US Marines training at IDF Urban Warfare Training Center

From the IDF:

The narrow streets and tall cement buildings of the world-renowned IDF Urban Warfare Training Center echoed with shouts in flawless English as US Marines delve into another close-quarters-battle drill.

As part of the ongoing cooperation between the Israeli Defense Forces and the US Armed Forces stationed in Europe, a company of US Marines came to Israel for a month of intensive training at IDF facilities and alongside IDF soldiers. Dividing their time between the Adam Base in central Israel and the Tze'elim Base in the south, the soldiers trained in urban and cautious warfare, reconnaissance, and at various shooting ranges.

As they embark on a training exercise at the UWTC, Platoon Sgt. Robert Hattenbach explains, "We've never been to a mock town like that of the IDF." He mentions the facility's size and unique structure and continues "it's important for our soldiers to train in different sites, preparing them for anything."The soldiers were thrilled to train at the city as well, raving about its realistic feel.

A smoke grenade hits the floor, rapidly secreting thick smoke of a vibrant color used for camouflage against the lurking enemy. Yelling out commands, M4s ready, they sneak from building to building, clearing out every room and securing their objective.

The success of the operation is determined by the Captain, and the "enemy" is a squad of the Marines platoon, hiding inside each multiple story building waiting for the other squads to find them.

"By training here," Hospital Corpsman HM1 Raymond Price elaborates, "we can better combat terrorism at any area and field." He continues, "coming to Israel has been an inspirational trip, it's beautiful to see how Israel has managed to preserve so many years of history, culture and tradition."

"This trip was a serious wake up call," says Sgt. Hattenbach. "The instructors at the Adam Base took the time to explain to us what's been going on in Israel and we realized that Israeli people are just like us. We now better understand what Israel really is and when we go back to the US we can tell people that."

During earlier exercises that involved IDF forces, the US Marines were impressed by their work "the tactics used by the snipers and Special Forces are much more efficient," explains Cpl. Lombard, "they also focus more on the safety of each individual soldier rather than the mission."

The company is one of the only young Marines units; all at around 19 years old, they are close in age to the Israeli soldiers and were able to from close bonds. However unlike IDF soldiers, the Marines volunteer to draft. "We have a responsibility for our country," they agree, "you can't just sit at home hearing of everything going on in the world and remain idle."

This particular company, the Marine Corps Fast Team Security Forces, enlisted for five years, three of which they spend deployed to Europe or Africa and after further infantry training are sent to the battle fronts at either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Concluding their training in Israel, the company went for a well-deserved rest at the Dead Sea.

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Ibish, redux

Hussein Ibish followed up on calling me a "fool" and "moronic" after my response to his earlier article with a full article in Now Lebanon explaining how Israeli nationalism is just the same as Palestinian Arab nationalism, and Judaism has nothing to do with it.

He writes:

In the decades immediately preceding 1948, the word “Israeli” was totally unknown and meant nothing, and the word "Palestinian” meant many things, but certainly not what it means today. Both of these national identities—the Jewish Israeli and the Arab Palestinian—are contemporary constructs born of recent history. They are largely grounded in their encounter with each other. They also embody deep cultural memories, traditions, myths, legends and tendentious narratives that at least to some extent retrofit the past to privilege their own national projects.

If one defines Israeli nationalism and culture in terms of kibbutzim, falafel and Hava Nagila, then Ibish might have a point - Israeli nationalism would be almost as shallow and recent as Palestinian Arab nationalism is. But the modern constructs of Israeli nationalism are built on the foundation of the Jewish nation, and are meaningless without that.

To give one small example, the word "Israeli" may be a recent Western construct in English, but in Hebrew the same word - יִּשְׂרְאֵלִי - can be found in, well, the Bible (Lev. 24:10). I also noted last week that the idea of Zionism - that is, of returning to the Land of Israel and rebuilding it - is pretty much continuous throughout Jewish history, even if the name is relatively new.

Moderan nationalism is a relatively new construct altogether, so it is easy to throw all modern nations in that bucket, but by any sane definition the Jewish people have identified as a nation - by themselves and by others - for millennia.

Again, don't take my word for it. Listen to the words of Haman in Esther 3:8:

There is a certain people (Hebrew: Am, עַם nation) scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from those of every people.

Ibish goes on:

But all of this is entirely beside the point. Neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli national identity is more or less "authentic" or “legitimate” than the other because both are self-defined nationalisms adhered to by millions of people. The extent to which they are based on imaginary constructs—as all modern national ideologies ultimately prove largely to be—is meaningless in practice. Objecting to these mythologies is the political equivalent of complaining about the rain.

Systematized discrimination or exclusion is, of course, unacceptable for any decent society. But modernity dictates a healthy respect for both the human rights of individuals inherent to their status as human beings and the rights of self-defining national collectivities to self-determination. Contemporary political and national identities, including the Israeli and Palestinian, are invariably based on a confused mélange of myth, legend and history. But that is politically irrelevant. They are what they are, say what we will.

Here, without realizing it, Ibish touches upon the reason that Palestinian Arab nationalism is different from other nationalisms.

Palestinian Arab nationalism is the only one whose very definition is based upon the negation of another people.

What do self-defined Palestinian Arabs have in common? If Ibish is honest, the only thing that holds them together is their antipathy to Jewish nationalism. It isn't a common culture or language or history. Arabs who lived in Palestine for two years prior to 1948 are just as "Palestinian" as those who lived there for hundreds of years, thanks to UNRWA having created the main operational definition of "Palestinian."

If there was never any Jewish nationalism, there would never have been Palestinian Arab nationalism. If Israel had been destroyed in 1948, there would be no one today who identifies as "Palestinian," since the land would have been carved up by Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Ibish knows this, and this is why he felt that that a book that created a construct of "Palestinian culture" based on costumes was important. He is pushing the myth, ex post facto, of an ancient history behind what is really a modern construct that owes its entire existence to...Jews.

The very first person who could be called a Palestinian Arab leader was the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. Yet even he wanted Palestine to be part of Syria until the San Remo conference made that impossible. And the "nationalist" motivation of this leader, whether it was pan-Arabism or Palestinian Arab nationalism, was always pure anti-semitism. Specifically, his goals were always to negate Jewish nationalism, both by denying Jews access to their holy places and by denying Jews the right to move to their ancestral homeland.

If Palestinian Arabs want to call themselves a people, that is fine. Based on how their fellow Arabs have treated them over the decades they do now have a claim to a cohesive identity. But to put Palestinian Arab nationalism on a par with Jewish nationalism is simply ahistorical and meant to trivialize the Jewish longing to return to Zion.

Zionism is merely a particularly effective instance of ancient Jewish nationalism; it is not a modern construct as Ibish likes to pretend. Ibish, by comparing the two nationalisms, is trivializing a long standing and deeply rooted sense of peoplehood with a shallow and modern attempt at countering it.

The analytical challenge is to recognize that while not all nationalist claims are necessarily equally valid (they may speak on behalf of very few people, for example, and not really have the constituency they claim), in some important senses they are, however, all equally invalid. Championing one's own nationalism as self-evidently “authentic” at the expense of a well-established, deeply-rooted and much-cherished rival identity is a particularly lowly form of self-delusion, chauvinism and fetishism.

Not when one is based on historic truth and the other is based on negation.

Another proof that Palestinian Arab nationalism is simply the denial of Jewish nationalism can be seen in archaeology. Every new archaeological finding that shows ancient Jewish roots in Palestine are derided by Palestinian Arab leaders.They routinely refer to the "alleged Temple."

Jews, secure in their history in the Land, are not threatened by finding pre-Israelite or Philistine or Byzantine or Crusader-era treasures. But Palestinian Arabs are very threatened by Jewish history.

And this is why these attempts to create a Palestinian Arab culture are, inherently, offensive. In reality there is no common history and no common culture for Palestinian Arabs. Attempts to create one are often another instantiation of the attempt to deny Jewish history. (Not that Ibish is doing that here, certainly not consciously.)

If a historian or archaeologist finds an ancient inscription talking about the "Palestinians" of the 2nd or 12th century, I will be more than happy to admit I am wrong.

But until then, claiming that there is an ancient Palestinian Arab history when there is none is indeed offensive because there is a history of fake Palestinian Arab nationalism, and it was aimed at destroying another people.

(h/t AB for "יִּשְׂרְאֵלִי " idea.)

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Dubai police clown says Israel behind Egyptian revolution

Remember Lt. General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the Dubai police chief who enjoyed a few weeks of attention when a Hamas terrorist was assassinated on his turf and he never found the culprits?

I wrote last year that he will be the last to know that he has turned into a worldwide punch-line.

He still doesn't.

From Gulf News:

Lt. General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Commander in Chief of Dubai Police, speaking at the a special Ramadan gathering organised by the Dubai Press Club at Al Wasl Lounge, Trade Centre.... called on Arabs not to think deeply in the events taking place in Arab countries and judge them accordingly.

“From my knowledge and experience, I can say that any time there is a public movement or upheaval, and when you can’t find a leader for this movement, this means that there are invisible hands behind it,” he said.

He pointed to Israeli hands in the Arab upheaval. “Israel is a superpower, and has dangerous influence. If Israel wants someone to escape the rule of justice, they can do it,” he said.

Gen Dahi said his personal opinion was that the trial of toppled Egyptian President Husni Mubarak was an Israeli plot for revenge, since Mubarak was the commander of the air force that bombarded the Bar-Lev Line in October 1973 war.

“I believe that Mubarak’s trial in Ramadan is not coincidental, and if the verdict is issued on October 6 (anniversary of October War), the mothers of the Israeli soldiers who were killed in Bar-Lev would be very happy,” he said.

There you have it - the Arab Spring is an Israeli plot!

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Are Israeli textbooks racist?

From The Guardian, August 7:

Nurit Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli academic, mother and political radical, summons up an image of rows of Jewish schoolchildren, bent over their books, learning about their neighbours, the Palestinians. But, she says, they are never referred to as Palestinians unless the context is terrorism.

They are called Arabs. "The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. They describe them as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don't pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don't want to develop," she says. "The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists. You never see a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer."

Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years, and her account, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, is to be published in the UK this month. She describes what she found as racism– but, more than that, a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service.

In "hundreds and hundreds" of books, she claims she did not find one photograph that depicted an Arab as a "normal person". The most important finding in the books she studied – all authorised by the ministry of education – concerned the historical narrative of events in 1948, the year in which Israel fought a war to establish itself as an independent state, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the ensuing conflict.

The killing of Palestinians is depicted as something that was necessary for the survival of the nascent Jewish state, she claims. "It's not that the massacres are denied, they are represented in Israeli school books as something that in the long run was good for the Jewish state. For example, Deir Yassin [a pre-1948 Palestinian village close to Jerusalem] was a terrible slaughter by Israeli soldiers. In school books they tell you that this massacre initiated the massive flight of Arabs from Israel and enabled the establishment of a Jewish state with a Jewish majority. So it was for the best. Maybe it was unfortunate, but in the long run the consequences for us were good."

Children, she says, grow up to serve in the army and internalise the message that Palestinians are "people whose life is dispensable with impunity. And not only that, but people whose number has to be diminished."

Since her book has not been published, it is difficult to look at how much bias this "political radical" has imbued her research with. But it is clear that one must take her "research" with a grain of salt given her extreme views.

But even without reading her book, we can see that she is not telling the truth about the characterizations of Arabs in Israeli textbooks. Because she first floated this issue a few years ago, after having only examined seven textbooks, and CMIP wrote a lengthy paper destroying her thesis - mostly based on an examination of those very same textbooks! Here are just the points about her assertion that Palestinian Arabs are simply not shown in the textbooks:

Is it really true that Israeli textbooks never show Palestinian faces? Here are some examples to the contrary, taken just from the books examined by Dr. Peled-Ehanan. In Book 5 on page 370 there are two photographs of Palestinians plowing their land and walking on a Jaffa street at the beginning of the 20th century. On page 372 we see Bedouins making coffee, and on page 373 – Palestinians leading a camel caravan loaded with oranges bound for Jaffa for export. On page 375 there is a photograph of two Arabs talking to a Jew in Jaffa. In Book 2, on page 166 there is a photo of Temple Mount in Jerusalem showing a group of demonstrators against Jewish immigration. A photograph on page 313, showing a Palestinian family leaving its village in 1948, has already been mentioned. Book 3 features a photograph of the Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini on page 93; and one of the late Chairman Yasser Arafat shaking hands with the late Prime Minister Rabin in Washington on page 256. The two photographs reappear in Book 4, on pages 95 and 322 respectively. We mentioned earlier the photograph of the shocked family of Palestinian refugees on page 267. Book 1 has a photograph on page 202 of a man driving a tractor or similar machine in the Arab sector of Nazareth. In Book 6, page 17 we see a photograph of Christian Palestinians praying in a church, and another one of Druze religious leaders gathering in a house of prayer. Dr. Peled-Ehanan's claim regarding this point is clearly false.

As for what she calls ‘racist cartoons’, these would more properly, and in less inflammatory language, be regarded as ‘stereotypical illustrations’. There are some four or five of those appearing in Book 1. This is an illustrated book, full of cartoons and illustrations of various
kinds. We may notice that cartoons of ridiculed figures are reserved in the main for Jews. So, for example, there are two graphs where Arab males and females are represented by stereotypical figures while Jewish males and females are represented by ridiculous cartoons.”
There is also a cartoon figure of a Jew quarreling with a stereotypical Arab over a map of the country.

On the other hand, there is a stereotypical illustration denoting Jews by a figure of a rabbi reading the Torah, which represents the Jewish population in the same way as the Arab with a camel represents the Arabs in general. There is one case in which both Arab and Jew are represented by similarly drawn cartoon figures, each pulling the map of the country to his side, and one cannot tell who is who.

The same book also contains non-stereotypical illustrations of Arabs. On page 195 we see a mechanic at work and children at school, none with stereotypical characteristics. On page 196 we see a businessman wearing a suit and holding a pack of banknotes. This illustration is attached to a paragraph mentioning the rise of income levels in Arab villages. In a chapter about Arab cities in Israel we see an illustration of people standing in line, probably in a bank, and they are all dressed in ordinary clothes; the lady at the end of the line even wears a miniskirt.

If there are texts in which Arab society in Israel is presented as traditional and reluctant to change, there are others referring to it as dynamically changing. Here is one example: “Since the establishment of the State [of Israel, in 1948], this society [i.e., Arab society in Israel] has experienced modernization: The standards of education and living are rising constantly; agriculture, which has shifted to modern methods of cultivation, is no longer the main source of
income; most of the population works in the industrial, services, and commercial sectors; and one important change has taken place in the status of women – most women acquire education, and the number of women who work outside the homes is on the increase.”

Moreover, CMIP cited other textbooks that clearly showed the exact opposite of what Peled-Elhanan is claiming today:

The evidence we have presented, taken from the sources Dr. Peled-Elhanan did use, is more than sufficient for refuting her accusation of racism leveled at Israeli school textbooks. However, for an overview of the actual orientation of Israeli textbooks concerning the issue of racism one may well consider the references aimed at actively combating racist prejudice against Arabs – notably in language and literature textbooks – an elementary procedure in which Dr. Peled-Elhanan has no interest.

Here are some examples:

1) “Many people think that doves are peace loving birds. This view is incorrect; it is a prejudice: people believe it without checking. There are many prejudices. For example:

• The Jews dominate the world and exploit all its inhabitants.
• Black people are inferior; they are incapable of being scientists.
• The Arabs understand the language of force only.

Compile during the [school] year a long list of prejudices. Write them down in a special folder to be named ‘So they say, but it is not true: Prejudices’. Try to attach a fitting illustration or cartoon to each prejudice. Be ready to explain orally why these are prejudice.”
Did I Understand?, Grade 7, Part 5 (1993), p. 259


2) “The lady from the second floor opened her mouth and said that the Arabs are exactly like Jews. There are villains among them, as well as decent people, and they should not be labeled.”

What’s the Connection? What’s the Interpretation?, [upper grades, Elementary School],
Part 2 (n.d.), p. 184

3) “Strange, I never played with an Arab boy before … Bashir and I ate together in the shade … after lunch we played more. Before we parted we had exchanged addresses and promised to write to each other. I hope we meet again.”
Windows 1: Reader for State Schools, [lower grades, Elementary School], (1993) p. 83

Had Dr. Peled-Elhanan seen such references, and a great many others in textbooks she did not bother to look at, she might have been less adamant in her position. Apparently, she preferred to look the other way.

It is clear that Dr. Peled-Elhanan is not being intellectually honest and is twisting the contents of the schoolbooks into her own extreme viewpoint.


If you want to know exactly how radical she is, here is what she said after her own 13-year old daughter was murdered by a suicide bomber in 1997 - during the Oslo process:

My little girl was murdered because she was an Israeli by a young man who was humiliated, oppressed and desperate to the point of suicide and murder and inhumanity, just because he was a Palestinian....[J]ust as my daughter was a victim [of the Israeli occupation], so was he [the suicide bomber]."

Which makes her a poster child for the Mondoweiss crowd.

(h/t jzaik)

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Egypt raids Sinai Islamists, 1 dead. Islamic Jihad member arrested

From Ma'an:

Egyptian troops and policemen battled with gunmen in the Sinai peninsula Monday, killing one person and arresting 16 others, a security official and state television said.

The fighting came as the security forces launched raids to hunt down Islamist militants suspected of attacking a gas pipeline to Israel on five occasions this year and police stations, the official said.

Around 1,000 soldiers and policemen forces deployed on Friday and Saturday in northern Sinai to carry out the operation dubbed "Eagle."

A man was killed at dawn Monday during an exchange of fire between suspects wanted by the Egyptian authorities and soldiers and policemen, the security official said.

"Ten people suspected of involvement in the Sinai attacks were arrested," the official said, adding that three automatic rifles and four grenades were also seized.

Egyptian state television earlier reported that security forces also arrested six suspected Islamists, members of a group calling itself the Army of the Liberation of Islam.

The operation came two days after Islamists distributed fliers in Rafah -- signed "Al-Qaeda in Sinai" -- threatening more attacks on police, according to a witness, after a deadly attack at the end of July, two weeks earlier, killed a military officer and three bystanders.

Palestine Press Agency gives details about those arrested - including one from Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

Yasser Atiyah Tarabin was born in Khan Younis and lives in Rafah. A member of Islamic Jihad, he was arrested and jailed in Egypt but escaped after the revolution. He was asked to join the Islamist cell "to fight the Jews;" then took him to the El Arish, where he met with other jihadis, received training in martial arts in the Sinai and the Gaza Strip, and he took part in the attack on the police station in El Arish a few days ago. He entered into Egypt through the tunnels, and planned to hit the security headquarters in northern Sinai. He also participated in the procurement of explosives and arms to target the military and the police.

This is not the first time that Gaza terrorists have been found to work with Islamist groups in the Sinai.

Interestingly, Islamic Jihad's mouthpiece Palestine Today is claiming that the Egyptian raid was against Mossad agents!

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Roundup of world reaction to Syrian state crimes (Zvi)

From Zvi:

---

Given that the US government claims to be still waiting for a global consensus (what's that, you say? A stunning display  of non-leadership?) I thought that I would enumerate the  positions that various government, NGOs and others have  expressed regarding the ongoing bloodbath in Syria.

Syrian people (broad consensus):

* Assad must go.

* Islamists: "No Iran, no Hezbollah, we want Muslim rulers who fear Allah"

(While Iran may, for political reasons, say that Alawites are Muslims, most Sunnis disagree. Syrian Alawites will truly screwed if the Syrian regime falls)

* "One and all in the opposition to Bashar's rule are convinced that Hezbollah fighters and cadres of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard have made their way to Syria to aid in the grim work of repression. There are even local reports that Iran has offered a large subsidy to bail out Damascus from the economic fallout of the rebellion." [wsj]

(These reports are NOT unfounded rumors. [tel])

Arab League:

* Called for an "immediate halt" to violence

Bahrain:

* Recalled ambassador

Brazil:

* Protects Syrian regime in UN as it continues to massacre its own people.

China:

* Protects Syrian regime in UN as it continues to massacre its own people.

* China is a strong opponent of "humanitarian" intervention in any country by world powers.

Egypt:

* Grand imam of Al Azhar called on the Syrian rulers to stop facing unarmed protesters with "live bullets and iron and fire." [wsj]

* Demonstrators in Cairo: Assad must go.

GCC:

* attacked Syrian regime's brutal repression (last week)

Hamas:

* Leaders remain in Damascus (probably very frustrated)

* But Gazan columnists, even in pro-Hamas papers, are writing things like: “is extremely hostile to the aspirations and rights of its people” [bloom]

Human Rights Watch:

* "It's a continuation of a deliberate policy of the military crushing the protest movement," said Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch's senior researcher for the Middle East and North Africa. "We've seen it now in so many cities." [1]

* Urged the Arab League to hold an emergency meeting on the bloodbath in Syria. [2]

India:

* Protects Syrian regime in UN as it continues to massacre its own people.

Iraq:

* PM Al-Maliki (historical ties to Assad regime) is allied with the al-Assad regime, an arranged wedding brokered by Iran last year. [kurd]

* Iraqi Kurds and the majority Sunni Iraqiya Party have vehemently criticized the Syrian regime. [kurd]

* Iraq is once again engaged in a heated dispute with Kuwait and is increasingly leaning on Iran.

Jordan:

* PM: “World anger and rejection of the bloodshed in Syria are growing.” [cnn]

* PM: urged "immediate halt to military operations", adoption of meaningful reforms
* A Jordanian citizen was killed by sniper in Homs on Sunday. [jord]  

* A member of the regime's secret police, who fled to Turkey, claims that Syria is using Iranian snipers [scot]

Kuwait:

* Recalled ambassador

* Mulling cutting off aid, loans [kuwait]

* Huge investor in Syria, and Kuwaiti companies hold over 10% of Syrian insurance market [boyc]

Lebanon:

* Government, dominated by Hezbollah, humiliatingly defending Assad regime in UN

* Future Movement: accusing Syrian regime of crimes against humanity

* Walid Jumblatt (Druze): abandoning Syria and aligning with Turkey. As a Druze leader, Jumblatt tends to align with the "strong horse." Given that the Assads killed his father, Jumblatt will never love them. But he complies with their wishes as long as he FEARS them. [jumblatt]

* Lebanese Druze: worried by Syrian accusations that Leb Druze are arming the Syrian Druze. I would be worried too.

* Syrian-backed PFLP has stationed rocket launchers on Mt. Lebanon, near Aley. Jumblatt is furious. "According to Jumhouriaya sources  Jumblatt understood that from his Syrian visit that the developments  on 888 hill were a message to him in response to his calls on Syrian  president Bashar al Assad to immediately implement the reforms he  promised."

* Hezbollah: continued support for Syrian regime, but trying to lower the profile. Support for HA in Arab street is mostly gone.

Maldives:

* Maldives calls for end to state-sponsored violence against civilians in Syria [mald]

* Foreign minister urges UNHRC to refer the issue in its upcoming session

* (Maldives is one of the freest of the "Muslim countries", though still rated only "partly free"; its Freedom House scores are close to those of Turkey)

Morocco:

* "The kingdom of Morocco, which has traditionally refrained from interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, expresses today its strong worries and deep concern over the sad events rocking
Syria," [asiaone]

OIC:

* Accused Syria on Saturday of using "excessive armed force" and called on Damascus to stop the bloodshed. [reut]

PA:

* Abed Rabo: accused regime of crimes against humanity [latimes]

* Abu Rudaineh: called on Syria to protect Palestinians in Syria [jpost]

* Permitted hundreds of demonstrators in Ramallah to call for Syrian regime's overthrow [jpost2]

Pakistan:

* Pakistan's Bhutto family has historical ties to the al-Assad regime. [tribpk]

* Silent on regime atrocities. [tribpk]

* Supported Syrian regime at UN [tribpk]

Palestine Solidarity Campaign (and other BDS groups):

* - silence -

Qatar:

* Recalled ambassador (a month ago) [boyc]

* A huge investor in Syria. One large electrical project has been frozen after Syria retaliated for Al Jazeera coverage of the slaughter by refusing a permit. [boyc]

Russia:

* Maintains naval presence in Latakia and Tarsus. Were the Russian sailors sitting idly by, watching Syrian gunboats pound Latakia?

* Protects Syrian regime in UN as it continues to massacre its own people.

Saudi Arabia:

* Recalled ambassador (last Sunday)

* King Abdullah called on Assad to stop the "killing machine."

Spain:

* Offered Assad asylum in July [haaretz]

Turkey:

* Increasingly strident "ultimatum" language. Today, FM Davutoglu issued what it called its "final words" to the Syrian regime.

* FM in Saudi yesterday. Guess what they talked about? [arabiya]

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a vocal attacker of Israel:

* - silence -

UNHRC:
* Dictators R Us!

* Pretty much silent, although they have held special sessions. They tried to cover their silence with a team of independent experts who called for an end to violence.

UNRWA:

* Latakia: "The situation is very bad. There are more than 10,000 residents of the camp, and half of them left out of fear of incoming fire from the land and sea. We don't know where they are, and we're the ones responsible for them. We're just desperately trying to find out where everyone is."

(Try looking in the stadium, where 1000s have been rounded up, stripped of cell phones and IDs and are being held indefinitely. Which should worry people.)

UNSC:

* Let's see how little we can accomplish, as slowly as possible.

UN Secretary General:

* Multiple futile condemnations of Syrian atrocities.

Misc. media:

* Jakarta Post editorial: "So much for the UN principles of Responsibility to Protect... . How many deaths will it take for the world to know that too many people have died?" [jakp]

* TIME: "Syria's City of Graves: Hama and its History of Massacres" [time]

---

By the way, definitely read the Time piece, one of the very few first hand reports from Syria and an excellent example of real reporting.

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Where's the Palestinian Arab Spring?

Khaled Abu Toameh writes in Hudson-NY:

Last March, when it seemed as if the popular uprisings in a number of Arab countries had arrived in the Palestinian territories, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets as part of a Facebook-orchestrated campaign to demand an end to Palestinian "divisions."

Inspired by the Egyptian demonstrators in Tahrir Square, the Palestinian protesters staged sit-in strikes in the center of Ramallah and Gaza City.

Although the Palestinian protesters were careful not to attack the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, they quickly found themselves facing policemen and thugs belonging to the two rival parties.

Palestinians are also reluctant to come out in large numbers against the two governments because they still do not see a better alternative to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas: Over the past few years, both governments have had a common interest in suppressing the emergence of a strong and charismatic third party.

Since then, Palestinians have stopped trying to copy the tactics used by anti-government demonstrators in the Arab world.

With both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the violence achieved its goal and brought about a swift end to what could have evolved into a Palestinian spring.

A case in point:

A young political activist in the Gaza Strip has been arrested, members of his group feared Monday after he had been missing for two days.

Abu Yazan, leader of the Gaza Youth Breaks Out movement, was returning from a trip to France, where he was invited to hold talks about the situation in Gaza, GYBO said.

He was arrested after being summoned twice for interrogation, the group said in a statement.

"Abu Yazan is a leading voice in the movement that is representing a growing number of Gazan youth," the statement said. GYBO was active in the March 15 pro-unity movement.

"He also was denied visits by his family and a lawyer," the group said.

"We call on the authorities to abide by the law."

Another member of the group, who identified himself only as Abu Ghassan, told AFP that Abu Yazan had been missing since he went to try to retrieve his laptop and mobile phone from the headquarters of Gaza internal security services.

"There was a threat that he would be arrested and he had to turn over his laptop and mobile phone to the internal security before he went to France," Abu Ghassan said.

"He went to get his laptop and mobile phone back two days ago and since then he hasn't been seen or heard from.

Gaza Youth Breaks Out has a webpage and Facebook page. They are pretty much angry at everyone, as their original manifesto started with:

Fuck Israel. Fuck Hamas. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA!

In their Manifesto 2.0, they expand on their anger at Hamas:

Yes we voted for Hamas government. We all did. We were tired of Fatah government’s corruption, wanted a change and hoped Hamas would be that change. That PRECISELY gives us the right to shout our anger at them, because they are responsible of us, responsible of our well-being, our security. Fatah in the West Bank arrests Hamas affiliates, Hamas in Gaza arrests Fatah affiliates, while everywhere in Palestine you can find family members from different factions living united. Yes we denounce our politicians – note that words; POLITICIANS – because their mutual hatred divided them even during the commemoration of the first anniversary of Cast Lead massacre, while a crowd of Palestinians from all factions stood united by martyrdom, grief, and love for Palestine.

Whether you want to admit it or not, believe it or not, corruption exists, and it’s our right as Palestinians to denounce it, because we are tired of it. Internal change has not only internal parameters. Change will come only if people outside realize that they need to take into consideration the fact that corruption does exist, and that it needs to be stopped if we want unity back. So if it takes us to shout it to the world for our political leaders to hear us and care to unite for us, we’ll do it a hundred times.

So it is predictable that Hamas would arrest Abu Yazan, and the nascent anti-government protest movements in both Gaza and the West Bank will always be viciously attacked by the "democratically elected" governments.

Hamas last night also arrested a journalist, Thaer Abu Warda, and confiscated his computer.

We see here, again, what a Palestinian Arab state would look like. It would look a lot like Mubarak's Egypt, at best. And no one seems to have a problem with this.

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What's missing from this CNN story?

Here is an entire story from CNN:

Airstrikes wound three in Gaza

At least four airstrikes hit Gaza early Tuesday, leaving two people critically wounded and a third on life support, Palestinian medical and security sources said.

All three injuries occurred in a strike east of Gaza City, where a group of Palestinian militants had gathered, the sources said. The other strikes targeted a training field for the military wing of Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls Gaza, east of the city, and a site outside Khan Younis that militants recently used to fire rockets out of the territory into Israel, the security sources said.

A fourth strike hit near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, but no details were immediately known.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes, which occurred shortly after 2 a.m. (8 p.m. Monday ET).

So what's missing?

Just the fact that a Grad rocket was fired from Gaza to Beersheva a couple of hours earlier.

In fact, CNN has nothing on that story, nor have they updated this with the IDF statement confirming that this was the reason:

Overnight, IAF aircraft targeted four targets in the Gaza Strip. Direct hits were confirmed.

These sites were targeted in response to the firing of a rocket from the Gaza Strip at the city of Be’er Sheva.

In a separate incident, IDF soldiers identified a squad of terrorists planning to fire rockets at Israel. IAF aircraft thwarted the attempt, confirming a hit.

The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers, and will respond with determination to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel. The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for any terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip.

The person who was killed in Gaza was a Hamas terrorist.

(h/t Dan)

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There's still one more flotilla ship in the Med - but they are broke

From the Free Palestine Movement:

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Please accept our apologies for the long delay in reporting to you on developments concerning the Free Palestine Movement and its participation in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla with our partners in the International Committee to Break the Siege of Gaza (ICBSG). Until now, our partners asked us to say nothing about our ship, and they were right to do so, because our silence allowed the ship to quietly leave Greece with the hope of placing the passengers on board at another location.

The Nour al-Haqiqa (Light of Truth), is a fine vessel, the largest in the Flotilla (not including the Mavi Marmara). It is approximately 40 meters in length and licensed to carry 120 passengers and crew for overnight travel.

The Nour is currently berthed in a secure location where it can receive fuel, provisions and servicing. Unfortunately, however, we have been unsuccessful until now in finding a country in the Mediterranean that will allow our passengers to go on board. In addition, there is a technical matter (not mechanical) to be resolved, which makes it difficult to move the vessel.

These difficulties are similar to those encountered by other boats in the Flotilla. There is, in effect, an international conspiracy to deny boats the freedom to sail to Gaza, regardless of who is or is not on board or what the boats may or may not be carrying, however harmless.

We're broke!

Our share of the boat purchase ($6000 per person), plus all the other costs of organizing and bringing our delegation to Athens has completely exhausted our funds. In the past, donors have quickly replenished our coffers after we set to sea and began to report on our experiences.

This time we have had no such opportunity - yet - and we don't even have enough funds to attend strategy meetings, much less to send a delegation if and when the opportunity arises. We don't even have operating funds for more than two weeks, which affects other projects besides the Flotilla.

Please help to keep us going. We're trying to raise at least $20,000 for operating costs until the end of the year, but will use part of it to send a delegation to the Nour if the opportunity arises, in which case we will also do a special appeal for that purpose.

Thank you for your support for our work. Please click here to make a donation.

About our delegation

Ambassador Sam Hart, American Indian Movement spokesperson Jimbo Simmons, Sister Patricia Chaffee, USS Liberty veteran and survivor Joe Meadors, FPM founder Paul Larudee and FPM Coordinator Deppen Webber returned to the US on or about July 10. Since then, we have all been engaged in speaking and writing about our experiences, and if the Nour sails, most of us will again try to be on it.

If you wish to schedule a speaking presentation by any of us in your area, please let us know. We would be happy to come.

Donate Raffle Prizes

Can you donate an item for the upcoming FPM fundraising raffle? We will be accepting donations from business owners and individuals to be listed as prizes on our raffle website and flyers. The drawing will be held in Pacifica on December 3, 2011 and we hope to have the prizes finalized in 2 weeks. Some popular items in previous raffles were air tickets, vacation accommodations, dinners, and massages. To donate an item please call +1 510-232-2500 or send email to info@freepalestinemovement.org The value of your donation is tax deductible.

I think I'll offer a mug from my store for their raffle.

Hey - it's tax deductible to donate to a ""charity" that supports Hamas, as this photo of FPM founder Paul Larudee shaking hands with Ismail Haniyeh shows:

(h/t Leonard)

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What politician said this about Syria?

"This is our final word to the Syrian authorities, our first expectation is that these operations stop immediately and unconditionally. If these operations do not stop, there will be nothing left to say about the steps that would be taken. We have been in contact and have repeated our demands and have emphasized our expectations. In the context of human rights this cannot be seen as a domestic issue."

Who said this?

Answer after the jump.

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Wasted weather post open thread

Yesterday, there was a record set in New York City for the amount of rainfall in a single day.

Also yesterday, there was a very unusual summer rain in Israel.

It seems to me that whenever there is a heat wave in the East Coast of the US, there seems to be higher than normal temperatures in Israel, and similarly the cold spells seem to coincide. In the winter, it feels like every time there is a major snowstorm in New York there is rain in Israel.

Only one way to find out!

So I just wasted a couple of hours trying to dig up temperature statistics for Tel Aviv and New York to see if I can find any correlation.

I found some really interesting coincidences, for example, look at the peaks and troughs in high temperatures in January and especially February this year:

But the other correlations were disappointing. Late March/early April were a lot of correlated rainstorms, but besides that not too much.

If I would have found a mathematically significant correlation, then I could have changed the entire world of meteorology. Hey, when you swing for the fences, you tend to strike out every once in a while.

It might still be worth doing a more mathematically sound study to see which diverse areas of the world have the most coincidental daily weather, but I don't quite care that much. If anyone wants to tackle 2010, feel free!

If you want to play with the numbers yourself, it took a while but I found that Weather Underground has the best historical data for most world cities, although it doesn't give precipitation totals for Israel, only whether there was rain or storms.

Meanwhile, consider this an open thread.

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Egyptian kiddie TV: Mubarak infected Egyptians with Zionist cancer

From MEMRI:



Excerpts:

Following are excerpts from a TV puppet show, featuring children as the prosecutors in a mock trial for Hosni Mubarak, portrayed by a puppet. The show aired on Al-Hekma TV on August 14, 2011.

Mubarak puppet: Brothers and sisters, I have spent my life serving this country. As I stand before you today, I tell you that I will not comply with these demands. I tell you... If anyone has a question, go ahead.

Children (in unison): There is no god but Allah, the martyr is loved by Allah.

There is no god but Allah, Hosni Mubarak is the enemy of Allah.

...
Child prosecutor: The trial has begun. We are now in session.

2nd child prosecutor: You fought against Islam and the Muslims.

Mubarak puppet: If we leave the Islamists to their own devices, they will reach power. Everybody will have to wear the niqab, and there will be anarchy.

[...]

Child prosecutor: You made the West affront the Prophet Muhammad – Denmark and other countries...

Child prosecutor: You are Israel's best friend. Israel was the country most saddened by your fall and your trial, because you were helping them to kill the Palestinians and to occupy their lands.

Mubarak puppet: As long as the Israelis occupy Palestine, we must treat them well. These Jews have always been good people. In the Jewish quarter here, we have always known that they keep their word.
...

2nd child prosecutor: You brought cancer upon the Egyptian people.

Mubarak puppet: Brothers and sisters, I have spent my life serving this country. My fellow citizens, the population is huge, and I didn't know how to feed them, so I brought cancerous pesticides from Israel for them. You've seen grapes the size of watermelons, watermelons the size of buffaloes, and buffaloes the size of chicks. There are 80 million people, praise the Lord. How is one to feed them?

[...]

Child prosecutor: You treated the vegetables and fruits with all kinds of hormones coming from Israel, in order to inflict the Egyptians with cancer, but God was lying in wait for you, and He gave you a taste of your own medicine, inflicting you with cancer.

Children in unison: Hosni Mubarak, you devil, you inflicted cancer upon your people.

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The Golan Druze, caught between two worlds

Die Welt (German) has a very interesting article about the Druze of the Golan Heights:

Israel has controlled the Golan Heights since the Six Day War in 1967 when it captured the area from Syria; in 1981 Israel annexed the area - a move that neither Syria nor the international community have ever acknowledged. Even the residents of Majdal Shams to describe themselves as Syrians today. "We are Syrians, our ancestors were Syrians and as Druze our loyalty is to our country - and that is Syria," says Hamdani Tahrir, an apple farmer who supplements his income by renting two small cabins as vacation homes to Israeli tourists.

His Syrian self-identity has not prevented him from learning Hebrew well. "I have nothing against the Israelis," he tried to explain. "They are a democracy, and this is the best form of government," says Tahrir.

This is a strange answer because no one really wanted to know from him what he thought the best form of government is. When asked how he stands as to the brutal actions of the Syrian government against its own people, he turns away. "There are not many Druze in the world," he said then. "We need to take care of ourselves."

...While their co-religionists in the Israeli heartland have always participated in army service and by and large maintain good relations with the Jewish majority, the Druze in the Golan Heights sits between two stools.

On the one hand, in an anonymous survey, 75 percent of students said they wanted to remain in Israel if the Golan should one day be part of Syria as part of a peace agreement. On the other hand, fewer than 1,000 Druze have accepted the offer of Israeli citizenship. The majority are defined as "undefined nationality." It is the same in their travel documents.

There is one reason why they themselves often mention the principle of the Druze loyalty towards their home country - in this case, Syria. Tangible threats do the rest. Thus some religious leaders have called for a boycott of any Druze with an Israeli passport. One should not marry this man nor do business with them. Also many would rather not know what the Syrian regime has in mind for alleged collaborators under a return of the Golan.

Nihad is as a collaborator. The young man with the wrinkled face of his surprisingly blue eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses has accepted Israeli citizenship and is not afraid to be called by his real first name.

"Before the Syrian army sets foot on this territory, I'm going to escape with my family," he says, determined. He had already put out feelers in the Druze in the Galilee. There, one is quite prepared to admit him in an emergency. "I was born in 1979," said Nihad. "I've never lived in Syria, but only in Israel. And here I have it actually quite good." Unfortunately, many Druze are caught in the tradition, he says. Caution had become second nature to them. This is hardly surprising, because life is a religious minority in the Middle East is always difficult.

The entire article is good, including a history of Druze and the fact that there are more female experts on the religion than men.

(h/t Missing Peace)

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Syrians forcing Palestinian Arabs to flee camps

Now Lebanon quotes Shaam News Network:

The Syrian army is calling on residents in Latakia’s refugee camps in and in the Raml and Saknatouri neighborhoods to evacuate the region. They are threatening to consider everyone that remains an opponent.

So the PalArabs are running for their lives:

Thousands of Palestinians fled their refugee camp in Latakia, AFP cited UNRWA as saying.

And some were killed:

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, is gravely concerned about reports of heavy gunfire from Syrian security forces into the Palestinian refugee camp situated in the El Ramel district and surrounding areas of Latakia, including heavy fire from gunboats. Reports from various sources indicate deaths and casualties among the Palestinian refugee population, although poor communications make it impossible to confirm the exact number of dead and injured.

All of this is happening among Syria's larger assault on Latakia and, today, Homs.

The irony of Arabs forcing their Palestinian brethren to flee their homes is being lost on the Arab people, apparently.

Some 42 civilians have been killed over the past day in Syria.

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Iran *sort of* cooperating with Israel on synchrotron project

The story of SESAME:

The notion of scientists from Israel meeting in Jordan with counterparts from countries such as Iran, Bahrain, Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey seems like something out of a fantasy novel.

Yet such meetings have been occurring - most recently in November last year - for about 15 years, as a conglomerate of Middle East countries hammers out the details of a major scientific project to benefit scientists from across the region. The project, too, seems like something out of a sci-fi thriller.

SESAME, an acronym for Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, will provide regional scientists with a multifaceted look at everything from proteins to archeological finds.

Eliezer Rabinovici, director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem and one of the founders of SESAME, explains to ISRAEL21c that a synchrotron "is like an enormous x-ray machine" that rapidly turns electrons until they radiate light that allows scientists to study the structure of substances, even tiny ones such as proteins, in more depth than ever before. Synchrotron studies are useful in chemistry, molecular biology, environmental science, pharmaceuticals and nanotechnology. Archeologists and art historians may also find uses for a synchrotron.

Though SESAME is sometimes erroneously referred to as a particle accelerator, it's not the same, Rabinovici explains. Both operate on principles of high-energy physics. However, particle accelerators smash atoms to provide a unique look into the composition of the material world at its most basic level. In a synchrotron, "there are no collisions. In order to study proteins, you don't have to smash them to pieces," he says.

Supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), SESAME is under construction in Allaan, Jordan - just 30 km from Amman. Many components are already in place inside the $10 million building begun in 2003. "You need a special, stable building to house this because the Jordan Valley is very seismic," says Rabinovici.

But a couple of years ago the project was in danger of losing funding:

In recent years, researchers decided it would be better to upgrade the older machine to a more sophisticated "third-generation" light source capable of delivering energies of 2.5 gigaelectronvolts. Llewellyn Smith, who took a leading role in the project in 2008, has supported the upgrade. "If it's good for doing science, the political aim of getting people together will follow," he says.

But building a world-class machine, even with recycled parts, costs money. A new estimate led by Llewellyn Smith, who has overseen projects such as the Large Hadron Collider, shows a $35 million gap in the construction budget. Foreign donors such as the European Union and the United States have been reluctant to get involved without a clear commitment from regional governments.

So Israel stepped up:

[In March 2010] Rabinovici talked Israel into pledging $1 million a year for five years—but only if four other members also do so. Two members have signed on already, and Sir Christopher Llewellyn-Smith, president of the SESAME council, is optimistic that others will also join in soon. Nadji says he’ll continue to push his team to finish the job. ”We’ve come this far,” he says. ”I have to believe we’ll get there.”

And guess who has matched Israel's pledge?

From FARS News:

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's envoy to the International Centre for Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science Applications in the Middle-East Seyed Mahmoud Aqa-Miri underlined Iran's determination to maintain its prominent role in SESAME.

"Iran insists on its participation in SESAME and we have reached a good level scientifically and technologically," Aqa-Miri stated, adding that Iran's non-participation in the project would give the Zionist regime of Israel the chance to gain control over the SESAME.

He also described the SESAME as "Israel's backyard", but meantime underlined that Iran's participation in the project doesn't mean that it has recognized the Zionist regime.

"As we have officially and repeatedly announced, we have not and will not recognize the Zionist regime," Aqa-Miri reiterated.

Iran contributes a major role in the implementation of the SESAME project in the region.

Iran ranks first in terms of scientific participation in the major project of SESAME in the region.

Iran has pledged to pay 5 million dollars for the SESAME project.

Iran has set conditions to pay one million dollar every year for 5 years for the SESAME project to advance.

The country has called for the supply of facilities for training its experts and receiving visas for its scientists in return for the financial help.

It has also said that its aid should be only used for providing facilities.

It isn't direct, but Iran is clearly matching Israel's offer.

There's another wrinkle in the pseudo-cooperation between Iran and Israel on the project. Two of the Iranian physicists working on SESAME have been assassinated.


Majid Shahriari, who attended only a single SESAME meeting, was a quantum physicist who specialized in neutron transport, a phenomenon that lies at the heart of nuclear chain reactions in bombs and reactors. "According to Ars Technica, Majid Shahriari was the top scientist and senior manager of Iran's nuclear program." His assassination may have been by Israeli or American spies and seems not to be connected to SESAME.

But Masoud Alimohammadi, a particle physicist at the University of Tehran, as killed by a bomb in January 2010. He was not a nuclear researcher and seemed to be apolitical but he leaned towards Iran's reformist movement. He definitely spoke with his Israeli counterparts on the project. It seems unlikely that he was killed by Israeli or American agents.

Could he have been killed for his cooperation with Israel in SESAME?

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