Arab Spring: Egyptian military beat demonstrators, arrest journalist

From AFP:

Egypt's military arrested a BBC journalist when it cleared out a central Cairo protest that left several protesters injured and dozens detained, officials with the British broadcaster said on Tuesday.

Shaimaa Khalil was detained on Monday after the military, backed by riot police, cleared the three-week sit-in in Tahrir Square, they said.

The BBC's foreign editor John Williams wrote on his Twitter account that the broadcaster was trying to secure her release.

"Very concerned at the detention of Shaimaa Khalil in Cairo -- a good journalist doing her job. Doing all we can to secure her release," he wrote.

Khalil had been posting updates on Twitter before her arrest.

""Careful!' someone just told me. 'They arrest anyone taking photos," she wrote.

Witnesses said soldiers and police beat demonstrators and broke mobile phones, targeting anyone taking pictures.

Here is what she wrote on her Twitter feed. Read it from the bottom up. The links to photos work. (Latest tweet indicates she is OK.)

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir now ... surrounded by military , riot police and armoured vehicles..extremely tense #TwitPict http://twitpic.com/5zgqet

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir now #TwitPict http://twitpic.com/5zglwa

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir now... remains of tents or are they banners?? #TwitPicthttp://twitpic.com/5zglho

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir main ring now.. "careful!" someone just told me.. "they arrest anyone taking photos " #TwitPict http://twitpic.com/5zgkkv

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir banners and monuments carried off #TwitPicthttp://twitpic.com/5zgjfs

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#jan25 monument taken apart and lifted on a truck ... #Tahrir now#TwitPict http://twitpic.com/5zgiz4

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir now ... military and riot police in control of the square forbidding any gathering #TwitPict http://twitpic.com/5zghaw

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir now #TwitPict http://twitpic.com/5zgf9p

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir now riot police and army moving in on ppl praying ishaa#TwitPict http://twitpic.com/5zgcxj

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir now #TwitPict http://twitpic.com/5zgajq

16 hours ago 

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir now military police everywhere "there was no resistance"1 of them tells me."we came in boom!" #TwitPicthttp://twitpic.com/5zga5v

16 hours ago 

»

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

#Tahrir now armoured vehicles , police cars and traffic back to normal #TwitPict http://twitpic.com/5zg8j1

16 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Shaimaakhalil shaimaa khalil 

peeps.. who's in #Tahrir ??? I'm on my way there

17 hours ago 

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So who's setting fires to fields in Judea and Samaria?

From YNet:

Residents of various West Bank settlements have found themselves under a new threat recently – arson.

According to a report published by Yedioth Ahronoth Tuesday, more than 20 fires have been maliciously set in West Bank settlements and outposts in the past few weeks.

Police investigators determined that all of the fires were the result of arson and evidence in all cases led to surrounding Arab villages. The Judea and Samaria District Police have recently arrested six suspects.

Defense establishment sources have expressed concern that the area may be facing an "arson intifada," saying Palestinians have foregone hurling rocks and rioting in favor of setting fires near settlements and letting the hot weather and winds do the rest – i.e. feed the blaze as it spreads and threatens communities and wildlife alike.

Residents of northern West Bank outpost of Mizpeh Danny have had to conquer seven fires over the past three weeks, Neve Tzuf, Migron, and Givat Ronen outposts battle an average of one fire a week; and just last week, an entire neighborhood in the Kochav Yaakov settlement in the Binyamin region had to be evacuated after flames began devouring its outskirts.

The anti-Israel crowd, of course, refuses to believe that their pet Palestinian Arabs would do such a thing. Suicide bombings, sure - but setting fires in their beloved land?

Why, it's almost as outrageous as imagining them uprooting sacred olive trees!

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A look at the prison gates at Rafah

Remember when Egypt said it was opening up the Rafah crossing for Gazans?

Well, not so much.

An article in a blog called Gaza Youth Breaks Out describes what is necessary to leave Gaza:
Let me sequence what you need to do if you want to travel from Gaza to anywhere else;

1- You have to go the registration office in Gaza at least 3 months before the date you wish to travel on. For example, if you want to travel on October, you have to register on July. Why? Because the Great Pharaohs allow only 300 people to leave daily and the number of people wishing to leave for several reasons is huge, so there is no empty place for you before October.

2- After waiting for 3 months, you go to Rafah gate. There, you would be really really really really really really lucky if you made it in your first try; people usually go 3 or 4 days in a raw, hoping to get in and not everyone crosses in the end as thousands are waiting for their turn.

3- If you made it and crossed the gate, you’ll have to wait in the Palestinian hall for at least 2 hours until you get your passport stamped.

4- Then you get in the bus and wait for some more.

5- Then you cross to the Egyptian hall and wait for them to call your name and stamp your passport. But guess what? They don’t stamp all the passports they receive. Almost 50 out of every 300 people will be returned to Gaza; depends on the mood of the person stamping the passport.

This Al Jazeera video shows that in order to get out of Gaza, it helps to be a friend of a Hamas leader - or to pay bribes:


Al Jazeera adds:

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has announced that from Monday only students, patients and foreign passport holders will be allowed to leave the territory through the Rafah crossing into Egypt.

The move is an attempt to clear the huge backlog of travel applications.

Egypt and Hamas are both working to severely limit the number of travelers through the Rafah crossing.

Where are the full-page ads calling on Egypt to stop treating Gaza like a prison?  Why isn't George Galloway or Greta Berlin going on every TV show they can find to complain about Egyptian and Hamas policies? Why aren't there people participating in demonstrations against Egypt and Hamas? You know, because they care so much about the misery of Gazans?

(h/t CHA, Jerusalem Today)

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Up close and personal video of Tammuz missile taking out terrorists

From YNet:

After years of operational successes, the IDF revealed the "Tammuz" anti-tank missile for the first time on Monday.

The advanced weapon was developed and designed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., and is currently being used by the Artillery Corps in the Gaza Strip. It was previously used during the Second Lebanon War and in Operation Cast Lead.

The Tammuz is an electro-optical rocket capable of transmitting photos mid-flight, tracking the target and changing the flight accordingly, all with the help of wireless communication.

The missile had been fired in the past at dozens of targets and found to be very useful against terror units and armored facilities both during day and night, according to a senior Artillery Corps officer.

Here's a video of the missile in action.

The color video at the beginning shows the target and a distance shot of the terrorists getting, well, smoked. The cool part starts at 1:44 when you see the video from the POV of the missile itself homing in on the target, with a final shot of the terrorists looking up and thinking, "Oh, sh--"BOOM.



The caption and date says that it happened in Beit Lahiya on July 10, 2006. It is possible that this is the story about it and the terrorists were from the An Nasser Saladin Brigades; it says that two terrorists arrived in the hospital in pieces.

For those who are concerned that I am gloating over the death of terrorists, well, yeah, I am. Any weapon that Israel develops that increases the accuracy of targeting only terrorists and avoiding killing civilians is a reason to celebrate. And people who care about human rights should be happy, too.

(h/t T34)

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Hezbollah claims to have turned down billions to disarm

From The Daily Star (Lebanon):

Hezbollah has rejected billions of dollars offered to the party in exchange for the surrender of its arsenal, deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem said Monday.

"Billions of dollars have been offered to us to rebuild the deprived south Lebanon and in return to surrender our arms and stop the work of the resistance,"Qassem said during a ceremony for the eighth edition of his book “Hezbollah.”

"But we told them we're not in need [of their money] and the resistance will go on regardless of the consequences,” he added.

I'm sure that the Lebanese people are thrilled.

The story is probably bogus anyway, but it shows that Hezbollah doesn't care about the Lebanese people as much as the destruction of Israel.

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Is UNIFIL going to publish its findings?

Some 12 hours after the Lebanese border incident, YNet, and only YNet, reporting that UNIFIL admits that the IDF stayed on the Israeli side of the border and that the LAF shooting towards the IDF was uncalled for.

The UNIFIL site still has its initial press release up, saying that it is opening up an investigation.

Is YNet's report accurate? Was it "off the record?" Or is UNIFIL not anxious to publish the facts because it would antagonize its hosts?

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Wikileaks: Hezbollah recruiting young Saudi Shi'ites

Wikileaks released a couple of interesting cables about Shi'ites in the Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia.

The first cable, from 2006, was optimistic. Here's the summary:

(S) Some Sunni Arab leaders, including Egypt's President Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah, have recently publicly questioned the loyalties of Arab Shi'a populations in the Middle East. Privately, senior Saudi officials raise similar concerns. Given the ongoing sectarian conflict in Iraq, increasing regional tensions vis-a-vis Shi'a Iran, and the tenuous status of Saudi Shi'a within their own country, the question of whether Saudi Shi'a loyalties belong primarily with Saudi Arabia - or, alternatively, to their coreligionists elsewhere in the Gulf - is a timely one. It is also of central concern to U.S. strategic interests in the region, given the concentration of Saudi Arabia's Shi'a population in its oil producing areas.

Our conclusion, based on discussions with a broad spectrum of Saudi Shi'a contacts over the past eight months, is that most Saudi Shi'a remain committed to the agreement reached between the Saudi Shi'a leadership and King Fahd in 1993-4, whereby Shi'a leaders agreed to pursue their goals within the Kingdom's political system in return for the King's promise to improve their situation. Saudi Shi'a have deep religious ties to Iraq and Iran and are inspired by the newfound religious freedom and political power of the Iraqi Shi'a; they also have a lengthy history of persecution by the Al-Saud and face continuing discrimination (ref B). Nonetheless, their leaders still appear committed to working for reform from within, a strategy that, thanks to King Abdullah, is slowly bearing fruit. In our view, it would require a major internal or external stimulus to move the Saudi Shi'a toward confrontation with Riyadh. Such stimuli could include a major shift in SAG policy or leadership, the spread of uncontained sectarian violence to the Kingdom, or a major change in regional security arrangements, especially escalating regional conflict involving Shi'a (ref C). Absent these circumstances, the vast majority of Saudi Shi'a are not likely to demonstrate significant external political loyalties, either to Iran or to any inchoate notion of a "Shi'a crescent."

But in 2009, it was starting to look like a new threat was looming:

Our recent meetings with Saudi Arabia's Shi'a groups in the Eastern Province (EP) revealed divergent attitudes toward their country.

-- (U) Mainstream Shi'a, including municipal council members, identify themselves as Saudis first and Shi'a second.

-- (U) Elsewhere, Hizballah's messages find fertile ground among younger Shi'a, frustrated by religious and economic discrimination. They openly criticize the government and identify themselves as Shi'a first. The same group acknowledge that today they have more employment opportunities at Aramco than they had ten years ago.

-- (C) Signs of sympathy toward Hizballah among some EP Shi'a include recent street demonstrations and the open display of Hizballah flags and posters.

...SMELLS LIKE SOUTH LEBANON. Further north along the coastal oasis, in the majority-Shi'a community of Safwa, Emboffs paid a nighttime visit to a group of five younger Shi'a at the home of XXXXXXXXXXXX (protect). Safwa, like Qatif, lacks the smartly developed infrastructure of Riyadh or even Dhahran, with narrower streets and modest homes. Al-Ahmed's spartan sitting area boasted two photos of Nasrallah hung in one corner and three rifles propped in another. Upon Emboffs arrival, XXXXXXXXXXXX called together a group of colleagues who more openly shared the frustrations of EP Shi'a.

RELIGIOUS MINORITY. In a free-ranging discussion, this younger group attributed their economic marginalization to religious discrimination. In one of several examples, a medical student in the group described his ejection from a shopping center mosque, where he was called "kafir" (unbeliever) and told to leave. "Why should I support the government when I am treated like this?" he asked. Nevertheless, they characterized EP Shi'a as able to distinguish between religion and politics. Though they may look to Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran, Ali al-Sistani in Iraq or Mohammed Fadlallah in Lebanon for their religious guidance, many of the youth in particular look to Hezbollah as their political voice.

This may shine more light on the earlier Wikileaks cable that said that Saudi Arabia proposed a multinational force to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon.

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Arab incitement against Jews, 1920 (updated)

"Israels' History - A Picture a Day" is a great new website that uses old photos, many from the huge Library of Congress collection, to show a visual record of Israel's history.

Today's entry shows photographs of Arab demonstrations a few weeks before the 1920 Nebi Musa riots, and some of British soldiers belatedly trying to control them.

Tom Segev describes the riots this way:

In the early morning hours of Sunday, April 20, 1920, Khalil al-Sakakini walked over to Jerusalem's municipal building, outside the Old City's Jaffa Gate. It was his custom to do this each year, to watch the Nebi Musa procession. Passover, the Greek Orthodox Easter, and the traditional Muslim procession to a shrine associated with Moses—or Nebi Musa to Arabs—all happened to fall that year during the same week of the "cruelest month." The outbreak of violence that marred the celebrations, driven by the mixture of "memory and desire" evoked by T. S. Eliot, was in essence the opening shot in the war over the land of Israel.,

"The Nebi Musa festival in Jerusalem is political, not religious," Sakakini wrote. Al this time of year, Christians from all the countries of the world would flock to Jerusalem, he explained, and so Muslims had to mass in Jerusalem as well. to prevent the Christians from overwhelming the city. They come from all over the country as well as from neighboring countries, tribe after tribe, caravan after caravan, with their flags and weapons, as if they were going to war, Sakakini wrote. The Turkish authorities used to position a cannon next to the Lion's Gate in the Old City and escort the procession with large contingents of soldiers and police. The religious aspect of the holiday was designed only to draw the masses, otherwise they would not come. Food was handed out for the same reason, he wrote.

When he arrived at the city square, sixty or seventy thousand people had already congregated there. Some were from Hebron and some from Nablus. They carried banners and waved flags. The VIPs stood on the balcony of Jerusalem's Arab Club, but not all of them were able to deliver their speeches because of the commotion and noise. One man angrily tore up the text of his speech. 

The time was now about 10:30. In the Old City, Arab toughs had been brawling in the streets for more than an hour. Gangs surged through the walkways of the Jewish Quarter, attacking whomever they passed; one small boy was injured on the head. They broke into Jewish stores and looted. The Jews hid.

Meanwhile, the speeches from the balcony of the Arab Club continued. Someone waved a picture of Faisal, who had just crowned himself king of Greater Syria. The crowd shouted "Independence! Independence!" and the speakers condemned Zionism, one was a young boy of thirteen. The mayor, Musa Kazim al-Husseini, spoke from the balcony of the municipal building; Ater al-Aref, the editor of the newspaper Suriya al-Janubia ("Southern Syria"), delivered his speech on horseback. The crowd roared, "Palestine is our land, the Jews are our dogs!" In Arabic, that rhymes. 

No one knew what exactly set off the riots. In testimony given to a British court of inquiry, people said that a Jew had pushed an Arab carrying a flag, or that he'd spat on the flag, or that he'd tried to grab it. In another version, the violence began when an Arab pointed at a Jew who was passing by and said, "Here's a Zionist, son of a dog." Many testified that Arabs had attacked an elderly Jewish man at the entrance to the Amdursky Hotel, beating him on the head with sticks. The man had collapsed, his head covered with blood. Someone had tried to rescue him but was stabbed. People said they had heard gunfire. The furor almost turned into madness," Sakakini wrote. Everyone was shouting,"The religion of Mohammed was founded by the sword," and waving sticks and daggers. Sakakini managed to get out of the crowd unhurt. "I went to he municipal garden, my soul disgusted and depressed by the madness of mankind," he wrote.

A short time later, the Arabs - emboldened at the weak British response to the riot and angry at the beginnings of an organized Jewish force being organized to defend Jews - stepped up their threats against the Jews, threatening a massacre:

More on the fake holiday of Nebi Musa.

A much more recent example of the same chant used in 1920.

UPDATE: My Right Word adds a whole bunch of interesting historical information, including the seeds of this incitement in 1919.

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