Israel: Doing airport security right (Michael Totten)

From Michael Totten in the New York Post (h/t Daled Amos, who has more):

Terrorists have yet to use the same weapon twice, and the TSA isn't even looking for whatever they'll try to use next. I can think of all sorts of things a person could use to wreak havoc on a plane that aren't banned. Security officials should pay less attention to objects, and more attention to people.

The Israelis do. They are, out of dreadful necessity, the world's foremost experts in counterterrorism. And they couldn't care less about what your grandmother brings on a plane. Instead, officials at Ben Gurion International Airport interview everyone in line before they're even allowed to check in.

And Israeli officials profile. They don't profile racially, but they profile. Israeli Arabs breeze through rather quickly, but thanks to the dozens of dubious-looking stamps in my passport -- almost half are from Lebanon and Iraq -- I get pulled off to the side for more questioning every time. And I'm a white, nominally Christian American.

If they pull you aside, you had better tell them the truth. They'll ask you so many wildly unpredictable questions so quickly, you couldn't possibly invent a fake story and keep it all straight. Don't even try. They're highly trained and experienced, and they catch everyone who tries to pull something over on them.

Because I fit one of their profiles, it takes me 15 or 20 minutes longer to get through the first wave of security than it does for most people. The agents make up for it, though, by escorting me to the front of the line at the metal detector. They don't put anyone into a "porn machine." There's no point. Terrorists can't penetrate that deeply into the airport.

The Israeli experience isn't pleasant, exactly, and there's a lot not to like about it. It can be exasperating for those of us who are interrogated more thoroughly.

The system has its advantages, though, aside from the fact that no one looks or reaches into anyone's pants. Israelis don't use security theater to make passengers feel like they're safe. They use real security measures to ensure that travelers actually are safe. Even when suicide bombers exploded themselves almost daily in Israeli cities, not a single one managed to get through that airport.

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Bloggers in the Arab world methodically harassed

An important article from Qantara:

Over the past ten years, the Egyptian government and Arab states in general have invested a great deal in Internet infrastructure. However, it was probably not clear to most regimes that this would open a door to democratic development.

"One Social Network – With a Rebellious Message", the most recent publication by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, quotes from a study by the American RAND Institute: "The basis for an information revolution is free expression of opinion with exchange of and general access to information."

ANHRI then writes: "Not even the greatest hypocrite would maintain that Arab governments respect, let alone support, free expression of opinion, or that they uphold the right to access to and circulation of information." It is thus self-evident that the rift between governments and Internet activists grows daily with the latter struggling for democracy by way of the Internet.

According to ANHRI, there are around 58 million Internet users in the Arab world, 15 million of them in Egypt alone. The total number of blogs is estimated at 600,000, but only around 150,000 are actively used.

Most Arab blogs (around one-third) come from Egypt, followed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Morocco. The bloggers are usually aged between 25 and 35 and write about political and religious topics as well as personal matters.

"Egyptian bloggers try to use their blogs to break through political constraints and are known for their bitter criticism of the government despite its attempts to suppress them." (ANHRI)

Internet activists in all Arab countries must expect repression. There is scarcely any other part of the world where the Internet is subject to such tight surveillance as here, where bloggers are so intimidated and persecuted, or anywhere where they are so frequently arrested and even tortured. Every year, Reporters without Frontiers publishes a list of "Enemies of the Internet"; in 2009, there were four Arab countries on the list of twelve: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Syria.

Read the whole thing, and also visit the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information for news of the latest assaults on freedom in the Arab world - assaults that are all but ignored by the world at large.

(via email)

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Great Jerusalem anecdote

From the Treppenwitz blog:

My optometrist, Dr. Robert Lederman, shared an 'only in Jerusalem' anecdote with me that I couldn't resist posting here in his own words:

"I was recently examining an 8 year old boy. He looked like a regular kid wearing a T-shirt and shorts. I was in the middle of doing a retinoscopy when in the distance I heard the siren of an ambulance, as happens in any city from time to time.

The 8 yr old boy asked me if I could stop the exam.

I thought that he wanted to go to the bathroom. But what he did instead was to recite Psalm 121 by heart in Hebrew to pray for the well-being of whoever it was in that ambulance.

When he'd finished, he let me carry on."

A wonderful reminder that, despite what many think, there is far more in the clear, cool Jerusalem air than the sound of sirens.

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Al Aqsa Sheikh (and PA): Israel "Judaizing" the Kotel

Sheikh Yusuf Juma Salama, a preacher at Al Aqsa mosque and First Deputy of the Chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, is complaining about a new plan to expand the Western Wall plaza to accommodate more visitors.

He said that there is nothing Jewish about the Kotel, that it is an integral part of the Al Aqsa Mosque, and the objective of this plan is to Judaize the "Wailing Wall."

He also complained about the rebuilding of the Hurva synagogue and about plans to another major synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, possibly referring to this rumor.

In case you think that only radical Islamist nutjobs refer to Israeli renovation of the Kotel Plaza as "Judaizing," the exact same word is used by the official Palestinian Arab WAFA news agency.

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BDS: Epic FAIL

The worldwide Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions movement somehow manages to get a lot of headlines about its efforts in making Israel look like a pariah state, convincing people to avoid using her products. Most of those efforts are fictional - for example, last week they claimed that the Netherlands' top pension fund had divested from Israeli companies in its portfolio, a claim that was found to be false, and this is a pattern of lies from the BDS leaders to try to give the appearance of gaining traction.

The best proof comes from the Country Brand Index of 2010, sponsored by FutureBrand and the BBC World News. From their report (not directly online; you can request it here:)

The Country Brand Index is an annual study that examines and ranks country brands, based on FutureBrand’s proprietary research methodology.

The sixth edition of CBI incorporates a global quantitative research study with 3,400 international business and leisure travellers from 13 countries on all five continents, qualified by in-depth expert focus groups that took place in 14 major metropolitan areas around the world. The overall country brand score is calculated using FutureBrand’s Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM), which measures overall country brand performance in the following areas:

AWARENESS:
Do key audiences know that the country exists? How top of mind is it?

FAMILIARITY:
How well do people know the country and what it offers?

ASSOCIATIONS:
What qualities come to mind when people think of the country?
We look at the measured perceptions of five key association dimensions:

• TOURISM
• HERITAGE AND CULTURE
• GOOD FOR BUSINESS
• QUALITY OF LIFE
• VALUE SYSTEM

PREFERENCE:
How highly do audiences esteem the country? Does it resonate?

CONSIDERATION:
Is this one of the countries being thought about for a visit?

DECISION / VISITATION:
To what extent do people follow through and visit the country?

ADVOCACY:
Do visitors recommend the country to family, friends and colleagues?

Israel ranking this year shot up from #41 to #30.

Not only does it rank far higher than every Arab and Muslim country save one (the UAE fell from #23 to #28), but it rose more positions in 2010 than any nation except for Chile, which gained a lot of visibility for the miners' rescue and jumped 19 places on the list.

The BDS movement has nt only been ineffective - it has backfired.

Egypt went down 13 spots (45 to 58), Jordan down eight (67 to 75),  Syria down five (82 to 87), and Iran plummeted from 98 to 109, the second worst ranking in the list next to Zimbabwe.

In their words:

Israel (#30 +11) received significant marketing investment for tourist destinations. Israel moves in the right direction in 2010 – particularly in Tourism metrics like Authenticity and History, which align very well with campaigns promoting heritage and culture.

I guess that this means that most people realize that historic Jerusalem is in Israel despite the efforts of one advertising board to pretend otherwise.

(h/t VC Cafe)

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A tool of the trade

Palestine Today has another article warning that Israel will kick thousands of Jerusalem Arabs out of their homes. Nothing new there.

But the picture illustrating it is sort of nice. The sort of picture that one can put on a poster to bring to an anti-Israel rally, just to tick the protesters off.

A little research shows that it was taken by AP last December.

Now, how can I know that?

One of the items in my toolbox is this website. It can read the EXIF information from photos, which can reveal lots of interesting information. In this case, it seems that AP puts its captions into the photo itself. I Google the caption and find somewhere that the original photo can be found (and, incidentally, prove that Palestine Today rips off AP without giving it attribution.)

Usually, the viewer is good for finding the original date of a photo. Often the Arabic papers I read will illustrate a story with an older photo and make it appear that it refers to the actual even (like an explosion.) In this case AP modified the photo caption so the date says October, not last December, but the caption says the original date.

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More results from the poll of Palestinian Arabs

Here are some more highlights from  The Israel Project poll of Palestinian Arabs that should make anyone pause before wanting to grant them a state of their won.

A Palestinian state should be run by Sharia Law. 55%
A Palestinian state should be run by civil law. 35%

The best goal is for a two state solution that keeps two states living side by side. 30%
The real goal should be to start with two states but then move to it all being one Palestinian state. 60%

Israel has a permanent right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people. 23%
Over time Palestinians must work to get back all the land for a Palestinian state. 66%

In 2000, President Bill Clinton proposed a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement in which the Palestinians would receive an independent state, which included Gaza and nearly all of the West Bank, using the 1967 green line, exchanging Israeli land for larger settlements. It made East Jerusalem the capital of the Palestinian state, with control over Palestinian quarters of the Old City. Yasir Arafat rejected this offer. In retrospect, do you wish Arafat had accepted this peace agreement - yes or no?
Yes: 24%
No: 71%

Some of the answers, to be sure, seemed to contradict these, as in the abstract they seem to support a two-state solution. But when specific compromises are mentioned, they reject every one.

And they make it crystal clear that a two-state solution is not a final agreement, and that they will try to take over Israel as well, signed agreement or not.

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Terrorists win Palestinian Arab popularity contest

The Israel Project commissioned a poll in the West Bank and Gaza last month surveying Palestinian Arab opinions about various topics.

The results are most enlightening.

This post is about one specific question:

Now, I'd like you to rate your feelings toward some people, countries, and organizations, with one hundred meaning a VERY WARM, FAVORABLE feeling; zero meaning a VERY COLD, UNFAVORABLE feeling; and fifty meaning not particularly warm or cold. You can use any number from zero to one hundred, the higher the number the more favorable your feelings are toward that person, country, or organization.

Here are the results, sorted from lowest score (coldest feelings) to the highest (warmest feelings), along with their respective mean scores:

Israelis 3.3 Israel 4 Benjamin Netanyahu 4.4 American Jews 7.8 Tony Blair 9.2 Barack Obama 10.7 The United States 14.5 Hillary Clinton 15.2 A one-state solution 28.7 Two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state and Israel as a Jewish state 30.2 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 40 Iran 40.4 Two-state solution 41.3 Hamas 42.6 The peace process 42.6 Ismail Haniyeh 44.1 Hezbollah 44.6 Palestinian Authority 54.2 Salam Fayyad 54.5 Mahmoud Abbas 57 Fatah 57.6 Marwan Bargouti 64.5 Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir ("Abu Jihad") 71.2 Dalal Mughrabi 74.5

By far, the winners of the popularity context (at least that were named) were three terrorists, and the top one could not credibly be called anything but a terrorist (the other two at least had some political activities outside of terrorism.)

And for some reason Barack Obama, the most pro-Palestinian Arab president in history, hasn't seemed to have gained much for his efforts at least in this part of the Arab world. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trounces him in popularity among the moderate, pragmatic, peace-loving Palestinian Arabs.

More analysis form this poll to come.

(h/t JoeSettler)

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