Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 18, 2011

Palestinian Arab unions warn of a strike if they don't get paid

Earlier this month, the PA announced that it could only pay its employees half their salaries because of a budget shortfall, especially since Arab countries refused to pay their pledges to the welfare statelet.

Now the unions are getting restless, setting a deadline of July 26th for the PA government to explain what is going on and when they can expect to get paid. If not, they are threatening an "open-ended strike."

The PA's debt is now at about $2 billion.

Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad says that the government had been borrowing from local banks to pay salaries, but the monthly deficit of $30 million is too much and the banks are no longer lending.

If the PA workers want better jobs, more of them should seek work in the industrial zones and the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria. The salaries are higher and the jobs are more stable!

Scandal: Media hides damning poll that proves PalArab intransigence

As I predicted, the mainstream media has all but ignored the poll that the Jerusalem Post reported on last week that shows that most Palestinian Arabs want to destroy Israel - using the "two state solution" as a first stage towards that goal. The poll also denies Jewish history and shows that 92% are against even sharing Jerusalem as the capital of two states.

The intransigence is hard to miss in this survey - but the few times that the non-Zionist media mentions the poll, it downplayed or ignored the major results altogether.

Ha'aretz, while it mentioned the results briefly, buried the poll in the end of a story about how the Palestinian Arabs do not want a new intifada.

The Guardian's Harriet Sherwood, also at the very end of a longer article, purposefully ignored the parts of the poll that show that everything she reports is wrong, and instead reported it this way:

A recent opinion survey carried out in Gaza and the West Bank by the respected US pollster Stanley Greenberg found that at the top of the priority list for Palestinians were jobs, healthcare, water shortages and education. Mass protests against Israel, and even pursuing peace negotiations, came way down. Asked to choose, two-thirds favoured diplomatic engagement with Israel over violence.

Time magazine's Karl Vick, in a blog entry, mentioned one of the unpalatable results but did all he could to minimize it:

But by the same 2 to 1 margin they also oppose the two-state solution that's been the stated goal of negotiations. Most prefer ending up with a single state, in which Palestinians presumably would outnumber Jewish Israelis. The poll numbers shift some (to 44 percent positive) when the question becomes whether they "will accept a two-state solution."

Which is of course still a majority against a two state solution. But that is not his focus:

The most striking finding, though, was Palestinians' focus on daily life. Job creation was cited by 83 percent of West Bank residents asked what Abbas should make his top two priorities, followed (at 36 percent) by expansion of health care services and ending chronic water shortages.

AFP also reported on the poll, although practically no news outlets reproduced their article. Their version is equally guilty of hiding the truth, however, completely ignoring the parts about destroying Israel and highlighting the economic issues.

Outside of right-wing and explicitly Zionist news media (Commentary, a New York Post blog, Hot Air) these were the only mentions of this survey I could find.

The mentions by Time and The Guardian show that the mainstream media is quite aware that the poll exists and what it says. They read the Jerusalem Post. But it proves that years of their lazy assumptions, their self-righteous op-eds, and their insufferable smugness at pretending to be Middle East experts are all completely wrong - and they cannot abide reporting any facts that contradict their cherished beliefs.

This is more than media bias. This is a scandal.

The Israel Project should release the raw poll results tomorrow, from what I hear. It will be most interesting to see how the media reacts to, or ignores, the full findings.

(h/t Kramerica, CAMERA)

Morning links (updated)

Does the anti-boycott law harm free speech?

500 Arabs studying in Ariel University, insist there is no racism there.

Benny Morris effectively responds to Efraim Karsh's latest criticisms of him.

CNN looks at what might be a Jewish city from King David's time.

Spain's former PM: "The unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, and its international recognition, would be a huge mistake."

A Norwegian historian says in an interviews that Americans and Jews have a "demonic restlessness which once drove the Europeans...It is the Jews who pick up the crusader’s sword and point it towards the east." The reporter doesn't challenge him.

Anti-Israel MK Zoabi is banned from Knesset debates because of her participation on the floptilla. (Correction: Mostly because of her kicking a member of Knesset security.)

(h/t Zach N., sophie, Kramerica)

MJ Rosenberg claims no one is trying to delegitimize Israel. Ha!

An op-ed by MJ Rosenberg in the LA Times:

Israel can't be delegitimized, and no one is trying to do so. But the idea does serve the purpose of diverting attention from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Suddenly, all the major pro-Israel organizations are anguishing about "delegitimization." Those who criticize Israeli policies are accused of trying to delegitimize Israel, which supposedly means denying Israel's right to exist.

The concept of delegitimization has been used as a weapon against Israel's critics at least as far back as 1975, when then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan accused the international body of delegitimizing Israel by passing a "Zionism is racism " resolution. That may have been the last time the term was used accurately.

Is this guy serious? What does he think the entire purpose of the BDS movement is, if not to delegitimize Israel? What exactly doesn't he understand about the slogans being shouted outside the Ahava store just this weekend, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"? (There is also nothing "sudden" about it, as he admits himself - the term has been around since at least 1975 and the concepts since 1948.)

Maybe Rosenberg needs to read an actual article, published in the mainstream pro-PalArab media, that says explicitly "our aim is to delegitimize Israel." Would that convince him?

Luckily, that exact article was published only this past week in the Uprooted Palestinians site, the Palestine Free Voice site, the far left MWC News and the French Palestine-Solidarite site, among others. It says:

The progressive movement of de-legitimization of the colonial and racist Israel has spread throughout the world. International conferences, a Durban (2), international forums, some commissions of the United Nations itself have also contributed to the change. People around the world claim more and more solidarity with the resistance and has organized to block the roads in their own countries, boycott of Israeli made goods and sanctions against representatives of the Zionist entity, including arrest warrants of its war criminals. And the proliferation of the Zionist entity in media bypasses the media subject to Zionist lobbies and disseminates information and anti-Zionist analysis.

This is not a Zionist site claiming that the so-called progressive movement is working to delegitimize Israel - but the "progressives" themselves!

Lawrence Davidson at Redress.cc put his own spin on this, only two weeks ago, in response to another Rosenberg piece:

There is a growing, world-wide movement of civil society seeking the isolation of Israel at all levels. This is the same strategy that brought change to apartheid South Africa. And, towards the growth of this movement, intellectual debate is very useful and important. It is no accident that the Zionists point to those who advocate boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel as the number one enemies within their category of delegitimizers. I think they know, or at least sense, that the BDS movement is the very best long-term strategy for those who wish to force Israel to rid itself of what makes it truly illegitimate – its Zionist ideology.

Sounds a lot like the "Zionism is racism" argument that Rosenberg admits was an attempt to delegitimize Israel!

These are only two recent examples. For Rosenberg to argue that the "pro-Palestinian' movement represented by the likes of the late Vittorio Arrigoni or George Galloway do not do everything they can to de-legitimize Israel is beyond absurd. In fact, every major Palestinian Arab group worldwide insists on the "right to return" - what is that if not an effort to delegitimize Zionism and the very reason for Israel's existence?

There is also the small matter of Iran and its satellites in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. They make it pretty clear that they will never accept the state of Israel in any form.

Then again, he continues to push lies himself:

The Palestinians are not, after all, seeking statehood in Israeli territory but in territory that the whole world, including Israel, recognizes as having been occupied by Israel only after the 1967 war. Rather than seeking Israel's elimination, the Palestinians who intend to go to the United Nations are seeking establishment of a state alongside Israel.

Yet the poll of Palestinian Arabs that was publicized last week shows that 66% of Palestinian Arabs say that the "two state solution" is only meant to be a stage on the way to - you guessed it - destroying Israel. Not a poll of Hamas members, but of Palestinian Arabs who already live in the areas of British Mandate Palestine as a whole. (And I would bet that the Arabs of Palestinian descent who live in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere would be even less accepting of a two-state solution.)

And these wonderful moderates that Rosenberg is praising for being willing to accept a state in the territories occupied by Jordan and Egypt from 1948-1967 are still insisting, today, on the same "right to return" meant to destroy Israel.

The truth is completely different from how Rosenberg is painting it.

It is true that Israel is not going anywhere, and that there is no short-term existential danger from BDS or flotillas or Iran. But it is also true that the delegitimization campaign has been effective at making Israel look like a rogue state, and exaggerating its perceived crimes way out of proportion to reality and to use that twisted view of reality to add more ammunition against Israel's very existence - from NGOs, from "non-aligned" nations, and from the entire Muslim world. The war against Israel is a long-term battle, designed to isolate and weaken it to the point where it will eventually be destroyed - militarily, demographically, or otherwise.

And Rosenberg's writings, whether he intends to or not, helps work towards that goal.

Maybe that is why he writes such nonsense - because he doesn't want to admit his part in the entire worldwide campaign to de-legitimize and ultimately replace Israel with another Arab state (or two.)

Ridiculous Daf Yomi question

If you shecht with a light saber, it the animal kosher?

Discuss.

Finally, a flotilla to support Syria. (Assad's Syria, that is.)

From YNet:

Some 400 Lebanese women arrived in Syria Sunday to show solidarity with the protesters – the pro-government protesters, that is. They women did not come to to side with the activists calling for reform and democracy, but rather to support Bashar Assad's regime.

The women, who intended to set sail from Lebanon to the Gaza Strip aboard the Miriam ship in June 2010 but were eventually barred from doing so, chose a more easily accessible destination this time – Damascus. They travelled overland to stand with Assad against "the schemes being plotted against him."

At 7 am, the women boarded eight buses and set out from Beirut's Gallery Hotel towards the Beqaa Valley.

Samar Al-Hajj, a spokeswoman for the group, expressed contentment with the initiative's progress.

"The Lebanese and Syrian security forces have facilitated the convoy's passage at the border, and congratulated it," she said in an interview with the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar television station. "Upon arriving on Syrian land, they welcomed us in a moving manner. We, Miriam's women, cry only on happy occasions, and we did shed tears of happiness.

"We came to Syria to tell the truth, because it is the land of truth and resistance," Al-Hajj said. "We came to stop the attempts to isolate Syria, and to remove the barriers of fear inseminated by those worried about the people and the regime's strength."

Certainly we will be seeing statements from the Free Gaza movement, USTOGAZA and Viva Palestina distancing themselves from these pro-Palestinian Arab, pro-Syrian regime activists. After all, as they never tire of telling us, they are purely interested in non-violence, and democracy, and equal rights, and international law, and having some of their own supporting a despotic, brutal regime would be way too hypocritical for them to even be able to live with themselves.

(h/t Kramerica)

Hezbollah now has SCUDs and other strategic weapons

From Israel Hayom:

The massive civilian uprising in Syria has not stopped Syrian President Bashar Assad from transferring ballistic missiles from storage sites in Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the London Times reported Friday. The report says that despite the growing protests sweeping Syrian cities, the transfers have in fact increased in frequency in recent weeks.

Last year, Syria sent Hezbollah two Scud D missiles, each with the ability to deliver a payload of one metric ton. Hezbollah has received eight more such rockets since the beginning of this year, The Times reported. Each Scud D has a range of 700 kilometers, enabling Hezbollah to target any point in Israel and Jordan, as well as some parts of Turkey.

Hezbollah has also armed itself with M-600 missiles, which are based on the Fatah 110 model made by Iran. The M-600 is capable of hitting targets at a range of 250 kilometers, with a 500 kg payload. 　

“There is a new reality now,” The Times said. “This is the first time a terrorist organization has acquired weapons considered ‘strategic’. Until now, only the armed forces of countries were in possession of such weapons.”

This is a very big deal.

But it is likely that the idea didn't come from Damascus but from Tehran. Assad doesn't have much incentive from his perspective to transfer weapons to Hezbollah now, but Iran wants to hedge its bets in the region as Assad's regime may be in real trouble from the increasing uprisings.

And now that Hezbollah effectively controls Lebanon, it makes sense that Iran will start arming it in a manner of arming a state.

Why the increase in rockets now?

Ha'aretz' Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff have a theory as to why there has been an uptick in rocket attacks over the past week:

At the start of May, Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation agreement in Cairo. Since then, despite a declaration of goodwill on both sides, almost nothing has happened to move this forward.

The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority has not violated its security arrangements with Israel in the West Bank. As already stated, the fire of the last two weeks has been from smaller factions, among them Hamas deserters and groups taking their cues from Al-Qaida. It is possible that Hamas will not this time stick its head above the parapet to rein in the fire, and the “motivational factor” is the power struggle with Fatah and Hamas’ desire to return to the center stage regarding the conflict with Israel.

In other words, this an attempt to show Fatah that without any progress on a comprise agreement, Hamas is capable of making trouble with Israel on the diplomatic front, even before the PA goes to the United Nations in September with its plan for recognition of a Palestinian state.

This makes sense.

(h/t Folderol)

A buyer's guide to products of Judea and Samaria. From Meretz.

Israel's tiny far-left party Meretz has published a list of products they would like to boycott because they are produced by Jewish-owned companies on what they consider the wrong side of a mythical line that existed for 19 years out of the past 3000.

So it is only fair that I reproduce their list of these politically incorrect Israeli companies that sell their products in the US. I'm sure Meretz would approve.

Ahava - Manufactures cosmetic products using minerals from the Dead Sea.

SodaStream (The Soda Club Group) - Manufactures and distributes home carbonating devices and flavoringsfor soft drinks.

Ahdut Factory for Tehina Halva and Sweets - Achdut is a factory manufacturing tahini, halva and sweets. Brand name Achva.

Amnon and Tamar - Produce herbal seasonings and spices.

Beigel and Beigel - A baked goods' company, manufacturing pastries, pretzels and mini cracker snacks.

Maya Foods, The Jerusalem Spice of Life - Manufactures, packs and markets food products, including spices, sweets, rice and legumes. Brand names: Maya, Super Class, and Shufersal.

Shalgal (Food) - Manufacture frozen dough cakes, pies and pastries. The company manufactures products for General Mills (Pillsbury).

Shamir Salads - Manufacture and distribute pre-packaged chilled salads, dips and spreads.

Gat Shomron Winery - The winery produced kosher wines since 2003.

Givon Winery - The winery, founded in 2001, It produces around 5,000 bottles of kosher wines a year, and markets wines to the US online.

Gush Etzion Winery - Wines are available in the USA through "Royal Wines"

Hacormim Vineyard - The winery manufactures wines and fruit liquers.

Livni Winery - Wines are available directly though the winery's own website.

Noah/Hevron Heights Winery. Labels: Noah, Gedeon, La Villa, Village Superior, Jerusalem Heights, and Makhpelah Special Reserve.

Psagot Winery - The wines are marketed by Royal Wine Corp. and DFA - Duty Free of America.

Tura Estate Winery - The wines are available in the US - sold on Only Kosher Wine.com

On a similar note, the Muqata notes:

In response to the anti-boycott law, Peace Now went all out and declared a boycott on products from Judea and Samaria. They printed up fancy ads listing the top companies to boycott. Other leftists went around putting stickers on “Settler” products in stores.

The number one company on the list “Meshek Achiya” a producer of fine olive oil reported a record jump in sales in Israel this week. The same for Psagot Winery and Tekoa Farms. In fact, all the companies that the Left targeted reported a jump in sales.

Why? Because the average Israeli wanted to show their support to the Settler enterprise and against boycotts of Israel and against the Left, and the Left told them who best to buy from to show that support.

He also notes how these boycotts would end up hurting Arabs, and quotes an astute observation:

Oh, and here’s a question for you (as asked in Makor Rishon).

If Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli citizen currently living over the Green Line (making him a Settler) were to open a factory, would the Left call for its boycott too? Or are their calls to boycott actually racist and only targeting Jews?

BDS Fail - at new Gaza supermarket (updated with Chanukah gelt!)

The flotilla still has one remaining vessel:

One of the boats that was scheduled to take part in the Gaza-bound flotilla last week has set sail to Egypt from Greece, the Greek coastguard announced on Saturday. According to the coastguard, the Dignite/Al Karama left the tiny Greek island of Kastellorizo for the Egyptian port of Alexandria.

But did the flotidiots think ahead to ensure that they had enough food for the return journey from Gaza?

Lucky for them, their trip was delayed, because on Friday a new supermarket opened in Gaza that would be perfect for ensuring that they don't suffer the starvation that they claim Gazans are in danger of.

Introducing: Metro Market, conveniently located on Al Shuhada Street in Gaza City:

Actually, if they do visit Metro, they would be forced to protest the fact that it is not adhering to BDS because it sells so many Israeli products - and even features them prominently:

It's a terrible world when Israel boycotters can't even convince stores in Gaza to stop selling Israeli goods.

Original photos here and here. There are lots of them.

(h/t Gaia K)

UPDATE: I had missed this great one: milk chocolate Chanukah coins!

UPDATE 2: My response the the laughable +972 "rebuttal" is here.

Arabs have a problem with reading comprehension

A couple of days ago, a rumor spread throughout the Arab world that UNESCO had declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel on its website.

And the condemnations were fast and furious.

The PLO condemned UNESCO. So did the Muslim Brotherhood. And Hamas. And the Arab League. And Lebanese politicians. And a conference in Cairo.

Yet not one of these condemners could actually point to a UNESCO web page that said anything of the sort.

(UNESCO has a lot of documents on its site, and a couple of them quote Israeli sources about Jerusalem, but I cannot find any UNESCO declaration of Jerusalem being the capital of Israel.)

Keep in mind that much of Jerusalem is within the Green Line so there is really no logical reason why the world should not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. It is pure hypocrisy to say that Jerusalem is "Palestine's" capital but denying that it is Israel's capital, when it unquestionably is - nations determine their capital cities, not the world community or that nation's enemies.

Nevertheless, UNESCO was compelled to issue a clarification:

UNESCO wishes to reiterate that, contrary to recent allegations, there has been no change in UNESCO’s position on Jerusalem.

The Old City of Jerusalem is inscribed on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger. UNESCO continues to work to ensure respect for the outstanding universal value of the cultural heritage of the Old City of Jerusalem. This position is reflected on UNESCO’s official website (www.unesco.org). In line with relevant UN resolutions, East Jerusalem remains part of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the status of Jerusalem must be resolved in permanent status negotiations.

The Arab world, however, manages to misunderstand UNESCO's statement as well.

Ma'an's headline says "UN: Jerusalem is part of occupied territories." Not "East Jerusalem," but "Jerusalem."

Egypt.com says "According to the UN, UNESCO said Jerusalem is still a part of occupied Palestine. " So does Youm7.

So Arabs swallowed an unverified rumor without doing the smallest amount of checking, forcing UNESCO to capitulate to their demands, which they then misinterpret again.

When will anything in the Middle East be based on reality rather than Arab hysteria?

The suffocating Egyptian siege of Gaza continues

From Ma'an:

Egyptian border guards thwarted an attempt to smuggle more than 20 tons of cement into Gaza via tunnels along the border, security sources told Ma'an.

Palestinian and Egyptian smugglers were involved in the effort to bring large amounts of building materials into the besieged enclave, they added. The smugglers fled the scene.

Forces raided the area and seized 430 bags of cement, the security officials said. The cement will be sold at auction and the tunnel will be blocked by stones, they added.

Since this was Egypt's decision alone, and since there is nothing blocking cement from entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing, one can only conclude that Egypt is imposing a siege on Gaza.

Just waiting for the protests in front of Egyptian embassies in Europe. And, of course, for the enraged op-eds in the Arab media against Egypt for imposing a collective punishment on poor Gazans. Not to mention the UN condemnations.

Weekend links and snippets

UNSC gets 'devastating briefing' about Syrian nuke plant

Australia's former prime minister Kevin Rudd makes a statement by eating at Max Brenner's, saying "I went there deliberately to make a point and that is I don't think in 21st century Australia there is a place for the attempted boycott of a Jewish business."

Elliott Abrams:

The argument is that if Israel is a “Jewish state” it will certainly, unavoidably, necessarily discriminate against non-Jews. The problem with this debating point is that those who use it apply it only to Israel; no one ever voices any concern about states based on Islam and discriminating in favor of Muslims....the usual arguments against the acknowledgement of Israel as a Jewish state are hypocritical and specious. Every Arab state is far more Islamic than the “Jewish state” of Israel is Jewish; to take one example, Israel imposes no religious test for the offices of president or prime minister. Moreover, the treatment of religious minorities is far better than in the Muslim states, as the flat ban on building even a single church in Saudi Arabia and the repeated violence against Christians in Egypt and Pakistan remind us. If some secular professor maintains that all states should be devoid of religious identity, fair enough; that is a principled argument. But when Arab political leaders say they will never acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state, that isn’t an argument at all. It is a reminder of their continuing refusal to make peace with the Jewish state and with the very idea that the Jews can have a state in what they view as the Dar al-Islam.

Iran's Press TV brings us The International Festival of Resistance Art in Gaza!

A Jordanian cartoon about South Sudan - after all, it is a Zionist/imperialist initiative!

Glenn Beck says, "If someone has a problem with the Jews – they got a problem with me."

A Tale of Two Nation-States: Israel and Greece, by Diana Muir Appelbaum:

Like Israel, modern Greece was created by romantic nationalists able first to imagine, and then to achieve, independence because of the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire. Both countries were populated by victims of vicious and sometimes genocidal ethnic cleansings....This, then, is the deep commonality that prime ministers Papandreou and Netanyahu have discovered and set out to cultivate: the idea that in a large and diverse world, the right to exist of two small, distinctive nation states, one Greek and one Jewish, is eminently worth defending.

(h/t Ian, CHA, Israel Muse)

Roger Cohen being an idiot, again [David G]

From David G, with a couple of notes from me:

For those of you keeping score at home, the competition for the coveted title of "worst columnist writing about the Middle East for the New York Times," got a little tighter today. Roger Cohen's latest entry is A Year of Waste. Here's how he starts:

Almost a year ago, President Obama declared to the United Nations General Assembly: “When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations — an independent sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.” It’s been a wasted year.

Just about everywhere in the Middle East there has been movement — stirring, remarkable, uneven — as the region breaks old chains of despotism and seeks its slice of the modern world. But Palestinians and Israelis remain stuck in their sterile and competitive narratives of victimhood, determined, it seems, to ensure past rancor defeats promise.

As with others at the Times, there's no right or wrong here, only "competitive narratives of victimhood.".

But here's a question. What's the most significant word in the following paragraph?

As usual, there’s plenty of blame to spread around. Obama had one of his worst moments last September when he brought the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the White House to announce renewed talks, only for them to unravel as Israel refused to extend a moratorium on settlement expansion. Now, when the United States says to the Palestinians — “Trust us, come to the table, we can deliver” — they scoff.

The answer is "extend." President Obama did pressure Israel into agreeing to a 10 month freeze and for 9 of those months the Palestinians didn't deign to negotiate. At the end they sat down with the Israelis a few times and then demanded an extension to continue. So who failed? Obama pressured Israel who acceded and the Palestinians refused to negotiate. I give Cohen credit for giving readers a hint of the truth, but that makes his dishonesty all the more obvious.

Fayyad’s state building in the West Bank — schools and roads and institutions and security forces — led the World Bank to declare last year that the Palestinian Authority was ready for a state “at any point in the near future.” But Fayyad never got recognition from Israel for his achievements: Terrorist violence is down 96 percent in the West Bank in the past five years.
Israel snubbed a viable partner — criminal waste.

I don't know that Fayyad never got recognition from Israel for his accomplishments; what's clear is that he's never gotten credit from his own people. The reduced terrorist violence that Cohen cites (and I believe that he's wrong about it being 5 years) is not mainly due to the Palestinian police, but to the Israeli efforts in Defensive Shield as well as the building of the security fence. Not that I'd expect Cohen to give Israel any credit, but he's overselling Fayyad here. Additionally given Abbas's recent complaint about not being able to pay salaries, the limitations of what Fayyad has done are clear. He has created a viable state, perhaps, but one that is too dependent upon foreign aid and not enough on Palestinian enterprise.

[Cohen is right about the 5 years, actually. The biggest drop in terror attacks came during the autumn of 2006. However, Fayyad didn't become prime minister until June 2007, so crediting him for the bulk of reduction in terror is wrong. - EoZ]

Abbas also decided to sign a reconciliation agreement with Hamas that was not thought through. It has since proved stillborn because Hamas will not accept Abbas’s insistence that Fayyad remain as prime minister. Instead, Abbas should have negotiated a truce pending elections in a year that would allow Palestinians to decide who should represent them. An empty reconciliation with Hamas only gave ammunition to Netanyahu, incensed Congress and embarrassed Fayyad.

"[G]ave ammunition to Netanyahu?" No, it was blatant rejection of the premises of the peace process. And of course it shows that Abbas doesn't much appreciate Fayyad either. (Though, in his favor he does seem to be standing behind Fayyad, so the deal isn't likely to endure.)

The Israeli insistence on up-front recognition from the Palestinians of Israel as a “Jewish state” is absurd — a powerful indication of growing Israeli insecurities, isolation and intolerance. There was no such insistence a decade ago.

States get recognized, not their nature, and the Palestine Liberation Organization has recognized Israel’s right to “exist in peace and security.” Palestinians are not going to elaborate on their recognition ahead of negotiations, while Netanyahu refuses to elaborate on what his vague formulation of “two states for two peoples” might actually mean.

Cohen must have thought here that his alliteration was so clever: "Israeli insecurities, isolation and intolerance." But the insistence of Israel as a Jewish state is a fundamental premise of the peace process. Palestinian nationalism denies the historic connection between Jews and Israel, so accepting the Jewish nature of Israel is a necessary step for the Palestinian Authority to show that they've really altered that aspect of their ideology. Frankly, I don't know that "two states for two peoples" needs any elaboration. Without a good argument here Cohen just writes absolute garbage.

[It is worthwhile to note that in the very same document that the PLO recognized Israel's right to "exist in peace and security" they also wrote

The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process, and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.....[T]he PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators.

The PLO showed that this part was a lie during the intifada. Why does Cohen believe the statement about recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace and security is sacrosanct when the PLO abrogated the rest of the agreement as far back as 2001? - EoZ]

I think that the op-ed crown I mentioned above still goes to "Turnip Truck" Thomas Friedman, because lately he's been writing a lot more about the Middle East. Cohen's column is an example, if we needed one, that the Times has plenty of people who can write absolute nonsense about the Middle East with no regard for the truth.

Syrian tourism has dropped to - zero!

Al Arabiya quotes the Syrian Minister of Tourism as saying that the tourist trade in Syria has been badly hit by the protests.

Minister of Tourism in Syria Dr. Lamia Assi said that tourism from Europe (the main market of the Syrian Tourism) is almost nonexistent, with the cancellation and rejection of insurance companies to cover tourists wishing to travel to Syria. The minister Assi told the newspaper "Asharq al-Awsat" that the lack of tourists has led to lower occupancy rates this summer dropping from 99% to 0%, which is confirmed by the managers of great hotels in the capital, Damascus.

They are trying to re-orient their marketing away from Europe and towards Malaysia, China, Russia and Arab countries like Egypt.

Good luck with that!