Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

PLO dismantles negotiations unit - funded by Europe

The Palestine Liberation Organization has decided to wind up its Negotiations Support Unit after damaging leaks about the concessions it was prepared to make to Israel, an official told AFP on Monday.

The decision by the PLO Executive Committee will take effect next month, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Committee member Ahmad Majdalani told AFP that the unit would be restructured and placed under the direct supervision of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

Formed in 1999 to provide technical assistance to the Palestinian negotiating team, the unit had received funding from a number of European governments, particularly Britain and the Scandinavian countries.

The leaked papers reveal how exactly the NSU was trying to manipulate world opinion and influence the US towards their position and against Israel.

Is it appropriate for European countries to fund a group whose entire purpose is to go against Israel in negotiations? Would they have funded an Israeli negotiations unit? Why is it not considered a conflict of interest when some members of the Quartet are openly supporting one side in negotiations?

Furthermore, are these countries reviewing the papers to see if their money was spent appropriately?

When the PLO, through the NSU, says that there is no such thing as a Jewish people - does that reflect the intent of the Scandinavian and British funders of the NSU?

There are a lot of issues that the leaks bring up, and these issues are being ignored by the media.

The Mafia Mentality of the MidEast (NewsRealBlog)

My latest article in NewsRealBlog has been published. Excerpt:

In the new topsy-turvy worldview, peace is dependent on ethnic cleansing of Jews.

In any other context, ethnic cleansing is considered a war crime. Only in the territories is it considered a prerequisite for peace.

In any other place in the world, a divided city is considered a tragedy. Only in Jerusalem is it considered a necessity for peace.

And why do these inherently immoral things lead to peace? Because if the Jews are not banned from the cities of their heritage, the Arabs will --start a war!

Over the decades, what was easily seen as a crazy perversion of morality has gained universal acceptance among people who otherwise are proud to support human rights. The Jewish rights of self-determination and to live in the land of their forefathers morphed from an admirable ideal into a virtual crime.

Read the whole thing.

PA settles with Jewish family for 1996 terror attack

From AP:

The Palestinian Authority has settled a federal lawsuit in Rhode Island over the shooting deaths 15 years ago of a couple returning home from a wedding in Israel, according to court papers filed Monday.

The documents don't reveal the terms of the settlement, and it's unclear how much, if any, money the Palestinian Authority offered to resolve the case. A federal judge in 2004 had entered a $116 million default judgment against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization for refusing to respond to the lawsuit, but that punishment was vacated as part of the settlement.

U.S. citizen Yaron Ungar and his pregnant wife, Efrat Ungar, were killed by gunmen from the Islamic militant group Hamas while returning from a wedding near Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem. Several Hamas members were convicted in the attacks.

The Ungars' relatives sued in Rhode Island, where their lawyer practices, under a federal statute that allows the estates of U.S. citizens killed by terrorist attacks overseas to recover damages.

Islamic Jihad is very upset at the PA for agreeing to a settlement. Sheikh Khader Habib called the agreement "rubbish" and is demanding that the PA apologize to the Palestinian Arabs for even considering payment. He called it "a stab in the heart of Palestinian struggle."

Interestingly, the victims were murdered by Hamas, not the Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades.

Notice also that this terror attack occurred while the Oslo "peace process" was in full swing. Somehow, Israel seems to have made itself safer when the "peace process" is moribund. Just one of the ways in which "peace" means something completely different in the Middle East than it does in English.

UPDATE: Here is what the complaint stated about the PA/PLO:

Plaintiffs allege that the PA and PLO: refused requests for the surrender of terrorist suspects, see id. ¶ 31; granted material and financial support to the families of members of Hamas who have been killed or captured while carrying out terrorist violence against Jewish civilians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, see id. ¶ 33; assisted Hamas and its members in avoiding apprehension and punishment, see id. ¶ 34; and solicited Hamas and the individual Hamas Defendants to commit the attack on the Ungars’ vehicle, see id. ¶¶ 17-18, 36. Plaintiffs also claim that the PA employed several members of Hamas and other terrorist groups suspected of or charged with the murder of U.S. citizens as police officers and/or security officials. See id. ¶ 32.

(h/t SoccerDad)

Gaddafi to join anti-government protests?

Arabic media is quoting Tunisian sources that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, facing massive anti-government protests called for Thursday, has decided to join the protests and be on the front lines against his own government!

It could be just a bizarre rumor, but nothing is really too bizarre for Gaddafi.

Hamas renames "Mubarak Hospital"

A hospital in the Gaza Strip, that was named after Hosni Mubarak since the 1990s, has been renamed "Liberation Hospital" by Hamas in solidarity with the Egyptian revolution.

It is funny to see how Hamas is now pretending to have always been against Mubarak - but they never changed the name of this hospital before.

Morning links

So many links, so little time....

The Israeli video I mentioned in yesterday's linkdump showing footage from the Mavi Marmara as well as more generally how the Israeli navy trains and works is now on YouTube. Still only in Hebrew, though.

One of the potential next leaders of Egypt wants to trash the peace agreement with Israel, and says that he would hold a referendum on the issue.

An Egyptian writes an op-ed saying pointing out what I did last Friday - Egypt is now under military rule and we don't yet know how this will play out.

Jeffrey Goldberg links to a Cliff May piece that quotes Time magazine analysis of Iran in 1979 that is as wrong as much of the analysis of Egypt probably is today. Goldberg also links to a good David Frum piece on how little we really know about Egypt:

80 million people in the country. 17 million in Cairo. 200,000 protesters in Tahrir Square. Only the ones who speak English appear on our TV.

When we talk about the reach of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian society – or conversely the appeal of democracy – we are talking about things about which nobody knows very much and probably nobody can know very much. One out of seven Egyptians cannot read. Half of them live on less than $2 a day. What do they think? What do they want? And it may be an equally urgent question to know: who leads, guides and controls what they think and want?

Of course, the Thomas Friedmans of the world have a vested interest in pretending to know the answers to these questions. They don't get paid to say "I dunno," and their parachuting into the middle of Tahrir Aquare to form an instanalysis gives them ridiculous credibility when they don't even know Arabic.

Which country will be next domino? Saudi Arabia? Iran, Bahrain, Yemen?

Louis Harovitz looks at The Fairness Police:

In the Western world, among the people who know the history of the twentieth century and follow current events, no one is objective about Jews. Some people try to be fair, but that is very different from being objective. To find objectivity, read Chinese scholars (not affiliated with the government) who specialize in the history of the Jews. You will almost feel as if you’ve entered an alien world. You will never see anything like the pervasively judgmental rhetoric of the Fairness Police. A Chinese scholar would have great difficulty discerning any fairness at all in the actions, rhetoric, or demeanor of the Fairness Police.

Finally, another Goldberg piece excerpts an interview with an IAEA official who says that even after Stuxnet, Iran is "somehow" steadily producing enriched uranium and hellbent on building their nuclear program.

And an interesting profile of a religious Jewish jazz musician.

(h/t Mr. B., SoccerDad, Silke)

Prisoner news you won't read anywhere

The number of Palestinian Arab prisoners in Israeli jails have gone down to 5,642 in January, according to B'Tselem.

This makes 25 consecutive months where the number of prisoners has been reduced.

AFP had a story this week that said that there are 7000 Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. There hasn't been that many since October of 2009.

Arab activists usually say "over 10,000." There were never that many prisoners. The high was a little less than 9500 in 2006.

Prisoners has been one of the major issues that the Palestinian Arabs bring up in negotiations, yet Israel is releasing them outside the context of peace talks.

If Israel would have held on to, say, 8000 prisoners between the beginning of 2009 and now, and then offered to release 2500 in exchange for Gilad Shalit, they might have gotten a deal. It is hard to imagine even Hamas telling Gazans that 2500 prisoners isn't enough.

But instead, Israel has released thousands of prisoners slowly, without fanfare - and without getting anything in return.

Palestine Papers: PLO doesn't consider attacks on Jews "terrorism"

In the Palestine Papers we find some draft language created by the US to implement the Tenet Understandings in 2002, especially in the areas of PA responsibility for security.

Here is one of the original paragraphs, and the PLO's suggested revision:

Even though this was written during the height of the Palestinian Arab suicide bombing spree in Israel, the PLO specifically excises any reference to terrorism.

Even then, the "moderate" PA could not admit to the US that the attacks against Israeli civilians were the textbook definition of terrorism.

Jews pray. Arabs freak.

Ma'an reports that the Al Aqsa Foundation is seething - again.

Apparently, Israel's Channel 10 had a video report showing Jews on the Temple Mount - their holiest site - praying!

The report showed shocking footage of Jews silently praying in different parts of the Temple Mount.

The bigots at Al Aqsa say that this is proof that the Jews are about to start doing Talmudic rituals on the site, and the report was created by the Israeli authorities in order to get people acclimated to the idea of Jews praying on the Har HaBayit.

Bokra.net published the press release as well and illustrated it with these shocking photos:

Of course, silent Jewish prayers in their holy sites are incompatible with peace.

Every knowledgeable Westerner knows that the only way for true peace is to rid the Jewish holy places of Jews. It's so obvious that to dispute that proves that you are an anti-peace fanatic.

Video: Tunisian march on synagogue

This video, of Tunisians protesting outside the Great Synagogue of Tunis, appears to have been taken within the past two weeks. I had not read about it in any media.

Jews in Tunisia cannot be feeling too secure.

(h/t Atlas Shrugs via True Israel, original Facebook posting here.)

Guardian admits spinning PalPapers quote - but where are the other corrections?

From Just Journalism:

On the first day of The Guardian’s Palestine papers expose, on Monday 24 January, when Palestinian negotiators were attacked as ‘weak’ and ‘craven’, a quote from then foreign minister Tzipi Livni appeared in a box, titled, ‘What they said…’. It read:

‘The Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that it is impossible, we already have the land and cannot create the state.’ Tzipi Livni, then Israeli foreign minister

However, the newspaper on Saturday acknowledged that the full quote shows that Livni was characterising the Palestinian perception of Israeli policies, and not the policies themselves. What she actually said was:

‘I understand the sentiments of the Palestinians when they see the settlements being built. The meaning from the Palestinian perspective is that Israel takes more land, that the Palestinian state will be impossible, the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that it is impossible, we already have the land and cannot create the state.’
By cutting the quote to exclude the first part of Tzipi Livni’s sentence, The Guardian portrayed the Israeli politician as brazenly admitting a policy of making a Palestinian state impossible.

That's great, but it is a drop in the bucket of Guardian misquotes from The Palestine Papers, a pattern that can hardly be accidental.

Here are some:

The Guardian headlined an article "Palestinian negotiators accept Jewish state, papers reveal." yet the papers said no such thing. Instead they said that the PLO has no problem with how Israel defines itself, a position they have said publicly, but they would never accept that definition. In fact, they would never accept that there is something called "the Jewish people."

In that same article, they claimed that "Israeli leaders pressed for the highly controversial transfer of some of their own Arab citizens into a future Palestinian state." In reality, the Israeli leaders were saying that they did not want to have villages divided into two states, and the villages should be in one state or another. Moreover, the Guardian misuses the word "transfer" which is usually meant to indicate moving people from their homes.

The same article mischaracterizes Livni a third time by writing

[I]n an extraordinary comment in November 2007, Livni – who briefly had a British arrest warrant issued against her in 2009 over alleged war crimes in Gaza – is recorded as saying: "I was the minister of justice. I am a lawyer ... But I am against law – international law in particular. Law in general."

She made clear that what might have seemed to be a joke was meant more seriously by using the point to argue against international law as one of the terms of reference for the talks and insisting that "Palestinians don't really need international law". The Palestinian negotiators protested about the claim.

In fact she was referring to putting a reference to international law in the Terms of Reference of a joint statement at Annapolis - not saying she was against international law altogether, as the Guardian implies. They also put the "Palestinians don't really need international law" as a Livni quote, when it was a paraphrase in the actual memo, again referring to the joint statement.

Three misquotes in one single article. Three examples of willful deception onthe part of those who read the actual memos. And The Guardian has yet to correct any of them.

Mideast unrest roundup (video)

From TheJournal.ie:

AUTHORITIES IN IRAN have fired tear gas at anti-establishment protesters gathering Tehran in a show of solidarity with protesters in Egypt.

“Severe clashes” between protesters and police have broken out in the capital and many have been arrested, reports the BBC. The main opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi has been placed under house arrest, according to his official website. Fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi has also been placed under house arrest.

Internet sites and satellite news channels have been blocked by the authorities, according to reports.

Iran has officially supported the Egyptian revolution and has dismissed the Tehran protests as “political” moves instigated by the opposition leaders.

Meanwhile, protesters and police have also clashed in the capital of Bahrain, Manama. At least 14 people have been injured in the conflict so far -with breaking up one protest with teargas and rubber bullets, according to Reuters.

The majority Shia population of the tiny country is ruled by the Sunni al-Khalifa family, and analysts have said that an uprising in Bahrain could spark similar protests amongst Shias in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

On a statement in Twitter, activists wrote: “February 14th is only the beginning. The road may be long and the rallies may continue for days and weeks, but if a people one day chooses life, then destiny will respond.”

Likewise, hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets of the Yemeni capital Sana’a – with rocks being thrown by police and protesters, according to Reuters.

The Sydney Morning Herald/AFP gives us a rundown of other emerging hotspots:

ALGERIA: Opposition leaders planned a second protest march in the capital despite a long-standing ban on demonstrations, and France called on Algiers to allow anti-government protests to take place freely and without violence.

BAHRAIN: Bahraini police used tear gas to disperse dozens of protesters in the eastern village of Nuwaidrat, as security forces deployed in the tiny Gulf kingdom following Facebook calls for a February 14 "revolt."

EGYPT: The new military regime called on workers to end a wave of strikes and civil disobedience that has threatened to paralyse the country in the wake of the fall of Hosni Mubarak's government.

IRAN: Thousands of defiant Iranian opposition supporters in Tehran staged what they said was a rally supporting Arab revolts as riot police fired tear gas and paint balls to disperse them, witnesses and opposition websites said.

IRAQ: Baghdad will on March 29 host its first annual Arab summit since the US-led of invasion of 2003, in the wake of popular uprisings that transformed the political landscape of the volatile but long autocratic region.

JORDAN: Justice Minister Hussein Mujalli joins a sit-in held by trade unions and describes a Jordanian soldier serving a life sentence for killing Israeli schoolgirls in 1997 as a "hero," demanding his release.

LIBYA: Facebook groups numbering several hundred members have called for demonstrations to mark a "day of rage" in Libya on February 17 modelled on similar protests in other Arab countries.

MOROCCO: Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi was to meet the opposition to discuss parliamentary polls, with the impact of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia weighing heavily on the talks.

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas reappointed Salam Fayyad as premier and tasked him with forming a new government after his cabinet resigned.

SYRIA: Woman blogger Tal al-Mallouhi, 19, gets five years in prison after being found guilty by a security court of "divulging information to a foreign country." Her blog focuses on the Palestinians, not Syrian politics.

TUNISIA: The country marked a month since the overthrow of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

YEMEN: Pro-democracy protesters clashed violently with police and supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, with clashes also reported in Taez south of the capital, where thousands of people joined anti-Saleh demonstrations.

UN sponsors anti-Israel photo exhibit in Madrid

From Iran's PressTV:

A photo exhibition called Broken Lives, Female Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Jails in the Spanish capital city of Madrid has portrayed the suffering of Palestinian women.

“Circulos de Bellas Artes” in collaboration with UN Women, formerly known as the United Nations Development Fund for Women, UNIFEM, inaugurated the World Premier exhibition in the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Sunday, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The exhibition unveils stories of current and former Palestinian female prisoners in Israel's detention and interrogation centers, which every Palestinian knows well.

In the past three years, UNIFEM has received funds from the Spanish government for the implementation of the project aiming to protect the human rights of Palestinian female detainees in Israeli prisons as well as former detainees and their families.

Italian photographer Ventura Formicone portrayed the stories of women through photographs and direct interviews.

The 36 photographs take the visitors through the whole process of violent arrest, interrogation and detention endured by these women.

The article is accurate - the exhibition really is sponsored by UN Women, formerly UNIFEM.

It is a context-free exhibition. Nowhere is there anything mentioned about why these women are in prison, what terror attacks they might have been a part of, or how many people might be dead because of their actions.

UN Women funded a project called "Protection of Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees in Israeli Prisons" which has an outdated webpage. But even on that webpage, it says that the number of Palestinian Arab women in Israeli prisons are a whopping 32. It is apparently associated with Addameer, the organization that routinely hugely exaggerates the number of people Israel has arrested.

This exhibit does not shed any light on the subject; instead it obscures it by implying that Israel wantonly puts women in jail for no reason. The assumption is that every female prisoner is innocent and deprived of her civil rights.

Which means that the UN is again slandering Israel.

Jordanian minister calls for release of murderer of Israeli schoolgirls

From NYT/AP:

Jordan's controversial justice minister has joined protesters demanding the release of a soldier who shot dead seven Israeli schoolgirls in 1997.

It is an unprecedented move by a Cabinet minister in Jordan, which maintains cordial ties with Israel under a peace treaty signed in 1994.

The minister, Hussein Mjali, was the lawyer for soldier Ahmed Daqamseh, who received a life sentence for killing the Israeli schoolgirls during an outing near Jordan's northwestern border with Israel.

Monday's protest in front of Mjali's office was organized by Daqamseh's family. Mjali joined the crowd, saying he was participating in his capacity as the soldier's former lawyer.

He said he joined the new Cabinet to see changes made, especially to freedom of expression.

In the past, the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan and president of the Arab Human Rights Organisation called for the release of the despicable murderer of children.

The murderer's mother has said

I am proud of my son, and I hold my head high. My son did a heroic deed and has pleased Allah and his own conscience. My son lifts my head and the head of the entire Arab and Islamic nation. I am proud of any Muslim who does what Ahmad did.... [My son] said: The only thing that I am angry about is the gun, which did not work properly. Otherwise I would have killed all of the passengers on the bus."

Assabeel quotes the minister Mjali as saying that Daqamseh is a "hero" and saying that he is only in jail because "we are afraid of the Jews."

Al Jazeera quotes him responding to the possibility that this could hurt relations with Israel, saying "if it was a Jew who killed Arabs, they would have built a statue in his honor instead of putting him in prison."

Jordanian newspaper Addustour doesn't mention that he killed schoolgirls. Rather it says that he "killed a number of Zionists in the region of Baqura after they mocked him and the Holy Prophet during his prayers."

(h/t Samson)

Aw, now we'll never know about Qatar's investment in Judea/Samaria

From Ma'an:

President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree on Sunday, banning local media and officials from abuse and slander of the emir of Qatar and the emirate's government.

The announcement came a day after the resignation of PLO negotiations chief Saeb Erekat, who had made several accusations against the both targets, the most recent of which included allegations that the nation had holdings in companies active in Israeli settlement construction.

PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo also recently spoke out against the emir, saying Al-Jazeera's release of negotiations documents in a series of programs dubbed "The Palestine Papers" was a political campaign directed by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Ath-Thani.

Demonstrations and government-aligned media outlets also launched accusations at Qatar, where the Al-Jazeera network is based, and its leader.

And I was so anxious for Erekat to release details on his accusations of Qatari investments in Jewish settlements! Now he can't do it because he's being muzzled by that proponent of democratic reforms and free speech, Mahmoud Abbas.