Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

What's wrong with this heartwarming story?

West Bank refugee invents engine that runs on air

A West Bank mechanic has harnessed the power of air with his invention of a new, greener motor engine that operates by air compression, without the need for fuel.

Imad Saleh Hassouneh, 37, who maintained truck engines for 22 years, said: “My invention was purely accidental. A truck moved forward when I was repairing its engine using compressed air. I realised that compressed air has the power to propel the engine so I started experimenting with a truck engine.”

Imad, a refugee from Jalazone in the West Bank, added: “I succeeded in inventing an engine that operates on air compression rather than fuel, and obtained a patent from the Palestinian Ministry of Economics. I also received support from Palestinian Prime Minister Mr Salam Fayyad who honoured me and granted me a car to experiment on.”

After he completed his 9th grade at UNRWA’s Jalazone boys’ school, the first Intifada started and he was obliged to assist his father in his mechanic shop in order to help support his younger brothers and sisters.

Smiling, Imad said: “I have 13 brothers and three sisters. In other words we are 17 people and my father wants to have more. I am the eldest, and apparently the cleverest in the family. We received our education at an UNRWA school, and we still get assistance and rations from UNRWA.

“My mother, father and uncles still live inside the camp. I moved with my wife and children to a house near the camp and near the mechanic shop my father established.”

Three cheers for Imad. He's being creative, inventive and working hard to support his family, and is without a doubt a credit to his people.

But - why is he still considered a "refugee" by UNRWA?

He doesn't live in a refugee camp - he moved out and lives in his own house, in his own land. He earns a living. He lives in, and is presumably a citizen of, the Palestinian Arab territories.

His father had, or has, a job as well.

If there was any desire for UNRWA to wean people off of their "refugee" status, Imad Hassouneh should be at the top of their list. He should be considered a success story, and could serve as a model of what Palestinian Arabs aspire to.

But instead, he still gets free food and education from UNRWA. Rather than help him gain his freedom from a welfare culture, UNRWA proudly keeps him and his family dependent. While real refugees around the globe are starving, people like Imad are happily accepting free food and services that they can afford to buy themselves.

This is not a success story. It is the story of how a UN agency is doing everything it can to treat millions of people like children, to shield them from responsibility for their own actions, and to raise their families with dignity.

UNRWA is constantly begging for more money to support the ever-growing "refugees" that they are responsible for. But are they doing anything to reduce the number of so-called refugees? Are they acting in any way as if they care about the donor nations who keep it afloat?

UNRWA has a 34-page document detailing exactly who is eligible for UNRWA services, what services they can apply for, and other information is great detail. It has one small section that describes the only way that a person can be removed from the UNRWA registration system: by dying.

Even if you support all of UNRWA's goals and you think that it does wonderful work, if you were a donor country, wouldn't you demand that UNRWA start working to reduce the number of people dependent on your aid?

A sinkhole appears in Rafah near girls school

A sinkhole, 7 meters deep and 21 meters in circumference, has appeared in Rafah near a girls secondary school.

No one was injured.

The hundreds of tunnels under Rafah caused a number of landslides during the rainy season last year as property tumbled down into the tunnel spaces. 150 residents are now demanding compensation and to be able to move elsewhere.

Will that come out of the PA or Hamas budget?

YouTube suspends MEMRI TV channel (or did it?)

The MEMRI TV YouTube channel, which was housed at http://www.youtube.com/user/MEMRITVVideos, now shows a YouTube message saying "This account is suspended."

I have no details, but given that there have been concerted campaigns against pro-Israel uploaders on YouTube - some of which I was a victim of - it seems that Google/YouTube has caved to the Israel haters.

Meanwhile, YouTube continues to host thousands of jihadi videos.
(h/t The Jawa Report)

UPDATE: There is a different MEMRI TV channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/MemriTelevision

It has far fewer videos than the old channel.

But the channel linked from their website is the one I gave above.

AP helpfully tells us why Israel condemns an attack

Here is a selection of AP articles over the years where Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas pretended to condemn terror attacks against Israel:

August 28, 2005
Palestinian suicide bomber wounds two in Israel in first such attack since Gaza pullout Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack as terrorism and urged Israel to show restraint.

August 19, 2003
Suicide bomber blows himself up on Jerusalem bus,at least 20 dead
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas condemned the bombing as a "terrible act."

June 20, 2005
Violence escalates on eve of Israeli-Palestinian summit
Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli motorist Monday in a West Bank ambush and Israeli troops nabbed an alleged female suicide bomber with explosives hidden in her pants, escalating a wave of violence that has strained an already shaky cease-fire. Palestinian officials condemned the violence.

No editorializing, no details about how Abbas' condemnations are never made from a moral perspective but from the perspective that it is "against Palestinian interests." No, Ap simply reports the condemnations.

However, when an Israeli leader condemns something, AP knows exactly why:

West Bank Arsonists torched a mosque in a West Bank village yesterday, scrawled "revenge" on a wall in Hebrew, and charred copies of the Muslim holy book in an attack that threatened to stoke tensions over deadlocked Mideast peacemaking.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials condemned the arson attack in an apparent attempt to limit the political fallout.

I don't have the text of Netanyahu's condemnation, but Ehud Barak said "Whoever did this is a terrorist in every sense of the word, and intended to hurt the chances for peace and dialogue with the Palestinians. This was a shameful act that besmirched the state of Israel and its values." These were unequivocal and visceral condemnations; in fact I think that calling an act of arson a "terrorist" act is way over the top.

But AP and its writer Mohammed Daraghmeh know that Israeli condemnations are mere facades, political ploys that don't reflect the inherent evil lurking in the souls of all Zionists.

Palestinian Arab condemnations, on the other hand, are to be taken at face value.

(h/t Meryl Yourish)

Those awful Zionist summer camps

Palestine News Network writes:

Israeli Channel 2 broadcasted a report on summer camps for settler’s children in the West Bank, focusing on building settlements and singing religious songs.

One of the administrators of the camp said, “We are instituting the idea of settlements in Judea and Samaria to increase focus on building in them. The youth learn in this camp the importance of settlements and the hard work and number of hours that go into building them in the Land of Israel.”

How horrendous - singing about building towns and singing religious songs! That's just terrible! Much better if they would learn how to murder, the way that Hamas summer camps do:

The Fatah-affiliated Palestine Press Agency reported that the Hamas camps had been established in closed areas in various parts of the Gaza Strip so that the families would not see what's happening inside them.

The agency quoted eyewitnesses as saying that children were being taught how to fire automatic rifles and handle hand grenades.

"The military training is taking place in the early hours; children are being taught how to use Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons," said one eyewitness.

"The Hamas supervisors are also giving lectures to the children accusing Fatah of collaboration with Israel and betraying the Palestinians. They are also quoting phrases from the Quran that encourage the children to kill the 'traitors.'"

Back to PNN:

Professor Ibrahim Abu Jaber said in an exclusive interview with PNN, “The idea of Zionism is covered by the tint of religion, and the leaders of the Zionist movement focus on that angle to establish settlements and guarantee that they continue. Before, the Jews didn’t live in the mountains of the West Bank. But after the brainwashing was complete, the extremist movements continued night and day until a new generation occupied the hills.”

Of course, the Arabs didn't live in the mountains either, so the Jewish towns and villages are not taking away anyone's homes.

Then our peace-loving moderate Professor Jaber says what he really thinks:

“They’re not only settling in the West Bank, but in the greater occupied Palestine of 1948 and close to Arab cities.”

And there we have it. It is not the fact that Jews are living in the West Bank that gets Arabs hot and bothered - it is the fact that Jews are living in Israel altogether.

In an article that pretends to show how extremist Jews are, we can see that the average Arab is far more intolerant than even the most intransigent Jewish "settler."

(h/t My Right Word)

Aussie flotilla reporter proves his anti-Israel bias

In a long speech to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Australia, Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Paul McGeough - who already betrayed incredible bias against Israel with his laughably inaccurate reporting from the flotilla in July - cements his reputation.

In the July article, McGeough (who was not on the Mavi Marmara) said things like the IDF "hunted like hyenas" and that the attack was "timed for dawn prayers" and that "a lot of people moved in to shelter" the first Israeli commando on deck "with their bodies." It was so at odds with video evidence that had already been available as to represent a willful disregard for facts, not a piece of reporting.

Now, McGeough shows that his disregard for facts is as natural as breathing:

Arguably, engagement takes place at three levels. There are two – weapons and diplomacy – in which Israel has been ascendant since, oh, I would say about 1948. But there is a third dimension, one that sways the diplomacy; and which is influenced by resort to weapons. This is the contest for control of the narrative of the conflict.

Across the decades, Israelis have told the story of their enterprise brilliantly. Palestinians, by contrast, have told the story of dispossession terribly.

And this fair reporter aims to correct this problem!

Israel's mythology is built on the likes of the stunning success of the Six Day War. And on daring, edge-of-the-seat ventures like the 1976 raid on Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Remember their abduction, halfway around the world of Adolf Eichmann? And the surgical strike on Saddam Hussein's nuclear facility?

Apparently, he hasn't been reading the newspapers in his own industry for about three decades. Because his examples of Israel's ownership of the narrative ends at Entebbe and Osirak (something that, it will be recalled, Israel was roundly criticized for at the time.)

No, it would not be right for McGeough to notice that the Arab narrative has taken the imagination of his fellow reporters, not to mention diplomats and world leaders. McGeough is imagining himself as a speaker of unknown truths, as bucking the conventional wisdom, as a proponent of "dangerous ideas" for saying things like the Palestinian Arabs are being occupied by a colonial power. It is a joke, as McGeough is simply following the fashionably anti-Israel crowd, not trailblazing it.

Hamas is now a peace-loving entity, in McGeough's considered opinion:

After a six year period in which there had been just a single suicide-bomb attack, but in which thousands of erratic rockets were fired into Israel, Hamas acknowledged that there was more to be gained in setting up Israel as a target of international criticism for its own actions, than as a target of rockets launched by Hamas and the other factions. "When we use violence, we help Israel win international support," Aziz Dweik, a Hamas MP in the West Bank was quoted in The Wall Street Journal. "The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets."

Only one suicide bombing in six years prior to the flotilla! That's remarkable! Too bad it is a lie. From Israel's MFA:

Aug 31, 2004 - Sixteen people were killed and 100 wounded in two suicide bombings within minutes of each other on two Beersheba city buses, on route nos. 6 and 12. The buses were traveling along Beersheba's main street, Rager Blvd, near the city hall. Hamas in Hebron claimed responsibility for the attack.

Sept 14, 2004 - A suicide bomber riding on a bicycle blew himself up near an armored IDF jeep at an agricultural gate, south of Qalqilyah, injuring two IDF soldiers.

Sept 22, 2004 - Two Border Policemen were killed and 17 Israelis wounded in a suicide bombing carried out by a female terrorist at the French Hill junction hitchhiking post in northern Jerusalem. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

Nov 1, 2004 - Three people were killed and over 30 wounded in a suicide bombing at the Carmel Market in central Tel Aviv. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Nablus claimed responsibility for the attack, carried out by Amar Alfar, 18, from Askar refugee camp in Nablus.

Jan 18, 2005 - An ISA officer was killed, an IDF officer seriously wounded, and 4 IDF soldiers and 3 members of the ISA were lightly wounded in a suicide bombing attack at the Gush Katif junction in the central Gaza Strip. While search procedures were being carried out, the suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body detonated himself. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Feb 25, 2005 - Five people were killed and 50 wounded Friday night, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Stage club on the Tel Aviv promenade at around 11:20 P.M., on the corner of Herbert Samuel and Yonah Hanavi streets. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

July 12, 2005 - Five people were killed and about 90 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside Hasharon Mall in Netanya. The bomber was identified as Ahmed Abu Khalil, 18, from the West Bank village of Atil. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Aug 28, 2005 - A suicide bomber detonated himself outside the Beersheba Central Bus Station. Two security guards who stopped the bomber were severely wounded and about 50 people were lightly wounded or treated for shock. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Oct 26, 2005 - Seven people were killed and 54 wounded, six seriously, in a suicide bombing at the Hadera open-air market. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 5, 2005 - Five people were killed and over 50 wounded in a suicide bombing at the entrance to the Sharon shopping mall in Netanya. The terrorist detonated the bomb when he was stopped by security guards, one of whom was killed. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 29, 2005 - Lt. Ori Binamo, 21, of Nesher was killed when a terrorist en route to carry out an attack in Israel detonated himself at roadblock set up near Tulkarm following an intelligence tip. A second intended suicide terrorist was also killed in the blast as well as the taxi driver and a third passenger. Three soldiers and seven Palestinians were wounded.

Jan 19, 2006 - Thirty-one people were wounded in a suicide bombing in a shawarma restaurant near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv. The Jerusalem Battalions of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mar 30, 2006 - Four people were killed when a suicide bomber hitchhiker disguised as an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student detonated his explosive device in a private vehicle near the entrance to Kedumim.

Apr 17, 2006 - Eleven people were killed and over 60 wounded in a suicide bombing during the Passover holiday near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv, at the Rosh Ha'ir shawarma restaurant, site of the Jan 19 bombing. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Jan 29, 2007 - Three employees of a bakery in the southern city of Eilat were killed in a suicide bombing. The Islamic Jihad and the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

Feb 4, 2008 - Lyubov Razdolskaya, 73, of Dimona was killed and 38 wounded - Razdolskaya's husband critically - in a terror attack carried out by a suicide bomber at a shopping center in Dimona. A police officer shot and killed a second terrorist before he detonated his explosive belt. A Hamas statement from Gaza praised the attack, calling it an "heroic act".

And these are only the suicide bombings - there were other more direct attacks on Israeli civilians, shootings and stabbings and bombings and others, also invariably praised by Hamas, no less lethal but ignored by McGeough as somehow irrelevant to his new narrative. Just like he discounts thousands of Hamas rockets as "erratic" - not seeming to notice that their inaccurate nature in no way detracts from their purpose, which is the very definition of terror.

Similarly, he seizes on what a Hamas West Bank MP says to the Wall Street Journal for an American audience and ignores the daily incitement and lionizing of violence in Hamas' (and Fatah's) Arabic-language media every day.

No, for him to acknowledge that the heroic Palestinian Arabs by and large embrace violence and terror and have no desire to live with Israel in peace does not further the false narrative that McGeough is seeking to push of intransigent Israeli leaders hell-bent on pushing every Arab out of the region, which is what his speech implies.

But then again, he might have other more personal reasons to want to push his Arab narrative and ignore the facts. His girlfriend is an outspoken Palestinian Arab activist.

(h/t Greg)

Yes, Galloway's money went to Hamas terrorists

George Galloway is threatening to sue Canada over supposedly banning him last year because of his support of Hamas. The problem is that they didn't ban him - they just informed him that he might be banned, and he decided not to test them.

Galloway's major defense is that he was not supporting Hamas with his donations, but only helping the poor people of Gaza through the Hamas government.

That might have indeed been his intent, but reports indicate that most or all of the aid that Galloway gave to Hamas ended up in terrorist hands and none to the people of Gaza!

In June, a Gazan reporter noted that the only new cars in Gaza at the time - those brought by the Viva Palestina convoy - were being driven by Hamas members only, as a perk. Yet Viva Palestina claimed they were going to be used for critical infrastructure and medical needs.

And in July, there were Arabic language reports that the Al Qassam Brigades went into Ismail Haniyeh's office and took all the cash aid that Viva Palestina brought into Gaza!

I am not aware of any public complaints by Viva Palestina against Hamas for mismanaging their "aid." On the contrary, they are working to repeat the exact same actions.

Is this how an aid organization, concerned solely about poor people, would act?

3 Jews leaving the White House. Anti-semites smell a plot!

Mark Glenn, proud Jew-hater who posts all over far left websites, is not rejoicing over the departures of Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Larry Summers from the Obama administration.

Why? Well, duh:

So the fact that Israel would be willing to forfeit such an invaluable source of inside information as Emmanuel can only indicate that big plans are afoot, and, as America has learned all too well following more than half a century of an undeniably toxic relationship with Murder, Incorporated, none of these plans can be good.

The fact that these announcements took place in such close proximity to each other intimates not only coordination amongst all the players in question but as well its sinister twin, collusion. It must also be considered that both Axelrod and Summers, although certainly not in “bird’s-eye-view” positions necessarily as advantageous to Israel as Emmanuel’s, nevertheless were/are important listening posts as well viz-a-viz the internal workings of the Obama White House, and therefore their absence must also represent a great loss for the Jewish state in terms of human intelligence.

Add to all of this Israel’s conspicuous absence at Obama’s speech at the UN General Assembly the 3rd week of September–an unprecedented event in its own right–and the message being conveyed to Obama loud enough that even a deaf man at a Led Zeppelin concert could hear can be summed up thus–

“We, the Jewish people, are turning our backs on you Mr. President and are walking away.”

...Given Israel’s proclivity towards violence in all its forms–real or theoretical–what it may all indicate is that the same Jewish interests responsible over the last half century for a myriad of false flag attacks, assassinations and acts of terrorism against the United States may be planning something even more dramatic. First and foremost on the list would be a controlled demolition of the American economy at a time when the land of the free and home of the brave finds itself barely breathing and on financial life support following the mid-September, 2008 financial meltdown that insiders in D.C. and New York know all about yet will not discuss.
Worse than this though may be that another terrorist attack on America or even a presidential assassination may be in the works.

Why exactly Jews would want the US economy to melt down, when they are so heavily invested in controlling America, is not quite clear. Perhaps this is the long-awaited move for Israel to make the shekel the sole world currency?

The entire article is a classic feverish paranoid nightmare. And the comments by the brain-dead zombies are priceless as well.

Lots of weapons being bought in Lebanon ahead of STL indictments

From Ya Libnan:

Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported Sunday that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon ( STL) indictment is beginning to impact the arms sales in Lebanon and specially such arms as M4, M16 and K47 .

Asharq al-Awsat quoted arms dealers as saying that party members on Friday evening ave hasked for huge quantities of these weapons regardless of the price.

It quoted one dealer as saying that the activity in the arms market picked up last week after a two-year decline with different parties, and even individuals, requesting to buy weapons.

He said prices rose after May 7, 2008, the date on which street clashes broke out in and around Beirut between Hezbollah and March 14 forces with one Kalashnikov selling for $1,500.

“Today, prices are going up where the M4 with a launcher was being sold for $12,000 and M16 $1,500 and the Kalashnikov between $750 and $1,000,” the dealer said.

He said the weapons were being smuggled from Syria or via Israel, particularly M4.

The dealer confirmed reports saying that party members were getting training.

“March 8 forces are being trained in the Bekaa,” he said “while the others are being trained in the Cedars on the use of the Russian BKC and the American MAG and small mortars.”

Prime Minister Saad Hariri has vowed not to be intimidated by threats of fighting on the streets and insists the court will be allowed to issue indictments – many assume against some Hezbollah members – no matter the consequences.

And that is not the only destabilizing factor in Lebanon over the past day:

On Sunday the Syrian judiciary issued 33 arrest warrants for judges, officers, politicians and journalists of Lebanese, Arab and other nationalities in the case brought by former Lebanese General Security chief Jamil as-Sayyed, according to a statement from Sayyed’s office.

Syria, ignoring Lebanon's sovereignty, is issuing arrest warrants for Lebanese and threatening Lebanon if they don't hand these people over.

As Naharnet notes,

Lebanon is facing a full-blown crisis as tensions over a U.N.-probe into the murder of its ex-premier mount with Syria, and a standoff between rival parties escalates, analysts warned on Monday.

The crisis which has been brewing for weeks is linked to unconfirmed reports the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, or STL, is set to accuse members of Hizbullah of being implicated in the 2005 assassination of ex-premier Rafik Hariri.

Syria added fuel to the fire on Sunday by issuing arrest warrants against 33 people, among them several Lebanese officials, over alleged false testimony given in the case.

"The situation has taken a dangerous turn and the arrest warrants can be likened to a pressure cooker that has had its lid blown off," said Hilal Khashan, political science professor at the American University of Beirut.

We are talking a very real possibility for a civil war, or a Hezbollah coup, or something else very big in the next few weeks out of Lebanon - and yet the Western media has all but ignored this real crisis and instead been concentrating on irrelevancies from a set of fake negotiations between two sets of people for whom the status quo is generally better than any likely alternative.

Gilad at any price?

A thought-provoking video.

(h/t Iyar)

Buy your "Virulent Zionist" shirts!

Commenter Bubbe asked, so I created it!

You can now buy the Virulent Zionist long-sleeved T-shirt and golf shirt at the Elder of Ziyon store!

$22.99

$21.99

ICRC demanding to visit Shalit

Palestine Today says that it received communication from the International Committee of the Red Cross, demanding that they be allowed to visit Gilad Shalit in captivity in Gaza.

The ICRC home page does not mention any new initiative, although in June they did discuss that they were still trying to visit him.

There was a worldwide campaign to deliver Rosh Hashana and birthday greetings to Shalit and the MDA branch in the UK has recently started a petition drive as well.

Teenage Syrian blogger accused of being US spy

Remember Tal al-Mallohi, the 19-year old student (inexplicably still in high school) who had blogged some poems and anti-Israel diatribes, who was arrested by Syria in 2009 and not heard from since?

Some thought that she was arrested because she had mildly criticized the lack of freedom of expression allowed in Syria. But a Syrian newspaper is claiming that, no, she's accused of being a spy.

A "senior source" tells the Syria News site that she was arrested as being involved in the assassination attempt of a Syrian officer in Cairo last November. The source said that an American woman working at the US embassy had recruited her to spy on Syrian officials in Cairo, leading to the assassination attempt.

I don't know if Tal was in Cairo in November - her blog stops in September - but she doesn't seem bright enough to be a useful spy. Syrians seem to be mocking the idea that she is a secret agent, as are Egyptians.

Another failure of the music boycott of Israel

Jeff Beck announced in May that he would perform in Israel on October 5th in Caesarea.

Immediately, the anti-Israel boycotters started pressuring him to cancel the show.

Instead, he added an additional show in Tel Aviv - tonight.

I'm honored!

At the dogmatically anti-Israel site Mondoweiss, a commenter named Richard Parker writes:

For those of you who might think that this site’s comments verge on the anti-semitic, please look at http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/ or any of the blog links posted on it. For virulent pro-Zionism (and plain straightforward lies of course) there is nothing much to beat it.

I must admit that I like the phrase "virulent pro-Zionism." But, Richard, it would help me immensely if you could point to a single "straightforward lie" I have posted. I am always looking for self improvement.

The PalArabs still freaking over Rami Levy supermarkets

We have been mentioning the Rami Levy supermarket chain that the PA has been trying to discourage Arabs from patronizing, using methods from threats to lies and more lies.

The Palestinian Authority war against the Israeli Rami Levy chain continues to escalate.

From Ma'an, September 21:

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of National Economy, charged with implementing the boycott of settlement-made goods, announced Tuesday it will be launching a boycott campaign against an Israeli chain of superstores, a statement read.

The ministry said the Rami Levi Shivok Hashikma chain, which has "spread like cancer" following the opening of new stores in Ramallah, Hebron and Bethlehem.

Distributors and promoters of Rami Levi products will be prosecuted for adverting or selling their goods in the West Bank, and consumers are encouraged to opt for locally made produce instead, which the ministry said is often "thrown and damaged at checkpoints" instead of being sold in the Israeli market.

The ministry further said it is working to form a "solid shield" to protect the Palestinian market and vowed to support locally-made goods.

The chain helps the destruction of the Palestinian economy, the ministry said, adding that it was working to break Israel's monopoly on the market and clear it of settlement-made produce.

According to the Rami Levi website, many of its 15 stores are located in East Jerusalem and West Bank settlements. It also has a number of sister companies, including a clothes store, real estate development, and a wholesale distributor.

"As a wholesale distributor, the company services 450 sales locations in Jerusalem and its surrounding area. The company employs around 1,000 employees and enjoys a constant, continuous growth," the website states.

There have also been scattered protests in front of Rami Levy supermarkets, where protesters try to set fire to cardboard boxes that symbolize "settlement products."

As a result, security has been beefed up at Rami Levy markets in Judea and Samaria - and the Palestinian Authority has been using that additional security as another reason to bully their people away from the peaceful coexistence that Rami Levy supermarkets represent.

From PNN:

The President of the Palestinian Society for Consumer Protection Azmi Shyoukhi said that the fact that the Rami Levy markets have had to bring Israeli security guards at the entrances and the area around the stores symbolizes a retreat on their economic plans and the failure of the store to break into Palestinian markets.

The article goes on to say that the PA has been going to the parking lots of Rami Levy supermarkets to identify cars with Palestinian Authority license plates for the aim of prosecuting the owners of those vehicles. The numbers of Arab consumers have been decreasing because of these threats, and the PA has been bragging that their campaign of threats is working.

According to the article, the stores "seek the subjugation and humiliation of the Palestinian citizen."

Yes, the PA is saying that the owners of Rami Levy are spending millions of shekels building a chain just for the express purpose of humiliating Arabs!

The "consumer protection" head also goes on to repeat the charge that Israel is using the shops to recruit Arabs for the Mossad.

PA Economic Minister Hassan Abu Libneh has also recently spoken out against Rami Levy, as well as on his attempts to "sensitively" strip some 25,000 Palestinian Arabs of their jobs working for Jews in Judea and Samaria.

(h/t Samson)

Norwegian UNIFIL workers helped Arab terrorists escape in 1992

A new book published in Norway details, for the first time, how Norwegian UN soldiers helped a pair of Lebanese terrorists to escape from Israeli-controlled territory. The book describes their illegal action in glowing, heroic terms:

Two escaped prisoners who had arrived in the Norwegian custody in southern Lebanon would not be left to their own fate, decided then Colonel Hagrup Haukland, chief of NORBATT, the Norwegian battalion in South Lebanon. That fate probably meant that they would again be taken prisoner, tortured and possibly killed in the Mossad-controlled Khiam prison in southern Lebanon.

Therefore, the two Lebanese fled in September 1992 dressed up in Norwegian uniform jackets and UN helmets, placed in a Norwegian armored vehicles and raced past Israeli soldiers and Lebanese militiamen who hunted them out of the Israeli occupied territory. It all happened in the deepest secrecy. Norwegian authorities did not know what had happened, and the management of the UN force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, was not informed before the operation had come so far that it had to be carried out.

The two Lebanese who had suffered through abuse and deplorable conditions in the Khiam prison told of her unique escape from the notorious prison at a press conference in the Lebanese capital of Beirut the next day, but they kept quiet about the help they had received from the Norwegian soldiers. That side of the story that has been kept secret by everyone who was involved for 18 years is now revealed in the NRK journalist Odd Karsten Tveit's new book "Goodbye Lebanon - Israel's first defeat." Tveit had received tips about the case, but until Haukland even gave the green light, he was kept quiet about what happened.

...The Norwegian soldiers put in place a bold plan to get the two escaped prisoners out of the area that was under Israeli occupation. Colonel Haukland wanted them away as quickly as possible, fearing that if the Israelis got wind that the Norwegians had come across the two Lebanese who were displaced, it could cause a very difficult situation. As Tveit writes in the book, Brigadier General Moshe Tamir appeared in the entrance to the camp (days later) and accused them directly, "You hid terrorists."

"They must escape, and quickly," said Haukland to his officers, according to the book. The Norwegian battalion commander was aware that if the smuggling was discovered, he would be sent home. It could also forcing Norway to withdraw from UNIFIL, which the Israelis had wanted for a long time.

The international UNIFIL management learned of the smuggling operation in the final phase - when Haukland and his men needed help to arrange the handover.

The Turkish political adviser who was contacted, first became irritated and felt the Norwegians should "turn your head, look the other way and let the prisoners take care of itselfthemselves."

- You Norwegians always have to be so good, he said, according to those who talked with him at the time.

But he also realized that the operation had gone too far and agreed to arrange the handover. The incident was never officially reported.

At the time, the two escapees " declined to talk about any guerrilla activity they had been engaged in before their capture." But they clearly didn't deny it.

(h/t Isak)

Al Jazeera's alternative history of the second intifada

Al Jazeera in English has a history on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the second intifada.

It is filled with lies.

For the year 2000:

In Gaza, a French broadcast crew captured footage of a boy called Mohammed al-Durrah being shot repeatedly by Israeli forces as he clung to his father. Moments later, a paramedic from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society was killed as he attempted to treat the boy and his father.

Not only was the al-Dura story exposed as a hoax, and the the paramedic story seems to have been completely made up - no such person was seen on any of the footage. (B'Tselem claims an ambulance driver was killed en route to the al-Duras, but not while attempting to treat them.)

By the end of the year, at least 275 Palestinians had been killed and thousands had been wounded, along with 19 members of the Israeli security forces and five Israeli civilians, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

Palestinian stone-throwers were met with Israeli snipers; gunmen, with helicopter gunships and tanks. What began as a popular protest movement quickly began to look like a war.

B'Tselem does list 19 Israeli security personnel killed. It also lists 22 civilians killed, not five. Most of the were civilians were shot with live ammunition, stabbed, blown up or burnt to death (not from stone throwing, as al Jazeera would have you believe.)

Al Jazeera also neglects to mention that the initial stone throwers were hurling boulders down on Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall from above.

By the end of 2003, the intifada began to wane, and Israelis were moving toward a territorial withdrawal for the first time in the history of Zionism.

Um, what about the Sinai? What about Southern Lebanon? What about Area A?

From the announcement of the disengagement from Gaza in early 2004, Hamas attacks all but ceased - only one of Hamas' 38 suicide attacks occurred in 2004.

I guess thousands of rockets aimed at civilians aren't considered "attacks" by Al Jazeera.

Just something to keep in mind the next time anyone quotes Al Jazeera as if it is a credible source for information.

(h/t Zach)

The elephants in the room, 2010 edition

Over the years, I have been publishing ever-expanding lists of the "elephants in the room" that would make it impossible to have a real peace. Here they are, updated with more elephants than ever:

Elephant 1: Hamas controls Gaza

Every peace plan includes Gaza in a Palestinian Arab state, and none of them has any provision on how to handle the fact that Gaza is a terrorist haven, in much worse shape since Israel uprooted the settlements there, controlled by a terrorist group that is consistently and wholeheartedly against Israel's existence. Peace is impossible with this elephant, so it is easier to pretend it isn't there. (See also Elephant 11.)

Elephant 2: Palestinian Arabs elected a terror government

In the only fair, democratic elections in the territories, the Hamas terrorists were chosen by the people. Poll after poll shows that Palestinian Arabs support terror in Israel itself. The elections proved that the conventional wisdom was wrong - and the conventional wisdom proceeded to ignore it.

Elephant 3: The current PA government was not elected

This corollary to Elephant 2 means that the current people negotiating for the Palestinian Arabs do not represent the people. Even if they sound moderate or compromising, they have no mandate. The current PA president is well past his term of office, and the current prime minister was never elected (in fact, he received a tiny percentage of the vote when he did run for election.) Negotiating with the PA is, literally, meaningless.

Similarly, the unelected PLO is the real power behind the PA. The PA officially reports to the PLO, and all negotiations are done by the autocratic, Fatah-dominated PLO, not the PA.
Elephant 4: The current PA government has almost no power - and no respect

Outside of Ramallah, the Fayyad/Abbas government has little popular support and little power. Hamas is a very real threat to the PA in the West Bank and is quietly building its base. The attitudes that forced the PA to abandon Gaza - a lack of passion by people for its positions - could very well play out in the West Bank as well.

Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods

The PA budget is bloated from "payroll" of non-working workers - but if they would slash the payroll, the people on international welfare would revolt. So the very basis of the organized Palestinian Arab workforce is a fiction being kept barely alive by ever-increasing infusions of cash with no real plan to fix the problem. (The bulk of the PA budget goes to Gaza, and much of that goes to workers being paid not to work.)

Elephant 6: Fatah remains a terrorist group paid by the PA

Despite the recent claims that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has dismantled, it is a joke meant to appease the wishful-thinkers. There has been no serious move by the PA against terror except for its tit-for-tat arrests of Hamas members in the West Bank, and its moves have been almost wholly cosmetic and aimed for Western consumption rather than real fighting against terror. The Al Aqsa Brigades continues to make statement and claim credit for terror attacks, even in 2010.

Elephant 7: The first - and second - stages of the roadmap were never implemented

The entire point of the road map was to slowly build confidence, starting with the end of terror and incitement on the Palestinian Arab side, afterwards building a "provisional" state and only then going to final-status negotiations. By skipping to Phase III as if the other two phases were already in place, the entire exercise is simply a joke. Incitement remains at full blast and the slight lull in terror is tactical, not a sea-change in Palestinian Arab attitudes.

Even though the US has made statements against Palestinian Arab incitement, it hasn't moved to stop it.

Elephant 8: The PA's goal remains the destruction of Israel

Whether it is by "right of return" or not changing the Fatah charter or by printing map after map showing no Israel, even the most moderate Palestinian leader clings to the idea of destroying Israel, and looks upon a Palestinian Arab state as only one stage in the process. One only needs to look at the maps of "Palestine" in official PA documents and schoolbooks.

Elephant 9: Jerusalem

Most Israelis want a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Most Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept anything less than all of Jerusalem as the capital of a Muslim state. The positions are not compatible and a compromise will not reduce the chances for violence - it will increase it.

Elephant 10: What happened to Gaza

Forgetting Hamas for now, the time period between Israel's dismantling settlements in Gaza and the Hamas takeover is instructive as to how Palestinian Arabs take advantage of territory they gain. They didn't build new houses or communities to reduce the "refugee camp" population, no schools or hospitals. They destroyed the greenhouses purchased for them by American Jews; they turned beautiful former settlements into training camps for terror - in other words, Israel's last major concession not only didn't help achieve peace, it ended up encouraging terror. Any claims that something similar wouldn't happen in the West Bank is the triumph of wishful thinking over experience.

Elephant 11: Palestinian Arab "unity"

Related to Elephant #1. No peace plan can work unless Hamas and the PA/Fatah reach some sort of unification agreement. This is not possible in the foreseeable future. Moreover, Hamas is powerful enough that any such agreement must include a hardening of positions that would be completely incompatible with the basic demands for peace - renunciation of terror, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements.

Elephant 12: The Palestinian Arab "diaspora" and Arab intransigence

Any final peace agreement would mean that Arab countries could no longer justify keeping Palestinian Arabs in "refugee camps" not could they justify their continued refusal to discriminate against Palestinian Arabs from becoming citizens of their countries should they want to stay. The millions of PalArabs in the Middle East becoming citizens would not be accepted by many Arab countries as it would endanger their own tenuous holds on power.

Elephant 13: Economics

Some 16 years after Oslo, the economy in the territories is still close to non-existent and wholly dependent on foreign aid. Not only is there no free market, there is no incentive to build one as the very mentality of Palestinian Arabs and their leaders is one of welfare rather than responsibility. All the plans to create a Palestinian Arab state do not consider Day 2 and how such a state would be able to sustain itself. The expected influx of hundreds of thousands of people from "refugee camps" would make it even worse. It would take at least a generation to turn the poisonous attitude of entitlement around.

Elephant 14: Gaza demographics

Gazans have no room to expand as their numbers continue to grow at among the fastest rates in the world. Theoretically they could move to the West Bank but only a small percentage would. This is another Day 2 powder keg that is being ignored in the interests of a "solution" of a "Palestinian state."

Elephant 15: Palestinian Arab leaders never showed interest in independence

The West assumes that the goal is an independent Palestinian Arab state where Arabs no longer have to live under "occupation." But the actions and words of Palestinian Arab leaders have never borne that goal out; they have not worked towards building the institutions and infrastructure that would be necessary in an independent state. Their insistence on "right of return" and "Jerusalem" as issues that must be resolved before independence betray their thought processes - inconsistent with independence (neither of which require those two issues to be resolved) and consistent with a desire to destroy Israel in stages.

Elephant 16: A unilateral Palestinian Arab state would be militarized

There is no way that a new Palestinian Arab state would remain demilitarized for any length of time. The Palestinian government could invite Syria to position anti-aircraft weapons within its territory; to shoot missiles at El Al planes landing a few miles from the Green Line, or to get a few thousand tanks poised to cut Israel in half.

Iran already effectively controls Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. They would use the nascent state of Palestine to position themselves on the West Bank as well. Just like the PA ran away from Gaza at the first sign of trouble, so would they abandon their state to Iranian proxies and Islamic terrorists.

Their will to defend themselves is not nearly as strong as their will to destroy Israel, a desire that has been inculcated in them for generations. Palestinian Arab nationalism is a fundamentally weak and externally-imposed construct. Iran is poised and anxious to take advantage of the chaos that would follow a unilaterally declared state.

But the West is ready to risk Israel for that elephant as well.

Elephant 17: The so-called "right to return"

The PA is showing no interest in integrating the Palestinian Arabs outside of the territories into their state. On the contrary; the "refugee camps" in PA controlled territory continue to grow, rather than shrink. Clearly, the PA expects the bulk of the "diaspora" to go to Israel, not a Palestinian Arab state, and decades of incitement both within and without the territories have brainwashed generations of Arabs to not accept anything less than a "return" to a land that most of them have never stepped foot in.

Elephant 18: The tension between being pro-West and pro-Arab

The biggest Western success story in the Palestinian Arab territories is the existence of the "Dayton forces" that have been helping crack down on Hamas in the West Bank.

However, most Palestinian Arabs regard those forces as puppets of the West. Not only do Hamas and Islamic Jihad hammer away at this point, but ordinary Palestinian Arabs do as well. The more cooperation between the PA and Israel/US, the more the PA government is delegitimized in the eyes of its people.

Elephant 19: Corruption and human rights abuses are still endemic in the PA

Despite the publicized successes, the PA remains mired in corruption, hardly a model for an independent state. The 2008 Global Integrity Report rated the West Bank as close to the bottom in its corruption ratings. Press freedom remains low; the justice system is improving but hardly competent, and whistle-blowers are forced to go to the Israeli press to expose corruption. The success that the PA has had in weakening Hamas in the West Bank has come at the expense of massive human rights violations, including torture.

Elephant 20: Palestine would be Judenrein

Statements by PA leaders (with the notable exception of Fayyad) make it clear that their state of Palestine would not have any Jewish citizens allowed within. Jews whose ancestors have lived in Judea and Samaria, whether for decades or for millennia, will be legally barred from living in Palestine - an extraordinary display of state anti-semitism that is completely at odds with the Western standards that the nascent state of "Palestine" is attempting to live up to.

Elephant 21: The Muslim world's antipathy towards Israel

Even if all of the preceding elephants could somehow vanish, the Arab world and the Muslim world remains implacably against the idea of a Jewish state in the midst of supposedly Muslim lands. Iran remains in de facto control of southern Lebanon and Gaza; ordinary Jordanians and Egyptians remain among the worst anti-semites in the Arab world. The best "peace" would be bitter cold; it will not include any real normalization, and the threat from radical Islam remains potent in Arab and Muslim states. Furthermore, any tension between Israel and any of its neighbors - Hezbollah or Hamas or Syria - would result in even the moderate Arab world solidly behind Israel's enemies, no matter what. The best peace plan would result in Israel being exactly where it is today - surrounded by enemies, with less of a land buffer, and Israel relying on US money to prompt Arab neighbors to keep radicals in check.

That is not peace, and that is not security.

Ahmadinejad adds more sparks to Lebanon tinderbox

Things in Lebanon are heating up as the planned visit of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad approaches. Apparently, even Syria is nervous.

From Ya Libnan (h/t Samson):

Kuwaiti newspaper al-Anbaa quoted diplomatic sources as saying that Ahmadinejad’s scheduled visit to Lebanon around mid-October was brought up during the recent summit with Assad in Damascus.

The sources said Assad asked Ahmadinejad why he wanted to visit Lebanon .The Iranian President has reportedly told Assad that the visit was “significant due to the strategic importance of the southern Lebanon .”

Ahmadinejad has also reportedly told Assad, according to the sources, that he viewed the entire area of southern Lebanon as Iran’s border with Israel.

At this point, the sources said, Assad advised that Ahmadinejad’s visit should not take place at this time.

Assad, however, also hoped in the event Ahmadinejad went ahead of his visit to tone down his statements during during his visit since Lebanon’s security was very important to Syria’s security interests.

Al-Anbaa said that Ahmadinejad promised Assad at the end of their meeting to “seriously consider” the Syrian president’s recommendations.

I couldn't find the original article in al-Anbaa, but I did find that it reported that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were already in Lebanon, preparing to provide security for the visit.

If they are armed, and if they are working in southern Lebanon, it sounds like yet another violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which calls for "disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state."

UNIFIL is reported to be ready to help with Ahmadinejad's security as well, if requested by the Lebanese army.

Some in Hezbollah are threatening to bring down the Lebanese government if the Special Tribunal for Lebanon issues indictments against Hezbollah members. Other scenarios are more frightening.

The common denominator is that Lebanon has lost the ability to govern itself, and the most likely outcome is that southern Lebanon will indeed become Iran's de facto border with Israel.