Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 09, 2012

Arafat might not be dug up - Pals and French squabble

It seems that the PA wants to take over the investigation of Arafat's death - and the French authorities in Gaza to exhume his body are not going for it.

According to Arabic media sources, the French experts dispatched to Ramallah reject PA interference in the investigation. For good reason, since the PA has been officially calling his death a murder in the eight years since he died.

The Palestinian Arab committee on Arafat's death is insisting that the results of the investigation go to them - presumably so they can control how it can be publicized. The French delegation is refusing, saying that this is a French judicial matter and they are bound by French law.

Swiss experts on-site to do the actual testing for polonium on Arafat's bones are apparently uninvolved in this controversy.

The controversy threatens to delay or even cancel the exhumation.

In other Arafat news, Hamas has banned any Fatah commemoration of the anniversary of his death this Sunday in Gaza.

Egyptian Islamists demonstrate for Sharia law in Tahrir Square

From Al Ahram:

Several thousand protesters have started gathering at Tahrir Square for a mass protest organised by Salafist forces scheduled to start after Friday's noon prayer to demand that Egypt's new constitution be based on the "rules of Islamic Sharia."

Many demonstrators have arrived in chartered buses from provincial areas.

On Thursday night, protesters built a huge stage inside the square with banners demanding the enforcement of the "law of God".

"We promise the prophet of God that we will sacrifice ourselves for the sharia of God," read one of the banners.

The protest, which was called for by a number of Salafist groups including Gamaa Islamyia and the Salafist front, also calls for the dismissal of the Prosecutor General.,

Meanwhile, Egypt's most influential Islamist groups the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist Al-Nour party announced that they will not participate in the protest.

The constitution itself deals with religion somewhat inconsistently; while it says "Islam is the state religion" and "the principles of Islamic Sharia are the main sources of legislation" it also calls for equality of various groups depending on which draft is being used. For example, the language saying that women are equal to men has recently been dropped from the document. Other drafts seemed to allow freedom of religion only to Christians and Jews, and no others.

The Islamists, however, are not happy with the language of "principles" of Sharia - they want Egyptian law to be Islamic law, period.

Islamic Sharia and its rulings – not its "principles" – should be the main source of legislation, Ahmed Mawlana, People Party spokesman, told Al-Ahram's Arabic news website.

Many Salafist Muslims regard the "principles" of Islamic law – which translate into values such as justice, truth, and equality – as too vague and far placed from proper Islamic doctrine, while Sharia encompasses all aspects of life, they argue.

Sheikh Hashem Islam, conservative Al-Azhar scholar and member of the Fatwas Committee (religious edicts) of Al-Azhar, issued a religious edict toping to enshrine Sharia as such.

Article 2 should read as, “Islamic Sharia alone is the source of all legislation and all that conflicts it is invalid and corrupt,” said Sheikh Islam. The article should also stipulate that Sharia governs the constitution and laws, he added.

In a press conference on Wednesday, the Islamists described exactly what they want. One said "Shari’a does not mean immediately implementing Islamic hudud [punishments] for we have to ensure social justice and eradicate poverty before cutting off the hands of thieves."

How reassuring.

One person who strayed slightly from the Islamist line caused a controversy at the meeting:

Magdy Hassan, Chairman of the New Labour Party, accused liberals of trying to “destroy the nation” by fighting the Constituent Assembly.

In a comment which earned the crowd’s approval he also said that the “Islamic project” was gaining ground regardless of what the constitution said and that more judges and legislators are becoming Islamists on their own accord.

Hassan’s advocating for the phrase “principles of Shari’a” instead of just “Shari’a” to remain in Article 2 of the constitution as the principle source of legislation earned him the anger of the crowd; predominantly made up of Islamist youth.

“We reject principle: this is an Islamist state despite the secularists noses,” and “The people demand the implementation of God’s law,” were the loudest chants, this time in an angry rather than approving tone. Hassan had to leave the press conference.

In a related story, Islamist preachers are now lecturing to Egyptian police.

Interesting new weapon defeats electronic targets

While this is a sales/press release from Boeing, it is interesting:

A recent weapons flight test in the Utah desert may change future warfare after the missile successfully defeated electronic targets with little to no collateral damage.

Boeing and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., successfully tested the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) during a flight over the Utah Test and Training Range.

CHAMP, which renders electronic targets useless, is a non-kinetic alternative to traditional explosive weapons that use the energy of motion to defeat a target.

During the test, the CHAMP missile navigated a pre-programmed flight plan and emitted bursts of high-powered energy, effectively knocking out the target's data and electronic subsystems. CHAMP allows for selective high-frequency radio wave strikes against numerous targets during a single mission.

"This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare," said Keith Coleman, CHAMP program manager for Boeing Phantom Works. "In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive."

I can imagine this being useful in any "go it alone" scenario...

Saudi advisory body puts women members behind a screen

Too funny:

A Saudi official says a screen will separate genders on the country’s main advisory body to King Abdullah when women join it for the first time.

Following a decision by Abdullah, women will be allowed to join the Shura Council, his main group of advisers expected to reconvene early next year. The format is seen as a compromise with hardline Islamic factions that oppose even small reforms in the ultraconservative kingdom, where sex segregation is a widespread custom.

Abdullah has pledged to allow women to vote and run in the next municipal elections in 2015. But Saudi women still face many restrictions, including a ban on driving.

The official, quoted in Al-Watan newspaper on Wednesday, says an internal communications network will allow men and women to communicate despite the barrier.

If this "communications network" is text-based, that last paragraph implies that the women wouldn't even be able to speak from behind the screen.

Here is a screen separating men from women at a Saudi McDonalds:

Doesn't the male worker behind the counter still see the female customers?

I guess he is a foreign worker.

Thursday links

From Ian:

MEMRI: Hamas TV Host Criticizes UNRWA for Teaching Holocaust to Palestinian Children

Where Would Hezbollah Be Without the EU? by Douglas Murray

"The EU has been here before. During the same period they came up with their false wall-of-separation within Hezbollah they did the same thing with Hamas. That terror group too, they decided, had a military and a political wing. After the atrocities of the Second Intifada, however, that fiction disappeared. It did not disappear because the EU was made aware of something it had previously been unaware of. It disappeared in Europe because it was no longer possible – in terms of public opinion or political expediency – to allow a group to operate which blew up buses full of civilians."

Bahrain arrests bombing suspects and blames Hezbollah

Peres warns: Iran threatening another Holocaust
At inauguration of Russian Jewish museum in Moscow alongside Russian FM, Peres thanks Russia for defeating Nazis in WWII.

Nick Clegg just can’t bring himself to support Israeli defensive action against Iran.

"Clegg continued in the same vein even when Bradby asked whether Clegg would expect military action once Iran had loaded nuclear weapon technology into a missile and, finally, if Israel’s intelligence showed that they couldn’t sit and tolerate the situation anymore.
Yet still Clegg could not bring himself to support Israeli defensive action, even against such an existential threat as an all-out nuclear attack."

BBC Watch: BBC shields audiences from antisemitism in Istanbul

“The BBC article also fails to relate in any way whatsoever to the antisemitic spectacle which went on outside the court on the first day of the ‘trial’ and which was obviously tolerated – if not encouraged – by the Turkish authorities.”
“In the name of accuracy and impartiality, it would of course be proper for the BBC to update its anodyne profile of the Free Gaza Movement to include the recent display of blatant antisemitism by its leader Greta Berlin, who is quoted in the BBC profile. So far – over a month after the incident – that has not been done.”

Hamas offices in Syria raided, adding to fears of Palestinian deportations
Abbas appeals to envoy for international protection as Palestinians increasingly involved in violence

[Also I saw an Arabic article saying that Syrian rebels would re-open Hamas offices when they win. - EoZ]

7 more Syrian generals defect to Turkey
Seven generals who recently defected from the Syrian army arrived with their families at the Turkish-Syrian border on Tuesday and were allowed to enter the country at the town of Reyhanlı in the southern province of Hatay under tight security measures.

Space-age rapid transit to debut in Tel Aviv

Developer of NASA-designed skyTran chose Israel as the perfect place to pilot the software-guided personal transport pods that glide on a cushion of air.
If all goes as planned, within two years Israelis will be the first people to try out a futuristic rapid transport system designed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.

World Famous Tenor Andrea Bocelli Tells UK Paper of His Love for Israel

“A country that has really resonated with me and I was really impressed with was Israel. I found that the whole country had a very special atmosphere. I was there to perform but it was one of the few places that I’ve visited over the years that I had some free time to explore, and I was hugely impressed by all the religious history there.”

IDF sends search and rescue crew to Ghana after mall collapse
Dozens feared trapped in rubble in Accra shopping center

"The Israel Defense Forces was scheduled to send a search and rescue team to Ghana Wednesday night after a shopping center collapse in the African country’s capital earlier in the day left dozens trapped.
The army search and rescue force of doctors, engineers and other experts, 18 people in total, were to be flown to Accra late Wednesday night to assist in rescue attempts, the IDF said on its website. Some 51 people have so far been pulled from the rubble of the shopping center, with one confirmed death."

Anti-Israel NGOs keep on pumping out lies

A reader asked me to comment on an October report apparently being distributed to EU politicians by some 20 NGOs to pressure them into banning imports of goods from Jews - and only Jews - who work in Judea and Samaria.

These slick-looking reports are churned out with regularity by the anti-Israel crowd, complete with lots of footnotes that no one will ever check out for veracity. Beyond that, they engage in deception by framing issues in the most biased way possible.

I don't have the time to fisk this entire report, called "Trading away Peace: How Europe helps sustain illegal Israeli settlements," but I noticed one section, 2.2, that is emblematic of the deception throughout the document.

Ban on dual-use items: Israel bans Palestinians from importing a range of “dual-use” items, including chemicals and fertilisers used in factories and agriculture. While Israeli settlers have full access to these materials, Palestinians are forced to turn to more expensive or less effective alternatives that further increase the cost of production and often have greater negative long-term impact on the environment. It is estimated that the fertilizer restrictions lead to losses of between 20% and 33% in agricultural productivity.

It is simply unbelievable that such a paragraph could be written without even acknowledging the history of terror attacks - using home-made explosives - that have come from the West Bank. The demand that Israel ignore its own security imperatives is untenable an shows an alarming lack of concern about the lives of Israelis.

Any report such as this that doesn't even acknowledge Israel's very real security concerns - even if only to dismiss them - can be assumed ab initio to be biased against Israel no matter how many footnotes it has.

But here's the next paragraph:

Obstacles to movement of goods: While settlers enjoy easy and direct access to Israeli and international markets, all Palestinian goods destined for Israel or further export must pass through Israeli checkpoints where they are unloaded from Palestinian vehicles and extensively checked before they can be re-loaded onto an Israeli vehicle on the other side (the so-called ‘back-to-back’ system). This is extremely time-consuming and often damages the products. Palestinian goods destined for international markets then pass through Israeli port and airport terminals where they face further disadvantages, obstacles and excessive time delays. All these obstacles significantly reduce the competitiveness of Palestinian products and increase the unpredictability of their delivery times and quality.

This is a bit silly; if there were an independent Palestinian Arab state declared on the 1949 armistice lines today, access to the European markets of Arab goods would have the exact same restrictions. In fact, goods exported to Jordan from the PA have more onerous restrictions than those going through Israel! (This recent post of mine addresses the issue.)

In other words, they are objecting to Israel behaving like a sovereign nation.

More deception follows:

Gaza closure: Compared to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been subject to even more stringent restrictions, especially since the takeover by Hamas in 2007. Exports from Gaza, a territory inhabited by 1.6 million Palestinians, have been banned almost entirely, contributing to the low volume of overall Palestinian exports. Despite the easing of some restrictions by Israel since 2010, the volume of exports from Gaza is still less than 2% of the pre-2007 levels. EU imports from Gaza over the five years of blockade have been limited to a few shipments of agricultural produce to the Netherlands and two trucks of garments to the UK.

The source for this, Gisha, does not note what percentage of goods exported from Gaza before 2007 went to Israel. My understanding is that a significant majority of all goods exported from Gaza before the blockade did go to Israel. Surely Israel has the right to limit its imports from Gaza if it chooses. So the 2% figure, while probably accurate, does not give any indication of how many goods were exported from Gaza to the EU before 2007, which I would venture to say was negligible. But if, say, 85% of Gaza's goods used to go to Israel then Gisha should note that before putting out the 2% number.

It might just be that Israel doesn't want to buy goods from a sector that is still shooting rockets at it. Just a wild guess. Do these NGOs think that Israel should be allowed to say where it imports its tomatoes from?

Besides, Israel is indeed working to increase the number of exports from Gaza to the West Bank, as I've reported. One question to ask is what demand there is for Gaza goods in the West Bank today and if that is not being met. Another question is whether any of these NGOs are complaining that Egypt is not importing goods from Gaza, which Israel could not limit if it tried. These are questions that this report does not ask - because the truth is not the goal of reports like these.

This is an indication of the bias that pervades this - and similar - reports. People who are not well-versed in the issues, those who do not have the time or inclination to research it themselves, those who don't have the necessary skepticism and those who are already sympathetic to the anti-Israel cause will swallow this garbage without thinking.

Which is exactly what the Israel-haters want.

The organizations behind this exercise in demonization are:

1. Aprodev
2. Broederlijk delen (Belgium)
3. Caabu (UK)
4. CCFd - Terre Solidaire (France)
5. Christian Aid (UK and Ireland)
6. Church of Sweden
7. Cordaid (Netherlands)
8. danChurchAid (denmark)
9. diakonia (Sweden)
10. FinnChurchAid (Finland)
11. ICCo (Netherlands)
12. IKv pax Christi (Netherlands)
13. International Federation for Human rights (FIdH)
14. Medical Aid for palestinians (UK)
15. medico international (Germany)
16. medico international switzerland
17. The Methodist Church in Britain
18. Norwegian people’s Aid
19. Norwegian Church Aid
20. Quaker Council for european Affairs
21. Quaker peace and Social Witness (UK)
22. Trocaire (Ireland)

Truth and fairness are obviously not part of these organizations' agenda.

By the way, if you object to my characterization in the first paragraph of these organizations' goals as banning imports of goods from only Jews who work in Judea and Samaria, I am being entirely accurate.

There are a number of industrial zones across the Green Line - Barkan, Atarot and Adumim - whose companies get targeted regularly by the anti-Israel crowd. Richard Falk relies heavily on the "Who Profits" website when he insists that certain American and Israeli companies be universally boycotted, and this "Trading Away peace" report quotes "Who Profits" some 26 times.

I looked through the Who Profits site, and I was unable to identify a single Israel-Arab-owned company that they propose boycotting.

Yet, according to this Globes article that discussed the success of these industrial parks, the Atarot park was quoted as having "a nice combination between Arabs and Jews, both in terms of employment and business ownership."

So there are definitely Arab-owned companies in these industrial zones - but not one of them are targeted for boycott!

One probable example is Al Mada'ain Food Products, formerly Slava Food Company, in Atarot, owned by Abu Ghazala Haitham. Assuming that Mr. Haitham is an Israeli citizen, then why isn't his company being tracked for being boycotted by Who Profits or other similar "pro-Palestinian" initiatives? Is he not Palestinian? [If he isn't an Israeli citizen, then presumably the PA will arrest him any hour now.)

When you go beyond the rhetoric and fine print in the volumes of invective released by these NGOs, you uncover the fact that they really are discriminating against Jews, and only Jews.

I think there is a name for that, but these "humanitarian" organizations get very upset when you say it.

Egypt news: Porn ban, Fatah member killed, plague of locusts

Here's today's roundup of interesting news from Egypt.

The Egyptian government has announced that Internet pornography will be banned:

A new moral code has been sculpted for Egyptians, one which has jostled them into a freeze frame “based on ethics.” The limits have well and truly been set, much to the mass grumble of Egyptians from liberal circles.

To quote Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, the decision to ban all pornographic online content in Egypt on Wednesday by the state prosecutor was “a first step towards establishing a society based on ethics.”

And the reaction has showcased the usual split in Egyptian society, one which has made a cyclical appearance since the Islamist powers garnered control of the country’s presidential and parliamentary scenes: The societal yearning for freedom of expression vs. state control.

Now in Egypt, the ban has raised questions over the futility of online censorship – whether blocking porn can be easily dodged with a bit of proxy fine-tuning – and whether authorities are stifling democratic freedoms by crouching behind “ethical boundaries.”

The argument being, attributing the porn ban to “ethics” and the “national interest” is an open-ended declaration.

“These pornographic websites stem from a Western culture, they deteriorate our moral family values and youth. They promote a criminal culture, one which leads to unproductivity, drugs and theft,” says Mamdouh Ismail, a Salafi member of the Egyptian parliament who rose to prominence after he stood up during a parliament session in February to loudly recite the Azaan, or call to prayer, in protest of session timings.

Of course, there is plenty of home-grown Egyptian porn out there, and the thirst for pornography in the Arab world is apparent just from the number of hits I still receive from Internet searches for misspelled "Arab six videos".

In other news, Palestine Press Agency reports that a Fatah member who fled Gaza to avoid being killed by Hamas during the coup was murdered in El Arish, Egypt. Could be a coincidence, but Hamas ties to Egyptian Islamists might have had something to do with this.

Finally, a Biblical plague is hitting parts of Egypt, today:

The Agriculture Ministry declared a state of disaster in Aswan on Thursday as swarms of desert locusts descend on Lake Nasser, the Egypt-Sudan border and the Eastern Desert.

There was a huge plague of locusts in Africa and the Middle East in 1988.

John Kerry to replace Hillary?

Hillary Clinton has confirmed that she plans to step down at the end of this year, and the top names that have been popping up to replace her are U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon and Senator John Kerry.

Kerry had long been an apologist for Bashir Assad before a more recent about-face. Here is a photo of Kerry and Assad, along with their wives, dining in a Damascus restaurant in 2009.

As National Review has noted:

John Kerry has been a frequent traveler to Syria, meeting with Assad five times from 2009 to 2011. Like Pelosi and Lantos, the former presidential candidate sought to promote peace talks between Syria and Israel. A WikiLeaks document revealed that Kerry told the emir of Qatar in November 2010 that Assad is a man who “wants to change” and that Israel should cede the Golan Heights to the Syrians “at some point.”

After a “long and comprehensive” meeting with Assad in April of that year, Kerry described it as “a very positive discussion.” A month later, Kerry was back in Syria. His spokesman, insisting that “Syria can play a critical role in bringing peace and stability if it makes the strategic decision to do so,” asserted that Kerry had “emerged as one of the primary American interlocutors with the Syrian government.”

See how well his interlocution worked out?

Kerry has also flip-flopped about Israel, condemning settlements in 2008 but saying that Obama wasted a year and a half by focusing on the settlements in 2011.

Rice might be even worse. Here is how she effectively condemned Israel at the UN after vetoing an anti-Israel resolution, saying that the US really agreed with the resolution but felt this was not the right venue:

Our opposition to the resolution before this Council today should therefore not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity. On the contrary, we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity...While we agree with our fellow Council members—and indeed, with the wider world—about the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, we think it unwise for this Council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians. We therefore regrettably have opposed this draft resolution.

Read Elliot Abrams' response.

Things are not looking good for the next four years of US Middle East policy if either Kerry or Rice get chosen as the new Secretary of State.

But it is nice to know that Russia would prefer Kerry. Rice was too critical of Russia arming Syria, it seems.

HRW's anti-Israel position illustrated by a single tweet

Yesterday, Human Rights Watch head Ken Roth tweeted:

Kenneth RothVerified‏@KenRoth

The people who reflexively condemn @HRWevery time we criticize #Israel are finding it hard to dismiss our #Syria work.http://trib.al/PrI96b

Reply

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The link is to an article in the Jewish Daily Forward, praising HRW's work in Syria.

I will accept that HRW is doing good work in Syria. The problem is that, as this tweet indicates, HRW cannot distinguish between the morality of a brutal regime murdering tens of thousands of its citizens and Jews building houses in their historic capital.

In fact, the Forward article indicates that even HRW is afraid that its very recent work in Syria is overshadowing its anti-Israel work:

Sarah Leah Whitson, director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa division, says that the focus on Syria has meant an accompanying relative shift away from Israel and Palestinian territories.

“Since Israel was involved in a war in Lebanon and a war in Gaza, of course it got a lot of attention,” Whitson said. As the group’s area manager, Whitson says, she now struggles to keep the work that the organization continues to do outside Syria from getting buried. Before the uprising, Syria “was such a moribund place, we couldn’t generate news…. The reality is, for us to report we needed to be documenting active measures of repression or active measures of abuse.”

A hundred killed every single day in Syria, and Sarah Leah Whitson is complaining that she cannot gain traction on her usual anti-Israel focus! (And HRW managed to focus on Israel plenty of times besides the wars in Lebanon and Gaza.)

In other words, for them to report on Syria before rebels managed to start making territorial gains was really hard, but for them to report on Arabs claiming Israeli abuse was really, really easy. So they decided that Israel was the major human rights abuser in the Middle East, and Syria - while bad - is problematic because mass murders there are overshadowing their specialty.

The article also somewhat contradicts Whitson's claim that it was nearly impossible to report abuses from Syria before the current round of mass murders:

“We’ve been working on Syria for so long; I’d been doing it for six years when the uprising started,” said Nadim Houry, HRW’s Beirut-based deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division. “We already had contacts with quite a few activists and had been able to establish trust and assess accountability over a few years.”

So there you have it. A single tweet shows that HRW is not only equating Israeli actions with Syrian human rights abuses, not only that it feels it should be congratulated for doing what it is supposed to be doing, but that it feels guilty that it is emphasizing Syria so much recently.

I never saw a quote from an HRW officlal complaining that Israel is taking up so many of HRW's resources that they cannot focus properly on Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Which means that even today, HRW's main focus is Israel, and Syria's murderous regime is a distraction that must be solved so it can get back to its major agenda of demonizing the Jewish state.

Egypt's crippling humanitarian siege of Gaza continues

Isn't it interesting that no one writes headlines like that?

Fuel donated by Qatar for the Gaza Strip is still stuck in Egypt due to the unrest in Sinai, a Gaza official said Wednesday.

Mohammad Abadleh, an official with a gas company coalition in Gaza, said the blockage was due to the security situation in the restive peninsula, not any procurement problems.

On Sunday, Egyptian security officials told Ma'an that deliveries had stopped after Bedouin blocked roads.

Seven trucks of fuel were set to leave Egypt via Israel's al-Auja crossing, escorted by security officers from Suez, but the delivery had to be abandoned.

We all know that "security reasons" are not an excuse to deny goods to Gaza, especially necessities like fuel, as human rights organizations never tire of telling us.

Yet you hardly hear any of them criticize Egypt for repeatedly denying or restricting Gazan access to fuel and other essential goods as well as travel into Egypt itself.

Strange, that.

Lebanese Priest: "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" Called to Destroy Christianity

With all the obvious Muslim anti-semitism and how badly Christians are being treated by Muslims in the Middle East, it is easy to forget that Middle East many Christians hate Jews just as much as their Muslim tormentors do.

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Maronite priest Father Yousuf Mouannas, which aired on Al-Manar TV on October 7, 2012.

Father Yousuf Mouannas: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, especially in Basel, included a decision calling for the destruction of the family in general, the Christian family, the Catholic church, Jesus Christ, and belief in any faith – especially the faith of Christians and Muslims. This is all in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

I hate when there are unauthorized editions of my best-selling work.

Egyptian tweets point out the differences between Egypt and a democracy

Egyptians showed some very sharp humor after the US election results came in, by tweeting fake news stories that mirror what happened in Egypt after their own presidential election.

Some examples:

"Hundreds of supporters of Romney demonstrate at Times Square to reject the election results"

"The Republican Party demands Obama resign from the presidency of the Democratic Party in order to be the president of all Americans, and Obama vows to cut ties with the Democratic Party"

"An unemployed man and his brother were shot in a fight between two families, one which supported Obama and the other one Romney"

"Obama purged the judiciary and dismissed the Attorney General, saying: "I am Barack Hussein Obama and I pledge to fully apply the law."

"Romney supporters marched in demonstrations in Washington, asserting that they do not recognize the election results and Obama does not represent them."

"Mitt Romney, after losing, insists on new American elections."

Netanyahu congratulates Obama (video)

From the US Embassy in Israel:

The dual leadership of the Palestinian Arabs also commented:

President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday congratulated US President Barrack Obama after he defeated his Republican challenger.

Abbas expressed hope that Obama would continue his efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa reported.

In Gaza City, the Hamas government called on Obama to re-evaluate his foreign policy concerning Palestine, and end his bias towards Israel.

"We listened to the moderate speech by Obama in the wake of his first presidential victory, but his policy did not fit into this discourse and in front of him now is an opportunity to apply what he had promised the people of the region away from the pressures of the Israeli lobby," Taher al-Nunu said.

He called on Obama to build ethical policies to deal with the region's issues, and restore the rights of the Palestinian people.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Ma'an that any change in opinion by the Arab and Islamic world concerning the United States would depend on whether Obama rebalanced US foreign policy towards the region's issues.

Obama's re-election is a chance for him to abandon his biased policies towards Israel, Abu Zuhri added.

UNRWA's self-serving agenda (MEF)

An important article from The Middle East Forum. Excerpts:

Of the three durable solution strategies employed by UNHCR—repatriation, local integration, and resettlement—protracted situations tend to be those in which repatriation is unfeasible, whether due to a continuing conflict within the prospective country of repatriation or to the demographic implications repatriation would entail.

Given UNHCR's successful implementation of local integration within diverse refugee settings over the course of several decades, on the one hand, and the overwhelming opposition in Israel to a large-scale migration of Palestinians to the country, on the other, local integration seems the best option. The alternatives, including continued suspension of durable solutions by UNRWA until the signing of a full-fledged Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement will make such an agreement progressively more difficult to achieve and, most importantly, will deprive UNRWA's beneficiaries of their right to become fully integrated and active citizens within the societies in which they now live.

But is local integration consistent with UNRWA's mandate? There are two levels on which to examine the question: procedural and substantive. For both, a strong case can be made that the agency is free to promote local integration if the commissioner-general chooses to do so.

As is true of most U.N. organs, the General Assembly resolutions pertinent to UNRWA are the primary source for determining the agency's mandate.[3] Yet specific activities need not be explicitly cited within such resolutions in order to be considered a legitimate domain of activity for an agency.

This conclusion was elaborated by none other than Lance Bartholomeusz, chief of UNRWA's International Law Division, who stated that the agency's actions themselves, simply by having been carried out—provided they are consistent with one or more of the U.N.'s goals—have a measure of legitimacy and essentially serve to define the agency's mandate. Furthermore, UNRWA considers the discretion of its commissioner-general, in consultation with the Advisory Commission, the ultimate arbiter of what its mandate entails: "The Assembly has provided UNRWA with a flexible mandate designed to facilitate, rather than restrict, the agency's ability to act as and when the Commissioner-General, in consultation with the Advisory Commission as appropriate, sees fit."[4]

The fact that a policy is not currently implemented by UNRWA cannot in itself serve as grounds for regarding it as outside the agency's mandate as noted by Bartholomeusz: "The Agency's mandate and its actual activities are distinct: UNRWA's actual activities at a given time are a subset of the activities within its mandate."[5]

This means that incorporation by UNRWA of lasting solutions, such as local integration or resettlement, would not necessarily require an explicit alteration in any of the pertinent General Assembly resolutions. If the commissioner-general were to decide on such activities, this would seem to suffice from a procedural perspective.

While Bartholomeusz argues that UNRWA "does not have a mandate as such to seek durable solutions for Palestine refugees," this assertion is belied by his own acknowledgment that "in its early years, it had a mandate to engage in activities that promoted the integration of refugees into their host country."

...Local integration is, thus, ultimately geared toward naturalization and is clearly consistent with a human development agenda, especially in relation to refugee matters. It is difficult to see how UNRWA's avowed commitment to ensuring that its beneficiaries "enjoy human rights to the fullest extent possible" can be interpreted other than entailing a willingness to at least make some efforts to promote Palestinian refugees' local integration in their current places of residence. The fact that the agency looks favorably upon the attainment of citizenship by most of its beneficiaries in Jordan suggests a tacit acceptance of the fact that a measure of local integration is indeed consistent with its mandate. Yet, the agency refrains from reaching the logical conclusion that naturalized individuals should no longer be considered refugees.

The fact that UNRWA did indeed work to integrate Palestinian Arab refugees into their host countries in the 1950s is no longer mentioned by UNRWA - but there is no reason why it cannot do it to help hundreds of thousands of people. Today.

The reason why it doesn't, which the article doesn't address, is twofold: UNRWA is mostly run by Palestinian Arabs who don't want to jeopardize their jobs by solving the problem that the agency is supposed to help with, and UNRWA is indeed a political organization which has been pushing the idea of "return" and teaching it to generations of children itself.

I discussed this in some detail at the end of this post. I'l repeat it here:

UNRWA did in fact work towards resettling refugees, not just giving them aid. The W or UNRWA stands for "Works" and UNRWA's mandate was to create works programs so that refugees could support themselves and (implicitly) eventually integrate into their host countries. While it was not explicit in its mandate, the words "resettlement" were used often in early UN resolutions and documents regarding the refugees.

For example, UNGA Resolution 393 from 1950, entitled "Assistance to Palestine Refugees":

The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949,
Having examined the report 2/ of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and the report 3/ of the Secretary-General concerning United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees,

4. Considers that, without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, the reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, isessential in preparation for the time when international assistance is no longer available, and for the realization of conditions of peace and stability in the area;
5. Instructs the Agency to establish a reintegration fund which shall be utilized for projects requested by any government in the Near East and approved by the Agency for the permanent re-establishment of refugees and their removal from relief;

All this was obvious in early UN documents. Only at the end of the 1950s did UNRWA give up on the idea of re-integration and turn itself into a wholly anti-Israel organization. UNRWA teachers taught generations of Palestinian Arabs that "return" was the only acceptable option. This was documented in a monograph that noted that in Lebanon in the late 1950s:

Children in the physical education classes at the UNRWA schools exercised to the chant of a-w-d-a (return)

A UNRWA principal in 1961 described his school's curriculum to journalist Martha Gellhorn:

In our school, we teach the children from their first year about their country and how it was stolen from them. I tell my son of seven. You will see: one day a man of eighty and a child so high, all, all will go home with arms in their hands and take back their country by force.

The difference between UNRWA in 1950 and in 1960 is astonishing, and deserves its own study. But what was once a well-meaning refugee agency that did try to solve the refugee problem - including through resettlement - turned in only a few years into a hateful, inciting and bloated bureaucracy whose only purpose was to perpetuate and increase the refugee problem in perpetuity.

Midweek link stuff

From Ian:

Wall St Journal Editorial: Israel under fire
Rockets keep coming from Gaza, not that the world notices

"Israel has been fortunate to suffer few fatalities so far from the Gaza attacks. Some of that owes to Israel's deployment of the Iron Dome air defense system, which recently intercepted eight rockets aimed at larger Israeli cities. But no defensive system is perfect and at some point a Palestinian barrage may take a large toll in lives, forcing Israel to respond in a major way.When that happens, Israel will be urged to show "restraint" by the usual diplomatic suspects. We're writing this as a reminder of how much restraint Israel has already shown."

Jordan's King Abdullah "Playing With Fire" by Khaled Abu Toameh

"The Muslim thugs would not have dared to attack the Halloween party if they thought that the Jordanian authorities would respond in a tough manner.
Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi thugs today feel secure enough to impose their will on any Jordanian. By releasing convicted terrorists from prison, the king is encouraging his rivals to pursue their efforts to destabilize the kingdom and create an Islamic state in Jordan."

Stand With Us: Yes, anti-Semitism is still a problem on campus

“StandWithUs was among the first groups that mobilized to empower students to defend Israel by providing educational materials, advocacy training, and support for their campus events. In many cases, the anti-Israel campaign backfired, producing pro-Israel student leaders motivated to teach their campus communities about Israel. Several organizations now work with these students. Some pro-Israel faculty have also stepped forward to insist on restoring academic and professional standards, and to sponsor Israel education events.
Despite the positive developments, we should not let misleading interpretations of the study or glib headlines lull us into complacency. The challenge remains, and we must do all we can to meet it. Israel and our pro-Israel students deserve no less.”

Told that Norway is the West’s most anti-Semitic country, diplomat lashes out at Israel
After bestselling author slams Oslo for anti-Semitism ‘on state level’ and alleged pro-Palestinian bias, deputy head of mission says the occupation is ‘defining factor’ of Norway’s relations with Israel

Leaders call to fight wave of anti-Israel agitation
Christian, Jewish leaders focus on countering anti-Israel sentiment within the large Protestant churches around the world.

According to Wilkinson, a propaganda campaign is being waged by the Palestinian Authority, the Islamic world and by the Protestant church including the Evangelical church, “propagating replacement theology and its new manifestations.”
“The big lie is Christian Palestinianism, the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian crusade going on in the church today that will say from one corner of its mouth ‘we love the Jewish people’ and from the other corner of its mouth ‘we hate Israel.’ That is not possible. You cannot love the Jewish people and hate Israel,” Wilkinson declared.

10 Border Guard officers injured in Shufat
Two officers sustain moderate wounds, eight sustain light injuries while arresting suspects in Palestinian refugee camp; teen who stabbed one of the officers injured during arrest

Zionist Entity to Be Sued over Abu Jihad Assassination

Two Tunisian lawyers plan to file a lawsuit against the Zionist regime for the 1988 assassination of the deputy of late Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat.

Syrian workers now drawing hostility from Lebanese hosts

“We’ve seen the army and the police detaining and roughing up a number of Syrian workers. Most recently, the Lebanese army beat up 72 workers; most of them were Syrian,” Houry said. “The Lebanese army rounded up the migrant men in the neighborhood and decided to ‘teach them a lesson’ instead of doing police work.”

Egyptian footballer says he may play for Israeli team
"Suleiman said that any player’s wish to play in the Israeli league is justified by the suspension of football activity in Egypt, criticizing "those responsible for resuming the activity in the country who do not think of the future of all the workers of the sports sector.”

[UPDATE: He now denies it. - EoZ]

Tennis superstar Williams vacations in Eilat
Serena, one of the top female players in the sport’s history, visits Israeli resort town

As demand for food rises, Israel doubles up on agritech
Israel’s capabilities in agricultural technology will help ensure that the world’s growing population has enough to eat, a top agribusiness executive says

The need for speed is just an illusion
Israeli psychologist invents a device to prove how little time drivers actually save by hitting the pedal to the metal.

Israel Daily Picture: Fez, Tarboush, Kaffiya -- Why the Arabs of Palestine Flipped their Ottoman Lids in the 1930s
As the accompanying 1920 picture of an Arab demonstration shows, most of the Arab men were wearing fezzes (tarboush) or turbans. Only a few were wearing the cloth kaffiya
and agal (the cord on top).

Also:

8 year old boy donates money to Hezbollah to buy a drone

Israelis blowing up a house in 1968. Not what you think, though:

CiFWatch satire: Bowing to U.S. pressure, Abbas announces 10 month freeze on incitement & antisemitism