UNRWA - even more despicable than I thought

Silke in the comments points to a UNRWA document showing the increase in Palestinian "refugees" since 1950. Here it is (transposed to make it easier to read):

Year	Jordan	Lebanon	Syria	West Ban	Gaza	Total
1950	506,200	127,600	82,194	-	198,227	914,221
1955	502,135	100,820	88,330	-	214,701	905,986
1960	613,743	136,561	115,043	-	255,542	1,120,889
1965	688,089	159,810	135,971	-	296,953	1,280,823
1970	506,038	175,958	158,717	272,692	311,814	1,425,219
1975	625,857	196,855	184,042	292,922	333,031	1,632,707
1980	716,372	226,554	209,362	324,035	367,995	1,844,318
1985	799,724	263,599	244,626	357,704	427,892	2,093,545
1990	929,097	302,049	280,731	414,298	496,339	2,422,514
1995	1,288,197	346,164	337,308	517,412	683,560	3,172,641
2000	1,570,192	376,472	383,199	583,009	824,622	3,737,494
2005	1,795,326	401,071	426,919	690,988	969,588	4,283,892
2008	1,930,703	416,608	456,983	754,263	1,059,584	4,618,141

If you prefer charts:

A couple of things struck me when looking at this.

First of all, there is a missing column in the table. There is one other country that had people defined as Palestinian refugees in 1950 not listed here - and that country is Israel.

According to UNRWA, Israel had 48,000 Palestinian refugees:  31,000 Arabs and 17,000 Jews. Israel managed to integrate the refugees, Arabs and Jews alike, into its society and they disappeared from the refugee rolls within a couple of years.

If Arab countries had worked at treating their Palestinians as well as Israel did (reducing the population by 25,000 refugees a year,) they would have eliminated the refugee problem within 20 years rather than let it fester for thrice that time.

Not only that, but the percentage of refugees compared to total population was about 8% in Lebanon, 2% in Syria, and 4% in Israel. So there is no excuse that the other countries were overwhelmed and couldn't handle the refugees - Israel not only absorbed these refugees but took hundreds of thousands of additional refugees from Arab countries at the exact same time - all without help from any UN agencies. (In Jordan, the percentage of refugees was about 40% of the population, but keep in mind that Jordan also gained a lot of land in the 1948 war that many of the refugees were already living on.)

Isn't it interesting, though, that UNRWA doesn't acknowledge the Palestine refugees in Israel in their statistics? It's almost as if they are embarrassed that the single success story for Palestinian Arab refugees came in the country that they have a seething hatred for.

Another very important fact that we glean from these statistics: Nearly all of the "refugees" that live in Jordan are Jordanian citizens! Not only is UNRWA's definition of a "refugee" skewed by including the descendants of refugees, but they also include a huge population that is not stateless at all!

UNRWA actually admits this, with tendentious logic. This past February, Michael Kingsley-Nyinah, Director of the Executive Office of UNRWA, gave a speech in Malta about how UNRWA looks at Jordanians of Palestinian origin, and his words are amazing:

Refugees residing in Jordan and Syria enjoy a wide range of rights and freedoms that have helped to mitigate the hardships of displacement. Many are granted economic rights and access to the employment market, and the stability of these countries means they are spared the trauma of armed conflict. Among the relatively less disadvantaged are the refugees in Jordan who enjoy the privileges of special categories of Jordanian nationality.


The advantages of residing in Jordan and Syria are welcome and beneficial. Yet they do not obscure the vulnerability inherent in the refugee label. Neither do they detract from the distinctness of the refugee identity.

The refugees and host communities share an implicit understanding that the sojourn of Palestine refugees is temporary – and that this transient state is unchanged by the lengthy duration of their exile. As a corollary, “refugee consciousness” is strong among Palestinians, including the younger generation. The passing years have left intact a sense of injustice, a demand for acknowledgement and a desire for their travail to be justly resolved. Across the Middle East, Palestine refugees define themselves (and are defined by others) by reference to the historical experience of exile.

For any other group of refugees, the UN (meaning the UNHCR) bends over backwards to remove the "refugee label," but UNRWA applies it even in situations when it shouldn't exist. Arab nations refused to treat the early refugees like human beings, and UNRWA eventually not only went along with this evil plan, but institutionalized it.

A person who was born and raised as a citizen of another country cannot be called a "refugee" by any sane definition. Yet the UNRWA does exactly that. With a stroke of a pen, they could have reduced the number of "refugees" by 40% - and they instead kept the label.

One result is that even Jordanians are discriminating against Palestinian Jordanians, sixty years after their ancestors became citizens. UNRWA has made their "otherness" official and has justified it by using the words of those who hate them most by claiming that their status is temporary. By defining Palestinian Jordanians as somehow only temporary Jordanians, UNRWA is justifying their discrimination.

There is another implication of using the word "temporary" to define the "sojourn" of the PalArabs. If their status is only temporary, then surely Israel's status is temporary as well, and will end with their "return."

As I've mentioned before, on two occasions when Lebanon allowed a limited number of so-called "refugees" to become citizens of that country, the Palestinian Arabs jumped at the opportunity. Many more would happily trade in their "refugee" status for the opportunity to be normal, functioning citizens of their host countries, or of other Arab countries. They are not being given that choice, and a good part of that is because UNRWA is doing everything they can to perpetuate and expand the purported number of "refugees" for decades after they no longer should have that label.

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New poll shows why "peace process" has been doomed from the start

The latest poll from thePalestinian Center for Public Opinion includes two questions about a crux issue:

14)  Do you think that the Palestinians must renounce their right of home return, which Israel will never accept, in exchange for having an independent Palestinian state and the conclusion of a peace deal with Israel?

Response	Percentage
1. Yes, the Palestinians must do that	14.0
2. No, they shouldn’t do that even if the price would be the non- conclusion of a peace deal with Israel	81.7
3. I have no opinion	4.3

15)  If the Palestinian leadership would waive the right of home return in exchange for a financial compensation, would you accept or refuse that?

Response	Percentage
1. I would accept that	13.1
2. I would refuse that	81.8
3. Don’t know	5.1

There you have it. If Palestinian Arabs are not allowed to "return" to a country that the vast majority have never even lived in, they will overwhelmingly reject a peace deal - even if they know that Israel would never accept them.

The corollary is that even if Israel and the PA are browbeaten into accepting a US-brokered "peace treaty" that includes 100% of the West Bank and the eastern part of Jerusalem, the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs would not accept that agreement - and many of them would likely join or start new terror organizations dedicated to giving them the "right of return."

I posted yesterday the opinions of the late Shiite leader Mohammed Fadlallah concerning his hatred of Israel's very existence, and wrote that I believed that the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs - and Arabs altogether - agree with him. The reason is simple - his beliefs are consistent with the lies that the Arabs have been fed for three generations.

The PA, on the other hand, is officially inconsistent. It still incites against Israel daily in its broadcasts and in its schoolbooks; it still celebrates terror, it still draws maps of "Palestine" from the river to the sea, it still chides Hamas for not being committed enough to jihad against the Zionists. Yet the PA officially recognizes Israel. This inconsistency is not lost on the Arabs, who feel deep down as Fadlallah does, that Israel is an alien presence on Arab (or holy Muslim) land and must be destroyed, sooner or later.

(Of course, the PA is not inconsistent with the desire to destroy Israel either - it is faithfully following Arafat's phased plan from 1974. That is a little too subtle for many Arabs, though, whose hatred of the PA stems from its even pretending to want peace with the hated Zionists.)

So even if the PA somehow signs a peace agreement, if the maximal demands of destroying Israel demographically are not included, it would not be accepted by the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs.

Which goes to show yet again that every agreement that Israel signs with Palestinian Arabs is simply one more step to its destruction, as the gains that the Arabs make will then become the floor for the next series of demands  - or, more likely, the PA would then disappear and be replaced by a more overtly radical group that is more consistent with the incitement that three generations of PalArabs have been raised on, one that will happily rip up the worthless paper promises that the current quasi-government would make.

It is one thing to take risks for peace. It is an entirely different thing to negotiate your own destruction. This poll proves that peace is simply not an objective for Palestinian Arabs.

We know what that objective is.

(h/t Marty Peretz)

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Freedom of the Press, Hamas-style

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms [sic] just released a few recent examples of how Hamas completely restricts what journalists can do in Gaza.

Here are some of them:

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) expresses its concern about the deteriorating situation of media freedoms in Gaza Strip. This week MADA has monitored several violations against journalists, they are: the detention of the dean of Media faculty in Aqsa university Dr. Ahmad Hamad and the Greek director Bindles Baba Byblos after filming a wedding in Beit Hanoun, the prevention of France Press Agency photographer Mohammed Al-Baba from covering a march for “ Hizb Al-Tahrir” in Alnasser area in Gaza, and the prevention of Alshu’la newspaper chief editor Saher Alaqra’ and the correspondent of Sawt Falesteen Radio (Palestinian public radio) Tamim Abu Muammar from traveling to Egypt, in addition to the continued prevention of the three daily newspapers (Al-Hayat Aljadedeh, Al-Ayyam and Al-Quds) to enter Gaza Strip since 7 July 2010.

According to Hamad he said that he had gone on Sunday evening, 11 July 2010 to Beit Hanoun, accompanied by lecturer Mohammad Abu Odeh, and the director Byblos to film a wedding there to conclude it in a documentary film about the life of citizens in Gaza. Hamad added: "After we finished filming we left the wedding around 11 pm, but we were surprised that the police were waiting for us. They asked us about the tape which the director filmed, and when I asked them why? They answered: because you have filmed without permission, and conducted an interview with the father of the groom. And after an argument they took us to a police station in Beit Hanoun, and after they searched the car and watched the tape, the Superintendent Detective said the tape is normal and does not have anything to harm the government. But another person interfered and said that the groom’s fathers hold the government the responsibility for poverty, unemployment and hunger in the Gaza.” After many calls they release us after hour and a half of detention.”

Al-Baba said that he was filming a march of “Hizb Al-Tahrir” in Alnasser area/ Maqqousi Towers on Tuesday, 13 July 2010 at 5:00 PM, during the filming, a group belonging to the criminal investigation police unit attacked him and confiscated his personal stuff (camera - laptop – mobile ), and they took him to the police station in Alshate’area. After detaining him for an hour they asked him to sign a pledge that he won’t publish any picture about the march’s event, because there is a superior order banning media converge of the march.

As I reported yesterday, the Hizb ut Tahrir rally was broken up with live fire and Hamas policemen beating participants, seriously injuring a child.

If Hamas is restricting even documentary filmmakers from making videos, and banning journalists from rallies in Gaza, it becomes irresponsible for the mainstream media to report anything from Gaza without adding a caveat that their ability report facts objectively is impossible due to Hamas policies. Every Reuters photo should include the explanation that "this picture was allowed to be shown by Hamas authorities." The media freely mentions Israeli censorship policies when it impacts their work - yet you will not see them say anything about Hamas' complete control over their movements, actions and reporting.

By not reporting on Hamas' restrictions on their freedoms, the Western media in Gaza is complicit with Hamas' policies. The world's perception of Gaza is completely dependent on reporters who willingly withhold most of the information they know about Hamas' excesses.

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How wrong was the media on Faisal Shahzad?

A day after the failed Times Square bombing attempt, NBC Nightly News repeatedly called him a "lone wolf."

A month after, CBS Evening News called him a "hybrid terrorist":

In one sense, Shahzad was a lone wolf, with evidence suggesting that he alone bought, assembled, and delivered his botched IED. But, sources say it's also clear Shahzad had some help, drawing inspiration, financial support and bomb training from the Pakistani Taliban.

Now, Al Arabiya released a martyrdom video that he had made months beforehand with the Taliban, describing his motive. (Guess what? Israel wasn't mentioned! I guess he missed the memo to always mention Israel.)

It sure looks like the media tried as hard as possible to minimize this failed terror attack. And this minimization was largely successful, as the new evidence about Shahzad has come out slowly and is mostly downplayed in the press.

Yet the facts are clear - a mere two months ago, a Muslim extremist who was trained by a worldwide terrorist organization tried to kill hundreds of men, women and children in New York City. The fact that his bomb failed is not nearly as relevant as the fact that he could have easily succeeded, especially if he had really aspired to martyrdom instead of chickening out and trying to use a timer. Dismissing him as "incompetent" is besides the point - that there are millions of people who share his vision, and many of those would not have made the same mistakes.

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Mecca Cola - The Virtually Real Thing

The colors, font and background of Mecca Cola's logo seems awfully familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on where I've seen it before:

I must admit I enjoy the irony of the slogan, though. I can just imagine a commercial with a young Saudi woman on a sunny day playing Frisbee - and then trying to drink Mecca Cola through her burqa, while the announcer says "The Taste of Freedom."

(This is the Palestinian Arab version of the product; the main Dubai-based version uses a different logo.)

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Flotilla timeline video from IDF with English subtitles

This was just released with English subtitles:





Lots of footage from Israeli helicopters and boats that we hadn't seen before the release of the Eiland report.

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Egyptian doctor creates Society for the Prevention of Kisses

Firas Press reports that an Egyptian doctor, Dr. Adel Ashour, Professor of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, is setting up a Society for the Prevention of Kisses between Couples in Egypt.

He notes that "All scientific research published in major world medical journals unanimously show that serious medical damage is caused by exchanging kisses through the spread of infection from viral diseases."

He gives a list of medical problems that can be cause by kissing, including "skin diseases like acne, meningitis and viral diseases such as colds that should not be underestimated as they may infect cells lining the brain and result in very high temperatures that are difficult to control and may lead to death in some cases, also inflammation of the parotid gland as well as measles and viral hepatitis."

He also noted that the Islamic religion prohibits kissing in a non-marital framework.

This could explain a lot:

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The politics behind the Amalthea (Zvi)

Zvi comments:

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Ghaddafi and Son  
Ghaddafi has his own flamboyant and attention-seeking stance on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He is a one-stater who, having been badly burned in the past, appears to want to be seen as pragmatic and peaceful in the western press. Never mind that his proposals are demented and would result in mass death, destruction and chaos in Israel and the region if anyone were mad enough to implement them... . Of course, despite wanting to appear to be pragmatic, Ghaddafi and his regime are staunch enemies of Israel.  
 
In recent years, Ghaddafi's regime has made efforts to paint his son, Saif al-Islam, as a moderate pragmatist who should be welcomed as a voice of wisdom and common sense (never mind that the Libyan state is among the world's most repressive dictatorships, and that Saif al-Islam sits at the center of this dictatorship). Saif al-Islam's press statements in the wake of the ship drama project a sane, pragmatic image, to an extent that actually surprised me.  
 
'Do you want the grapes or to kill the vineyard's guard?' To tell you the truth, we want the grapes and we got them – so there's no reason to cause any problems.  
The problem was not a naval conflict with Israel, but rebuilding Gaza and helping our Palestinians brothers.  
 
Of course, the man also spreads nonsense about Gazan conditions and about Israel. We're not talking about a man who really cares very much about the truth. But I'm slightly impressed that he's willing to dismiss the idea of mindlessly attacking Israel for its own sake. In a region where ludicrous flights of romanticized genocidal fantasy are the norm, this is an unusually rational stance.  
 
Unexpected Wins  
The Ghaddafi regime has won a huge tactical PR victory - a much bigger win than I expected them to secure, and clearly much bigger than Ghaddafi ever hoped to secure. At the same time, Egypt has come out significantly ahead and Israel achieved its objective. The UNRWA received a windfall. Hamas, which has been demanding that the Libyan ship dock in Gaza, looks mildly stupid.  
 
What Libya Won  
* The Libyan regime received a lot of press attention (especially for the Heir Apparent).  
* It spun itself as being more moderate and stable than Turkey. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a very difficult feat, but Erdogan has watered down Turkey's reputation significantly, and Libya was very quick to take advantage.  
* It showed itself to be more effectual than Iran, Hezbollah and its fellow Arab states, who for all their talk, have not yet launched any ships.  
* It gets to play the hero in Gaza, and should therefore look good in the Arab media and certainly in the west.  
* It looks good at the UN, because it's funding Gaza repairs via the UNRWA.  
* It allowed Egypt to act as intermediary between Israel and Libya (I'll come to this in a minute).  
* It made Israel look aggressive, particularly while the navy was shadowing the ship and nobody knew what would happen, without looking aggressive itself.  
* It got Israel to sign off on a Libyan initiative in Gaza.  
 
Ghaddafi accomplished all of this at the low price of a ship, a bit of cargo and the promise of about $50M to the UNRWA (assuming that the money actually flows, and assuming that this is not money that Libya had already promised in the past but witheld). I'm sure that Ghaddafi's staff are celebrating.  
 
What Egypt Won    
I think that this outcome pleased the Egyptians very, very much. Egypt was able to exercize its skills as mediator and, in a matter of a few days, achieved an agreement that satisfied both parties and settled a looming diplomatic/military crisis. At the same time, Egypt's influence with respect to Gaza was mildly strengthened.    
   
On the world stage, the Egyptian government positions itself as a regional diplomatic heavyweight, a regime whose opinion cannot be discounted. It positions itself as a mediator that can facilitate otherwise  "impossible" agreements between Arabs and Israelis, a mediator that is essential to the peace process. This repuation has taken some blows in recent years. Iran and Hamas have consciously taken aim at Egyptian diplomatic prestige and at Egyptian influence over Gaza, and Egyptian influence and prestige have been battered by the obstructionism and hostility of an obnoxious little statelet (Gaza).

The Libya-Egypt/Egypt-Israel agreement allowed the Egyptian government to demonstrate both its skill as a mediator and its ability to bring Israel to the table. Egypt can claim an unexpected diplomatic win, one that has no downside for the Arabs. Furthermore, in doing the two-part Gaza deal with Egypt, Libya tacitly acknowledged that Gaza lies within Egypt's sphere of influence.

The fact that the flow of aid is going to filter through UNRWA instead of being handed directly and openly to Hamas embarasses Hamas somewhat, and Cairo must be smiling about that; Hamas has been sticking its finger in Mubarak's eye, and there is no love lost between the Egyptians and Hamas.

So this looks like a huge win for Egypt. In only a few days, Egypt settled a crisis, negotiated an agreement between two states that don't talk to each other, beefed up its diplomaic resume, received acknowledgement of its influence over Gaza and embarassed Hamas. Mubarak and Suleiman have every reason to be happy with this outcome.

Egypt evidently had mediation assistance from Austrian businessman Martin Schlaff, but Ghaddafi Jr. only mentions the Egyptians. 

 What Israel Won
Israel's interest was always to keep the ship from running the blockade. Israel wanted to set a precedent, according to which any real aid vessels will unload at Ashdod or, failing that, somewhere else, and the aid must flow into Gaza via controlled channels rather than confronting the Israeli navy.

Israel certainly isn't worried about a $50M influx of aid via the UNRWA. The amount of money sloshing around in Gaza already dwarfs $50M. 

 Conclusion
Ghaddafi is a murderous tyrant and a very strange man. His regime is one of the worst in the world. But I'll tip my hat, this once, to whomever handled this situation on their side; I can appreciate Olympic-caliber gymnastics.

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Libya discovers UNRWA

From YNet:

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, chairman of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation which tried to send an aid vessel to Gaza, says he reached an Egyptian-mediated agreement with Israel on Wednesday, allowing him to infuse $50 million for the restoration of the Strip and transfer construction materials to Gaza.

"We will soon start funneling $50 million in coordination with UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) to begin rebuilding Gaza and transfer humanitarian aid and construction materials, without any objection on the part of the Israeli government."

According to Gaddafi Jr., "This is an agreement we never expected or dreamed of. UNRWA informed us that it has failed to receive one dollar for the restoration of Gaza so far, and was therefore unsuccessful in bringing in even one iron skewer or sack of cement.

UNRWA's 2009 budget shows that it did not receive a single cent from Libya. Apparently, Libya never gave any money to UNRWA over the sixty years it has existed.

All of a sudden, Libya became aware of UNRWA's existence - and is happy to funnel money there?

Arab nations are fairly consistent in spurning UNRWA. Their (public) attitude has always been that the West is responsible for the existence of Palestinian Arab refugees by allowing Israel to be created, so therefore the West should pay for their basic needs forever - even as they are hosted in Arab countries who have adamantly refused to give them equal rights.

Only last year, when UNRWA asked for emergency funds to help Gaza, did a couple of oil-rich Arab countries pledge one-time contributions - $25M from Saudi Arabia and $35M from Kuwait. Arab governments' annual cash contributions to UNRWA are pitiably small, about $7M out of the $470M total last year. Arab nations have consistently spurned UNRWA appeals for cash and have equally consistently failed to pay on their pledges to UNRWA.

In fact, Luxembourg has given more cash to UNRWA's annual budget than any Arab country.

If Libya decides to give $50 million to UNRWA, it will suddenly become UNRWA's biggest Arab supporter, and it might be the biggest single contribution ever from an Arab country in UNRWA's history. Compare that to the $267M the US gave in 2009, or the $48M that was given to UNRWA by - Sweden.

It seems a bit cynical for Libya to crow over how it will now give all this money to Gazans when, up until now, it has shown utter indifference towards the major international organization that supports them.

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A challenge for Arab apologists

A London Islamic website called "Middle East Monitor" published an article that discusses, in depth, the philosophy of the late Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah concerning "Palestine."

It is worth reading in full, but here are some of the highlights:

For Ayatollah Fadlallah, Palestine is a Muslim issue over and above in importance any other in the world today, from which spring all other issues affecting Arab and Muslim countries. Hence, "Our position towards the Palestinian case is a religion we believe in, and not just a political slogan we consume today to leave tomorrow."

He stressed that Palestine summarises the past century, all the pains of the nation and all the dreams of the nation: "I do not dream without Palestine, and all the dreams fall when Palestine falls… It is not a battle, not negotiations, and it is not details; Palestine is the story of the nation: to be or not to be."

Ayatollah Fadlallah called for adopting Islam as the healthiest and safest method to achieve victory over the Zionists, saying "There's an axis and that is Islam in the face of Israel... we are stronger than any day because we are with Islam. The political battle of Islam is the conflict with Israel, and there is no Islam and Islamic political movement that is outside of the conflict with Israel."

He stressed that Israel is a usurper state, "and usurping [others' rights] is forbidden just as alcohol is forbidden, and there won't come a time when usurping becomes lawful". The passing of time - even hundreds of years - does not give legitimacy to the taking of anything that is not rightfully yours. He was part of the scholarly consensus that forbids the giving up of any part of Palestine; if an individual has the right to give up part of his own home, that's one thing, but a nation does not have the right to give up its land, because the nation does not just belong to the people living at any one time, it is the sum of generations of people who have lived and died therein. "The duty of the nation's scholars, whether Sunni or Shiite," he said, "is to restore Palestine in its entirety, from the river [Jordan] to the sea, and to mobilise the Arab and Muslim conscience for its sake."

The size and seriousness of the challenge, believed Ayatollah Fadlallah, requires us to widen the conflict with the enemy and integrate all of its concentric circles: Palestinian, Arab, Islamic and humanitarian. It also imposes on us that we prepare for a battle until God wishes victory and liberation. The Palestinian issue, he said, is Palestinian in its geography and its people, Arabic in its nationality and Islamic in the depth of meanings that govern its people.

...He also claimed frequently that Israel will not be strong forever and Arabs and Muslims will not be weak forever. As such, the struggle to liberate Palestine will span generations and he invited Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims not to impose time limits for resolving the issue. Just as, he said, we face an enemy who lived for many generations until it usurped the land, we must live even more generations to recover what is rightfully ours: this "equation of freedom is truly understood only by the mujahideen [freedom fighters]".

Conflict with Zionist Jews is not just a Palestinian matter, he believed, but is related to the Arab and Muslim presence in a region where America and other Western countries have sought to secure their own interests. Hence, they created Israel and make sure that it is the strongest state in the heart of the Arab world to prevent the latter from communicating, and meddle in its economics, politics and security in war and peace.

America's support for Israel, concluded Ayatollah Fadlallah, is the reason for Arab and Muslim hatred of American policies; the US policy on Palestine is "hypocritical", giving lethal weaponry to Israel and only words to the Palestinians. America, he claimed, is not interested in peace; it wants to buy time, creating despair until Israel completes its plan to control most of Palestine and imposes its terms for an agreement.

Ayatollah Fadlallah supported resistance against the Israeli occupation and the intifada in Palestine with all his strength and said that although the intifada alone cannot liberate Palestine it can liberate our collective belief that the Israelis are unbeatable. The intifada has let it be known that the Arab is not the man who is always slain, but is a man "who kills and gets killed", a quote from the Qur'an. He issued a fatwa authorising martyrdom operations against the Israeli enemy by virtue of having no other option but to do so, even if such operations led to the killing of civilians. A martyrdom operation, he said, represents the oppressed depth of the Palestinians' conscience which stores inside it the Muslim Arab character and its aspirations and pain but which is open to spiritual values, including jihad, pride, dignity and freedom, leading to the approval of God and paradise. At that stage, said Ayatollah Fadlallah, the body has no meaning and the male or female martyrs are encompassing the pain of the nation in their actions, as though the nation is struggling through them, and as if the nation gathers to give them its strength and courage, so that they can move towards the cause and forget the body. Thus, he ruled that "martyrdom operations are jihadist first class operations, but are the highest types of jihad." He pointed out that there is no difference in martyrdom operations between men and women, but the women's movement has more reward and is more altruistic than men's.

We are always told how the opinions of the Islamists and extremists do not represent the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, and about how Arabs really yearn for peace and would be willing to recognize Israel if it would go back to 1949 armistice lines. We are told that the Saudi "peace plan" would be accepted by the Arab world.

The challenge:

Find a single Arab Muslim who lives in the Middle East today, who would be willing to fisk this article and explain how it does not represent the opinions of the vast majority of Arab Muslims today.

Based on my reading Arabic newspapers every day for the past few years, Fadlallah's opinion quoted here seems to be exactly congruent with what the vast majority of Arab Muslims firmly believe. But I am willing to be proven wrong.

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The British judge who hates Israel, redux

I blogged about Judge George Bathurst-Norman, the British judge who effectively instructed a jury to excuse a group of people who damaged an arms factory because, they said, the arms were being shipped to Israel. Zvi looked at the judge further and found some stunning hypocrisy in his rulings.


Now, Jonathan Hoffman at CiFWatch went through the 87-page  transcript of the judge's comments/instructions to the jury before deliberations. Here are some examples of what the judge said:

..Now you may be wondering what on earth has the actions of the Israeli air force to do with this country. The short answer is that if the Israeli Air Force was committing crimes in the way that the agreed evidence outlines in the unlawful killing of Palestinians in Gaza and in the unlawful causing of damage to property in Gaza, then under the War Crimes Act and other legislation any member of the Israeli Air Force who set foot in this country and who acted in that way would be liable to arrest and prosecution, as is anyone within this country who knowingly helps the Israeli Air Force to commit such war crimes.

...Democracy would not exist unless there were reporters and members of the public who were prepared to stand up for what they believe to be right, and sometimes, as in the case of the suffragettes, even to go to prison for their beliefs. As Edmund Burke says: “For injustice to flourish, all that is needed is for good men to do nothing.” Indeed, people like Mr Osmond [Christopher Osmond, the leader of the seven who admitted causing £187,000 of damage to the EDO factory] who put themselves in harm’s way to protect others may, in fact – there may be much to be admired about people like that. Perhaps if he had done it in this country in the last war he would probably have received a George Medal.

... He [Osmond] knew of the Philadelphi corridor, the corridor made around the boundaries of Gaza by the illegal demolition of Palestinian homes by the Israeli army, during which Rachel Corrie, one of the International Solidarity Volunteers bravely stood in front of a bulldozer which was being driven by an Israeli soldier and was effectively murdered when he drove the bulldozer over her in 2003.

Read his whole analysis. It proves a simply appalling use of a judge's position to twist justice and to preach hate and lies. This is perversion.

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Egypt campaigning against underage, temporary "marriages"

Last year I linked to a very disturbing article about the phenomenon of what can only be called a slave trade in young girls in Egypt, under the guise of "temporary marriages," often with rich Gulf Arabs.

"Hanadi" was a teenager when she was sold into a short-term marriage by her father. "When I was 14, my father told me I was to be married to a man from Saudi Arabia," said Hanadi, who did not want to use her real name.

"Later on, I discovered that my father and the man had agreed I would stay with him for a month, until he returned home [to Saudi Arabia] at the end of the summer. There was never any intention for us to remain together any longer than his holiday in Egypt."

Hanadi is now 20 years old. She lives in a shelter run by Cairo-based non-governmental organisation the Hope Village Society, which cares for street children.

Although there is no specific law that bans the sale of girls and women into such temporary marriages, which often amount to prostitution, the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Egypt is a signatory, forbids the sale of children and bans marriage under the age of 16, said Mohamed Tag el-Din Labib, Hope Village Society training and research director.

In addition, Egyptian law bans both prostitution and the marriage of girls under 16. "Minors in prostitution are sent to a sort of corrective centre, where conditions are often as bad if not worse than they are in adult prisons," said Nihad Abul Qumsan, director of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights. "The man involved is not usually prosecuted, but rather acts as a witness in a trial."

However, rights workers say that because minors often go through at least some of the steps that would make a marriage seem legitimate make it difficult for any of the involved parties to be held accountable or be prosecuted. In addition, parents are almost always either in charge of a transaction of this kind, or at the very least are involved and have given their consent.

When young girls are set up to be sold for sex, the matter is very often rendered superficially legal as the couple sign a civil marriage contract and are divorced upon the departure of the male party, or no marriage contract is signed at all, as was the case for Hanadi.

According to Ms Qumsan, rules can be circumvented in a number of ways, including falsifying birth certificates or not registering the marriage at all. Because of this, few statistics or studies on the matter exist. 

Al Arabiya reports on a new Egyptian initiative to stop these temporary "marriages" to underage girls, which is astonishingly prevalent.

According to the article, the Egyptian minister for family and population Mosheera Khetab is campaigning against the phenomenon of underage girls getting married in "temporary summer marriages."  Some 74% of minor marriages in some provinces are really prostitution. 


This comes in the wake of a television show that exposed a network of minor girls who were being repeatedly "married" off to rich Gulf perverts.


One of these Gulf men was arrested and is being held.


(h/t Ali)

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