Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 17, 2010

Political correctness illustrated

This video of the US Attorney General working mightily to avoid ascribing any domestic terrorism acts to "radical Islam" has been going around the blogosphere, and it is astounding:

Here is the transcript of Eric Holder's exchange with Rep. Lamar Smith:

SMITH: Let me go to my next question, which is -- in -- in the case of all three attempts in the last year, the terrorist attempts, one of which was successful, those individuals have had ties to radical Islam. Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam?
HOLDER: Because of?
SMITH: Radical Islam.
HOLDER: There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions. It's -- one, I think you have to look at each individual case. I mean, we are in the process now of talking to Mr. Shahzad to try to understand what it is that drove him to take the action.
SMITH: Yes, but radical Islam could have been one of the reasons?
HOLDER: There are a variety of reasons why people...
SMITH: But was radical Islam one of them?
HOLDER: There are a variety of reasons why people do things. Some of them are potentially religious...
SMITH: OK. But all I'm asking is if you think among those variety of reasons radical Islam might have been one of the reasons that the individuals took the steps that they did.
HOLDER: You see, you say radical Islam. I mean, I think those people who espouse a -- a version of Islam that is not...
SMITH: Are you uncomfortable attributing any other actions to radical Islam? It sounds like it.
HOLDER: No, I don't want to say anything negative about a religion that is not...
SMITH: No, no. I'm not talking about religion. I'm talking about radical Islam. I'm not talking about the general religion.
HOLDER: Right. And I'm saying that a person, like Anwar Awlaki, for instance, who has a version of Islam that is not consistent with the teachings of it...
SMITH: But...
HOLDER: ... and who espouses a radical version...
SMITH: But then is -- could radical Islam had motivated these individuals to take the steps that they did?
HOLDER: I certainly think that it's possible that people who espouse a radical version of Islam have had an ability to have an impact on people like Mr. Shahzad.
SMITH: OK. And could it have been the case in one of these three instances?
HOLDER: Could that have been the case?
SMITH: Yes, could -- again, could one of these three individuals have been incited by radical Islam? Apparently, you feel that that they could've been.
HOLDER: Well, I think potentially incited by people who have a view of Islam that is inconsistent with...
SMITH: OK. Mr. A.G., it's hard to get an answer yes or no, but let me go on to my next question.

This is political correctness run amok, a pure example where the Obama policy of trying to reach out to the Muslim world crashes head-first into reality. What is scarier is the implication that the people investigating domestic terrorist acts are assuming a priori that they are unrelated, criminal acts whose common thread cannot even be mentioned. This is 1984 newspeak - if a word is not allowed to be stated then it doesn't exist.

Read Richard Landes for a great analysis.

Two stories from Iran

Over the weekend there were two stories out of Iran.

One: "President Ahmadinejad: Iran, strongest country in world"
Two: "Iranian cleric wants to see creation of 'Greater Iran' to rule over Middle East, Central Asia"

Think they are related?

Hamas demolishes homes. Will the world notice?

Palestine Press agency reports that Hamas demolished some 40 houses in Rafah today, over the strenuous objections of the homeowners.

At gunpoint.

Hamas intends to build something call a "House of Virtue" in place of the homes.

Will the Western media, so quick to make an international incident out of every house that Israel demolishes, even notice what Hamas did?

Family fun for Nakba day

Are you all bummed out over the continuous, oppressive Israeli occupation on this Nakba weekend? Are you sick and tired of the continuous humiliation, the lack of freedom, and the day in, day out repression that you are suffering under the yoke of Zionist imperialism?

Well, you are in luck, because there are lots of ways to spend Nakba weekend after you are finished your rock throwing and molotov cocktail hurling!

For example, you can go to the Haddad Park and Tourist Village in Jenin:

Or you can take your family to Bananaland, in Jericho:

Perhaps you'd like to visit the Ein Almarj Tourist Resort in Ramallah (click to see video):

In fact, you can browse through over five pages of places to visit, many with pools filled with water that is too scarce to drink, by looking at the Playgrounds and Amusement Park section of the Palestine Yellow Pages.

After all, you need to relax so you can get the strength to scream at the world how oppressed you are.

(h/t Philosémitisme Blog )

From Ma'an:<blockquote>Lebanese and Palestinian activists on Saturday marked the the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 by setting a record for the world's largest keffiyeh head-dress, Agence France-Presse reported.

The 6,552-meter chain of scarves was laid out on the grounds of the Sport City Stadium in Beirut, AFP reported, to mark what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, a day of mourning for the forcible displacement of some 750,000 Palestinians when Israel was established.

Overseen by a Guinness World Records official, the feat reportedly breaks a previous entry of a 2,932-meter scarf set in Spain in August 2009. AFP reported that more than 100 volunteers placed the giant scarf to form the number 194, signifying the 1948 United Nations resolution that grants Palestinians the right to return to their homes in Israeli-occupied land.</blockquote>UNGA resolution 194 doesn't give Palestinian Arabs the right to return to Israel; the non-binding resolution calls for "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date." That date has still not arrived.

Other clauses of that same resolution have been roundly ignored by the Arabs, although no one talks about that. For example, the same resolution called for free access to holy places, something that Jordan did everything to stop when it occupied the West Bank.

Even in the very same paragraph as the supposed "right of return" the UN says it wants to "facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees." The Arab world has fought tooth and nail to avoid resettling the refugees and their descendants, and the fact that there are still "refugee" camps 62 years later is a testament to how the Arabs treat their Palestinian brethren.

Also, the Palestinian Arabs themselves do not want to even accept the concept of compensation, which UNGA 194 explicitly advocates as an option for those who do not want to go to Israel.

As far the this world record is concerned:

- Doesn't this look like three keffiyehs, not one?
- How sweet would it be if Israel would break that record with a keffiyeh that sports Stars of David? It would be worth doing just to see the livid reactions from the Arab world. (And I would welcome a parallel effort by the Lebanese to make the world's largest matzoh ball!)

Egypt really ticked at Hamas

Palestine Press Agency reports that Egypt has frozen Hamas visas and stopped all official communications with Hamas.

Egypt has been getting more and more incensed at Hamas over the past few months for refusing to sign an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation agreement with Fatah. As a result, the Egyptian government has been cracking down on Hamas smuggling of weapons and especially cash, causing a liquidity crisis in Gaza.

More recently, Hamas has been saying bad things about Egypt and leaking secret details about the negotiations, which has infuriated the Egyptians.

Happy Nakba! Jaffa, 1948

The Palestinian Arab press is filled with articles about the "nakba" and all the horrible things that the Jews supposedly did to the Arabs in 1948.

Here's a typical piece, by Nabil Sha'ath:

For Palestinians, today marks the 62nd year since the Nakba – our national and personal catastrophe, involving the loss of our ancestral homeland and the dispersal of three-quarters of our people into exile.

To date, the Palestinian people await Israeli recognition of its responsibility in the catastrophe and agreement to resolve the conflict based on international law, including UN resolutions.

I experienced exile first-hand. On 13 May 1948 one day before Israel’s declaration of independence, my hometown of Jaffa was captured by Zionist forces. Seventy thousand Palestinian inhabitants of the city were forced to leave, most of them by sea to Gaza, Egypt, and Lebanon. We Jaffans were literally driven out to the sea. I was 10. We were never allowed to return.

What really happened in Jaffa in 1948?

The fighting in Jaffa did not start in May, 1948, as Sha'ath implies. In fact, the first people to become refugees in the War of Independence were not Arabs - but Jews from Jaffa, forced out of their homes in August 1947 as Arabs from Jaffa started a shooting and stabbing spree.

Another 5000 Jaffa Jews lost their homes when Arabs froom Jaffa attacked them in the immediate aftermath of the UN Partition resolution.

The real reason that Arabs left Jaffa was because of a combination of factors.

As soon as the fighting erupted in December, many of Jaffa's richer Arabs fled to Lebanon and Syria. These were the same people who left during the 1936-9 riots, and they assumed that they would be able to return after things calmed down. Yet their departure left Jaffa without much of their practical leadership. This fact was not lost on the middle class of Jaffa, who felt abandoned.

As Efraim Karsh notes, the mayor of Jaffa started a rumor of a fictional massacre of hundreds of Arab men and women in his city, in order to create worldwide sympathy for Arabs. The result backfired and the Arabs panicked, leaving en masse.

Political leaders in Jaffa abandoned the city as soon as they could. The mayor himself said he would go on a 4-day leave - and he never returned.

Another huge factor was the Mufti himself. Jaffa was slated to be part of Arab Palestine. As Karsh writes in his book I am reading, Palestine Betrayed, as soon as it was apparent that the Jews were going to capture the city, he threatened the remaining residents under pain of death that if they didn't leave, they would be considered collaborators for agreeing to live under Jewish rule.

There is no doubt that Jaffa Arabs panicked and left, for the most part, out of fear. The important point is that both sides had the same fear - mortars being shot at them from the other side, bombings and shootings. In many ways the Jews had far more to fear, for the Arab leadership routinely promised that the Jews would be massacred to the last person, while the Jewish leadership tried up to the last minute to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

In the end, though, the Jews stayed in their homes unless absolutely forced to leave, while the Arabs panicked and left their homes out of nothing more than fear. Much of that fear was due to the Arab leadership themselves failing, and sometimes actively threatening, their own people.

The "nakba" was mostly an Arab-made tragedy, not a Jewish campaign of ethnic cleansing as it is characterized today. But as long as Palestinian Arabs do not acknowledge the truth they will continue to perpetuate a problem that was, for the most part, self-inflicted.

Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics lies

The Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics came out with its statistics on the 62nd anniversary of Israel's birth. As I mentioned last week, they say that the Palestinian Arab population has increased by a factor of eight in those years.

Ma'an's more extensive quotation of their statistics says something that is clearly not true:

The PCBS wrote that as a direct result of the expulsion of Palestinians from their ancestral homelands in 1948, Gaza has become the most densely populated place on earth.

According to their statistics, the population density at end of 2009 was 663 individuals per km2 of which 439 individuals per km2 live in the West Bank and 4,140 individuals per km2 in Gaza Strip. In Israel, the population density reached 350 individuals per km2.

This is a baldfaced lie.

The latest numbers of population density for territories and nations show that Gaza, if it is reckoned as a separate entity, would be in sixth place, way behind Macau (18,500/km2), Monaco (16,900/km2), Singapore, Hong Kong and Gilbraltar.

(I had exposed this oft-stated lie years ago, and even created a video about it:

)

Now, the PCBS is an official agency of the PA. Its population statistics are used worldwide because they are considered to be a reliable organization. People make decisions based on their reports.

If they are lying about something so easily disproven, how can we trust them when they publicize statistics about anything else?

Anti-Israel protesters in Brussels drink "blood wine"

The Philosemitism blog noticed that there was a demonstration in Brussels a couple of days ago against Dexia, a bank that has an Israeli subsidiary.

Some 75 NGOs participated in this march, including ICAHD.

One of the demonstrators, dressed as a clown, drank "blood"out of a wine glass as an obvious reference to the blood libel of Jews drinking Christian blood for their wine. He said (translated):

"Ohhhh. Bravo. No blood money. (Applause) Cheers Israël. Ohhhhhh. (Applause) I love blood. Have a glass of wine. I love blood. Have a glass of wine."

You can watch the video here, but it is in French.

EoZ Book reviews page

I just put together synopses of book reviews I have written over the years in a separate page, accessible from the EoZ sidebar. They link to the full reviews.

It also includes links to an Amazon purchase page. If you buy it from here I get some miniscule percentage of the purchase price, so this is an indication of how I am selling out.

For an example of how this works:

This weekend I plan to read Efraim Karsh's "Palestine Betrayed." I like what I have seen so far, and hope to review it soon. When I do, there you will see a purchase widget on the left of the review, like there is here. (I also purchased his Islamic Imperialism book, for a future review.)

I also added a tiny Amazon search widget on the bottom of my left sidebar, in case you want to buy anything from Amazon and at the same time contribute to the upkeep of this site. (If nothing else, I need it so I can buy my own stuff from Amazon that way.)

I am still trying to come up with ways to make a little money back from this blog without inconveniencing readers. This seemed like a reasonable start.

OK, open thread!

Todays' PalArab news (5/14/10)

The minister of the waqf in Egypt, Mahmoud Hamdy Zaqzouq, has declared that he will visit the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, even with an Israeli visa, but stresses that this does not mean "normalization." We'll see what pressure he receives.

"Siege" news: For the third week in a row, imports to Gaza increased significantly. This weeks items included construction materials, preserved foods, hygiene products, and animal fodder.

Here's a picture of the keffiyeh festival that major Palestinian Arab political leaders attended yesterday.

A Gaza Christian has asked for asylum in Spain from Hamas, saying that the group threatened his life.

Another Gazan was repeatedly beaten by security forces who suspected him of having premarital sex.

US to return rare Jewish archives to Iraq

The Washington Post reported in April:

The soldiers came looking for weapons of mass destruction. What they found in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein's secret police headquarters was a legacy of destruction -- the demise of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world.

There was a treasure trove of Torahs and Haggadas, centuries old. And there were marriage records, university applications, financial documents -- the living record of a community, seized by the Mukhabarat from the homes of Jews as they fled Iraq under pressure and amid persecution, with only a handful remaining.

Now comes the historical conundrum: Who owns these materials?

In the chaotic aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, the thousands of sodden documents were spirited out of the country with an assist from then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney's office and a vague promise of their return once they had been restored. With the materials still sitting in a College Park office building, stabilized but with mold on them, the Iraqi government is demanding that they be shipped back, saying they are the property of the Iraqi people.

"They represent part of our history and part of our identity. There was a Jewish community in Iraq for 2,500 years," said Samir Sumaidaie, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. "It is time for our property to be repatriated."

But others, including many involved in saving the materials, say that they belong to the Jews who fled, or their descendants -- many of whom live in Israel.

"I don't see any reason for it to go back to Iraq, because if it is the patrimony of the Jewish community of Iraq, then wherever they are it's theirs," Harold Rhode, a former Defense Department official, told the Jerusalem Post last month. "When they left, they would have taken it with them had they been able to take it with them. You don't abandon Torahs."

And the US decided that they really belong to Iraq:

THE United States has agreed to return to Iraq millions of documents, including the Jewish archive, which were seized by the US military after the 2003 invasion, a minister said on Thursday.

'We have reached an agreement with the United States, after negotiations with officials at the State Department and the Pentagon, over the return of the Jewish archives and millions of documents that were taken to America after the events of 2003,' Deputy Culture Minister Taher Hamud said.

'The Jewish archives are important to us - like the rest of the documents, it is a part of our culture and sheds light on the lives of the Jewish community,' he told a news conference.

Iraq persecuted its Jewish community, forcing them to flee and leave behind their possessions; Iraq stole their possessions, and now Iraq is claiming that these stolen items really belong to them?

And the US agrees with them!

This is a more fundamental problem. This indicates that the State Department does not consider the Jewish people to be a nation with the rights to own their own treasures.

The religious and cultural items do not belong to the persecutors - they belong to the victims.

The "open-air prison's" luxury restaurant

The Roots Club:
Ambiance galore.
Beautifully designed buffets.
Every detail handled for you.

A 12-page menu with everything you might want in meat, seafood or poultry.

Indoor and outdoor facilities for your special event.

A Symphony of Services -
The perfect place for your dining, gathering and special events - in Gaza.

It looks just like a Nazi concentration camp, doesn't it?

The Roots Club clients include UNDP,UNICEF - and UNRWA.

The very people who love to talk to the world about the horrors of life in Gaza waste their Western money on luxury restaurants - in that same hellhole.

(h/t Dusty at Pro Israel Bay Bloggers)

Fayyad defending the keffiyeh

Firas Press reports:

Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad, the Secretary General of the President Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a number of members of the Executive Committee of the PLO and the Central Committee of the Fatah movement today launched a Campaign for the Keffiyeh and the Palestinian Dabka.

Fayyad and Abdul Rahim participated in the launch of five balloons with pictures of the martyr President Yasser Arafat to the sky. The balloons lifted a scarf 225 square meters in size, with the participation of hundreds of citizens from different provinces.

Palestinian Arabs must be very unsure about their own supposedly ancient culture if they need to bring in major politicians (and one dead one) to strengthen their ties to a headscarf.

Apparently, the Keffiyeh Yisraelit is really getting under their skin.

Remember how upset Jews were when Palestinian Arabs started eating lots of matzoh this year? Remember all those popular songs and editorials calling on Jews worldwide to defend their Passover cardboard/food?

Exactly.

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.