Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Report: Molotov cocktails hurled near Rachel's Tomb

Firas Press reports that "Palestinian youths" threw Molotov cocktails at soldiers near Rachel's Tomb this afternoon.

This must be part of that non-violent resistance that we hear so much about.

The world accepts Palestinian Arab violence as natural

José Ramos-Horta, President of East Timor, visited Israel recently and wrote about his trip in the Huffington Post.

The article is a mixed bag of good, bad and naïveté, and there is a lot to comment on. But one throwaway sentence within the following two paragraphs grabbed my attention:

Visiting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem, including walking along a "refugee" area, with the infamous concrete security wall towering above me, and shaking hands with a number of youth, I was struck by the relative calm in the area. As someone all too familiar with situations of subjugation and despair, I could sense that this is a very fragile peace. Violence will flare-up if the much promised and much delayed Palestinian State does not become a reality within the next two years. Nevertheless, at this particular point in time, Israel and Palestine (West Bank) form an oasis of tranquility in a region in turmoil.

Visiting the West Bank I envied the relative prosperity of the Palestinians and the progress being made in their State-building exercise. Palestinians in the West Bank are far ahead of most Sub-Sahara African States, and indeed well ahead of my own country, in economic well-being and the development of the State institutions.

He visits, he sees that things are doing remarkably well, that terrorism has gone way down and the West Bank economy is way up.

But he says, with certainty, that "Violence will flare-up if the much promised and much delayed Palestinian State does not become a reality within the next two years."

Why? Why would people whose lives are visibly improving want to go back again to a disastrous terror spree, one that cost them thousands of lives and tens of thousands of jobs?

Let's see if this similar sentence makes sense:

Violence will flare-up if Gilad Shalit is not released within the next year.

Sounds weird, doesn't it?

But it sounds perfectly normal to state, as a fact, that Palestinian Arabs will choose violence if they don't get their maximal goals - even after they have already rejected compromises that would have led to their state they supposedly want.

The only explanation is that the world expects Palestinian Arabs to be naturally violent.

To the current politically correct mindset, the relative peace we have now is considered an aberration, something counter to the Arab personality. Isn't it wonderful that Palestinian Arabs have managed to avoid sending suicide bombers into Israel for a few years? Let's all applaud their superhuman effort to temporarily overcome their normal, warmongering personalities for a few years! Give them a cookie! We know it is an act, and that if we stop treating them as "special" children they will of course go back to their wild, murderous ways. But if we keep throwing money and promises to pressure Israel at them, they'll stay in line for a couple more years, just enough time to give them their reward.

And if they erupt in their natural violence again, well, that must be Israel's fault.

(h/t Colonel R for the idea)

Abbas: "My threats to quit are my strength"

We've mentioned how many times Abbas has threatened to quit, and how the West cowers when he makes these threats.

He has now said fairly explicitly that he uses those threats as the main weapon for his continued intransigence.

In a press conference at the end of his three-day visit to England (one wonders why no leftist tried to have him arrested as a terrorist,) Abbas said,

I often ask myself, "Who are you to say no to the Americans when you are living on their assistance, as well as from European aid,"... but there is a reason that I am in a position of strength. I am not stuck to the chair [of the presidency,] and I can leave at any moment that I want; I will not nominate myself in the upcoming elections, and I will not sell out, I will not give up and I will not do something I am not convinced is right.

It is way past time to call his bluff.

The Guardian: "We bring you only the news you want to hear"

A great pickup by Just Journalism:

In an incredibly candid blog entry on media self-censorship by veteran Guardian journalist and staunch Israel critic Michael White, he confesses:
‘middle class ill-ease in going after stories about immigration, legal or otherwise, about welfare fraud or the less attractive tribal habits of the working class, which is more easily ignored altogether.’
By contrast, in, ‘Media self-censorship: not just a problem for Turkey,’ Israel is put forward as one of the archetypal ‘targets’ of The Guardian:
‘Toffs, including royal ones, Christians, especially popes, governments of Israel, and US Republicans are more straightforward targets.’
White, who has been at the publication for 30 years, also alleges that positive stories about Tony Blair are rarities despite other ‘tyrants’ being granted positive coverage:
‘Nor has it been easy to smuggle anything creditable about Tony Blair into the paper for several years now, though tyrants with more convincing leftwing credentials sometimes get the benefit of the doubt.’
In his final comments he implies that The Guardian – in common with other publications – has an overwhelming tendency to simply tell its readers what they want to hear, rather than produce journalism which might challenge their ingrained prejudices and preconceptions:
‘And remember, dear reader, that we are also striving much of the time to tell you what you’d rather know rather than challenge your prejudices and make you cross.
‘As the old saying goes, we are all guilty.’

Of course, those old prejudices were instilled by the same pseudo-journalists at The Guardian to begin with, so even in this surprising mea culpa, White does not take the full responsibility that his newspaper has for anti-Israel sentiment in England.

Danish minister sacked for doing what EVERY Arab country does (updated)

From AFP:

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said Tuesday he fired his integration minister over a scandal involving 36 young, stateless Palestinians who were wrongly denied citizenship.

"Birthe Roenn Hornbech is leaving her post as integration minister and church minister and thus withdraws from the government," he said in a statement, prompting a small government reshuffle.
The integration ministry, he said, failed to brief parliament in a timely manner on "36 stateless persons being wrongly denied Danish citizenship."

Danish media had recently accused the minister of knowing since 2008 that Danish immigration authorities were not respecting a UN convention which stipulates that stateless people born and raised in a country have the right to obtain citizenship there before they turn 21, as long as they are not convicted of any serious crimes.

But 36 Palestinians who were eligible to obtain Danish citizenship had their requests turned down.

Every single Arab country (with the partial exception of Jordan*) explicitly denies citizenship to all Palestinian Arabs born in their countries, in opposition to that same UN convention, which is the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It states in Article 7:

1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.

2. States Parties shall ensure the implementation of these rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations under the relevant international instruments in this field, in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.

Every Arab state has signed, ratified or acceded to this Convention. Yet they all ignore it, purposefully keeping Palestinian Arab children stateless.

Where is the world outcry over this denial of the human rights of every Palestinian Arab child in an Arab country?

UPDATE: Apparently, the Convention that she was sacked over was the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, not the Rights of the Child. (h/t Guan)

Article 1:

1. A Contracting State shall grant its nationality to a person born in its territory who would otherwise be stateless. Such nationality shall be granted:

(a) at birth, by operation of law, or

(b) upon an application being lodged with the appropriate authority, by or on behalf of the person concerned, in the manner prescribed by the national law. Subject to the provisions of paragraph 2 of this article, no such application may be rejected.

It is stronger than the Convention on the Rights of the Child in that it explicitly says that the child has a right to the host country's nationality, something not said explicitly in the Rights of the Child and possibly the loophole that Arab countries use, saying that Palestinian Arab children have the rights to "Palestinian" citizenship.

The Reduction of Statelessness convention is not ratified by any Arab country, but it is ratified by Denmark.

Jordan has been tightening up its rules on citizenship for Palestinian Arabs whose families originated in the West Bank, but it has never accepted the concept of naturalizing those from Gaza.

Galloway: Cast Lead comparable to World War II

Once again, beyond satire:

George Galloway has said Hamas are not tyrants and defended elections in Iran during a lecture about the fall of dictatorships.

Speaking to LSE students on Monday, the former Respect MP called Israel an “apartheid” state and compared scenes in Gaza after Operation Cast Lead to those in the Second World War.

He described Operation Cast Lead at the end of 2009 as a “savage assault on a captive people so ferocious that not since the Second World War are we seen anything like it.

He praised the Palestinian elections in 2006 which saw Hamas elected as the “only free and fair election” in the Arab world.

“Hamas won the only democratic election ever held in the Arab world so how they can be tyrants I really don’t know,” he said. “I am not in favour of Hamas but I am in favour of democracy.

“There are many things wrong with Iran. One thing they do have is elections. They elected a president that you or I might not have voted for but I am in no doubt that Ahmadinejad won the presidential election. He won it because he appeals to the poorest workers, peasants, the most religious sectors of the Iranian population.”

He denied giving money to Hamas despite video footage showing him handing bags of cash to leaders.

He was questioned about video footage during a Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza in 2009 where he is seen saying: “We carried a lot of cash here. We are giving you now 100 vehicles and all the contents. We are giving them to the elected government of Palestine. Here is the money. This is not charity. This is politics. The government of Palestine is the best people where this money is needed.”

But on Monday he said: “I did not give bags of cash to Hamas. I gave money, ambulances, wheelchairs, medicine, food, children’s clothes, teddy bears to the 1.6 million Palestinian people under siege in Gaza.”

A nice video for Israel Peace Week

Forwarded to me by the creator:

A Facebook call for a third intifada

Recently I mentioned that the Ma'an newspaper was taking tiny Facebook campaigns with fewer than a couple of hundred people and it was trying to make them sound much bigger and impressive. Ma'an is evidently trying to position Palestinian Arabs as being innovative in non-violent protests against Israel.

But there is another Facebook campaign that Ma'an has ignored...perhaps because it is not quite as non-violent as Ma'an prefers. Too bad, because this campaign already has over 44,000 members, and is adding them at a rate of a thousand an hour.

This campaign is to start a new intifada against Israel.

Sounds just like Martin Luther King, doesn't it?

Afternoon links

Eli Lake in TNR finds that the US does have a checkered diplomatic history of dealing with Islamists.

Gaddafi calls Qaradawi a "jurisprudent dervish." There's a celebrity death-match I'd love to see.

A Palestinian Arab child dies in Lebanon, because of Lebanese apartheid.

Palestinian TV on how the Jews love money. And grabbing land, of course.

Women might not yet have as many upper-management jobs as men in Israel, but Israel is way ahead of almost every other Western country in that regard.

Apartheid alert: The first female Bedouin in Israel to earn a doctorate.

An op-ed in Asharq Al Awsat looks at the dangers confronting the Arab world. Israel isn't mentioned once.

Israeligirl reminds us that the BDS movement that it is illegal for US companies to boycott friendly countries.

Is it possible for the UN Human Rights Council to be even more of a joke than it already is? Well, yes. Syria is running for a seat.

Now, this is politically incorrect - and funny. From a Carnival parade in Dusseldorf, Germany:

(h/t Nevet, Yerushalimey, Zvi, UN Watch, Serjew. Apologies for the missing hat tips.)

The map that lies - and one that doesn't

Anti-Israel (and now other*) organizations are fond of showing the following graphic on their websites:

This map is a lie.

The first panel has the biggest lie:

While I presume that the white sections are indeed the land that was privately owned by Jews, the land in green was not privately owned by Arabs.

Only a tiny percentage of land in Palestine was privately owned. The various categories of land ownership included:

Mulk: privately owned in the Western sense.

Miri: Land owned by the government (originally the Ottoman crown) and suitable for agricultural use. Individuals could purchase a deed to cultivate this land and pay a tithe to the government. Ownership could be transferred only with the approval of the state. Miri rights could be transferred to heirs, and the land could be sub-let to tenants. If the owner died without an heir or the land was not cultivated for three years, the land would revert to the state.

Mahlul: Uncultivated Miri lands that would revert to the state, in theory after three years.

Mawat (or Mewat): So-called “dead”, unreclaimed land. It constituted about 50 to 60% of the land in Palestine. It belonged to the government. ...If the land had been cultivated with permission, it would be registered, at least under the Mandate, free of charge.

By the early 1940s Jews owned about one third of Mulk land in Palestine and Arabs about two-thirds. The vast majority of the total land, however, belonged to the government, meaning that when the state of Israel was established, it became legally Israel's. (I believe that about 77% of the land was owned by the government, assuming 6 million dunams of private land as shown in this invaluable webpage on the topic from which I got much of this information.)

To say that the green areas were "Palestinian" land is simply a lie.

Now the next one:

While this is an accurate representation of the partition plan, it has nothing to do with land ownership. The entire purpose of this map is to make it appear that Israel has been grabbing Arab land consistently, to serve as a bridge between maps 1 and 3. What is not said, of course, is that Israel accepted the partition and the Arabs did not, so as a result Israel in 1949 looked like it does in map 3.

Map 3 is still a lie, however, because in no way was the green land "Palestinian" at that time. Gaza was administered by Egypt and the West Bank annexed by Jordan. No one at the time spoke about a Palestinian Arab state on the areas controlled by Arab states - only in Israel.

In other words, this progression of maps is a series of lies meant to push a bigger lie, and it is tragic that a lot of people believe them to be the truth.

Here is a small attempt on my side to show a more accurate picture of Israel's giving land it controlled up for peace since 1967:

This map shows that Israel gave up control of the Sinai, Gaza, Southern Lebanon and much of the West Bank over the years. Rather than falsely accusing Israel as a land-grabbing rogue state, it accurately shows Israel as perhaps the only state in history that has voluntarily given up more than two-thirds of the areas it controls in exchange for nothing more than a paper agreement - or sometimes not even that. All at the risk of serious security concerns for her people, no less.

This is all because Israel wants, desperately, to live in real peace with her neighbors. This desire is not reciprocated by those neighbors, unfortunately.

The real map shows the truth of Israel's incredible concessions in the often vain hope for peace.

*I saw this one at a Colin Firth fan-site, as he is planning to star in a movie about The Stern Gang.

Roger Cohen's Hypocrisy (NewsRealBlog)

My latest article in NewsRealBlog takes apart Roger Cohen's self-righteous piece in yesterday's New York Times.

See how wise Cohen is? Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are the good, democratic choice for the Middle East! Hezbollah, which has had a crucial role in turning Lebanon from a cosmopolitan and tolerant society into an Iranian satellite state armed to the teeth against Israel, is the model for all Arab states. Islamist Hamas, which chose to shoot rockets into Israeli communities after Israel withdrew every single resident and soldier, should be propped up with Western gifts and recognition. Arabs need to learn about free and fair elections from Iran. Hateful rhetoric against Jews and Israel are mere words, but Roger Cohen enjoying coffee with Islamic fundamentalists prove they are really the good guys. As he wrote, “Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran – its sophistication and culture – than all the inflammatory rhetoric.”

Cohen’s thinking is simple: Western-backed authoritarian governments=bad. Iranian-backed Islamist authoritarian governments=good.

Read the whole thing.

A quote from the Arab mayor of Jerusalem, 1899 (updated)

I came across this partial quote by Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, the mayor of Jerusalem, in 1899: "Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine? Good Lord, historically it is really your country."

By doing a little research, and playing some games with Google Books snippet view, I was able to find the full quote:

The idea itself is natural, fine and just. Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine? Good Lord, historically it is really your country. What a wonderful spectacle that will be when a people as resourceful as the Jews will once again be an independent nation, honored and complacent, able to make its contribution to needy humanity in the field of morals, as in the past.

He wrote this in a letter to Zadok Kahn, the chief rabbi of France.

When Benny Morris quotes it in One state, two states: resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict, he distinguishes this quote as an exception to the Palestinian Arab denial of Jewish claims that rose concurrently with the idea of Palestinian Arab nationalism. It is not an exception, however, since the quote pre-dates popular Palestinian Arab nationalism by at least a couple of decades.

But Morris does make a good point:

An apt indication of this denial was provided by the Jerusalem Christian Arab educator Khabil al-Sakakini, when he fulminated in 1936 that the British Mandate's new radio station referred to the country in Hebrew as "eretz yisrael" (the Land of Israel), "If Palestine [falastin] is eretz yisrael, then we, the Arabs, are but passing strangers, and there is nothing for or to do but to emigrate," al-Sakakini jotted down in his diary.

In other words, denial of history is an integral part of Palestinian Arab nationalism. The movement is, to a great extent, predicated on a very basic lie.

Arabs like Khalidi knew Jewish history in the Land of Israel very well, but it became virtually forbidden to acknowledge this history a mere three decades later, because that very fact helps to undermine the entire Palestinian Arab national enterprise.

Yet the British did not have that sensitivity, as the initials for Eretz Yisrael could be seen in Mandate-era coins and stamps in Hebrew even before Sakakini noticed it:

UPDATE: Elder of Lobby tracked a more complete version of the Khalidi quote, from Morris' "Righteous Victims," showing that the mayor was hardly happy about the prospect of Zionism:

"It is necessary, therefore, for the peace of the Jews in [the Ottoman Empire] that the Zionist Movement ... stop.... Good Lord, the world is vast enough, there are still uninhabited countries where one could settle millions of poor Jews who may perhaps become happy there and one day constitute a nation.... In the name of God, let Palestine be left in peace."

Abbas hints, yet again, at resigning

From Ma'an:

President Mahmoud Abbas hinted Tuesday that he would resign if an independent Palestinian state was not established by September.

Abbas' remarks came at a joint press conference with British Foreign Minister William Hague in London.

Ma'an doesn't mention that this is at least the 16th time that Abbas has threatened to resign.

Must be a nice job where you can threaten to resign without any intent to actually do it...and no one calls you on it.

Two important articles from Commentary

From Evelyn Gordon:

In an interview in today’s Wall Street Journal, Ehud Barak announced that Israel might ask Washington for another $20 billion in aid due to the unrest now sweeping the region. As an Israeli, I’m cringing in shame.
The U.S. currently faces a massive deficit that threatens the country’s very future, and Congress is slashing ruthlessly in an effort to curb it. Almost nothing has been spared the ax — with one glaring exception: a sweeping majority of Congress still opposes any cut to the annual $3 billion in American aid to Israel, because at a time when Israel is facing an unprecedented international delegitimization campaign, Congress doesn’t want to do anything that might imply faltering support for America’s longtime ally.
It’s an extraordinarily generous gesture, and as I’ve written elsewhere, the only proper response would be for Netanyahu to do what he did during his first term as prime minister 15 years ago: announce a phased, multi-year cutback in aid at a joint session of Congress. Precisely because it is such a tangible expression of American support, American aid sends an important message to Israel’s enemies; thus, eliminating it altogether might be unwise. But Israel’s economy is certainly strong enough to cope with a cutback, and if it were an Israeli initiative, it wouldn’t imply faltering American support. On the contrary, it would strengthen the relationship by showing that it’s not a one-way street, that Israel is also sensitive to America’s needs.
Instead, as if he were blind, deaf, and dumb to everything that’s happened in America over the past few years, Barak declared that he wants to seek an increase in aid. As if America were nothing but a cash cow, with no urgent monetary needs of its own. This is a public-relations disaster, one guaranteed to alienate even Israel’s strongest supporters in Congress unless Netanyahu makes it immediately and unequivocally clear that his defense minister’s proposal is unacceptable.
But it’s also a strategic disaster.

And from Rich Richman:

[I]n July 1977, when Zbigniew Brzezinski presented Begin with a draft statement regarding the just-concluded U.S.-Israel meeting[,] Begin told Brzezinski that the draft was acceptable — “except for two sentences.” Brzezinski asked what they were:

“Please delete ‘The United States affirms Israel’s inherent right to exist.’”

“Why so?”

“Because the United States’ affirmation of Israel’s right to exist is not a favor, nor is it a negotiable concession. I shall not negotiate my existence with anybody, and I need nobody’s affirmation of it.”

Brzezinski’s expression was one of surprise. “But to the best of my knowledge every Israeli prime minister has asked for such a pledge.”

“I sincerely appreciate the president’s sentiment,” said Begin, “but our Hebrew Bible made that pledge and established our right over our land millennia ago. Never, throughout the centuries, did we ever abandon or forfeit that right. Therefore, it would be incompatible with my responsibilities as prime minister of Israel were I not to ask you to erase this sentence.” And then, without pause, “Please delete, too, the language regarding the commitment to Israel’s survival.”

“And in what sense do you find that objectionable?”

“In the sense that we, the Jewish people alone, are responsible for our country’s survival, no one else.”

Read them both, now.