Sir Alexander Galloway's opinion on the refugees, 1952

A couple of months ago I found a 1958 article about the Arab refugee problem that quoted "Ralph Galloway", a UNRWA official, as saying "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."

It turns out that the the speaker was not named Ralph Galloway, but Sir Alexander Galloway.

Alexander H. Joffe and Asaf Romirowsky have a fascinating, scholarly article in Middle Eastern Studies about this man, as well as how his name ended up getting changed to "Ralph" in the quotes.

Alexander Galloway was the head of UNRWA in Jordan in July, 1951. At the time, Jordan's economy was a mess, especially after the assassination of King Abdullah, and UNRWA represented a lucrative source of income:

At the time of Galloway's appointment UNRWA was one of the major sources of income for the Hashemite Kingdom as a whole, along with the annual remittance from the British Government. In 1951 UNRWA imports and local expenses accounted for 25% of Jordan's total balance of payments, a figure that rose to 33% in 1952 and 35% in 1953. In September 1951 the Jordan Development Bank was founded with 80% of the capital coming from UNRWA and with Galloway as a Managing Director.

UNRWA also contributed 8.7% of public sector wages in Jordan. This figure rose to 9.8% in 1953 and 12.4% in 1954 when the organization employed some 2500 persons....The sense that international staffers were being paid disproportionately high salaries was present before Galloway's arrival. Hugh Dow of the British Consulate in Jerusalem wrote to T.W. Evans in the Middle East Secretariat of the Foreign Office on 13 March 1951 and noted that the high administration costs of UNRWA were based on 'Lake Success allowances' saying 'shorthand typists employed by UNRWA are receiving salaries almost equal to my own basic pay'.[44] Similar concerns regarding the larger salaries paid to UNRWA's international staffers were reportedly expressed by Lebanese officials and were of sufficient gravity to be mentioned in confidential briefings by UNRWA officials to Canadian Foreign Ministry representatives.[45]

Proposed budgets for 1952 saw UNRWA's overall costs increasing to almost $80 million, representing a potentially lucrative source of income for the Jordanian government.[46]

Jordan's resentment over international UNRWA employees continued to grow, and Galloway was replaced because of this dispute in April 1952.

Afterwards, he wrote an article for the Daily Express describing the problems of the Arab refugees and the political issues. Here are some excerpts:

The Jordanian population fear the settlement of large numbers of refugees in their country. But they are aware that it means the spending of large sums of money in Jordan. They want the cash. They want to spend it on schemes for the development of Jordan. If the refugees benefit from this arrangement, so much the better.

In Syria the Government is a dictatorship by which a number of much-needed and healthy measures are being inaugurated.

There is plenty of room for development. Half a million refugee families could settle on agricultural schemes with benefit to themselves and to the country.

Like other Arab countries, Syria may not be anxious to take the first step in a programme which indicates acceptance of the fact that the refugees will not return to Palestine. In Syria the activities of the Agency are controlled to a high degree by Government. Local Agency employees are dismissed at will. Internationals are scrutinized and followed about by Security Police. The prestige of United Nations does not stand high.

Occasionally the United Nations country representatives are summoned to Beirut or discussions. During the past year I attended several discussions. They achieved little. Decisions were seldom taken, except to postpone decision, although much was often said about unity of effort, sense of high purpose, avoidance of the "Colonial approach."

In Beirut and elsewhere to a lesser degree, some useless work goes on. Staff begets more staff. Plan follows plan. Typewriters click. Brochures and statistics pour out. The refugees remain and eat, and complain and breed; while a game of political "last touch" goes on between the local Governments and the Director, UNRWA.

What is the solution? Of course the problem is difficult. Refugee settlement, except under dictatorship, is a long, expensive business. Somehow or other the Arab Governments, the United Nations, UNRWA and some of the refugees have got to face facts.

There is a need of a change of heart and a better atmosphere. There is need to distinguish between a tempting political maneuvre and the hard, unpalatable fact that the refugees cannot in the foreseeable future return to their homes in Palestine. To get this acceptance is a matter of politics: it is beyond the function of UNRWA.

Second, a determined effort should be made to get the "host" countries to take over relief from the Agency, thus freeing it to get on with the much more important task of resettlement.

It must be kept quite clear in all discussion that the refugee retains his absolute political right to return to his former home whenever he can. Without this condition being implicit in any arrangement there can be no progress.

The authors note that the last paragraph seems to have been written almost by habit, probably based on the fact that Arab governments were so hell-bent against naturalizing the refugees - as they remain today.

Later, Galloway was quoted by Reverend Karl Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American Christian Palestine Committee, in front of a Senate committee:

In April of 1952, Sir Alexander Galloway, then head of the UNRWA for Jordan, said to our study group, and this is really a direct quote from what he said, "It is perfectly clear than the Arab nations do not want to solve the Arab refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront against the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel."

Then, by way of emphasis he said, "Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or die."

When asked what he felt the solution to the problem was, Sir Alexander Galloway in essence said: Give each of the Arab nations where the refugees are to be found an agreed-upon sum of money for their care and resettlement and then let them handle it. If, he continued, the United Nations had done this immediately after the conflict – explaining to the Arab states "We are sorry it happened, but here is a sum of money for you to take care of the refugees" – the problem might have been solved long ago. The Arab states would have had to do something constructive about the problem, or lose status in the eyes of the world. This way, said, Sir Alexander, the burden is on the United Nations and the governments that support the United Nations, and we are powerless to solve it.

There's much more to the paper. One tiny detail that I thought was important was this one:

Galloway's own archives do not include any documents pertaining to UNRWA. Copies of his monthly reports from Amman are found in British records but only through October 1951. In the absence of other contemporary documents, including UNRWA archives which remain closed to researchers, clues to the situation Galloway faced in Amman are found in the confidential reports of Sir Henry F. Knight to the Foreign Office, and telegrams from Geoffrey Furlonge, British ambassador to Jordan.

Why is UNRWA, a publicly funded organization, allowed to keep its archives from some 60 years ago closed?

(h/t Andrea)

Read More

2491 people managed to escape "the world's largest prison" last week

From Ma'an:

Almost 3,500 Palestinians passed through the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza last week, officials reported.

Border administrators said 1651 Palestinians returned to Gaza, most of whom were patients who had received treatment in Egyptian hospitals, whilst 1821 left Gaza through the terminal. Officials said 276 Palestinians were refused permission to cross.

Crossings officials said the Erez pedestrian crossing between northern Gaza and Israel was partially open during the week, recording the exit of 941 individuals from Gaza, including 652 residents, 245 foreign nationals, and 44 Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.

That's a pretty porous prison!

Read More

How a photograph lies

From The Daily Mail:

Dramatic images have emerged of the moment an Israeli motorist drove straight into a young Palestinian boy in East Jerusalem today.

The child had been part of a group throwing stones at Israeli cars following news the country's military had killed two Hamas militants in the West Bank city of Hebron earlier on Friday.

Amazingly the boy only sustained 'light injuries' after being thrown into the air by the vehicle and twisting over its roof.

Looks pretty bad, right? An Israeli heartlessly running his vehicle into a young boy?

Now watch the video:



The boy was running towards the car even during the impact. The car honked the horn to get him out of the way. Clearly the driver was worried about his safety and didn't want to stop, and for good reason - we see his back windshield smashed by the innocent, youthful rocks being thrown.

And there are a whole bunch of photographers there, whose presence makes the kids want to act with bravado and who might have actually been goading them into throwing rocks.

Notice that while the Daily Mail published a series of photos from the incident, it didn't bother to show the smashed rear windshield of the car.

The driver was David Be'eri, who has been trying to calm down the tension in Silwan, seen in this video.

(h/t Brian of London and Orna)

More here.

Read More

The myth of the 10,000 Palestinian Arab prisoners

How many Palestinian Arab prisoners are being held in Israel?

People who follow the news would automatically say, 10,000. They would have good reason to believe that; 

the magic number of "10,000 prisoners" is used as received wisdom by Arabs, left-wingers and the news media as fact.

For example:

Daoud Kuttab, quoted in the NYT, November 2009: "Israel is holding more than 10,000 Palestinians, some without charge or trial. "

MJ Rosenberg in HuffPo, November 2009, headline: "Gilad Shalit's Counterparts: 10,000 Palestinian Prisoners In Israeli Jails"

BBC, November 2009: "Israel holds about 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in jail on security grounds - a major bone of contention with the Palestinians."

ABC News Australia, April 2010: "Hamas spokesman Adnan Abu Amar says it is hoped the video will renew pressure on Israel to reach a deal with Hamas to free many of the 10,000 or more Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in return for the soldier's freedom."

Palestine News Network, September 2010: "There are at least 10,000 Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israeli army jails."

Only one problem: the number is wrong. Not only that, but it was never right!

 B'Tselem has been keeping statistics of how many Palestinian Arab prisoners are being held in Israel, back to 2001. According to their statistics, the number of prisoners never surpassed 10,000. They reached a high of about 9600 in October, 2006, and have been steadily declining ever since.

Between June 2007 and August 2010, the number of prisoners has dropped from 9344 to 6011, a decrease of 36%.

Here it is graphically:

I'm sure that most of them were released because their sentences were finished; this was not meant as a good-will gesture.

Here we have another case where Arab activists and left wingers, by repeating bogus statistics over and over, manage to convince even the news media that the numbers are accurate. While the New York Times and the BBC might lean left, they do put on a pretense of objective reporting and fact checking - yet they let these numbers get reported as truth.

Last year I showed that Addameer's absurd statistics of between 650,000 and 800,000 Palestinian Arabs being arrested since 1967 were complete fiction, as anyone with the slightest grasp of numbers could easily confirm. Yet those numbers had been quoted uncritically by Goldstone, Time Magazine and Jimmy Carter, among others.

When will the media wake up to the fact that many Arabs and leftists are willing to lie to them without any compunction? By not doing basic fact checking, they are complicit in purveying falsehoods that influence millions of people.

Imagine if the New York Times would report that Israel has released over 3000 prisoners in recent years. It completely upends the Arab narrative of  a vicious IDF randomly and capriciously arresting and holding thousands of people annually, indefinitely. It would make people think twice before accepting hateful, inciting claims against Israel by the Left. However, even well-meaning people do not have the means or ability to check what should have already been checked, so they understandably will accept what the media tells them, especially when it is stated as an aside, as a fact so well known that it is not even worth checking.

Israel is at fault as well. It is properly the job of the Israeli government to correct these lies, not bloggers. This posting may or not make it to the BBC, a year after their story, but Israel should have responded immediately.

Not only does the Government of Israel not correct the lies, but it doesn't capitalize on the PR value of the truth! 3000 prisoners released could be a huge story - but it is unknown.

The flip side of the coin is - should Israel have held on to all 9600 prisoners for an extra year or two, and then offer to swap 3000 of them for Shalit - prisoners that would have been released anyway, but in quantities that could have made a huge psychological impact and more pressure on Hamas as well as a propaganda victory?

(A separate question is whether B'Tselem makes any effort to correct the lies when they help further its own agenda.)

This is a big problem, all around.

Read More

A leftist professor's advice for Palestinian Arabs

Francis Boyle is is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois, and a former board member of Amnesty International who ended up criticizing the organization for being too pro-American. He says that the US is illegally occupying Hawaii. He is also a harsh critic of American foreign policy and (of course) of Israel, having once offered to "represent Iran in an international tribunal for trying the Zionist regime on charges of genocide of Palestinians."

He writes in the far left MWC News his advice for Palestinian Arabs:

After twenty-two years of getting nowhere but further screwed to Israel’s apartheid wall on the West Bank and strangulated in Gaza, it is now time for the Palestinians to adopt a new strategy, which I most respectfully recommend here for them to consider: Sign nothing and let Israel collapse! Recently it was reported that the United States’ own Central Intelligence Agency predicted the collapse of Israel within twenty years. My most respectful advice to the Palestinians is to let Israel so collapse!

For the Palestinians to sign any type of comprehensive peace treaty with Israel would only shore up, consolidate, and guarantee the existence of Zionism and Zionists in Palestine forever. Why would the Palestinians want to do that? Without approval by the Palestinians in writing, Zionism and Israel in Palestine will collapse. So the Palestinians must not sign any Middle East Peace Treaty with Israel, but rather must keep the pressure on Israel for the collapse of Zionism over the next two decades as predicted by the Central Intelligence Agency.

...In fact, Israel has never been a State but just an Army masquerading as a State -- a Potemkin Village of a State.

It is obvious that soon Zionism will enter into Trotsky’s “ashcan” of history along with every other nationalistic “ism” that has plagued humankind during the twentieth century: Nazism, Fascism, Francoism, Phalangism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc. The only thing that could save Zionism in Palestine is for the Palestinians to conclude any type of so-called comprehensive Middle East Peace treaty with Israel. It is for precisely that reason then that the Palestinians must sign nothing and let Israel collapse of its own weight over the next two decades.

Millions of Palestinians have waited in refugee camps since 1948 in order to return to their homes, that is for 62 years. They can wait a little longer until Israel collapses within 20 years. Otherwise, for the Palestinians to sign a comprehensive peace treaty with Israel means that they will never be able to return to their homes as required by Resolution 194 of 1948. History and demography are on the side of Palestine and the Palestinians against Israel and the Zionists. But the Palestinians must allow history and demography a little bit more time in order to produce the collapse of Israel and Zionism in Palestine. Twenty years is but the blink of an eye in the millennia-long history of the Palestinian People, who are the original indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. God had no right to steal Palestine from the Palestinians and give Palestine to the Jews to begin with. A fortiori the United Nations had no right to steal Palestine from the Palestinians and give Palestine to the Zionists in 1947.

When Israel collapses, most Zionists will have already left or will soon leave for other states around the world. The Palestinians will then be able to claim all of the historic Mandate for Palestine as their State, including the entire City of Jerusalem as their Capital. Palestine will then be able to invite all of its refugees to return to their homes pursuant to Resolution 194.

Some Jews will remain in Palestine either voluntarily or involuntarily. Palestine and the Palestinians will treat the remaining Jews fairly. Palestine and the Palestinians will not do to the Jews what Israel, Zionism, and the Zionists have done to the Palestinians.

The Palestinians must sign nothing and let Israel collapse!

So a leftist professor is advocating that they stop all negotiations and wait for the next twenty years.

Based on a CIA report that doesn't exist.

The CIA report was first mentioned in that bastion of truth and accuracy, Iran's Press TV, quoting an American anti-Israel wacko (and seeming Hezbollah groupie) named Franklin Lamb. It has been quoted in many places since then, but all of them point back to this PressTV report.

Israel bashers have been confidently predicting Israel's imminent demise for 62 years now. During all that time, Israel has continued to grow and strengthen in every respect. It has challenges - what country doesn't? - but it is far more viable and resilient than any conceivable Palestinian Arab state would ever be. At this point, even modern Israel is no longer so young - it is older than more than half the nations on Earth. It is an economic, military, educational, scientific and cultural powerhouse.

It isn't going anywhere.

Yet this supposed scholar, a professor at a respected university, takes this unsourced and unsubstantiated claim as fact.

Not only that, but Boyle,who claims to be a great supporter and admirer of Palestinian Arabs and their "millennia-long history," is telling them to stay in misery for a mere two decades longer - and then promises that they can then return to the homes of their dead ancestors.

He is telling a people who are stateless, who are discriminated against in every Arab country in which they are "guests," to tell their children that they need to cultivate their culture of hate for another generation, because inevitably the Zionist project will fail and they will get their chance to "return" to their idealized yet destroyed villages.

Just like their parents told them!

Is this how someone who loves a people treats them? He is telling Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon and Syria to prepare for their kids to be stateless for another generation, and then another, until his prediction comes true. Compromise is evil; nothing less than the destruction of Israel will do.

This is exactly what Palestinian Arabs have heard form their so-called "leaders" since the 1930s - and look how well that worked out for them!

(h/t Orna)

---

The theme of Israel's imminent demise can be seen in two other articles from this week alone: from Yvonne Ridley and in Al Ahram.

But, as I wrote above, this is hardly new.

I just found this article from 1951:

What would Boyle's advice have been in 1951?

(That article goes on to say that Israel is in no danger of collapsing.)

Read More

Latest Latma

Featuring Barack Obama giving his advice on where Israelis should live.

Read More

Koran codes say that Israel has the biggest oil field on earth!

Al Arabiya in Arabic has a story about an Egyptian man who spent half his life puzzling out secret codes in the Koran to determine where on the planet one can find natural resources, like uranium, gold, natural gas and oil.

He's trying to convince Egyptian authorities to use his research to uncover untold riches of uranium, and he claims that they found some of them but didn't give him credit.

He also said:

There is also the largest gold mine in the world in Kuwait at a depth of 3312 meters, as well as the largest uranium mine in the world in Yemen, and the largest oil well is in occupied Palestine, and there in Medina two mines of gold, and in Mecca four gold mines, in addition to 3 archaeological treasures in Mecca, and 3 other archaeological treasures in the city of Medina, and there are 6 wells for oil and gas north of Yanbu.

Christians have done the same thing with the Bible to claim vast oil reserves in Israel.

Read More

Applying game theory to negotiations

Zvi points to a recent interview with Nobel prize winner Robert Aumann where he discusses applying game theory to the Middle East conflict. Highlights:

Aumann’s analysis of repeated games explains how cultures build systems that allow them to function reasonably smoothly. The problem is when one player does not understand the sort of game being played. For instance, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli peace process, Aumann believes that the problem isn’t that the Israelis and Arabs don’t want peace, but rather that the Israelis and their U.S. patron believe they are playing a one-time game whereas the Arabs see themselves as playing a repeated game. Jerusalem and Washington are in a hurry to conclude negotiations immediately, whereas the Arabs are willing to wait it out and keep playing the same game. The result is that Israel’s concessions, or the desire to have peace now, have brought no peace.

What Aumann is getting at is what he called in his Nobel lecture “one of those paradoxical upside-down insights of game theory.” Of course, poker players are familiar with the principle: Don’t show your hand with chips still on the table. “For repetition to engender co-operation, the players must not be too eager for immediate results,” Aumann said in his lecture. “The present, the now, must not be important. If you want peace now, you may well never get peace. But if you have time—if you can wait—that changes the whole picture; then you may get peace now.”

In Aumann’s view, the post-Oslo period shows that Israel’s behavior leaves it at a serious disadvantage in a repeated game. “In games that repeat over time,” Aumann wrote in an article called “The Blackmailers’ Paradox,” “a strategic balance that is neutral paradoxically causes a cooperation between the opposing sides.” Aumann offered the example of two men forced to split $100,000. Person A assumes that they will split it evenly and is astonished when Person B explains that he will not accept anything less than $90,000. Afraid that he will leave empty-handed, A relents and takes one-tenth of the money. In this situation, A acted as if this were a one-time game, but had he understood it as a repeated game and refused the split so that both he and B walked away empty-handed, he would have shown for future reference that he was every bit as determined as B. This in turn would make B more willing to compromise. “Likewise,” Aumann wrote, “Israel must act with patience and with long-term vision, even at the cost of not coming to any present agreement and continuing the state of belligerence, in order to improve its position in future negotiations.”

Game theory, Aumman explained to me, “has to be borne out by history and historical evidence.” One might add that it is also borne out by other human experiences, like commerce. In the Middle Eastern souk, as the Arab novelist Abdul Rahman Munif once observed, showing your interest in an item immediately triples the merchant’s price. And yet, as Aumann explained to me, “Middle Easterners are no different than anyone else in the world. Game theory is based on the idea that people react to their incentives, and you should be aware that the other party reacts to its own incentives. The other side does not always agree with you or share the same goals.”

“The way to make peace is to make your intentions clear,” Aumann told me. But Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza brought not only the second Lebanon war but also the bombardment of southern Israel and most recently the Mavi Marmara incident.

.... “It’s one thing to do something unconscionably bad,” Aumann said. For him, an expulsion that uprooted thousands of people who have yet to get their lives back in order was “unquestionably immoral.” “If it brings the peace,” Aumann said, “if the ends justify the means, that’s one thing, but this doesn’t even achieve the means. It was morally wrong and strategically stupid. The expulsion from Gaza is unprecedented. Jews have been expelled throughout history, but we own the dubious distinction of being the first people to have expelled ourselves. Never before had this happened, and it led to disaster. Our standing in the world was not improved. We didn’t get sympathy. We get sympathy when we act decisively—after Entebbe, Osirak, a lot of sympathy came after the Six Day war.”

When policymakers and analysts use the same sort of examples to draw the same historical conclusions, they’re dismissed as right-wing ideologues, and Aumann has endured the same treatment. The Nobel committee nonetheless realized he’d hit on a truth that explains a fundamental aspect of who we are as political beings—or who we are when we are most human, sitting across the table from our neighbors trying to figure out how to live together. The paradox is that there can be no co-existence if one person isn’t willing to negotiate as hard as the other. The appeaser will always be swallowed up and simply cease to exist. It is stubbornness rather than the willingness to make immediate concessions that brings about successful negotiations. In other words, if you want peace, prepare for war.

Read More

Jordanian dad changes daughter's name from "Golda Meir" to "Aisha"

From Jordan's Ammon News:

The Jordanian Civil Status Department approved the request submitted by a local father to change the name of his 4-year old daughter from "Golda Meir" to "Aisha."

The approval comes following the pleas made by the father, Eyad Mustafa Ahmad Oudeh, over a radio station to change his daughter's name.

The father explained that he named his daughter "Golda Meir" to be able to get a visiting permit from Israel to see his three children, who live with their mother (the father's ex-wife) in occupied Jerusalem, as he said.

Israeli authorities did not allow the children to travel to Jordan to visit their father either, so he decided to change his daughter's name after losing faith in getting a visiting permit from Israel, Nablus T.V. reported.

This all makes no sense, of course. Did he really think that giving his daughter the name "Golda Meir" would cause Israel to bend rules on visiting permits? And when she was born he was not divorced, so was he clairvoyant?

While the story above is what is being reported in most Arabic media outlets, it turns out that there is more to the story.

I don't quite understand all the details of when he separated from his wife but a different version of the story mentions his other kids' names.

He has a 6-year old son named "peace" and a 2-year old named "bin Laden."

In other words, the father already had a screw loose, and tried to use his kids names to help bring peace to the world. Apparently his frustration with Israel for not allowing him to see his kids (his wife apparently said she was visiting Palestinian relatives for a short time and never came back) caused him to want to change his daughter's name away from something Israeli.

But he has no problem raising a son named "Bin Laden."

Read More

Victim of belly dancing embellishes her story

A woman who claims to be the person in the video showing an IDF soldier dancing around her has added a great deal to her story between the first interview and the last one.

She first surfaced in an interview with AFP:

"I saw the video on Al-Jazeera. I didn't sleep all night because I felt humiliated and frustrated," Ihsan al-Dababsi, 35, from the southern West Bank village of Nuba, told AFP.

"When they arrested me, they took me to the Etzion detention centre near Bethlehem. After they questioned me, they put me in a corridor and put on a blindfold and handcuffs," she said.

"I could hear the laughter of the soldiers, their voices and the music. I could see what was happening because the blindfold was not tight, and I begged them not to film me.

"But they continued to videotape me, and they were drinking alcohol and dancing," she said.

But in her latest interview she adds a few minor details that she didn't feel important enough to tell AFP:

Dababisa said she was detained at Etzion checkpoint at 8 a.m. on 11 December 2007, and thrown into a military jeep, handcuffed and blindfolded. She was taken to the yard of Etzion detention center in front of a group of soldiers.

Moments later, she said, she heard loud music and one of the soldiers tried to touch her. She tried to stay close to the wall, and another soldier arrived with a bottle of wine, and offered her a drink. When she refused, but he continued to harass her, she said.

The soldiers then attacked her "like vicious dogs."

"They began beating me with rifle butts and legs. One of the soldiers hit my head against the metal of the military jeep until I fainted. Then I found myself in front of a female doctor wearing military uniform. After examining me they moved me to the interrogation center where my journey of torture and humiliation started.

"The officer’s name who began to interrogate me was Beran. He threatened to demolish my family home and arrest my siblings, the interrogation lasted for two hours. After that I was transferred with my eyes blindfolded to another interrogation center, I think it was the Russian compound, where there were three interrogators.

"Soon after I came in they began insulting and cursing using words I do not want to say. One of the interrogators was pulling me from my hair. I was handcuffed the whole time. The interrogation lasted until 11 at night, then they transferred me to Hasharon prison where they accused me of trying to stab someone, and of affiliation with the Islamic Jihad. Lawyers from the prisoners' society defended me and I was sentenced to 22 months in prison. I was released on 6 September 2009."

So now she was mercilessly beaten, had her head bashed to the point of unconsciousness, and was pulled be her hair - and she only told AFP about the dancing?

I'm not convinced that the woman is even the same one as seen on the tape. (I don't know enough about Palestinian Arab culture to know if women consistently wear hijab of one color or not; the woman on the tape is wearing black and Dababsi wears white.) Even if it is, she appears to be acting the way we have documented other PalArabs act - their "eyewitness" testimonies almost invariably end up being made up or hugely exaggerated when they have a chance to pile blame on Israel.

UPDATE: Israellycool notices the same thing, and adds a third source of discrepancies.

Read More

IDF blog releases comprehensive Qassam statistics

I had been feeling guilty about not keeping up with the  monthly Gaza rocket calendars that I used to maintain but haven't created since February of this year.

But now I don't have to worry anymore, because the IDF blog has all the numbers.

2010	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
Qassam	16	6	24	5	11
Mortars	11	0	5	7	3
Grads	0	0	0	0	0
Total	27	6	29	12	14
	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Total
Qassam	15	9	6	14	106
Mortars	1	1	7	15	50
Grads	0	6	0	1	7
Total	16	16	13	30	163

There is much more at the site.

In 2008, there were 3278 rockets. Their rate was increasing by roughly a thousand a year, which means that if the trends between 2006-2008 had held steady, Israel would have absorbed over 5000 rockets this year instead of the projected 200 or so.

In that sense, Cast Lead cannot be considered anything but a success.

Even so, there have been 162 more rockets this year than any other country would tolerate without going to war. For some reason Israel is treated by the world as if it doesn't have that moral imperative that every other sovereign nation does to protect its citizens.

(h/t Yaacov Lozowick)

Read More

A Zionist T-shirt for gentiles

After I made the T-shirt for non-Jewish women, I was asked to do one for men as well.

This posed a problem. The male equivalent of "shiksa" is "shaygetz" but it is not well known and can be taken offensively. Saying something like "Goys for Israel" could look like "Gays for Israel" at first glance, which could diminish the target audience a bit.

I mentioned the dilemma to the beautiful and talented Daughter of Ziyon this morning, and within ten seconds she came up with this slogan:

I couldn't resist!

My CafePress shop homepage went inexplicably down as I was creating the items, as did my product editing page, so I didn't yet get a chance to make the double-entendre product of the same logo on a pair of women's briefs. With apologies to those who this might offend, sorry, but it's just too funny and I will add that as soon as I can get back into the shop.

Anyway, CafePress seems to have a sale on this type of T-shirt today and you can get it for $15 rather than  $22 it costs normally. Available in three light colors; another version in dark colors is $25. Click here to order.

Read More

Al Azhar sheikh's weird logic in banning Arabs from visiting Jerusalem

From a Q&A with the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar University in Egypt, Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb, in Asharq al-Awsat:

Q) This leads us on to talk about inter-faith dialogue. What does it mean? And what does the future hold, in terms of engaging in dialogue with the Vatican and Christian institutions around the world? Would this dialogue be restricted to Christians, thus dismissing the Jews? And would holding dialogue with Jews be considered a kind of normalization?

A) ...We have not ruled out the idea of holding dialogue with the followers of Judaism, but we refuse to have such dialogue taken as a pretext for normalization. Therefore we abstain from engaging in any dialogue with the Zionists who deny the collective rights of Arabs and Muslims and persist in occupying Arab territories, violating sanctums and inflicting injustice, aggression and blockades.

Q) This leads us to question the call made by the Minister of Religious Endowments, Dr. Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, urging all Muslims to visit Jerusalem. What is your personal and professional opinion of this call?

A) ...In my own opinion, visiting Jerusalem whilst it is under Israeli occupation does not serve any interest, nor does it help to protect the sanctum. What proves my point is that Israel does not allow the actual Arab residents of Jerusalem, or those from the 1948 Arab population who hold Israeli nationality, to visit Jerusalem except under stated terms. And since Israel has the power to permit or refuse visits to Jerusalem, it is inconceivable it would allow an influx of Arabs and Muslims from across the world to visit al-Aqsah Mosque. That would undermine Israel’s attempt to Judaize Jerusalem, and change the dynamics of al-Aqsah Mosque. However, Israel would try and capitalize on the idea of Arabs and Muslims visiting al-Aqsah Mosque, by advocating further steps toward normalization. It would claim that no one is prevented from visiting al-Aqsah Mosque, and would state that visiting al-Aqsah Mosque, with an Israeli entry visa, is completely a natural occurrence. This would encourage Arabs and Muslims to gradually become familiar with such a situation, without disapproving of it, and that in itself constitutes great harm.

So first he says that there is no way Israel would allow many Muslims to visit Jerusalem, and then he say that Israel would allow many Muslims to visit Jerusalem, and that this is the worst possible thing for Arabs.

It amazes me how religious leaders actively discourage their people from visiting their own holy sites if there is even a perception that Israel might benefit, perhaps from a PR perspective. Can anyone imagine an Israeli rabbi prohibiting any visits to Joseph's Tomb because there is a possibility that the PA could use it as a propaganda victory?

Indeed, hatred for Israel trumps love of the Al Aqsa Mosque in today's mainstream Arab/Muslim thought (influential cleric Yusuf Qaradawi has issued a similar ruling.)

But one thing is correct. Israel does indeed trumpet freedom of worship in Jerusalem, for good reason. As Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said Wednesday: (h/t My Right Word)

The only limitation on religion in Jerusalem today is that Jews are not allowed to pray at the Temple Mount. Over 200,000 Muslims came during Ramadan to pray at the Temple Mount. This was strategically important for us in the future. Israel proved, both practically and ideologically, that we can share this wonderful city with the world.

Al-Tayeb hates, with a passion, the idea that Jerusalem's Jewish mayor can make such a statement. Because Barkat's accurate description of freedom of worship in Jerusalem makes Israel look less than totally evil, and that is simply not acceptable. Better to forbid the entire Arab Muslim world from visiting a Muslim holy site than give the chance for a Jewish politician to make a statement like Barkat's.

Beyond that, Zionist Jews are by definition selfish,  so when they say they want to share Jerusalem's holy sites, they are denying the Muslim imperative to close them off to Jews!

In case you don't see the obvious logic in the Arab position vis a vis Jerusalem, here's a handy guide:

"Sharing" is a keyword for "normalization" which means "Judaization" which means "apartheid" which means "ethnic cleansing" which means "genocide."

When Jews talk about having Jerusalem open to all people, what they really mean is that they want to kick all the Arabs out. Therefore, Muslims must boycott visiting Jerusalem so that Israel cannot have the satisfaction of sharing it with Muslims which is phase one of its Judaization plan. As long as Muslims keep away from the city, the Jews cannot take it over.

This is what al-Tayeb is saying. And it makes perfect sense, if you at first assume a seething hatred for everything Israeli, where having Israel "win" is to be avoided at all costs, your own people be damned.

Read More