Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Useless UNIFIL contradicts itself after Lebanon rocket fire into Israel

From YNet:

One of the Katyushas

The IDF confirmed Tuesday that two Katyusha rockets were fired at the western Galilee from Lebanon on Monday night. No injuries were reported, but several structures sustained damage.

The IDF's Northern Command has been placed on high alert following the fire. The military stressed that Israel holds the Lebanese government responsible for the indicent.

Hezbollah sources denied any connection to the rocket fire. UNIFIL, which has a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, has launched an investigation into the incident, but a spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was quoted by Beirut's radio as saying that "UNIFIL rejects reports suggesting any violation of UN Resolution 1701 and is working to restore normalcy."

Really? Rockets are fired into Israel and UNIFIL rejects the idea that there was a violation of 1701?

The UNIFIL website says the exact opposite:

UNIFIL radars detected firing of at least one rocket into Israel shortly after midnight last night from the general area of Rumaysh in south Lebanon. Israeli authorities indicated to UNIFIL that a number of rockets impacted in northern Israel.

The IDF returned artillery fire directed at the location from where the rocket fire originated.

At this time, no casualties have been reported from either side. There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

UNIFIL, in cooperation with the parties, is currently investigating on the ground to determine the facts and circumstances of the incident as well as to locate the launching site of the rocket fire.

UNIFIL Force Commander Major-General Alberto Asarta Cuevas is maintaining close contact with the parties and has called for maximum restraint in order to prevent any escalation of the situation.

The Force Commander said: “This is a serious incident in violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701 and is clearly directed at undermining stability in the area. It is imperative to identify and apprehend the perpetrators of this attack and we will spare no efforts to this end working in cooperation with the LAF. Additional troops have been deployed on the ground and patrols have been intensified across our area of operations to prevent any further incidents.”

So either UNIFIL has no clue what it is saying, or Beirut radio lies.

From all accounts, Hezbollah has an iron grip on southern Lebanon. The idea that some tiny armed group can get a hold of Katyushas and fire them without Hezbollah's knowledge is possible but seems unlikely.

Of course, the idea that the LAF or UNIFIL will be able to investigate this and find anything out is a lot more far-fetched.

Time's Karl Vick remains clueless

How many times do we have to see people who pretend to be analysts prove themselves so incredibly, irredeemably wrong?

Here's Time magazine's Karl Vick:

[W]hat if Abbas is holding still, and Hamas is moving closer to Abbas? That's what's been happening, from nearly all appearances, for the last two or three years, and everything coming out of the Cairo meeting points in the same direction. The head of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, and Abbas spoke for two hours, Abbas in the big chair, Meshaal on the couch with two others. Afterwards both met the cameras smiling. "There are no differences between us now," Abbas said. Mashaal went with: "We have opened a new page of partnership." And on whose terms? Hamas stands for resistance, its formal name being the Islamic Resistance Movement. But in the Gaza Strip where it governs, Hamas has largely enforced a truce with Israel since January 2009. And in Cairo it signed a paper committing itself to "popular resistance" against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. That's "popular" in contrast to "violent" or "military" resistance. We're talking marches here. Chanting and signs, not booby traps or suicide bombs.

"Every people has the right to fight against occupation in every way, with weapons or otherwise. But at the moment, we want to cooperate with the popular resistance," Meshaal told AFP. "We believe in armed resistance but popular resistance is a program which is common to all the factions."

For the past three years, Abbas has gone from someone actively participating in negotiations to someone who adamantly refuses to even talk with Israel under identical circumstances that the PLO negotiated for fourteen years. He has furthermore made unilateral moves, such as his UN stunt, to avoid any possible compromise with Israel - and has bragged about his intransigence. He has upset the US and the EU with his refusal to negotiate.

So much for Abbas "standing still."

Now, as far as Hamas is concerned, let's look at what they have been saying and doing in just the past week or so.

From all evidence, Hamas sacked every member of its security forces that was not explicitly a Hamas member.

Hamas reiterated that it will continue armed resistance against Israel.
Hamas named a school in Gaza after a mass murderer.
Hamas arrested four Fatah youth leaders, right after the "unity" meeting.
Another Hamas leader again reiterated that armed resistance remains an option, forever.
An analyst was quoted in Hamas' website as saying that Palestinian Arabs could never drop the option of armed resistance, because this right is (according to them) enshrined by the UN. Another emphasized that the current truce is simply to help strengthen Hamas and help Gaza recover, but it not a strategic option.
Hamas' Gaza leaders expressed great skepticism about unity with Fatah, an initiative spearheaded by Hamas' Damascus leaders.
And there is credible evidence that Hamas continues to import imported surface to air missiles into Gaza.

But Vick cannot be bothered to actually read Hamas websites in Arabic. No, if he can find an AFP interview in English, well, that must reflect the entire reality!

Hold on, though. Vick thinks he found a new piece of information!

Quite possibly biggest news out of Cairo was deep in the fine print: Efforts are under way to bring Hamas into the PLO, or Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella for all Palestinian factions. The PLO is the one "brand" that still resonates with ordinary Palestinians, and Hamas has wanted to join it since at least 2005. If Hamas finally gets in, the implications would appear to be immense. It would mean agreeing to the positions and agreements the PLO has already made. This includes recognizing Israel, and renouncing terror -- two things Hamas has never been willing to do. "Yes, when they are in they have to agree to the political program of the PLO," says Shaban. "This will take time." But should it occur, it would complete Hamas' move toward the center, and open the door to the international recognition craved by many in the organization.

Only one problem. It will never happen without the PLO changing its current stated positions.

Hamas cannot and will not recognize Israel. It cannot and will not accept a Jewish state in any form whatsoever. Literally. Its entire charter is based on Israel's destruction, and if Hamas can be counted upon for anything, it is to remain true to its principles. They have been remarkably consistent in their stated positions since their inception. If Vick actually believes that Hamas is one bit closer to recognizing Israel than they were in 2005 or 1995, then he is an idiot who simply refuses to open his eyes.

I can see the PLO muddying the language of its recognition of Israel to accommodate Hamas. But it is absolutely inconceivable that Hamas would accept the current stated PLO position of recognizing Israel and officially being against terrorism (a position the PLO roundly ignored only a few short years ago anyway.)

Vick, like so many other journalists, cannot distinguish between reality and what he wants to believe. And then he feeds this misinformation into the minds of equally clueless decision makers who want to believe that peace is possible as much as Vick does, and who rely on clueless pundits like him to buy the myth of a flexible Palestinian Arab leadership (and, naturally, the intransigent Israelis - the only ones who have actually made real concessions for peace, multiple times, over decades of conflict.)

Hamas is not moderating, and it never will. Just as there were people who were convinced that Hamas had moderated during the 2005 elections, and that Hamas had moderated before Cast Lead, there will always be credulous and utterly incompetent analysts who believe that Hamas is becoming more peaceful now.

And no matter how many times these pundits are proven wrong, they will continue to push their hopes and dreams as if they are reality.

Egyptian stone thrower arrested; found to have 50 shekels

Al Ahram reports that a stone thrower in Alexandria was arrested - and found to have 50 shekels in Israeli currency on him.

Michael Awad Hanna , 21, is a clothing salesman from the Giza governate, and was apprehended while throwing stones. He said that another protester gave the money to him.

The implication, of course, is that Israel is fomenting riots in Egypt.

To their credit, the commenters are mercilessly ripping apart the story, asking if the Mossad is so stupid as to pay in shekels, which are pretty worthless in Egypt, rather than euros or dollars.

But don't you see? That's their brilliance! Paying protesters - and making fools of Egyptian security at the same time!

Syrian army shoots at family attempting to flee to Jordan

From Jordan Times:

Shots rang out at the Jordanian-Syrian border late Sunday as Syrian forces attempted to prevent civilians from entering the Kingdom, hours after an Arab League decision to impose sanctions on Damascus.

Syrian soldiers opened fire on a married couple and their young child as they attempted to enter the Kingdom late yesterday near the Jaber border crossing, some 90 kilometres north of the capital, according to Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications and Government Spokesperson Rakan Majali.

The Syrian family arrived in the Kingdom and received emergency medical attention, Majali indicated.

Incidents like this one, which occurred hours after the Arab League endorsed a series of economic sanctions targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, have become “commonplace” over the past few months, he said.

“This has now become a very normal incident that happens nearly every day, but often without notice,” Majali told The Jordan Times.

According to Majali, the woman was rushed to Mafraq Military Hospital where medical sources indicated she was listed in serious condition as of late yesterday, adding that her husband and child were not injured in the incident.

The incident will not register a response from the Jordanian government, the spokesperson said, noting that the Kingdom will continue to extend efforts to “ensure the humanitarian protection” of Syrian civilians.

The humanitarian impact of the Syrian crisis has become an increasing concern for Jordan, which has hosted thousands of civilians fleeing violence since mid-February, with over 1,500 Syrians registered with the UN refugee agency.

Jordan has been keeping a very low profile in regards to Syrian refugees; we hear about the ones who fled to Turkey and Lebanon but not much about Syrians who flee to Jordan. I'm surprised that there are 1,500 of them.

Satellite image of damage from November 12th Iranian explosion

From ISIS:

ISIS has acquired commercial satellite imagery of a military compound near the town of Bid Kaneh1 in Iran where a large explosion occurred on November 12, 2011. Compared to an earlier picture of the site, an image taken on November 22, 2011 shows that most of the buildings on the compound appear extensively damaged (see figures 1 and 2). Some buildings appear to have been completely destroyed. Some of the destruction seen in the image may have also resulted from subsequent controlled demolition of buildings and removal of debris. There do not appear to be many pieces of heavy equipment such as cranes or dump trucks on the site, and a considerable amount of debris is still present. About the same number of trucks are visible in the image after the blast as in an image from approximately two months prior to the blast. Thus, most of the damage seen in the November 22, 2011 image likely resulted from the explosion.

ISIS learned that the blast occurred as Iran had achieved a major milestone in the development of a new missile. Iran was apparently performing a volatile procedure involving a missile engine at the site when the blast occurred.

Before:

After:

Huge explosion in Isfahan, Iran - home to nuclear weapons program (plus insta-poster!, updated)

UPDATE 11/30: Confirmation that the explosion was at a nuclear facility. New blog post here.

FARS News is reporting on a huge explosion in Isfahan, Iran. No details yet.

Isfahan hosts a Nuclear Technology Center, a Uranium Conversion Facility and a Zirconium Production Plant that helps make alloys for nuclear reactors.

According to the article, it happened at 2:40 AM.

For the occasion, a poster:

UPDATE: The FARS story has disappeared. Here's what the autotranslate looked like before it went down the memory hole:

Twitter updates/rumors:

A BBC reporter tweets his father in Isfahan heard the explosion.

Israel's Channel 10 reports that an explosion was at Shahab 4 ballistic missile site; unclear if it is the same one or where they got the information from.

Second Iranian news source confirms it, unclear if it was 2:40 AM or PM.

And another confirmation.

Iranian tweeters are all saying it was either an arms depot or an ammunition depot.

Isfahan's governor is now claiming that it was from a "military exercise."

Deputy governor says, "I dunno."

I've seen a few stories saying it happened near the gate to Shiraz University.

Mehr claims it was from a gas station explosion.

PressTV quotes officials denying the story altogether.

The secret flotilla negotiations between Turkey and Israel

Claire Berlinski, one of the best observers and reporters out of Turkey, has a must-read article on what happened during the negotiations between Israel and Turkey over the Palmer report on the flotilla:

The Turkish journalist Kadri Gürsel published an interesting piece the other day inMillyet about the failure of the negotiations between Turkey and Israel to normalize relations in the wake of the Mavi Marmara fiasco. Kadri Gürsel is a journalist whose work and opinions I take seriously; here, for example, he's written a thoughtful piece in Turkish Policy Quarterly that will help you locate him in the spectrum of Turkish political opinion.

Gürsel first places the blame for the failure of the negotiations on the Turkish foreign ministry's incompetence (he uses the more tactful phrase "lack of experience," but the Turkish foreign ministry is hardly inexperienced, so I assume we're to read between the lines). He then moves to what has become something of a standard narrative in Turkey and elsewhere: that the deal was "95 percent completed," but fell through only because of Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman's intransigence:

But the deal was never “100 percent complete” because in Israel, the obstacle, the extreme of the extreme Lieberman was not overcome. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not persuade Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for an apology and compensation. And the Turkey-Israel secret negotiations that started after the U.N. Investigation Panel was formed in August 2010, collapsed in June following the days when the draft agreement was prepared.

Matters in this “duplex channel” were held tight. The Israeli member of the U.N. Investigation Committee, Joseph Ciechanover and Ambassador Özdem Sanberk, who represented Turkey on the panel, were also negotiating through the duplex channel. The head of the panel Geoffrey Palmer and his deputy Alvaro Uribe, even if they were aware of that secret negotiations were conducted between the two countries, they did not know that Ciechanover and Sanberk were the participants. The “duplex channel” held meetings in Geneva, Bucharest and Rome.

Despite all, this draft agreement could be the operational basis for a new normalization process between Turkey and Israel. Of course, if it is possible to persuade Lieberman in the light of new situations in the Middle East.

I asked an Israeli official who was close to these negotiations--and who has thus far never provided me with information that has proved unreliable--for comment. This is what he said:

I've seen the "draft deal" and the formula for apology includes indeed the English word "apologize", though the phrase “operational mistakes that caused life losses and injuries to Turkish people” was preceded by an "if." (I can't remember the exact wording, but it went something like: Israel apologizes if there were any operational mistakes etc ... ) This was the mutually agreed formula, and by using the conditional mode, it was possible for us to apologize without admitting that we actually did something wrong, which of course we believe we didn't.

It is also correct that we agreed to pay compensations (through a bi-national fund, not directly), though the Turks did not specify at that point how much they thought would be reasonable. We thought the details and the sum could be worked out later on, based on mutual trust that would arise from the approval of the package deal.

Turkey, however, did not guarantee that "Turkish citizens and their legal representatives would not take legal action against Israel." It agreed to promise not to prosecute Israelis, but explained it could commit itself on behalf of private citizens in Turkey or abroad. This made some Israelis suspicious: what would happen if we endorsed the deal, and then had to face suits by members of the Turkish public, maybe even with covert assistance by the government? What guarantee did we have that the "deal" would actually end all claims and enable Israel and Turkey to reconcile and restart their relationship? This suspicion grew stronger in light of Turkey's insistence that the text should state that Israeli soldiers killed activists "intentionally." Why insist on this admission of guilt if not to enable legal action? As Gürsel himself says, this text which the Israeli government was supposed to approve was not completely agreed upon by Turkey, because they still wanted to include the intentionality wording. Even if the Israeli government had approved the draft, it would have left us with Turkish disavowal and discontent.

Another condition set forth by the Turks, and agreed to by Israel, was shelving the Palmer Report. Strange that Gürsel should say nothing of this, since he starts his discussion with the meaning of the Report to Turkey. The Turks were very keen on making the report disappear …

Finally, when it all came down to a discussion in the Israeli Cabinet, it wasn't just Lieberman who was reluctant to approve the whole package deal. Others, too, did not exactly trust Erdoğan, and raised doubts as to his real intentions: what would we get in return for the (indirect) apology, the compensations and the shelving of the report? Restoring ties with Ankara and an "end of conflict." But what if, after all was said and done, Erdoğan would claim that not all of his conditions were met? That Israel did not fulfill the requirements? All of a sudden, he speaks about lifting the siege on Gaza as a condition – but it was never mentioned in the negotiations nor in the draft! How easily it could have served as a pretext not to restore ties. And as for taking legal action against Israelis, well … With the intentionality clause still open, and with Turkey's non-commitment to stop private suits, and with the Palmer Report scrapped, where would it all lead us? Certainly not to an end of conflict, but rather to a further deterioration, with us in an inferior position.

This is the reason why quite a few ministers refused to endorse the draft. The Turkish anger at the leak of the Palmer Report, and Davutoğlu's hot-headed reaction and statements, only seemed to confirm our worst doubts: they were never in earnest to begin with.

(h/t Mike)

Hamas again emphasizes "armed resistance;" Fatah tacitly agrees

From Ma'an:

Senior Hamas official Ismail Radwan said Sunday that armed resistance remains a strategic option for Palestinians, while affirming that popular action was also an integral part of challenging Israel's policies.

Radwan told Ma'an: "All aspects of resistance are open and permissible and open to us."

But he stressed that it is the Palestinian factions who must decide on the ways to challenge Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.

The comments come after Islamic Jihad said on Sunday it would support a Palestinian consensus on strategies to resist the occupation, but on condition that popular actions do not become a substitute for armed resistance.

After Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal and Fatah leader President Mahmoud Abbas met in Cairo on Thursday to progress implementation of a unity deal between the two largest political parties, the leaders said they were united in their approach to the Palestinian cause.

As we have shown countless times before, even the so-called "moderates" of Fatah and the PA have not once denounced terrorism on moral grounds, but only because it was counterproductive at that time. But if they decide it is desirable again, terrorism is back on the table.

Meaning that there is no difference between Fatah and Hamas in terms of "resistance."

Indeed, in that aspect, they are united.

Cyber Monday discounts at Elder store

You can get discounts of around 30% (depends on the item) at the EoZ Printfection store today for orders over $50.

There is no better time to show off your part in nefarious worldwide Zionist domination plans!

Use coupon code CyberMon11.

Mousepad

Germany stands for an uncompromising struggle against the Jews. It is self-evident that the struggle against the Jewish national homeland in Palestine forms part of this struggle, since such a national homeland would be nothing other than a political base for the destructive influence of Jewish interests. Germany also knows that the claim that Jewry plays the role of an economic pioneer in Palestine is a lie. Only the Arabs work there, not the Jews. Germany is determined to call on the European nations one by one to solve the Jewish problem and, at the proper moment, to address the same appeal to non-European peoples....At some not yet precisely known, but in any case not very distant point in time, the German armies will reach the southern edge of the Caucasus. As soon as this is the case, the Führer will himself give the Arab world his assurance that the hour of liberation has arrived. At this point, the sole German aim will be the destruction of the Jews living in the Arab space under the protection of British power.
---Adolf Hitler to Haj Amin Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, November 28, 1941

The Mufti of Jerusalem was the undisputed leader of Palestinian Arab nationalism from the 1920s through the 1940s, and his hatred of Jews pervaded all he did.

It will be recalled that the Mufti was given his position by the British because he was regarded as a "moderate." This is what gave him the platform to start his career of inciting against and murdering Jews in earnest.

He was responsible for the anti-Jewish pogroms in Palestine in 1920, 1921 and 1929; he initiated the deadly riots from 1936-1939, and he initiated contact with the Nazis as soon as they came to power in order to come up with ways to work together with them to get rid of the Jews.

Not only that, but towards the end of the war, he pulled out all the stops to murder Jewish children rather than have them rescued - even when the desperate Nazis were considering swapping them for money or for German prisoners. Meaning that his desire to murder Jews exceeded even that of Hitler himself.

The Mufti was an unrepentant anti-semite and desired nothing less than the complete genocide of the entire Jewish people, every man, woman and child.

Today, November 28th, is the anniversary of the Mufti's seminal meeting with Hitler where the Fuehrer explained his genocidal plans in detail to his kindred anti-semite.

Today, the Mufti of Jerusalem is considered a hero among Palestinian Arab leadership.

One year ago, Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech,

We must also recall the outstanding [early] leader of the Palestinian people, the Grand Mufti of Palestine -- Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, who sponsored the struggle from the beginning, and sponsored the struggle and was displaced for the cause and died away from his home."

The Mufti isn't a Palestinian Arab hero despite his Jew-hatred.

He is a hero because of it.

The Muslim Brotherhood's election platform, in English

Today Egyptians are voting for their new parliament, and the Muslim Brotherhood is widely expected to garner more votes than any other party.

Reader Alice has found what appears to be a legitimate Muslim Brotherhood "Election Program" published on the web, in English.

Some highlights:

...We seek to play an active and influential part:

Affirming the right of the Palestinian people to liberate their land, and highlighting the duty of governments and peoples of Arab and Muslim countries, especially Egypt, to aid and support the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance against the Zionist usurpers of their homeland.

This means all of Israel, and the wording hardly limits itself to "non-violent" resistance.

Endeavouring to achieve full integration and cooperation in all fields with Sudan in order to ensure its safety and territorial integrity and achieve security, stability and development, including the activation of the Four Freedoms Agreement, so that we can attain true unity as a nucleus for achieving historically desired Arab unity.

The MB does not like independence for South Sudan and wants to roll back that achievement - next door to Egypt.

We appreciate the importance of restoring the role of Egypt in the Islamic domain and the need to strengthen relations with Islamic countries, especially Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, etc.

No Sunni/Shi'a issues here. The MB loves Iran, and vice versa.

Securing Egypt's quota of Nile water and defeat Zionist plots in this regard.

There is some background behind this one. For years, there has been talk in southern Sudan to create the Jonglei Canal, which would increase the amount of water available to the Nile by 10-15 billion cubic meters. It has never been completed. According to a report last year, Israel offered to complete this project - where everyone would gain more water - in exchange for the right to purchase a percentage of that water at a discount. I have no idea whether this report was true. But Egyptians were upset at the very idea of selling Israel any water - even if they would gain water as a result!

Encourage the film industry, both financially and morally.

Emphasis on the freedom of the press and freedom of publication of newspapers, magazines,and various other paper and electronic publications without any legal or administrative obstacles, as long as the publication abides by the Constitution and the law and takes account of public morality.

Apply a "code of honour" for the use of the internet that depends on a culture of self-immunisation rather than external censorship; to assist the protection of public morality and values in Egyptian society, with emphasis on the prevention of pornography downloads or uploads, and use of all technical and legal ways to achieve this

Ah, the "Freedom" and Justice Party.

[I]t is of paramount importance to restore to Egypt its religious leadership position in Arab, Islamic and global domains.

Yes, this is a political platform.

Finally:

The family is the oldest institution on earth. It‟s also the first incubator for breeding and upbringing of humans. To realise the importance of focusing on the construction of the family unit as a means for making and shaping the good Egyptian citizen, let's look at the outcome of the previous decades of exposure systematic corruption implemented by several parties, especially the National Council for women, the National Council for Motherhood and Childhood, and a whole list of civil society organisations that receive foreign funds from suspicious sources. Those were helped along down that slimy slope with a package of corrupt laws passed not due to public demand, but were the result of international dictates imposed on us by international conventions signed under the previous regime.

Thirty years ago, Egypt joined an international convention for women called the "Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)" although this Convention controls the most private of the marital relationship details. Do any members of our great public know that Egypt is a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which allows a child to choose the family to live with? Do Egyptians realise that they are obliged to accept homosexuals and treat them in the best and kindest way possible, in compliance with those agreements?? Not to mention the legalisation of adoption in ways strictly forbidden in Islamic law?! Was it not our right as citizens in this country to have referenda on such conventions and agreements that control the finest details of our lives and our family relationships? Since this was not done at thetime these conventions were signed, it is our right – as a people proud of their identity and religion
– to insist on re-consideration of those agreements. Then they should be re-evaluated in terms of suitability to our culture, traditions and established values. We should have the first and last word on accession to those conventions.

Surprisingly, however, the platform does not call for Egypt to cut off natural gas shipments to Israel, but rather to increase the price of the gas to bring in some $18 billion of additional revenue annually.

Egypt pipeline bombed again. Why aren't Arabs concerned about Jordan?

From JPost:

Saboteurs blew up Egypt's gas pipeline to Jordan and Israel on Monday, witnesses and security sources said, a few hours before the country holds its first free election since president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February.

The explosion was set off west of El-Arish in Sinai, witnesses said. There was a second consecutive blast, about 100 metres away, sources said.

State news agency MENA said the explosion was in al-Sabeel area. Security forces and fire trucks raced to the scene.

Security sources said the explosions were detonated from a distance and that tracks from two vehicles were found in the area. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The blast marked the ninth time this year that terrorists have bombed the pipeline. The previous attack on the pipeline occurred Friday, when assailants bombed a portion of the pipeline some 60 kilometers from El-Arish. Egyptian officials said that the damage to the pipeline in the Friday blast was small compared to other such explosions this year because that portion of the pipeline has been empty since the last explosion earlier in November.

These constant attacks hurt Jordan at least as much as they hurt Israel. Yet I have not seen any Arab argue that these acts of sabotage must stop because they are hurting fellow Arabs.

Which is yet more proof that Arabs hate Israel more than they love each other.

This is a fundamental problem, and another reason why real peace is simply not possible. Peace can only come about between two rational players, but when one side is so consumed with hate that he doesn't mind hurting his own people just to have a chance of hurting the enemy, we have gone way beyond anything that can be solved with talks and goodwill gestures and negotiations.

November 27, 1947: Arabs plan to divide Palestine

From the Palestine Post, November 27, 1947:

Even on the eve of the partition vote, Arab nations had no interest in an independent Palestine, but rather they wanted to grab whatever pieces they could get.

Transjordan's king had his own ideas. From the same date:

Isn't that sweet?

Report from Egypt - The Muslim Brotherhood's double game

A very good piece by Boaz Bismuth:

“We don’t want to win the Egyptians' votes, we want to win their hearts,” Hassan el-Banah Muhadin, the director of the Muslim Brotherhood party headquarters in the Masar al-Qidma quarter of downtown Cairo, told me this week.

Muhadin is just 21 years old. He completed his studies at Cairo University, where he majored in Spanish. “We are a party with a lot of patience,” he told me during my visit to the organization’s offices earlier this week. “In today’s Egypt, you need to have patience.”

Nonetheless, it seems that the Muslim Brotherhood has – deliberately, it should be noted – lost its patience 10 days before parliamentary elections are due to be held. The elections will begin on Monday and continue until January, with three rounds of voting scheduled (Nov. 28, Dec. 14, and Jan. 5). The tacit cooperation of late between the brotherhood and the army, who were fierce rivals during the Mubarak era, has broken down in the second revolution that erupted last weekend.

The Egypt I visited looks bad. This is not what people had hoped for nine months ago when they ousted Hosni Mubarak.

...Today's Egypt is fractured and fissured. It is an Egypt where nearly everyone is pitted against everyone else. The secular youths, who are the heroes of the revolution, are furious with the army, that same army which they embraced just a few months ago. From their point of view, the army snatched their victory from them. Judging by the speech delivered Tuesday by Field Marshal (the army's highest rank) Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, this army utterly fails to understand Egypt’s citizens.

Alongside the army, there are secular parties who seem to have bitten off more than they can chew, and then there are of course the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, and the rest of “the forces of radical advancement” who were not the first to take to Tahrir Square during the initial days of the revolution, but who are today refusing to just stand on the sidelines. On the contrary. They are now taking initiative just like a Tour de France cyclist who knows exactly when to take advantage of his opponents’ fatigue and sprint past them.

Read the whole thing.

Cairo rally: "One day we'll kill all the Jews"

From YNet:

A Muslim Brotherhood rally in Cairo's most prominent mosque Friday turned into a venomous anti-Israel protest, with attendants vowing to "one day kill all Jews."

Some 5,000 people joined the rally, called to promote the "battle against Jerusalem's Judaization." The event coincided with the anniversary of the United Nations' partition plan in 1947, which called for the establishment of a Jewish state.

Speakers at the event delivered impassioned, hateful speeches against Israel, slamming the "Zionist occupiers" and the "treacherous Jews." Upon leaving the rally, worshippers were given small flags, with Egypt's flag on one side and the Palestinian flag on the other, as well as maps of Jerusalem's Old City detailing where "Zionists are aiming to change Jerusalem's Muslim character."

Propaganda material ahead of Egypt's parliamentary elections was also handed out at the site.

Spiritual leader Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb charged in his speech that to this day Jews everywhere in the world are seeking to prevent Islamic and Egyptian unity.

"In order to build Egypt, we must be one. Politics is insufficient. Faith in Allah is the basis for everything," he said. "The al-Aqsa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews…we shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds (Jerusalem.) We are telling Israel and Europe that we shall not allow even one stone to be moved there."

Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen, as well as Palestinian guest speakers, made explicit calls for Jihad and for liberating the whole of Palestine. Time and again, a Koran quote vowing that "one day we shall kill all the Jews" was uttered at the site. Meanwhile, businessmen in the crowd were urged to invest funds in Jerusalem in order to prevent the acquisition of land and homes by Jews.

Throughout the event, Muslim Brotherhood activists chanted: "Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, judgment day has come."