Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 13, 2010

HRW's latest folly

HRW continues in its tradition of putting Israel in the worst possible light.

Their latest 100+ page report is about damage to civilian property in Gaza during Cast Lead/Operation Oil Stain.

Here is a part of the report about the Izbt Abd Rabo neighborhood:

Many residents who lived on or near Zimmo Street and who left the area between January 5 and January 12 said their homes and those of their neighbors had not suffered serious damage at that time, and that the closest fighting was at least 500 meters away to the west, beyond the borders of Izbt Abd Rabbo. By January 18, when residents returned to their homes, they found virtually the entire eastern half of the neighborhood, including scores of houses as well as hundreds of dunams of land, had been razed by Israeli forces.
The finding that most of the destruction in the neighborhood occurred after the initial phase of the offensive is corroborated by satellite imagery analysis performed by the UN Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT), which identified destroyed or severely damaged buildings in Izbt Abd Rabbo over time, based on damage visible in satellite photographs. UNOSAT found that only 11 buildings in the neighborhood were destroyed or severely damaged between December 27, 2008 and January 6, 2009, but that 330 buildings were destroyed or severely damaged from January 6 to 19 – a thirty-fold increase in destruction that occurred after the IDF had apparently established control of the area.[61]

OK, assuming that these dates are accurate...

Palestinian fighters had launched rockets from the surrounding open areas prior to the offensive, residents said. Residents told Human Rights Watch that border observers (murabbetein) from Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups were present in Izbt Abd Rabbo frequently before the conflict, and that armed groups had used open areas nearby to launch rockets at Israel. Hashem Dahalan, 49, speculated that Israeli forces “destroyed many more houses in the eastern part of the neighborhood than the west because the fighters who came to this area in the past [operated in] the east.” [62] At least one house that was destroyed early in the conflict had an escape tunnel leading to another house, Dahalan said. While Hamas militants made use of the area, he added, few lived there: “Only six of the destroyed houses belonged to Hamas.” Another resident, Mahmoud Rajab Abd Rabbo, told Human Rights Watch of tunnels in Jabal Kashif and Jabal ar-Rayes, the hills to the north and south of Izbt Abd Rabbo, respectively.[63] From residents’ accounts, Palestinian armed groups may have used some houses in Izbt Abd Rabbo as cover before or after launching rockets from nearby areas or for other military purposes.
Houses that Palestinian fighters were using as cover, which concealed tunnels, or that otherwise comprised military objectives were subject to lawful attack. Residents said that such buildings constituted a very small minority of the houses in Izbt Abd Rabbo. Human Rights Watch is unaware of any evidence that could lead the IDF to reasonably conclude that more than a small fraction of the houses that it destroyed in the area could have constituted military objectives, even assuming that the IDF considered it lawful to destroy houses that militants were likely to use in future attacks (in addition to houses whose destruction was likely to yield a concrete and definite military advantage during the conflict, as permitted by the laws of war). The wholesale destruction of entire blocks of buildings, even if some could have been lawfully destroyed, would still amount to wanton destruction under the laws of war.

HRW is ignoring a basic fact about the operation: Hamas' major goal.

Hamas didn't expect to win militarily. It had one, overarching strategic goal: to kidnap IDF soldiers.

If this neighborhood hosted Hamas houses and tunnels hidden among the regular civilian residences, that meant that IDF troops who were in control of the area were in grave danger of being kidnapped.

This is a different kind of war, and HRW ignores this key aspect of it. The assertion that only a small percentage of houses belonged to Hamas is irrelevant to this scenario, unless the IDF knew ahead of time with certainty which houses those were.

The UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict noted that, according to an article published by an Israeli NGO, “Izbat Abd Rabbo and the nearby areas of Jabal al-Kashef and Jabal al-Rayes appear to have been among the locations in Gaza which saw the most intense combat during the military operations.”[65] In one incident, the article stated that on the evening of January 9, 2009, “three RPG rockets and machine guns are fired against a house where IDF soldiers took up positions in the Ezvet Abd Rabbo region in the eastern sector of Jabalya.”[66]...
Human Rights Watch was unable to determine the number of Palestinian fighters and Israeli soldiers killed or wounded in fighting in Izbt Abd Rabbo. We interviewed several residents who said that Israeli attacks killed at least six fighters in Izbt Abd Rabbo by January 6. Cross-checking lists of fatalities compiled by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), a non-governmental organization based in Gaza, and the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, indicates that at least four militants (all Hamas) were killed in Izbt Abd Rabbo on January 3, 12, and 18 (two fatalities).[68]

Actually, 1 militant was killed on the 3rd, and one on the 4th. After the IDF controlled the area, one was killed on the 14th. Two were killed on the 17th and 4 militants were killed on January 18th.

We have no idea how much non-fatal fighting there was during the other days. However. there was clearly fighting in this area that was under IDF control during this time, and the IDF needed to be concerned about how the terrorists were hiding.

HRW is assuming that the "military advantage" that Geneva allows is traditional - destroying buildings that could be used for lookouts or for hiding weapons, for example. In this case the military advantage was to take away Hamas' military objective - which was to violate the laws of war to purposefully kidnap enemy combatants! In this case, every house in the area that militants pop up has the potential of being militarily critical.

Given that this was Hamas' military goal, the IDF is justified in neutralizing it. One could argue whether they went overboard, but given that militants were certainly in the neighborhood while the IDF was there shows that they had effective hiding places - places that the IDF was obligated to root out.

I guess HRW's military experts didn't think of this. Oh, that's right - their only military expert already left HRW.

They're just winging it.

The worst "ethnic cleansing" in history

Official Palestinian Arab figures released today say that there are now 10.9 million Palestinian Arabs worldwide, eight times the number in 1948.

Of those, some 4.7 million are considered "refugees" registered to UNRWA, meaning that the number of "refugees" have increased by a factor of eight as well.

This is due to UNRWA's dual policies of defining the descendants of Palestinian Arab refugees to be "refugees" themselves and of working against the resettlement of Arabs of Palestinian descent into their neighboring Arab countries. A problem that could have been solved decades ago instead is growing continuously because of the UNRWA, and even if there is a Palestinian Arab state declared tomorrow, there are millions of people who will have nowhere to go. This is not Israel's fault - it is squarely the fault of UNRWA and the Arab nations that want to keep Palestinian Arabs in misery as political footballs.

The study also claimed that there were 379,000 Arabs living in Jerusalem, of which 62% live in the parts that Israel redeemed in 1967. If that is true, that means that 38% of Jerusalem's Arabs live in the "Jewish" side of the city. Sounds like racism to me!

Tamimi visits Paris

The hateful, bigoted and habitually lying Sheikh Taysir Tamimi is in Paris where he is receiving a warm welcome from the Arabs and Arab sympathizers there.

Kapitalis, a French-language Tunisian newspaper, writes that Tamimi spoke at a conference called "The Battle for Al Quds" where he was with his admirer Franco-Algerian sociologist Nacira Guénif, Chairman of the Committee of Muslim-Christian dialogue.

Tamimi has stated in the past that there is no Jewish connection to Jerusalem, that Jews are exporting AIDS to PalArabs, there were never any Temples there, that Jews are planning to massacre Muslims on the Temple Mount and that Jews were planning to demolish Al Aqsa last March. He's also the guy who interrupted the Pope to make a speech about Israeli genocide against Arabs.

Yet, according to this article, Tamimi is a moderate who says that the 9/11 bombers were not good Muslims and that terrorism is bad. (Of course, Palestinian Arab terrorism would not fall under that category according to Tamimi - that is "resistance.")

The sociologist Nacira Guénif railed against the French calling Israel "the Holy Land" and calling Jerusalem, um, "Jerusalem" and not "Al Quds." It seems that it is offensive for secular French to use such a non-secular term as "The Holy Land." What the clueless academic may or may not realize is that "Al Quds" literally means "The Holy," so her advocating the use of that term shows her to be as much of a hypocrite as her idol Tamimi.

(h/t JSS)

A little too prolific (open thread)

Just for kicks, I just went to a website that says it can create a book out of your blog.

If I was to only create a book with my blog entries from the first six months of 2009, it would be 818 pages long - already way too big for them to publish.

Which means that my entire blog would take up an encyclopedia-sized 8500 pages or so.

So much for an easy way to make a book....

Consider this an open thread.

Nablus woman murdered for being pregnant with a girl

From Ma'an:

The confessed motive behind the slaying of a Nablus woman was the fact that the 27-year-old was carrying a female fetus, and not a male, Palestinian investigators told Ma'an on Thursday.

The woman, identified only as NB, was found dead in her home, and was later revealed to have been three months pregnant. She was already the mother to three boys and a girl, head of the Nablus investigations unit Major Raed Assaf said.

Officers explained that they arrested the woman's husband, identified as SB, following the discovery of defensive scratch wounds on his body, matching evidence of blood found under the young mother's nails.

Witnesses reportedly told police that a similar attempt on NB's life had been made during her first pregnancy, when the woman was carrying her eldest daughter. Relatives of the woman said SB was envious of his bother, who had nine sons. Following the news of the gender of the fetus, family members told police the woman reported regular beatings, in what she allegedly said was an attempt to terminate the pregnancy.

By my count, this is the eleventh woman murdered in the PalArab territories this year.

News & links

Richard Landes has another open letter to Richard Goldstone published in the Jerusalem Post, but read the larger version with links on his site.

Satan's Administration: An Israeli takes a tour of a huge Holocaust records storage facility in Germany.

Gaza entertainers are leery of performing in concerts this summer, worried about Hamas and Salafist threats against them.

Pro-Pal writer Maidhc O Cathail writes a strange piece in Ma'an pooh-poohing the threats against South Park and Comedy Central and essentially blaming them all on the Jews.He ignores the small fact that real people have been killed by real Muslims for their freedom of speech. Why contaminate your opinions with facts?

"Siege" update: some 9 trucks of construction materials (plastic pipes, cement, iron girders, gravel, power station parts) are arriving in Gaza today.

Al Arabiya broadcast a debate between an Iranian diplomat and an American-Israeli academic about nuclear weapons. Even though the Israeli hardly represented Israel, it was trumpeted as being a huge deal.

Ha'aretz notes that Fatah finally decided to try to find the hundreds of millions of dollars that Arafat hid all over the world.

You can still enter the Aish sweepstakes to win a trip to Israel or an iPad. (I get more chances to win myself when you click, thanks to those who already entered!)

Polish soccer fans: "Death to the hook-nosed people"

A large anti-semitic banner was unfurled during a a soccer match in Poland last week.

The fans of the home team, Resovia Rzeszow, showed the large banner of a classic Nazi-era caricature of a Jew wearing a blue and white yarmulka - the colors of the opposing team - with a universal "no" symbol, and a separate banner above it stated "DEATH TO THE HOOK-NOSED PEOPLE."

This was not reported in a single newspaper until one disgusted witness, Jerzy Kowalczyk, wrote an op-ed about it on the Polish Wiadomości24 news site.

Kowalczyk notes that the epithet "Jew" is often heard at soccer matches, but this was by far the worst and most offensive display he had ever seen. He adds that there can be no mistake as to the meaning behind it, because the fans of the team proudly call themselves the "Aryan Horde." Here is a large number of them behind a banner that says "The Aryan Horde is Coming."

The ADL notes that out of the 15,000 Jews who used to live in the town of Rzeszow, only 700 survived the Holocaust.

(h/t Callie)

Jeff Gates says Times Square bomber part of Zionist plot

Jeff Gates, prolific and crazy anti-semitic and anti-Israel writer who we have mentioned recently as saying that the airplane underwear bomber was a Zionist agent, has written the most predictable screed of his career.

Yes, the Times Square bomber was a Zionist too.

He couches this paranoid rant in historic terms - painstakingly showing how the Mumbai massacres (including the Chabad rabbi and wife) were Zionist plots, how Benazir Bhutto's assassination was a Zionist plot (he describes her biographer as an "Ashkenazim,") how the murder of Daniel Pearl was a Zionist plot, how J-Call is a Zionist plot...

See - there is a pattern!

Jordanian politicians push to stop withdrawing citizenship from PalArabs

Al Quds al Arabi reports of a new petition, signed by hundreds of Jordanian politicians, protesting the recent moves by the Jordanian government to withdraw citizenship from some Palestinian Arab residents.

The details of the petition are more interesting. The petition is based on Chapter 7 of the Jordanian National Charter, which has been retrieved from an official Jordanian government website in English. This is an amazing document in light of Jordan's peace treaty with Israel.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Jordanian-Palestinian Relationship

The facts of the close historical and geographic relationship between Jordan and Palestine over the ages, together with the nature of the national affiliation and cultural position of Jordanians and Palestinians in the present and the future, have endowed this relationship with a special and distinctive character. It is bolstered by the strong ties and deep common interests that exist between them. It is imperative, therefore, that this relationship be preserved and strengthened in the racist, Zionist and imperialist threat which endangers the existence, civilisation and sacred heritage of the Arab nation and marks Jordan out as a target as it had previously targeted Palestine.

In the light of these facts, the Jordanian-Palestinian relationship must be based on the following principles:

*First:*	The Palestinian Arab identity is a political identity forged by struggle. It is not and must not be contradictory to the Arab Jordanian identity. The only contradiction lies with the Zionist settler programme. Just as the national Palestinian identity is the antithesis of the Zionist programme and hence struggles to dismantle it, the Jordanian national identity, viewed from this perspective, is also an antithesis of the Zionist programme and hence fortifies Jordan against Zionist designs and claims. In this light, Jordan and Palestine are one Arab coin struck by their shared struggle to stand up to the expansionist Zionist programme and firmly reject the alternative homeland conspiracy.
*Second:*	Political variables at the Arab and international levels, together with developments in the Jordanian Palestinian arena, resulted in the severing of administrative and legal ties with the West Bank, with which the Palestine Liberation Organisation agreed. They also led to the declaration of an independent Palestinian state under the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and to recognition by Jordan of the Palestinian state. This has given rise to a new reality which emphasises the special and distinctive nature of the Jordanian Palestinian relationship and establishes the conditions for placing it on a right footing and basing it on a clear set of principles.
*Third:*	On this basis, the Jordanian-Palestinian relationship must not be understood or exploited under any conditions whatsoever to imply any curtailment of the rights of citizenship or to lead to a weakening of the Jordanian state from the inside or to create conditions leading to the realisation of Zionist designs to make Jordan an alternative to the Palestinian homeland. From this perspective, a commitment to Jordan’s national security becomes the responsibility of all citizens and serves to emphasise their continued struggle and sacrifice for the liberation of Palestine and the preservation of Jordan and its identity.
*Fourth:*	Since the unity-infused relationship between the states of Jordan and Palestine is a matter of future inevitability, the maintenance of this relationship requires respect for the choices to be made by Jordanians and Palestinians in achieving the best formulations for union between them as a model for comprehensive Arab unity.

On the basis of the above, national Jordanian unity is the solid base on which close relations must exist among the citizens in the Jordanian state. In addition, because it is impossible to distinguish on the ground between the Jordanian Arab people regardless of their origins, this unity must be protected and strengthened in such a manner as to bolster Jordan’s sturdiness, preserve its national security, defend the domestic front, guarantee equal opportunities for all citizens without discrimination and safeguard their legitimate rights and interests as enshrined in the Constitution.

Half of this text talks about how Palestinian and Jordanian Arabs are indistinguishable, unified, have a special relationship and share the same interests and goals including an abiding hatred for Israel. The other half says that they are really separate - but the only reason given for their separateness is the fear that Jordan might be declared a proper home to Palestinian Arabs, in light of the previously mentioned fact that they are essentially the same people!

In other words, this document is the best evidence that the Palestinian Arab "refugee" problem could be solved by making it Jordan's problem, as their affinity with each other is unmatched.

So while the petitioners are trying hard to keep Jordan from taking citizenship away from PalArabs, they are trying to also emphasize that this desire cannot be used as an excuse for the Jordanian option.

One must also wonder if these same politicians would push for Syria, Lebanon and the Gulf states to naturalize their Palestinian Arab citizens. After all, if Jordan is urged to do it, why not the other Arab states - in the name of Arab unity that they extol in this document!

The hypocrisy is unreal, and the people who suffer the most are the ones that they are pretending to help.

Sweden expels Syrian diplomat who tried to kidnap his daughter

From the BBC:

Sweden has expelled a high-ranking Syrian diplomat for allegedly planning to abduct his daughter, Swedish media report.

Syria's charge d'affaires wanted to take his daughter out of Sweden because of her relationship with a young man there, Swedish television SVT says.

The Swedish foreign office has refused to comment, TT news agency reports.

A Swedish politician, who is alleged to have helped the diplomat plan to kidnap the girl, was arrested on Monday.

The Stockholm-based Social Democrat politician had served as an adviser to the diplomat's family, SVT reports.

The politician denies any wrongdoing, Dagens Nyheter newspaper writes.

A spokesman for the Swedish foreign office, Teo Zetterman, told Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet that they could not comment on cases involving people with diplomatic immunity.

Syria was informed Tuesday by Swedish officials that the diplomat was "no longer welcome in Sweden", according to Swedish daily Expressen.

Sounds like the daughter is an adult.

(h/t Callie)

AFP parrots Arab propaganda

From AFP:

Israel marks 43-year rule of Arab east Jerusalem

JERUSALEM — Israel will on Tuesday start celebrating the anniversary of what it calls Jerusalem's unification , its 1967 conquest of the city's Arab sector which has since become a major hurdle in peace efforts.

It captured Arab east Jerusalem on June 7, 1967, the third day of the Six Day War and unilaterally annexed the sector in a move not recognised by the international community.
The Palestinians are determined to make east Jerusalem, which includes the walled Old City and its holy sites, the capital of their promised state.

Israel considers Yom Yerushalayim to be the day that Jerusalem was re-unified after 19 years of division. It is difficult to dispute that characterization.

To Zionists, the status quo of Jerusalem is that it is a Jewish city. Even before the "new city" was built, Jews were a majority in Jerusalem since the middle of the 19th century. Beyond that, Jerusalem was always in the hearts of Jews since the diaspora began, and of course it was the capital of Israel before that.

For a mere 19-year span over the past 2500 years has the old city been Jew-free.

Yet AFP adopts the Arab point of view wholeheartedly.

To Arabs and AFP, those 19 years define the status quo of Jerusalem. Not the decades of Jewish majority in the old city for the previous century, not the Jewish control of the city for the past 43 years, not the millenia of history of Jews in Jerusalem - no, to AFP, the status quo is a tiny blip of 19 years, an quirk of history that represents when Jews were ethnically cleansed from their holiest city.

The only time that east Jerusalem could be accurately called "Arab" was for less than two decades of the past 3,000 years. But AFP considers that anomaly to be the ideal.

(h/t Richard L)

UPDATE: No surprise, Al Arabiya featured the AFP article.

Israeli chocolate commercial from the 1960s

This fairly bizarre advertisement (in Hebrew but easy to figure out) can be seen along with some fascinating other videos at the Israel Archives YouTube channel.

They have rare videos of Israel from the 1940s and on, including of Jerusalem immediately after the Six Day War. In addition, they have some old newsreels (sometimes without sound, unfortunately.)

Firas Press reports that the crowded markets of Khan Younis have become a center for young men touching and groping Gaza women.

The article states that the men will seek out the most crowded areas and purposefully jostle the women, using the overcrowding as an excuse. The women are afraid to scream because they think that no one would believe them.

As a result, many Gaza women are avoiding shopping altogether, sending their husbands instead.

The women also complain about men sidling up to them in public transportation.

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Arab Bank to close last branch in Gaza

YNet reports that after Arab Bank closed two of its three Gaza branches last week, it is now planning to quit Gaza altogether:

The largest bank in the Arab world, the Arab Bank, will shut down its three Gaza branches, the Calcalist learned Monday. Their closing will mark the last of the banks working according to international banking standards in Gaza.

More importantly, the Arab Bank was the main channel for funds transferred to Gaza from aid organizations as well as any financial interaction with the outside world.

Local Palestinian banks are the only ones to remain in Gaza, among them the bank of Palestine and the Islamic Bank, which do not function according to international standards or receive funds from international sources, who fear their money will fall into the hands of Hamas. This danger exists because these banks are unsupervised.

The reason the Arab Bank has decided to shut its doors is a fear of future lawsuits by anti-terror organizations. Calcalist has learned that the Hamas authorities have recently demanded of the bank all tax money collected, which is generally transferred to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. The move would certainly expose the bank to lawsuits.

"Conditions have emerged which make running a proper bank impossible," a source affiliated with the Arab Bank told Calcalist. "In recent months the bank has limited its operations in Gaza, but now there is no choice. The bank must halt all operations in the Strip in order to comply with international banking laws," he said.

Last week a group of gunmen entered a local Palestinian bank and demanded $400,000 of its collected tax money.

The bank's desertion will be a rough blow for Gazans, who will no longer be able to transfer money abroad and will certainly suffer difficulties in receiving paychecks or aid money from Ramallah.

"We are committed to the most severe banking standards and maintaining a high level of operations in accordance with international rules of propriety. Unfortunately, the situation in Gaza does not allow us to function at the level to which we are committed, and therefore the bank's operations will cease until proper working conditions are made available," the Arab Bank stated to the Calcalist.

I'm sure that the Gaza flotilla will bring Hamas all the cash it needs....