Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 26, 2010

How I work

I have a simple rule when blogging: Be skeptical about anything not written by a primary source.

Here's an example, and not from the left. Going down the thread to the truth, however, often reveals other truths.

Arutz-7 has a story that starts off with:

A group of more than 150 Irish artists have pledged to boycott Israel as part of a solidarity campaign coordinated with the Palestinian Authority.

Boycott campaigns are nothing new, but it would be big news if this was done in coordination with the PA, since the Abbas regime officially says that it only boycotts the "settlers" and not the state of Israel.

Arutz-7's "proof" seems to be this statement from the Irish group:

“In response to the call from Palestinian civil society for a cultural boycott of Israel, we pledge not to avail of any invitation to perform or exhibit in Israel, nor to accept any funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel, until such time as Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.”

"Palestinian civil society" is not the same as the PA.

But maybe I missed something, so I went to the IPSC website, and looked at the actual announcement. Nothing about the PA.

But perhaps they had cooperated with the PA in the past, so I looked for a search engine. They don't have one, but Google can be configured to search within only one site, so I searched for "Palestinian Authority" to see if the group ever met with officials of the PA or received any encouraging statements from the PA. I couldn't find anything.

On the contrary, I found an interview with a leader of the BDS movement answering a question as to whether the PA supports a boycott:

One has to look at it in perspective. The PA is unelected. It is there because of the US. It does not represent Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It is complicit in Israel's oppression. It is a sub-contractor of the occupation.

The PA has engaged in a small part of the boycott of settlement products. It is the only part the Oslo accords allow for. It is a step in the right direction. If the PA had a different stand, all governments would react differently. But civil society says Israel is the oppressor, not the settlements.

Here's that term "civil society" again. Since it was used in two completely different contexts by two BDS groups, it seems that this is a keyword that they use to claim that Palestinian Arabs are behind boycotts of Israel without having to actually define the term. In fact, of course, PalArabs happily buy Israeli products, even in Gaza, when they get the chance, and the BDS movement is lying when they try to imply that Palestinian Arabs as a whole support the BDS movement.

It seems apparent that Arutz-7 is wrong in this case.

Now that we see a connection between the terms "civil society" and the BDS movement, let's see where else we can see that link. Back to Google, we find a number of disparate BDS sites that use the exact same term.

One of the earlier uses was in a 2005 BDS campaign that uses the term in its title:

Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel
Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights
9 July 2005

...We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.

In that case, they list some 150 organizations that support BDS. Most of them do not originate in Palestine: the ones that are in the territories are generally labor unions and Palestinian anti-Israel "human rights" organizations like PICCR, Addameer and Al Mezan (but not PCHR.) They do include many groups based out of Syria and Jordan as well as world-wide anti-Israel activist organizations.

We see how the BDS movement will misrepresent itself as to how aligned they are with average Palestinian Arabs, and that they disparage PalArabs who don't support the boycott by implying that they are not "civil." They are elitist by calling themselves "civil society" and they act against the wishes of the average Palestinian Arab. This is something that has happened for decades; Western reporters and diplomats accept the word of self-appointed, non-elected "leaders" whose political interests are in direct opposition to what the average Arab of Palestinian descent really wants.

America's history of Christian Zionism

From Zvi:

Christian Zionism is actually a long-standing phenomenon in the United States. It has been, for the most part, a positive and constructive movement. Many United States presidents have expressed Zionist sentiments, including John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln and every US president since Woodrow Wilson, regardless of party. A few short samples (there are a lot more):

President John Q. Adams:
[I believe in the] rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation. (Letter to Major Mordecai Manuel Noah)

President Wilson:
The allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth. (Response to Balfour Declaration)
President Harry Truman:
I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have faith in it now. (Granting de facto recognitionto the new Jewish State—11 minutes after Israel's proclamation of independence)

John F. Kennedy:
In the prophetic spirit of Zionism all free men today look to a better world and in the experience ofZionism we know that it takes courage and perseverance and dedication to achieve it.

Back then, the word Zionism had not been turned into a swear word by anti-Semitic propagandists willing to lie, cheat, steal and threaten.

Martin Luther King, Jr was very much a Christian Zionist:

“Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect her right to exist, its territorial integrity and the right to use whatever sea lanes it needs. Israel is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security, and that security must be a reality.”

So American Christian Zionists today can be proud to stand in excellent company. The same is true for Christian Zionists in other countries.

Today, Christian Zionists are probably one of the few bastions of sanity on topics related to Israel in places like Tromso, Norway.

Freedom of expression, PA-style

From Ma'an:

A conference for Palestinians angered by the governmental decision to proceed with direct peace talks was shut down by PA forces in Ramallah on Wednesday, organizers said.

Khaleda Jarrar, a candidate for Ramallah mayor with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine before President Mahmoud Abbas called off the scheduled July elections, told Ma'an that PA police "in civilian uniforms attempted to thwart the event from the start, chanting slogans and leading event participants towards the center of Ramallah."

The event was organized by leftist factions, PFLP, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian People's Party, as well as several independent politicians. Organizers said the event was set to be held alongside a similar one in Gaza City.

She said the plainclothes officers were trying to provoke participants, who were not intending to leave the conference hall but rather hold a news conference inside, where Jarrar said objectors to the talks would "express or stance against a return to negotiations."

Speaking with Ma'an by phone from Ramallah, Jarrar said she held the PA "completely responsible" for the events of the day. "We aimed to voice our dissent, and the PA decided to enter the conference hall and drag participants out to an unplanned rally" in order to quash it.

A statement from the government-affiliated Watan TV station said network cameramen were assaulted and their equipment confiscated.

of course, the accusers are liars as well, so it is tough to know who to believe.

Midweek links

Snow Business Like Shmo Business – Jon Snow treads the boards with Ha'aretz' Gideon Levy

Finland's Amnesty chairman: "Israel is a scum state"

And Zionist group Z-Street is suing the IRS for not giving them non-profit status - and here's why, according to their complaint:

21. Agent Gentry also informed Z STREET’s counsel that the IRS is carefully scrutinizing organizations that are in any way connected with Israel.

22. Agent Gentry further stated to counsel for Z STREET: “these cases are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization's activities contradict the Administration's public policies.”

23. Z STREET, and its President, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, have publicly taken positions on issues relating to Israel that are inconsistent with positions taken by the Obama administration.

24. The IRS’s admissions by Agent Gentry make clear that the IRS maintains an Israel Special Policy governing the processing of applications for tax exemption by organizations which are believed to be operated by persons holding political views inconsistent with those espoused by the Obama administration, and that the Israel Special Policy mandates that such applications be scrutinized differently and at greater length, and therefore that they take longer to process than those made by organizations without that characteristic, or even that the tax-exempt application might be denied altogether on that basis.

Another view of Christian Zionist attitudes towards Jews

Received via email:

I would like to contribute a personal view (from the Jewish side) of how Christians view Jews.

I grew up in Washington State and did my college work [in a small town] there. Although Seattle had about 10,000 Jews at the time and the town supported a small shul, for many of my classmates I was the first non-Christian they had ever known. These were sincere, believing Christians who took their faith seriously. They believed that "no man comes unto the Father but by me", which they took to mean that anyone who was not a Christian was condemned to Hell.

Before they met me, this had not bothered them much, because they had never needed to think about it. Once they knew me, they were forced to confront the consequences of this belief. Although I am very far from being a saint, I think I can claim that I am not that much worse than the average person. My friends did not find in me enough wickedness to merit damnation.

So they were stuck with a real dilemma - a tenet of their faith, damnation for non-Christians, contradicted their belief that a loving god could not condemn to eternal punishment anyone who was not clearly evil.

Most of my friends were good people whose faith added to their goodness. A few were basically unpleasant people whose faith put a veneer of niceness over the basic unpleasantness.

The ones who were basically nice people came to the conclusion that, since I was not that much worse than the average run of mankind, I would convert at some time in my life of my own free will. They were willing to leave this conversion until the time of my death, when Jesus came down in all his glory to give me one last chance. They put no pressure on me to convert - they felt that this could be safely left in god's hand. (A good friend of my mother's solved this dilemma a different way - she believed that "Lord", when used in prayer, referred to Jesus, so that my mother prayed to Jesus (and was saved) whether Mother knew it or not.)

The ones who were basically not-nice people came to the conclusion that I was out of luck. I was damned to eternal punishment.

Christian Zionists, by and large, appear to belong to the first school of thought. They are convinced that, in god's good time, Jews will accept Jesus as the messiah. But they know that god's time is not man's time and, until god himself moves, they will do the best they can for their beloved Jewish brothers.

I am willing to accept with gratitude (and I will try to return) the love and kindness they give.

Latest anti-semitic "news" site linked to by Google News

I know it is a losing battle, but I just complained to Google about another anti-semitic article that was linked to by Google News.

The link is http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2010/08/gaza-zionism-and-world-domination-origins-of-zionist-ideology/ (I don't want to hotlink.)

If you want to complain to Google, go here.

"Christian Zionists...express a genuine love and care for Jews"

Right on the heels of my article about James Carroll's piece in the Boston Globe on Christian Zionists, Slate has a fascinating article by a skeptical Jew who has been won over by them.

If they're not doing it for a right-wing agenda, a missionary agenda, or an apocalyptic agenda, just why are Christians uniting for Israel?

It's because they love Jews. When I went to cover 2008's CUFI Washington Summit, the first person I met shook my hand and told me she loved me for being a Jew. It's happened to me at least dozens of times since. Ask any cross-section of Christian Zionists why they support Israel, and most of the time the first line out of their mouths will be citing Genesis 12:3, in which God says to Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse."
The more you dig into Christian Zionism, the more you realize it's less about Israel than it is about the Jews. There's plenty of talk about current events and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the repeated mentions of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and other episodes of Jewish persecution are often more prominent. In fact, Christian Zionists say they are primarily concerned about Jewish welfare and have tackled Israel advocacy simply because it's the issue on which they feel their political assistance is most valuable.

Jewish readers may be wondering how I could be so credulous. I've thought about that question a lot; there's certainly plenty of history of Jews being told one thing only to get slammed in the other direction. The simple reality of Christian Zionism is that the facts are different from many Jews' assumptions (and then for some Jews aware of the facts, there's still a tendency to resort to extreme conspiracy theories or strained arguments about Jewish continuity). There's no question that they have different politics, rhetoric, and even culture from what we're used to seeing in the Jewish world. But they do seem to express a genuine love and care for Jews. "Being loved" is not something Jews take to easily (or, at least, this Jew doesn't), and it's still pretty awkward for me in personal conversations with Christians—but, awkwardness aside, this palpable sense of concern for Jewish welfare is the first that Jews have felt from such a large religious group in their history.

Read the whole thing.

Moderate PA honors architect of Olympic massacre

From Palestinian Media Watch:

On Sept. 5, 1972, eight members of the Palestinian terror organization Black September broke into the athletes' village at the Munich Olympics. They kidnapped and ultimately murdered 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.

After Amin Al-Hindi, one of the senior planners of the terror operation, died this week, the Palestinian Authority glorified him and his terror attack. The official PA daily described his participation in the Olympic massacre, saying he was "one of the stars who sparkled... at the sports stadium in Munich." The attack itself was referred to as "just one of many shining stations" in his life.

The PA daily reports that Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad were at the funeral, where "a red carpet was laid out for the arrival of the body, and the military band played the final farewell melody."

The following are three articles in the official PA daily, describing the honoring of the terrorist who planned the Olympic massacre:

"On Wednesday I felt sad to the point of choking, because my friend Amin Al-Hindi, a national leader with a full resume, returned to Gaza to be buried in its ground...

Amin Al-Hindi, gentle as a morning breeze, was strong inside and as unyielding as granite rock. Perhaps this quality - the power raging beneath the calm surface - is what turned him into one of the prominent members of Fatah in Germany, and led him in the direction of the difficult tasks which require quiet people of this sort, who don't like tumult and who make full use of all the wisdom, imagination and planning [ability] that Allah has given them for the purpose of completing their difficult tasks...

Everyone knows that Amin Al-Hindi was one of the stars who sparkled at one of the stormiest points on the international level - the operation that was carried out at the [Olympics] sports stadium in Munich, Germany, in 1972. That was just one of many shining stations."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 20,2010]

"Secretary General of the President's office, Al-Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim, delivered a speech in which he praised the good qualities of the deceased. He stressed that the loss of Al-Hindi is a great loss to the Palestinian people, who have lost a prominent national leader.
Abd Al-Rahim noted that the deceased had been taught by the founders of the Palestinian dream, and was a member of the founding generation of the [Palestinian] revolutionary movement... The Secretary General of the Presidential office said: 'We shall continue in the path of the Shahid (Martyr) Yasser Arafat and his fellow Shahids, such as Amin Al-Hindi, until the realization of the dream of establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.'"
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 19, 2010]

"The Palestinian leadership, along with President Mahmoud Abbas, parted yesterday from the body of the Fatah leader and fighter patriot Amin Al-Hindi. This was at an imposing official military funeral that was held at the [PA] headquarters to bid farewell to the Shahid (Martyr)...
Present at the headquarters for the farewell ceremony and for the official military funeral, along with the President [Abbas], were Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad; Secretary General of the Presidential office, Al-Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim; members of the PLO Executive Council and of the Fatah Central Committee; several ministers, commanders of security forces, senior civic and military personnel, as well as relatives of the deceased.
The body of Al-Hindi, which was wrapped in shrouds, arrived draped with the Palestinian flag and was borne on the shoulders of his [metaphorical] sons - officers of the Guard of Honor at the presidential headquarters. A red carpet was laid out for the arrival of the body, and the military band played the final farewell melody. A squad from the Guard of Honor fired 21 shots. President Abbas and the participants at the funeral cast a final parting look at the body, and laid wreaths. Afterwards, the President and those present read the opening sura [of the Quran] for the elevation of his pure soul."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 19, 2010]

Not only Abbas but even Fayyad, that darling of the West for being the most moderate Palestinian Arab leader ever, honored the memory of one of the most notorious terrorists in history.

Latest Arab rumor: Blackberry a CIA-Mossad plot!

Ammon News, a Jordanian newspaper, exposes the frightening truth: that Blackberry uses jointly developed CIA-Mossad technology to read everyone's emails and messages!

And they have ironclad proof. You see, Blackberry is based out of Canada. The reason? Because if it was based out of the US or Israel, then people wouldn't trust it! Therefore, it must have been created by Jews and Americans who were intent on hiding its true origins, and Canada is the perfect country to install this nefarious spy network, because no one would suspect it. QED.

The article goes on to say that Blackberry agreed to have Israel monitor its messages, but denied Saudi Arabia's request to do the same.

(The latest information I have is that RIM does or will soon allow monitoring in Saudi Arabia, India, Russia and China, and I have no information about Israel, but that's why we need hard-hitting analyses by places like the Ammon News to set us straight.)

The article goes on to reveal that Hilary Clinton is planning to pressure the Gulf states not to ban the Blackberry, so that the Mossad can continue unfettered access to everyone's messages.

I'm glad we have such great investigative reporting in Arabic-speaking countries. How else would we know about these sorts of stories?

Press freedoms get more restricted in Syria, Jordan

Al Quds al Arabi reports on Syrian threats to shut down many periodicals.

The official reason is that the publications that say they are weekly or biweekly or monthly often miss their deadlines because of a severe shortage of advertisers. The official goal of the new rule is to force publications to meet their schedules.

Although Al Quds does not ascribe any political motives to this threat, one could imagine that the private Syrian periodicals are the ones that have the cash-flow and timing problems, not the government papers and magazines.

Meanwhile, in Jordan, a new law that was ostensibly meant to crack down on cyber-crimes includes provisions that would seriously impact what news may be reported.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists,

[T]he law provides authorities with sweeping powers to restrict the flow of information and limit public debate. Article 8 penalizes "sending or posting data or information via the Internet or any information system that involves defamation or contempt or slander," without defining what constitutes those crimes. Article 12 penalizes obtaining "data or information not available to the public, concerning national security or foreign relations of the kingdom, public safety or the national economy" from a website without a permit. Article 13 allows for law enforcement officers to search the offices of websites and access their computers without prior approval from public prosecutors.

Jews put poisoned food in their supermarkets!

The Arab press is reporting that three Palestinian Arabs have been "poisoned" by buying expired meat from an Israeli Rami Levy supermarket in the West Bank.

Firas Press says "Beware!!" while quoting an Arab official as saying

"The products sold by Rami Levy lack quality, and many of them are sold at ridiculous prices because of they are close to expiring, in particular meat products and canned food. The PA consumer protection employees will monitor Palestinian shoppers of Rami Levy and will publish lists of their names and they are subject to legal accountability."

The PA first threatened shoppers at Rami Levy last May.

But isn't it an amazing coincidence that only Arab shoppers are getting allegedly "poisoned" by this supposedly bad, no doubt kosher, meat?

It's sort of like the Zionist attack pigs who know to only attack Arabs and leave Jews alone. The poison must be triggered by the existence of an Arab genetic marker in the victim's saliva. Yeah, that's it.

Cloud frightens Mecca pilgrims

A low cloud that partially obscured the huge clocks atop the new Abraj al-Bait Tower in Mecca frightened visitors and pilgrims, who feared that the tower was on fire.

Al Arabiya reports that a combination of the thick cloud and the illumination from the clock made Meccans think that there was a huge smoky blaze on top of the new landmark.

By the way, Hezbollah kills bill collectors

Ya Libnan covers Hassan Nasrallah's latest speech last night.

The speech itself was long, as usual, and covered a lot of topics where Nasrallah describes his vision for Lebanon. He said that Lebanon should accept arms from Iran to equip the army, that Lebanon should insist that Israel give up all of the town of Ghajar that is now split in two, that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is illegitimate, and that Israeli spies must be executed.

He also spoke about Lebanese water and electricity shortages. There have been some public protests in Lebanon over these shortages. Nasrallah suggested that Lebanon solve the problem by building a "peaceful" nuclear power plant, which would allow it to become an electricity exporter.

Then, the article prints this tiny, unimportant, parenthetical statement:

(According to observers Hezbollah and Amal neighborhoods refuse to pay for electricity and water. Bill collectors in Hezbollah and Amal strongholds have reportedly been subjected to attacks and many were killed or wounded.)

All of a sudden, Hezbollah's leader doesn't look nearly as civic-minded and responsible as his speech implies, does he? That final sentence shows that Nasrallah's revamping of Hezbollah's image from a violent terror organization to a peaceful political party is a sham, and that his soothing words that are meant to make Hezbollah look like a team player in building up Lebanon is really to turn Hezbollah into a Trojan horse to take over the country.

If Nasrallah wants to solve Lebanon's electricity woes, shouldn't he pay his own electric bills?

If Hezbollah kills those who try to collect them, then why would we think that they have any peaceful motives for a nuclear plant?

Syrian Palestinians admit they don't want to "return"

BBC reporter Lina Sinjab actually asks Palestinian Arabs what they want - and, more amazingly, they answer the question honestly.

The right of return for Palestinian refugees is a major sticking point in the upcoming US-sponsored Middle East peace talks, but some younger Palestinians - having never laid eyes on their ancestral homeland - say they do not actually want to go back.

As a third-generation Palestinian growing up in Syria, Bissan al-Sharif says she feels rooted in Damascus.

"I don't know if I would leave everything and go and live [in my ancestral village] because I don't know the place," says Ms Sharif.

"It is difficult to go somewhere and start everything from scratch," she says in between drama lessons for her nine-year-old students.

Ms Sharif's family has told her about what life was like in their ancestral home, and she still wants to visit a future Palestinian state, but not necessarily to move there.

"It is an absent part of my identity," she says. "I know that I have a village in Palestine and I feel I have the right to know it. But I live here, my friends and my work are here, this is my world.

"The other side is an anonymous place to me. It is unknown."

With generations of Palestinians now having lived in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, they have established deep roots outside their ancestral homeland.

But it is rare for them to publicly admit these views.

"On the record, because it is politically incorrect to say otherwise, all of them would say 'Yes, we would return to Palestine'. But once you sit with them in private, you hear a very different point of view," says political analyst Sami Mubayyed.

"Why would a businessman leave their comfort zone? Home is where the heart and the money is."

Even the staunchest supporters of the right to return admit that they have split loyalties.

"I feel like I have two countries - Syria and Palestine," says Yasser Jamous, the 23-year-old lead singer of the Refugees of Rap.

The group is made up of five young Palestinians who grew up in Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus.

They rap about a homeland they have never visited.

Although Mr Jamous' neighbourhood is identified as a camp, there are no tents or slums in sight. It is a residential area with beauty salons and internet cafes.

The Palestinians who live here are well integrated into society, some even hold government posts.

On the rooftop of a community centre, young Palestinians in their 20s make round plaques imprinted with a picture of Jerusalem.

They aim to produce 60,000 to give to Palestinian families - aimed at keeping the memories of their homeland alive.

Before 1948, Palestinian Arab nationalism was weak to nonexistent. Some intellectuals pushed for the idea of a Palestinian Arab state but the vast majority of actual residents of Palestine did not think of themselves as "Palestinian." The entire concept of nationalism was a new idea, especially for those whose self-identity had been tied for centuries to their families, extended clans, and villages as well as their basic identity as Arabs. In their communal memory, they had never had any independence; rather they had always been under the rule of outsiders. As long as no one bothered their communities, they didn't see any advantage in taking on a new role of being "Palestinian."

Palestinian nationalism itself was an even newer idea; most (but not all) Palestinian Arab nationalists wanted to be part of an independent Syria rather than "Palestine" until 1920 or so, after France and Britain separated Palestine from Syria. Even the Mufti of Jerusalem pushed for Palestine to be considered "southern Syria" until it became apparent that this would never happen.

The Arabs of Palestine did not internalize that there was any difference between them and any other Arabs. Many had only arrived after Zionism took root and when the economy of Palestine improved; conversely, during the 1936-9 riots, a large number of Arabs fled Palestine and went to neighboring countries. To them, the Western-defined borders had little meaning - they were Arabs, not "Palestinian" or "Lebanese" or "Transjordanian." They expected to be able to travel to any other Arab area the way their ancestors traveled throughout the region, based on economic factors far more than any perceived ties to a specific area.

In 1948, they had the exact same expectation. They fled because they didn't think that going to a neighboring area was a big deal and because, historically, Arabs would welcome other Arabs.

That time, however, their Arab brothers started to treat them differently. There were two major reasons for this: one was because of the undeniable hardship that integrating them would cause for the already struggling new Arab states, and the other because they reminded them of the humiliation that the Arab world suffered at being decisively beaten by the despised, dhimmi Jews.

This was the real start of Palestinian Arab nationalism. It had little to do with those who wrote about the theory in the early part of the century - it was an artificial construct imposed from without by Arabs who wanted to use these hundreds of thousands of refugees as political pawns. Their misery was a weapon against Israel. As a UN representative said in 1954, "The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. they want to keep it an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or die."

Palestinian Arab nationalism was always a negative movement in the sense that it was more oriented towards the destruction of a state rather than the building of one. It was an artificial construct, where the only commonality that Palestinian Arabs have with each other is their second-class "refugee" status rather than any specific cultural ties. Before 1967, the movement was not interested in "liberating" the West Bank or Gaza from Arab rule - their entire focus was on Israel, as it remains today. The Arab media and Arab leadership played their roles in creating a "people" that, prior to 1948, effectively didn't exist as such.

Since the roots of Palestinian Arab nationalism are so shallow and artificial, especially compared to their very real self-identification as Arabs, it is no wonder that Arabs of Palestinian descent would happily become citizens of their host countries given the choice. Yet their "leaders" have their own self-interest in keeping them as pawns, so this fact is all but unreported. Up until now, consistently, we have only seen credulous Western reporters accept at face value the demonstratively false idea that Palestinian Arabs adamantly refuse to become citizens.

This is what makes this BBC report so amazing and important. Let's hope that this inspires more reporters to ask the real questions of Palestinian Arabs stuck in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere; let's hope that a reputable polling firm makes a survey of the real attitudes of Palestinian Arabs. The question is simple: If you were offered the chance to become an equal citizen of any Arab country, would you take it?

There can be no real solution as long as the truth is suppressed. And, sadly, many parties have colluded to suppress the truth for sixty-two years.

(h/t Media Backspin)

Report: Hamas humiliates pan-Arab delegation

Firas Press quotes PalVoice, a Fatah newspaper, saying that Hamas humiliated a pan-Arab delegation to Gaza.

According to the article, parliamentary representatives from Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Syria, Qatar, Somalia and Djibouti arrived at the Rafah crossing on the second day of Ramadan in order to bring aid into Gaza, including medical supplies for the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The delegation had the idea of inviting both Hamas and Fatah representatives to eat the Iftar meal at the fancy Roots restaurant, presumably as a way to try to bring the two rivals into contact in an atmosphere of goodwill. They made reservations at the restaurant for a hundred people.

Once Hamas caught wind of the idea, however, it abruptly canceled the meeting, with Hamas official Ahmed Youssef relaying Ismail Haniyeh's "apologies" as they waited at the Rafah crossing.

Hamas then refused to accept the delegation's aid, and forced them to wait at the Rafah crossing for over an hour after sunset. The delegation was forced to eat their Iftar meal while waiting.

An angry Egyptian representative said, "Remember that I am Egyptian and we opened the border that you are now closing."

Finally, Hamas allowed the delegation through, but by that point they were fuming. They now are saying that future aid will be transferred from Egyptian Red Crescent to the Palestinian Red Crescent, bypassing Hamas.

(h/t Ali for translation help)

Cancer patient Ahmed Abu Fuad needs chemotherapy to survive. Muhammad Subeh needs an eye-transplant while paramedic Alaa Sarhan desperately needs surgery to remove shrapnel from his body. But these Gazans are unable to leave the area to seek the required medical treatment elsewhere, and it is not because of the Israeli siege.

Hundreds of Gazans have fallen victim to the infighting between the Hamas and Fatah — who govern in Gaza and the West Bank respectively — as passports have become the latest weapon in their political conflict.

...

Following the overthrow of the PA in Gaza, the passport registry office was moved to Ramallah. But before passports are issued, the intelligence services of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas vet applications for 'security' purposes, which is a euphemism for political affiliation.

...

Even when Gazans have managed to overcome all the red tape and emerged with a passport, many have had their documents confiscated by Hamas officials at the border crossings into Egypt and Israel.

'The Hamas authorities have prevented dozens of Fatah activists from leaving Gaza by confiscating their passports. In a few cases the passports were returned after we intervened, but most weren’t,' Mahmoud Abu Rahma from the Gaza-based human rights organisation Al Mezan told IPS.

Other Fatah members have mistakenly been associated with Hamas by the interior ministry. It was only after they found contacts in the PA who convinced the intelligence services of their political affiliation, were the passports issued.

...

'This behaviour is clearly politically motivated. While both Palestinian factions argue that security is the main factor behind passports being denied or confiscated, it is obvious that both Hamas and Fatah are using passports as a political weapon against the other side and that ordinary Palestinians are once again paying the price,' Abu Rahma said.

It was easy for Lauren Booth to get a "Palestinian VIP passport". Although I wonder if the PA would accept this Gaza-issued one as an official one.

Marc Lynch Unveiled (Zach Novetsky)

A guest post by Zachary Novetsky:

I've been following Marc Lynch’s Twitter feed pretty closely ever since I came across the following ‘tweet’ of his on July 28, 2010:

“Bibi: continuing settlement freeze will topple my governnment [sic] http://bit.ly/bQcVV1 and the problem is...?”

Despite commenting on a whole range of topics related to the Middle East, it’s not often (if ever) that Lynch speaks endearingly about the prospect of a government’s collapse (let alone, that of our closest ally). But as Elliot Abrams recently observed, Lynch has a problem: a blame-Israel-for-everything problem. Yet, Lynch has a far more dangerous problem, one that threatens the very foundations of Western Liberalism and the cores of Democracy. I am referring to his tactless embrace of Islamism, exemplified in his recent essay (Veiled Truths) for Foreign Affairs Magazine. On August 18^th, Lynch tweeted that his essay was ‘holding up pretty well,’ that is, until now…

Lynch asks, Is ‘Moderate Islam’ an Oxymoron, or so the title of his article suggests. To deal with this question, Lynch treats Paul Berman’s new book, The Flight of the Intellectuals, as an example of how not to address the question because it “poorly serves those concerned about the rise of political Islam.” According to Lynch, Berman is guilty of conflating all Islamist groups under a single flag that obscures, for example, “the fierce war between the Salafi purists who call for a literalistic Islam insulated from modernity and the modernizing pragmatists who seek to adapt Islam to the modern world.” On this, Lynch may be right, but his review ultimately reveals more about his personal wishes for the future face of Islam than his critiques of Berman's book or the timely question that the title of his article poses.

In his introduction, Lynch points out that Berman’s book is “based on a 28,000-word essay published three years ago in The New Republic,” which uses Tariq Ramadan as a foil for addressing the much more serious concern of ‘moderate Islamism.’ Rather than thinking that violent Islamists pose the greatest danger to Western ideals, Berman instead asserts that it is “their so-called moderate cousins, who are able to draw well-meaning liberals into a poisonous embrace” that are most dangerous. Since Ramadan is Berman’s ‘lodestar,’ Lynch hopes to undermine the foundation of Berman’s argument by saying that Ramadan is actually a modernizing force of good, whose real enemies are “not liberals in the West but rather literalistic Salafists whose ideas are ascendant in Muslims communities from Egypt and the Persian Gulf to Western Europe.” As a book review, Lynch’s strategy perhaps works, but in addressing the larger question that Lynch poses, it is not only unsatisfactory but dangerous.

When Lynch extrapolates from the persona of Ramadan to the generalized movement that he represents (i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood), we are told that “the Muslim Brotherhood has encouraged women to wear the veil, but only so that they can demonstrate virtue while in universities and the workplace [Emphasis Added].” We are asked to empathize with groups like the Muslim Brotherhood because they perform social services and offer “meaning to those who are confined to gloomy urban ghettos,” effectively dismissing the recent Supreme Court decision in Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project and legitimizing groups like Hezbollah and Hamas (which Lynch implicitly calls moderate). “True liberals,” we are told, should choose Ramadan (and so the Muslim Brotherhood), because they “offer a model for Muslims of integration as full citizens at a time when powerful forces are instead pushing for isolation and literalism.” But in so doing, Lynch has left the reader with a false dichotomy, a perversion of the word ‘Liberalism,’ and, by implication, a misunderstanding of Berman’s intentions.

For Lynch, we must choose between the less violent Muslim Brotherhood and the literalistic Salafists. But why should we have to choose either? Berman wants neither and true Liberals should not be satisfied between choosing the lesser of two evils, but should strive toward a better alternative. For Berman, this ideological ideal is personified by Ayan Hirsi Ali, whom Lynch is dismissive of because she “represents only a small slice of Muslim societies.” Lynch thus proves that he is neither a moralist nor a Liberal, but instead a political realist who oddly couches his argument in moral terms. Demonstrative of this worldview is Lynch’s conclusion that “real moral courage does not come from penning angry polemics without regard for real world consequences.” In Lynch’s view, morality is synonymous with pragmatism – an odd and incongruous definition of morality indeed.

When not creating self-serving definitions, Lynch assumes the role of religious scholar and opines that “puritanical versions of Islam that have taken root in many Muslim communities” should be considered “the great theft,” a term he borrows from Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of Islamic law at UCLA. But even Lynch’s own argument undercuts this premise—if large swaths of the Muslim community have chosen such piousness, why should this be considered “the great theft”?

In his cursory analysis of Berman’s treatment of ‘Islamic fascism,’ Lynch is dismissive. According to Lynch, using the phrase is a “profound insult to [the faith and identity of virtually all Muslims],” so we must either discard the ominous link between Haj Amin al-Husseini and Hitler or we must speculate that this alliance was only “couched in Islamic terms in an effort to win over mass support” – the same sort of speculation that Lynch abhors in Berman’s opinions of Ramadan.

Although Lynch concedes that the Islamist position “may be troubling,” he comforts us by adding that “it defines the mainstream Muslim position.” Even as he admits that Ramadan alters his positions by “anticipating Arab and Muslim views,” Lynch does not take this unsettling reality to its necessary conclusion. What happens if mainstream Muslim opinion goes the way of the Salafist literalists that Lynch fears?

Perhaps most unsettling is Lynch’s unwillingness to entertain the possibility that Ramadan or the Muslim Brotherhood are only using democratic procedures in order to undermine Western foundations from within, despite a plethora of evidence affirming these intentions. For example, Muhammed Akram Adlouni, “a key player within the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S.,” wrote An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America for the Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood, with section four stating:

“The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house...so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

In Lynch’s opinion though, we are told that democracy is meaningless if we do not allow Muslims to peacefully pursue their interests and advance their ideas. While it’s true that we must ensure that Muslims are able to partake in the democratic process, we must also be wary that this fundamental right is not abused by Islamists seeking to undermine the foundations of democracy from within. It is this very real possibility – this most dastardly subterfuge – that would render democracy meaningless.

So we are indeed faced with a decision: Lynch is Pangloss, while Berman is Candide. Let us choose the latter, lest we are content with legitimizing the dangerous and oxymoronic label, “moderate Islamism.”

Jewish woman victim of Ramadan attack in France

Le Point (French) reports on a young Jewish woman who filed a complaint after being assaulted in a supermarket in Toulouse. The victim said she was harassed by two teenagers who accused her of buying food during the day of the Ramadan fast. The woman told them that she was allowed to buy food because she wasn't Muslim as they assumed, but Jewish.

Big mistake.

This new fact caused the "youths" to become more angry. After they called her a "dirty Jewess", they hit her on the head, knocking her down to the floor.

A security guard watched the scene without intervening. When questioned by investigators about the reasons for his indifference, the man explained that he respected Ramadan and also he was hungry and anxious to leave in order to eat at sunset.

In an earlier incident, a Senegalese man who was eating during the daytime in a restaurant in Lyons was attacked, hit in the head with both a glass bottle and with a chair. His skull was fractured and he underwent surgery.

UN tribunal: Hezbollah's evidence in Hariri case "incomplete"

While "squabbles" erupted in the streets of Beirut in Lebanon, the UN tribunal says that Hezbollah's evidence in the Hariri case is far from complete.

As you might remember Nasrallah accused Israel of being behind the Hariri assassination. During a press conference he showed several clips of aerial views of various areas in Lebanon that he alleged were intercepted from unmanned Israeli surveillance drones. The clips included footage of several sites in Lebanon that also show the area where Hariri was assassinated, but were not from the same year.

In response to the request of the Office of the Prosecutor, on 17 August 2010, Hezbollah officials hand-delivered to the Prosecutor General of Lebanon an envelope containing six DVDs. This material was handed over to the Office of the Prosecutor on the same day.

But now it appears that the evidence presented by Hezbollah in the case of the 2005 assassination of Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri is incomplete, since the material that was handed over is limited to the material shown during the 9 August 2010 press conference and does not contain “the rest of the evidence” that Nasrallah referred to in his press conference.

In a press statement the Office of the Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon requests additional information and evidence held by Nasrallah:

The information received will be thoroughly assessed. This can properly be done only if it is based on a complete record. This is why the Office of the Prosecutor has requested the Lebanese authorities to provide the remaining material to which the Secretary General of Hezbollah referred to in his press conference of 9 August 2010 without delay.

Hezbollah in firefight with a "charity." Charity winning. (Plus: Floating cows!)

From Naharnet:

Three people were killed in fierce armed clashes between members of Hizbullah and partisans of the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects (Al-Ahbash) in the Beirut area of Burj Abi Haidar on Tuesday evening.

Police told Agence France Presse the fighters were using shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns in the fighting, in which several other people were wounded.

The state-run National News Agency said Hizbullah's official Mohammed Fawwaz and his bodyguard Ali Mohammed Jawad were killed in the fighting.

Media reports said an Ahbash official was also killed in the clashes.

Hizbullah, Lebanon's most powerful political and military force, is backed by Syria and Iran.

Al-Ahbash is also pro-Syrian and describes itself as a charitable organization promoting Islamic culture.

It first came to light in 1983 and gathered strength during the Syrian military presence in Lebanon.

The fighting took place as Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addressed an all-women iftar banquet.

The peaceful Islamic charity managed to kill 2 Hizballah men, while only losing one.

Apparently, it is not unusual for charities in Lebanon to walk around with RPGs and machine guns.

In other Lebanese news, a seventh dead cow has been found floating off the coast.

I'm not sure which story is weirder.