Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, July 29, 2011

Latest Latma (7/29/11)

Some new faces in this one.

Should Israel's policies be dictated by fears of becoming a "pariah"?

In my Twitter exchange with Jeffrey Goldberg yesterday, he pretty much admitted that Israel's giving up the West Bank would very possibly not bring Israel peace anyway. But he fell back to a second argument for Israel's withdrawal from the territory:

I believe, however, that Israel will become a pariah if the Palestinians aren't granted statehood, or the vote in Israel.

My point was that a Palestinian Arab state could exist while Israel still holds onto parts of the territories deemed necessary for security as well as areas that already have large Jewish communities.

But the issue he brought up, that Israel would become a pariah if it didn't act in certain ways, is worth exploring.

What makes Israel unpopular?

I would argue that it has almost nothing to do with Israeli policies. While certain Israeli actions cause Western opinion to temporarily go in one direction or another, the general trend of opinion is independent of Israeli actions.

The Western world liked Israel in 1967 and after Entebbe in 1976. It liked Israel immediately after the peace agreement with Egypt but that disappeared soon after. It liked Israel after the Gaza withdrawal but that disappeared when Israel acted to stop the rockets that still rained down. The world liked Israel a little after the withdrawal from Lebanon but that disappeared as well. It liked Israel after the Oslo agreement was signed but it was silent when suicide bombings flared up in years afterwards. In other words, world opinion is mercurial and the world has a short-term memory, driven by the most recent news.

But underneath the zig-zag chart of world opinion of Israel there is a longer trend against Israel, a trend that is relentlessly downward. We now live in a world where people who seem otherwise intelligent have no problem singling out Israel for perceived crimes that she is far less guilty of than even other Western nations under remotely similar circumstances. (One only has to look at the hysterical reaction to the admittedly problematic "BDS law" while comparing it to the criminal restrictions on freedom of speech in most European countries today, for a recent example.)

What is behind this continuous downtrend of world opinion?

There is, and always will be, a large and hard core set of people who are against Israel's very existence. They hated the idea of a Jewish state before it was born, they hated Israel when it was a tiny struggling nation, they hated it when it won and they hated it when it lost. This core consists of Arabs and the radical hard-Left.

Any reasonable observer can identify that the source of this irrational, seething hate is good old-fashioned anti-semitism. There is no other explanation for the double standards and disproportionate focus on only the Jewish state.

But anti-semitism is declasse. So this hate has been redefined in terms of human rights, of Arab rights, of Israeli aggression, of fairness and justice, of a tiny oppressed underdog against a huge Zionist war machine.

This coalition of Arabs and hard-left Jew-haters has been cynically framing the argument in these terms, consistently, for decades now. But make no mistake - it is a strategy, not a spontaneous expression of digust at supposed Israeli crimes. The PLO (probably in coordination with the Soviets) sketched this strategy out immediately after the Six Day War, and published it in the Palestine National Assembly Political Resolutions in July, 1968:

The enemy consists of three interdependent forces:
a) Israel.
b) World Zionism.
c) World imperialism, under the direction of the United States of America.

Moreover, it is incontestable that world imperialism makes use of the forces of reaction linked with colonialism.

If we are to achieve victory and gain our objectives, we shall have to strike at the enemy wherever he may be, and at the nerve centres of his power. This is to be achieved through the use of military, political and economic weapons and information media, as part of a unified and comprehensive plan designed to sap his strength, scatter his forces, destroy the links between them and undermine their common objectives.

A long-drawn out battle has the advantage of allowing us to expose world Zionism, its activities, conspiracies, and its complicity with world imperialism and to point out the damage and complications it causes to the interests and the security of many countries, and the threat it constitutes to world peace. This will eventually unmask it, bringing to light the grotesque facts of its true nature, and will isolate it from the centres of power and establish safeguards against its ever reaching them...

An information campaign must be launched that will throw light on the following facts:

a) The true nature of the Palestinian war is that of a battle between a small people, which is the Palestinian people, and Israel, which has the backing of world Zionism and world imperialism.

b) This war will have its effect on the interests of any country that supports lsrael or world Zionism.

c) The hallmark of the Palestinian Arab people is resistance, struggle and liberation, that of the enemy, aggression, usurpation and the disavowal of all values governing decent human relations.

This blueprint has really not changed much since 1968. The goal of these rabid Israel-haters is to divide Israel from the Western world, especially America, by painting Israel as an aggressive bully that is trampling on the rights of a poor but proud people. It is no coincidence that this plan was conceived in the aftermath of a war where combined Arab armies tried unsuccessfully to destroy Israel and when Israel was riding a wave of popularity.

The larger Left, which is not anti-semitic, has over the years slowly adapted these exact talking points as their own. This is not out of malice towards Israel so much as it is because most of their members do not know enough to argue with these points and Israel did a poor job countering them in the same frame of reference. Indeed, Israel has little to apologize for in its human rights record towards the Palestinian Arabs in the territories, and has always sought to solve the problem in the framework of a larger Middle East peace process. The problem is that the hard-left has successfully decoupled the Palestinian Arab issue from the larger Israel-Arab issue (even though even this same PLO document admits that the two are the same.) Israel, a tiny and besieged country that craves peace, has been successfully cast as a big warmongering bully.

This demonization of Israel has been infecting the rhetoric of the Left for a long time now. It is unlikely that Israel can stop it. In fact, there is an easy formula for Israel's enemies keep it alive. Even if Israel accedes to all of the current demands by the PLO, we have seen in the past how easily world opinion can be turned against Israel again - just stage more attacks. Israel's response will almost inevitably and regrettably kill civilians, and all the goodwill gained would evaporate in an instant. It happened in Gaza, it happened in Lebanon, and the lies of Jenin prove that it can happen even if Israel doesn't do anything wrong.

Given this, Israel's media strategy must be to fight the battle using the same language of human rights that has been co-opted by her enemies. It takes time to reframe the argument but that is the only option.

The fact is that a great number of Palestinian Arabs are not under Israeli rule, but living as second-class citizens under Arab rule. Issues like these need to be publicized so that Israel doesn't suffer from the tunnel-vision imposed by those with an agenda that does not accept Israel's right to exist to begin with. It is a regional issue that must be solved in a comprehensive way, and if that is impossible then a detente is the best we can hope for.

It should go without saying that Israel must act morally. The first duty of any sovereign nation is to protect its citizens, and the human rights of Israelis must be protected no less than those of Palestinian Arabs. Israel must safeguard Palestinian Arab rights as much as humanly possible without compromising on the security of Israel's own citizens.

This, not PR, must be he driving force behind Israel's policy and strategy. Major decisions cannot and should not be driven by external pressure. If a Palestinian Arab state can be set up where Israel is not threatened with terror and rockets and continuous demands for more and more concessions even after an agreement, then peace can be here pretty quickly. But short of that, concessions given because of political pressure are usually counterproductive.

One more point. It is worth noting that Western nations, and probably even Arab nations, are far more sympathetic towards Israel than they say publicly. Every nation is keenly aware of its own challenges and the threat of separatists, anarchists and terrorists are shared among most nations. There is a big game going on where states are willing to publicly castigate Israel to mollify the Arab world - with the full knowledge that the US will act as the "bad cop" and ensure that Israel doesn't fall. This is far from ideal, and it might not be sustainable, but it is also not as bad as it sometimes sounds from the media obsession about unrelenting pressure on Israel.

Abbas unclear on the concept of "popular resistance"

From Reuters:

President Mahmoud Abbas urged Palestinians Wednesday to step up peaceful protests against Israel, urging "popular resistance" inspired by the Arab Spring to back a diplomatic offensive at the United Nations.

Abbas, addressing a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) meeting, reiterated his decision to seek full U.N. membership for a state of Palestine alongside Israel, a diplomatic move resulting from paralysis in the U.S.-backed peace process.

"In this coming period, we want mass action, organised and coordinated in every place," Abbas said. "This is a chance to raise our voices in front of the world and say that we want our rights."

"I insist on popular resistance and I insist that it be unarmed popular resistance so that nobody misunderstands us. We are now inspired by the protests of the Arab Spring, all of which cry out 'peaceful', 'peaceful'," he said.

The entire point of the Arab Spring is that the protests were conceived, organized and carried out by the people.

If Abbas is telling his people to protest, by definition it is not a "popular protest." It is more like the cynical rallies that Bashir Assad has been organizing to pretend that the Syrians are really behind him.

Then again, Mahmoud Abbas has far more in common with Bashir Assad than with any Western head of state. His term as president expired years ago, he refuses to hold new elections, he ruthlessly acts against media that is not toeing the line, he severely limits anti-PA protests, and his leadership derives not from any election but from his being the head of the PLO to which the PA answers, and he hand-picked his prime minister. Does he sound like a democratic leader?

(h/t Yoel)

US Treasury Department details Iran/Al Qaeda links

From NYT:

The Treasury Department on Thursday accused the Iranian authorities of aiding Al Qaeda and said it was imposing financial sanctions on six people believed to be Qaeda operatives in Iran, Kuwait, Qatar and Pakistan.

Weighing in on the puzzling question of whether Iran’s Shiite regime seeks to help the primarily Sunni Al Qaeda, Treasury officials asserted that the Iranian government had entered into an agreement with operatives of the terrorist group and was allowing the country to be used as a transit point for funneling money and people from the Persian Gulf to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The officials say they have become convinced that Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, whom they described as a “prominent Iran-based Al Qaeda facilitator,” is operating in Iran under an agreement between Al Qaeda and the government.

“This network serves as the core pipeline through which Al Qaeda moves money, facilitators and operatives from across the Middle East to South Asia, including to Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, a key Al Qaeda leader based in Pakistan,” the Treasury said in a statement.

Mr. Rahman, another of the six people named in the Treasury action, is believed to have recently ascended to the No. 2 position in Al Qaeda, reporting directly to the organization’s new leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, who took over after the death of Osama bin Laden.

“By exposing Iran’s secret deal with Al Qaeda allowing it to funnel funds and operatives through its territory, we are illuminating yet another aspect of Iran’s unmatched support for terrorism,” said David S. Cohen, the Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

[O]ne senior administration said the action sought to expose both “a key funding facilitation network for Al Qaeda and a key aspect for Iranian support for international terrorism.”

“Our sense is this network is operating through Iranian territory with the knowledge and at least the acquiescence of Iranian authorities,” the official said in a conference call with reporters.

In May, a congressional panel released a report detailing military ties between Al Qaeda and the Al Quds force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

A footnote in this MEMRI report on a previously unknown Al Qaeda leader who emerged after Bin Laden's assassination notes that he had lived in Iran for years.

None of this is strong evidence for high-level cooperation between Iran and Al Qaeda, but there is no reason to doubt that they do cooperate when it is convenient for both of them.

(h/t Yoel)

A honor massacre in Pakistan: Father kills six daughters

From the Express Tribune (Pakistan):

A man gunned down six of his daughters on suspicion that two of them were in relationships with boys in the neighbourhood.

On Tuesday morning, Arif Mubashir called his teenage daughters to his room and shot them while the rest of the family, including their mother, watched. His wife Musarrat called the police after the incident.

Mubashir shot the girls after their brother said two of them were in a relationship. He told police officials that he had killed his daughters because they were both “without honour”. The man said his daughters Sameena, 14, and Razia, 16, were in a relationship with college boys from the neighbourhood and the sisters had helped each other. “I should have been told immediately but the girls sided with each other. They were both corrupt,” Mubashir told Tandlianwala Police Inspector Javed Sial.

Police officials have taken Mubashir into custody and filed a case against him. “He does not regret what he did. He boasted that he would do it all over again if he had to,” Sial told reporters.

And if the mother would have objected to the murders, there would be seven victims.

(h/t jzaik)

In Hamas, doesn't take much to reach martyrdom

The headline of the Hamas Al Qassam Brigades website laments the death of Nabil Zaig, 41, who was a part of the terror group since its inception in 1987 (which would have made him 17 at the time.)

The article calls him a "military martyr."

But how did he die?

He drowned, after going for a midnight swim.

Becoming a martyr ain't what it used to be.

Are there a "million missing Israelis"?

A few weeks ago, in Foreign Policy, an article by Joseph Chamie and Barry Mirkin claimed that there are a million Israelis - about one if five - who moved away from Israel and are living abroad. This caused a bit of a hullaboo, and even prompted Tony Karon of Time to use that statistic as a springboard to claim that not only is Israel not the Jewish state, but even Israelis are disillusioned with it.

Well, it turns out that the authors' statistics were misleading, and in some ways incorrect.

Yogev Karasenty and Shmuel Rosner respond to the article, also in FP:

We should start with this simple statement: There are not a "million missing Israelis." A study conducted under the auspices of our think tank, the Jewish People Policy Institute -- one that has not yet been released but will be published in a couple of weeks -- will put the real number of "missing" Israelis at a much lower number. According to Israel's Bureau of Statistics, since the establishment of the state up until the end of 2008, 674,000 Israelis left the country and did not return after more than a year abroad. An unknown number, estimated to be between 102,000 and 131,000, have died since, putting the number of living Israelis abroad at the end of 2008 at 543,000 to 572,000.

It goes on from there, including the fact that many of the "yordim" were Soviet Jews who were in Israel only a short time on their way to the US. And 100,000 others are Arabs.

Which makes the truth a bit less scary than the original story claimed.

Read the whole thing.

A Twitter conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg

There was an interesting Twitter discussion today between Israel's deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon and well-known writer Jeffrey Goldberg.

Ayalon had posted a popular YouTube video about the West Bank, and Goldberg wrote an article belittling it. Ayalon and Goldberg then went to Twitter to continue their argument.

It was so popular that no less than two articles have already been written about the thread, each drawing different conclusions.

I jumped in at something Goldberg wrote to Ayalon:

Keeping the WB will bring about the end of Israel as we know it.

The thread after that:

elderofziyon says:
@Goldberg3000 "Keeping the WB will bring about the end of Israel as we know it" This is an all-or-nothing fallacy. http://j.mp/q4FMIq

Goldberg3000 says:
@elderofziyon why?

elderofziyon says:
@Goldberg3000 Read the link. If Israel keeps Area C (for example) and the Pals declare state in A&B then demographic threat gone.

Goldberg3000 says:
@elderofziyon And endless war ensues. If you were Palestinian, would you accept less than 100 percent of West Bank, including land swaps?

elderofziyon says:
@Goldberg3000 If the point is independence, yes. But that isn't the point, is it? Remember Herzog's famous "size of a tablecloth" quote.
@Goldberg3000 And given the importance given to "right of return," why wouldn't endless war ensue even with 100%?

Goldberg3000 says:
@elderofziyon It very well might. I've never said there are great options on the table

elderofziyon says:
@Goldberg3000 Thanks.. Which is why to my mind the pressure should be on compromise so Israel has security and Pals have a state.

Goldberg3000 says:
@elderofziyon I believe, however, that Israel will become a pariah if the Palestinians aren't granted statehood, or the vote in Israel.

elderofziyon says:
@Goldberg3000 That is an issue, but one that probably can't be discussed effectively here. Goodwill towards Israel usually lasts a month.

I left it at that, for now.

Meanwhile, Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe jumped in:

Jeff_Jacoby:
@Goldberg3000 @elderofziyon And after Pal statehood or voting rights, there'll be 6 new demands Israel must fulfill or "become a pariah."
@Goldberg3000 @elderofziyon Left-wing Zionism would be healthier if it weren't so hungry for the goodwill of Israel's foes & critics.

Goldberg3000:
@Jeff_Jacoby @elderofziyon Why do you instantly assume left-wing Zionists are left-wing because they seek approval from Israel's enemies?

Jeff_Jacoby:
@Goldberg3000 @elderofziyon I assume nothing. But left-wing Zionists do evince a strange need to win their (non-Jewish) enemies' approval.

Goldberg3000:
Examples, please.

That thread is continuing as I write this, but it is not an avenue that I think is too fruitful. The fear of Israel becoming a pariah state is an important topic, though, and one that I would like to treat fairly - which means, not on Twitter.

As soon as I find the time.

Jordanian journalist union upset at "normalization"

Shimon Peres' office released a statement on Tuesday:

President Peres during a Special Press Conference with the Arabic Language media in honor of Ramadan: “Assad Must Go; I Admire the Very Brave Syrian Protesters”

President Shimon Peres held a special press conference today for members of the Arabic language media at Beit HaNassi in Jerusalem in honor of the upcoming month of Ramadan. The President delivered a message of peace and reconciliation during his remarks. More than 30 journalists and television crews participated in the event and represented Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabi, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and the local Arabic language press in Israel.

The President discussed the regional situation, peace process, Iranian
nuclear issue, and Israel’s relations with the Arab world before answering
questions from the journalists.

This has upset the Jordanian Journalists' Union. They are now investigating which reporters from Jordan committed the perceived crime of meeting the president of Israel.

The journalists union is against any contacts with any Israelis, which is a strange position for journalists to take.

They are now in the process of verifying the authenticity of the news, and trying to identify the Jordanian reporter or reporters who attended, so they can expel them from the union. They said that "the committee will not hesitate to take a decisive stand against those wishing to exit the national consensus of rejecting any form of normalization with the Zionist entity."

Great new video on Palestinian refugees

From Free Middle East:

"Ethical" Lush Cosmetics refuses to open Israeli store, but Saudi Arabia is OK

From TheJC:

Skincare company Lush says concerns about the lack of a "mixed" workforce would prevent it opening a store in Israel - but it operates stores in Saudi Arabia.

And this week the company, which has just opened a new store in Brent Cross, north-west London, defended its decision to promote a pro-Palestinian song on its website.

Customers have been challenging staff in the Lush store in Brent Cross, about the company's support for Oneworld's single "Freedom for Palestine". The head office has received 223 emails to date on the issue.

On the Lush website, under "Our Ethical Campaigns" it says: "The catastrophe facing the Palestinian people is one of the defining global justice issues of our time."

Hilary Jones, the company's ethics director, admitted that Lush had been approached by the charity War on Want about putting the single online, but said it had not donated to the cause.

She said: "It was an easy decision. We trade with the region and forge links on both sides of the community. We buy olive oil from a Jewish-Arab project.

"But we don't feel it's a safe environment to have a store. Would we want a shop where we couldn't have a mix? We have a multicultural attitude to everything we do; we want everyone in the country where we are trading to be on an equal footing as far as basic human rights go. Some of the team would have to come through checkpoints and be treated differently on their way to work – that would be our worry."

I hadn't heard about those checkpoints that distinguish between Israeli Arabs and Jews in Israel. You can learn a lot from an ethics director!

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, the fact that Saudi women are not allowed to even drive to the 2 Lush locations in Riyadh does not pose an ethical dilemma for this well-read director of ethics.

I think it might be time to drop a line to the Saudi Arabian Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the infamous religious police known as the Muttawa. After all, can they actually allow this product to be sold in their stores?

It seems to be more offensive than Valentine's Day roses!

Egypt hosts terror convention with Hamas, Hezbollah, more

From the ITIC:

On July 24-25 Egypt hosted a conference called the "Founding Conference of the Arab-Islamic Gathering to Support the Option of Resistance" [i.e., terrorism] to support the so-called "resistance" (i.e., terrorism and violence). It was held at the Egyptian Press Syndicate in Cairo. The Palestinian media reported that the conference was attended by representatives from 14 Islamic countries, among them Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, Morocco, Sudan and Jordan. Also present were representatives from the Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptian political establishment elements. In addition, there were representatives from Hezbollah, and Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations. The Hezbollah representative gave a speech in the name of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (Qudspress and Ma'an News Agency, July 24, 2011).

The conference attendees attempted to establish a link between the so-called "resistance" (i.e., the path of terrorism) and the popular protests in the Arab countries in recent months, stressing that the "resistance" was the only option for "liberating" Palestine. Osama Hamdan, responsible for Hamas' international relations, said in a speech that "the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict will never end unless Israel ceased to exist," and that Hamas would never recognize Israel (Al-Quds TV, July 24, 2011).

Syrian stats: 1,634 dead, 12,617 in jail, 2,918 missing

From AFP/NOW Lebanon:

Almost 3,000 people have gone missing in Syria since the start of anti-regime protests more than four months ago, the Avaaz non-governmental organization said in a statement on Thursday.

"Avaaz has today revealed the identities of 2,918 Syrians who have been arrested by Syrian security forces and whose whereabouts are now unknown," the organization said in statement received by AFP in Nicosia.

It said it was launching a campaign Thursday "to call for the release of the nearly 3,000 Syrians who have been forcibly 'disappeared' since the peaceful uprising began on March 15th of this year."

"The in-depth survey conducted by Avaaz estimates that one person is disappearing every hour.”

"In the past week alone there have been more than 1,000 arrests and the number of enforced disappearances has been rapidly rising on a daily basis, as the regime steps up its efforts to repress dissent in the build-up to Ramadan," the statement said.

According to the organization’s executive director, Ricken Patel, "hour by hour, peaceful protesters are plucked from crowds by Syria's infamously brutal security forces, never to be seen again."

Avaaz said 1,634 people have died in the crackdown, 26,000 have been arrested, of whom 12,617 are still in detention.

Others put the death toll at closer to 2,000.

Things might get more heated during Ramadan, which starts next week. From Bloomberg:

Activists, analysts and Syrian refugees say the uprising is set to intensify during the Muslim holy month. Opposition groups plan to shift from weekly rallies to nightly ones, held after the tarawih, an additional nighttime prayer recited during Ramadan, said Bashar Afandi and Mohammed al-Klesse, who fled Assad’s crackdown on northern Syria and are staying in Turkish camps.

“The mosques will play a pivotal role and every night, when people gather to pray, will resemble what we have seen after every Friday prayers,” said Mahmoud Merhi, of the Arab Organization for Human Rights. A surge in arrests in the past two weeks is probably aimed at heading off the momentum that Ramadan may give to protesters, he said by phone from Damascus.

Soccer team complains over Malaysian anti-semitic abuse

From the BBC:

Chelsea have complained to the Malaysian FA about what they believe was racist abuse directed at Yossi Benayoun during last week's friendly.

The 31-year-old Israeli was jeered each time he touched the ball in a match against a Malaysian XI on 21 July.

Chelsea said: "We believe Yossi was subjected to anti-semitic abuse by a number of supporters at the game.

"Such behaviour is offensive, totally unacceptable and has no place in football," added a club statement.

Agency reports from the match in Kuala Lumpur said the abuse directed at Benayoun - one of the few Israelis to have played in Malaysia, a country which does not recognise Israel - was anti-semitic.

Here is a description of the game by a fan:

I WENT to Bukit Jalil to watch football: A classy EPL football team against a spirited Malaysia team.

Although the match lived up to my expectation, I was shocked at the way Malaysian football fans treated Chelsea’s Yossi Benayoun. Not just one or two fans but a vast majority of them!

It’s another black eye for Malaysia. Reports around the world stated “Benayoun Suffers Racial Abuse from Malaysian Fans” (Sky News).

We, in Malaysia, always pride ouselves on racial equality. Then, of all places, a friendly football match, Malaysians reared their ugly side and jeered a class footballer like Benayoun. I am ashamed.

Although I do not support Israel, I support football. I came to watch football.

Benayoun should be applauded for his courageous decision to travel to Malaysia.

EPL and Fifa (and other sporting bodies) would definitely think twice now about sending teams to Malaysia.

Malaysians, we not only lost to Chelsea FC last night, we also lost respect as well.

(h/t aparatchik)

Another "moderate" saying he wants to destroy the Jewish state

MEMRI released this interview with Nabil Sha'ath, a Fatah leader:

Nabil Shaath: The recognition of a [Palestinian] state is basically a bilateral action, which receives the blessing of the UN. This act, however, will make many things possible in the future. Eventually, we will be able to sign bilateral agreements with states, and this will enable us to exert pressure on Israel. At the end of the day, we want to exert pressure on Israel, in order to force it to recognize us and to leave our country. This is our long-term goal.
...

[The French initiative] reshaped the issue of the "Jewish state" into a formula that is also unacceptable to us – two states for two peoples. They can describe Israel itself as a state for two peoples, but we will be a state for one people. The story of "two states for two peoples" means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this – not as part of the French initiative and not as part of the American initiative. We will not sacrifice the 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live within the 1948 borders, and we will never agree to a clause preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their country. We will not accept this, whether the initiative is French, American, or Czechoslovakian.

Barry Rubin notes:

Supposedly, [Shaath] is the archetypal Palestinian moderate. There was a time when the Western media ridiculed the Israeli declaration that he was a secret Fatah member. When Israel agreed to negotiate with non-PLO Palestinians, the PLO put his name forward although it knew, of course, that he was no such thing. Peace processors ridiculed Israel’s refusal to accept him....It is reasonable to call Shaath as moderate as anyone in the PA’s leadership, more moderate than the Fatah leadership.

...In other words, Shaath, one of the most important and relatively moderate Palestinian Authority leaders, is against a two-state solution. First, there will be a Palestinian state “for one people,” that is an Arab, Muslim state. But there can be no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state because that implies a permanent peace. Shaath and the Palestinian leadership almost unanimously seek a second stage in which the “Palestinians with Israeli citizenship” plus the “returning…to their country” of Palestinian refugees will turn Israel into an Arab Muslim Palestinian part of Palestine.

This is merely a restatement of the “two-stage” solution of the PLO adopted forty years ago.

Also, note that Sha'ath is saying - by his own definition of what "a state for its people" means - that Jews will never be allowed to live in "Palestine!"

He is saying that Israel is racist because he misunderstands what a "state of the Jewish people" means - but he has no problem saying, explicitly, that "Palestine" will be a state of one people, which by his own definition means zero non-Palestinian Arabs living there.

Which sounds suspiciously like he is advocating ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

Jordan upset over Israel's opening Christian site on the river

From AP, July 12:

QASR EL-YAHUD, West Bank (AP) — Israel opened the traditional baptism site of Jesus to daily visits Tuesday, a move that required the cooperation of Israel's military and the removal of nearby mines in the West Bank along the border with Jordan.

The location, where many believe John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the waters of the Jordan River, is one of the most important sites in Christianity.

Until now, it was opened several times a year in coordination with the Israeli military, but because of its sensitive location, it had not been regularly open to the public since Israel captured the site from Jordan, along with the rest of the West Bank, in the 1967 Mideast war.

Jordan maintains that its site on the other side of the river is the actual place were Jesus was baptized, competing for Christian tourism.

So Jordan is complaining to the Vatican.

In a statement, Jordanian officials said that Israel's move was meant to provoke Jordan, that Israel has no right to open up the site in an area that is "occupied," and that a Vatican official has already said that the site was on the Jordanian side.

Hamas considering more kidnappings, says "Israel isn't in our dictionary"

Hamas's head of international relations, Osama Hamdan, has restated the official Hamas positions that the Western media loves to downplay.

Hamdan issued a press release where we learn these wonderful things:

Hamas does not rule out kidnapping more Israelis in order to better its bargaining position in a prisoner swap.
"Resistance will continue, God willing, in order to liberate the land of Palestine from the [river to the] sea."
Palestine has entered a fierce battle with Israel on two fronts. The first front is resistance against the occupation [i.e., Israel] continuing until its termination, and the second to preserve the unity of the Palestinian people.
Resistance will humiliate the Zionist enemy and liberate the land.
"We have made clear we will not recognize the occupation, and today I say more than that: There is no Israel in our political dictionary."

As usual, Western pundits will ignore and downplay any statements like these, while trumpeting vague statements by Hamas that could be badly misinterpreted as meaning that it is willing to accept Israel's existence.

Your tax dollars at work - for terrorists

I quoted Ma'an in March 2009:

An extra 800 shekels (190 US dollars) will be added to the stipend’s given to Palestinians in Israeli prisons this month, Head of Palestinian Prisoner Society in Nablus Ra’ed Amer confirmed on Tuesday.

Each prisoner receives 1000 shekels (238 US dollars) per month, plus an extra 300 shekels (71 US dollars) if they are married, and an extra 50 shekels (12 US dollars) for each child. The stipend is paid by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) each month.

There are currently 4,500 men and women registered as prisoners in Israeli prisons. The increase will be applied to February’s payment, set to go through banks this week.

Amer explained that the increase was made following the instructions of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

And noted then:

Yes, every terrorist in an Israeli jail - people who drove suicide bombers to blow up women and children, people who ordered "martyrdom operations," people who attacked any Jew they could find - gets thousands of dollars annually from the cash-strapped PA, which of course gets its money from successful donors conferences like yesterday's. Every year they get about $16 million, assuming an average of $300 per prisoner per month. And in February alone, they get an additional $855,000.

This is money only for living terrorists. It does not count the stipend that the families of suicide bombers and other "martyrs" get in perpetuity, which together with the prisoner money was estimated in 2005 at being up to $100 million annually.

Palestinian Media Watch had just issued a report detailing this issue, and their head met with members of Congress to describe how US tax dollars are going to terrorists.

The Palestinian Authority spends more than $5 million a month paying salaries to terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons, according to a Palestinian Media Watch report presented to congressmen in Washington on Tuesday.

According to the report, written by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, such payments contravene US law, which prohibits funding of any person who “engages in, or has engaged in terrorist activity.

“The US funds the PA’s general budget,” the document reads. “Through the PA budget the US is paying the salaries of terrorist murderers in prison and funding the glorification and role modeling of terrorists.”

Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, met with Republican lawmakers on Tuesday to discuss the report, amid efforts to get US congressmen – on the eve of the Palestinian move to gain statehood recognition at the UN in September – to cut US funds to the PA, not because of the Hamas and Fatah reconciliation, but because of the PA’s support and glorification of terrorists.

According to the report, “A law signed and published in the official Palestinian Authority Registry in April 2011 puts all Palestinians and Israeli Arabs imprisoned in Israel for terror crimes on the PA payroll to receive a monthly salary from the PA.”

The report says this law “formalizes what has long been a PA practice.”

Those eligible for the payments, according to the report, are “anyone imprisoned in the occupation’s [Israel’s] prisons as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation.”

Quoting from Al-Hayat al- Jadida, an official daily newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, the report said that more than 5,500 Palestinian prisoners receive these funds.

Palestinian car thieves in Israeli prisons will not receive a salary, but every terrorist in prison including murderers are on the PA payroll, the report said, adding that “the salary goes directly to the terrorist or the terrorist’s family.”

That last paragraph shows that the PA is not supporting prisoners - but terrorists.

The $5 million a month does not seem to include the additional special "life insurance" paid to families of suicide bombers and other dead terrorists.

If you are looking for a silver lining to this story, I am told that when PA workers were given only half their salaries earlier this month because of the wannabe state's severe cash crisis, the salaries for the terrorists were halved as well. So you should only be half as angry - this month.

Avian Open Thread

Here's how birds play their version of King of the Hill:

Speaking of tweeters, the Disqus comment system has added a new feature that seems cool if a bit buggy. If you type in an @ with a Twitter name in a comment, it will automatically tweet that person with the URL of the comment thread. (I have found it doesn't work great in Chrome; seemed OK in Firefox.)

I couldn't figure out why my most popular post of the day was the one about how to find images on the web. Maybe I need to turn this into a tech blog!

Anyway, here's an open thread to keep you guys busy overnight.

And if you want some links, check out Barry Rubin and Now Lebanon.

I am rooting for Iran to win a medal in the London 2012 Olympics

Remember in February and March when Iran complained that the London 2012 Olympics logo really spelled "Zion"? Here's how they broke that insidious Zionist code, in case you forgot:

Well, they now have a quandary.

Because the medals were revealed today, and they have that same super-evil-Illiminati-Freemason-Zionist symbol!

Iran has won medals in the last five summer Olympic games (weightlifting, wrestling and Taekwondo) so chances are one or more Iranians will be handed the hated symbol.

Will Iran ban its athletes from winning medals? Will they confiscate winning medals and melt them down, donating the proceeds to Hamas? Will they pretend that they didn't spend an entire month whining about the symbolism and grit their teeth if they win?

I'm now rooting for Iran to win third place in some obscure sport, just to see how they deal with this. No matter how they handle it, it will be funny.

Then again, there is a simple solution for Iranian athletes: Only enter competitions where Israel is also competing, and then they can come down with mysterious fictonal illnesses, forfeit the competition and not have to worry about winning!

You can still order the EoZ exclusive London Zionist Games T-Shirts! I already sold a bunch, and they'll be worth a fortune when the summer of 2012 comes around!