Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

An anecdote about Islamophobia in America

This morning on Good Morning America, an Indian Muslim-American named Eboo Patel was strenuously emphasizing that mainstream Islam in America has nothing to do with the extremists. He is very well-spoken and I have no doubt that he is sincere. (video)

The interviewer, Robin Roberts, asked Eboo whether he had any personal experiences of feeling discriminated against in recent weeks. The only example he gave was that his mother called him and suggested that perhaps his kids' names sounded too Muslim, and she was worried about them being bullied in school.

While this is just a single anecdote, it indicates that the real problem is not that ordinary Americans discriminate against ordinary Muslims, but the media playing up the idea that redneck right-wing Republicans are out there harassing members of that faith. The number of incidents of anti-Muslim activities is diminishingly tiny - dwarfed by anti-semtitic incidents in America. Yet the media has been obsessing over this non-issue, and they have been acting as fear-mongers, causing people like Eboo's mom to worry over nothing.

Many American public schools are filled with kids whose names represent dozens of cultures; the fear that someone named "Khalil" would be bullied because of his name is ridiculous. This unfounded fear is purely because of the media frenzy over "Islamophobia" and has little to do with reality.

Here is one of the peaceful, non-violent stone throwers among the many rioters who are rampaging through Jerusalem.

These latest riots were sparked when a security guard driving through an Arab neighborhood found himself being pelted with stones - possibly small pebbles like the one pictured above - and, fearing for his life, he shot one of the stone-throwers dead.

One Jew was stabbed in the back during the funeral for the rioter.

This photo came from the Arabic Paltimes site, which has many more photos of the rioting.

Right now some of the rioters are hiding in the Al Aqsa mosque.

(h/t Clark)

Jordan to illuminate Dome of the Rock to compete with Hurva

Jordanian and PalArab media is reporting that Jordan is taking bids for a huge project to improve the illumination of the Dome of the Rock at night time.

One would think that the huge Dome is already illuminated enough:

The reason that the Dome of the Rock needs more lighting? Because the Arabs are upset that the rebuilt Hurva synagogue is more prominent at night time:

Hurva also is on a higher part of the Old City, which has caused much consternation among Muslims who are offended that the highest dome in Jerusalem is not Muslim.

Yes - Jews rebuilding a synagogue has offended the Muslim world so much because they interpreted it as a game of one-upsmanship that they must win.

PA authorities now say Jewish supermarket is a Mossad operation

The Rami Levy supermarket chain has been attracting many Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank because of its good service and low prices, and has become a model of peaceful co-existence between the Jews and Arabs in the West Bank - a perfect counter-example to the thousands of news stories vilifying "settlers" as evil Arab-hating bigots.

Already in May, PA leaders were darkly warning Arab residents not to shop at Rami Levy, saying that the PA is watching and keeping track of those disgraceful people who want to shop at this Jewish-owned chain.

In August, they tried a different tack. They claimed that the meat at Rami Levy was poisoned and rotten. And they reiterated that they are watching exactly who goes shopping there

Obviously these efforts at demonizing great selections of good food at good prices failed, because now the PA is trying yet another method to discourage peaceful co-existence between Arabs and Jews: They are claiming that the Mossad is recruiting collaborators between aisles 3 and 4.

Palestine Press Agency says that the Consumer Protection Agency in Hebron has warned that one of their members was approached by a woman in Rami Levy asking him for information about any terrorists he might be know about.

Besides the fact that the story is almost certainly bogus, there is another point about this article.

The subtext of the entire accusation is that protecting terrorists from Israel is a key moral imperative for all Palestinian Arabs.

The day after the peace agreement (Barry Rubin)

A must-read:

A gala celebration marks Palestine’s day of independence. Some world leaders come bearing promises of financial aid. Arab leaders attending offer little money and, except for Egypt’s president and Jordan’s king, avoid contact with Israel’s delegation.

These celebrations are marred by the absence of leaders from countries--including Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen. refusing to recognize the new state.

Hamas, ruling the Gaza Strip, along with Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups, also reject the “traitorous entity.” Gaza’s rulers mark the occasion by firing rockets into Israel. Palestine's president boasts hollowly that his country includes all of the Gaza Strip but controls nothing there.

Hardly any of the Western media cover statements by some leaders of Palestine’s ruling Fatah group that the new country's independence is not the conflict's end but the first step toward total victory and conquest of Israel.

Nor do many note statements of Islamist and Palestinian nationalist Arab groups among Israel’s citizens that they now seek to dismantle the Zionist nature of the Israeli state, a goal several European newspapers endorse.

Nor is it widely highlighted in the Western media that the new country officially proclaims itself an Arab and Muslim state while ridiculing the idea of accepting Israel as a Jewish state.

Within a few weeks, infiltrators--some from Hamas, some from Fatah--cross the Palestine-Israel border to attack Israeli motorists and farming villages, set fires, and engage in sabotage. Palestine's government loudly condemns the attacks and claims it is trying to stop them. But the attacks continue even though a few Hamas supporters are rounded up, beaten up, and briefly imprisoned. It is quite possible that small numbers of rockets could be fired into Israeli territory or attempts be made to shoot down planes taking off from Israel's airport.

Soon, the official Museum of Palestinian History opens with exhibits claiming all of Israel as rightfully part of Palestine. Visiting schoolchildren are told that Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheva, and the rest of Israel belong to them and will some day be part of Palestine. Big displays show alleged Israeli atrocities and extol heroes who'd blown themselves up killing many Israeli civilians.

Yet these things, along with anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian media, mosques, and textbooks, attract little foreign attention. The conflict is over, isn’t it? And to publicize such facts, journalists tell each other, would only “play into the hands of Israeli hardliners” and “undermine peace.”
...

In the Middle East, the peace agreement brings little change. True, in some countries hatred toward Israel diminishes a bit. But Syria is still uninterested in peace. Moreover, growing fear of a nuclear Iran, Syria, and revolutionary Islamist groups intimidates other Arab states from making peace with Israel. After all, they say, now that there's a state of Palestine they don't need to do so.

Islamist groups rally against the “treasonous” Palestinian regime and “sell-out” of Palestine to recruit new members. America is no more popular for having fathered a Palestinian state since that birth required concessions and didn't bring all the land under Muslim rule. Violent attacks against U.S., European, and occasionally Palestinian institutions take place in a half-dozen countries.

From this point, we can envision several likely scenarios:

--Growing border tension and cross-border attacks lead to Israeli incursions to fight terrorists against whom the Palestinian government doesn’t act effectively. This sets off a crisis in which Israel is branded as the aggressor that is threatening peace and some call for sanctions against it.

--A coup takes place turning Palestine into a military-run regime which might be either more militant, wanting to fight Israel, or more cautious, seeking to crush Hamas.

--As a result of tensions with Israel, internal conflicts, a radical regime, or coup, the Palestinian government obtains military equipment, including advanced anti-aircraft missiles, violating the peace agreement. What’s the world going to do to enforce that treaty? Probably very little.

--As a result of the list of scenarios given in the previous paragraph, the Palestinian government calls in foreign troops, possibly Syrian or Iranian. What’s the world going to do about that? How would the world respond to Israel taking military action against such threats and treaty violations?

--A Hamas coup, far more likely to happen than the Palestinian government conquering the Gaza Strip, produces a pro-Tehran Hamas regime which, perhaps partnered with militant Fatah leaders, tears up the peace agreement and announces an alliance with Iran, making Israel and Western strategic interests worse off than ever.
...
[W]hile the above scenarios are speculative they are better rooted in experience and reality than is the "best-case" alternative. At any rate, betting the lives of millions of people, Israel's future, and Western strategic interests must be based on something better than wishful thinking and refusing to acknowledge the threats involved.

Read the rest.

(h/t sshender)

Russia calls off sale of missiles to Iran

From BBC:

A top Russian general has confirmed that a sale of S-300 air defence missiles to Iran will not go ahead because of UN sanctions.

Gen Nikolai Makarov, head of the general staff, told reporters the missiles were "definitely" subject to new sanctions introduced in June.

At the time, Russia's foreign minister said the S-300 deal was not affected.

Possession of S-300 systems would enhance Iran's defence of its nuclear facilities against attack from the air.

"They are definitely subject to sanctions."

Asked if Russia had torn up its contract with Iran, he replied: "We'll see. That will depend on how Iran behaves."

Not that Russia has an ethical problem selling missiles to rogue states:

Russia will complete the delivery of anti-ship missiles to Syria this year and may sell more arms to the Mideast nation after assessing the impact on the regional balance of power, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said.

“All weapons within the earlier contract will be delivered by year end,” Serdyukov said in an interview in Moscow. Syria has made new requests “that are being considered at present,” he said. “Pre-contract work can last a few months to a few years. There is no guarantee a contract will be signed in the end.”

Hamas paranoia: Egypt opened Rafah to "trap" Hamas officials

I've mentioned the recent detention of a Hamas security chief in Egypt (auto-translated as Mohamed Debabeche.)

Now Hamas says that it was all a trap:

Hamas accused Cairo Tuesday of using the Rafah crossing's opening to detain party officials as they travel abroad via Egypt following the detention of the Gaza government's intelligence chief in Cairo.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told reporters that opening the border to trap Hamas officials was "unacceptable and inappropriate," following the detention of General Security Service Commander Muhammad Dabaeesh, also known as Abu Radwan, at the Cairo International Airport.

Egypt's move seems to have been as a way to pressure Hamas to hand over the person who shot and killed an Egyptian policeman during the Viva Palestina protests last December, as Dabaeesh is the killer's boss.

George Galloway whines that he is "exiled from Palestine" (updated)

From Ma'an:

Former British MP George Galloway appealed to Egypt on Wednesday to reconsider the government's decision to deny him entry to the country as he heads the fifth Viva Palestina convoy heading for Gaza.

"I have no wish to have a fight with the Egyptian government; my fight is with Israel," Galloway said in a statement issued from Paris.

"I am already forbidden to enter Palestine by Israel. If I am now unable to enter through Egypt this amounts to an exile from Palestine, a country I have struggled for these last thirty five years and which is deep in my heart."

Wow, it sounds like Galloway is claiming a "right of return"!

Perhaps the Egyptian policeman who was killed in the protests that his group sparked was merely a victim of his "fight against Israel."

Update: I just recalled that Galloway's group fought with Egyptian security forces in March of 2009 as well.

Time magazine does a half-decent job at describing "settlers"

Karl Vick, who wrote the infamous Time cover story "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace", spent some time actually visiting the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and speaking to the locals. His resulting story is not nearly as slanted as these sorts of stories usually are.

The term settlements does not do justice to what Israeli Jews have built on the hilltops of the West Bank. Subdivisions comes closer in those whose winding lanes, red-tiled roofs, bougainvillea and tricycles create a suburban splendor of sorts. In other spots, industrial park would be more accurate, with Israelis having notched scores of factories — making bagels, aluminum, chicken nuggets — into stony slopes where for centuries commerce had consisted of shepherd boys and their flocks.

...Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says he'll walk away from the [negotiating] table if Israel resumes building on the West Bank, whose territory would form the rump of any Palestinian state. Israel argues that the moratorium demonstrated its good faith and now it's Abbas' turn.

"I do hope the Palestinian side understand this is the test case for the idea of compromise," says Dan Meridor, a moderate in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Meridor, the Minister of Intelligence, has suggested a specific compromise: to resume construction next week, but only in settlements that both parties, in previous talks, have agreed would remain on the Israeli side of a border with a future Palestinian state. The densely populated West Bank settlement blocs on the Israeli side of the separation barrier are home to 200,000 of the approximately 270,000 settlers. The Israelis argue that making those settlements denser would do no new harm to Palestinian aspirations.

In Meridor's proposal, the freeze on construction would continue in places like Eli, a town of 3,000 way out in the middle of the West Bank. A largish blob on maps, in reality much of Eli stands vacant, settlers having put up houses on the edge like pioneers circling wagons.
"We built at the perimeter with a plan to fill in," says Tamar Asraf, whose home overlooks the ruins of ancient Shiloh, where Jewish tribes are said to have worshipped for more than 300 years after arriving from Egypt. Asraf describes the thrill of finding pottery from their feasts on the hillside below her back door.

"We feel like we've returned home," she says. "There was a gap of 2,000 years."

I never visited Eli, but from the satellite image you can see the vacant part between a row of houses on the west and the main part of town:

Even if the residents of Eli built up that entire area, it would not take a square centimeter of additional land. (h/t aparatchik)

...[S]ettlers lately are playing the security card, arguing that their presence on the hilltops of the West Bank helps ensure the safety of the coastal plain below. It matters now more than ever who holds the high ground, goes the argument, since missiles rained down from other areas from which Israel withdrew — Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

But the sense of purpose that so impressed Nissim has deep roots in faith. What the world calls the West Bank is known to religious nationalist Jews as Judea and Samaria, land they say was promised them in the Scriptures that double as history here. In settling here, some believe themselves to be fulfilling a condition for the emergence of the Messiah Jews still await. But in the coffee shop at Shiloh — plans for a more elaborate visitor's center being on hold by the freeze — the elected head of the settlers argues only realpolitik.

"How'd we get here in the first place?" says Daniel Dayan, head of the Yesha Council, which formed in the 1970s as Gush Emunim (Block of the Faithful). "We got here because of an Arab war they fought winner-take-all."

...[T]he point that settler advocates are making now is that removing settlements would also mean evacuating most if not all of the 10,000 Israeli troops now stationed there to guard them. And in recent years, wherever Israel has pulled back its forces, the empty space has soon been filled by extremists — Hizballah in southern Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza — and their missiles.

"There are people who say we're messianic and all this, but we are the people with our feet most on the ground," says Dayan. "The ones who say a Palestinian state will solve everything, they are messianic. They are the ones detached from reality."

It is not only recently that residents of Yesha have been talking about the security implications of any withdrawal; it has been a key talking point for years. But since reporters love the "messianic" angle that message has been lost in the glare of stories about how fanatic and religious and violent these residents supposedly are. Even this article only hints at the many secular Israelis who live on the other side of the Green Line (you know, the "internationally recognized border" that was never internationally recognized as a border before 1967.)

Moderate Fayyad can't stomach "two states for two peoples"

From YNet:

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad left a meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon outraged on Tuesday following a dispute about terminology to be used in the meeting summary.

A press conference scheduled to take place in New York after the meeting, which was held as part of the Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) meetings, was subsequently canceled.

The dispute followed Ayalon's demand that the meeting summary refer to the notion of "two states for two peoples," rather than just "two states."

"I wanted that at theV very least it will note two states for two peoples. I demanded to know what they meant. One Palestinian state and one bi-national state, or another Palestinian state?," the deputy minister told Ynet. "I made it clear that we were out of the picture if the summary didn’t say two states for two peoples."

If Ayalon's summary is accurate, this is a fascinating glimpse into even the so-called moderate Palestinian Arab psyche.

The terminology "two states for two peoples" was controversial when Netanyahu first announced support for that principle last year. It has been emraced for years by the far left, including Gush Shalom. It goes without saying that Western leaders like Tony Blair support that formulation as a given.

Yet this formulation, which "everyone knows" will be the solution, is anathema to the most "moderate" Palestinian Arab. Obviously they feel that Palestine is for Arabs - and that Israel is ultimately for Arabs as well.

I'm sure that the moderate Arabs, after they take over Israel and rename it to West Palestine, would generously allow Jews to live within the 1967 borders as "protected" second class citizens. Of course, this would only apply to those Jews who can trace their ancestry to Palestine from before 1880, because the rest of them are evil colonialists whose very existence is an insult to Arab honor and who cannot be tolerated if they ever want true peace in the Middle East.

After all, as these moderate Arabs will be the first to insist, peace is what they want.

And, as the media never tires of telling us, Fayyad is "moderate" par excellence.

What Gazans think of Hamas

From The National (UAE), a long article about Gaza:

“We are under occupation,” said Abu Mohammed, a secular businessman with close family ties to the old Fatah security services. “After the takeover, people thought it might get better if the religious guys were in charge of the money, that security would improve and corruption would end. But they’re just as corrupt: If you’re not in Hamas, you get nothing. If anyone does anything, they are arrested, tortured or killed. Just like with the Israelis. Except the Jews always give you a lawyer.”

Anger with Hamas is not limited to secular supporters of the Fatah government in Ramallah. Militants devoted to violent resistance say they feel betrayed by what they call an epidemic of corruption – springing from Hamas’s control of the illegal tunnel economy – and by Hamas’s refusal to sanction military operations against Israel from Gaza.

Islamic Jihad, once the closest ally of the Hamas military wing, now refuses to call their former brothers-in-arms resistance fighters. According to Abu Musab, a top Islamic Jihad commander in the Rafah refugee camp, Hamas has failed at governance and resistance alike. “There’s no government in Gaza,” he said flatly. “We’re under Israeli and Hamas occupation."

“They are as big harami as Dahlan,” he said, using the Arabic slang for “thieves”. “They used to be mujaheddin, but today they are fat millionaires with nice cars,” he added, pointing to his flat stomach. “Look, you can either be a millionaire or you can lead a resistance. But you if you take the medical aid sent by Europe to help the poor people of Gaza and sell it in your own pharmacies to make money for yourself and the government, you can’t have both.”

At this point he pulled a packet of antibiotics from his pocket; it is stamped: “A gift of the people of Norway. Not for resale.”

“I just bought this from a Hamas-run pharmacy here in Rafah for my son,” he said. “I had to go to a Hamas pharmacy to make sure the pills weren’t fake or made from poor materials in Egypt. If you want real medicine, you have to buy the aid Europe sends us.”

Abu Saba, the Gazan political analyst, said that two major events had negatively reshaped public opinion of Hamas – and in both cases, he says, the damage to Hamas was self-inflicted.

“Things first started getting out of control in November, 2007 after Hamas took total control of Gaza earlier that summer,” he said. “There was a legal rally by Fatah supporters on the anniversary of Yasser Arafat’s death to honor their leader and to complain that Hamas was violating human rights promised under the constitution of the Palestinian people.”

He pauses for a moment and looks around the café nervously before going on. “It was the biggest protest in the history of Gaza, bigger than the largest protests during the Intifada,” he continues. “It got out of control when the Hamas police told everyone to go home.”

This sparked a crackdown on political dissent throughout Palestine that continues to this day, with Hamas harassing and jailing Fatah supporters in Gaza and Fatah doing the same to Hamas supporters in the West Bank. The second major blow to Hamas’s standing among Palestinians, according to Abu Saba, was the Israeli invasion of Gaza that began at the end of 2008: “When the war broke out people banded together to survive,” he says, “but after the war most people thought Hamas had provoked it [with a resumption of rocket attacks] but they acted together to portray all of the population as victims of the invasion, which we were. But over the past 18 months, Hamas has fallen further and further in support.”

According to one human rights activist, who asked not to be named for fear of being killed by one side or the other, the root of the problem is that both governments – Fatah and Hamas – were born of what he called “original sin”.

“The Palestinian constitution protects the right of the people to peacefully assemble at anytime for political protest,” he said. “It’s a very progressive and wonderful law. But because Hamas can only control traffic and not how people meet privately, they decided to ban all public protests through decree of the police chief. And now they use the same tools that the Dahlan regime and the Israelis used to suppress the Intifada. Torture is a chronic problem here and on the West Bank, we have both sides using illegal and arbitrary detention and it’s led to a systematic deterioration of human rights over the past four years.”

“The original sin was the refusal of the international community to recognize the Hamas victory in 2006 and the power sharing arrangement with Fatah that Saudi Arabia brokered in early 2007,” the activist said. “When Hamas saw that no one would recognize their legitimate victory – and it was a fair election victory then – they decided not to bother trying to be just rulers.”

I ask him if that means the human rights situation was better under Israeli occupation that it is today for residents of both the West Bank and Gaza.

“Why do you think I ask you not use my name? Yes, 100 percent yes,” he said. “At least the occupation had a positive effect of drawing the Palestinian people together instead of dividing them. I now fear that we’re seeing a systematic effort by Hamas and its religious backers to enter every component of society.”

...Later I described my conversation with Khalidi – and my quick chat with Abu Obeida – to Abu Nizar, a former Fatah security official. He laughed at the idea that these two famed Hamas fighters had turned their efforts to community policing: “Was Abu Obeida using community support when he was throwing Fatah officials off high-rise buildings in 2007? Are they working step by step to learn not to shoot people who disagree with them in the kneecaps? There’s a video of Obeida himself executing five Fatah officials in the Jabaliya refugee camp after they surrendered – everyone in Gaza has seen it. So why should I ever think he’s not going to one day come here and kill me?”

Fatah, according to Abu Nizar, no longer poses any threat to Hamas rule in Gaza: it would be insane, he says, for Ramallah to order its cadres to stir up trouble here, given the level of control H amas currently exerts over the population.

“We’d be massacred in five minutes if we plotted against Hamas,” he said. The real threat to Hamas, Abu Nizar continued, comes from its former militant allies. “The jihadis are much more powerful than they have ever been,” he told me, echoing a warning that has been sounded by other experts on Gaza. “Salafists look at Hamas and think they aren’t Islamic enough, because they ran in elections approved by Israel, they have failed to implement Sharia law, and they stop militants from attacking Israeli targets.”

“They can’t challenge Hamas yet. But you can’t hold them off forever. The most religious members want Sharia law and an end to this under-the-table ceasefire. They will never accept Hamas rule, but Hamas tries to appease them by banning women from smoking shisha and other moral laws. But we know appeasing al Qa’eda types never works, they’ll just ask for more and more until one day they have the support to throw Hamas out. Just like what happened to Fatah – but it will be even worse for all of us.”

...Jaysh [al Islam] was at the forefront of the fighting here, and when I asked Jihad whether Hamas fighters had also participated, he scoffed. “When they saw 200 or so policemen were killed the first day in their bases, they all went to the tunnels,” he explained. “Hamas knew Israel was coming to hurt them, so they sent all their men home or to safety. We had 18 martyrs in this neighborhood during the war and we’re a small group. Qassam Brigades has more than 10,000 men all over Gaza, and they only had eight martyrs after the first day.”

“They hid while we died for the glory of God,” he added. “Who are the real Mujihadeen?”

One [member of Jaysh al Aslam] took me by the hand and led me quietly to the edge of the tree line. Not more than 100 metres away, Israeli bulldozers, guarded by massive Merkava tanks, were clearing brush from along the fence. I could see Israeli soldiers walking along, talking to each other, sharing cigarettes and guarding the area. “Past this tree and they’ll see us and start shelling,” my young masked guide explained, before returning me to Jihad and the rest of the men.

“Hamas is our enemy,” Jihad said amid nods from his colleagues. “They have killed our brothers on behalf of the Israelis and they protect Israel from our guns.” He points to one young man who is clutching an M-16 rifle. “This boy,” Jihad says, “was arrested by Hamas for trying to attack Israelis outside of Rafah camp.”

“They held me for 22 days,” the boy says. “They beat me every day and when they released me, my father and I had to sign a paper that said if I attack Israel again, I will owe Hamas $22,000 or they will kill me.”

(h/t Vicious Babushka)

My obligatory Ahmadinejad one-liner

Ahmadinejad said that "A Jewish state means a racist regime."

The official name of his country is The Islamic Republic of Iran.

UNHRC fawns over the PA's response to Goldstone

The UN Human Rights Council came out with a report judging the respective merits of the responses by Israel, the PA and Hamas to the Goldstone Report.

It wasn't too terrible in judging Israel's responses, given that it is the UNHRC we are talking about here. They had some good things to say but were still unconvinced how independent the Israeli investigators were and they had other issues like Israel not following up with Arab complainants about the status of the investigation.

And, to their credit, they politely implied that the Hamas investigation was worthless:

86. The Committee also has concerns related to the impartiality of the second Gaza Committee’s investigations. The report did not seriously address the recommendations by the Fact-Finding Mission to the de facto Gaza authorities....This gives the impression that the investigations sought to deflect attention from the alleged violations of IHL and IHRL by the de facto Gaza authorities and raises concerns about their credibility and genuineness.

87. Moreover, some aspects of the report sought to explain away allegations of serious violations of IHL. For example, the second Gaza Committee suggested that the unavailability of modern military technology could not preclude armed groups from defending themselves. This implicitly acknowledges the truth of the allegations in the FFM report that armed groups violated IHL by launching weapons at Israel that were incapable of striking precise targets, while seeking to justify the violation and absolve the perpetrators.

(I cannot find a copy of the Hamas "investigation," the UN did not publish it as they did the others.)

But the UNHRC absolutely loved the PA's investigation.

70. The Committee notes that the Independent Investigation Commission undertook ndependent and impartial investigations in a comprehensive manner that squarely addressed the allegations in the FFM report.

72. Moreover, its report demonstrates that it was thorough. In the elaboration of its methods of work, the Commission set out in detail the process it had followed to arrive at its conclusions. The fact that the Commission was able to undertake some 100 hearings in relation to each of the alleged violations illustrates the comprehensiveness of its work. The Commission met governmental representatives accused of violations, including high-level officials. The steps taken to protect witnesses and safeguard the information it obtained demonstrate its professionalism.

While the PA commission did indeed investigate even the PA itself, it can hardly be considered impartial.

As I posted in August, the PA commission tried to justify Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians by saying that such rockets "cannot be considered a violation of international humanitarian law, per se." Why does the UNHRC notice Hamas' justification for rocket fire and yet ignore the exact same justification done by the PA commission?

Beyond that, the PA commission went way beyond investigations and into squarely insulting Israel multiple times. Here is an example of the PA commission's "impartiality":

The inference from such conduct can only be either that the Palestinians are considered by their occupier as lesser human beings, or that whatever harm is inflicted upon them, no matter how indiscriminate, excessive and disproportionate, is justifiable on the basis of Israel’s exceptionalism and granted impunity.

Is it the purpose of a fact finding commission to judge parties that are not within the scope of its investigations?

The UNHRC shows yet again that even when it tries to appear unbiased, it fails.

HRW calls on Syria to release teenage blogger

From HRW:

The Syrian government should immediately release Tal al-Mallohi, a 19-year-old high school student and blogger held incommunicado without charge for nine months, Human Rights Watch said today. She has been held by Syria's security services since being detained on December 27, 2009.

State Security (Branch 279), one of Syria's multiple state security agencies, summoned al-Mallohi to Damascus for interrogation in December and immediately detained her. Two days later, members of State Security went to al-Mallohi's house and confiscated her computer, some CDs, books, and other personal belongings. Since the arrest, the security services have not allowed her family to communicate with her and have not offered any explanation for the arrest.

"Detaining a high school student for nine months without charge is typical of the cruel, arbitrary behavior of Syria's security services," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "A government that thinks it can get away with trampling the rights of its citizens has lost all connection to its people."

It is unclear why the authorities have detained al-Mallohi. According to her family, al-Mallohi, who is in her last year of high school, does not belong to any political group. Some Syrian activists have expressed concerns that security services may have detained her over a poem she wrote criticizing certain restrictions on freedom of expression in Syria. Her blog, which contains poetry and social commentary, focuses mostly on the plight of Palestinians and does not address Syrian political issues. Her homepage shows a picture of Gandhi with the quote, "you will remain an example."

What is chilling about this case is that al-Mallohi seems to be just an ignorant young blogger. Her blog contains no passionate criticisms of anyone except Jewish Zionists. Her politics seems hardly outside the mainstream for Syrians.

She has three blogs.

The first one she simply titles "My Blog" and it contains some poetry and pro-Palestinian Arab articles. She includes a picture of Raed Salah, a leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel; some praise for Venezuela and Erdogan, a picture making George Bush look like Hitler and lots of ignorant stuff about Jerusalem and how Jews have no rights there whatsoever and Israeli crimes. She signed her more recent posts "A Palestinian."

There are barely any comments on her posts there.

Her second site, "Palestinian Villages," is supposedly a list of Arab villages destroyed by Israel and their history. It includes a picture of what looks like a variant of Greater Syria.

Her third site, called "Latters" (probably meant to be "Letters") might be the one that is problematic to Syrian authorities. In that blog she writes a series of letters to the human race about human rights and freedom. It is possible that there are some veiled references to Syrian repression in those letters, but, again, this blog was hardly read by anyone judging from the number of comments.

If Syria goes after teenagers whose childish views would be all but unnoticed otherwise, and whose deviation from the Syrian version of political correctness is this slight, then the Syrian regime is even more paranoid than I thought it was. Usually such extensive paranoia accompanies equally extensive feelings of insecurity.

Which means that every citizen of Syria must live in incredible fear.

Lebanon tense following Hezbollah airport incident

Lebanon is on edge after an incident on Friday when Hezbollah acted in direct opposition to the government:

A former Lebanese general who has been summoned by prosecutors for threatening remarks made against Prime Minister Saad Hariri was on Saturday promised protection from arrest by opposition group Hezbollah.

Jamil Sayyed was detained for four years on suspicions of involvement with the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, the father of the current prime minister.
However, he was released in 2009 when the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) ordered his release due to lack of evidence.

Sayyed has insisted that the testimony that landed him in detention was provided by a lying witness. Last week, he publicly threatened Hariri in a press conference.

'I will not be silent until justice is made...' Sayyed said, accusing the younger Hariri of paying for the testimony that put him away.

'False witnesses must be held accountable under the law, or we shall settle the score against them in the street,' Sayyed warned.

Those remarks, including one to take justice 'with his own hands' if Hariri did not admit to his alleged crimes, prompted Lebanese prosecutor Said Mirza on Thursday to summon Sayyed for questioning regarding threats to Hariri and state security.

But, when Sayyed arrived at Beirut's international airport, he was greeted by Hezbollah lawmakers and officials, who escorted him his house amid heavy security to prevent anyone from arresting him.

Hezbollah's move is seen as a repudiation of Lebanon's courts.

Hezbollah issued a statement on Friday saying that Mirza's request to summon Sayyed was 'political,' calling for a reversal of the judiciary's decision to summon Sayyed for questioning.

'Hezbollah fully supports Sayyed,' the statement said, adding that 'any move to take legal action against Sayyed will cause chaos in the country.'

Many observers believe that the situation in Lebanon is critical and similar to the atmosphere that prevailed in May 2008, when gunmen of a Hezbollah-led alliance occupied the Sunni part of Beirut, to protest a decision by the Western-backed government to dismantle the movement's special telecommunications network.

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said Saturday that 'no one is capable of putting Sayyed in prison.'

Hezbollah's stance was unnerving to some observers.

'Hezbollah's warm reception for Sayyed is viewed as a direct challenge to the the Lebanese authorities and if it succeeds it will be viewed as the end to Lebanon's sovereignty,' a Lebanese government source said.

So far, the Lebanese government response has been muted, although individuals from all parties are (as usual) being quite outspoken.