"Arab Like Me" (Lee Habeeb, NRO)

Worth reading:

There are two kinds of Arabs in this world. Those who hate Jews, and those who don’t. And in my life, I have met more of the former than the latter.

I am not proud to say that. Arabs will not like me for admitting it. But it is true. And it is something I wish the Obama administration understood. It is something Americans should know as the “Arab Spring” enters its second year.

I didn’t know much about any of this as a Lebanese kid growing up in New Jersey. But I found out about it when I wrote my first pro-Israel column for my college paper as a young student journalist.

I defended Israel on some point I’ve long forgotten, but what I’ll never forget is the backlash I received from fellow Arabs. Some were Americans, others were students from Arab countries, many of whom I counted as friends.

First came the letters to the editor, then the personal insults. It was as if I’d broken a secret code I didn’t know existed. Some secret blood oath, which goes something like this: Arabs don’t speak unkindly of Arabs in public, or kindly about Israel.

The backlash stunned me. I pondered the pounding I had taken, and floundered a bit. I even thought for a short time of writing something negative about Israel the next time I had a chance, just to balance things out and reestablish my Arab bona fides.

One friend accused me of being a self-hating Arab. He explained to me that I was exploiting my ancestry to ingratiate myself with white America and the Jews who controlled white America.

...The fact is, Arabs don’t all look alike or think alike. But we are often pushed into a kind of groupthink, a kind of self-censorship that hinders our development and our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

We are not a universal group. But some of us believe in a simple universal truth: that every Arab deserves to live in freedom, wherever he or she might call home. Some of us want Arab countries to be more like America and Israel, places where the individual can flourish.

Say those words to many Arabs and they are shocked and angered. Soon, words like imperialist are thrown about, and the subject turns to Israel. Always, it seems, it turns to Israel.

...An Arab American friend of mine who works for a large NGO is a case in point. He is Jordanian, he’s well educated, and he speaks five languages. But mention the word Israel, and watch his blood boil immediately. He will go into a lengthy diatribe about the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinians by Israel. When Prime Minister Netanyahu’s name is mentioned, I worry that he will have a seizure on the spot.

Why is this? Why is all of his passion, all of his anger and rage, directed at this one country, this one people?

Why is it not directed at Syria, I ask him? By all accounts, the Syrian government orchestrated the assassination of one of the Arab world’s great men of peace, former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri. And President Assad continues to terrorize his own people.

Why not at Hezbollah, which orchestrated the takeover of Lebanon?

Why not at Hosni Mubarak when he was in power? Or Saddam Hussein?

Why not at the ways in which Islam degrades women in the Middle East, trapping them in a life of servitude?

Why not at the ways some Muslims are persecuting Christians throughout the Middle East, as reports pour in about atrocities upon atrocities?

Why not a critique of the Koran itself, which regrettably finds little separation between mosque and state, thus relegating the majority of Arabs to life under theocratic regimes?

Two reasons: fear, and envy.

To the dismay of Arabs around the world, Jewish people turned an ancient piece of real estate in the Middle East into a thriving oasis of intellectual, political, religious, and commercial activity, where people are free to do as they please. One of the oldest places on earth — a place where Abraham walked — Israel is as thoroughly modern as any place on earth, with a functioning government that respects religious and economic freedom.

A young person in Israel can choose to work in some of the best high-tech companies in the world, or can pursue a life dedicated to Talmudic studies. A woman has an equal right to pursue any career she likes, and people of different sexual orientations are not driven underground — or worse.

The fact is, the God-given talents of the people of Israel are allowed to flourish in ways Arabs should want to emulate, and replicate.

...Today, Arabs are at a crossroads. The “Arab Spring” is an opportunity like none the region has ever seen. The people who live there are no more or less capable than the people of Israel or the United States.

But it is up to them to build functioning democracies, and a culture that breeds and rewards hard work and success. It is up to Arabs themselves to take advantage of their newfound freedom, and unleash the productive capacities of their people.

Countries aren’t built on spite and hate, but on love, trust, shared sacrifice, and hard work. Maybe, just maybe, Arabs in the Middle East will be so busy working, yearning, and striving to make their own lives better that they will have little time left to burnish old grievances.

Maybe, over time, Arabs will build governments worthy of their people, as Israel and America have done.

Maybe, Arabs will come to see Jews not as their enemies, but as their neighbors, and as their trading partners.

And maybe, just maybe, as their friends.

Here is one Arab praying that will happen.

Read the whole thing.

(sorry, forgot who sent this to me)

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Al Azhar scholar repeats every single anti-semitic trope, calls for war against Jews

Al Azhar University is the most prestigious Muslim school in Egypt, and even with all the turmoil there it has kept its reputation intact.

Dr. Isma'il 'Ali Muhammad, is head of Al Azhar's Department of Islamic Preaching and Culture. He wrote a series of articles for the Muslim Brotherhood website about a favorite topic: Jews.

Here is just a few excerpts of his scholarly writings, translated by MEMRI:

A prominent [fact] is that the Jewish personality, wherever it is found, is never free of deviancy and corruption, and is always striving to perpetrate corruption upon the earth. It is a personality that is unable to coexist in peace and equality with others or to form good relations with them. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this personality is always a source of evil and harm in all human societies... and is completely unable to live in harmony in any human society.

The deviancy and corruption inherent to the Jewish personality are neither incidental nor temporary, and are not confined to [specific] situations, individuals or circumstances. They stem from the ideological roots of the Jewish essence, mind and spirit, and are based on a powerful conceptual system that permeates the Jewish soul like blood flowing through veins. This system is undoubtedly the main factor that shapes the [Jew's] personality and justifies his behavior over the years and in changing circumstances.

Reading the Bible and the Talmud, and the ideas and studies that are based on them, such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the religious rulings of the rabbis, and the writings of Jewish philosophers, one finds that they reflect obvious hostility towards humanity as a whole, and supply the Jewish personality with a justification for its deviant and distinctive behavior... [These writings] encourage [the Jews] to extremism and to baseless arrogance and haughtiness towards anyone who is not Jewish. These ideological sources, which they hold sacred, inspire them to hypocrisy, deviousness and treachery, and [teach them] to consider the lives, property and women of non-Jews as theirs for the taking...

Based on this despicable racism and arrogance toward the rest of humanity, the Jews regard their religion as theirs alone. They do not attempt to spread it and are not interested in non-Jewish converts. They believe that Judaism is God's chosen religion, and nobody but them merits the honor of belonging to it. In the Jews' language, there is a special word for non-Jewish peoples – goy – whereas their word for themselves is 'am ["nation"]. Goy is a derogatory term. When a Jew calls someone a goy, he means [to imply] that this person is barbaric, savage, unclean and depraved...

The Jews believe that nobody in the world but them has any rights, that everything in the world is their property, and that God has given them the right to use and own everything – including other people's property. They do not refrain from using even the most despicable and depraved means in order to commandeer other people's assets. They believe that their holy scriptures, and especially the Talmud, sanction and even encourage them to take the property of others, to cheat them, and to steal their money by fraudulent, oppressive and hostile means. The basic presumption is that they are on par with God, and that God created them superior to all other beings.

The Jews' rabbis allow them to kill or butcher certain people, distill their blood, and use it to make the matzah that is eaten on Passover and on other holidays.

...[T]he Jewish personality rarely stops cheating and betraying the other in negotiations. When the Jew has an opportunity to evade his commitments to a non-Jew, he unfortunately does so immediately... These traits are rooted in their nature, flow like blood through their veins, and rule their hearts. They cannot be freed [of them] except by cutting their hearts out.

The whole world must realize the truth about the Jewish personality, its despicable nature and its religious roots, in order to recognize its hostility towards mankind and take the necessary steps to defend against its evil [influence]. We Muslims are the most competent to undertake this [task]. Our plan for war and for struggle against the enemy must include, if not begin with, familiarizing ourselves with this enemy, with the components of his character and with the factors that shape it. It is time to devote more [efforts] to taking an interest in this matter, studying it and publicizing it, so that we can confront the Jewish enemy effectively, with the awareness and consciousness needed to ensure an outcome in our favor.

Good to know that Muslim leaders are so much more tolerant than those awful Jews are - so tolerant that they want to benevolently rid the world of the Jewish evil.

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Free Syrian Army just as hateful and bloodthirsty as Assad (CORRECTION - no, they aren't)

As with all things in the Arab world, the choice is usually between the terrible and the atrocious.

From a BBC reporter who made it into Homs:

One of the FSA fighters showed me a video he had filmed in December.

They had ambushed a convoy of armoured vehicles. Eight of the security forces were killed, 11 captured. The video showed the prisoners, in camouflage uniform, lined up facing a wall.

Some were still bleeding after the battle. Their arms were raised.

One turned to the camera, looking petrified. The man who'd taken the pictures said that despite their army uniforms, their ID cards showed they were Shabiha (or ghosts) - the hated government paramilitary force.

"We killed them," he told me.

"You killed your prisoners?"

"Yes, of course. They were executed later. That is the policy for Shabiha."

These were Sunni Shabiha, he added; the only Alawite had escaped.

I checked with an officer. While soldiers were released, he said, members of the Shabiha were "executed" after a hearing before a panel of FSA military judges.

To explain, they showed me a film taken from the mobile phone of a captured Shabiha. Prisoners lay face down on the ground, hands tied behind their backs. One-by-one, their heads were cut off.

The man wielding the knife said, tauntingly, to the first: "This is for freedom."

As his victim's neck opened, he went on: "This is for our martyrs. And this is for collaborating with Israel."

On the other hand...

In Homs, after we left, there were reports from human rights activists that the Shabiha, going house-to-house, had murdered three families, men, women and children.

It is an epic battle between evil and evil.

(h/t Yoel)

UPDATE/CORRECTION: It appears that I misread the article. While the FSA do execute the Shabiha, they do it because of the particular cruelty of the Shabiha themselves. The video of the beheadings and tauntings were done by the Shabiha of rebels, and taken from a Shabiha cell phone - not the way I read it and framed it here. The information I received confirms this; there are some nasties in the FSA but they do have a semi-judicial process before executing the Shabiha and their cruelty does not come close. (h/t anon)

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Saudi Gazette ignores "apostate" story

The Saudi Gazette, which is part of the Okaz Arabic news service, has completely ignored the story about Hamza Kashgari, the Saudi who now faces a death penalty for his tweets about Mohammed.

Arab News, another English-language Saudi daily, has given the story a little coverage, including this one about how many sermons last Friday were dedicated to bringing Kashgari - and his supporters - to Muslim-style justice:

Imams of mosques in Makkah were unanimous in their Friday sermons on the necessity of bringing Saudi columnist and writer Hamza Kashgari to justice for making insulting comments about the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on Twitter.

Kashgari fled to Malasyia after realizing that the deletion of his slanderous comments and the repentance he had announced in his tweets were not enough to save his neck. He was arrested on arrival at Kuala Lumpur airport on Thursday.

Worshippers, many of them in tears, were in agreement with their imams calling for bringing Kashgari to justice for his blasphemous tweets about the Prophet, local daily Al-Eqtisadiah reported Saturday. The article said the worshippers expressed happiness over the government's move to arrest the blogger and bring him to justice.

The Malaysian police confirmed the arrest of Kashgari as part of an Interpol operation under the request of Saudi Arabia but did not disclose if he would be extradited to his country.

The imams and the worshipers strongly denounced the slanderous comments against the Prophet and said anyone who dared to badmouth the Prophet should be severely punished to deter others from doing the same.

Some of the imams dedicated their entire Friday sermon to attacking the blogger and calling for his trial, while others strongly warned against insulting the Prophet in words or deeds. Some of the imams were not able to hold back their tears while defending the Prophet, recalling verses from the Qur'an warning against attacking Allah or His Prophet.

"The unison between the imams and the worshipers against this heinous act is a crystal-clear indication that attacking the Prophet is a red line no one should cross or come close to," a worshiper said. He did not want to be identified.

A number of worshipers said they were determined to file lawsuits against Kashgari in Shariah courts calling for his execution on charges of apostasy.

The 23-year-old Kashgari has become notorious overnight because of his sacrilegious tweets he had later deleted. Various sections of Saudi society have been asking for his immediate trial. A number of Saudis have also called for the trial of all those who tweeted support for Kashgari saying they were equally guilty.

"Those who supported the contents of Kashgari's tweets are considered criminal exactly like him," said Khaled Abu Rashid, a lawyer and a legal consultant. He said the sentence to be passed on Kahgari should be imposed on his supporters too.

It is worthwhile to remember that even though Arab countries have what appear to be a free English-language press, in the end there is plenty of censorship - self-imposed or otherwise.

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How Arab terrorists and despots use public relations firms

A very important article The Cutting Edge.

 Israel has consistently received much worse media coverage than Syria. The Jewish State’s every move is scrutinized, while human rights violations have occured every day in Syria since the al-Assad family took the reins of power. Yet, until very recently you would never know that from the media reports and international proclamations. Only now, with Syria in the midst of a revolt, do we see extensive media coverage of the country. Even so, the world continues to be more exorcised by Israelis pouring concrete in the West Bank than by Syran soldiers raining deadly shells onto the people of Homs.

Now look a little deeper. Recently, a hacker group released hundreds of e-mails from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s office. One document revealed the methods for preparation of Assad for his December 2011 interview with ABC's Barbara Walters. Unlike the Israelis, the Syrians actually listen to the communications professionals.

Professor David Lesch of Trinity University, someone who regarded the Syrian president with hope, urged Syria to hire a U.S. PR firm for a two-year engagement at $150,000 per month. Lesch believed that the firm could “improve the image of Syria and President Bashar in the United States, and help with other forms of cooperation.”

Syria later hired an international public-relations agency, Brown Lloyd James to coordinate a Vogue magazine profile and photo shoot for Asma al-Assad, Syria’s first lady. The glowing profile, and stunning one-page picture entitled: “Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert” was published at the same time as the Syrian government’s crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

As David Kenner, an associate editor for the magazine Foreign Policy noted: “The article does not once mention the protests currently under way in the Middle East, including scattered evidence of demonstrations in Syria. Instead, the article focuses on Syrian first lady Asma Assad — the ‘freshest and most magnetic of first ladies,’ endowed with ‘[d]ark-brown eyes, wavy chin-length brown hair, long neck, an energetic grace.”

This same company, Brown Lloyd James, worked in the past to boost the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. They said, "…we assisted the Libyan government in its efforts to reach out to the international political community through the United Nations and to the U.S. political and university community.”

Terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as certain Arab nations have hired public relations agencies to lobby for them in the media and on the world stage. Terror groups have engaged reporters and journalists, share meals with them, drink with them, and win their favor.

Fenton Communications, a New York City–based firm, signed two contracts with the Arab state of Qatar to develop a campaign to essentially delegitimize Israel by orchestrating an international anti-Israel campaign aimed at breaking the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Fenton Communications also works for “Al Fakhoora,” a Qatar-based pro-Palestinian initiative that “launched an advocacy campaign to file legal charges against Israel and change the public perception in the West about its actions.”

The Palestine Liberation Organization Mission in the United States hired Bell Pottinger, a leading International P.R. agency, to provide “advice on strategic communications, public relations, media relations, and congressional affairs.”

The European office of U.S. industry giant Burson-Marsteller, in reaction to Israel’s request for a meeting, said: “We will not deliver tender to such a project….We are running a commercial venture. If we accept this project, this will create a great amount of negative reactions….Israel is a particularly controversial project.” This from a firm that sought to handle the Bhopal disaster in India in which over 2,000 people were killed, and which represented Blackwater USA in 2007 after it was revealed that some of its employees were involved in the shooting deaths of 13 Iraqis in Baghdad.

So here, representing Israel will cause negative reactions among their client base, because it is a controversial project, but for a firm to take on the role of painting Syria’s first lady as glamorous amidst the bloodshed of the people right outside her palace windows is mainstream and acceptable.

Or, staging the deadly flotilla off Gaza is just a routine job, but helping Israel appear as a modern country at the height of medical and technological breakthroughs that benefit the world could blight the agency that does it. These illogical answers alone are indicative of the PR success that Arabs have had.  Israel attempted to hire PR firms in ten countries throughout Europe, and many responded as Burson-Marsteller had.

As Syria brutally murders its citizens, and Hamas targets Westerners, public relations pros will help them sell their story. There are millions to be made in sugar-coating terror and brutality.

The writer is a bit self-serving, obviously trying to get Israel's business for his firm, but this is one of the best articles I have seen showing the extent of Arab PR and how it hurts Israel.

(h/t Mark)

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Iranians in Thailand accused of targeting Israeli diplomats

From The Bangkok Post:

Thai authorities charged two Iranians on Wednesday over an alleged bomb plot against Israeli diplomats, officials said, piling pressure on Teheran over accusations of a terror campaign against the Jewish state.

Authorities said they had laid criminal charges against two Iranian suspects accused of involvement in the three blasts in central Bangkok yesterday.

"These three Iranian men are an assassination team and their targets were Israeli diplomats including the ambassador," a senior Thai intelligence official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Their plan was to attach bombs to diplomats' cars."

Explosives and magnets were later found inside the partially destroyed house where the first explosion occurred, police said.

From The Telegraph:

Thai investigators believe they have found a link between this week's bomb blasts in Bangkok and New Delhi, a senior security official said on Wednesday, two of three botched attacks Israel has blamed on Iran.

Asked whether the explosives used in India and Thailand were the same, a senior Thai security official said they both had the same "magnetic sheets".

"The individual was in possession of the same magnets and we are currently examining the source of the magnet," National Security Council Secretary Wichian Podphosri said.

AP adds:

When police searched the house, the bomb squad found and defused two explosives, each made of three or four pounds of C-4 explosives inside a pair of radios. National Police Chief Gen. Prewpan Damapong said the bombs were "magnetic" and could be stuck on vehicles.

"From the investigation, we found the type of explosives indicated that the prepared targets were individuals," Wichean said. "Based on the equipment and materials we found, they were aimed at individuals and the destruction capacity was not intended for large crowds or big buildings."

Israel's Channel 10 TV quoted unidentified Thai authorities as saying the captured Iranians confessed to targeting Israeli interests.

And here's an interesting detail from the Telegraph story:

Two other men shared the rented house with him. One was arrested at Bangkok's international airport on Tuesday but he has not yet been charged. A third man slipped past security at the airport and had fled to Malaysia.

Earlier this week, the Malaysian Home Minister defended his country deporting a suspected Saudi "apostate" tweeter back to the kingdom by saying, "I will not allow Malaysia to be seen as a safe country for terrorists and those who are wanted by their countries of origin, and also be seen as a transit county."

Will Malaysia provide safe haven for this Iranian terrorist?

(h/t Yoel)

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Media missing the real story on Gaza blackouts

From Reuters:

The Gaza Strip’s only power station, which supplies the Palestinian enclave with up to two-thirds of its energy needs, was shut down on Tuesday because of a shortage of fuel smuggled in from neighbouring Egypt.

The closure led to widespread blackouts for Gaza’s 1.7 million inhabitants. The local power company warned that households would receive only six hours of electricity a day until the problem was resolved.

“We are sorry to announce that we are unable to provide hospitals, education premises, water pumps and waste water facilities and all other fields of life with the enough quantities of electricity,” said Abu Al-Amrain, information director at the Energy Authority.

He urged Egypt to allow more fuel into Gaza, but did not explain what had caused the sudden drop in the flows.

The reason, as I have reported, is that Egypt cracked down on fuel smuggling from the Sinai to Gaza, as it is suffering its own fuel shortages.

Locals said in normal circumstances a fleet of trucks arrived at the Egyptian side of the border and pumped fuel through pipes in the smuggling tunnel that led into Gaza.

Israel provides the Mediterranean territory with at least 35 percent of its energy needs, but closed off its own fuel pipeline into the enclave in January 2010.

Israel closed the Nahal Oz pipeline in January 2010 - but it kept the Kerem Shalom pipeline, and even built a new one there with double the capacity.

Abu Al-Amrain said Israel bore overall responsibility for the ongoing crisis, but Mustafa Ibrahim, a human rights researcher and writer, said Hamas’s administration had failed to provide the territory with an energy safety net.

“[The Energy Authority] made everything depend on fuel smuggled through the tunnels, without having any guarantees that this flow could continue. The current severe crisis is evidence that this was the wrong approach,” he said.

The webpage for the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority indeed blames Israel for the problem - and this is a baldfaced lie.

The only reason Israel isn't sending fuel to Gaza is because in January 2011, Hamas requested that the shipments stop as the Gaza power plant engineers figured out a way to run the plant on smuggled fuel from Egypt, rather than the industrial grade diesel that it had used before.

As I reported exclusively yesterday, the IDF answered my query

The decision to buy heavy-duty diesel from Egypt and not Israel was made by Hamas. Over the last year, the government in Gaza has gradually stopped buying diesel from Israel and increased its purchases from Egypt. This is also the source of the recent power problems in the Strip, including the local power plant shutting down.

There is no Israeli decision to purposefully stop selling diesel to Gaza; the decision came from the Hamas, and again, the situation isn't black and white--if you look at previous reports from the last months, there are still small amounts of diesel entering Gaza from Israel. If and when the demand returns, Israel is fully willing to supply, as it did in the past.

This is an artificial problem. Gaza can get fuel for the power plant today. Hamas refuses to accept fuel from Israel for whatever reason (it still accepts tons of aid coming from Israeli crossings every day.) As a result, Hamas is purposefully endangering its own people.

This is the story that the media is missing, including AFP.

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Norman Finkelstein slams BDS, ISM movements

Norman Finkelstein is a legendarily anti-Israel professor. He has made a name for himself by disparaging what he calls the "Holocaust industry" and his research methods for his anti-Israel writings are sloppy and often deceptive. Benny Morris describes him "a notorious distorter of facts and of my work, not a serious or honest historian." I showed some of his own dishonesty in an essay that helped make him famous.

In other words, Finkelstein is no poster child for truth and fairness about Israel.

But in this remarkable video, Finkelstein rips apart the people to his left - the BDS and "Palestine Solidatity" movements. He exposes their obvious goal of destroying Israel as they try to pretend that they are only fighting for "rights;" he accurately accuses  them of belonging to a "cult" whose arguments cannot possibly survive the real world; he shows that they are not nearly as influential as they pretend to be; and he effectively tells them that they are a big waste of time that accomplish nothing towards their stated goals of providing any justice or peace for Palestinian Arabs. These groups play games to hide their goals, Finkelstein  wants no part of it.

Finkelstein is completely wrong about international law and about Israel, quoting General Assembly resolutions and an advisory opinion of the ICJ as if they are international law. But it is worthwhile to watch him expose the pure hate and deceptiveness of those who are even more extreme than he is. The interviewer - a BDS proponent and hardcore hater of Israel - cringes under Finkelstein's assault as he tries to defend the indefensible.

If only Finkelstein had said this at PennBDS, where every attendee and speaker had bought into the myth of their own importance, a few hundred people would have actually learned something about their own movement.

The video is a half-hour long but worth watching. Finkelstein is relentless in attacking the BDS and "solidarity" movements.



(h/t HuffPo Monitor & Zach N)
(This is a shortened version of the original video' full video can be seen here)

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PA music video longs for day when there is no Israel

From Palestinian Media Watch:

I wish I could enter my country with no borders...
I will go about in Bethlehem and in Al-Aqsa [Mosque], which is held captive
I will eat lunch in Nazareth and eat dinner in Beit Sahour...
I do not forget Jenin nor Nablus, and the Galilee
I do not forget you, Jaffa, your long sea [shore]
I will never forget the olives of the Galilee
Even if our path has grown long, one day we will return:
To Jerusalem, to Gaza, to Acre, to Haifa, oh Lord.
To Jerusalem, to Ramle, to Acre, to Haifa, oh Lord...
I wish I could enter my country with no borders."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 30 and Feb. 9, 2012]

This doesn't exactly sound like a two-state solution, does it?

(Note also the subtle dig at Hamas, by saying he wants to freely enter Gaza as well.)

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Gaza blackouts intensify - so they blame Israel

From Egypt Independent:

The Gaza Strip’s sole electricity station has become inoperative because Egypt has begun to crack down on fuel smuggling activities through their shared border, a Palestinian energy official in Gaza said Tuesday.

Gaza Energy Authority official Ahmed Abul Amreen said in a press conference that the authority cannot meet electricity demands for hospitals, educational facilities, and water and sewage stations. He said the amount of electricity Gaza receives from an Israeli company fulfills only 35 percent of the population’s needs.

Palestinian news agency Maan quoted Abul Amreen as saying that the power plant’s inactivity has brought the strip's primary electricity source to a halt, noting that Gaza already suffers a great shortage in wattage supplies.

The official held Israel responsible for the crisis. He also called upon the Egyptian Parliament to back Palestinians and continue to support them with the necessary fuel supplies.

For nearly two weeks, Gaza has been undergoing a worsening fuel crisis caused by a halt in supplies smuggled through underground tunnels traversing its border with Egypt. The conundrum has rendered 90 percent of local oil stations idle.

Israel supplies Gaza with about 120 megawatts of electricity a day, while the strip’s only power plant produces 60 megawatts. But since Gaza needs at least 270 megawatts, the strip suffers daily blackouts that can last for eight hours.

Ma'an adds:

While limited amounts of gas, mainly used by individual households, are purchased from Israeli suppliers and permitted to enter the besieged strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing, most of Gaza's energy is brought unofficially from Egypt using underground tunnels.

Egyptian supplies are cheaper than the Israeli companies, which themselves purchase gas from Egypt, a Ma'an correspondent said.

But with Egypt beset by continuing domestic unrest after throwing out Hosni Mubarak a year ago, agreement has yet to be reached on stable fuel deliveries to Gaza, he added.

Here is what the latest weekly COGAT report, on goods that transverse the crossings, has to say:

Israel is providing exactly the same amount of electricity to Gaza it always has. As we see above, "Palestinians"  instructed the Israelis not to provide the Strip with heavy-duty diesel because they could get the fuel - reportedly cheaper - from Egypt.

But as far as I can tell, not a single official - from the PA, the electric utility or from Hamas - has explicitly called for Gaza to resume purchasing fuel from Israel to alleviate this crisis, something that COGAT seems more than willing to facilitate.

Assuming that the money for the fuel could be found, the question that must be asked is - why no calls to buy fuel from Israeli suppliers?  Why are people's lives being put at risk unnecessarily? Why are we seeing headlines about a energy crisis in Gaza when the solution is so simple?

I asked the IDF asking them who made the decision not to accept Israeli fuel, Hamas or the PA? Here is what they answered:

The decision to buy heavy-duty diesel from Egypt and not Israel was made by Hamas. Over the last year, the government in Gaza has gradually stopped buying diesel from Israel and increased its purchases from Egypt. This is also the source of the recent power problems in the Strip, including the local power plant shutting down.

There is no Israeli decision to purposefully stop selling diesel to Gaza; the decision came from the Hamas, and again, the situation isn't black and white--if you look at previous reports from the last months, there are still small amounts of diesel entering Gaza from Israel. If and when the demand returns, Israel is fully willing to supply, as it did in the past.

Is Hamas' refusal to buy the needed fuel from Israel a matter of principle, pride - or propaganda?

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Hamas breaks up anti-Assad rally in Gaza

This didn't get much coverage even in the Arab press:

Hamas police on Sunday prevented dozens of activists from demonstrating in solidarity with Syrian people in the Gaza Strip, witnesses said.

The policemen peacefully stopped the protest shortly after it started in front of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza City. The demonstrators, numbering about 30, waved Palestinian and Syrian flags, with banners supporting the Syrian antigovernment protesters.

While lots of blowhards pretend that a "Palestinian Spring" threatens Israel, we can see who is really threatened by even the hint of protests.

(h/t Ian)

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Springtime! Libya goes on homophobic rant at UNHRC

From UN Watch:

Gays threaten the continuation of the human race, Libya’s delegate told a planning meeting of the UN Human Rights Council today, reported the Geneva-based UN Watch monitoring group. It was the first appearance in the 47-nation body by the post-Gaddafi government, whose membership was restored in November following Libya’s suspension in March.

Protesting the council’s first panel discussion on discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation, scheduled for March 7th, Libya’s representative told the gathering of ambassadors today that LGBT topics “affect religion and the continuation and reproduction of the human race.” He added that, were it not for their suspension, Libya would have opposed the council’s June 2011 resolution on the topic.

In response, council president Laura Dupuy Lasserre said that “the Human Rights Council is here to defend human rights and prevent discrimination.”

The Libyan outburst prompted questions by human rights activists about Libya’s reinstatement on the council.

“We were happy to see the Gaddafi regime finally suspended last year,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, which in 2010 led a campaign of 70 human rights groups to expel the Libyan dictator.

“Yet today’s shocking homophobic outburst by the new Libyan government, together with the routine abuse of prisoners, underscores the serious questions we have about whether the new regime is genuinely committed to improving on the dark record of its predecessor, or to pandering to some of the hardline Islamists amidst its ranks,” said Neuer.

Libya's new draft constitution says that Sharia is the principle source for legislation. It also says that "the State shall also protect and encourage marriage."

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More evidence of Iran being behind embassy attacks

From The Times of India:

Investigators got a crucial clue to the assailant in the footage from two CCTV cameras installed at industrialist Analjit Singh's 15, Aurangzeb Road residence. The bomber, in brown jacket on a motor cycle, is seen tailing the embassy car at 3.10 pm at a distance of 2-3 seconds. The cameras could not capture the registration number of the bike.

...Speaking on the condition of anonymity, Indian intelligence sources suspected an Iranian connection to the magnetic bomb attack which they feel could be a retaliation against the covert attempts to thwart the Shiite regime's relentless pursuit of a nuclear programme which the West as well as Sunni Muslim countries are convinced is meant to equip the theocracy with nuclear weapons.

Sources also said Israel had recently confided in Indians their fears of Israeli targets coming under attack from Iranian sympathizers. Sources in Delhi Police did not rule out the possibility of Iranian sympathizers enlisting the modules of Lashkar, who despite their loathing of Shias, are unremitting in their animosity towards Israel.

From Al Arabiya:

Officials investigating the bomb that shattered an Israeli embassy car in India on Monday have found that the explosive was the first of its kind in the country and could have been made by “foreign experts,” a senior police official said.

“The bomb was perfectly made and we have never seen such a bomb in Delhi. Maybe, it was made by foreign experts,” the official told the Times of India.

Israeli missions worldwide are on alert and coordinating with Indian security forces, IBN Live reported, as a forensic lab report detailing the exact nature of the explosives used in the blasts is expected within the next 24 to 48 hours.

“A sophisticated incendiary device was used in the blast, a first in its kind for a terror attack in India. This has been giving officials cause for concern,” the news channel reported.

Sources say the Home Ministry is expecting a detailed report from Delhi Police on its preliminary investigations by Tuesday evening.

From YNet:

A man thought to be Iranian was seriously wounded in Bangkok on Tuesday when a bomb he was carrying exploded and blew one of his legs off, police and a government spokeswoman said.

Police said at least five people including a foreigner were injured in three series blasts in the Thai capital Bangkok.

"There were three explosions, but no dead," Police Major General Wichai Sungprapai told AFP.

Several Thai television stations reported the wounded man was carrying explosives at the time. They said an identification card found in a satchel nearby indicated he may be of Iranian descent.

Other Thai media fill in the details:

Foreign Ministry is assigned to talk to Iran as a suspect seriously injured in the blast was believed to be an Iranian.

Pol Maj Gen Wichai Sangprapai, deputy metropolitan commissioner was quoted as saying the suspect and two other Iranians rented a house in Soi Pridi Panomyong 31 for months.

The house was suspected to where the bombs were made. However the explosives went off this morning in the house, sending to the three to flee.

Two of them managed to escape while the suspect followed them.

A taxi refused to pick up the suspect who was covered with blood from the blast, so he threw a bomb at the driver, damaging the vehicle. The suspect then walked away and threw the bomb at a police officer who tried to stop him.

However the bomb fell to the ground and went off, mutilating his legs.

Police are now hunting for the fleeing two Iranians.

He said three foreigners were living at the house but two had fled.

I don't know if it was luck or a poorly-made bomb that stopped the New Delhi bomb from exploding the gas tank. My guess is that it was home-built according to Iranian specifications, as it is probably easier to build a rudimentary magnetic bomb than to smuggle one in from Iran.

It would be interesting to see the types of bombs that the suspects in the Thai blasts were building.

(h/t Philtheman)

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Saudi Vice, episode 34: Too much of a good thing

From Saudi Gazette:

A Hai’a security inspector has been fined SR3,000, six weeks in prison and 120 lashes for marrying more than four women and breaking residency laws.

The Hai’a is the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

He married three Saudi women, who are on his identity card, two non-Saudi women who don’t have Iqamas [Saudi residency cards - EoZ] and a non-Saudi who has an Iqama, reported Al-Madina Arabic daily on Monday.

It is against Islamic law for a Muslim man to have more than four wives at one time.

The Control and Investigation Board (CIB) accused the Hai’a employee of unethical behavior and abusing his position. The Administrative Court at the Jizan Board of Grievances in Uhud Al-Masariha gave him 120 lashes for marrying more than four wives.

The Administrative Committee at Jizan Passport Administration fined the Hai’a employee SR3,000 and sentenced him to six weeks in prison for covering up for two women who didn’t have Iqamas.

Hasn't he been punished enough?

The case of the employee was discovered three years ago. He was arrested by the police and the Hai’a at a furnished apartment.

He was also ordered to memorize certain chapters of the Holy Qur’an and study their interpretation. He was also banned from traveling abroad for five years, delivering a speech in the mosque and leading prayers in the mosque.

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Iran's Internet blocking experiment ends for now

Last Friday I noted that Iran was blocking all SSL (secure encrypted) Internet connections to the outside world.

It appears that the experiment has run its course - for now:

Most computer users in Iran were blocked from accessing email, social networking and other services in recent days, US-based internet experts said on Monday, raising fears the government is extending the reach of its surveillance to ordinary citizens.

Internet service providers presumed to be acting at the Iranian government's behest began blocking the most common form of secure connections on Friday, according to the outside experts and Iranian bloggers. Traffic rebounded to normal levels on Monday.

The cutoff apparently affected all encrypted international websites outside of Iran that depend on the Secure Sockets Layer protocol, which display addresses beginning with https, according to Earl Zmijewski of Renesys, a US company that tracks internet traffic worldwide.

Google, which uses SSL for its Gmail service, reported that traffic from Iran to its email system fell precipitously.

Gmail use, which typically drops by about 80 percent at night, dropped by roughly 95 percent Friday and remained that low during daylight hours through the weekend before recovering Monday, according to Google's publicly posted access statistics.

Tor, a system for hiding the location of internet users, saw a similar falloff first in the Iranian capital of Tehran and then throughout the country, said Tor Executive Director Andrew Lewman.

Though other countries, including Belarus and Myanmar, have blocked SSL access before, Iran is the largest country to have tried it, Lewman said. Egypt turned off the internet completely a year ago during the uprising there, and China has done that in some regions.

It was unclear why the blocking stopped. Some Iranian politicians complained and businesses might have objected, but most tracking the situation said it was likely that the experiment had run its course.

"The government is testing different tools," said Hamed Behravan, who reports on Iranian technology issues for the US government-funded Voice of America. "They might have wanted to see the public reaction."

Behravan said Iranian sites using SSL remained available, including banking sites.

Tor has been developing a version of its program that is encrypted but does not need an SSL connection, and it distributed that over the weekend to people inside Iran who reported that it worked well, Lewman said.

Iranian officials have said they do not intend to block all connections to the outside world from a new national system they are developing. But direct links could be made to run very slowly, Behravan said.

The new network could help Iran ward off spying or attacks from other countries and keep a closer eye on domestic activities.

The country already has built up one of the most sophisticated infrastructures for monitoring and controlling internet content, with the ability to dig deep into communications and change various protocols.

During political protests in the past, Iran reduced bandwidth so that posting videos took hours.

With the SSL shutoff and recent remarks by officials, Behravan said the new network could launch within a month.

"I will not be surprised if it happens tomorrow," said Iranian computer scientist Arash Abadpour of Toronto, who blogs under the name Kamangir.

Blocking SSL is not a good way to stop cyber-attacks, so this seems to be done purely to stop Iranians from getting to the Web and using social networking sites. In the wake of the events in the Middle East over the past year, it seems to reveal far more about Iran's fear of an internal revolution than anything else.

Technology and freedom have a way of winning these battles. Just as Tor was able to get around the SSL restrictions within a day, it should be possible to write programs to consolidate a dozen or so "slow" connections to create a fast one for critical communications like video uploads (which have been key in Syria's revolution.) It would essentially be a reverse BitTorrent where videos are uploaded in pieces from different client PCs at once.

Any data can be transmitted through any protocol, and any data can be encrypted. (Being 100% anonymous while doing this is a little harder, unfortunately, but one can make it difficult to be found.) As long as there are any Internet connections from Iran to the rest of the world it will be possible to get critical information out.

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