Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 14, 2008

Freedom of the Press, Moderate Palestinian Arab-style

PCHR says:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 12:00 on Wednesday, 12 March 2008, armed members of the PSS, accompanied by 3 officers in civilian clothes, stormed the headquarters of Ramattan Press Agency in al-Wehaidi Building in al-Masyoun neighborhood in Ramallah. They requested Nawaf Ibrahim al-‘Aamer, 48, an editor, to accompany them. However, he asked them to show an arrest warrant, and they showed a warrant issued by the Attorney General’s office allowing entering the headquarters and arresting him. Members of the PSS confiscated all belongings of al-‘Aamer and a computer set. They also broke into the dormitory of the agency’s staff and confiscated all documents in the room where al-‘Aamer lives. They then arrested him.

In his testimony to PCHR, journalist Nawaf al-‘Aamer stated:

They took me in a military vehicle to the headquarters of the PSS in Ramallah. They took my personal data and photographed me. They then moved me to the headquarters of the PSS in Bitounia town. They interrogated me in 6 sessions. They asked me about my e-mail and wanted to have my password. They wanted to check my e-mail claiming that there are materials related to Palestinian security. I refused to open my e-mail without the presence of my director or the President of the Union of Journalists, but they insisted. At approximately 23:00, I agreed to open my e-mail on a private computer. They allowed a relative of mine to come and bring a laptop. I opened my e-mail, and the interrogators downloaded all messages. At approximately 04:00 on Thursday, 13 March 22008, they released me after Ramattan Press Agency and other people had mediated. However, they requested me to come to the headquarters of the PSS at 14:00 to continue the interrogation.”

And Ramattan is not particularly extremist, compared to many other media outlets there.

Tehran graffiti: "Death to Israel"

Picture from an Iranian blogger, who writes:

In Iran, if there is inflation, if teachers’ salary is not paid or if bus drivers protest their low payment, if we don’t have good ties with other countries, if blah blah blah there is only one culprit according to statesmen: International Zionism. Correspondingly, most of the hard-liners view multinational corporations as agents of Zionism and Israel. Adidas, Nestle, Timberland, Benetton, Royal Dutch Shell etc. are supposedly supporters of Israel.

Of course this doesn’t mean that I deny Jewish lobby’s influence (even Shah –the close ally of Israel- defended this theory- and today I was reading an interesting report about the Rothschild family and their unbelievable influence across Western Europe) and I admit that naturally they act against Iran’s interests, but for me ascribing every single blunder to the Zionist lobby is really ridiculous.

Nestle billboard in Baharestan metro stations has become a target for some believers in this doctrine. Again I apologize if my photos don’t enjoy the minimum of quality. Of course Blogger (beside international Zionism ;-) ) are also to be blamed for this.

Clockwise from left: Star of David, Star of David plus a scratch on the billboard, “Death to Israel” slogan, star of David, Nescafe sachet.

PalArabs hoping that Qassams kill more Jews than reported

A telling article in Palestine Today (autotranslated, cleaned up):

The Hebrew media stated that three people were killed in three car accidents on the northern entrance of the Negev desert, claimed assistant police chief Cohen, yesterday, Thursday.

The Hebrew radio said that the public traffic accidents that occurred on the streets of the Jewish state during the last week claimed the lives of ten people, and resulted in serious injuries of nine others.

Palestinians, especially the resistance factions, cast doubt on the validity of whether the large number of deaths in the Jewish state were really due to traffic accidents.

The Al-Quds Brigades, military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, has flattened yesterday, Thursday, raped the towns of the western Negev with 35 rockets and mortar shells, begging the question : Is it true that the dead yesterday were due to accidents or because of resistance rockets ???!!

It's amazing how Freudian these people are.

The word for missile attack is often translated as "rape."

Palestinian Arabs are evidently hoping that they have managed to kill more innocent civilians than they already do, because murdering women and children make them feel more macho. After all, what makes people feel more impotent than shooting dozens of rockets and not managing to kill anybody? To avoid that shame, there must have been Jewish casualties, hiding as "traffic accidents."

And the projection is striking as well, as these same people will inflate their own numbers of dead from Israeli strikes, counting even people they've killed themselves as "martyrs." Fatah's Firas Press even complained today that Haniyeh considers even Gazans who die at home to be "martyrs." Since they lie about their own deaths, they accuse Israel of doing the same.

Exhausted

Going through the Google auto-translation of Arabic news sites, the name "Tzipi Livni" is often translated as "Tsipi Exhausted." And the word seems apt, as the general impression one gets from Israeli policy is that it is one of exhaustion - "we are sick of the war, sick of fighting, sick of terror, sick of constant pushback from the US and the world community, maybe this concession will give us a little bit of breathing room, if only for a little while."

Living in that pressure bubble can only increase irritability and anxiety. It is all the more remarkable that Israel has managed to build such an outstanding society even with all the pressure.

Others have noticed this as well. A comment this morning on a previous article of mine cross-posted on Israellycool states:

Why doesn’t Israel destroy her enemies and live then in peace? You have the means. Have you really decided to commit collective suicide? Have the leftists and the feminists really succeeded in so emasculating the Israeli society that people don’t want to live anymore? You guys used to be the envy of the world. Now people look at Israel like a dying animal with some pity, maybe, but no respect. What’s the matter with you, guys?

Somewhat more articulately, Shrinkwrapped says:

I have to ask: Have the Israeli people become resigned? Have they given up? Where is their outrage? Where is their will to live?

Despair and depression are horrible states. We feel despair when all hope seems lost. When we feel despair in the absence of a hopeless reality, we call if depression.

But what happens to a people when they are told they have no recourse?

What happens to a people when they are told they must continue to live under constant threat of being attacked and killed by Jew hating monsters solely because they are Jewish?

What happens to a people when the adults, the nations that have the ability to either stop the killing and attacks, or enable the Jews to defend themselves, are either actively supporting the genocidal murderers or passively withholding support from Israel?

What happens to a people who understand that there exists no other country in the world that would be expected and counseled to have restraint in the face of daily attacks?

What happens to a people who have a government that professes over and over again an inability to respond effectively?

What happens to a people when the world's press maintains a constant barrage of anti-personal missives and anti-Semitism becomes increasingly mainstream and unobjectionable?

And what happens to a people when they feel like the world just wants them to disappear and go away and has no concern for the lives of Jewish men, women, and children?

Is there a threshold beyond which the entire population surrenders to despair?

I am very fearful for Israel. It is still a democracy. Yet where are the people? Why are they not marching through the streets of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv in the hundreds of thousands, demanding their government do something to stop the reign of terror that they have been told repeatedly is their inevitable lot?

Why are the Israelis not enraged with their own government's fecklessness?

Israel has the power to destroy their enemies many times over. That is a frightening prospect. Their enemies do not believe that the Israelis, civilized in ways that their enemies are not, would ever take the necessary steps to safe guard their people and stop this war. Yet the Israeli government could win this war with methods far short of total war. It is a question of will.

If the Arabs are correct and Israel has lost the will to live, this war can only end with the destruction of Israel and a second Holocaust where they will, as they often boast, finish the job Hitler started. The Palestinians would be only too happy to administer the coup de grace but it will be the Israelis who have committed collective suicide.

Daniel Gordis thinks it is because Zionism has become too disconnected from the Jews it was meant to protect:

When a country's leadership can't express a single coherent thought about why the Jews need a State, when its Prime Minister can articulate no agenda for the Jewish State beyond the hope that it will be "a fun place to live", you know we're bankrupt. You're bankrupt because Bialik and Alterman were too successful. They were part of a movement that so utterly disconnected the Jews from the discourse that had nurtured them for centuries that now, aside from being a marginally Hebrew-speaking version of some benign and characterless country, we can't remember why we wanted this State to begin with. So we don't defend it, because we don't want to hurt their civilians (even though they openly target ours). We don't want to earn the world's opprobrium, because our Prime Minister loves being welcomed in foreign capitals. We don't defend ourselves because we're no longer sure that it's really worth the casualties on our side that preventing these attacks on our sovereignty would require.

Gordis is speaking about the leadership, Shrinkwrapped is speaking about the people, but I think the two are related. The leaders of any people, to a large extent, drive their people's attitudes. When the leadership no longer seems to have pride in its nation, the people will follow. When the leadership can't defend its actions to the world, and then can't assure their own people that they will defend them, the people have a much harder time keeping it together.

The added ingredient that seems to have worn away the Israeli psyche is the pressure from her friends. Both George Bush and Bill Clinton have strong emotional feelings for Israel but that didn't stop them from adding pressure - indeed, their pressure probably outstripped that of Jimmy Carter or the senior Bush.

Moshe Feiglin traces the downhill slide to Yitzchak Shamir's promise to not retaliate in the First Gulf War:

In the First Gulf War, under intense pressure from Israel's Left, Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir reversed two strategic principles that Israel had carefully preserved until then. The first principle was that only Israeli soldiers would be responsible for Israel's security. The second principle was that the attack of Israel's civilian population is completely unacceptable. When Iraqi Scud missiles rained down on Israel's cities, Israel opted to hide behind the broad shoulders of the American and British soldiers, move U.S. Patriot missiles into strategic locations and of course -- to instruct its citizens to cover all windows with sheets of plastic and masking tape.

Prime Minister Shamir enjoyed the support of the media, academia and Left for a time. No Commission of Inquiry was established to investigate the mistakes made in that strange war. By the grace of our Father in Heaven, there were very few Israeli fatalities and nobody criticized Shamir's strategic turnabout. ...

I claimed then -- and even more so now -- that Shamir's blunder was even greater than Golda's in the Yom Kippur War. In the Yom Kippur War, Israel did not lose its power of deterrence. But by the end of the First Gulf War, Israel found itself facing new rules. (Just ask Sderot mayor Eli Moyal for an explanation). Israel had entrusted its security to foreign armies and it soon had to pay for its mistake in hard currency.

I think that he makes a good point - Israel's dependence on the US for its security means that the US naturally has more say in how Israel defends itself, and Israel now finds itself in a position of not wanting to say no to its main friend. The result is a kind of split personality where Israeli leaders are forced to justify themselves from within a US-driven framework, one that fundamentally ignores much of the reality that Israelis have to live with.

Although other recipients of Western largess seem to have no problem ignoring US wishes as to how to act, Israel feels morally bound to accommodate its friend.

This is not a friendship - it is a dependency that is not healthy for either party. Israel gave up a lot of its own self esteem when it outsourced its security to US promises, and no matter how sincere they may have been it is up to Israel alone to make her own decisions and to defend herself.

UPDATE: Siggy has an optimistic response to Shrinkwrapped.

The Israelis, like the Americans in the Carter era (and some might argue even now) are suffering a kind of malaise. It is not fatal and indeed, like the Americans, they will not allow themselves to be worn down by the likes of the failed and dysfunctional regimes and broken, bigoted, racist and murderous cultures of the people that are attempting to strangle her.

Read it all.

Today's lying AFP headline

"Muslim leaders open summit with calls to end Mideast violence"

No, they opened the summit denouncing Israeli defensive actions. They didn't say a word against Palestinian Arab terror attacks or rocket attacks against civilians.

AFP continues in its long tradition of tilting towards terror.

Hamas tapping phones

The Fatah-based Firas Press is reporting that Hamas has placed its own engineers in the Palestinian Telecommunications Company and is using them to spy on Fatah phone calls: (autotranslated)

Palestinian source said ...that Hamas is monitoring telephone communications company in cooperation with the Palestinian in Gaza compared to the sums of money paid to the Hamas Palestinian communications company in Gaza, the source added that a number of Hamas become engineers recruited and formally on the Palestinian Telecommunications Company in Gaza, the source added that the architects of the movement Itsnton contacts and the calls by citizens in all parts.

He noted that the arrest of Fatah cadres yesterday was the result of the news that took place on the telephone call between some cadres of the Fatah movement.

Saudi professor taking Holocaust denial to a whole new level

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Dr. Walid Al-Rashudi, head of the Department of Islamic Studies at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 29, 2008.

Walid Al-Rashudi: One of the important things that we must tell people is that what is going on in Palestine today is a real holocaust. This is the real holocaust. A holocaust is not the burning of 50-60 Jews in Germany or Switzerland, but the Jews continue to call it the Holocaust. In case you don't know, let me tell you that more than 90% of the Muslims in the world do not know that the Jews receive reparations from Germany and Switzerland for the so-called Holocaust affair. We believe that there was indeed a holocaust, but how many died? 50-60 people? Afterwards, they used it to blackmail these two countries.

So what are we supposed to say in the face of the Gaza holocaust? What compensation will satisfy us? By Allah, we will not be satisfied even if all the Jews are killed.

You think there's possibly any relationship between his Holocaust denial and his anti-semitism?

And do you think that since this was aired on Hamas TV that perhaps they do share his genocidal desires?

Naaaah.

Peaceful Gaza news

Last night a cafe was bombed in Gaza and surrounding buildings were damaged.

Today, according to PalPress (Arabic):

Citizens and eyewitnesses said that the Hamas militia elements today attacked the house of Tareq Abu Rula camp west of Gaza City beach and assaulted women and children who they may be in the house next to the house Ismail Haniya ."

The citizens added that the Hamas militia attacked the family, beating women and wreaked havoc in the home unexpected injury 7 citizens of the family of Abu Rula all of them women, were transferred to Shifa hospital to receive treatment in Gaza."

The Hamas militias today killed a girl from the town of Khan Yunis of the Dip family in the southern Gaza Strip during a campaign to remove cigarette merchants and prevent citizens from a search for their livelihood under siege and difficult economic conditions

Although it is hard to understand, one of the commenters confirmed that he saw a girl shot in the head in Gaza. So for now I am adding another to the self-death count, making it 35, and assuming she is not a minor.

UPDATE: Confirmed in PalPress as being 16 years old.

Ma'an reports that some 50,000 West Bank Arabs attended the funerals of the four terrorists killed by Israel yesterday, choosing a holy Christian site to honor bloodthirsty killers:

About 50,000 Palestinians converged on Manger Square in the center of the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Thursday for the funeral of four Palestinian fighters who were assassinated by undercover Israeli forces on Wednesday night.

Their bodies were wrapped in Hizbullah flags, in an apparent show of allegiance with the Lebanese resistance movement and political party.

Schools, shops, restaurants and other businesses shuttered their doors in observance of a general strike across the city. Bethlehem's normally bustling downtown streets were largely empty.

In a show of unity in the face of occupation, members of numerous Palestinian political factions attended the ceremony.

In speeches to the assembled crowd, representatives of the the Higher Committee of National and Islamic Forces, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Islamic Jihad denounced ongoing Israeli aggression against Palestinians. The Palestinian People's Party, the communists, were also present.

Kamil Hamid from the Fatah movement called for collaborators and spies who aid the Israeli occupation to be apprehended.

Across the square from the mosque, the Nativity Church sounded funeral bells.

This means that Fatah has not the slightest interest in reigning in terrorists unless they are forced to by Washington. It is a strange organization that explicitly and enthusiastically supports the murders of their "peace partners."

Meanwhile, another funeral took place:

Israeli police blocked Palestinians from attending the Thursday morning funeral of Ala Abu Dhaim, the East Jerusalem resident who killed eight Jewish students at a school in Jerusalem one week ago.

The police buried Dhaim at dawn on Thursday, physically preventing Palestinians from reaching the cemetery. Dhaim's parents, and some of his senior relatives were permitted to attend the burial.

How many thousands of Palestinian Arabs would have attended that funeral given the chance?

April 11, 1956: Terrorists attack school synagogue

From Time:

It was just after dusk, and 46 skull-capped youngsters stood at their evening prayers in the synagogue of the Shafrir village farm school just outside Tel Aviv. They prayed: "If any design evil against me, speedily make their counsel of no effect and frustrate their designs. Do it for the sake of Thy . . ."
From outside came the sound of a scuffled foot. The door burst in with a crash; the lights went out. It was the fedayeen (self-sacrificers), members of specially trained Arab assassin squads, who had crept north from the Egyptian-held Gaza strip. Submachine guns thundered in the room, and ten-year-olds went down in windows. Three boys and a teacher died almost instantly; three others fell badly wounded. Others jumped out of windows, took shelter in a ditch. The killers fled. It was minutes before a teacher broke open the lock on the school telephone and called police.
The raid was the deadliest of many launched last week by fedayeen irregulars as Egypt and Israel verged on war across the tensest frontier in the world. Nine Jews were killed, more than 50 were injured in some 30 reported attacks. The raiders, mainly Palestinian Arabs recruited from the Gaza border camps (and not technically in the Egyptian army), struck hardest in the coastal plain, always at night. No citizen of the tiny republic was safe from the "Nights of Horror," as Cairo's newspaper Al Akhbar jubilantly headlined the raids, and never was a U.S. diplomat's remark more terrifyingly apt: "Every Israeli sleeps within 20 miles of an Arab knife."

Mahmoud Abbas remains a barbaric terrorist

Yesterday, Israel killed five known and admitted terrorists who were walking around freely in the PA-controlled West Bank. Israel's "peace partner" has not tried to dismantle terror groups running under his nose; he has not put any wanted terrorists in jail (as the PA agreed to in signed agreements with Israel before the intifada).

Mahmoud Abbas strongly condemned Israel doing the PA's job:

"Israel will have to assume all the consequences of its barbaric crimes against our people," said a statement from the office of president Mahmud Abbas.

"Our people remain attached to their land and will continue their resistance to free from it the occupiers and the settlers and to establish a state with Jerusalem as the capital," it said.

"These barbaric crimes reveal the true face of Israel, which speaks loudly about peace and security all the while committing murders and executions against our people," said the statement.

The use of the word "barbaric" is interesting. To my knowledge, Abbas has never used that word before, and yet now he is using it to describe Israeli actions against undeniable terrorists who have been behind suicide bombings and other attacks on civilians.

What is Abbas' reason to use that terminology?

The reason is that this same word was used in a different context last week:

"I condemn in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attack in Jerusalem that targeted innocent students at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva," Bush said in a statement released at the White House after the president spoke with Olmert on the phone. "This barbaric and vicious attack on innocent civilians deserves the condemnation of every nation."

Mahmoud Abbas relies on the world's considering Palestinian Arabs to be the ultimate victims. This is a conscious strategy on their part - to hammer away at how they are always, always victimized and have no responsibility for any violence ever, how everything is Israel's fault, no matter what happens.

Then, last week, a vicious and brutal attack was unleashed on kids that really are innocent victims, taking away the momentum of the perceptions of Abbas' culture of victimhood.

By George Bush using the word "barbaric" the Palestinian Arabs found themselves on the PR defensive, and PR is their major weapon - worth the sacrifice of hundreds of their own.

So Israel's attack against terrorists in Bethlehem needed to be spun in such a way that Abbas could claim once again the mantle of undisputed victimhood. Hence he specifically used the word "barbaric" three times in the statement (also referring to the "barbaric holocaust" in Gaza) in order to make the deaths of 5 terrorists worse than the massacre of 7 teenagers and a young adult in school.

This betrays Abbas' real feelings. He does not distinguish between Palestinian Arab civilians and terrorists - their deaths are, according to Abbas, equally reprehensible (and the deaths of Islamic Jihad terrorists may in fact be worse.) And he also betrays his feelings that the lives of Arab terrorists are worth far more than the lives of innocent Jews, as can be seen by his pretend "condemnation" of the yeshiva massacre.

His statement is also interesting in that it sure sounds like he is referring to all of Israel as "occupied" and that "resistance" - i.e., terror - is the proper way to "free" it.

Which is entirely consistent with his statements of two weeks ago:

In an interview with the Jordanian daily al-Dustur, Abbas said that he was opposed to an armed struggle against Israel - for the time being.
"At this present juncture, I am opposed to the armed struggle because we can't succeed in it, but maybe in the future things will be different," he said.

Now it is crystal clear how "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas is. His opposition to terrorism is only tactical - he supports the morality of murdering random Jews in Israel, just not the timing.

His vehement reaction to Israel's killing jihadists proves that to Abbas, the terrorists are the real heroes. By any objective yardstick, he is no "moderate" and his goals are exactly the same as those of his heroes in the Islamic Jihad.

If anyone has been proven to be "barbaric" in the past few days, it is Mahmoud Abbas.

Mahmoud Abbas, the warmongering extremist
Abbas' support for terror
Fatah official: Abbas wants Israel destroyed
Mahmoud Abbas: Terrorist

Textbook example of bias by AFP

This is not unusual but it is a textbook case of how media bias works.

Check out this AFP headline:

Gaza violence lull ends with Israeli strikes, rockets

In normal English this means that Israel ended the "lull" in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes and Israeli rockets.

The first paragraph is slightly more accurate but no less biased:

GAZA CITY (AFP) - Israeli warplanes hit the Gaza Strip Thursday after militants rattled the Jewish state with rocket fire, ending a five-day lull and threatening efforts to strike a more permanent truce.

Notice that it is Israeli "warplanes" that threaten truce efforts, not the rockets, and that Israel "hits" while 15 Qassam rockets merely "rattle."

The article goes on to say:

The violence flared within hours of an Israeli operation on Wednesday in the West Bank town of Bethlehem where undercover special forces killed four Palestinian gunmen, including two senior commanders.

The use of the word "gunmen" as a synonym for "terrorists" is bad enough, but using it to describe terror leaders is absurd. "Gunmen" imply petty criminals, not people who meticulously plan attacks on civilians and direct others to do it.

In a rare harshly-worded statement, the Palestinian presidency accused Israel of "barbaric crimes."

"These barbaric crimes reveal the truce [sic] face of Israel, which speaks loudly about peace and security all the while committing murders and executions against our people," it said.

AFP doesn't bother to emphasize that the supposedly moderate Abbas had no such harsh words for the slaughter of 8 students last week, but the killing of wanted terrorists - in territory that he supposedly controls and allows them to walk free, who had automatic weapons and grenades in their car - is considered "barbaric." Neither does it notice that Mahmoud Abbas considers Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa terrorists to be "his people."

AFP doesn't mention that one of the terrorists killed was a member of Mahmoud Abbas' own Fatah party, showing collusion between Fatah and Islamic Jihad.

The article likewise doesn't mention the Mercaz Harav massacre at all as it goes through background information.

Of the four pictures used to illustrate the article, every one of them is used to evoke either Israeli aggression or Palestinian Arab victimhood - including this particularly disgusting one:

Palestinian animal owners protest in Gaza City against the Israeli blockade and air raids ©AFP/File - Mehdi Fedouach

In an article dripping with bias against Israel, it is not surprising that they choose a picture showing Israel as being responsible for destroying peace, not to mention one that uses Zionism=Nazism calumny.

"Can't help you now - time for prayers!"

From the Saudi Gazette:

...Ibrahim Al-Ghamdi said government employees use prayer time to take care of personal matters or even go shopping, disregarding their responsibilities as well as the rights of others. Hatem Ahmad made the same allegation about government employees’ laziness in the workplace.

“The only thing my papers needed in order to be processed was a signature. When prayer time came, he told that he had to stop for prayer but then turned around and started to talk to a number of his colleagues. When I objected and harshly criticized him, he decided to neglect my papers for several days and only signed them when someone else asked him to,” Ahmad told Arabic daily Al-Hayat.

Abdulhakim Al-Ghamdi, a teacher, believes that underdevelopment in Third World countries may be attributed to a lack of understanding of the rights of others, inadequate prioritization, and using religion as a pretext to delay work.

Abdulhakim Al-Ghamdi said people in charge should act as role models in order for their employees to stay as diligent as possible. Imam, Abdulrahman Al-Amri said he was disappointed that prayers were being used to overrule people’s rights. He told Al-Hayat the Holy Qur’an states that prayers should be carried out after work is completed once there is ample time.

Abdulmohsen Al-Obaikan, a lawyer in the Kingdom, said there should be no more than 20 minutes for prayer so that the interests of the public can be served in a timely fashion.

Government workers worldwide might be the same, but most of them don't have the Saudis' excuse.

Palestinians gather around a car where four Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Wednesday March 12, 2008. Israeli troops opened fire on a car Wednesday, killing four Palestinian militants, Palestinian medical officials said, throwing doubt on prospects for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

It's curious.

Israel kills four known terrorists in the West Bank that belong to Islamic Jihad, and it is assumed that Hamas therefore will be justified in escalating the "cycle of violence" from Gaza. In other words, Hamas can link the events of the West Bank with what it does in Gaza.

But Israel is expected to continue to negotiate for "peace" with Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and completely ignore the events happening in Gaza.

Israel is not allowed to make a linkage between the two territories, but Hamas is encouraged to, by captions like this.

Hamas exposes other terrorist fauxtography

As I briefly mentioned earlier, the ""Galilee Freedom Batallions" published a picture of the Mercaz HaRav mass murderer in combat fatigues to bolster evidence that they were behind the attack.

The Hamas Al-Qassam website published an animation showing that this picture was Photoshopped:

And, of course, they are blaming the Zionists for faking this photo, even though the people who issued it never claimed that he was a member of Hamas.

UPDATE: (Welcome to the nascent LGF-lizardoids and throbbing GIF fans! Feel free to browse around the site.)

"Cease fire" report: Mortars on Kerem Shalom

From Xinhua:

The Popular Resistance Committee, a group loyal to Hamas, on Wednesday said its fighters have fired three mortar shells on an Israeli commercial crossing point in southeast Gaza Strip.
In a statement sent to the media, the al-Nasser Saladin Brigades, the armed wing of the PRC, said the shells hit Kerem Shalom crossing on the point where Gaza, Egypt and Israel borders meet.
"The Zionist entity admitted the missiles landed on the crossing and claimed they caused no casualties," the statement said.

Kerem Shalom re-opened to ship humanitarian aid into Gaza a bit over a week ago.

Conclusions:

* The "cease-fire" is a sham.
* Hamas will hide behind the PRC to keep rockets and mortars going so they can simultaneously claim to the West that they aren't shooting any rockets while they tell their own people that they never accepted any agreement.
* "Humanitarian aid" is a terrorist target by Hamas and other groups in Gaza, because it is in their best interests to keep the people of Gaza miserable. Miserable PalArabs are better than bullets.

"Galilee Freedom Batallions" and the 1974 PLO "phased plan"

The previously unknown group that claimed responsibility for the Mercaz HaRav massacre calls itself the "Galilee Freedom Battalions-the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh." Many people commented on the second half of their title, wondering if it was a front group for Hezbollah.

We should be more concerned about the first half.

In 1974, the PLO established the "phased plan" to destroy Israel. Even then, the goal was not an independent Palestinian state, but to destroy Israel in stages - to grab whatever territory it can by any means, using it as a platform to grab more - with an independent Palestinian Arab state just a temporary step on the way towards a pan-Arab state:

2. The Palestine Liberation Organization will employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated. This will require further changes being effected in the balance of power in favor of our people and their struggle.

3. The Liberation Organization will struggle against any proposal for a Palestinian entity the price of which is recognition, peace, secure frontiers, renunciation of national rights, and the deprival of our people of their right to return and their right to self-determination on the soil of their homeland.

4. Any step taken towards liberation is a step towards the realization of the Liberation Organization’s strategy of establishing the democratic Palestinian State specified in the resolutions of the previous Palestinian National Councils.

8. Once it is established, the Palestinian national authority will strive to achieve a union of the confrontation countries, with the aim of completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory, and as a step along the road to comprehensive Arab unity.

And immediately after Arafat signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, he told a radio station that the accords

...will be a basis for an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the Palestine National Council resolution issued in 1974... The PNC resolution issued in 1974 calls for the establishment of a national authority on any part of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws or which is liberated.

Arafat habitually referred to the 1974 plan during Oslo. This is the basis for the "good cop, bad cop" routine we are seeing between Abbas and Hamas - one trying to grab territory by ostensibly peaceful means, one by war, both with the same ultimate goal that was codified in Cairo in 1974.

Seen in this context, it makes perfect sense that while the PLO now has all Western countries pressuring Israel to withdraw to the Green Line, that the next stage start to be prepared now.

Which brings us back to the "Galilee Freedom Batallions."

Since the Galilee has a large Arab population, it is the logical place to start the next stage of the Phased Plan. They will start agitating for the Galilee to be a part of Arab Palestine. It sounds absurd now but after a decade or so of inciting Galilee Arabs plus terror attacks together with left-wing Israelis who are scared to death of a perceived "demographic" threat it will seem much more reasonable in years to come.

This group just released a picture of the murderer in military fatigues, strengthening the claim that they really exist (according to Palestine Today, they claim to admire Hezbollah but not to be associated with it). The point, however, is not whether this group exists or not; it is that all of the terror groups and quasi-governmental bodies work for the same goal using the same methods outlined in 1974.

CAMERA: BBC caught fabricating a story

CAMERA points out that the BBC showed footage of a home being bulldozed and claimed it was the home of the mass murderer of Mercaz HaRav's family.

The only problem is that the house still stands. The BBC showed footage of a house demolition and lied about what it was showing.

This goes way beyond media bias. Read (and watch) the whole thing.

Work accident!

Ma'an says that "25-year-old Ayman Mansour died after being seriously wounded on Tuesday evening while preparing a bomb that exploded in his hands."

I am convinced that some of the Palestinian Arab deaths reported as being from Israeli bombings are in fact from work accidents like these, or internal clashes. Hamas transports the dead bodies to where the airstrikes are and then say it was Israel. (The Palestine Press Agency has accused Hamas of doing exactly that at least once.) Since Israel didn't have any airstrikes yesterday, they couldn't blame the IDF.

Of course, "preparing bombs" is exactly what everyone knows Hamas will be doing in this current "lull" - licking its wounds from last week and ramping up for next time.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is at 32.

UPDATE: PCHR mentions that a Gaza policeman "mistakenly" killed a 75-year old woman last week. So the count is 33, with 13 of them women or children.

UPDATE 2: PCHR has removed the link to the section of its website that reports deaths from infighting and "misuse of weapons." Making it even harder to report how many Palestinian Arabs are killing each other. And proving that it cares little about PalArab "human rights" and only about making Israel look bad.

UPDATE 3: Tunnel collapse:

An underground tunnel collapsed early Wednesday near Egypt's border with the Gaza strip, burying alive one smuggler and injuring another, a security official said.
Palestinian smuggler Mohammed el-Bashiti and five others had nearly finished expanding the 600 meter (yard) tunnel from Gaza into Egypt located 10 meters beneath the ground, when the ceiling gave way, said the official. (AP)

34.

Video of Grad rocket explosion in Ashkelon neighborhood

Grads are much more powerful and deadly than Qassams, and "reinforced rooms" do not protect against Grads, as is obvious from watching this video from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs website: