearly not sorry about anything except for the fact that he has been exposed as a sham journalist and a libeler.

Mohammed film to be made - without the title character

From Al Arabiya:

A film about the Prophet Mohammad backed by the producer of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Matrix" is under discussion, a Qatar media firm said on Sunday, with the aim of creating an English-language blockbuster for the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.

Filming of the $150 million movie is set to start in 2011, with Barrie Osborne as its producer, Alnoor Holdings said.
Alnoor said the film - in which the Prophet would not be depicted, in accordance with Islamic strictures - was in development and talks were being held with studios, talent agencies and distributors in the United States and Britain.

Maybe Mohammed will be treated the way adults were in old Peanuts cartoons: (this is the best video I could find to illustrate it)

In honor of the World Series

Nem mikh mit tsu der ball geym,
Tsum oylem lomir dokh geyn
Koyf mir di nislekh un krekerjek
Vil ikh keyn mol fun dort nit avek
Git zey mut, mut, mut, di ballshpiller
Es past nit az men farshpilt
Vayl s'iz eyns, tsvey, dray strikes, un oys
Bay der beysball shpil

The original "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" was written by Harry Von Tilzer, who was born Aaron Gumbinsky.

Scenes from a Gaza rally

Islamic Jihad continues to celebrate the death of its founder. Here are some more pictures from the rally:

I don't know if this is an inflatable replica of an Islamic Jihad rocket or the real thing, but it is interesting that they print "Jerusalem" on the rocket - in Hebrew. Imagine the rioting that would ensue if anyone put the word "Mecca" on a rocket aimed at Muslims.

OK, Gaza is under siege, right? So do they import Israeli flags through Rafah tunnels or do they make these flags themselves? Because the market for Israeli flags may be more lucrative in Gaza than in Israel itself.

And what rally wouldn't be complete without the heartwarming photo of a child cradling a real weapon? (Can someone identify this for me? Looks like an AK-47 but I'm not sure what is on the barrel.)

The lack of Arab empathy

At Ya Libnan, a fairly prominent Lebanese news site, we see an op-ed that at first blush appears to be an anti-Israel polemic. The headline and subhead reads:

Can a Zionist be fair to an Arab?
There is no doubt that the Palestinian people have not been treated justly and fairly over the past sixty years or so.

This is a shame, because the article's clear conclusion is "yes," as it approvingly cites Shulamit Aloni and Richard Goldstone as Jewish Zionists who are not afraid to take pro-Arab positions. No matter what you think about them, it is clear that many Jews and Zionists will not hesitate to defend Arabs when they believe that it is the right thing to do.

This is in contrast with the Arab world, which is described in damning terms by the author, Ghassan Karam:

[The] inability to differentiate between one Jew and another or even one Zionist and another has served to inflame the Palestinian Israeli problem when a more liberal and objective understanding could have helped ease the pain and maybe even hasten an end to the suffering.
To suggest that the Palestinian Israeli problem has become the opiate of the authoritarian Arab regimes is not an exaggeration. Each and every Arab ruler is constantly engaged in grandstanding and in advocating positions that would demonstrate the opposition of his regime to everything Jewish and his devotion to everything Arab and Palestinian. That is why Arab “sham democracies” are invariably opposed to anything Jewish and why they favour supporting resistance groups and even terrorist actions. Blowing up school children in Tel Aviv is to be commended while harming those in say Damascus is barbaric. Our love for the Palestinians is best demonstrated by the squalid living conditions that we have provided for them and the severe constraints that we have placed on their ability to integrate in our societies, own property and acquire citizenship. On the other hand we are constantly proud of our ability to blame the Jew for each of our problems be it social, economic, scientific or political. It has even been reported recently that a major Hollywood producer was denied the right to land at Beirut International because his private jet had some Israeli manufactured parts.

Kharam touches upon perhaps the biggest obstacle to peace.

Jews and Zionists, even the right wing, can and do empathize with the suffering of Palestinian Arabs and in general have no desire to gratuitously cause them pain. One can argue about where to place the line between security for Israelis and fair treatment for PalArabs, but Zionists at least recognize that there is a balance between the two.

The Arab world, however, does not seem to share this basic human characteristic of empathy with Jews and Zionists. To the vast majority of Arabs, it is black and white: Jews, and certainly Israelis, are evil. Jews must be at best second class citizens subservient to their Arab superiors and Zionists must be killed, or at best tolerated until the Arab world gains enough strength to finish them off in a decade or a century.

A stark example of this thinking can be seen in an exchange of letters between a Jewish Israeli mother whose son was killed and the Palestinian Arab sniper who killed him, now in an Israeli prison.

The mother, Robi Damelin, wrote a piece in Ha'aretz before Yom Kippur saying that she forgave her son's killer. Her letter oozes pain at her loss and empathy for the family of the jailed killer.

The killer, by contrast, has nothing but hate is response:

Hamad bluntly rejected the bereaved mother's outstretched hand. "Mrs. Robi did not explain what led the soldier David to enlist," he continues. "She doesn't know the iron fact that her son not only took part in the torture of my people, but stood at the head of the perpetrators of the killing and murder. From her letter, it appears that she is living on another planet. She forgets that the late Abu Amar (Yasser Arafat) called for peace 35 years ago. I wish to remind the mother of the soldier David that history proves that a people that does not fight an occupation with all means, including arms, cannot obtain its rights. .... You must remove your hands from our land and from our people, and if not, it is our duty to kill the murderers.

This lack of Arab empathy is hardly new; it was documented by Martha Gellhorn in 1961 in her interviews of Arab refugees at the time:

"Now you say that you want to return to the past; you want Partition. So, in fact you say, let us forget that war we started, and the defeat, and, after all, we think Partition is a good, sensible idea. Please answer me this, which is what I must, know. If the position were reversed, if the Jews had started the war and lost it, if you had won the war, would you now accept Partition? Would you give up part of the country and allow the 650,000 Jewish residents of Palestine -who had fled from the war--to come back?"
"Certainly not," he said, without an instant's hesitation. "But there would have been no Jewish refugees. They had no place to go. They would all be dead or in the sea."

The idea of a real peace is illusory as long as Arabs have no conception of empathy with Jews and with the rights of Jews for self-determination. The quasi-peace that exists now between Israel and some Arab countries are not a result of Arab recognition of Jewish rights, but rather of Arab recognition of Jewish strength (along with practical benefits provided by the US.) Empathy with the suffering of one's enemy and identification with the way the other side thinks are necessary preconditions to rapprochement, and the Arab psyche does not admit such thought.

HH #241

Haveil Havalim, the venerable weekly web carnival that links to the best posts of the Jewish and Zionist blogosphere, has just come out with its 241st edition over at Simply Jews.

Two of my posts are mentioned, a great honor since I never remember to nominate myself.

Check it out!

(h/t Andre, I didn't notice the second link)

An independent audit of the IDF procedures

The Goldstone report recommends that Israel set up an independent commission of inquiry into Operation Cast Lead. Israel is reluctant to do so for a number of reasons: the IDF already has an investigation procedure that is similar to those of all Western nations; if it caves on this demand then it will look like an admittance of errors, and others.

In my opinion, what is needed is not so much a commission about Cast Lead. Instead, there should be an independent audit of the IDF investigation processes and procedures.

Auditors know how to check not only whether the processes and procedures are effective (in this case, for investigations) but also whether the IDF is accurately following their own procedures. If the audit comes out clean, then the IDF procedures would be "certified."

These external audits should happen regularly, perhaps annually. They can be done by a Big 4 accounting firm without compromising Israeli security. They should happen regardless of any political events like Goldstone. They should not be done to mollify the world, rather to ensure to the IDF and the GOI that IDF procedures are effective, fair and accurately followed - which should be welcomed by all.

This would solve all the problems. If the audit comes up clean, fair minded people can look at the sanitized results of the report certifying that the procedures are valid just the way that audit firms validate all sorts of procedures. If it doesn't, the IDF and the Government of Israel would be the first to want to know how to improve their procedures.

An audit procedure would address the root issue - whether IDF investigation procedures are adequately independent, effective and adhered to. Instead of spinning up a commission for every alleged war crime that some NGO screams about, this would be a reproducible, self-correcting and certified process that is used by major corporations daily.

It is entirely possible that the IDF does this already, but if not, it should.

(I briefly discussed this idea in a comment on this blog, and I sent it to a mailing list with really smart people, and no one responded. So either it is a brilliant idea or it is incredibly stupid.)

UNRWA doesn't acknowledge a murder

On Thursday morning, there was a double murder in Ramallah. Two Palestinian Arabs were found stabbed to death.

One of the was reported to have been a UNRWA teacher in Gaza.

Usually, when UN workers are killed, there are press releases by the appropriate agencies to announce the news. For some reason, UNRWA has not yet acknowledged the murder of one of their employees.

Last night I emailed UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness, who has been busy lately making a one-man play about how horrible Israel is, asking him:

Can you confirm that this happened? Do you know the circumstances of the murder? Has there been any official UNRWA statement about this?

So far, I have not received a reply.

The cynical part of me thinks that UNRWA does not want to publicize anything that makes Palestinian Arabs look bad - even when their actions affect UNRWA itself. They've done that before.