Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Hungry PalArab update

I mentioned last week a UN study that claimed that many Palestinian Arabs are not getting the nutrition they need.

Today, in Maan News (Arabic only) I see that vegetable prices in the PA have plummeted due to lack of demand and too much supply.

Something is not adding up....

Review of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East

I am finally (almost) finished with Michael Oren's Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present.

It is an important book, and one that would be difficult for me to do justice to. Oren uncovers a rich and complicated relationship between the United States and the Middle East that is older than the US itself. From the Barbary Wars through the first adventurers and missionaries who visited the area in the 19th century, on through American involvement in Egypt's early bids for independence and on to the American influence on Zionism, it is truly an encyclopedic work.

Meticulously researched, almost any random sentence could become an entire blog entry here. This is both a strength and a weakness as the sheer volume of facts is close to overwhelming. As a reference book it is stellar; as an enjoyable read it is somewhat less appealing, but for students of American history it is invaluable.

Oren shows how the Constitution itself was influenced by events in the Middle East, as our founding fathers realized that a strong central government rather than a loose confederation was the only way to build a centralized army and navy to fight the Muslim pirates of the Mediterranean, even as early American policy zigzagged between paying the North African states "tribute" and threatening them.

It was personally gratifying to see that my recent interest in what I termed Christian proto-Zionism was a large part of this book. Early Americans always looked upon themselves as Jews in the promised land, and the faith that Americans had over the past two centuries influenced US Mideast policy tremendously.

One of the important themes of the book was the influence of American missionaries on the Middle East - and vice versa. Their original intentions of converting Muslims and Jews to Christianity were spectacular failures even as more and more congregations raised money to send more missionaries to try. But when the missionaries changed their tactics and started creating schools that were more oriented to teaching basic skills and American ideology, the reverberations are still being felt today.

Arabs who were taught in these schools ended up becoming the leaders of the Arab nationalist movements - heavily influenced by American ideals of anti-colonialism. Conversely, many of the children of these missionaries who spent so much time in Arab countries gravitated to work in the State Department, whose pro-Arab tilt continues to this day.

Oren goes on to describe America's rising global power after World War I and its part in British policy in Palestine, on through the growing Zionist lobby, America in North Africa against Germany as well as against British and French colonialism and continuing on with FDR's ambivalence towards the idea of a Jewish state.

Oren's last chapter about US policy after Israel was born is much less detailed because, as the author admits, he has little new to add to the huge literature that already exists. Even so, it is a very good hundred page summary with plenty of facts I was not aware of or had forgotten about. (Everyone knows about Israel's accidental firing on the USS Liberty in 1967; how many know about Iraq's accidental firing on the USS Stark in 1987, killing 37 sailors?) He also effectively analyzes every US President's thinking and psyche on Middle East matters.

This book fills in a huge gap in our knowledge of American history and is a very worthwhile read.

(Also check out Pajamas Media's Michael Totten interview with Michael Oren for much more detail.)

2000 British Islamist terrorists

From AP:

The threat of homegrown terrorists attacking Britain is greater now than any time since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, a British Sunday newspaper reported, citing a leaked intelligence document.

More than 2,000 British-based Islamic terrorists are believed to be plotting attacks, according to a government threat assessment prepared this month, which The Sunday Telegraph said it had seen.

"The scale of al-Qaeda's ambitions towards attacking the UK and the number of UK extremists prepared to participate in attacks are even greater than we previously judged," the newspaper quoted the document as saying.

The newspaper said the document was being circulated between the Home Office, defense ministry, M15 intelligence agency and Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch.

The Home Office declined to comment on the report, but said in a statement that security arrangements are under constant review.

But not to worry: 2000 is still only a tiny minority of all British Muslims, so all is well.

Shahid inflation

One of the interesting things about the PalArab infighting is watching how the word "shahid" (martyr) is used.

It used to be easy - if you were killed while trying to murder Jews, you were in the exclusive Martyr's Club with not only large sexual benefits in Paradise but also your families would be paid handsomely by Arab regimes and the Western-supported moderate Palestinian Authority. Even blowing yourself up accidentally while only trying to build a bomb to kill Jews was plenty good enough to join the Club.

But now, what about all these hundreds of PalArabs killed by other Palestinian Arabs? Do they go to Paradise and get to screw lots of virgins? More importantly, do their families get the cash?

Pro-Fatah news sources routinely refer to their people murdered by Hamas as shahids, and I suppose that Hamas does the same to those killed by Fatah. And it appears that the definition just got expanded again:

Clashes broke out in Ramallah on Thursday afternoon after Palestinian security officers accidentally killed a Palestinian youth.

The incident began when a Palestinian military intelligence forces instructed a vehicle traveling in the West Bank city to stop. The driver refused and continued driving. The force opened fire at the vehicle, missed, and accidentally killed a teenager standing next to the vehicle.

The boy, Ahmed Abu Nefisa, was killed on the spot. In response to the killing, the boy's family members began attacking Palestinian Authority security officers and vehicle and set fire to police vehicles.

The rioters also vandalized several shops in the city and vandalized them. Almost all businesses in Ramallah were shut down in response for fear the clashes would continue.

Several hours later, senior members of the security organizations reached an agreement with the family members after promising them that the dead youth would be declared a "shahid" (martyr) and his family members would be compensated by the PA.

You see, it is getting easier and easier to be declared a Shahid. Just raise a stink, attack some police and - you're in, baby!

PalArab self-death update

Things have certainly calmed down in the territories, although not as much as you might think.

While Fatah and Hamas are not as successful in killing each other as beforehand, their efforts to kill Jews continue unabated (as yesterday's foiled terror attack shows.)

Yesterday, a Gaza man blew himself up while working on a bomb, making the counts of PalArabs who have been killed violently by each other go up to 322 since Operation Summer Rains and 117 so far this year.

UPDATE: PCHR mentions a number of incidents Wednesday, including two guys in Gaza who were messing around with a gun. One ended up dead.

Meanwhile:

At approximately 13:00 on Wednesday, 21 February 2007, Nahda Sa’di Hasanein, a 20-year old female resident of Sheja’eya Quarter in Gaza City was admitted to Shifa Hospital suffering from a gunshot wound in the abdomen. She was injured while inside her house; and the source of the shot was not determined. When members of the young woman’s clan were inside the hospital, a verbal dispute broke out when they refused to give information about the injured woman to the Executive Force station in the hospital. At approximately 19:30 on the same day, the Executive Force prevented members from Hasanein clan from entering the hospital because they were armed. An gunfight broke out between both sides in the hospital compound, and led to the injury of 10 people (including a 3-year old.)

Also a bomb set off outside the house of the Director of Police Security.

We are now at 323 and 118.

UPDATE 2: A PalArab policeman, chasing a car that didn't stop at a Palestinian Arab checkpoint (we never hear about those, do we?), fired his gun - and killed a bystander. 324 and 119.

UPDATE 3:Two more killed in Gaza (one shot many times, one stabbed.) 326 and 121.
During this week, 6 PalArab were killed by each other, and one was killed by Israel - and that one was responsible for attempting to kill many, many people.

UPDATE 4: 3 more dead as things are flaring up again. 329 and 124.

UPDATE 5: Apparently, the three killed on Saturday were in retaliation for a "militant" killed late Friday who I didn't count. So we are at 330 and 125.

UPDATE 6: For those of you visiting from LGF or Digg, there are plenty more where these came from. Here is a link to the next installment. And here is one to our last count update.

Arab family in Ramle has honor-murdered 8 of its women

A simply horrendous story in Haaretz:

The murder of Hamda Abu-Ghanem, whose bullet-riddled body was found in mid-January at her parents' house in Ramle, surprised nobody.

As police set about their investigation, everyone was aware that the victim's brother had been threatening to kill her, and that long before the murder, she had taken refuge in a battered women's shelter.

It was a typical "honor killing," meant to remove some perceived stain on the family's reputation.

The perpetrators of most honor killings in the Arab community are not apprehended. Hamda's murder, however, was one too many for the women in the Abu-Ghanem family. She was the eighth woman to be murdered in the extended family in the last six and a half years. All her predecessors also lost their lives in "honor killings."

This time, instead of keeping mum when the police questioned them, the Abu- Ghanem women gave detailed testimonies of everything they knew. One said she had seen Rashad enter the house where Hamda was. Shortly afterward she heard shots and seconds later saw Rashad, the key suspect, fleeing from the building.

The victim's mother told the police that Rashad had forbidden his sister to leave
the house after some men had called her a "prostitute."

"It was a women's revolt against the men of the family. While the men refused to cooperate with the police and forbade the women to speak, the women revealed all. They decided to put an end to the bloody circle of silence," Chief Inspector Haim Shreibhand, who was in charge of the investigation, told Haaretz.

The detectives gathered testimonies from 20 Abu-Ghanem women and assembled the pieces of the puzzle together into an indictment, he said.

Kamal Rashad Abu-Ghanem, 30, was arraigned in Tel Aviv's District Court yesterday for murder. His cousin Mahmoud, who was also arrested, was released for lack of sufficient evidence to file charges.

Rashad Abu-Ghanem was charged with entering the family's home, in Ramle's Juarish neighborhood. His sister was alone in the house, lying on her bed. She probably knew she was about to die. He went up the stairs with a loaded 9-mm. handgun, entered his sister's room and fired nine bullets at her.

Before Hamda, the other women of the Abu-Ghanem family who lost their lives for honor were Naifa, Suzan, Zinat, Sabrin, Amira, Reem and Shirihan.

Like some of the other victims, Hamda had spent the last few years in a shelter, hiding from her brother. Her "crime" was apparently her numerous telephone conversations, and being seen talking to her cousin once.

About a year ago, she asked to move back to her parents' house in Ramle. A few months later, she filed a police complaint against her brother, who had assaulted her. He was arrested, but later released by the court.

"The hardest thing at these murder scenes is the awful silence," said Yifrah Duchovny, Coastal Plain police commander. "Nobody cries, nobody speaks."

"We held everyone who was in the neighborhood at the time of the murder for questioning, and started collecting testimonies. The first one who cooperated with us, perhaps without meaning to, was a relative who said the murder wasn't justified, that Hamda had not breached any honor. Then a female relative agreed with him," Shreibhand said.

The detectives told Hamda's mother, sisters and cousins what the first two relatives had said and asked for their opinion. "Gradually they started to speak. Each one started by saying she had had enough, that she didn't want this situation to continue. The mother, who had first stood behind her son, suddenly started speaking against him, sharing things she knew with us. She said she was angry that he had murdered her daughter."

Hamda's sisters went further. When they confronted Rashad at the police station they spat out at him: "You're a dog," and "Sit in prison for life, murderer." One of them asked him, "Why don't you try to murder me too? I'm not scared of you any more."

The men, on the other hand, hardly said a word to the police. "After the women began to talk, they found themselves receiving threats," said Shreibhand.

The witnesses have been put in safe houses, for fear the men would try to harm them. However, several women were not comfortable in the safe houses and are returning to the neighborhood. "The relations between the men and women in the family have become really tense. We've had special meetings about how to protect the women after they testify and we have a plan," the inspector said.

However, Aida Touma-Suleiman, director of the Women Against Violence group in the Arab sector, said she has grave fears for the women's lives. "I support these brave women. They finally broke the circle of blood and silence. But I'm also afraid they will be hurt. As long as there is no witness protection program, these women will be abandoned after they testify. They may have been courageous, but they have also sentenced themselves to death," she said.

It took eight murders for the Arabs to finally cooperate with the police and even so, the remaining women are in grave danger.

All in the name of Arab "honor."

And this is the same "honor" that means that Arabs will never truly accept Israel's existence and will always try to destroy it - because Israel, by not being destroyed in 1948, has shamed the entire Arab nation.

The case for a larger Israel

Smooth Stone points to an interesting website with a PDF of an entire book, "The Case for a Larger Israel," by David Naggar. He argues that for lasting peace, Israel should expand. Naggar also has a blog that makes some interesting points.

Now, I am way too much of a realist to think that, no matter how compelling the argument, it would ever amount to much. But there is much value in making such an argument anyway, even if the idea itself is doomed before it can get started (not the least by the present Israeli "leadership.")

In the very first Mishna in the Talmudic tractate Bava Metzia a famous case is given. Translated into English:

If two persons hold a cloak, one says, "I found it," and the other says, I found it," one says, "All of it is mine," and the other says, "All of it is mine," the first one shall swear that not less than one half of it belongs to him, the other one shall swear that not less than one half of it belongs to him, and they shall divide it. If one says, "All of it is mine," and the other says, "Half of it is mine," the one who says "All of it is mine" shall swear that not less than three-quarters of it belongs to him, and the one who says "Half of it, is mine” shall swear that not less than one-quarter of it belongs to him; the former shall take three-quarters and the latter shall take one-quarter.

Israel has always been in the position of claiming only half, while the PalArabs always claim all. To the judgmental world, Israel's attempts to solve the problem peacefully by offering to share is interpreted as one side claiming all and the other side claiming half.

This is not the way to negotiate if you want to end up in the most advantageous position. And negotiators are expected to shore up their cases, not to give them away.

Arabs are fond to say that Israel's territorial ambitions stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates. Although the idea is absurd in today's political climate, Israel's claim to the land it has would be immeasurably strengthened if it consistently provided a maximalist negotiating position, rather than the minimalist one it has for the past decade.

The book argues, probably correctly, that an Israel that is much larger would benefit Arabs as well as the world. One only has to compare how Gaza is today with how it was under "occupation" and it isn't hard to see that Israel's rule at its "worst" is better than most Arab rule at its best. But the plausibility of the argument is not as important as the fact that it should be made and made often - because that is how one negotiates.

In the context of the Arab world, people like Abbas (as well as Arafat and Nasser) are considered "moderate." Now, in absolute terms, they are far from moderate - their positions are far more extreme than Israeli "extremists'" positions. But compared to the Muslim Brotherhood cadre of groups, they seem comparatively moderate. Repeat the "moderate" mantra enough, while Jews who feel that they should be able to live where Abraham lived are considered "extremist," and you have a formula for losing the bargain.

But if even some Jews would be putting forth the arguments that there are parts of Jordan and Syria that should be under Israeli control (parts of which were in biblical Israel,) and all of a sudden the Jewish residents of Hebron do not look quite as crazy.

For better of worse, the Arabs have turned Middle East negotiations into a bazaar, a souk where land and "refugees" and paper promises are the coins of the realm. It is way past time for Israel to play the game the way it is meant to be played.

Part of the game, by the way, involves walking away when there is no deal to be made.

How does one reconcile this:

Around 46 per cent of Gaza and West Bank households are "food insecure" or in danger of becoming so, according to a UN report on the impact of conflict and the global boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.

The unpublished draft report, the first of its kind since the boycott was imposed when the Hamas government took office last March, says bluntly that the problem "is primarily a function of restricted economic access to food resulting from ongoing political conditions".

With this:

As the United Nations under-secretary general for political affairs reported on the recent anniversary of Hamas' election victory, international aid to the Palestinians increased in 2006 by nearly 10 percent, amounting to a staggering $1.2 billion. Indeed, Palestinians are today the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world.

How can people who are getting more aid that is specifically earmarked for humanitarian issues like food be getting less food?

The unpublished report notes that the food situation has not really changed since the last time they checked, in 2003. Just that since the population is growing, there are more people who have problems getting proper nutrition, but the ratios are roughly the same.

The report links the lack of food to lack of money in the average PalArab household. Yet somehow Hamas and Fatah are finding the money to purchase new weapons and ammunition smuggled in daily from Egypt.

The amount of oversight of the moneys channeled through NGOs and the UN has been reduced sharply since the security situation in the territories (especially Gaza) is so bad.

It seems highly likely that the Fatah and Hamas terrorists have found ways to get part of the $1.2 billion welfare check the world pays the poor, hungry Palestinian Arabs and to use the money for their own purposes.

The irony is that reports like these will be used as instruments to guilt the West into increasing aid - which will end up back in terrorist pockets.

And there will remain unanswered questions:

Why, in the face of an apparent pressing need for food, is there no major Arab initiative to feed their fellow Arabs? (h/t Yid with Lid)
What responsibility does the PA have for this situation, and how come the world gives them a free pass? To wit:

The Gaza greenhouses that generated tens of millions in revenue for Israel have been mostly inactive since Israel left, because there is no security.
Gaza borders the Mediterranean - why hasn't a fishing industry blossomed?
Why aren't there farms growing grain and raising animals that can feed the population? Gaza has plenty of open space, despite how the press spins it.

Palestinian Arab unemployment and economic problems are a direct result of PA policies of terror and corruption. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that fixing those problems will solve the apparent problem of poverty.

The subtext of this report, and others like it, is that Palestinian Arabs have no ability to take care of themselves; that they are unable to restrain their corruption and their seemingly genetic desire to shoot everything that moves. When the international community starts treating Palestinian Arabs like adults who need to solve their own problems without relying on the blank checks that they have received for decades, they will grow up.

There are plenty of genuinely hungry and poor people in this world who truly do not have the ability to improve their own lot. Palestinian Arabs do not fit in that category.

Breaking news:Rumor of Israeli abducted in Nablus (updated)

Maan News has this blurb:
"Unconfirmed reports of Israeli settler from Elon Moreh settlement abducted in Nablus"

No confirmation from any Israeli or other source. Let's hope it isn't true.

UPDATE: Maan no longer reports it so, thankfully, it appears to have been a false report.

Poor Ziopedia Jew-haters

Ziopedia is the virulently Jew-hating website that Eric Hunt wrote an article for bragging about trying to kidnap and assault Elie Wiesel.

Fellow lunatic site Al-Jazeerah.info published a short whiny piece by Ziopedia's publisher that is simply hilarious:

Due to obscene political pressure by the Zionist Mafia, both PayPal and StormPay were forced to suspend our donations accounts. Your generous financial support is needed for ZioPedia.org to survive and remain the fastest growing anti-Zionist voice on the web.

One of the most disappointing aspects of the obscene attempt of the Kosher Nostra to destroy ZioPedia.org by bullying online payment services PayPal and StormPay into suspending their donations accounts, is the silence of fellow dissident sites on the matter. Is is because they are afraid of receiving the same treatment? Or do they see ZioPedia.org as a competitor rather than an ally in the war against a common enemy?

The number of pledges is an even bigger disappointment. Instead of the expected surge in solidarity, ZioPedia.org is now facing the real prospect of having to shut down.

Unless we are able to raise at least $5,000 before the end of February, ZioPedia.org will be forced to close its doors .

Please send the details of your pledge to donations@ziopedia.org and we will get back to you with payment options.

Andrew Winkler

Editor/Publisher ZioPedia - All There Is To Know About Zionism

This is classic stuff - the paranoia, the Judeophobia, the digs at fellow "dissident" sites who haven't all fallen into goose-stepping to Ziopedia's monetary aid, and the utter cluelessness as to why a company like PayPal may not want to be associated with an upstanding website like ZP.

Poor, poor Andrew. This couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Olmert says he'll respond to Qassams - eventually

Ehud Olmert today re-affirmed his vision of an independent Palestinian Arab state - and then said something even dumber:

Olmert said that if the Kassam rocket attacks on Israel continue, Israel would have to retaliate. "We are not going to restrain ourselves forever," he said. "The continued attacks challenge Israel's patience. In the end, if the attacks continue, we will respond."

Funny...where have we heard that before?

In late November, when the "cease fire" was new:

Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Sunday morning that any attempt to fire into Israeli territories would be considered a breach of the cease-fire and treated with severity.

According to Peretz, Israel is interested in quiet, but would not accept attacks on its citizens.

A couple of days later, Olmert admitted that he was "a little disappointed" that Qassams were still being shot daily into Israel.

In late December, after a month of straight Qassam attacks in the wake of Olmert's "cease fire", he asked the UN to intervene. Yeah, that really worked.
------------------------------------------

Here is my best shot at keeping track of when rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza so far this month. On the 8th, 10 were claimed to have been shot by Islamic Jihad but only four or so were recorded as having landed. Most of the rest of these numbers were rockets that actually landed in Israel, with links back to the news stories. Numbers in parentheses are Arab claims.

Remember that Israel still regards this as being "calm" and has only rarely responded to Gaza terror since the "cease fire" announced in November.

February 2007 Qassam attacks

A magical place where terrorism always pays

Hadi Saud had a problem.

Last year he was shot in the leg and he never got proper treatment. He was also unemployed and he was jealous of all those Palestinian Arabs who manage to get jobs doing nothing. Even though he was a long-standing member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, the pay was apparently not very good.

So he hatched a plan.

He kidnapped three American women aid workers who were in Nablus, called up the AP and said that he would release them in exchange for medical treatment and a job.

Nablus' district governor negotiated with Saud and they did what Arabs are famous for - they bargained.

In the end, Saud released the women. In exchange, he will get medical treatment and will not be prosecuted for the kidnapping.

The PA: where terrorists always win.

AP's misleading headline

It seems that the wire services send out their articles with a default, suggested headline thatmost newspapers will copy verbatim. So it is interesting to see dozens of headlines in Google News that say:

The article slowly clarifies exactly who this "Palestinian"was:

Israeli troops on Wednesday fatally shot a West Bank leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group who was involved in an attempted bombing near Tel Aviv, the army said.

Mahmoud Abu Obeid, 24, was traveling in a car in the center of Jenin when undercover Israeli troops shot and killed him, Palestinian witnesses said. An Israeli combat helicopter was seen in the area at the time, they said.

Abu Obeid had fired in the air with an M-16 rifle and then pointed it at troops when they shot at him, said a commander in the Jenin area, Col. Hertzi Halevy.

Abu Obeid was wanted for recruiting a Palestinian from the Jenin area who was caught by Israeli security in Tel Aviv on Tuesday trying to carry out a suicide bombing, the army said. Abu Obeid also had supplied the bomber with the explosives, the army said.

Abu Obeid oversaw the preparation of bombs for the militant group, and the car he was driving was full of explosives, Halevy said. Troops tracked down Abu Obeid due in part with information given to security forces during the interrogation of the bomber caught on Tuesday, Halevy said.

But people glancing at the paper or website will only see that Israel has killed yet another innocent Palestinian Arab for no reason.

Bahrain's hot new club

Bahrain was the site of yet another protest against Israel. But I got a kick out of the name of the organization that organized the protest:

"We are against any interference at one of the most holy places for Muslims and we strongly condemn what Israel is doing," said chairman of the Bahraini Society Against Normalisation of Relations with the Zionist Enemy, Mohammed Al Aradi, who led the protest.

Demonstrators condemned the demolition of some portions of Al Aqsa Mosque by the Israeli occupation forces and said Israel should be immediately stopped from digging tunnels around it. "This is a direct affront to Muslims," said Mr Al Aradi.

"This is damaging the foundations of the historic structure and the whole action smells of a Jewish conspiracy."

He said any damage to Al Aqsa Mosque would hurt the feelings of Muslims around the globe and called on the UN to intervene.

The BSANoRwtZE is definitely the "in" place to be in Bahrain.

This is not the first time Mr. Al Aradi has been in the news. Previously, his organization's name was slightly different:

Mohammed Al-Aradi, head of the Society for Resisting Normalization with the Zionist Enemy in Bahrain, expressed outrage at the government decision and said bilateral agreements could not override Arab League decision, according to a report by Arab News.

Obviously, the SfRNwtZE name does not have nearly the pizazz as BSANoRwtZE.

It appears that Mr. Al Aradi also has a government job in Bahrain, as a public prosecutor where he prosecutes fairly petty cases.

Sounds like a very hip dude.

How Israel treats Muslim archaeological finds

As I've mentioned before, the major issue that the Muslims have with any archaeological digs in Jerusalem is the possibility that Jewish items and buildings will be found, and hence the digs will end up "Judaizing" Jerusalem.

What they refuse to admit is that many of the digs have uncovered critical periods of Islamic history as well.

There was a recent report claiming that Israeli archaeologists had found an ancient Islamic prayer room three years ago and had covered it up. In response, the Israeli authorities pointed out that they had not determined what the find was yet, and if it was found to be an important Islamic find then they would preserve it. Of course, the Muslims accused Israel of being more nefarious:

Adnan Husseini, chairman of the Muslim council that oversees affairs at the holy site, expressed anger that Israel withheld news of the discovery for three years. "We didn't hear anything about this," he said. "They are always hiding things."

Let's see whether that argument has any merit.

When the Israeli archaeologists started digging at the southern part of the Temple Mount, they found the remains of an Omayyad palace as well as other finds that illuminated early Muslim life in Jerusalem. Rather than destroy this palace as the Muslims would have you think, they shared the information with the local Islamic authorities - who appreciated the gesture and allowed the Israelis to dig in other areas near the Temple Mount.

This story illuminates how Muslims have traditionally tried to politicize archaeology as much as possible:

(Meir) Ben-Dov (field director of southern Mount dig) tells the story of a visit to the excavation by Rafiq Dajani, the deputy director of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities. Dajani remarked to Ben-Dov, “If we could leave politics to the politicians, I would heartily congratulate you on your work, revealing finds of which we knew very little up until now. The finds from the early Moslem period are thrilling, and frankly I’m surprised the Israeli scholars made them public.”

A foreign correspondent overheard Dajani’s remarks and included them in his story.

Two weeks later Dajani was summarily dismissed and later died in the prime of life.

And how did the hated Zionists sweep the discovery of this palace under the rug?

By placing it on a stamp, of course.

Contrast this with how the Waqf treats Jewish archaeological finds on the Temple Mount, and you can see yet another example of Muslim projection of their own attitudes and actions onto the Jews.

Hamas/Fatah truce update

Just because the Western media hasn't been reporting any fighting between Hamas and Fatah doesn't mean that they are playing happily together:

Ramallah - Ma'an - The Fatah movement warned on Tuesday that several "atrocities" had taken place in the Gaza Strip in order to gain "extra time". Since Sunday, there have been four violent assaults on various civilian targets in the Gaza Strip, the Fatah spokesperson, Jamal Nazzal, said, adding that the perpetrators have all been either the pro-Hamas Executive Force or still-unidentified armed men. Fatah has condemned all the attacks.

In one incident, 200 armed men, allegedly from the Executive Force, took control of a farm belonging to Ishaq Hassan. 20 of his family members were forced out of their homes and his 15-dunum farm, located in the Al-Mughraqa neighbourhood close to the evacuated Israeli settlement of Netsarim in the central Gaza Strip, was set ablaze.

In a separate incident, unidentified gunmen stole a car belonging to Palestine TV in Gaza City and brutally beat the car's occupants. The car was reportedly transporting Palestine TV employees in Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in central Gaza City on Tuesday.

A day before, three unarmed Fatah members were also attacked by unknown gunmen in Gaza City.

Fatah also condemned the recent attack on "The Youth House for Culture and Arts" in the northern Gaza Strip where a children's library containing 7,000 books was set ablaze. The library was reportedly attacked because it was "contradictory to Palestinian traditions". In this regard, Nazzal added that the offices of dozens of publications and websites have been closed down in the Gaza Strip following frequent threats by the Executive Force against employees, particularly women.

This must be the PalArab definition of "peace."

Which is something to keep in mind when people talk about the "peace process."

Mecca accord lies

Maan News reports:

Ramallah - Ma'an - The head of the Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) has assured that all the demands of the Quartet are found in the Mecca deal.

The Quartet – comprising of the UN, EU, US and Russia – has stipulated that any new Palestinian government must renounce violence, accept the state of Israel's right to exist and adopt the previously signed peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The head of the Fatah bloc, Azzam Al-Ahmad, was speaking with PLC member Qais Abdul-Karim of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), in the West Bank city of Ramallah during a meeting with the press in the ministry of information. He added that great efforts had been taken to reach the Mecca deal and called on all parties to show more commitment to the agreement.

It seems that Fatah assumes, with good reason, that EUdiots and other liberals are so keen on pouring money back into the terrorist PA that they will accept any assurances that the Mecca agreement is the exact opposite of what it states.

As Petra Marquardt-Bigman points out concerning an article that Khaled Mahaal wrote in the Guardian:

Mashaal had all the reasons to present Palestinian demands and threats with the utmost confidence. He knows all too well that in Europe, quite a few people would rather join a demonstration shouting "We are all Hizbullah" than be accused of "blind support" for Israel. Moreover, a Europe that has to contend with Islamic extremists in its midst has become quite receptive to the "linkage" theory that blames Muslim radicalization on the unsolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which, in turn, is often blamed on Israeli intransigence, made possible by US support.

Most of the Western media did not reprint the actual text of the Mecca agreement. There were two parts - the letter where Abbas calls on Haniyeh to "respect" (but not abide or adhere to) past PLO agreements, and then the actual agreement itself:

Based on the generous initiative announced by Saudi King Abdullah Ben Abdul Aziz and under the sponsorship of his majesty, Fatah and Hamas Movements held in the period February 6-8, 2007 in Holy Mecca the dialogues of Palestinian conciliation and agreement and these dialogues, thanks to God, ended with success and an agreement was reached on the following:

First: to stress on banning the shedding of the Palestinian blood and to take all measures and arrangements to prevent the shedding of the Palestinian blood and to stress on the importance of national unity as basis for national steadfastness and confronting the occupation and to achieve the legitimate national goals of the Palestinian people and adopt the language of dialogue as the sole basis for solving the political disagreements on the Palestinian arena.

Within this context, we offer gratitude to the brothers in Egypt and the Egyptian security delegation in Gaza who exerted tremendous efforts to calm the conditions in Gaza Strip in the past period.

Second: Final agreement to form a Palestinian national unity government according to a detailed agreement ratified by both sides and to start on an urgent basis to take the constitutional measures to form this government.

Third: to move ahead in measures to activate and reform the PLO and accelerate the work of the preparatory committee based on the Cairo and Damascus Understandings.

It has been agreed also on detailed steps between both sides on this issue.

Fourth: to stress on the principle of political partnership on the basis of the effective laws in the PNA and on the basis of political pluralism according to an agreement ratified between both parties.

We gladly announce this agreement to our Palestinian masses and to the Arab and Islamic nation and to all our friends in the world. We stress on our commitment to this agreement in text and spirit so that we can devote our time to achieve our national goals and get rid of the occupation and regain our rights and devote work to the main files, mainly Jerusalem, the refugees, the Aqsa Mosque, the prisoners and detainees and to confront the wall and settlements.

So the true agreement says nothing about even respecting past PA commitments and the only peaceful dialogue it calls for are between Hamas and Fatah.

Anyone who says that the Mecca accords address the Quartet demands, let alone fulfill them, is simply a liar. And a letter that Abbas sends Haniyeh is not an accord saying that Haniyeh even agrees with the murky "respect" clause - we would need a letter from Haniyeh to even imply that.

The fact that the world is so willing to accept an internal Palestinian Arab political power-sharing agreement as anything other than a complete capitulation by Abbas to Hamas is more testament to the power of wishful thinking over reality.

And as the rockets continue to rain down on Israel from the unified Palestinian Arabs without a single word of protest by any Palestinian Arab group, the idea that PalArabs have accepted the Quartet demands goes beyond absurd.

Ten years ago: Empire State Building PalArab terror attack

Ten years ago this week, a Palestinian Arab man shot seven people on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and killed one of them before killing himself.

At the time, his family and the US media all tried to paint this as the act of a deranged loner who was depressed over money problems and they did everything they could to distance this attack from terror. Initial reports said he was Egyptian, not a Palestinian Arab.

A few days later it was revealed that he was carrying a note blaming Israel, the US, France and England for Palestinian Arab troubles, but by then the news cycle had turned and the attack was almost forgotten:

NEW YORK -- The Palestinian teacher who went on a fatal shooting rampage atop the Empire State Building carried a note blaming the United States for using Israel as "an instrument" against his people.

The note found in Ali Hassan Abu Kamal's pocket contains "rambling, angry stuff," and appears to contradict claims by the man's family that the shooting had nothing to do with politics, a high-ranking police source said last night.

The letter also expressed anger at France and England for using Israel as "an instrument" against Palestinians, and indicated that Mr. Abu Kamal planned to vent his anger at the Empire State Building, the source said.

Seven tourists were shot Sunday, one fatally, on the 86th-floor observation deck of the famous landmark, long a symbol of romance and tourism. Mr. Abu Kamal then killed himself.

That Mr. Abu Kamal -- a 69-year-old Palestinian in the country only two months -- could buy a Beretta semiautomatic handgun "is totally insane," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said at a news conference.

Police Commissioner Howard Safir described Mr. Abu Kamal as "one deranged individual working on his own."

An anti-terrorist task force was still part of the investigation, Mr. Safir said, but so far it had found no evidence that Mr. Abu Kamal was aligned with any terrorist group.

In Mr. Abu Kamal's hometown of Gaza City, relatives said he had been distraught over losing his life savings of more than $300,000 and had no ties to Palestinian radical groups. Mr. Abu Kamal called home Sunday and said he could not send tuition money to one of his sons, who is studying civil engineering in Russia, a son-in-law said.

The letter in Mr. Abu Kamal's pocket discussed personal issues but did not mention the loss of his life savings, the police source said. How he lost the money is a mystery.

Now it is revealed that the family lied the whole time - under pressure of the Palestinian Authority:

(IsraelNN.com) The family of Ali Abu Kamal, who opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building a decade ago, now admits that his attack was politically motivated. The family had claimed for years that the attack, in which one person was killed and six were injured, was due to a mental breakdown which Kamal suffered after losing his life’s savings.

A letter found on Kamal’s body at the time pointed to a political motivation for the attack. However, sources in the Palestinian Authority worried that publicizing Kamal’s true motivation would erode Israeli and American trust in the Oslo Accords. So PA officials invented the story about Kamal’s supposed loss of savings and convinced his family to repeat it.

Kamal’s daughter, a UN worker in Gaza, said that at first “we didn’t know he was martyred for patriotic motivations.” Even after becoming convinced that Kamal was in fact a terrorist, the family covered up that fact and destroyed evidence out of fear. Family members say they are now admitting the truth because they are tired of lying.

If the PA would successfully pressure families to lie ten years ago, what percentage of news stories out of Gaza and the West Bank about supposed Israeli crimes are lies as well?

When the acting "government" of a people cannot be trusted to tell simple truths - if in fact they go out of their way to mislead and lie to the world - how can negotiators today trust a word that they say?

A true Arab terror attack occurred in a New York City skyscraper ten years ago, right between the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, and because of a combination of the PA's lies, wishful thinking on the part of the New York police and politicians, and the desire to downplay anything that could derail the Oslo "peace" process, the media and the local governments all agreed that this was not a story that was worth pursuing.

And the PA was behind a massive cover-up that can only be learned about today.

Once again there are lessons to be learned from history. Yet it seems unlikely that history's truths will outweigh the wishful thinking agendas of the US, EU and Kadima.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin ties this case to other cases of "lone gunmen" who happen to be Muslims and whose terrorist motivations are consistently downplayed. (hat tip One Jerusalem)

Isn't unity wonderful?

Now that the PA has unified under the terror Hamas leadership, they of course want that wonderful Palestinian Arab unity umbrella to spread even wider.

They invited two other terror organizations, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP, to join the government as well.

Islamic Jihad said "no thanks" and PFLP is still considering it, but it shows even more clearly what "unity" means to the Palestinian leadership - it means supporting terror, pure and simple. The world's darling "moderate" Abbas did not utter a peep in protest against this move, proving beyond any doubt that the Palestinian Arab idea of a government is for one that officially calls for the death of millions of Jews in the pursuit of the destruction of Israel.

Israel losing the Internet propaganda war

A very good article in Omedia shows the problems Israel has in getting its message across:

Yonatan Dahoach-Halevi, who is a former head of the IDF’s Department of Information and Public Affairs, is responsible for the IDF Spokesman’s website, is a political content consultant to the ministry of defense, and an associate researcher with the Jerusalem Center for Public and Political Affairs, sees the internet as a world of unlimited possibilities. Israel, explains Halevi, does not exploit it correctly, even in the most basic sense of publishing official data, using the internet as a creative tool through blogs, forums, etc. “Israel doesn’t publish information in a free and flowing way on the internet. There is no Israeli database that academic researchers can use to write articles, or for researching the subject of Israel. If an academic researcher wants to write a position paper he goes to the internet and only finds Palestinian information and no Israeli data. Any information published by Israelis is put there by the Betzelem organization and other human rights organizations. The information they publish isn’t always accurate, but given the lack of other resources, the academics will use that data. The UN also uses their information. This creates a situation where the falsehoods and misinformation put out by the Palestinians becomes reality, their perception of reality”.

Dahoach-Halevi’s opinion was supported by one of the conference participants, who reported that she had contacted the IDF Spokesman’s Unit on numerous occasions to request information and had received no reply. Betzelem on the other hand had answered her inquiry quickly and supplied the information efficiently. It is only natural that journalists or academics carrying out research will ultimately use that information.

No Pioneers, No Brakes

Lately Dahoach-Halevi has been working in Canada and knows the Canadian media up close. As someone who can see the Israeli conflict through foreigners eyes, it is important for him to put across points which seem clear to us but aren’t clear abroad. “The Israeli approach” he explains “namely, that it is enough if we just tell the truth, is wrong”. For example, he recounts, incidents like time when left wing activist Rachel Corey was run over by a bulldozer have not gone away. They are alive and kicking on the internet, where Israel’s opponents are sure not to let their side of the story fade away. Borrowing an image from the world of football, Dahoach-Halevi, says that Israel is playing on the internet without a proper defense.

Dahoach-Halevi warned that the Palestinians are using the internet to rewrite history and to create the past through their eyes. They fastidiously post historical documentation in scrupulous detail of their narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict thus putting Israel’s very existence in question. Eli HaCohen, the professional director of the Netvision Institute for Internet Research, refined the problem; “We should consider not only the fact that they are rewriting the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they are also rewriting the history of the Jewish People. By this I mainly refer to the various websites denying the holocaust, which have recently sprung up all over the internet”.

Dahoach-Halevi doesn’t just bemoan the situation he also suggests ways to correct it: “If we want to succeed in the information war on the internet against the Palestinians, it would be very good if we copied how they do things. I mean, for example, the Israeli sites should appear in more languages. Exactly like the Hamas site which appears in a large number of languages, not like the foreign ministry site which is in very few languages”. Dahoach-Halevi also suggests ways of using blogs, video clips, and RSS updates. Above all, he thinks that the IDF Spokesman, Israeli Intelligence, and the foreign ministry should join forces and work together on the internet as information agencies in every sense to tell the Israeli side of the conflict.

It is worth reading the whole thing.

Part of the reason that this blog exists is because I try to put things in perspective in ways that Israel's government does not. It is indeed frustrating that there are no central databases for things that I end up doing - why isn't there an official count of Kassam rockets or of PalArab self-violence? Where can one look up any specific Israeli action in the territories and find out the reason and context? Beyond that we have the problem of Israel accepting responsibility for various PalArab deaths prematurely (like al-Dura).

As the article mentions, there are also plenty of things that Israelis take for granted that the world does not understand. While the Israeli response to the Mughrabi gate digs wasn't terrible, in reality the best responses were from the Israel Antiquities Authority and it took way too much time before anyone even thought about creating a map or pictures to show how absurd the Arab claims were.

I only have a couple of hundred readers, and it takes a lot of time to keep this blog going. It is frustrating to know that in many ways I, and other bloggers, are doing a better job than the government of Israel itself in bringing historical perspectives and objective context to the conflict.

It is true that the Israeli government is somewhat hamstrung by the fact that it has to be accurate in everything it says. But even that problem can be solved - a central database that keeps track of issues and events, even with incomplete information, would be tremendously helpful especially for journalists who are otherwise clueless.