Tunnel collapse!

The Al Qassam website says:

Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades (E.Q.B) the military wing of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, mourned on Sunday morning, February 5th, 2012, the death of the Qassam member Sameer Abdulrahman Al Ejlah,28, from Al Shujaeiah neighborhood east of the Gaza city.

The brigades confirmed in a press statement released on Sunday morning, that the martyr Sameer has accidentlly died, adding that he was martyred after a long bright path of Jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice

Al Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahed, reaffirms the commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces.

How exactly did he die? According to Palestine Today, he died when a "resistance tunnel" collapsed.

Was this a smuggling tunnel? Actually, it doesn't seem to be. The tunnel wasn't in Rafah, but apparently in Gaza City.

So this was most likely a bunker where Hamas keeps its weapons and explosives. Or, possibly, a tunnel meant to kidnap Israeli soldiers.

UPDATE: Turns out there were two "martyrs" yesterday. One died in a "training accident."

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The UN rewrites its own history on how it refers to the territories

I have previously noted that the UN habitually describes all of the land beyond the Green Line as "Occupied Palestinian Territory," and their absurd logic in doing so.

When did the UN start to use that terminology?

It appears that the term started being used, informally, around 1989, and formally in 1998.

This memo from 1988 calls them "West Bank and Gaza" and "occupied territories."

In 1989, we see simply "occupied territories."

Even this 2000 Security Council resolution refers to "territories occupied by Israel."

While many PLO letters to the UN refer to "occupied Palestinian territory" the UNGA did not seem to give it that proper name, using capital letters, until much later - in 1998.

In December of that year:

At its 81st plenary meeting, on 7 December 1998, the General Assembly, on the proposal of Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Oman, Tunisia, Yemen and Palestine, A/53/L.65 and Add.1. requested that the Secretary-General should continue to use the term Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, when appropriate, in accordance with General Assembly resolutions, in relevant reports to the Assembly, including the report under the item entitled Assistance to the Palestinian people, bearing in mind the need to take account of future relevant Assembly resolutions and progress in the Middle East peace process.

So the term "Occupied Palestinian Territory," or "OPT," was only formalized in the UN in 1998 - well after Oslo.

Here is where it gets interesting.

The UNISPAL set of documents relating to Palestine gives titles to each memo that comes out of the UN. The titles in UNISPAL's index have nothing to do with the actual titles of the documents.

And whoever gave these documents their titles deliberately uses the term "OPT" in documents that were written many years before the UN adopted that increasingly incorrect term!

Some of them from 1980:

5/19/1980	S/13737/Add.18	Situation in OPT -summary statement - Secretary-General
5/14/1980	A/35/230	Situation in OPT - Letter from CEIRPP Acting Chairman
5/14/1980	S/13940	Illegal Israeli measures in the OPT/Deportation of Palestinian leaders - Letter from CEIRPP Acting Chairman
5/13/1980	S/13938	Situation in the OPT/Deportation of mayors, Sharia judge - SecGen report
5/12/1980	S/13936	Situation in the OPT/Deportation of mayors-Letter from Jordan
5/8/1980	A/35/206/Corr.1	Situation in the OPT - Letter from Yemen
	S/13922/Corr.1
5/7/1980	A/35/218	Situation in the OPT - PLO letter - Letter from Yemen
	S/13928
3/31/1980	S/13868	Situation in the OPT/Jerusalem - Letter from Jordan
3/26/1980	A/35/155	Situation in the OPT/Hebron - Letter from Egypt
	S/13861
3/25/1980	S/13859	Situation in the OPT/Hebron - Letter from Morocco
3/24/1980	S/13854	Situation in the OPT/Hebron - Letter from CEIRPP Chairman
3/10/1980	S/13737/Add.8	Situation in OPT -summary statement - Secretary-General
2/27/1980	S/13737/Add.7	Situation in OPT -summary statement - Secretary-General

Clicking on any of those links will show that not once is the term "Occupied Palestinian Territory" used in the documents themselves.

The UN is deliberately rewriting its own history to make it appear that the term "Occupied Palestinian Territory" has been used forever, when in fact it is of relatively recent vintage.

This is most unethical and an insult to people who want to use the UN site for historical research. It shows a blatant disregard for facts and history.

It is, effectively, a UN-sanctioned mass rewriting of its own records.

---

Another interesting find.

This 1983 resolution says:

Bearing in mind the provisions of the Geneva Convention,

Noting that Israel and those Arab States whose territories have been occupied by Israel since June 1967 are parties to that Convention,

Taking into account that States parties to that Convention undertake, in accordance with article 1 thereof, not only to respect but also to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances,

1. Reaffirms that the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, is applicable to Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem;

The UN is saying here that the Geneva Conventions apply because the Arab states whose territories are occupied are parties to Geneva, and therefore Israel is considered to be occupying them. Geneva only applies when both parties are High Contracting Parties of the Convention itself.

But if the territories are "Palestinian," and "Palestine" is not a party to the Convention, then that preamble makes no sense!

Indeed, the UN no longer uses that argument anymore, simply declaring the territories to be "occupied" by assertion.

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"Nakba" didn't originally mean what Arabs say it means

The first time that the word "Nakba" was used by an Arab in the context of the 1948 war was by Lebanese Arab nationalist Constantine Zureiq.

Barry Rubin notes:

Constantine Zurayk was vice-president of the American University of Beirut. His book was entitled The Meaning of the Disaster. Here’s the key passage:

"Seven Arab states declare war on Zionism in Palestine, stop impotent before it and turn on their heels. The representatives of the Arabs deliver fiery speeches in the highest government forums, warning what the Arab states and peoples will do if this or that decision be enacted. Declarations fall like bombs from the mouths of officials at the meetings of the Arab League, but when action becomes necessary, the fire is still and quiet, and steel and iron are rusted and twisted, quick to bend and disintegrate.”

This is the old style of Arab discourse. Zurayk openly acknowledged the Arab states rejected all compromise, made ferocious threats, and invaded the new state of Israel to destroy it. For him, the “nakba” taught that they needed to modernize and democratize their system. Only thoroughgoing reform could fix the shortcomings of the Arabic-speaking world. What happened instead was another 55 years of the same thing, followed by this new era opening last year which will probably also bring a half-century of the same thing. Nakba has become the opposite of what Zurayk wanted it to be: Blaming your opponent rather than acknowledging your own shortcomings and fixing them.

...The nakba concept of which Zurayk wrote was much broader, the Arabic-speaking world’s failure to embrace modernity, science, real democracy, an other such things. In that respect, every day is a nakba and 2011 was not the year of the “Arab Spring” but the year of renewing the nakba strategy. It is a self-inflicted nakba and the victims are the Arabic-speaking people themselves.

What did Zurayk think about Zionism and its triumph? Here’s what he wrote:

“The reason for the victory of the Zionists was that the roots of Zionism are grounded in modern Western life while we for the most part are still distant from this life and hostile to it. They live in the present and for the future, while we continue to dream the dreams of the past and to stupefy ourselves with its fading glory.”

“To dream the dreams of the past and to stupefy ourselves with its fading glory.” Isn’t that precisely what the Nakba concept is used for today? To say: we cannot make a compromise peace because those horrible Israelis were so mean to us more than 60 years ago. We are victims. We want revenge. We dream of total victory.

And those dreams and that stupefying guarantees failure for the Arabs, and most of all the Palestinians, today.

If Zurayk were alive today he’d be an Arab liberal fighting radical Islamism. Zurayk wanted the Arabs to learn from their mistakes.

As usual, Rubin is right. The coiner of the term "nakba" had an entirely different meaning in mind. To him, "nakba" doesn't mean Israel's victory in 1948, but Arabs' failure to solve their problems. Here's how Nissim Rejwan summarized Zurayk's book in 1988:

Immediately following the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949 a number of Arab writers and thinkers, profoundly shocked by the defeat the armies of five Arab states suffered at the hands of what the Arabs called "the Zionist bands," set out to analyze the causes and draw the lessons of the debacle. Foremost among these was Constantine Zureiq, a Lebanese professor of history and a prolific political writer with strong Arab nationalist leanings. His book on the subject, Ma'na al-Nakba (The Meaning of the Disaster), was published soon after the outbreak of the war— August 1948 — and was mainly a work of self-criticism. The battle against Israel, he wrote, will not be won "as long as the Arabs remain in their present condition." The road to final and complete victory, he added, "lies in a fundamental change of the situation of the Arabs, in a complete transformation in their modes of thought, action and life." Subsequently, writing in 1966. Zureiq was to observe that the Arabs still had a long way to go to attain their goals in Palestine. He also coined a new term, 'ilm al-nakba —the science of Catastrophe or, better still, catastrophology — adding that the Arabs must now approach their problems with Israel "in a scientific Way."

The word had nothing to do with refugees. It meant that, just as today, Arabs blamed others for their own self-inflicted problems.

I believe that the first time that the word "catastrophe" was used in reference to the refugee problem by Palestinian Arabs was in a letter from the Arab Higher Committee to the UN in May 1949, where they said:

The Arabs believe that the United Nations Organization which is the author of the partition plan, is responsible for the catastrophe that has befallen the Palestinian refugees. As such it is the duty of the United Nations to remove the injustice done to the Arabs. We submit that by removing the cause of the problem of the refugees, the United Nations will have substantially solved their serious problem.

Meaning that they wanted to UN to dissolve Israel, supposedly as a means to solve the refugee issue.

This is how the word is used nowadays - as a means to destroy Israel, not the way the coiner of the term intended it, as criticism of the Arabs.

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Egyptians bomb gas pipeline to Israel, Jordan yet again

From Egypt Independent (formerly Al Masry al Youm):

An explosion hit a gas pipeline running from Egypt to Israel Sunday, witnesses and state television reported.

The pipeline, which also supplies gas to Jordan, has come under attack at least 12 times since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in 2011.

The latest blast took place in the Massaeed area west of the Mediterranean coastal town of Arish. Gas pumping was stopped after the explosion.

Residents in Arish told Reuters they could see flames from their town. Security forces and fire trucks raced to the scene, witnesses said.

Previous explosions have sometimes led to weeks-long shutdowns along the pipeline, run by Egypt's gas transport company Gasco, a subsidiary of the national gas company EGAS.

Egypt said in November it would tighten security measures along the pipeline by installing alarm devices and recruiting security patrols from Bedouin tribesmen in the area.

Egypt doubled the gas price for Jordan in October. Jordan said Monday it would raise electricity prices as of February to cover the rising burden of imported fuel costs after loss of regular Egyptian gas supplies.

The saboteurs are hurting Jordan more than Israel, but that doesn't matter - as always, they care far more about causing pain to Jews than to any collateral damage that might happen to their fellow Arabs. (The Al-Qaeda-affiliated group that took responsibility said it was in retaliation for the death of its leader in an Egyptian jail, meaning that they wanted to hurt - Egypt?)

I wonder whether Jordan will allow any gas imports from Israel when the gas fields in the Mediterranean go on-line...

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The LA Times slurs the IDF in article on the fake photo

The good news is that the Los Angeles Times blog took note of the fake viral photo supposedly showing an IDF soldier stepping on the chest of a poor Palestinian Arab girl.

But writer Batsheva Sobelman, while showing all the evidence that the photo was staged, still is not 100% sure that the photo isn't that of an Israeli soldier. Instead of accepting the clear proof that the soldier couldn't be Israeli, she writes "But the question remains: Is the soldier Syrian or Israeli?"

But that's not the worst part. Sobelman actually says:

There are some things in the photo -- other than the situation, which is not beyond the realm of possibility -- that are not quite right.

Sobelman thinks that it is possible that an IDF soldier would step on a little girl's chest and point a machine gun at her? Would she ever, ever say that about any other army in the world?

In that one sentence, the LA Times is showing that its regard for fairness in reporting is no better than the thousands of Facebook idiots that copied the photo as proof of Israeli crimes.

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Amnesty's mendacious use of language to demonize Israel

Amnesty International has published another broadside against Israel, this one in Huffington Post. It lists a long line of supposed Israeli crimes, without giving sources.

Here is just the first sentence:

As the Quartet celebrates the resumption of bilateral negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians in Jordan this month, a record number of Palestinians find themselves out in the cold this winter due to illegal home demolitions by Israeli authorities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

Lets examine this sentence.

Its main point - repeated in its press release from December, released along with some twenty other NGOs - is that "a record number of Palestinians " are displaced.

What is this record number?

The figures show that since the beginning of 2011 more than 500 Palestinian essential structures were destroyed in the OPT, with over 1,000 Palestinians displaced -- doubling the number displaced over the same period in 2010, and the highest figure since at least 2005.

Amnesty's definition of a "record" is apparently "the most in the last seven years." That is not what the word "record" means.

And note that they aren't saying 500 homes, but 500 "essential structures." These include illegally built wells - wells that threaten the entire region's water supply. Amnesty is claiming that Palestinian Arabs have the right to damage everyone's access to water, and Israel has no right to stop them in territory they define as "occupied."

But if Israel is occupying the territory, as Amnesty claims, then Israel's responsibility is precisely to administer natural resources according to the Hague Convention - which presumably includes water.

Certainly, under the laws of occupation, Israel would be obligated to continue applying Jordanian law that applied to the areas before 1967, and it seems difficult to believe that Jordan did not enforce any zoning laws in the territory it occupied or that it tolerated the wanton illegal construction of housing. Amnesty pointedly does not address that issue - can any (Arab) who desires build anywhere they want in occupied territory?

Now, are the people who previously lived in these illegal structures out in the cold? Are they homeless? The NGOs give no evidence in that regard. This is Amnesty's hyperbole meant to demonize Israel and they have no basis in fact.

The real fact is that in 2011, the Palestinian Authority built or was expected to build 33,822 dwelling units. In just that one year. Israeli "record demolitions" are less than one percent of the total new construction last year. (In fact, the PA constructed more new units than Israelis did -not in the territories, but in Israel itself!)

And yet again, Amnesty - along with the UN and every other NGO - refers to the territories as "Occupied Palestinian Territories."

When international law scholar Eugene Kontorovich spoke at NYU last month, I asked him a question afterwards about Jordanian and Palestinian Arab claims to the West Bank. He stated:

If you think that the competing claims to the West Bank are Israel and its previous occupant, Jordan, then you would think that Israel would enjoy undisturbed title, and then this group of Palestinians organized themselves to challenge that title, it would have to be  a retroactive challenge, which is the difficulty of it.

When Newt Gingrich said that the Palestinians were an "invented people," he was much criticized. Some people said, and I think quite rightly, that even if they are invented, it doesn't really matter, because you can invent a people - people can be invented. If a group of people decide to think of themselves as a nation, that can actually have real force. Who's to stop a people from inventing themselves?

I completely agree with that. There is nothing wrong with being an invented people; every people is in some sense invented.

The only question is: what's the date of that invention? If it is a post-'67 phenomenon, it seems hard to understand how that can make territory, whose status changed in 1967, "Palestinian Territory" retroactively.

I have never seen any real legal opinion that describes exactly how Palestinian Arabs can be described as the presumed legal owners of the West Bank. As with the UN, Amnesty seems to be using the term "Occupied Palestinian Territories" as a catchphrase, without any legal basis. It has become part of the discourse based on repetition and wishful thinking, not based on fact. Calling Area C and perhaps Area B "occupied" is defensible from a legal standpoint, but not calling them "Occupied Palestinian Territory."

This single sentence in the Huffington Post shows four separate examples of how Amnesty is less interested in truth than in demonizing Israel. For people who believe that Amnesty is the paragon of impartiality, this should be troubling indeed.

(h/t Erik)

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Iran threatens Samsung over Israeli cable TV commercial

Remember this funny commercial for Israel's HOT cable network? (English subtitle version has been pulled from YouTube)



Predictably, Iran wasn't pleased:

Teheran is considering a ban on Samsung to protest an advertisement for an Israeli cable provider that makes light of the war of words and mysterious explosions being waged between Iran and Israel, an Iranian lawmaker told the country‘s state-run Press TV on Saturday.

In the ad produced by Israeli cable provider HOT, a bored Mossad agent meets in an Iranian wasteland with three characters from the Israeli comedy series Asfur who are dressed in drag. Casting furtive glances at passersby, the agent shows off a Samsung Galaxy tablet, and said he kills time on assignment watching “on-demand” episodes of Asfur on the tablet.

At the end of the clip, one of the three Asfur characters (“Newton”, the show’s loveable moron) accidentally activates an application that detonates a nuclear reactor on the horizon. Moments later, one of the Asfur buddies (“Moti”, the series protagonist), swats a fly that lands on his neck, and curses “ya Khamenei!” at the insect.

Khamenei is the Israeli slang for Maladera Insanabilis, a beetle drawn to the light of Tel Aviv apartment building stairwells during the summer months. The winged pest beetle acquired the name because the species is believed to have been accidentally imported in Israel in the late 1970s by a traveler returning from Iran.

The tablet is offered as an enticement for prospective customers to sign up for the on-demand package.

The South Korean electronics giant said "Samsung Electronics is aware of a recent news report in Iranian media regarding an advertisement aired by HOT cable network of Israel. This advertisement was produced by HOT cable network without Samsung's knowledge or participation."

"As a member of the global community, Samsung is committed to demonstrating respect for all people and cultures around the globe," the statement added.

Al Arabiya is characterizing Samsung's statement as a "condemnation" although it doesn't sound like one.

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New Turkish aid ship for Gaza - going through Ashdod

Could it be that Turkey learned a lesson?

A Turkish ship carrying medical aid for people in Gaza has arrived at Ashdod Port in Israel, Turkish Deputy Premier Bekir Bozdag confirmed Saturday.

Bozdag was quoted by Turkish daily, Zaman, that innocent civilians not only die by shelling but can be killed by the strict siege they are being held under, which prevents the entry of food, medicine and other basic needs.

He said his country had presented a request to the Israeli Defence Ministry, to allow safe passage for the aid ship in October last year.

The ship carries aid worth USD 1.5 million to the Gazans.

If they would have done that in 2010, nine lives would have been saved.

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AFP defends photo of Arab allegedly run over (updated)

I reported last week about a series of photos, one of which was published by AFP, supposedly showing an Arab man - Mohammed Abu Qbeita - in agony after one of his legs was tun over by a truck.

Here is the AFP photo:

CAMERA did an investigation and found that there were many holes in the story:

After checking with both Palestinian and Israeli sources, it seems that the man was not at all injured, and there is no evidence that he was run over. On the Palestinian side, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which provides comprehensive weekly reports about all injuries, fatalities, incursions, and other incidents in both the West Bank and Gaza, makes no mention of this alleged injury in its report for Jan. 19- 25. In addition, the Palestinian Ma'an News Agency did not cover the alleged injury, even though it does report on Israeli army activity that day nearby in Tel Rumeida. And Ma'an also reported a hit and run incident, in which a Palestinian teen was hit by an Israeli driver at a checkpoint this morning. Presumably, then had this worker actually been run over and injured on Wednesday, Ma'an would have carried the story. Nor does it appear that any English-language wire service or other media outlet covered the alleged injury.

On the Israeli side, Capt. Barak Raz, spokesman for the Judea and Samaria division who had spoken to soldiers at the scene, told CAMERA the following: IDF soldiers were on site to provide security for the Civil Administration, which was preventing Palestinian construction in an area not permitted for building. One Palestinian worker was lying on the ground next to the trailer when he started to scream that he had been run over. Nobody saw him get run over. First he complained that his left leg was injured. An army medic checked him and saw nothing. The medic did, nevertheless, wrap him in a bandage since the worker was carrying on that he had been run over. The man then subsequently claimed that it was his right leg which was injured. According to Raz, the Palestinian Red Crescent, which was also on the scene, checked him, and likewise found absolutely nothing wrong with him.

In short, at worst, this incident is staged, as Raz contends, and the man pretended to be run over and injured, while neither happened. At best, there is zero independent confirmation that he was injured. If neither AFP nor IHT can substantiate the claim, it ought to be immediately retracted.

AFP is denying any impropriety on the part of their photographer, and say the story is true:
These claims are false.

AFP’s Jerusalem bureau and photo editor interviewed other media representatives present at the scene and watched video footage filmed by other colleagues showing the construction worker being carried away on a stretcher. Their trust in the events described by Hazem Bader is unequivocal.

Reporters from AFP Jerusalem bureau also interviewed the injured construction worker, Mahmud Abu Qbeita, on February 1 as well as the doctors that treated him at Yatta hospital. The following is a translation from Arabic of the medical certificate issued on the day of the incident : “Yatta Hospital Prescription for Mohammed Abu Qbeita To whom it may concern, The above mentioned person has attended the emergency service at the hospital. He was suffering from severe pain in his right leg. He said that an Israeli military vehicle ran over him. In the medical examination we found that he has pain in his right knee, pain in his pelvis, and pain in the neck, and has difficulty in walking. We conducted X-RAYS on him and found fractures. He has been advised to consult the orthopedic department."

Here’s a transcript of the interview given on February 1 by Mohammed Abu Qbeita: "I was working on this site for the first day. It was the first time I'd been working there. Some time after we started working the Israeli army arrived. All of a sudden, a lot of them, started saying it was forbidden to build there. I didn't know that because I hadn't worked there before, but they said it was forbidden and we had to stop and they wanted to demolish what was already at the site. They were shouting a lot and I started walking over to where my stuff was so I could get my phone and my ID card and that's when the tractor hit me. It hit me twice, first on my side, which knocked me over on the ground. Then it drove over one of my legs. I didn't see it coming. It went over one of my legs, one was under the wheel, the other one was outside it. (Asked whether he heard it coming) I didn't hear it, there was a lot of noise, a lot of shouting. Even if I heard something, I didn't respond because I never imagined that it would hit me. (Asked who was driving?) It was one of them driving, one of the army, the Israelis. I don't know who he was. It was our tractor, for our work, but he was on it and driving. (Asked if he went to the hospital?) Yes, I went to the hospital, they examined me and treated me and I have a medical certificate and I will show it to anyone who wants to see it. Anyone who wants can talk to me and take a picture of my leg and of me."

In the light of these inquiries and based on the trust we have in our photojournalist, AFP Management does not believes that this event could ever have been staged.

Given the ferocity of the attacks against the AFP Photo service, we have decided to release this statement in order to set the record straight. We will not make any further comment.

Here is the "medical certificate" that AFP translated:

Assuming that AFP is representing this correctly, here's what doesn't add up.

Since when do hospitals release statements about patients for the public ("To whom it may concern") on the date of the incident, days before anyone published any accusations that this did not appear to be true? 

How can a person whose leg was run over by a heavy truck be able to still walk, even "with difficulty?"

If Qbeita was play-acting in the photo, why would a statement by him be considered verification to AFP in the least? Couldn't they find someone else to interview who was at the scene?

Why does Qbeita still say that he was run over by a tractor when the wheel he is under is clearly from a truck?

How on earth could he have been run over in a muddy road, from a spectactularly muddy tire, without any visible mud on his leg at all?

How, given how he is positioned, could the truck have run over only one of his legs? How could it have knocked him down - was it going in reverse?

Photos of him going on a stretcher are hardly proof. And what did the videos show? Certainly not him being hit, or else AFP would have stated so.

While it is possible that AFP's photographer was not part of the staging of this incident, it seems very unlikely that the victim was truly run over by the truck, especially given contradictory evidence from the scene. And the PA Ministry of Health is not exactly above politics. 

(h/t @cetypeestfou)

UPDATE: See CAMERA's comprehensive response.

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Many Arabic maps include all of Jerusalem in Israel

Arabic media are reporting that Joseph Khouzam, an official for the Cairo International Book Fair, has confiscated a number of atlases distributed via Europe, including from National Geographic, showed Israel taking land away from "Palestine." He then "adjusted" the maps to be presumably more accurate.

Apparently, these books were in English, although it is hard to say from the articles. The articles themselves are all illustrated with a detail from an Arabic map of the area. That map seems to come from Wikipedia.

This specific map can be seen on dozens of Arabic sites. 

And it includes all of greater Jerusalem, as defined by Israel, on the Israeli side!

It seems that many Arab websites just took the map from Wikipedia and posted it on their sites, without even noticing that the supposed capital of Palestine - so important to them, we are told - is depicted as being fully within Israel!

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Ban Ki Moon still doesn't get it

Ban Ki Moon's speech at Herzliya was not a terrible speech by any means, but it was far from a good one.

Filled with cliches and UN boilerplate, it did not break any new ground.

It is strange that he completely glossed over the most important issue, Iran, and spent the bulk of the speech talking about Palestinian Arab aspirations and frustrations.

And when he did, although he thinks that he tried to take into account Israel's viewpoint, his words show that he misses the point.

A couple of examples:

The United Nations helped bring the State of Israel into this world. It did so in the name of peace, not war. Yet the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is entering its seventh decade.

No, the Israeli-Arab conflict is in its seventh decade. The Zionist-Arab conflict is now in at least its 14th decade. To call it the "Israeli-Palestinian" conflict is to completely misunderstand history, and how Arab nations have been using Palestinian Arabs as pawns since 1948.

So has the UN, via UNRWA, since at least 1960, as it has abandoned all pretext of solving the "refugee" problem and instead works to perpetuate it.

The current peace process began in Madrid more than 20 years ago. It raised high hopes - but delivered two decades of delay, mistrust and missed opportunities.

There are two reasons that the peace process has failed.

One is because the Palestinian Arab leadership has made a conscious decision that peace is less important than their pride, and they are unwilling to compromise over what they believe are their "rights" - and the UN is partially to blame, by giving them false hope for decades based on its one-sided resolutions supporting them again and again even when they were responsible for the most heinous crimes.

The other is because of a small thing called the Second Intifada, that was organized and led by Israel's so-called "peace partners." Moon is suggesting that they be rewarded for their reign of terror only a few years ago, and that they should gain more concessions than beforehand from the victims of that terror. The UN is not supposed toreward aggression, but this is what Moon is doing in this speech.

The creation of functioning and well-governed Palestinian institutions is clearly a strategic Israeli interest. Yet these advances are at risk. Why? Because the politics is not keeping pace with developments on the ground.

Here's a key point.

There is no doubt that the PA has made great progress in security and in some institution building. And there is no doubt that this helps Israeli, and Palestinian Arab, interests.

But if those gains are threatened by the lack of progress in negotiations, then that shows that there is a fundamental problem. It means that Palestinian Arab self-interest is not enough to concretize these gains. It means that the underlying Palestinian Arab psyche is not mature enough to build up and keep their own gains on the ground, and are willing to throw it away when they don't get what they demand.

It is not a stretch to say that this indicates that Palestinian Arab hate towards Israel is stronger than their own self-interest.

Failure of negotiations should have nothing to do with whether the PA keeps an effective security force, or creates its own currency, or opens up new markets for goods and services. They have areas that they govern themselves, they have areas that they secure themselves, and how they act within those areas is not affected one bit by the success and failure of negotiations.

Can you imagine Moon saying that Palestinian Arab actions - in refusing to negotiate, or in their continuing incitement against Israel and Jews on their TV programs and school textbooks, or in their disregarding signed agreements - might cause Israelis to turn to violence against them? It is absurd. yet he is saying that Israel is responsible for any possible negative acts that Palestinian Arabs might do!

Moon has bought the biggest lie of all - that Palestinian Arabs are, fundamentally, children whose own actions and decisions are byproducts of outide influence rather than their own, mature choices.

In these circumstances, Israel must think carefully about how to empower those on the other side who wish for peace.

The reverse of this statement is nonsensical - that Moon would tell Palestinian Arabs "how to empower those on the other side who wish for peace." Because every Israeli wishes for real peace.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the other side.

The stunts like the UN bid are not meant to create peace, but to avoid negotiations and compromise. They are games. They show that there is no seriousness on the Palestinian Arab side.

If Ban Ki Moon wants peace, he should not be lecturing Israelis. He should be lecturing those who seem to act - as his own words indicate - as if peace is merely a tactic and not a goal.

(h/t Dan)

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January Qassam misfire report

According to GANSO's two semi-monthly reports:

Four rockets exploded prematurely from the Middle Area of the Gaza Strip.
One exploded prematurely from the Gaza City area.
Three Qassams either exploded on the ground or fell short from northern Gaza.
One Qassam shot from Khan Younis fell short.

That's nine Gaza rockets that exploded in Gaza in January.

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Latest Latma

Only fair this week.

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Islamists win Kuwaiti parliament vote

Al Arabiya reports:

Kuwait’s Islamist-led opposition won the majority seats in a snap election for the wealthy Gulf state’s fourth parliament in less than six years, while women candidates did not win a single seat, according to official results released on Friday.

Sunni Islamists took 23 seats compared with just nine in the dissolved parliament, while liberals were the big losers, winning only two places against five previously.

No women were elected, with the four female MPs of the previous parliament all losing their seats.

The snap polls were held after the ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state dissolved parliament following youth-led protests and after bitter disputes between the opposition MPs and the government.

Opposition candidates and ex-MPs who spearheaded a movement to oust Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Sabah as prime minister were tipped to expand their influence in parliament, riding a wave of frustration at the impasse and perceived corruption.

The country is still run by the Emir and Prime Minister, both from the Al Sabah family, but this is an indication that things aren't quite going their way. (The endemic corruption in the previous parliament didn't help matters.)

Is there anyone who still believes that the "Arab Spring" is a liberal movement?

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Answering a typical slur in 500 characters

Ramzy Baroud, in Ma'an, goes over some well-worn ground:

It goes without saying there should be no room for any racist discourse -- Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, or any other -- in the Palestine solidarity movement, which aims at achieving long-denied justice and rights for the Palestinian people.

A racist discourse is predicated on racial supremacy, which is exactly what Palestinians are resisting in Israel and the occupied territories.

But the "Jewish and democratic state" of Israel is riddled with so many contradictions, the kind that no straightforward narrative can possibly capture.

Many scholars and rights groups have discussed the way in which irreconcilable values defined the very character of Israel from the onset.

According to Adalah (meaning 'justice' in Arabic), the legal center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel: "Israel's Declaration of Independence (1948) states two principles important for understanding the legal status of Palestinian citizens of Israel. First, the Declaration refers specifically to Israel as a 'Jewish state' committed to the 'ingathering of the exiles.' (Second)…it contains only one reference to the maintenance of complete equality of political and social rights for all its citizens, irrespective of race, religion, or sex."

...The controversy is embedded in the purposeful intellectual and political elasticity by which Israel defines, or refuses to define itself. It claims to be Jewish as well as democratic. It claims to embody religious ideals but also to be secular. It claims to be liberal, while it is militarily oppressive. It claims to uphold 'equality' for all, while it is racially exclusive.

And if you dare to challenge these irreconcilable contradictions, you are termed an anti-Semite or a traitor -- or both.

Ma'an only allows 500 character responses. So here is mine:

This is a straw man argument.

The tension between being a Jewish and democratic state is well known, but it is not a contradiction. It is certainly no more racist than every single Arab state declaring themselves as such (implying discrimination against non-Arabs), and most saying they are Muslim, in their constitutions. Including Palestine's.

It is anti-semitic to deny the Jewish people, and only Jews, the right to self determination. That is where Israel's critics sometimes cross the line.

Of course, those points can be expanded considerably. Maybe Ma'an will ask me to write my own op-ed.....

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