Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Benny Morris takes on Hitchens

A nice piece in Ha'aretz by Benny Morris. Morris describes how Christopher Hitchens notices the Muslim world is "riddled by corruption, violence and brutal autocracy, gradually falling into the grip of a nihilistic or medieval Islamism that is challenging the core values of the West - liberalism, democracy, tolerance and equal rights for women, homosexuals and ethnic minorities." - but he doesn't see the same problems with Palestinian Arabs.

In "Hitch-22" Hitchens approvingly cites (and expands) a metaphor coined (I think) by Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for The Atlantic: A man (the Zionist Jew), to save himself, leaps from a burning building (anti-Semitic and Holocaust Europe) and lands on an innocent bystander (a Palestinian), crushing him. To which Hitchens adds - and the falling man lands on the Palestinian again and again (the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza, the suppression of the intifadas, the construction of settlements in the territories, etc.).

But the metaphor is disingenuous, and it requires amplification to conform to the facts of history. In fact, as the leaping man nears the ground he offers the bystander a compromise - let's share the pavement, some for you, some for me. The bystander responds with a firm "no," and tries, again and again (1920, 1921, 1929, the Arab Revolt of 1936-39 and the 1947-48 War of Independence), to stab the falling man as he descends to the pavement. So the leaping man lands on the bystander, crushing him. Later, again and again, the leaping man, now firmly ensconced on the pavement, offers the crushed bystander a compromise ("autonomy" in 1978, a "two-state solution" in 2000 and in 2008), and again and again the bystander says "no."

The falling man may have somewhat wronged the bystander, but the bystander was never an innocent one; he was an active agent in and a party to his own demise.

In "Hitch-22" this is somehow omitted. ...

Moreover, throughout Hitchens seems to accept the Palestinians' definition of themselves as "natives" struggling against an "imperialist" foreign enemy.

But what of Jewish residence in the Land of Israel between the 12th century B.C.E. and the late Byzantine period (5th and 6th centuries C.E.)?

And what of Jewish residence and "nativeness" in Palestine since 1882, nearly 130 years ago? If residence grants rights, surely Jewish residence counterbalances Arab residence in Palestine since 636 C.E.

And if it is conquest that affords a claim to territory, then how is the Arab conquest in the 7th century, by blood and fire, any more morally cogent than the Jewish conquests of 1200 B.C.E. or 1948/1967?

Hitchens needs to take a long, hard look at Palestinian history and at the nature, behavior and aims of the Palestinian national movement.

Read the whole thing.

Hamas celebrating the past ten years of killing Jews

On the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the "second intifada" terror spree, Hamas has come out with its own statistics.

According to the terrorist organization, writing in the Qassam Brigades website, Hamas has launched some 4300 attacks since 2000, including rocket and mortar attacks, sniping, ambushes and 61 suicide bombings.

The one attack that they specify as being the most praiseworthy was the 2002 Passover massacre at the Park Hotel in Netanya, which killed 30 people (Hamas claims "36 Zionists.") In that attack, Hamas heroically murdered 21 people over the age of 70, ten of them elderly married couples (plus two other couples who were younger.)

Some 1800 Hamas members were "martyred" in these past ten years.

The pain of the Gazans paid NOT to work

Palestine Today has a weepy article about the psychological pain of Gaza men - who are forced to stay home and draw salaries from the Palestinian Authority.

Since the Hamas coup, tens of thousands of men employed by the PA have been forced by to not work in order to continue to get paid. If they take another job, or go back to their old jobs, they will lose their free paycheck.

Some of them have to suffer the indignity of watching their wives go off to work while they stay home with the children, an unspeakable horror!

The article goes on to talk to women who get beaten by their now-impotent husbands out of their frustration at having nothing to do. Many also beat their children.

One expert advises wives to go out of their way to treat their husbands as the kings of their home to avoid these beatings.

Yemen says that they will not bow to "Zionist pressure"

From the Yemen News Agency:

In an interview with Syrian newspaper al-Watan, [Yemen's Information Minister Hassan] al-Lawzi confirmed that the Yemeni government has strong ties with the United States.

‘’These ties protect Yemen from Zionist pressures’’, said Al-Lawzi, adding the relation between Yemen and the Unites states is developed to combat a joint threat, ‘’which is the crimes of al-Qaeda’’.

‘’Pressures were put on Yemen to compromise the Arab unanimously and to establish relations with Israel’’, al-Lawzi said.

‘’Yemen's relations with the United States are strong, but not on the expense of the Palestinian people and national interests. Yemen went through bitter experiences of which the most dangerous was the export of revolutions’’, he stressed. ‘’However, it overcame that’’, he added.

What is happening in Iraq, Sudan, and Somalia shows that there were conspiracies to stress the "Zionist entity" and others against Arab countries, including Yemen.

I don't quite understand the highlighted sentence; I think he is saying that since the US needs Yemen to help fight Al Qaeda, it no longer pressures the country to move to normalize relations with Israel.

More notable is that a minister of an Arab state, presumably an educated man, thinks that somehow events in Iraq, Somalia and the Sudan are really due to Zionist interests. This all-encompassing obsession with Israel is not merely a Palestinian Arab symptom but deeply embedded in the psyches of hundreds of millions of Arabs whose lives are not affected by events in Israel at all.

And this is yet another reason why real peace is simply not in the cards - as long as so many Arab leaders' visions are fatally skewed by irrational hate, nothing can be done to mollify them short of destroying Israel altogether. This minister's opinion might be brushed off as irrelevant, but it is not aberrant.

Is Stuxnet working? Bushehr plant delayed

From AFP:

Iran's atomic chief said on Wednesday that the country's first nuclear power plant will be ready to generate electricity by January -- two months later than announced.

Ali Akbar Salehi said that the process of placing fuel rods at the Bushehr facility, built by Russia, would be completed by the "middle of" the Iranian month of Aban, around November 7, the state television's website reported.

"Two or three months from then, the electricity generated by the plant will be connected to the grid," said Salehi, chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation.

Iran began loading the Russian-supplied fuel rods on August 21 and Ali Shirzadian, spokesman for the atomic body, had then said the plant would be connected to the national grid by end of October or early November.

But Salehi later had said that the loading would begin at the end of the Iranian month of Shahrivar (September 22) and by the end of the month of Mehr (October 22), the lid of the reactor would be shut.

Salehi, in an interview with Al-Alam television on August 31, blamed the delays on Bushehr's "severe hot weather" and safety concerns, adding that the loading was being done during the night.

Iran has not hinted at any other reasons for the delay, but officials have acknowledged that a computer worm is mutating and wreaking havoc on computerised industrial equipment in the country, where an official said on Monday that about 30,000 IP addresses had already been infected.

Analysts say that the Stuxnet worm may have been designed to target Iran's nuclear facilities.

Another Abbas poster

While I'm at it....

Syria also threatens Lebanese civil war

Right after Hezbollah threatened a Lebanese civil war if the UN-sponsored Special Tribunal for Lebanon makes its findings public, its Syrian sponsor seconded the threat. From the WSJ:

Lebanon remains an issue of tension between Washington and Damascus. The U.S. has strongly voiced its support for the U.N. completing its investigation into Mr. Hariri's murder, as well as trying those indicted for the crime at a U.N. court in The Hague.

Mr. Moallem [Walid Moallem, foreign minister of Syria] alleged Monday that the U.N.'s work in Lebanon has been irredeemably "politicized" and that Damascus has received word that members of Hezbollah were soon to be formally charged with the murder. He said that such developments risked plunging Lebanon into a new round of sectarian strife and that the U.N.'s investigation should be replaced by a purely Lebanese investigation to ensure fair treatment.

"We are convinced that a condemnation of the prosecutor of this court against Hezbollah will be a factor of disturbance in Lebanon," Mr. Moallem said.

Hezbollah publicly supported the STL before it was apparent that they were going to be found to be behind the murder.

Still, no outrage from the West over these threats. In fact, there has been little note of them altogether.

"Israelis desecrate Joseph's Tomb"

From Iran's PressTV:

Israelis desecrate Joseph Tomb

At least 100 settlers accompanied by the Israeli military have invaded Nablus city in the occupied West Bank, desecrating Prophet Joseph's Tomb.

The attack occurred at midnight, Press TV correspondent Sari al-Khalili reported from Ramallah on Tuesday.

They helpfully provide their readers with a photo of this "desecration":

Well, you can understand how something like this is utterly unacceptable. You just have to first accept the premise that Jews desecrate sacred Muslim land everywhere they go by their very presence, and the entire Middle East (as well as parts of Europe and Asia) are Muslim land.

Meanwhile, Ma'an quotes a PA official as saying there is no way that Jews would be allowed to restore the holy site. Ma'an describes the Arab terror attacks against Jews at the site in October 2000 as "violence precipitated by settler visits to the site."

(h/t Samson)

An Abbas poster

Yisrael Medad of My Right Word suggested a poster idea to me and others via email, and I am nothing if not accommodating.

Here's my implementation of his idea:

UPDATE: Some suggested a more direct, shorter version.

Feel free to use either one.

This year there was an architectural design competition for creating sukkot, the huts that traditional Jews eat and (some) sleep in during the current Sukkot holiday. The finalists were on display in New York.

Here is a video of the finalists, from The Forward:

Union Square's High-Concept Sukkahs from Jewish Forward on Vimeo.

When I first saw some of these designs, I thought that there was no way that they were kosher sukkot. However, it turns out that the designers used the services of a rabbinical student from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a (very) modern Orthodox institution, in order to ensure that each of the designs were halachically acceptable.

I wish I would have visited!

Here is an interview with the halachic consultant:

Designing a Kosher Sukkah from Jewish Forward on Vimeo.

The competition generated such interest that it will be expanded next year to some 15 cities in North America.

It's so easy to make up lies (updated)

I ran across this at the Intifada-Palestine site, a list I have seen before:

Here’s the roll-call on who introduced terrorism (along with biological, chemical and nuclear weapons) to the Middle East:
Bombs in Cafés: first used by Zionists in Palestine on March 17th, 1937 in Jaffa. (actually grenades).
Bombs on Buses: first used by Zionists in Palestine Aug. 20th-Sep. 26, 1937
Drive-by shootings with automatic weapons: IZL and LHI in 1937-38 and 1947-48 (Morris, Righteous Victims, p681.)
Bombs in Market Places: first used by Zionists on July 6th, 1938 in Haifa. (Delayed-action, electrically detonated)
Bombing of a passenger Ship: first used by the Zionists in Haifa on 25 November 1940, killing over 200 of their own fellows.
Bombing of Hotels: first used by Zionists on July 22nd, 1946 in Jerusalem (Menachem Begin went on to become Prime Minister of Israel).
Suitcase bombing: first used by Zionists on October 1st, 1946 against British Embassy in Rome.
Mining of Ambulances: First used by Zionists on October 31st, 1946 in Petah Tikvah
Car-bomb: first used by Zionists against the British near Jaffa 5 December 1946.
Letter Bombs: first used by Zionists in June 1947 against members of the British government, 20 of them.
Parcel Bomb: first used by Zionists against the British in London 3 September 1947.
Reprisal murder of hostages: first used by Zionists against the British in Netanya area on 29 July 1947.
Truck-bombs: first used by Zionists 4th Jan 1948 in the centre of Jaffa, killing 26.
Aircraft hijacking: world-first by Israeli jets Dec 1954 on a Syrian civilian airliner (random seizure of hostages to recover 5 spies). 14 years before any Palestinian.

I didn't check the veracity of these claims, but I did waste a few minutes looking up any evidence of earlier Arab crimes of the same types.

I found:

On June 4, 1936, a bomb was thrown by an Arab into a bus in Haifa, injuring 6 Jews and two Arabs.

On July 23, 1936, an Arab was arrested for planting a bomb in a cafe, also in Haifa.

Arabs threw at least one bomb at a small hotel in Tiberias on June 29, 1938, injuring seven Jews.

And, a few years ago I found that Arabs exploded a car bomb in 1938.

The list was obviously just made up without any real research, but when people read lists of such "facts" with specific dates they tend to not think critically about whether the facts are true or not.

And while it takes little time to make up lies, it takes a lot of time to debunk them. It is the Internet equivalent of asymmetric warfare, with the liars taking the roles of terrorists.

(I commented at the site, and for a few hours my comment remains "waiting moderation.")

UPDATE: As expected, the site didn't allow my small fact-checking comments - where I challenged them to admit that their anonymous source was making up facts - to pass moderation. Just in case anyone out there thought that a site called "Intifada Palestine" had any interest in truth.

The secret Islamic society to kill Jews, 1931-2

I just dug this up from the Palestine Post of December 6, 1933:

In January, a British judge acquitted the Arabs, noting that while they certainly lied in their testimony and did things that were very suspicious, the prosecution witnesses were not reliable either and there was not enough evidence to convict them of creating this "secret society" nor of conspiring to kill Jews.

Hamas says Arafat instructed them to attack Jews

Palestine Press Agency quotes Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar as saying that Yasir Arafat instructed Hamas to attack Jewish civilians at the start of the second intifada.

Speaking at an event commemorating the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the terror spree in September 2000, Zahar said "the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had ordered Hamas to implement a number of military operations in the heart of the Jewish state, after the failure of negotiations with the Israeli government at that time."

We already knew that Arafat would use other organizations as cover for terror acts, but this is the first time we have seen Arafat colluding with Hamas for attacks (although the Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Brigades had cooperated with Hamas in the past.)

Most of Zahar's speech attacked the idea of negotiations with Israel and the effectiveness of "resistance."

He also said that Hamas' rule in Gaza proves the usefulness of resistance, apparently saying that the Hamas police and security forces had participated in attacks on Israeli targets. If that is the real translation, then we have evenmore proof that Goldstone and other "human rights" organizations were wrong in trying to distinguish between Hamas' "civilian" police and their military, and Israel was entirely correct in attacking the police stations.

Ahmadinejad to symbolically stone Israel from Lebanon

Arab media are reporting that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is planning to throw a symbolic stone towards Israel when he visits southern Lebanon in October.

According to the reports, Ahmadinejad will visit Lebanon for two days, October 13-14. On the second day he will tour southern Lebanon under the protection of Hezbollah and his own Iranian security detail, already in place planning the trip.

He will visit Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil, both scenes of major battles in the 2006 Lebanon war where Hezbollah deaths outpaced IDF deaths by a ratio of roughly 8 to 1 and where Hezbollah claimed victory.

Ahmadiejad's stone throwing apparently will be done from Beit Jbeil.

He has not yet scheduled his meeting with Hassan Nasrallah, an event that is just crying out for a visit by a JDAM or two.

Jordan reveals the purpose of UNRWA

Jordan has written a "carefully worded" letter to the head of UNRWA and to the Arab donor nations warning about the shortfall in UNRWA's budget.

Originally reported in Saudi Arabia's Okaz on September 19th, the letter emphasized the dangers to Lebanon and Jordan of reducing the UNRWA budget.

Even though the vast majority of so-called "Palestinian refugees" in Jordan are in fact Jordanian citizens, the Hashemite kingdom shows no interest in integrating those residents into Jordanian society and has consistently worked to keep the Palestinian Arabs crammed into these miserable camps under UNRWA control rather than integrate these citizens into Jordanian society.

The newspaper said that Jordan regularly warns of the dangers of reducing UNRWA's budget, as "these UNRWA camps are meant to keep the issue of Palestinian refugees alive."

Here the Arab world is revealing explicitly the purpose of UNRWA from their perspective: not to reduce the "refugee" problem but to perpetuate it.

By way of contrast, in 1950 Israel provided Israeli citizenship to the members of UNRWA refugee camps in the new state and within a couple of years the camps were gone, as the refugees became self-supporting members of Israeli society. Israel felt that the presence of UNRWA camps on its territory - a foreign entity taking care of Israeli Arab citizens, instead of the state itself - was "repugnant."