Monday, December 13, 2010
Elder of Ziyon| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
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(h/t Yid With Lid)
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Elder of Ziyon
From NYT:
But the Mufti was not the only prominent Arab leader who had Nazi ties:
After World War II, American counterintelligence recruited former Gestapo officers, SS veterans and Nazi collaborators to an even greater extent than had been previously disclosed and helped many of them avoid prosecution or looked the other way when they escaped, according to thousands of newly declassified documents.Here are sections about the Mufti from the actual report:
In chilling detail, the report also elaborates on the close working relationship between Nazi leaders and the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who later claimed that he sought refuge in wartime Germany only to avoid arrest by the British.
In fact, the report says, the Muslim leader was paid “an absolute fortune” of 50,000 marks a month (when a German field marshal was making 25,000 marks a year). It also said he energetically recruited Muslims for the SS, the Nazi Party’s elite military command, and was promised that he would be installed as the leader of Palestine after German troops drove out the British and exterminated more than 350,000 Jews there.
On Nov. 28, 1941, the authors say, Hitler told Mr. Husseini that the Afrika Corps and German troops deployed from the Caucasus region would liberate Arabs in the Middle East and that “Germany’s only objective there would be the destruction of the Jews.”
The report details how Mr. Husseini himself was allowed to flee after the war to Syria — he was in the custody of the French, who did not want to alienate Middle East regimes — and how high-ranking Nazis escaped from Germany to become advisers to anti-Israeli Arab leaders and “were able to carry on and transmit to others Nazi racial-ideological anti-Semitism.”
“You have an actual contract between officials of the Nazi Foreign Ministry with Arab leaders, including Husseini, extending after the war because they saw a cause they believed in,” Dr. Breitman said. “And after the war, you have real Nazi war criminals — Wilhelm Beisner, Franz Rademacher and Alois Brunner — who were quite influential in Arab countries.”
In October 1945, the report says, the British head of Palestine’s Criminal Investigation Division told the assistant American military attaché in Cairo that the mufti might be the only force able to unite the Palestine Arabs and “cool off the Zionists. Of course, we can’t do it, but it might not be such a damn bad idea at that.”
“We have more detailed scholarly accounts today of Husseini’s wartime activities, but Husseini’s C.I.A. file indicates that wartime Allied intelligence organizations gathered a healthy portion of this incriminating evidence,” the report says. “This evidence is significant in light of Husseini’s lenient postwar treatment.” He died in Beirut in 1974.
Rauff ’s Einsatzkommando, technically subordinated to Rommel’s army, reported directly to the RSHA in Berlin. After Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated in Czechoslovakia, SS chief Heinrich Himmler took direct command of this umbrella security-police organization. Two German historians have indicated that Himmler conferred with Hitler about the deployment of Einsatzkommando Egypt, which was to take “executive measures” against civilians on its own authority, in other words, the mass murder of Jews.
In 1946 Hoth commented only that his Einsatzkommando was supposed to perform the usual Security Police and SD duties in Egypt; he avoided saying that such duties elsewhere had included the mass execution of Jews. But this context puts a rather different light on what his British interrogator called Hoth’s idealism.
Hitler himself signaled his intention to eliminate the Jews of Palestine. In a November 28, 1941, conversation in Berlin with Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hitler said that the outcome of the war in Europe would also decide the fate of the Arab world. German troops intended to break through the Caucasus region and move into the Middle East. This would result in the liberation of Arab peoples. Hitler said that Germany’s only objective there would be the destruction of the Jews.
Recent books have added greatly to our knowledge of Haj Amin al-Husseini’s activities as leader of anti-Jewish revolts in the British Mandate in Palestine in 1929 and 1936, as the impetus behind the pro-German coup in Iraq in April 1941, and as a pro-Nazi propagandist in Berlin, broadcasting over German short-wave radio to large audiences in the Middle East starting in late 1941. CIA and U.S. Army files on Husseini offer small pieces of new evidence about his relationship with the Nazi government and his escape from postwar justice.
The Nazi government financed Husseini and Rashid Ali el-Gailani, the former premier of Iraq who had joined Husseini in Berlin after his failed coup in Iraq. After the war Carl Berthold Franz Rekowski, an official of the German Foreign Office who had dealt with Husseini, testified that the Foreign Office financially supported the two Arab leaders, their families, and other Arabs in their entourage who had fled to Germany after the coup. Husseini and Gailani determined how these funds were distributed among the others. The CIA file on Husseini includes a document indicating that he had a staff of 20–30 men in Berlin. A separate source indicates that he lived in a villa in the Krumme Lanke neighborhood of Berlin. From spring 1943 to spring 1944, Husseini personally received 50,000 marks monthly and Gailani 65,000 for operational expenses. In addition, they each received living expenses averaging 80,000 marks per month, an absolute fortune. A German field marshal received a base salary of 26,500 marks per year. Finally, Husseini and Gailani received substantial foreign currency to support adherents living in countries outside Germany.
Through conversations with other Foreign Office officials, Rekowski learned that Nazi authorities planned to use both Arab leaders to control their respective countries after Germany conquered them. Gailani was an Iraqi nationalist who maintained good ties with the German Foreign Office. Husseini, however, was a believer in a Pan-Arab state. His closest ties were with the SS. The other Arabs were divided into one camp or the other. SS-Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Beisner, like Hoth, an officer on Einsatzkommando Egypt, had frequent contact with Husseini during the war. Beisner told Rekowski that Husseini had good ties with Himmler and with Waffen-SS Gen. Gottlob Berger, who handled the recruitment of non-German forces into the Waffen-SS. SS leaders and Husseini both claimed that Nazism and Islam had common values as well as common enemies—above all, the Jews.
Another independent source of information on Husseini’s ties with the SS was the disaffected and abused wife of a young Egyptian, Dr. Abdel Halim el-Naggar, who had worked in Berlin for the German Foreign Office and the Propaganda Ministry. An Egyptian named Galal in Berlin edited an Arabic-language periodical designed to stir up the Arabs to support Germany, and el-Naggar assisted him in 1940. By 1941 el-Naggar had his own Arabic publication for Middle Eastern audiences, and in 1942 he took on the additional job of director of Nazi short-wave broadcasts to the Near East. After Husseini came to Berlin, he wanted to cooperate with el-Naggar on Middle Eastern broadcasts, and for a time they worked together successfully. Then el-Naggar established an Islamic Central Institute in Berlin. Husseini had wanted to head this institute, and after el-Naggar refused him, Husseini used his influence with the SS to get el-Naggar removed from the broadcasting job.
In the fall of 1943 Husseini went to the Independent State of Croatia, a Nazi ally, to recruit Muslims for the Waffen-SS. During that trip he told the troops of the newly formed Bosnian-Muslim 13th Mountain Waffen-SS division that the entire Muslim world ought to follow their example. Husseini also organized a 1944 mission for Palestinian Arabs and Germans to carry out sabotage and propaganda after German planes dropped them into Palestine by parachute. In discussions with the Foreign Intelligence branch of the RSHA, Husseini insisted that the Arabs take command after they landed and direct their fight against the Jews of Palestine, not the British authorities.
Today we have more detailed scholarly accounts today of Husseini’s wartime activities, but Husseini’s CIA file indicates that wartime Allied intelligence organizations gathered a healthy portion of this incriminating evidence. This evidence is significant in light of Husseini’s lenient postwar treatment.
In the spring of 1945, a German Foreign Office official reached agreement with Gailani effective April 1: his cash payments were raised to 85,000 marks, but Gailani would repay the Germans after his forces reconquered Iraq. Similarly, according to a newly declassified document, the Foreign Office and Husseini signed a contract for subsidies of up to 12,000 marks per month to continue after April 1, 1945, with the Mufti pledging to repay these amounts later. In April 1945 neither side could have had much doubt about the outcome of the war. The continuing contractual relationships meant that Nazi officials and the two Arab leaders hoped to continue their joint or complementary political-ideological campaign in the postwar period.
Declassified CIA and Army files establish that the Allies knew enough about Husseini’s wartime activities to consider him a war criminal. Apparently fearing Allied prosecution, he tried to flee to Switzerland at the end of the war. Swiss authorities turned him over to the French, who brought him to Paris. Right after the war ended a group of Palestinian-Arab soldiers in the British Army who were stationed in Lebanon had staged anti-French demonstrations. They carried around a large picture of Husseini and declared him to be the “sword of the faith.”
According to one source considered reliable by the rump American intelligence organization known as the Strategic Services Unit (SSU), British officials objected to French plans to prosecute Husseini, fearing that this would cause political unrest in Palestine. The British “threatened” the French with Arab uprisings in French Morocco.
In October 1945 Arthur Giles (who used the title Bey), British head of Palestine’s Criminal Investigation Division, told the assistant American military attaché in Cairo that the Mufti might be the only person who could unite the Palestine Arabs and “cool off the Zionists…. Of course, we can’t do it, but it might not be such a damn bad idea at that.” French intelligence officials, bitter at France’s loss of colonial territory in the Middle East, said they would enjoy having the Mufti around to embarrass the British.
Husseini was well treated in Paris. Meanwhile, Palestinian Arab leaders and various Muslim extremists agitated to bring him back to the Middle East. According to the American military attaché in Cairo, this plan initially embarrassed moderate officials in the Arab League. But as prospects for a peaceful settlement in the British Mandate for Palestine declined and as other Arab prisoners were released or escaped (Gailani escaped), sentiment changed. A delegate of the Palestine Higher Arab Committee went to Paris in June 1946 and told Husseini to get ready for a little trip.
According to another American source in Syria, at a meeting in the Egyptian Embassy in Paris, the ambassador, the ministers of Syria and Lebanon, and a few Arab leaders from Morocco and Algeria worked out the details of Husseini’s escape. The French government learned of, or was informed of, the plan, but chose not to intervene in order to avoid offending the Arabs of North Africa. Husseini flew to Syria, then went via Aleppo and Beirut to Alexandria, Egypt.
By 1947 Husseini denied that he had worked for the Axis powers during the war. He told one acquaintance that he hoped soon to have documentary evidence rebutting this slander, which the Jews were spreading. Similarly, after Adolf Eichmann was brought to Israel for trial in March 1961, Husseini, by now in Beirut, denied having ever met Eichmann during the war. He said that he had been forced to take refuge in Germany simply because British wanted to capture him. Nazi persecution of Jews had served Zionism, according to Husseini, by exciting world sympathy for them. Husseini never worked for American intelligence; the CIA simply considered him a person worth tracking. He died in Beirut in 1974.He should have been hung as a war criminal - but today Husseini gets praised by the President of the Palestinian Authority.
But the Mufti was not the only prominent Arab leader who had Nazi ties:
Beisner’s importance grew in February 1958 when Franz Rademacher, living in Damascus under a pseudonym, told an unnamed CIA source in Syria that Gamal Abdel Nasser (called Jamal Nasir in one document and Gamal Nasir in another) had worked for the Germans during the war, and that Beisner had served as his liaison. They still were close, Rademacher claimed.
After leading a revolution and becoming the second president of Egypt in 1956, Nasser had established an intelligence organization under Zakaria Mohieddin. Zakaria had chosen Beisner’s former RSHA comrade Joachim Deumling as his intelligence adviser. Deumling had worked for the British Army of the Rhine after the war, but the British blacklisted him for security reasons in 1951.
When he decided to leave West Germany for Egypt, he traveled secretly to avoid attracting British attention. Zakaria, who soon became minister of the interior as well, praised Deumling’s intelligence work in Egypt.
Beisner may have benefited from an increasing presence of former Nazis in Cairo under Nasser. He later claimed that while in Cairo he had helped to train Algerian volunteers for the struggle to liberate Algeria from French control and that he sold arms to the Algerian National Liberation Front. Whether he operated on his own or with Egyptian intelligence approval is unclear.I have had posts about Nazis being recruited to help Arabs in 1947-8 to fight Israel and about the Arab Nazi paratroopers who parachuted into Israel - apparently on the Mufti's orders.
- Sunday, December 12, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
ElderToons
The second of what may become a series, if I find the time...
References:
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=1526
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-abbas-poster.html
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=2531
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=1526
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-abbas-poster.html
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=2531
- Sunday, December 12, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
From Jewish Refugees website:
Here is how AP reported it:It is exactly 50 years, on 11 December 1960, since Algerian Arabs attacked the Great Synagogue in Algiers. They had been incensed by the visit of General de Gaulle and violence by the 'pieds-noirs' (Algerians of French descent) and the OAS. The Algerian Jews had hitherto tried to remain studiedly neutral between the FLN fighters for independence and the pro-French paramilitary (OAS). Now they understood that their bread was buttered on the French side. Two years later, almost the entire Algierian Jewish community fled, nearly all to France.
"What better way of expressing weakness and cowardice than by attacking the greatest symbol of Algerian Judaism, hitherto always respected and untouched, in the heart of the Casbah," write Albert Bensoussan and Julien Zenouda.
They go on to describe the scene: " In the centre of the old city, Jews and Arabs had always lived in harmony. The Jews came and went among them without fear. We spoke the same language, they respected us and we had esteem and affection for them. They entered the holy place and went on the rampage, tore the memorial plaques off the walls, ripped up the symbols of our faith, sullied books and Torah scrolls, emptied the lockers where people stored tallit, tephilin and prayer books, and torched everything.
"The (French) Paras then came with their red berets, occupied the place, camped on the floor of our Temple, ate, drank and fornicated with the clear conscience of soldiers, and, adding insult to injury, set up a Christmas tree. "
Muslims attacked Jews, whom they lived with in peace for years. The usual, tired excuse - Zionism - is entirely absent from this story. They were angry at the French - and took their anger out on Jews, the easy to find and weak neighbors.
(h/t Silke)
- Sunday, December 12, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:
The rally seems to have been fairly well-attended, and Hamas apparently did not interfere with this staunchly secular but terrorist organization's march:
The very existence of the PFLP in Gaza is proof that even if somehow an agreement would be reached with Fatah and (let's fantasize) Hamas, there are other terror groups like PFLP, DFLP, Islamic Jihad and some Salafist and al-Qaeda-leaning groups that would still happily attack Israelis by whatever means they could. Not only that, but groups like Fatah would encourage those groups to continue the "resistance" in the same way that Fatah has used the fiction of having a separate "political wing" as cover to shield it from criticism for terror attacks by organizations it actively supported behind the scenes.
Thousands of supporters celebrated the 43rd anniversary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Gaza City on Saturday.The PFLP is a Marxist organization that has connections to socialist groups worldwide. (Here is its German site, for example, complete with links to a shop where you can buy their caps and T-shirts, which seems strangely capitalist. And here is the webpage of the New Zealand branch, complete with a video of "pro-peace" activist David Rovics, whom I lampooned here, performing at a terrorism fundraiser.)
Politburo member of the leftist faction Jamil Majdalawi delivered a speech urging rival factions Hamas and Fatah to end "the unjustified disagreement which harms the Palestinian people, resistance fighters and negotiators."
Resistance, Majdalawi continued, was a legal right of the Palestinian people, and it would be wrong to look for alternatives.
The rally seems to have been fairly well-attended, and Hamas apparently did not interfere with this staunchly secular but terrorist organization's march:
The very existence of the PFLP in Gaza is proof that even if somehow an agreement would be reached with Fatah and (let's fantasize) Hamas, there are other terror groups like PFLP, DFLP, Islamic Jihad and some Salafist and al-Qaeda-leaning groups that would still happily attack Israelis by whatever means they could. Not only that, but groups like Fatah would encourage those groups to continue the "resistance" in the same way that Fatah has used the fiction of having a separate "political wing" as cover to shield it from criticism for terror attacks by organizations it actively supported behind the scenes.
- Sunday, December 12, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
From Zvi:
Even Syria's Bashar al-Assad now says openly that making an Israeli construction freeze in the West Bank a precondition before Abbas will talk to Israel is pointless and stupid.
Even the most hard-line, anti-Semitic regime in the neighborhood agrees with most Israelis that insisting on a settlement freeze is a complete waste of time; if Mahmoud Abbas wants to stop the growth of settlements, then the only way to do it is to negotiate an agreement.
The column is dressed up in the usual flotilla of paranoid anti-Israel claims, of course, but the final conclusion is actually pretty reasonable:
"What matters are results, not the slogans that we have become addicted to."
It is time for Pres. Obama, Sec. of State Clinton and Sen. Mitchell, and also the useful EU idiots who wrote an anti-Israel letter to Catherine Ashton the other day, to come to the same conclusion. Blaming the settlers amounts to a mindlessly repeated, worn-out slogan. But the mindless repetition of slogans does nothing to improve the world.
Only an Israel-PA agreement that specifies borders will define the borders of Israeli towns in the West Bank. Without a peace agreement, US or PA attempts to micromanage what construction occurs in Israeli towns in the West Bank bring absolutely no benefit to anyone.
Of course, one cannot lay the blame *entirely* on Mr. Abbas.
The Obama administration, not Mahmoud Abbas, created this fiasco. The Obama administration took a situation that was gradually improving and, by introducing this mindless precondition, completely shut down negotiations. And they pursued this direction, in their arrogance and ineptitude, despite being warned of the consequences.
But Mr. Abbas, of course, had every opportunity to reject such a pointless diversion. Mr. Abbas, being the do-nothing that he is, leaped at the chance to sit around doing nothing. And for that he MUST be blamed.
Since that time, the US insistence on beating up Israel for Abbas' rejectionism has given those who hate Israel a chance to sit back and smile. But the handful of people who would prefer to actually improve the lot of West Bank Arabs have grown increasingly frustrated.
Meanwhile, naive European and Israeli leftists, by continuing to flog the dead horse of the freeze, have simply prolonged the fiasco.
But there are some people in the Arab world who actually do think about the situation, and these people have increasingly criticized the whole pointless freeze idea. And now even Bashar al-Assad, die-hard enemy of Israel, looks at the freeze and comes to the same conclusion as Netanyahu or Lieberman.
Without a peace agreement, US and PA attempts to micromanage what construction occurs in Israeli towns in the West Bank bring absolutely no benefit to anyone. Only an Israel-PA agreement that specifies borders will define the borders of Israeli towns in the West Bank.
Even Syria's Bashar al-Assad now says openly that making an Israeli construction freeze in the West Bank a precondition before Abbas will talk to Israel is pointless and stupid.
Even the most hard-line, anti-Semitic regime in the neighborhood agrees with most Israelis that insisting on a settlement freeze is a complete waste of time; if Mahmoud Abbas wants to stop the growth of settlements, then the only way to do it is to negotiate an agreement.
The column is dressed up in the usual flotilla of paranoid anti-Israel claims, of course, but the final conclusion is actually pretty reasonable:
"What matters are results, not the slogans that we have become addicted to."
It is time for Pres. Obama, Sec. of State Clinton and Sen. Mitchell, and also the useful EU idiots who wrote an anti-Israel letter to Catherine Ashton the other day, to come to the same conclusion. Blaming the settlers amounts to a mindlessly repeated, worn-out slogan. But the mindless repetition of slogans does nothing to improve the world.
Only an Israel-PA agreement that specifies borders will define the borders of Israeli towns in the West Bank. Without a peace agreement, US or PA attempts to micromanage what construction occurs in Israeli towns in the West Bank bring absolutely no benefit to anyone.
Of course, one cannot lay the blame *entirely* on Mr. Abbas.
The Obama administration, not Mahmoud Abbas, created this fiasco. The Obama administration took a situation that was gradually improving and, by introducing this mindless precondition, completely shut down negotiations. And they pursued this direction, in their arrogance and ineptitude, despite being warned of the consequences.
But Mr. Abbas, of course, had every opportunity to reject such a pointless diversion. Mr. Abbas, being the do-nothing that he is, leaped at the chance to sit around doing nothing. And for that he MUST be blamed.
Since that time, the US insistence on beating up Israel for Abbas' rejectionism has given those who hate Israel a chance to sit back and smile. But the handful of people who would prefer to actually improve the lot of West Bank Arabs have grown increasingly frustrated.
Meanwhile, naive European and Israeli leftists, by continuing to flog the dead horse of the freeze, have simply prolonged the fiasco.
But there are some people in the Arab world who actually do think about the situation, and these people have increasingly criticized the whole pointless freeze idea. And now even Bashar al-Assad, die-hard enemy of Israel, looks at the freeze and comes to the same conclusion as Netanyahu or Lieberman.
Without a peace agreement, US and PA attempts to micromanage what construction occurs in Israeli towns in the West Bank bring absolutely no benefit to anyone. Only an Israel-PA agreement that specifies borders will define the borders of Israeli towns in the West Bank.
- Sunday, December 12, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
People have been complaining, a lot, about the new comment system.
Disqus already said they can't do anything about my linking the old Echo comments to Disqus because of something wrong with their format, but I can see that if I go to Blogger comments I would be receiving a lot of spam comments.
I just changed a setting that might help the comment situation; let me know if you are still having problems.
Disqus already said they can't do anything about my linking the old Echo comments to Disqus because of something wrong with their format, but I can see that if I go to Blogger comments I would be receiving a lot of spam comments.
I just changed a setting that might help the comment situation; let me know if you are still having problems.
- Sunday, December 12, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
- helen thomas, Ray Hanania
The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee continues to honor Helen Thomas - not in spite of, but because of her anti-Jewish comments that she made in June as well as more recently when she spouted off anti-semitic stereotypes but tried to cover herself by using the word "Zionist."
According to Ray Hanania's Twitter feed, referring to Friday night,
What makes all this defense of Thomas really funny is that, deep down, Arab Americans know very well what she meant. Amer Zahr, who appears to be an Arab comedian, says it outright in the Arab Detroit paper:
The fundraiser last night by the Michigan ADC chapter was announced this way on their website:
Has the ADC, so concerned with Helen Thomas' rights to freedom of expression, ever publicly called for Arab nations to adopt the UDHR that they dedicated their fundraiser to?
The hypocrisy shown by this organization is staggering, and the Helen Thomas episode just proves that they care far more about defending bigotry than with standing up for the truth.
According to Ray Hanania's Twitter feed, referring to Friday night,
Phenomenal turnout of 1,000 people at ADC Michigan banquet tonight with the great Clovis Maksoud and standing ovation salute to Helen ThomasThe Arab American News fully supports Thomas' statements, quoting lots of students and activists who support what she said. It also published a ludicrous article by the head of the ADC, claiming that Helen Thomas cannot be anti-semitic because she is a Semite:
Underlying the political struggle between proponents and opponents of Zionism in America is a definitional context. Thomas, a Semite in her own right, delivered politically charged remarks against a political entity, Zionism. Thus, one must ask, is a Semite who makes non-ethnic or non-racial remarks against a political entity anti-Semitic? The answer is clearly no. However, the denotation of "Semitic" advanced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) not only extracts Arabs, such as Thomas, from their unilateral definition, but also narrows it to only include Jews. This may be politically expedient for organizations in America, such as the Anti-Defamation League, but is ultimately an incorrect usage of the term.I guess that Dictionary.com is part of the ADL/Jooish conspiracy.
What makes all this defense of Thomas really funny is that, deep down, Arab Americans know very well what she meant. Amer Zahr, who appears to be an Arab comedian, says it outright in the Arab Detroit paper:
Helen, don’t you know that you can’t say the Jews should get the hell out of Palestine? Don’t you know it’s not even called Palestine? Don’t you know that there never was a Palestine?There's yet another irony at play here, as these Arab Americans are fighting for the right of Helen Thomas to spout Jew-hatred in the name of free speech. Beyond the obvious irony that they didn't feel the same way about the Mohammed cartoons, of course.
C’mon, Helen…
People got upset and Wayne State, your alma mater, discontinued an award in your name. They said you were anti-Semitic. For saying Jews own all the important stuff? As Arabs, we don’t get the anger. If someone said we owned those things, we’d take the credit. Or at least we’d say, “Well we don’t own it yet, but we’re working on it.”
The fundraiser last night by the Michigan ADC chapter was announced this way on their website:
Join the ADCMichigan Annual Benefit Gala this Friday, December 10, 2010 at 6:00PM at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dearborn as it recalls the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948.The irony is that the Organization of the Islamic Conference - meaning, most Arab states - does not accept the UDHR, instead supporting the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam which does not guarantee freedom of religion nor gender equality, and ultimately says that Islamic law defines human rights, not humans.
Has the ADC, so concerned with Helen Thomas' rights to freedom of expression, ever publicly called for Arab nations to adopt the UDHR that they dedicated their fundraiser to?
The hypocrisy shown by this organization is staggering, and the Helen Thomas episode just proves that they care far more about defending bigotry than with standing up for the truth.
- Sunday, December 12, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
Hamas is celebrating the 23rd anniversary of its fonding. In one rally, they took someone to represent Gilad Shalit, in handcuffs, and paraded him around Gaza:
This is probably a violation of Article 13 of the Third Geneva Convention.
This is probably a violation of Article 13 of the Third Geneva Convention.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
- Saturday, December 11, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
- poll
From Ma'an:
A slim majority of the respondents to a reader poll on Ma'an's Arabic-language news site said sending Palestinian firefighters to help battle Israel's fire was "disgraceful."Newspaper polls are far from scientific, but Ma'an is certainly one of the more moderate Palestinian Arabic news websites out there. My guess is that a real poll would show that far fewer PalArabs support saving Jewish lives in Israel.
Firefighters from more than 16 countries helped to extinguish the blaze, the worst in Israel's history, which broke out on Dec. 2 and spread through the Carmel forest for four days.
Of 48,870 readers who responded to the 7-day poll, 50.3 percent (24,524) described Palestinians' participation as a disgrace, but 48.7 percent (23,761) said sending Palestinian firefighters to help was civilized and a humanitarian duty.
Friday, December 10, 2010
- Friday, December 10, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
- mahmoud zahar
From AP last week:
Actually, they do say it, pretty much daily. Just AP won't listen when they speak in Arabic.
From Firas Press:
In recent years, Hamas has tried to reach out to the West, and its supreme leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, has expressed support for a Palestinian state in 1967 borders.
At the same time, Hamas has not revoked its founding charter which calls for Israel's destruction, and Hamas officials won't say whether they see a two-state deal as a final arrangement or a step toward eliminating Israel.
Actually, they do say it, pretty much daily. Just AP won't listen when they speak in Arabic.
From Firas Press:
[Hamas leader Mahmoud al-] Zahar stressed in a speech in the beginning of celebrations of the 23rd anniversary of Hamas' inception "that the [Hamas] movement was launched to continue the jihad until the liberation of all Palestine."Any questions, AP?
Zahar burned an Israeli flag on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of its launch in southern Gaza City.
He said "The journey of jihad and martyrdom began 23 years ago and will continue until the liquidation of the masses of aggression, treachery and even high banners of faith and bring us day after day, year after year from Palestine .. all of Palestine."
"The Jihad will continue until the liberation of the Palestinian city of Jerusalem to pray a prayer of thanks after the liberation of all Palestine..."
- Friday, December 10, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
- Academic fraud, Juan Cole
A reader emailed me to fisk a new Juan Cole posting on his blog. While I would normally not waste my time on something that does not get wide circulation, in the light of my now thinking more in terms of training people how to do hasbara, I thought this would be an opportunity not only to fisk, but to give pointers on how to fisk.
I do not have the time to show the lies in the entire piece, but the first paragraph will do quite well (and take up enough time, thank you.)
1. "Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his far rightwing government." As Cole well knows, left-wing Labor is part of this government. Likud itself is not "far rightwing" by any measure, as it is the government that made peace with Egypt and withdrew from Gaza. The PA, on the other hand, has every attribute of a far right-wing government, as it refuses to negotiate without preconditions and it refuses to compromise on even the most basic demands that Israel could not possibly countenance, like the illusory "right to return." It also refuses to allow any Jews in its nascent state and it imposes a death penalty on anyone who sells his land to Jews, making it an apartheid government as well.
2. "slapped President Obama in the face with mail gloves" is ridiculous imagery - mail gloves are metal gloves used by armored knights. The implication is that Netanyahu is actively injuring Obama, both in terms of honor and physically, which is absurd. (And isn't it interesting that Cole now cares so much about the honor of the President of the United States when he would have applauded any foreign leader treating Obama's predecessor with contempt.)
3. "by refusing to extend the freeze" - There was a ten month freeze,and for nine and a half of those months the Palestinian Authority refused to negotiate with Israel. As Cole will presently mention, he accepts Abbas' refusal to negotiate while the freeze is not in effect, but did he ever say a word about Abbas' intransigence while the freeze was in effect? Of course not!
4. "on new colonies" - Israel has not sanctioned the building of new Jewish towns for years. They have, in fact, dismantled numerous structures built by Jews outside existing boundaries of towns and villages in Judea and Samaria. This is simply a lie. Note also that he chooses the word "colonies" and not the more popular "settlements" because he wants the reader to think of Israel as a "colonialist" state.
5. "in the Palestinian West Bank." Which parts of the West Bank will end up as "Palestinian" and which will end up in Israel is up for negotiation. UN resolution 242 makes clear that Israel must have secure borders and that the 1949 armistice lines were not the recognized borders of Israel. There has never been a Palestinian Arab state so calling the West Bank "Palestinian" is presumptuous. You can call it "formerly occupied by Jordan," you can call it "disputed," but if you want to be accurate you cannot call it "Palestinian" unless you are referring to Mandate-era Palestine, in which case all of Israel is "Palestinian" as well.
6. "Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas" - who is now the illegal president of the PA because he went past his term in office and did not call new elections.
7. "reaffirmed his refusal to go forward with direct negotiations" - which proves that he is the intransigent party here, not the "obstreperous Likud government" as Cole goes on to say later.
8. "if Israelis were going to be seizing land that was being negotiated for" - All the building happening right now is within existing towns, no more land is being "seized" by Israel. In fact, Palestinian Arabs have been seizing land by planting trees and crops in disputed areas that would and should be up for negotiations.
9. "while the talks were ongoing!" - The Pa negotiated in the past without this condition, which means that it is the PA that has changed the rules and added preconditions, not Israel.
When reading a piece by someone like Cole, one must not only look at the main points but at the side-statements and adjectives, which are in some ways even worse. His entire framework is twisted, so one cannot take literally anything he says to be the truth unless it is verified from another source.
And one must also realize that Cole knows every fact I bring up above is true - and he chooses to ignore the truth anyway. This is enough to prove that his words have no value, and his entire intent is demonization and propaganda, not truth.
The truth is that there is one intransigent party here, and that is the PLO led by Mahmoud Abbas. (The PLO does the negotiations, not the PA.) If Obama is to be counseled to lean on anyone, it is the PLO. The negotiating position of the PLO has not changed since 1988 - no compromises, no flexibility, no concessions since then. Not one. Their demands are identical, and they add up to the same result - the ultimate destruction of Israel. (See this 2009 video just sent to me for yet more proof of that.) This is the reality, the reality that people like Cole know very well but spend countless hours trying to distract the world away from with their mantras of lies like "seizing land" and "far rightwing government."
I do not have the time to show the lies in the entire piece, but the first paragraph will do quite well (and take up enough time, thank you.)
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his far rightwing government have slapped President Obama in the face with mail gloves by refusing to extend the freeze on new colonies in the Palestinian West Bank. Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas reaffirmed his refusal to go forward with direct negotiations if Israelis were going to be seizing land that was being negotiated for while the talks were ongoing!
1. "Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his far rightwing government." As Cole well knows, left-wing Labor is part of this government. Likud itself is not "far rightwing" by any measure, as it is the government that made peace with Egypt and withdrew from Gaza. The PA, on the other hand, has every attribute of a far right-wing government, as it refuses to negotiate without preconditions and it refuses to compromise on even the most basic demands that Israel could not possibly countenance, like the illusory "right to return." It also refuses to allow any Jews in its nascent state and it imposes a death penalty on anyone who sells his land to Jews, making it an apartheid government as well.
2. "slapped President Obama in the face with mail gloves" is ridiculous imagery - mail gloves are metal gloves used by armored knights. The implication is that Netanyahu is actively injuring Obama, both in terms of honor and physically, which is absurd. (And isn't it interesting that Cole now cares so much about the honor of the President of the United States when he would have applauded any foreign leader treating Obama's predecessor with contempt.)
3. "by refusing to extend the freeze" - There was a ten month freeze,and for nine and a half of those months the Palestinian Authority refused to negotiate with Israel. As Cole will presently mention, he accepts Abbas' refusal to negotiate while the freeze is not in effect, but did he ever say a word about Abbas' intransigence while the freeze was in effect? Of course not!
4. "on new colonies" - Israel has not sanctioned the building of new Jewish towns for years. They have, in fact, dismantled numerous structures built by Jews outside existing boundaries of towns and villages in Judea and Samaria. This is simply a lie. Note also that he chooses the word "colonies" and not the more popular "settlements" because he wants the reader to think of Israel as a "colonialist" state.
5. "in the Palestinian West Bank." Which parts of the West Bank will end up as "Palestinian" and which will end up in Israel is up for negotiation. UN resolution 242 makes clear that Israel must have secure borders and that the 1949 armistice lines were not the recognized borders of Israel. There has never been a Palestinian Arab state so calling the West Bank "Palestinian" is presumptuous. You can call it "formerly occupied by Jordan," you can call it "disputed," but if you want to be accurate you cannot call it "Palestinian" unless you are referring to Mandate-era Palestine, in which case all of Israel is "Palestinian" as well.
6. "Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas" - who is now the illegal president of the PA because he went past his term in office and did not call new elections.
7. "reaffirmed his refusal to go forward with direct negotiations" - which proves that he is the intransigent party here, not the "obstreperous Likud government" as Cole goes on to say later.
8. "if Israelis were going to be seizing land that was being negotiated for" - All the building happening right now is within existing towns, no more land is being "seized" by Israel. In fact, Palestinian Arabs have been seizing land by planting trees and crops in disputed areas that would and should be up for negotiations.
9. "while the talks were ongoing!" - The Pa negotiated in the past without this condition, which means that it is the PA that has changed the rules and added preconditions, not Israel.
When reading a piece by someone like Cole, one must not only look at the main points but at the side-statements and adjectives, which are in some ways even worse. His entire framework is twisted, so one cannot take literally anything he says to be the truth unless it is verified from another source.
And one must also realize that Cole knows every fact I bring up above is true - and he chooses to ignore the truth anyway. This is enough to prove that his words have no value, and his entire intent is demonization and propaganda, not truth.
The truth is that there is one intransigent party here, and that is the PLO led by Mahmoud Abbas. (The PLO does the negotiations, not the PA.) If Obama is to be counseled to lean on anyone, it is the PLO. The negotiating position of the PLO has not changed since 1988 - no compromises, no flexibility, no concessions since then. Not one. Their demands are identical, and they add up to the same result - the ultimate destruction of Israel. (See this 2009 video just sent to me for yet more proof of that.) This is the reality, the reality that people like Cole know very well but spend countless hours trying to distract the world away from with their mantras of lies like "seizing land" and "far rightwing government."
- Friday, December 10, 2010
- Elder of Ziyon
From JPost:
Abed Rabbo's statement is strange considering that Salam Fayyad has already said that he is no longer abiding by the Oslo Accords. True, Fayyad represents the PA and Abed Rabbo the PLO, but it is a distinction without a difference - officially the PA reports to the PLO.
The security arrangements that the PA has admittedly been doing a reasonable job on for the past couple of years in the West Bank has resulted in their citizens doing quite well - their economy is booming and their standard of living is relatively high, especially compared to Gaza where no such agreements exist. The economic prosperity is directly proportional to the security situation and cooperation with Israel. If the PLO wants to destroy the arrangements, they will destroy the livelihoods and well-being of their citizens.
Which will not be the first time that the Palestinian Arab leaders sacrifice their citizens' lives and happiness for their own petty politics.
(h/t Zach)
The Palestinian Authority will stop coordinating its security with Israel, in response to the US's official announcement that peace talks have failed, Al Quds al-Arabi reported on Friday.I cannot find the original Al Quds article.
Khana Amira, a PLO official, told the UK newspaper that the PA is also considering canceling its other commitments to Israel, including the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, which demand that terror organizations will stop.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior PLO official and an adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly plans to convene a meeting with the PLO and Fatah central committees on Friday afternoon, in order to make a new plan for the Palestinians.
The Palestinians are also considering seeking the UN Security Council's recognition of a Palestinian state on all the Palestinian territories that were captured by Israel in 1967.
In October, Abed Rabbo warned that the PA would unilaterally abrogate the Oslo Accords if the peace process broke down.
“We can’t remain committed to the agreements that were signed with Israel forever,” he said. “One party can’t remain committed while the other party has violated the agreements and even canceled them.”
Abed Rabbo's statement is strange considering that Salam Fayyad has already said that he is no longer abiding by the Oslo Accords. True, Fayyad represents the PA and Abed Rabbo the PLO, but it is a distinction without a difference - officially the PA reports to the PLO.
The security arrangements that the PA has admittedly been doing a reasonable job on for the past couple of years in the West Bank has resulted in their citizens doing quite well - their economy is booming and their standard of living is relatively high, especially compared to Gaza where no such agreements exist. The economic prosperity is directly proportional to the security situation and cooperation with Israel. If the PLO wants to destroy the arrangements, they will destroy the livelihoods and well-being of their citizens.
Which will not be the first time that the Palestinian Arab leaders sacrifice their citizens' lives and happiness for their own petty politics.
(h/t Zach)
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