Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 03, 2011

Algerian football decides against new coach - because of his "Jewish roots"

Algerian soccer team ES Setif's Italian coach left the team a couple of weeks ago, and the club was on the verge of hiring his replacement: French coach Victor Zvunka.

But at the last minute, the team withdrew their offer to hire Zvunka.

The official reason is that Zvunka was not interested in the job.

But Al Arabiya (Arabic) reports:

Negotiations broke down for fear of reactions to unpleasant consequences after it emerged that [Zvunka] has "Jewish roots."

It goes on to say that management will try to avoid the embarrassment from the issue.

This is a corrected cartoon, my original one said that she was not at the riot but in fact there is evidence she was.

"Tear gas death" was a hoax (updated)

I was part of a conference call with an Israeli security source who prefers to be unnamed at this time, but the upshot is this:

All evidence points to the fact that Jawaher Abu Rahma was not killed by tear gas.

The number of inconsistencies and the amount of evidence of lies by Palestinian Arab spokespeople is incontrovertible. Here are some of the facts that the security sources mentioned:

* Abu Rahma arrived at the hospital at 15:20 on Friday - but her lab report is dated/timed 14:45, 35 minutes earlier!

* There is no emergency room report for her arrival.

* The reason for death given was "Inhaling gas from Israeli soldiers according to family."

10 days prior to her death she was in that hospital, taking medication for leukemia. There is evidence that she was in the hospital in the weeks prior as well, which indicates that she had a chronic disease.

Never has anyone died from tear gas in five years of riots in Bil'in.

There is no evidence that Abu Rahma even attended the riot. Her brother is the ringleader of the weekly Bil'in riots and yet there are no photos of her next to him, or anywhere else, on Friday (and possibly ever.)

The tear gas that the IDF used on Friday is exactly the same concentration and type that they have always used, and the same as used by Western countries for years.

The IDF always receives reports of injuries during the demonstrations. On Friday, they received word of two lightly wounded people, both of whom were quickly released from the hospital.

And in order to die from tear gas, you pretty much have to be in an enclosed room with the canister exploding next to you. Outdoors, it is pretty much inconceivable (although there may be some isolated cases.)

(The spokesperson also said that there is no better method to deal with rioters, and keep innocent civilians safe, than tear gas. In addition, Israel's High Court has already decided to re-route the security barrier around Bil'in yet they protesters still show up. Why?)

Interestingly, this may be the second time that Palestinian Arabs have falsely claimed that someone was killed by tear gas. In September, they claimed that a 18-month old baby was killed from tear gas in a Jerusalem riot. There were inconsistencies then as well - the death was never officially reported. But it was instantly believed by Palestinian "human rights" groups.

You can read more coverage from other bloggers on the same call, Israel Matzav and The Muqata, and My Right Word had the initial Israeli news reports.

UPDATE: There is evidence that Jawaher was at the protest. Jewish Voice for Peace tweeted that she had been injured during the rally and was taken to the hospital, at 14:36. There is still no evidence that tear gas was a cause of death, and that remarkable claim needs at least some real evidence besides her brother's say-so. (h/t Jeremiah Haber)

UPDATE 2: Ha'aretz fills in some gaps:

Following repeated requests from Israel's defense establishment, the Palestinian Authority on Monday turned over the medical report on Abu Rahma's death. IDF officials say the medical report contradicts the family's version of events.

According to information obtained by Haaretz from Palestinian medical sources, in the weeks before Abu Rahmah's death she was taking drugs prescribed for a medical condition. It is not known whether these drugs, combined with the tear gas and the "skunk bombs" used by the soldiers, could have caused her death.

Her family says Abu Rahmah's death was caused by the Israel Defense Forces' use of a particularly lethal type of tear gas, but they cannot explain why other demonstrators affected by the tear gas did not need medical care.

The IDF only used standard tear gas - so this is a lie.

Eyewitnesses told Haaretz that the tear gas had an immediate and dramatic effect on Abu Rahmah, who within a few minutes after exposure went into convulsions, began foaming at the mouth and lost consciousness.

Abu Rahmah's brother Samir said that for several weeks his sister had complained of bad headaches, mainly near one ear. He said she also had dizzy spells and problems keeping her balance and had unusual marks on her skin.

He had denied any medical problems only a couple of days ago.<

On December 21, Abu Rahmah saw Dr. Khaled Badwan, head of the ear, nose and throat department of Jerusalem's Augusta Victoria Hospital. He refused to be interviewed for this report.

According to a document obtained by Haaretz, Badwan prescribed a common remedy for dizziness and instructed her to bathe her ear in hot water. Samir said Badwan thought the problem was caused by water trapped in the middle ear, but nevertheless ordered a CT brain scan.

Physicians consulted for this article said Badwan probably suspected another condition.

Another lie by Samir - again, the only "proof" of her being killed by the tear gas comes from him and his family, who have lied twice in this article.

After receiving normal results from the December 27 brain scan, Abu Rahmah saw Dr. Nasser al-Mualem at the Ramallah hospital, who according to Samir said her problem was common and told her to return in one month.

The medical documents seem to support Samir's claim that with the exception of the headaches and dizziness, his sister was in generally good health. None of the doctors consulted for this article could think of a condition or symptoms that could be fatal in the presence of tear gas.

Of course, Ha'aretz didn't ask any of the doctors whether the tear gas itself could have been in any way a contributing factor to her death. Tear gas is designed specifically to be non-lethal - that's why it is used.

There are 49 species of sharks in the Red Sea

I just saw this interesting tidbit at Victor Shikhman's blog (h/t Silke):

You may remember the story which recently made headlines around the world, of Mossad-trained sharks taste-testing unsuspecting tourists to Egypt's Sharm El Sheikh resort, in a clever Zionist bid to devastate the Egyptian economy, which is heavily dependent on tourism. Like me, you were probably aghast at the diabolical nature of the Zionist plot, to harness the ocean deep's more fearsome and ruthless creature in a brutal and unprovoked attack on the most peace-loving nation of people among all of humanity - the Egyptians. After all, who had ever heard of shark attacks in these tranquil waters?

The Sharm el-Sheikh harbor, at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula where the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba meet and join the Red Sea, offers one of the most spectacular views I have ever seen. Its waters are deep blue - Egyptian prisoners warned us against swimming there for they are teeming with sharks - and they are framed by hills of crimson rock.
Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life, pg. 254-255.

We are left to conclude either that sharks have been present in the waters off the resort for at least sixty years, or that Moshe Dayan, writing in 1965 about events of the Sinai Campaign some ten years earlier, inserted an insidious line meant to absolve the nascent Mossad shark-training program of culpability in the attacks on tourists to Egypt some six decades hence.

Which got me to do a little research and find this:

Boni il, R.; Abdallah, M. Field identification guide to the sharks and rays of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes. Rome, FAO. 2004. 71p. 12 colour plates.

ABSTRACT

This volume presents a fully illustrated field guide for the identification of the sharks and rays most relevant to the fisheries of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. An extensive literature review and two field surveys in the region were carried out for the preparation of this document. A total of 49 sharks and 45 batoids reliably reported for the region are listed and those common in the fisheries or likely to be found through fishing operations are fully treated (44 sharks and 33 batoids). Included here are the first confirmed reports for the region of Hensigaleu.s. miernsruniii. Carvharhinus dussinnierf Actomyfilmy vespertilin, Hinumnirir liii, Aluhuld japonica and an undescribed Dasyuris sp. The guide includes sections on technical terms and measurements for sharks and batoids, and fully illustrated keys to those orders and families that occur in the region. Each species account includes: at least one annotated illustration of the species highlighting its relevant identification characters: basic information on nomenclature, synonyms and possible misidentifications; FAO, common and local names; basic information on size, habitat and biology, importance to fisheries, and distribution. Colour plates for a large number of the species are included.

Abbas older brother dies

Arabic media is reporting that Mahmoud Abbas' older brother Atta has died in Syria.

Like Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), his brother had a nom de guerre - Abu Fayez.

Why do members of such a moderate family insist on having separate terrorist names?

And why did he live in Syria anyway? Wouldn't it have made sense for such a prominent relative to want to live in the Palestinian Arab territories? Or did he just consider "Palestine" to be part of southern Syria?

Egypt bars one third of anti-Israel agitators from entering Gaza

From Ma'an:

The Asia 1, an aid convoy backed by nations in Southeast Asia which drove from India to Syria and sailed for Egypt, arrived in the Gaza Strip on Sunday evening, Egyptian officials said.

Of the 160 activists traveling with the convoy, 112 were allowed entry into the coastal enclave, with Iranian and Jordanian activists excluded.

As the activists entered Gaza, the aid from the ship was being unloaded at El-Arish, the Egyptian port city, and will enter Gaza on Monday morning, officials said.

Egypt has barred potential troublemakers from Gaza before, most recently with Viva Palestina.

It will be interesting to see Iran's reaction. So far they have mentioned it without comment.

Arab reporter astonished: "Ramallah is like Europe!"

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Maisun Azzam, a journalist from Al-Arabiya TV in Dubai, was interviewed on the PA TV talk show, Palestine this morning.

PA TV host asks Maisun Azzam: "What is your picture of Palestine?"
Azzam: "Look, the main picture is the picture we see on TV since, unfortunately, in the media bad news is good news for us [journalists]."
PA TV Host: "That's the prominent news."
Azzam: "Yes, the prominent, main news, because if there's different news, we say it's not newsworthy. But if someone dies, or something is destroyed, then that's newsworthy. So, as a Palestinian, I didn't expect to get here, I didn't expect to find you alive, and I said that [also] at Bir-Zeit University. I looked and said, 'You're alive!' I went to the Stones restaurant [in Ramallah] to do an advertising campaign for our director, Nadal Hassan; I felt like I was in Europe."

[PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 29, 2010]

And this is from someone on Dubai TV that would be one of the better-informed Arabs on the subject.

Meretz convinces Adidas to threaten Israel

From The Jerusalem Post, December 7:

Three Jerusalem City Council members from the opposition sent a warning letter last week to sports apparel company Adidas, one of the major sponsors of the International Jerusalem Marathon, calling on the company to withdraw its sponsorship of the race if the municipality did not remove east Jerusalem segments from the route.

“There’s no reason why it needs to go through the eastern part of the city,” said City Councilman Pepe Alalu (Meretz), who heads the opposition. “A marathon does not bring Jews and Arabs together. This is just an aggressive move.”

The letter was co-signed by Laura Wharton and Meir Margalit, both of Meretz.

The current route of the marathon, which will be held on March 25, starts at the Knesset and takes runners all the way out to Pisgat Ze’ev, before circling Hebrew University, entering the Old City at the Zion Gate, wending its way through the hills of Rehavia and Talpiyot to the promenade, and finally doubling back to the Knesset.

“As members of the Jerusalem City Council, we feel it is our duty to inform you that this year, the path of the marathon is due to run through parts of east Jerusalem that are considered occupied territory by the international community and by us,” the Meretz letter to Adidas stated.

“For that reason, we object to the marathon as it is now planned and believe it is important that you realize that a significant portion of the Israeli population as well as an overwhelming majority of the general population abroad will doubtless express their opposition once the details of the marathon are made public,” it continued.

I don't know if Adidas would have caved so easily had the letter come from BDS leaders, but since it came from people who pretend to represent Jerusalem, they did. From Ma'an:

Sportswear company Adidas forced the Jerusalem Municipality to reroute a planned marathon to avoid occupied Palestinian neighborhoods, Israeli media reported Sunday.

Hebrew-language daily Ma'ariv said Adidas threatened to withdraw sponsorship from the event after the company was lobbied by human rights organizations.

The newspaper reported that several organizations threatened to boycott the company over the issue.

The report said the March race would be held within the Green Line, in what Ma'ariv described as a submission to Adidas.

It is simply outrageous for members of a city council to lobby an outside company to threaten their own city.

Wikileaks: The beginning of Turkey's change

From a Wikileaks cable dated October 13, 2009:

IRAN:
Turkey understands and partially shares U.S. and international concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions, but is hesitant to use harsh language in public statements, in part due to its dependence on Iran as an energy supplier and as a trade route to Central Asian markets. PM Erdogan himself is a particularly vocal skeptic of the U.S. position. Turkey believes international pressure against Iran only helps to strengthen Ahmadinejad and the hard-liners. However, it continues to press Iran quietly to accept the P5 plus 1 offer. The GOT is a strong partner in our non-proliferation efforts, with several significant results. Politically,Turkey will try to position itself on Iran between wherever we are and where Russia is. In a pinch or if pressed, the Turks will slant to us.

ISRAEL:
While the Foreign Ministry and the Turkish General Staff agree with us that a strong Turkey-Israel relationship is essential for regional stability, PM Erdogan has sought to shore up his domestic right political flank at the expense of this relationship. His outburst at Davos was the first in a series of events the results of which we and his staff have sought to contain. The latest of these was Exercise Anatolian Eagle. Erdogan canceled Israel's participation hours before the exercise was to begin. With an Israeli strike - across Turkish airspace - against targets in Iran a possibility, Erdogan decided he could not afford the political risk of being accused of training the forces which would carry out such a raid. Through some remarkable work with Allies and with the inter-agency, we engineered a public "postponement" of the international portion of the exercise, but the relationship has begun to sour.

At the time, the State Department seemed to regard Erdogan's anti-Israel stance as more political than strategic, and that his opinions were not in concert with his foreign ministry and general staff.

It would be interesting to know if the State Department still believes this.

The Zionist heavy metal rocker from Disturbed

From JPost:

With his bald plate, ominous double labret vertical chin piercings and chic, black, embroidered T-shirt and pants, David Draiman doesn’t look like anyone else in the David Citadel Hotel business lounge. Not that the 37- year-old native of Chicago looks much like anyone you might see anywhere else in Jerusalem either. Let’s just say, he’s got a style all his own that sets him apart from the normal street scenery of the Holy City.

But one of the many ironies surrounding Draiman is that he can move around Israel in relative anonymity.

People look at him and can’t help but immediately comprehend that he must be someone famous. But unless they’re under 25 or a fan of American hard rock bands, they won’t pick up on the fact that the muscular, confident tourist is the vocalist for Disturbed, a heavy metal band that has sold over 11 million albums world-wide since its 2000 debut. Each of their subsequent four albums has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 list, a testament to the rabidity of Disturbed’s fans and the apparent chemistry its explosive music creates.

Another irony surrounding Draiman is that when he wants to jump off the album/rehearsal/tour merry-go-round – or recuperate from the rigors of rock & roll life which include a throat infection which caused part of a tour to be canceled – he doesn’t opt for a secluded Caribbean beach or a French Riviera resort. He returns to Israel.

“I love it here! I come every year or two,” said Draiman last week. He claims to have close to 200 relatives in the country, including his brother Ben, also a musician, and his grandmother. However, that isn’t what keeps him coming back repeatedly since he made his first trip with his parents when he was six years old. It’s because Israel and Judaism are part of his being, and though they aren’t as dominant in his life as they were, Draiman remains one of the few high-profile hard rock singers who are defiantly Jewish – imagine a young Ozzy Osbourne as the spokesman for the Jewish Defense League.

And in what is perhaps the greatest irony in the Draiman saga, the same voice heard belting out the angst-ridden, menacing vocals that characterize Disturbed’s music used to regularly inspire teenage yeshiva students as the shaliach tzibur for Shaharit, Maariv and High Holy Day services.

When did your relationship with Israel start?

I came here many times as a kid with my family. I think the first time I was six. I used to come here for summer camp a couple times in my childhood, and I spent the year after high school here studying at Neve Zion yeshiva [in Telz Stone]. I was one of those guys you used to see getting into trouble or hanging out on Kikar Zion in Jerusalem.

Playing heavy metal, you must run into fans occasionally who espouse anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi sentiments.

I’m incredibly defiant against neo-Nazis and skinheads.

In fact, here’s a true story that occurred in the band’s infancy when we were playing Southside Chicago clubs.

One of the guys who would come to see us was a skinhead, he had a swastika tattoo, the whole nine yards.

After he became a die-hard fan, the band was sitting down having drinks after a show and he comes in and starts going on about niggers and Jews, and I interrupted him and said, “Dude, I don’t know if you realize this but I’m Jewish.”

He responded, “You’re Jewish! This completely changes my whole idea of what a Jew is supposed to be.” And soon after that, he had his swastika removed, and denounced the skinhead culture.

I’ve always been very proud of my heritage and where I come from, and I’ve defended it to the extent of being bloodied on many occasions. In fact, most of the fights I’ve been in my life – and there have been many – have been because I was defending my family or my faith. And I don’t apologize for it.

There’s still anti-Semitism everywhere, and unfortunately, what has happened with our people no longer being the underdogs in this region, peoples’ perception of Israel has changed dramatically. I find myself more and more having to defend us, and I will continue to do so.

I wrote a song on our latest album Asylum called “Never Again” about the Holocaust and the people who deny it, like Ahmadinejad, that piece of shit. And part of our live show includes a video presentation depicting him as the new Hitler. Believe you me, I’ve always been direct about hits, I never pull any punches and I will never apologize for who I am or where I come from.

The lyrics for Never Again:

Never again, never again

They have a frightening desire for genocide
They wouldn’t stop til what what was left of my family died
Hell-bent on taking over the world
You couldn’t hide in the shout of conformity
We can’t forget how we were devastated by the beast
And now we pleaded with the captors for release
We were hunted for no reason at all
One of the darkest times in our history
All that I have left inside is
A soul that’s filled with pride
I tell you never again
In a brave society
Didn’t end up killing me
Scream with me, never again
Not again

A generation that was persecuted endlessly
Exterminated by the Nazi war machine
We will remember, let the story be told
To realize how we lost our humanity
You dare to tell me that there never was a Holocaust
You think that history will leave the memory lost
Another Hitler using fear to control
You’re gonna fail this time for the world to see

All that I have left inside is
A soul that’s filled with pride
I tell you never again
In a brave society
Didn’t end up, killing me
Scream with me, never again
Not again

All that I have left inside is
A soul that’s filled with pride
I tell you never again
In a brave society
Didn’t End up killing me
Scream with me, never again

For the countless souls who died
Their voices fill this night
Sing with me, never again
They aren’t lost, you see
The truth will live in me
Believe me, never again

And if you want to listen to it, go here.

(h/t Greg)

Iran's PressTV says Zionists behind church bombing

I mentioned that Islamic Jihad blamed "Zionists' for the deadly Egyptian church bombing.

Now Iran's official media is doing the same.

From PressTV:

Although, at first glance, the finger is pointed at extremist Wahabi or Salafi groups, it goes without saying that no Muslim, whatever their political leanings may be, will ever commit such an inhumane act.

Attacks on churches in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia can be analyzed in the context of a Zionist scenario aimed at driving a wedge between Muslims and Arab Christians.

Since the emergence of Islam, Muslims and Christians in the East have always coexisted peacefully as Islam pays due respect to the freedom of divine faiths -- especially Christianity.

In Egypt, too, Muslims and Christians are living in peace and harmony. Never, ever have the Christians in Egypt complained of any problems keeping them from carrying out their religious duties.

The fresh plot by terrorists to target churches is an organized Zionist scenario aimed at creating a rift between Muslims and Christians.

How's that for an airtight argument? But it gets better:

Suicide attacks on churches in Egypt and the killing of Christians are part of the psychological warfare launched by the US, the UK and Israel to divide Christians and Muslims.

...All the existing evidence proves that the Alexandria church explosion, though appearing to have been carried out by extremist groups, is the handiwork of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad.

Needless to say, the author does not mention a single shred of this evidence.

A wonderful example of Islamic logic.

UPDATE: A Lebanese Muslim politician has added his voice to the nutcases as well.

Just a little anti-semitism on Palestinian Arab TV

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Jordanian academic Arafat Hijazi:

“150 years ago, when there were no Jews in Palestine, the Jews were in Europe, in Eastern Europe, but the Jews suffered from persecution by the European nations.

The reason was that they would harm the people of the lands in which they lived.

They had a problem: Wherever they went, they were expelled, and were imprisoned.”

Jordanian academic Muhammad Dohal:

“The Jews are hated in every society in which they have lived, because of their behavior relating to their great love of money.

Their behavior led to [Shakespeare's] famous story, the story of Shylock about money lending, which clings to the Jews. This is how they harmed the societies that embraced them.”

(The interview was in October but I just saw the tweet from PMW.)

Moshe Dayan, in Life magazine, after the Six Day War

One of the points I make in my Hasbara 2.0 seminar is that there is inherent value in digitizing the historical writings of Israeli leaders and putting them up online. What they have written - articles and books - should be searchable and easily accessible. Nothing fights the lies better than having the actual words of these people, in context.

Here is an article I found in Life magazine, September 29, 1967, by Moshe Dayan. I digitized the text myself (page capture to paint program to OCR program for three pages) so might still be some mistakes but it should be reasonably accurate.

In this case, we see how hard Israel wanted to make the lives of the Arabs under their control as easy as possible, and some unexpected benefits that they received from the war.

War has a dynamic of its own. So has peace. The six-day war between Israel and her Arab neighbors, Egypt, Syria and Jordan, was an outright military conquest. On the seventh day, with the retreat of the defeated armies, almost one million Arab civilians found themselves in the conquered territories (or. as we Israelis prefer to call them, "held areas"]. Their soldiers had fled across the Suez Canal and the River Jordan, and through the smoke of smoldering fragments from shattered aircraft, tanks and guns loomed a new reality,frightening and implacable,the reality of their world destroyed.

Their first reaction was one of shock and panic. Streams of Jordanian civilians in flight poured across the river from the west bank. held by Israel. Now, three months after the fighting, shock and panic have passed, but confusion and lack of confidence remain. Back across the Jericho Bridge to the west bank have come thousands of returnees who now say il was a mistake for them 10 leave their homes. However, at the site of the Damia Bridge, 30 kilometers north of Jericho. Jordanian families continue to flee in the other direction-eastward. They explain that. though they have seen Israel does not treat her Arabs harshly. they prefer to leave and dwell under an Arab regime -in Jordan,. in Kuwait or in Saudi Arabia-"for who knows what may happen tomorrow?" Better, thev say, o pack up their belongings now. gather up what little money they have and get away from this fickle stage called Palestine.

The six day war brought revolutionary changes in all the Israeli held regions which were formerly under Arab rule. But such changes differ basically from territory to territory-Syrian, Egyptian,Jordanian.

Of the 50,000 inhabitants of Syria's Golan Heights, for example. only about 7.000 have remained in this Israeli-held area. These are Druses. living at the foot of Mt. Hermon. a community which does not look to the Syrian government for its leadership. (When I last visited them, their representatives asked that every "man of valor" -all males from 15 to 50-be given a rifle. "for after all. the Syrian government and army are our foes, and we must be able to defend ourselves.")

The departure of the 70,000 or so Syrians from the area occurred during the war and was part of it. Here the operations were frontal and the Israeli breakthrough was carried out along the entire front, from the Jordanian to the Lebanese border. to a depth of 20 kilometers. This area, apart from the seven Druse villages, is now empty. As the Syrian troops retreated through the chain of villages, the civilian population took their famllies and their herds and fled eastward. afraid of being caught in the cross-fire between the lines or becoming targets of bombing and shelling.

After the war. the Red Cross did approach us about enabling the inhabitants to return to their villages, but the Syrian government did not back this request at least not firmly. Small wonder. The Syrian is the most extrerne of the Arab governments. and her leaders keep pressing Egypt and Jordan to continue guerrilla warfare against Israel "until her annihilation." The policy is inconsistent with any appeal to Israel's goodwill. It is equally out of keeping with an approach which sees the war as the breaking of a crisis and the restoration of normal civilian life as the necessary next step.

On the Syrian front, therefore, what is happening is what frequently follows an extremist policy of "all or nothing." The "all" is unobtainable. What is left is "nothing." The Syrian government concerns and occupies itself only with a renewal of the war against Israel. To the evacuees of Golan it says that "in the meantime." until Israel is destroyed, they must join their relatives in distant villages or enter a refugee camp and get fed by UNRWA.

If the Syrian heights suffer a severe winter, it is doubtful whether many of the abandoned villages will remain standing. Some were damaged and partly destroyed in the fighting. and the bituminous mud shacks will collapse if they are not plastered and shored up as they usually are each year before the rains. There will be nothing for the refugees to return to.

The problem of the Arab population in the conquered territories worries Egypt very much less than it does Jordan or even Syria. The areas captured by Israel from the Egyptian army are made up of two distinct parts-the Sinai peninsula. which is almost empty desert. and the narrow, fruitful coastal strip of Gaza. at the eastern edge of the Sinai. Gaza is tightly packed with some 400.000 people. most of them Palestinian Arabs who have been living in refugee camps for 20 years. Of pressing concern to Nasser are the problems of the larger Sinai peninsula - lsrael's new command of the Suez Canal and the Straits of Tiran. The Gaza Strip and its inhabitants do not interest him much. Egypt has never regarded Gaza as an integral part of her land. and in the two decades she was in control its population was never granted Egyptian citizenship. The Palestinian Arabs were looked upon by Cairo, as they are at present. only as instruments useful for military intelligence and for harming Israel.

To the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. the first signs of the new, postwar reality appeared when they were permitted by Israeli authorities to travel freely and visit relatives in Jerusalem or Hebron in the area on the west bank of the Jordan that was under Jordanian control. Only now that all the territories of former Palestine are in Israel's control can the Arabs renew contact with their kinsmen, who were separated from them by the arbitrary boundaries created after the 1948 war.

The process of uniting Palestinian groups is being encouraged in two ways, One is external. governmental: the Israel government is providing a single currency. a single set of laws. common newspapers and radio programs, and above all-free contact between Arabs in the Gaza Strip and those in the occupied area of Jordan west of the river Israel has no interest in establishing two Arab "states" under her control and prefers to consider the Strip and the west bank as parts of a single unit. The second way is internal, innate: the Palestinian Arabs are becoming, again. if not a united nation at least a homogeneous group of people. sharing a common past and faced by a common reality.

To sum up. then, in the south the territory of interest to Egypt, Sinai is empty of people; and the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip look not westward, to Egypt, but eastward, to the vine-covered hills of Hebron and Bethlehem. to their kinsmen, the Palestinians.

The heaviest concentration of Arabs in the "held areas" is to be found in the occupied area of Jordan on the west bank. There are more than 500,000 Palestinians living in and around Jerusalem in Nablus, Jenin and Hebron-city dwellers, farmers. Bedouins. This population, to whom must be added their 400,000 brother-nationals in the Gaza Strip. are at the very focus of the political and social problems that exist between Israel. and the Arabs in the conquered territories.

The west bank Arabs have spent the last 20 years under Jordanian control. King Hussein may not have been the knight of all their dreams, but he was their monarch. They held Jordanian citizenship and their representatives sat in parliament at Amman. These Palestinians not only enjoyed equal rights with the Jordanians but, by virtue of the education and experience gained under the British mandatory administration, they were entrusted with key functions and gained positions of influence in the "Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan." The crushing debacle of the six day war did not weaken their- -or their leader –bond with the Jordanian and the other Arab states. Indeed. the first reaction was to strengthen it. Their immediate mood was: "Together we went to war, together we suffered defeat. United we shall remain in our hour of trouble."

We Israelis sought to negotiate with them on the political future of the west bank. Our attempts failed. "Go to Hussein.t'they said. "He is our king and we are faithful subjects. He alone is authorized to speak in our name."

But after a little while it became evident that this phraseology of idealistic patriotism did not reflect-' the total political truth. When. for example, the rumors flew that Hussein might favor peace talks with Israel, the Palestinian leaders hastened to send signals to the king warning him that Palestinian Arab loyalty was to the general Arab front. If Hussein sought a separate peace, they told him. he could not count on the Palestinians. In such a case, they might consider their own interests and reach their own arrangernents with lsrael, even without him.

Then came the Jordanian call for revolt. From its radio station in Amman the government of Jordan instructed the west bank inhabitants not to cooperate with the Israeli authorities. An edict was issued prohibiting prayer in the Mosque of Omar since it was now in an area under Israeli control. Shopkeepers were ordered to go on strike and close their stores. Teachers and pupils were told to boycott the schools and cease their studies.

In some west bank cities, a number of shops and schools did indeed close. The reaction of Israeli authorities to this 'revolt' was not as Amman had hoped, for we took no drastic steps. No blood flowed in the streets. Our military governors simply shrugged their shoulders and explained to the local Arab mayors that the government of Israel is ready to maintain,at its expense ,the educational network in the west bank; but if the Arabs prefer not to open their schools, the Israeli taxpayer will be only too happy to be freed of the need to pay the salaries of the Arab teachers.

Our regime was not shaken; and the Palestinians began asking" themselves: What can this "revolt" accomplish? And where does it lead? Will closing stores and boycotting school classes rout the Israeli army? Moreover, why should Hussein, who asked for a ceasefire with Israel and laid down his arms, demand of them that they launch a war of rebellion? What right has he to plow with their heifer?

It is now only three months since the war and the new reality has not yet taken final shape. It would therefore be rash to prophesy.1 would only point out that today in the west bank the shops are open as usual and so are the classes in most of the schools. Not only this, but Hussein has deemed it proper in an interview with the official Jordanian news agency to attack the Arab raiders, the/Fedayeen. He called h an "unparalleled crime" to undertake terrorism and sabotage against Israel, for this "will serve the lsraelis with a pretext for acts of revenge and will lead to the break-up of the Arab revolt in the conquered territories."

It would, however, be most misleading to think of the current relations between the Palestinians and lsrael as wholly black. The general picture is almost the opposite. The abortive attempts at "revolt" and the incidents of noncooperation are isolated episodes. In the west bank. life is normal. ordered and peaceful; there is no tension. All the Arab mayors elected under the Jordanian regime continue to hold office and carry out their functions in close cooperation with the Israeli military governors. The people walk the streets of Nablus, Hebron and East Jerusalem without encountering road blocks, barbed wire, army patrols or permit checks. There is no need for us to take tough military measures to ensure order. The Arab shops are full of lsraeli visitors buying whatever is at hand. and the shopkeepers sit there raking in the cash -c-except that now they do it in two currencies. Israeli pounds and Jordanian dinars. Money is money. The municipal and state services-hospitals, public transport, sanitation, street-cleaning, water and electric power-cooperate normally, though perhaps with less bureaucracy and with fewer forms to fill in.

Nor are the relations between Israel and Jordan quite those of continuing belligerency: "Thc vegetable market of Damia." as Israeli border troops call it, is not only a piquant scene in itself but is symptomatic of the new contact between the two states. Day by day, more than 100 trucks roll through the subdued. low waters of the River Jordan north of Damill, traveling from the west bank into the Kingdom of Jordan. (The Damia Bridge was blown up during the war and is impassible to vehicles.) The trucks. laden high with farm produce- -watermelons, grapes, tomatoes and cucumbers--offload in Amman and return empty (except of course for the dinars) to Israeli territory.

These convoys of lorries crossing the river up to their axles in water offer a dramatic spectacle. It is as if one were watching a band of smugglers-or perhaps a mechanized edition of the ox-wagon caravans in old Wild West films. But of principal interest is the political side. All this is done with the joint agreement of the government of Israel and the government of Jordan. Both permit this "free trade' because it is desirable and helpful to the Arab inhabitants of the west bank and does not especially harm the economic interests of either. Both governments seek the welfare of the west bank Arabs, and-more to the point both seek their goodwill.

Israel,with official responsibility for the region, is of course eager that the people of the west bank should recognize that it is a progressive regime which worries about finding work for their unemployed and markets for their farmers. Jordan's approach is more pretentious. She is anxious to retain her ties with the Palestinians. even though she no longer controls their territory. More important. she wants them to look up to her as their patron-a patron who is cut off from them at the moment. but who may be reunited with them in the future and who is ready in the meantime to do all she can to help them.

This attitude of Jordan toward the west bank inhabitants thus obliges her at times to coordinate joint operations with the Israeli government, even though such co-operation is prompted by conflicting motives.

East Jerusalem constitutes a special problem. Israel now considers the area part of her state, and this of course has far-reaching political, social and legal implications. The Arab inhabitants of Jerusalem woke one morning to find themselves Israeli subjects. They are free to drive to Tel Aviv. They may work in Haifa. They can buy a house in Nazareth. But they must also conform to Israeli laws, pay the same heavy income tax as Israclis, adopt the same curriculurn in their schools as is followed by the Arab community which had resided in Israel all along. (In the west bank, which is not an integral part of Israel but which has the status of a conquered territory, Jordanian law prevails, and its inhabitants are not permitted to enter Israel. except to visit the Holy Places.)

The uniting of Jerusalem (under a Jewish mayor who is responsible for both parts of the city), its attachment to the state of lsrael and the granting of Israeli citizenship to its inhabitants have given the city's Arabs economic advantages and benefits in day-to-day living. but these developments have also deepened the conflict between them and Israel. Jerusalem contains the most sacred sites in Islam, after Mecca, and is the seat of the religious and national leaders of the Palestinian Arabs.

It was not only the orders of Amman but the prompting of their own will which led the Jerusalem Arab leaders to announce that they would not recognize the inclusion of Arab Jerusalem in lsrael, would not follow her laws, and would not cooperate with the Israeli authorities.

Ruhi EI-Khatib, the former Arab mayor, refused to join the municipal council. Anwar El-Khatib, former governor-general of the west bank under the government of Amman, sent a memorandum of protest. And the chief kadi, Sheikh Sai'akh, announced that the Shariah. the Moslem high court, would continue to give judgment in accordance with the laws of Jordan---even though it was located in Jerusalem.

The Israeli authorities carried out a few arrests and deportations, but this was not the main hindrance to the rebels.··Their decisive problem was, and is, their in· ability to interrupt. to confound the normal processes of life. Jerusalem is not Aden. The Israelis are not foreigners. and we do not rule by bayonets. In United Jerusalem, the majority of the population are Jews, and the closing of shops or the strike of a bus line does not paralyze the city. Jewish shops and public transport with Jewish drivers continue to operate.

Moreover, it is difficult to start a revolution unless the conditions are appropriate, The atmosphere and circumstances in Jerusalem arc far indeed from favoring rebellion. The voice of the Amman government sounds distant, confused, vanquished. The economy flourishes. And Israeli authority shows no inclination to be tyrannical or despotic: its chief desire seems to be to grant services.

This is the situation today. War, conquest. revolution, change of regime --these can be accomplished in six days, but the process of up-building is inevitably slow. Immediately after the fighting, the Arabs were in a state of shock. Then they hoped for a miracle-something that would restore the situation to what it was before; the wave of some magic wand-the Security Council. the U.N. General Assembly. the Khartoum Conference. But no miracle occurred. The genie did not pop out of the lamp of Aladdin. King Hussein wanders from capital to capital. Word comes that Egyptian army chief Abdel Hakim Amer has committed suicide. Nasser talks of "solutions." And in the west bank the government of Israel is in control. Representatives of Israel's ministry of agriculture talk over matters with the farmers, plan next season's crops and the mayor of NabIus recommends the construction of a concrete bridge at Damia so that farm produce can continue to be sent to Amman even in winter.

What's the PA trying to hide in protester death? (UPDATED)

From JPost:

The Palestinian Authority on Saturday rejected an IDF offer to jointly investigate the death of a Palestinian woman who had participated in a rally against the security barrier in her West Bank village of Bil’in. Security forces at the scene lobbed tear gas at a crowd in which Jawaher Abu Rahma, 36, stood on Friday.

Rahma died on Saturday morning, allegedly due to complications after inhaling tear gas. Her body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag, held aloft on a gurney and carried by chanting mourners to the Bil’in cemetery.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas called the Rahma family to express his condolences.

He said, “This new Israeli crime comes as part of a series of crimes carried out by the army of the occupation against our helpless nation.”

PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the killing of Abu Rahma was a “war crime.”

“We condemn this shocking crime committed by the Israeli army against participants in a peaceful protest,” said Erekat.

the PA rejected an IDF request to receive Abu Rahma’s medical file so that it could determine the cause of death. It also rejected an IDF request to establish a joint commission of inquiry with the PA, which it has done in the past after similar incidents.

“This raises suspicions about what really happened,” one source said.

Central Command sources said that after the protest was dispersed, the IDF received a report from the Palestinians that two activists were treated for inhaling tear gas. The sources said that the IDF fired the tear gas to disperse a violent protest.

On Friday night, the IDF learned that the two Palestinians had been released to their homes and then on Saturday morning they received a report that one of them died.

Now, let's talk about the veracity of someone who claims to know that she really died from tear-gas:

But Jonathan Pollak, a spokesman for the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, said that Rahma was taken from the protest to a hospital in Ramallah, where doctors worked to save her life.

She was unconscious when she arrived and she never regained consciousness, Pollak said. Rahma suffered from severe asphyxiation caused by the tear gas, he said. She had poison in her body that was the same active ingredient in the tear gas, he added.

Why exactly would a spokesman for the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee have seen Rahma's medical file, when the IDF can't?

Pollak said that Friday’s demonstration was especially large because it was the last one of the year. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad addressed the protesters at the start of the rally but then left Bil’in.

After his departure, the IDF shot an “unusual amount of tear gas” at the demonstration, Pollak said. “They did it to disperse the demonstration,” which was “completely peaceful,” he said.

Here's a photo of that "completely peaceful" demonstration:

So now we know that Pollak is a liar and possibly trying to hide something.

The question is, what?

An intriguing rumor, so far with no evidence, from My Right Word quoting an unnamed source:

Very unconfirmed reports that Jawaher Abu Rahma of Bil'in was actually killed in an honor killing because she was pregnant (stabbed in the back)

No confirmation details yet. But there may be more to this story than the already contradictory Palestinian reports that can't decide where she died (at home or in the hospital).

I have no idea if there is any truth to that, but it would explain why the PA refuses to undertake a joint investigation with the IDF - something they have happily done in the past. The fact that they are using Rahma's death to score propaganda points so quickly is another red flag, as is the inconsistent stories given by the PA. (Israel Matzav has a video that shows an injured female protester, still conscious.)

Rahma's brother had been killed at a similar protest in Bil'in a couple of years ago and if she was in fact pregnant it would have been a huge embarrassment for her, as a symbol of resistance, to be found to have done something shameful.

While this is uncomfortably close to a conspiracy theory for my tastes, more information is needed, and the PA is clamming up. One can only wonder why.

UPDATE: Another version of the story, given by Abu Rahma's cousin on Facebook Hamde Abu:

The death of Jawaher Abu Rahma was reported in the afternoon in 1/1/11, the first day of the new year. The primary cause of death was suffocation from tear gas chemicals mixed ...with phosphorus (shot by Israeli Defense Forces at protestors, in a peaceful Friday weekly demonstration) according to the doctor that attended her. Jawaher was not present at the demonstration. She was in her home, approximately 500 meters away from where the gas canisters landed, when she suffered the effects of gas that was carried over the village by wind. The chemicals caused poisoning in her lungs, which caused suffocation and the stopping of the heart, leading to her death after fighting for her life overnight at Ramallah Hospital.

She wasn't even at the protest, and the tear gas (mixed with phosphorus, naturally!) managed to kill her from 500 meters away while no one else was hurt????

Curiouser and curiouser!