Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Ray Hanania says that "Zionism" is a New York City organization

Yet another article by the "moderate" Ray Hanania shows that his grip on reality is getting more tenuous by the day.

Yes, he still denies that Helen Thomas was demanding, in an unguarded moment, that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine." And he insists that her comments about "Zionists" owning Congress, the White House, Hollywood and Wall Street" - classic anti-semitic tropes - were about Zionists. (No doubt, hook-nosed "Zionists" at that.)

But now Hanania is going off on his own bizarre theory - that Zionism is an organization!

Thomas has criticized and denounced Zionism, a political movement with headquarters in new York City. The purpose of the organization is to champion the interests of a foreign country, Israel.

...Zionism is a political organization with headquarters in New York. Its agenda is to defend a foreign nation.

...Ms. Thomas criticized Zionism, a recognized political organization that champions the interests of a foreign country.

That's three times he claims that there is an organization, based out of Jew (sorry, New) York City, that is called "Zionism."

Is he referring to the Zionist Organization of America? Or the ADL? Or, more likely, has he just lost his mind?

Even funnier is how he tries to imply that supporting a foreign country is somehow inherently anti-American. Yet on one of his many websites, he headlines it "Can we save Palestine"? Isn't he then advocating for a foreign entity whose policies might be against American interests? Not only that, on that page he announces his candidacy to run for the Palestinian National Council and for the PA Parliament - indicating that Ray Hanania is more loyal to "Palestine" than to his own country of birth! Why, Ray, is being a Zionist somehow inherently anti-American but wanting to join a foreign government is not?

Just more hypocrisy from good ol' Ray. Keep it coming; it is really funny to see you fall apart like this, over a bitter old bigot no less. Since you claim to be a comedian, surely you can see the humor in this.

The real problem is that, by any objective measure, Hanania really is much more moderate than 99% of Palestinian Arabs. And even he cannot find a way to condemn the explicit bigotry of a fellow Arab. Which does not bode well for the chances of peace.

Great video of Israel

This video, which I had never seen before, was apparently made for Israel's 60th birthday.

It's very well done and a lot of fun to watch:

From the Israel YouTube channel.

(h/t Joel)

Some history found, some history recovered

Joel emails me two related items.

One is the Flickr photo album from the Palestine Exploration Fund, which has been studying the area of historic Palestine (including parts of what are now Lebanon and Jordan) since 1865. Over 150 photos are visible, some quite fascinating:

View of the Temple Mount, 1864

Panorama of the Dome of the Rock, 1917 (notice the weeds)

Rachel's Tomb

Also, a recent re-discovery of artifacts from Jerusalem in the first century CE.

HRW, UN actually chide Hamas

Hamas has closed a lot of NGOs and charities over the past couple of years. But one organization they closed on November 30th has some powerful friends.

From Palestine Monitor, December 2:

The Sharek Youth Forum in Gaza City was forcibly closed by police on Tuesday. The forum’s liberal agenda had resulted in frequent clashes with the Hamas government prior to its closure. Sharek staff protest the action is illegal and unjust.

In the past seven months the group’s headquarters have been repeatedly raided and members of staff have been subjected to physical intimidation, harassment and threats. During this time, Executive manager Muheib Shaath has been summoned to 15 separate interrogations from internal security. A summer camp run by Sharek in partnership with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was destroyed in May.

Sharek co-founder Sufian Mshasha told us the harassment and ultimate closure was “prompted by our agenda of democracy, social development, and our insistence on holding activities for both genders.” He claimed that “80-90%” of questioning of Sharek staff focused on their practise of mixing genders in their programmes.

The webpage of Sharek includes a large list of donors, including George Soros, the Carter Center, UNRWA, UNESCO, and Save the Children-Sweden.

So in this case, there is actually an outcry.

From UNSCO:

The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian Territory, Maxwell Gaylard, today voiced his concern about the forced closure on 30 November by the local authorities in Gaza of all Gaza-based offices of the non-governmental organization Sharek Youth Forum.

“I am very concerned about the recent forced closing of Sharek Youth Forum in Gaza. Sharek is an important NGO partner of the United Nations in its work on behalf of children and the youth in Gaza”, Mr. Gaylard said.

From HRW:

Hamas authorities in Gaza should allow an organization that helps children and youth to reopen and penalize officials who have harassed its workers, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 30, 2010, Hamas authorities arbitrarily closed all of the Gaza offices of the group Sharek Youth Forum, which provides psychosocial and vocational support and operates summer camps and other programs for 60,000 Gaza children and youth.

Will Hamas cave now that one of their many anti-democratic actions bubbled to the surface?

Stuxnet written by...the Chinese?

A Forbes blogger has a fascinating theory:

I uncovered a connection between two of the key players in the Stuxnet drama: Vacon, the Finnish manufacturer of one of two frequency converter drives targeted by this malware; and RealTek, who’s digital certificate was stolen and used to smooth the way for the worm to be loaded onto a Windows host without raising any alarms. A third important piece of the puzzle, which I’ll discuss later in this article, directly connects a Chinese antivirus company which writes their own viruses with the Stuxnet worm.

...China has an intimate knowledge of Iran’s centerfuges since, according to one source quoted above, they’re of Chinese design.

China has better access than any other country to manufacturing plans for the Vacon frequency converter drive made by Vacon’s Suzhou facility and specifically targeted by the Stuxnet worm (along with an Iranian company’s drive).

China has better access than any other country to RealTek’s digital certificates through it’s Realsil office in Suzhou and, secondarily, to JMicron’s office in Taiwan.

China has direct access to Windows source code, which would explain how a malware team could create 4 key zero day vulnerabilities for Windows when most hackers find it challenging to develop even one.

...As far as China goes, I’ve identified 5 distinct ties to Stuxnet that are unique to China as well as provided a rationale for the attack which fits China’s unique role as Iran’s ally and customer, while opposing Iran’s fuel enrichment plans. There’s still a distinct lack of information on any other facilities that suffered damage, and no good explanations for why there was such massive collateral damage across dozens of countries if only one or two facilities in one nation state were the targets however based solely on the known facts, I consider China to be the most likely candidate for Stuxnet’s origin.

I don't think this is altogether convincing, but it is certainly worth consideration. If you are into Stuxnet, read the whole thing.

(h/t Clark)

Wikileaks: Egypt reiterates that Iran is region's greatest threat

A recent Wikileaks cable, from February 2010, shows that Egypt continues to view Iran and its proxies as the major threat to the entire region, and it even looks at the Palestinian Arab issue through the lens of Iran.

This memo is a scene-setter for Admiral Mullen:

President Mubarak sees Iran as Egypt's -- and the region's -- primary strategic threat. Egypt's already dangerous neighborhood, he believes, has only become more so since the fall of Saddam, who, as nasty as he was, nevertheless stood as a wall against Iran. He now sees Tehran's hand moving with ease throughout the region, "from the Gulf to Morocco." The immediate threat to Egypt comes from Iranian conspiracies with Hamas (which he sees as the "brother" of his own most dangerous internal political threat, the Muslim Brotherhood) to stir up unrest in Gaza, but he is also concerned about Iranian machinations in Sudan and their efforts to create havoc elsewhere in the region, including in Yemen, Lebanon, and even the Sinai, via Hezbollah. While Tehran's nuclear threat is also a cause for concern, Mubarak is more urgently seized with what he sees as the rise of Iranian surrogates (Hamas and Hezbollah) and Iranian attempts to dominate the Middle East.

...Egypt continues to support our efforts to resume negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians and maintains a regular dialogue with all sides. Egyptian sponsored negotiations on Palestinian reconciliation are ongoing. Egypt's objectives are to avoid another Gaza crisis while eroding Hamas' power and ultimately returning the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.

This part is interesting as well:

President Mubarak and military leaders view our military assistance program as a cornerstone of our mil-mil relationship and consider the USD 1.3 billion in annual FMF as untouchable compensation for making peace with Israel. Decision-making within MOD rests almost solely with Defense Minister Tantawi. In office since 1991, he consistently resists change to the level and direction of FMF funding and is therefore one of our chief impediments to transforming our security relationship. Nevertheless, he retains President Mubarak's support. You should encourage Tantawi to place greater emphasis on countering asymmetric threats rather than focusing almost exclusively on conventional force.

Which sounds like Egypt, despite over thirty years of peace with Israel, still thinks of its army as primarily concerned with a future war with Israel.

Wikileaks: The Suha Arafat Affair

A pair of interesting cables from Wikileaks concerning Suha Arafat, Yasir Arafat's widow.

From 2006:

The Government of Tunisia's Official Journal of September 26 published a notice that Suha Arafat, wife of the late Palestinian Authority president, and her 11-year old daughter Zahwa had acquired Tunisian nationality. Mrs. Arafat and her daughter have been living in Tunisia since the 2004 death of Yasser Arafat, and Zahwa Arafat attends the American Cooperative School of Tunisia. Suha Arafat's presence in Tunisia long predates that, however. She had been a resident of Tunisia prior to her marriage, and, after residing in the Palestinian Territories from 1996-98, she returned in 1998, alternating between residences in France and Tunisia.

...We remain puzzled as to why Mrs. Arafat would want Tunisian citizenship...One possible motivation is that under Tunisian law, foreign participation in a totally non-exporting service industry cannot exceed 50 percent. Several months ago, Mrs. Arafat set up one such company -- to
build an international school in Tunis. Tunisian citizenship will allow her to control this company.

And then things went downhill. From 2007:

The GOT's decision last summer to revoke Suha Arafat's Tunisian citizenship, which had only been granted less than a year earlier, made international headlines. Since the appearance of the official register notice on August 7, the chattering class in Tunisia has not ceased to speculate about the reasons behind the decision. In a mid-October telcon with Ambassador Godec, Mrs. Arafat attributed her ouster to the personal animus of First Lady Leila Ben Ali, following a dispute over the forced closure of the Bouebdelli School, a well-respected private school. Had
it remained open, the Bouebdelli School would have represented serious competition to the new Carthage International School, a joint venture between the two First Ladies. It is doubtful that we will ever know all of the facts in this affair, but the stories of corruption swirling around the Carthage International School have a ring of truth to them.

...In a mid-October telcon with the Ambassador, Ms. Arafat blamed her ouster on the personal animus of First Lady Leila Ben Ali. "I can't believe what she's has done to me," Arafat exclaimed, "I've lost everything!" She charged that all of her properties in Tunisia had been confiscated, even by falsifying documents transferring ownership. (Note: It is rumored that Mrs. Arafat had invested -- and lost -- some 2.5 million euros in the Carthage International School. End Note.) In addition, she said, her friends and colleagues in Tunisia, including her banker, had also come under pressure. "Anyone who supports me is punished."

...Plenty of other theories have stoked the rumor mill in the Suha Arafat affair. One well-connected Palestinian resident in Tunisia told EmbOff that what sealed Mrs. Arafat's fate was that on a recent visit to Tripoli, she had asked Libyan Leader Qaddafi for money. Qaddafi had readily provided a hand-out, but he reportedly subsequently called President Ben Ali to chastise him for failing to provide adequately for the widow of the late Palestinian President. Ben Ali's acute embarrassment, so the story goes, quickly turned to wrath. It was not long before Mrs. Arafat's citizenship was revoked. Another theory holds that Suha Arafat was ousted because she had absconded with a significant amount of the first family's assets. Finally, in the face of persistent rumors that Mrs. Arafat had secretly married Belhassen Trabelsi, brother of the Tunisian First Lady, some commentators chalked up the whole ordeal to the failure of that relationship.

Some other juicy parts of that latter cable, including Suha's accusations of corruption towards the ruling family and the fact that the for-profit school had enjoyed great governmental largesse.

It seems that her Suha learned a bit about corruption during her marriage.

Wikileaks: British anger at UK Muslim open letter

From the latest batch of Wikileaks, a 2006 cable:

Prominent British Muslim leaders sent an open letter to PM Tony Blair August 12 stating that his policy on Iraq and the Middle East offers “ammunition to extremists” and puts British lives “at increased risk.” Appearing as a full page advertisement in newspapers August 13, the letter was signed by three of the four Muslim MPs, three of the five Muslim members of the House of Lords, and 38 Muslim organizations (for full text and list of signatories see para 10). Although the letter states specifically that “attacking civilians is never justified,” its signatories have used this sentence as a double-edged sword in defending the letter publicly, in effect equating civilian deaths in Lebanon with potential civilian deaths from terrorism. As MCB Secretary General Dr. Mohammed Abdul Bari told the press, “As Muslims, we condemn attacks on civilians wherever they happen. Civilians in the UK, the Middle East, and the rest of the world should all enjoy protection.”

HMG reacted sharply to the letter. A spokesman for PM Blair (currently on holiday in Barbados), noting that al-Qaida terrorist attacks began well before Iraq, said, “To imply al-Qaida is driven by an honest disagreement over foreign policy is a mistake.” Home Secretary John Reid told the BBC, “I’m not going to question the motives of anyone who has signed this letter, but I think it is a dreadful misjudgment if we believe the foreign policy of this country should be shaped in part, or in whole, under the threat of terrorist activity if we do not have a foreign policy with which the terrorists happen to agree.” Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander echoed these sentiments, saying “No government worth its salt should allow its foreign policy to be dictated to under the threat of terrorism.” Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said it would be “the gravest SIPDIS possible error” to blame foreign policy for the threat of terrorism. “This is part of a distorted view of the world, a distorted view of life,” she said. “Let’s put the blame where it belongs: with people who wantonly want to take innocent lives.” Other ministers called the letter “facile,” “dangerous,” and “foolish.”

It is too bad that, perhaps subconsciously, world diplomats do exactly what they say they won't do: allowing their foreign policy to be dictated by fears of terrorism. But they do it a bit more indirectly, by blaming Israel for Palestinian Arab intransigence and not fulfilling impossible demands.

Israeli eye doctors start work in Maldives amid protests

From Minivan News:

Visiting Israeli doctors from the ‘Eye from Zion’ NGO have begun treating patients at Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) after producing attested documentation, Haveeru has reported.

State Housing Minister Abdulla Shahid, in charge of the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), said there was “high demand” for the team’s services, despite protests in Male’ on Thursday.

Earlier, over the weekend:

Protests erupted across Male’ over the weekend that saw the burning of Israeli flags and calls to “ban all Israeli medical teams” from practicing in the Maldives...

Protesters burned several Israeli flags in Republican Square and demanded the deportation of seven visiting Israeli eye surgeons, who are holding free eye camps in Male’ and the island hospitals.

Protesters gathered near the tsunami monument on International Human Rights Day, claiming that “Jews would not provide any form of assistance, unless there is a hidden agenda”, according to the website of the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives.

The religious NGO has previously called on the government to “shun all medical aid from the Zionist regime”, alleging the Israeli surgeons “have become notorious for illegally harvesting organs from non-Jews around the world.”

Religious NGO Jamiyyathusalaf has also called on the government to provide citizens with military training “before Jews take over the country”.

President Mohamed Nasheed today met with the doctors the Israeli ‘Eye from Zion’ NGO and said “a vast majority of Maldivians” appreciated the humanitarian work of the doctors.

As when I first mentioned this in late November before, the comments section of this newspaper is overwhelmingly supportive of the Israeli effort.

Why do the losers get to define the terms of victory?

A New York Times op-ed by Robert Wright shows how the world has swallowed a Palestinian Arab lie -hook, line and sinker:

If there is no two-state solution, Israel can either (a) give Palestinians in the occupied territories the vote and watch as the Arab birth rate turns Israeli Jews into a minority; or (b) keep denying the vote to Arabs it has ruled for decades, thus incurring charges of apartheid, moving toward pariah status among nations, continuing to give propaganda fuel to regional troublemakers and raising the chances of disastrous war.

...Every day, settlement construction — especially in East Jerusalem — makes it harder to imagine two-state borders that would leave Palestinians with the minimal dignity necessary for lasting peace.

That word, "dignity," is the linchpin.

When Germany and Japan were defeated in World War II, no one said that the resulting, greatly reduced powers they had were too few to maintain the "dignity" of the vanquished and that they should be given more - or else there would be a threat of no "lasting peace." Peace was dependent on limiting their powers.

How did this concept of "dignity" for the losing side become a sine qua non for peace? In larger terms, why do a people and their leaders who have consistently worked towards the destruction of Israel deserve the dignity that they demand as a minimal starting point towards a reward of a state?

Palestinian Arabs did not accept any partition plan before 1948; they did not agitate for a "dignified" state when Jordan and Egypt controlled the territories, they universally supported Saddam Hussein against the allies, even recent polls show that they support terror attacks against Jews in Israel and argue that there is a legal obligation for "resistance" - so why, exactly, is their definition of "dignity" being accepted as a legitimate demand?

Beyond that, why does the party that has lost every single war get to define the terms of victory?

If there is to be a two-state solution, it must be a viable state - not a "dignified" state. Dignity is an elastic concept, with no objective definition, and the arbitrary definitions being bandied about by Palestinian Arabs have zero basis in reality. Not one person has ever yet explained why Jerusalem must be a part of a Palestinian state. Not only that, but the Palestinian Arabs discount the very real rights of the Jews who live in Judea and Samaria: while Arabs in Jerusalem can easily accept Israeli citizenship, Jews across the Green Line cannot be expected live in safety in a Palestinian Arab state - yet the demand that hundreds of thousands of Jews can be forced out of their homes is considered acceptable but a Jewish Jerusalem is not. This is not logical nor is there any real basis for such a demand.

The only reason people like Wright insist that Jerusalem must be divided and that Jews cannot live in the historic heartland of Israel is because Palestinian Arabs demand it. What is not explained by anybody is why they have the right to demand such a thing.

If the goal is a state, they can have one and they could have had one for decades. If the goal is a "dignified" state, then they are being given the unilateral right to define Israel to be a state without defensible borders and without real access to religious and historic sites that are unquestionably Jewish.

Which means that the world has accepted that Palestinian Arabs, consistent supporters of the wrong side in every single war and whose "moderate" leaders demand to this very day the demographic destruction of Israel, have more of a right to dignity than the Jewish nation does to dignity and security.

People have to start realizing that Palestinian Arab demands do not equal rights, and that a Palestinian Arab state cannot and should not be defined in a way that deprives the Jewish state and people of their own competing rights. Insistence is not the same as reality, but the world has confused the two for way too long.

One cheer for AFP

AFP, alone among major news wire services, noticed that Hamas' supposed new moderation was illusory:

The Islamist Hamas group in the Gaza Strip on Monday reiterated its aim to recover all of historic Palestine from the Mediterranean to Jordan, as it prepared to mark its 23rd anniversary.

Ismail Haniya, the senior Hamas leader in Gaza, had said on December 1 that the organisation would accept a peace deal with Israel if the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum.

"We say that Palestine from the sea to the (Jordan) river is fully the land of the Palestinians. We will cede none of it, and we will not recognise the so-called state of Israel," Hamas said in a statement.

It added that its intention was to make Jerusalem the "capital of the state of Palestine," and pledged "the failure of all methods of Judaisation" of the holy city by Israel.

On December 1, Haniya said: "We accept a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the land occupied in 1967 with Jerusalem as its capital and a solution to the issue of refugees."

His statement had appeared to signal a shift in the group's long-standing policy of refusing to accept either Israel's legitimacy or any peace treaty negotiated by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

All of this information is easily available to anyone who bothers reading the Arabic press (here's an example from today.) It is really sad that what should be a simple piece of reporting - one that should have accompanied Haniyeh's reported comments, not followed them by nearly two weeks - is only available in one major English-language wire service.

They don't get three cheers because they didn't notice it earlier and for their gratuitous use of "Historic Palestine" as being from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, which is a myth.

Meanwhile, in Iran....

The Asian Gaza convoy folks met Ahmadinejad today, where he taught them who the truly evil people are:

Ahmadinejad said the Islamic Republic, along with other countries, will always make efforts to help Palestinians, including the besieged Gazans, attain their freedom and rid themselves of the Zionist regime.

He stated that the most important problem of the modern world is the existence of the Zionist regime.

The Zionist regime was established in order to help the hegemonistic powers’ efforts to dominate the entire world, he observed.

Crimes like humiliating people, conducting terrorist acts, selling people into slavery, and depriving people of their basic rights, which have been committed in the world throughout history, are now committed almost every day in Palestine, he stated.

He went on to say that the Zionists are neither Jewish, nor Christian, nor Muslim, but rather, they are unbelievers who also do not care about basic human values.

The Zionists are pursuing only one mission and that is to destroy the culture of other nations, Ahmadinejad noted.

Today, everybody knows that Palestine is not a conflict between Arabs and Jews or between Muslims and Jews, but rather, it is a global issue that should be solved globally, he said.

Glad he cleared that up.

And just to make sure that he is not accused of lying, I must do something to humiliate him:

After all, if anti-semitic Muslim clerics are all Mossad agents who are out to make Islam look bad, then isn't it logical that crazed Iranian leaders are at least as sympathetic to Israel as the imams?

Deaths in football riots between Palestinian Arabs and Jordanians

From Al Jazeera:

A football game in Amman between Jordan's Al-Wahdat and Al-Faisaly clubs has ended in violence.

As anti-riot police tried to control crowds as they left the football field on Friday, a metal fence collapsed under the weight of the crowd, injuring some 250 people.

Eyewitnesses said that several people were beaten to death by police trying to prevent an escalation of clashes between the two teams' supporters.

Supporters of Al-Wahdat are generally of Palestinian origin, while Al-Faisaly fans are of Jordanian origin, our correspondent said.

During the past few years, tensions between the teams' supporters have marred their matches. The number of injuries in Friday's game is exceptionally high, however.

According to witness accounts, the violence broke out outside the stadium, with some people smashing cars.

"Let's see whether [the government] is going to have a credible investigation, with people who made mistakes held accountable," Salameh Nematt, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera.

"Today's incident may have political implications, but the government is trying not to highlight this Palestinian-Jordanian divide within Jordan," El-Shamayleh reported.

A Wikileaks document released last week spoke about this very phenomenon of Jordanians and Palestinian Arabs - supporters of these same two teams - using games as a means to insult and riot against the other side.

A challenge to Khaled Amayreh

Khaled Amayreh, a prolific Arab writer and hater who we've already seen is an explicit anti-semite, has a new and unintentionally funny article:

A few weeks ago, a supposedly religious activist, probably from one of the Gulf States, suggested to me that Muslims shouldn't confine our attacks to Zionists; we ought, he said, to attack Jews as Jews, on the grounds that the vast majority of Jews support Israel.

I treated this "advice" with great caution, suspecting that he might be one of those overzealous fanatics who are duped by Zionist circles to malign Jews so that Israeli hasbara (propaganda) operatives such as MEMRI and Honest Reporting [sic] would be able to use his extremist rhetoric to their best advantage. They highlight "Muslim anti-Semitism" and con the world into thinking that the conflict in the Middle East is not really over the Israeli occupation of Palestine and oppression of its Christian and Muslim people, but is rooted in deeply-held Arab racism against the Jews.

After some investigation, I found out that the website used by that extremist was actually a Mossad front used to attract religious radicals in order to serve Israeli propaganda purposes. Needless to say, Zionist groups just love Muslims like this and they usually have no shortage of such imbeciles to use; when there is, the Mossad hasbara department simply creates or recruits a few more.

Besides the great irony of someone who makes no bones about his hatred of Jews worrying about a Muslim extremist spouting anti-semitism, there is another thing that doesn't quite add up:

Khaled - why aren't you identifying this "Mossad site" publicly?

Don't your first-class investigation skills deserve a wide audience? Shouldn't you be warning your readers not to be taken in by this bogus Mossad site where their presence would play into the hands of the evil Zionists? How can you be so irresponsible so as not to work assiduously to expose this site to the world and embarrass the manipulative and evil Jews who are trying to pull the wool over innocent Muslim eyes and turn them, unwillingly, into anti-semites?

I'm sure there is some logical explanation for your seemingly inexplicable ommission. So, come one: where is this site?

After all, you wouldn't want people to think you are lying, would you?

Christians fleeing Iraq - and every other Arab country. NYT not sure why.

From the NYT:

A new wave of Iraqi Christians has fled to northern Iraq or abroad amid a campaign of violence against them and growing fear that the country’s security forces are unable or, more ominously, unwilling to protect them.

The flight — involving thousands of residents from Baghdad and Mosul, in particular — followed an Oct. 31 siege at a church in Baghdad that killed 51 worshipers and 2 priests and a subsequent series of bombings and assassinations singling out Christians. This new exodus, which is not the first, highlights the continuing displacement of Iraqis despite improved security over all and the near-resolution of the political impasse that gripped the country after elections in March.

It threatens to reduce further what Archdeacon Emanuel Youkhana of the Assyrian Church of the East called “a community whose roots were in Iraq even before Christ.”

Those who fled the latest violence — many of them in a panicked rush, with only the possessions they could pack in cars — warned that the new violence presages the demise of the faith in Iraq. Several evoked the mass departure of Iraq’s Jews after the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

“It’s exactly what happened to the Jews,” said Nassir Sharhoom, 47, who fled last month to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, with his family from Dora, a once mixed neighborhood in Baghdad. “They want us all to go.

And who is driving the Christians out? Somehow, the New York Times cannot find a way to pronounce the word. The entire article on religious persecution in Iraq uses the word "Muslim" once, referring to Iraq as "an overwhelmingly Muslim country" but without quite drawing the line between that and the persecutors. It talks about "daily threats" without identifying those making them.

Of course, this is hardly limited to Iraq. The NYT's Ethan Bronner noted last year that

[A] dwindling and threatened Christian population [is] driven to emigration by political violence, lack of economic opportunity and the rise of radical Islam. A region that a century ago was 20 percent Christian is about 5 percent today and dropping.

Even though he mentions "radical Islam" he is also reluctant to explicitly state that Muslim threats against Christians are driving them out, instead primarily blaming the economy and other factors.

But wouldn't the economy be equally bad for Muslims as well?

In fact, the only Middle Eastern country whose Christian population is increasing is Israel. This CAMERA report last year goes into detail on this phenomenon.

So why is the New York Times so reluctant to identify the persecutors of Christians? Why is it silent on the threats, verbal and sexual assaults, and land confiscation by Muslims against Christians?

(h/t MW)

Is the ultimate goal a Palestinian Arab state - or a pan-Arab state?

One of the revelations in the National Archives report I posted about yesterday was this one:

Husseini, however, was a believer in a Pan-Arab state.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who became a supposed convert to Palestinian Arab nationalism from pan-Arab nationalism in 1920 in the wake of the 1920 San Remo Conference, really remained a pan-Arab nationalist but used the idea of "Palestinian" nationalism - something virtually nonexistent before San Remo - as a way to expel the Jews from Palestine.

And he is not the only one.

The original PLO charter written in 1964 does not explicitly call for a Palestinian Arab state! It is filled with phrases like

The Palestinian people firmly believe in Arab unity, and in order to play its role in realizing this goal, it must, at this stage of its struggle, preserve its Palestinian personality and all its constituents. It must strengthen the consciousness of its existence and stance and stand against any attempt or plan that may weaken or disintegrate its personality.

In other words, Palestinian national identity is essentially a fiction that was created and maintained by Arab leaders as a means to destroy Zionism. Before the 1960s, most Palestinian Arabs identified far more with the Arab nation - and their own clans - than with "Palestine," and indeed practically none of them fought in 1948 for anything outside their own villages.

But we can go further, as the Hamas charter says this rather explicitly as well, although in terms of pan-Islamism rather than pan-Arabism:A

s for the objectives: They are the fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail, homelands be retrieved and from its mosques would the voice of the mu'azen emerge declaring the establishment of the state of Islam, so that people and things would return each to their right places and Allah is our helper

. Only as a strategy is Palestinian Arab nationalism mentioned, not as a goal:

Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."...

The question of the liberation of Palestine is bound to three circles: the Palestinian circle, the Arab circle and the Islamic circle. Each of these circles has its role in the struggle against Zionism.

The very first article in the 2003 Palestinian Constitution says:

Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation. Arab Unity is an objective which the Palestinian People shall work to achieve.

Given this, it becomes even clearer that the antipathy towards Israel is from an Arab perspective as an encroacher of eternally Arab or Islamic land, not primarily for the purpose of establishing a independent state of "Palestine." On the contrary, a state of Arab Palestine is simply a tactic towards the goal of a huge, united Arab nation. Even though that goal is illusory, it shows that Palestinian Arab nationalism is an artificially created paradigm and not a natural national group.

In other words, Palestinian Arab nationalism is a fiction created for Western consumption, where people are sympathetic to arguments for self-determination. Today, of course, due to oppressive Arab discrimination specifically against Palestinian Arabs, they have coalesced into a people united by their misery - misery that is a policy-level decision made by their brethren, calculated to inculcate hate against the people who really do have a legitimate national historic ties to the area of Palestine.

HaShomer HaChadash - defending Jewish-owned land in Israel

Jewish-owned farms and other lands are under attack by Israeli Bedouin and others. A new group has been set up to defend this land.

This is a scary and sobering, but ultimately uplifting, video:

The war isn't over even within the Green Line. It is a touchy subject because Israel is under such a microscope that even Israeli politicians and police apparently don't want to antagonize Israeli Arabs who break the law.

It is wonderful to see young Israelis who care enough to do something about it.

(h/t Yerushalimey and CiFWatch)

ElderToons: Erekat speaks out for Palestinian Arab rights

In honor of the Comment is Free column I posted on...

Saeb Erekat's lies in CiF

Saeb Erekat, that Palestinian Arab negotiator who the West feels is so moderate because he wears suits and not army fatigues, has once again called for the destruction of Israel - this time in the pages of the Guardian's Comment is Free column.

He couches his demand to the end of the Jewish state in terms of the specious arguments that descendants of Palestinian Arabs who fled in 1948 have a "right to return" to the homes of their ancestors.

Here are some of his lies:

Israel's own admission as a member to the United Nations was contingent on its adherence to the principles of UNGA 194, something it proceeded to disregard once membership was granted.

While the resolution granting Israel's membership in the UN mentions UNGA 194, in no way does it say that it is contingent on it:

Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 and 11 December 1948 and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions,

The General Assembly,

Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure,

1. Decides that Israel is a peace loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;

2. Decides to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations.

While I cannot find the specific "declarations and explanations" noted at the moment, Israel's interpretation of 194 at the time was clear - no "return" of Arab refugees could be contemplated until there was a comprehensive peace and until the Arabs who return were willing to "live at peace with their neighbours", a UNGA 194 condition that was never met. The idea that Israel's admittance was somehow conditional is clearly a blatant lie.

The lies continue. Erekat says that "Palestinian refugees [are] the oldest and largest refugee community in the world today." The fact is that the vast majority are not refugees, but descendants of refugees, and that designation was created for them by UNRWA for practical reasons as a working definition but not as a legal definition. If they are legal refugees, then so are hundreds of millions of other people.

The lies continue:

The fact that Israel bears responsibility for the creation of the refugees is beyond argument. Even if the state still claims amnesia for its deeds, Israeli historians have debunked the traditional Zionist mythology and shown how Zionist leaders prior to 1948 formulated plans to displace the indigenous Palestinian population in order to create a Jewish majority state.

While there is a tiny amount of truth to this - plans are created for a lot of situations - there was no actual implementation of any such plans. The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs fled out of fear, not from force; their leaders fled early quite voluntarily leaving the masses without any anchor in the land. They fled because they thought that their Arab neighbors would allow them to resettle or stay until the Jews would be destroyed, but their fleeing showed that their attachment to the land was far more tenuous than the Jews who had no choice but to stay and fight, or die.

The lies continue:

Resolution 194 must provide the basis for a settlement to the refugee issue.

Resolution 194 was a General Assembly resolution, not legally binding. It also required that the Jerusalem area be under UN control - something ignored by Arabs. It does not specify only Arab refugees - in its language, Jews should have been allowed to return to their homes in the Old City and Gush Etzion and elsewhere - a provision rejected by Arabs even today. The entire resolution has no legal validity whatsoever in any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, as Israel argued in 1999:

The letters of invitation to the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and the Oslo Agreements signed between Israel and the PLO expressly provide that permanent status negotiations are to be based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). No other United Nations resolution is cited. The Palestinians have thus affirmed that a permanent solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be achieved by a negotiated settlement in West Bank and Gaza Strip territory that is the subject of those Security Council resolutions.

Other provisions of UNGA 194 were roundly ignored by the Arabs as well, such as free access to holy places. It is the Arab actions no less than anyone else that made 194 irrelevant.

Erekat's final lie is that masses of so-called refugees flooding Israel "will lead to a lasting peace." On the contrary, it would lead to the kind of internal terrorism that Palestine suffered before Israel was established, where thousands of people were slaughtered while Jews were a minority.

The entire issue is a ruse meant to destroy the Jewish state, and when the most "moderate" Palestinian Arab leaders are still publicly calling to dismantle Israel by demographic means, it shows that their stated desire for a two-state solution with both states living side by side in peace is an utter sham.

This article also proves that Palestinian Arab rejectionism is not merely a tactical move to improve their negotiating position, but an absolute rejection of Israel as anything other than yet another Arab state. This is the mainstream position of so-called "moderate" Palestinian Arabs, not a fringe extremist position. If the West is serious about a real peace - something that seems literally impossible given such intransigence - it needs to insist that Palestinian Arab leaders admit, publicly, that Israel is not where descendants of Palestinian Arabs who fled in 1948 will live and that they need to be absorbed in Arab countries instead of being the victims of institutional discrimination in every single Arab country as they are today.

That is the issue that Erekat and his ilk studiously avoid mentioning, and it proves beyond all doubt that they do not give a damn about their people but rather want to continue using them as pawns in their six-decade old, single-minded goal of destroying Israel.

New Asian convoy: India to Iran to Turkey to Syria to Gaza (updated)

A potentially dangerous new convoy, whose ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel, is currently in Iran where they are being encouraged by Ayatollahs and government officials.

The planned route looks like this (via Israeligirl):

The final leg seems to be intended to be a ship from Syria to Gaza.

The group behind it is called Asian People's Solidarity for Palestine, and they claim that some of the members of the journey were injured on the Mavi Marmara, making it clear that these are not "peace activists." (Their manifesto also calls for the"right of return," showing that they are anti-Israel activists as well.)

They plan to arrive in Gaza in time for the second anniversary of Cast Lead.

I believe that Israel would regard a ship sailing from an enemy state to be an act of war, and that threat (as I recall) was what scuttled the Lebanese "women's flotilla" last summer, as they could not find a country willing to host the final part of the journey. I think it is doubtful that Syria would risk this, but it is a story that needs to be followed.

(h/t Israeligirl)

UPDATE: Commenters have noticed what I didn't - that the last sea leg of the journey is in fact to El Arish in Egypt and then an overland convoy to Gaza, similar to other convoys and something that Israel does not object to. Egypt has just as little interest in Hamas acquiring weapons as Israel does.