Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Egyptian fatwa: Kill all Israelis in Egypt

An Egyptian cleric issued a fatwa to kill any Israeli who resides within the Egyptian territory, in response to the killing of an officer and two soldiers from the army near the Egyptian border with Israel.

Dr. Salah Sultan, professor of Islamic law at Cairo University and Chairman of the World Federation of Muslim Scholars, told El Chorouk that Egyptians have the right to kill any Zionist attacking him, after Israel ended the Camp David accords by killing Egyptian army soldiers from a military aircraft yesterday.

The newspaper quoted Sultan during a protest outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo as saying that "the Egyptian people will not differentiate anymore between the Egyptian and Palestinian blood."

Do you think he is including the Israeli Arabs who have continued to vacation in Sharm el-Sheikh?

Because if not, then he should clarify his statement and say he only means Jews.

A Jihadist doctor dies in Gaza

From Ma'an:

A Gaza doctor died on Wednesday night after suffering from an electric shock, a spokesman from the emergency services said.

Maher Dalloul, 36, was electrocuted while turning on an electric generator in his house in Gaza City.

Dalloul had worked as a surgeon at Ash-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip, emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya said.

Just another tragic story from Gaza.

Except for the fact that he was a member of Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

From the English Al Qassam website:

Al Qassam Brigades mourns the death of Maher Dalul

As Al Aqsa Intifada against the occupation assault on the Gaza Strip continues, Ezzeddeen Al-Qassam Brigades has its best men to be in the playground of death to defend their people from any attack by the enemy ... Today, Al-Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahed: Maher Said Dalul [38 years old]

The Mujahed martyred of electric shock on 18-08-2011. He was martyred after a long bright path of jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice.

Al Qassam Brigades mourn the death of the Mujahed, reaffirms the commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces.

Finally, may Allah (swt) accept him and his blessed efforts for the path of Jihad and may Allah grant his family patience and solace for his lose.

Dalul even had a nom de guerre, Abu Anas.

Being a doctor doesn't mean you are not a terrorist or terrorist supporter.

Lebanon thwarts UNSC condemnation of Eilat attacks

From Ya Libnan (Saturday):

Lebanon blocked the U.N. Security Council on Friday from condemning a series of terrorist attacks in Israel.

The United States had circulated a draft press statement to the Security Council that would have condemned the attacks by gunmen who crossed into southern Israel from Egypt on Thursday and killed eight Israelis. Israel blamed an armed Palestinian group from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and launched retaliatory airstrikes.

During a closed council meeting, diplomats said Lebanon refused to sign on to the statement, which requires the support of all 15 council nations.

The U.S. deputy ambassador, Rosemary DiCarlo, told reporters afterward that the statement used “standard language on terrorist acts,” which the council has adopted many times.

“We think the council needs to speak out on this issue,” she said. “We find it regrettable that because of one delegation we couldn’t issue that in a timely way.”

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor called the Security Council’s actions “outrageous,” calling it a “sad reminder that the United Nations is too often deaf and blind when it comes to acts of terror committed against the people of Israel.”

And what was the official reason that Lebanon refused to denounce a terror attack?

Kuwait News Agency tells us:

Lebanon and other Non-Aligned members on the Council, diplomats said, did not accept the use of "terrorist attacks" because the gunmen were after a military target - soldiers.

Hey, why should the truth enter into any UN decisions? It just gets in the way of its main job of condemning Israel.

And isn't it comforting to know that Hezbollah has full veto power at the UN Security Council?

(h/t Israel HaYom)

UN report proves Gazans lie to media

In my last post, I wrote that Ma'an credulously quoted a Gaza doctor who said that Israel was using new, advanced weapons that incinerated Gaza victims in a much more horrific fashion than in previous raids. As "proof," the doctor said "Israeli weapons made no distinction between women, children and the elderly, pointing out that a two-year-old toddler and a 13-year-old boy were among those killed in the latest escalation."

A UN report from OCHA shows that this 13 year old boy was killed by a Grad terror rocket that fell short, not Israeli fire:

Between Friday, 19 August and Sunday, 21 August, initial reports indicate that the Israeli Air Force carried out approximately 30 air strikes on the Gaza Strip, resulting in the killing of seven Palestinians, and the injury of approximately 30 additional Palestinians. Tank fire from Israel forces stationed along the border and at sea was also reported, without casualty or damage. During the same period, tens of rockets and mortars fired by Palestinian armed groups towards cities in southern Israel resulted in the death of one Israeli civilian and the injury of six, including a baby and a nine-yearold child. One Palestinian child, 13-years-old, was also killed, and six others injured, when a GRAD rocket fired by Palestinian armed groups fell short.

We've seen in the past that Palestinian Arab "eyewitnesses" will knowingly lie to the media, and this is yet another example. The question is why the media continues to report their lies with no skepticism at all.

Another recent example is Al Jazeera publishing an op-ed by a Gazan "eyewitness" who wrote:

On Thursday, and after a rough night full of Israeli air attacks on different locations in the Gaza Strip, we woke up to another hot Ramadan day which was interrupted by news about a shooting operation in Eilat, whereby five Israeli soldiers were killed and 36 others were injured.

The first obvious lie is that the Eilat attacks didn't kill 5 Israeli soldiers, but rather killed 6 Israeli civilians and two soldiers.

Far worse, though, is that this Gaza "eyewitness" is claiming that there were Israeli airstrikes over Wednesday night in Gaza preceding the terror attack - and there were none! Al Jazeera and other Arab media publish these lies without the slightest bit of embarrassment or interest in setting the record straight.

One other fact that becomes clear from reading the UN report: Israel's reaction to the terror attack was very limited. In fact, while Gaza terrorists shot some 100 Grad and Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians, Israel's response included only 30 airstrikes. Which means that by the bizarre definitions of the world human rights community, Gaza terror groups are guilty of using disproportionate force.

(h/t IsReal1948, Dan)

New, improved, deadlier Israeli weapons! Must be true - Gazans say so!

Ma'an shills a bit:

The head of an emergency ward in a Gaza City hospital said Monday that Israeli forces were using new, more brutal weapons against residents of the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Israeli forces began a four-day bombarded the coastal enclave killing 14 Palestinians and wounding dozens more in a series of airstrikes and drone attacks.

Dr Ayman As-Sahbani said patients were admitted with horrific injuries and that some bodies delivered to Al-Shifa Hospital were so badly burned they were unrecognizable.

He said Israeli weapons made no distinction between women, children and the elderly, pointing out that a two-year-old toddler and a 13-year-old boy were among those killed in the latest escalation.

Does this mean previous Israeli weapons did distinguish between women, children and the elderly?

This is simply a conspiracy theory dressed up in a doctor's clothes. Given that some 11 of the 14 killed in Gaza were in fact terrorists, and the others were human shields, the only point that can be made about Israeli weapons is that they surpassed their previous already-stellar record of avoiding civilians.

We've seen "car swarms" for years, and the bodies were pretty much toast in those cases as well. This doctor is just playing the usual game of trying to blame Israel for war crimes when, in fact, Israel's brief gaz operation was proportional, limited and deadly accurate.

See also this important followup.

YNet: Unknown group "Jihadi Resistance" claims Eilat attacks

From YNet:

An unfamiliar organization calling itself the "Jihadi Resistance" claimed responsibility for the terror attack in south Israel last Thursday, in which eight people were killed.

The organization's spokesperson claimed the operation's aim was to assassinate Defense Minister Ehud Barak, adding that the organization will release a video of the attack in the upcoming days. The report could not be verified.

I could not find any Arabic site mentioning this unless they were quoting Yediot, so I don't know where this original announcement can be found online.

So did this organization call YNet directly?

It would make life much easier if the media sites would give links the way bloggers do. They still act as if they hold a monopoly on information - and how to interpret it.

The new Egypt wonders whether bikinis will be allowed on beaches

Al Masry al Youm reports that nervous Egyptian tourism officials met with members of the Muslim Brotherhood about their plans to encourage tourism should they gain power.

Specifically, they were asking their positions on allowing tourists to drink liquor or wear bikinis on the beach.

Muslim Brotherhood Secretary Dr. Saad Katatni dodged the question about liquor, but he stated that "Egypt is a religious country and wearing bikinis should not be allowed in the public beaches."

However, he said that "there could be an alternative to this kind of question, and perhaps one can wear bathing suits in private beaches."

The tourism officials replied that without wine and bathing suits, there would be no tourism altogether in Egypt.

A follow-up meeting is planned.

It is interesting that the tourism representatives are worried enough about a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt to initiate such a meeting to begin with.

Israel is Xanax for the Arabs (Now Lebanon)

An editorial in Now Lebanon:

The reaction to the investigation into the February 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in general, and in particular the indictments handed down to the four alleged Hezbollah members accused of carrying out the crime, is arguably the most exquisite distillation of the Arab obsession with the conspiracy.

Had there been video footage of Nasrallah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad jointly flicking the detonator switch as Hariri’s motorcade sped past the St. Georges Hotel on that fateful day, we would still believe they were Israeli lookalikes. Israel is our security blanket, our Xanax—call it what you will. We are a people who don’t want to consider any alternative to a safe but ultimately stunting worldview that casts Tel Aviv as the villain. Buying into Israel as the bogeyman is the drug we take to assure ourselves all is well.

When the March 14 coalition demands that Hezbollah surrender its weapons because it wants to move forward and build a country in which the state controls all arms, at best it is accused of hiding behind a clearly naïve argument—one that connects Lebanese security from Israeli attack to the deterrence created by the party’s armed wing—and at worst of being a key pawn in a fiendish Western stratagem to destroy the Resistance.

Anti-Western conspiracy theorists will say that the million Lebanese who took to the streets on March 14, 2005 did not force the Syrian army out of their country; the Americans did. It couldn’t have happened without them. And yet they will have no truck with an argument that suggests that Hezbollah would not be the party it is without Iran. Both are true to a greater or lesser degree, but the latter is perceived as morally stronger because it has Israel in its sights.

The Resistance is a pure, noble and brave institution, committed to Lebanon’s national integrity, ready to defend its southern border from foreign—read: Israeli—infection. The party and its supporters will laugh off suggestions that it is first and foremost a powerful asset in Iran’s regional standoff with Israel and the West. This is nonsense, we are told. It is a theory the West would have us believe, a conspiracy within a conspiracy, if you will. As one NOW Lebanon reader commented last week in defense of Nasrallah and his party, “Hezbollah is our pride, our Honor, and our [sic] Lebanon’s Liberators.” It is a mantra that tells part of the story.

Who needs the rest? Who cares about the decades of Arab authoritarianism, corruption and repression? This is explained away as our chronic condition, our lot in life, one that is somehow easier to deal with if the ever-present specter of Israel hovering in the wings is ready to rush on stage like a pantomime villain. To look inside ourselves would be too painful.

Hamas rips me off!

A few months ago, after Bin Laden was killed, I made a poster:

Now I see that a similar billboard is being put up in Gaza!

A recently erected martyrdom poster honouring Osama Bin Laden and Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin adorns a main street in Rafah near to the Egyptian border on August 21, 2011 in Rafah, Gaza

How dare Hamas take my idea equating two of the most prominent terrorist organizations!

Even worse, how dare they spit in the face of all those oh-so-educated Western Middle East experts who know without a doubt that Hamas is pragmatic and potentially peaceful with Al Qaeda is intransigent and incorrigible!

One more dead terrorist

I have noted and listed the names showing that, according to the PCHR, 10 out of the 13 people killed by the IDF in Gaza since Thursday were terrorists, and the other 3 were human shields who were right with them when they were killed.

Hamas' Al Qassam website claims that 15 were killed by Israel. And they list one Hamas member who was killed, who was not on the PCHR list:

Ashraf Azzam, 31, killed Friday.

So it is possible that the IDF was even more impressive in its accuracy of killing terrorists - 11 out of 14, or 78%, an almost unbelievable number for urban warfare. (If there was a 15th, I cannot find any mention of it.)

Terrorists count up their rocket tallies

The PRC says it shot 101 rockets and mortars towards Israel since Thursday.

Islamic Jihad says it shot 17 Grad rockets, and 9 "107" missiles and 22 mortars to Israel.

Hamas, after initially claiming to have shot a few missiles, reversed itself and now is not claiming any.

The PFLP says it shot 13 rockets and 12 mortars on Saturday and Sunday.

Terror groups have always been proud of their rocket totals.

I'm not certain if the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades from Fatah fired any.

It looks as if the tallies aren't final yet....two new rockets were fired Monday evening.

When masked jihadists talk - people listen

A photo from Islamic Jihad's press conference yesterday:

Surprise! PA postpones elections again!

PA president-for-life Mahmoud Abbas has just announced that the local elections that were planned for October 22 are being postponed indefinitely.

The reasons? Here's the doubletalk:

To contribute to efforts to end the division and achieve national reconciliation and unity, and support of national and Arab efforts to end the division and achieve reconciliation and unity which are national goals, and provide the atmosphere to achieve this, and to give opportunity to the Central Election Commission to complete readiness for elections in all provinces of the country, and on the powers conferred upon us, and upon the necessities of the higher interest and the public interest.

See? It is in the public interest to delay elections as long as possible. Because, after all, why should the public have a say in who is going to govern them?

And these are only the local elections. Elections to decide the actual leaders of the PA are not even on the drawing board.

Iranian sponsored anti-Israel march in London (updated)

From Iran's PressTV:

Hundreds of British nationals, including Muslims, civil and anti-war activists, and anti-Zionist Jews have taken part in the annual Al-Quds Day demonstration in London.

The demonstrators gathered at Portland Place, outside BBC Radio theatre, to protest against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Afterwards, demonstrators marched through central London to Trafalgar Square where they listened to speeches addressing the Palestinian issue.

Demonstrators carried Palestinian and Hezbollah flags and various anti-Zionist placards reading “Zionism is racism”, “freedom for Palestine”, “end occupation”, “end the killing”, “end the Israeli Apartheid”, “stop funding genocide”, “right vs. might”, “63 years of occupation must end”, “silence is complicity” and “boycott Israel”.

Moreover, the Pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanted: “we are all Hezbollah”, “end the occupation now”, “Zionism terrorism”, “we are all Palestinians”.

There are a few videos on YouTube showing the event; here are a couple of screen shots:

Notice the sign above?

I guess MJ Rosenberg is right - they're not trying to delegitimize Israel. They're just trying to destroy it.

(Al Quds Day is an Iranian holiday created by Ayatollah Khomeini. It takes place this coming Friday, the last Friday of Ramadan.)

UPDATE: More from Richard Millett who was there:

Report: Egypt identified three of the Eilat terrorists

From Al Masry al Youm:

Egyptian authorities have identified three of the people responsible for carrying out a terrorist attack in Israel, just north of Eilat, on Thursday, in which seven Israelis were killed, according to an Egyptian security source.

The same source added that one of the men identified is a leader of terrorist cells in Sinai, while another is a fugitive who owns an ammunition factory.

It is unclear whether "identified" means "caught."

Also:

The source also gave details of an attack by Israeli security forces that left three Egyptians dead on Thursday. One army officer and two police officers were killed when an Israeli helicopter crossed the Egyptian border at mark no. 79, fired two missiles and then hovered over the Egyptian checkpoint, firing its machine guns, said the source.

I've seen reports saying that the IDF accidentally killed between 3 and 5 Egyptians.

I have not seen their names. I have not seen any news about their funerals.

I have also not seen the Egyptian press mention any soldier being killed by the terrorists themselves, including by suicide belts, something the Israeli media reported on.

Al Masry al Youm also has an interesting detailed report on the situation in the Sinai:

Ayoub and his followers believe that the security apparatus unwittingly created the threat of Islamists in Sinai, and that it was the same Islamists who suffered under these unlawful and harsh detentions who attacked the police station on 29 July.

While his Salafi group is peaceful, Ayoub says there are others that believe in violence, such as Al-Takfeer wal-Hijra.

When asked about their level of armament, he says, “They are armed, like everywhere else in Egypt, especially after the revolution started.” Ayoub told the media over a week ago that his group was ready to arm 6000 people in Sinai to protect the territory. Many in Sinai view themselves as the guardians of Egypt’s borders from potential Israeli threats.

Khaled Saad, a businessman and secular political activist in Arish, may not have much sympathy for the militant Islamists, but he still doubts that they are tightly organized groups with deep-rooted ideologies. The level of their threat, he says, is somewhat exaggerated.

“There has been a lot of anger at the security practices of the toppled regime, so it became easy for some sheikhs to gather outlaws and smugglers around them so that they become a militia,” Saad says, echoing Ayoub in suggesting that the recent attacks on state institutions are the continuation of a battle that began with the oppression of locals by Mubrak’s security apparatus.

Infiltrations from the Gaza Strip have also raised concerns about a rising Islamist insurgency in Sinai. Palestinian factions competing with Hamas’ control of Gaza are chased out and driven into Sinai by way of tunnels that bypass the tightly controlled border.

“Both Hamas and the military intelligence here in Arish have full information about all groups infiltrating into Egypt from Gaza. No one can expand and form a whole armed movement here, because they are well-tracked,” says a Palestinian living in Arish who requested anonymity.

..Egyptian tanks and armored personnel carriers are currently present at military checkpoints between Arish, Rafah, and the nearby town of Sheikh Zowayed.

The military show of force is part of the Egyptian armed forces’ “Operation Eagle,” a troop mobilization that began on 12 August. The deployment, which is ostensibly in response to terrorism threats, needed to be authorized by Israel, as it technically breaches the peace accords, according to reports in the Israeli daily Haaretz.

The mobilization came a week after a statement from a group advocating for an Islamic emirate in the peninsula and calling itself Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula went viral in the Egyptian media. In response, the military said it would “purge” the peninsula. Many people in Sinai voiced their support for the operation, but others raised concerns.

Before the attacks in Israel on 18 August, Egyptian security forces were quick to call the Sinai operation a success. Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin said at a press conference last week that the campaign has so far managed to arrest members of Al-Takfeer wal-Hijra and collect arms and illegally-acquired military uniforms. The assailants in the 18 August attack in Israel were reportedly wearing Egyptian army uniforms.

Security sources have also told local media that Palestinian members of the militant group Islamic Jihad were among those were arrested, some of whom were previously detained in Egyptian prisons and fled during the chaos of last winter’s uprising.

Local media have also reported on coordination between Hamas and the Egyptian military to monitor the movement of potential infiltrators to Sinai from Gaza through the tunnels, particularly from the Army of Islam and a little-known group Jaljalat. Both claim ties to Al-Qaeda.

Some experts on Islamist movements, such as Khaled al-Berry, suggest that the Army of Islam has loose ties to the Syrian regime, which is currently facing massive protests calling for its downfall.

Berry, who classifies groups like the Army of Islam as not strictly ideologically-motivated and easily employed by political players, warns of possible chaos in Sinai being sponsored by an embattled Syrian regime trying to prove its strategic importance to the region.

But in the end, it appears that the threat came from none of those groups. The attack on southern Israel on Thursday that killed eight people was, according to Israel, perpetrated by insurgents from Palestinian Resistance Committees based in Gaza who infiltrated Sinai through tunnels.

YNet has a report about the Sinai situation as well, but it does not seem to be nearly as in depth as this one.

See also the previous post by Suzanne.

(h/t Yoel)

Egypt and Israel both struggling with Al Qaeda

In the aftermath of the deadly attacks in Southern Israel, many are still wondering who was behind the attacks. Israel believes that the Popular Resistance Committees had a hand in the attacks and retaliated against them. The in Gaza based PRC denies involvement, but the PRC is obviously not only present in Gaza, but also in Egypt:

As the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs points out in an interesting article:

To stop the loosening of the Egyptian grip on Sinai, Israel agreed twice to significant Egyptian troop increases to their force deployment in the peninsula, thus changing the parameters set in the military annex of the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty. The latest deployment of more than a thousand troops was made only a few days before the terrorist incursion into Israel and was meant to boost Egypt’s efforts to regain its hold on Sinai. Assessing that the main threat to Egypt’s authority was in northern Sinai, where the gas pipeline splits toward the neighboring countries, Egypt decided to deploy its forces in that area, thus leaving the southern part diluted of forces and open to infiltrations.
However, from day one of the operations against the extremist organizations in northern Sinai, the Egyptian authorities realized to their dismay that the phenomenon is not limited to Sinai but engulfs the whole of Egypt. Islamist cells have been created all over Egypt so as to topple the regime by force. The network of Palestinian organizations in Gaza has already proved to be a threat to Egypt itself. In January 2011 Egypt’s former interior minister, Habib el-Adly, charged that the Gaza-based Palestinian Islamist group Jaish al-Islam was responsible for a New Year’s Eve attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria that left twenty-three Egyptian Christians dead. Jaish al-Islam is an Al-Qaeda affiliate and was formed by members of the Popular Resistance Committees, the organization responsible for last week’s attack within Israel.

The blog also mentions what happened two days before the event on Road 12: Egyptian forces mounted an attack east of the town of el-Arish and revealed:

The members of the group were part of a Takfiri organization, that is, the same organization of Muslim zealots that assassinated President Sadat in 1981, some of whom subsequently joined the Al-Qaeda militants.
The group was trained militarily in Gaza and in the region of Jabal Hilal in central Sinai, which is now the area where most of the fundamentalists fleeing the Egyptian security forces have found refuge. Jabal Hilal has been a notorious base for Al-Qaeda in the recent past and the location of difficult battles between Al-Qaeda and the Egyptian army, in which, in one case, an Egyptian general was killed.
Those militants were part of the groups that sabotaged the gas pipeline to Israel.
The leader of the Palestinians who allied with the Egyptian members of the El-Arish group was a member of Islamic Jihad in Gaza. He managed to reach El-Arish by using one of the underground tunnels. He had been in prison in Egypt but was able to escape to Gaza in the wake of the Egyptian revolution.
The Egyptians associated with the Palestinians were highly educated (one a mechanical engineer, another with a BA in administration) and came from Suez, Alexandria, Qalyoubiah, and Suhaj. The Egyptian security forces were surprised, since this was the first time a Sinai terrorist cell included members from outside of Sinai.
The interrogations revealed that there was a Takfiri presence almost throughout Egypt. El-Arish was a convenient location because it is close to Gaza and Israel, making it easier to obtain weapons.
The group clearly had a theological, jihadist outlook. Basically they wanted to replace the regime by force according to the tenets of Takfir (in which one Muslim declares another an unbeliever) and of the Egyptian Salafist movement.
Most of the Egyptian detainees had been members of fundamentalist organizations for years.
Their main targets were Egyptian security forces (which they viewed as heretic) and strategic installations such as the gas pipeline.

The so-called Arab Spring might be - for the time being - refreshing towards former opponents of the Mubarak regime as they now seem to be able to express their views without fears; it did create an opening towards Islamist actors as legitimate political entities:

The rise of various Islamist factions (...) that are striving for power makes it difficult for jihadists to directly threaten the regime’s stability. Realizing that they cannot (...) confront the Egyptian state head-on, the jihadists are trying to undermine the regime indirectly by exploiting the situation regarding Gaza and Israel and through renewed militancy in Sinai, and also by reviving religious tensions between Copts and Muslims, (...)

And that's a serious reason for concern:

Particularly significant is that the cell captured in El-Arish shows that the Takfiri and jihadist movement in Egypt is very much alive and even gaining more terrain. It can be assessed that the Takfiri militants are either part of Al-Qaeda or working hand in hand with their Al-Qaeda operators.

Indeed, as the The Jerusalem Center concludes:

Only a tight, effective, but mostly tacit partnership between Israel and Egypt can help both parties, each for its own reasons, cooperate in eradicating the fundamentalist cells in Sinai and beyond.

I hope the Egyptians will understand.

PRC spokesman: No truce, but we'll stop rockets

Although there were about 12 rockets overnight after a supposed cease-fire deadline at 9:00 PM, it looks like a shaky truce has started.

Originally the PRC had stated they would not adhere to the cease-fire but after a few parting shots they seem to have changed their mind. From their website:

Abu Ataya, spokesperson of the Nasser Saladin Brigades, military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, said that there is no room to talk about a truce with the enemy killing our children....Our account with them is over the soil of all of Palestine.

The Nasser Saladin Brigades Mujahid was able by the grace of Allah Almighty to pound Zionist occupation settlements with rockets that have killed and wounded dozens of Zionists, and which also led to the creation of a state of terror and paralysis of the movement in the south of occupied Palestine that continues.

The military spokesman for Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades said the Brigades announced a temporary halt in rocket fire for the interest of the Palestinian people.

It is important that Westerners see the actual words that these people speak publicly. By the time it gets to the Western media the above statement, if mentioned at all, becomes "The Popular Resistance Committees military wing announced Monday they would adhere to the ceasefire." The seething hate always gets cut out, and over time well-meaning (and not so well-meaning) leftists start to believe that these people are reasonable and can be persuaded to eventually accept Israel's existence.

But isn't it great that the spokesperson for the group talks about how brave they are but refuses to show his face?

UN withholding the Mavi Marmara report again

Oh, come on:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon informed Israel Sunday that he was postponing – yet again – the publication of the Palmer Commission report on the Mavi Marmara incident last year, to give both sides additional time to reach an agreement that would obviate the need to release the report.

As was the case the two previous times, the postponement was, according to Israeli officials, requested by Turkey.

The Palmer Commission report, which has already been written, is widely believed to uphold the legality of Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, and its right to intercept vessels trying to break the blockade.

The paper also reportedly takes Israel to task for using disproportionate force in stopping the ship, but does not call on it to apologize for the incident.

Turkey is demanding that Israel apologize for the incident, pay compensation to the families of the nine people killed and lift the blockade of Gaza.

Has the UN ever delayed releasing any other reports at the request of one of the countries that gets blamed within?

As Ha'aretz reported after the report was written in early July:

According to a political source in Jerusalem, the final findings of the Palmer Report show that the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza is legal and is in accordance with international law.

The report also sharply criticizes the Turkish government's behavior in its dealings with the committee. Palmer, an expert on international maritime law, added in the report that Israel’s Turkel commission that investigated the events was professional, independent and unbiased.

His findings on the Turkish committee were less favorable, with Palmer concluding that the Turkish investigation was politically influenced and its work was not professional or independent.

The Palmer Committee also criticizes the IHH organization that organized the Gaza flotilla as well as its ties to the Turkish government, suggesting Turkey did not do enough to stop the flotilla.

On the other hand, the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper has suggested that the report will say that the IDF had "intent to kill" people on the ship and that Israel had requested one of the delays of releasing the report.

"It's over, frizz-head" - Details of Qaddafi's fall

Al Arabiya has some details on the dramatic events in Libya:

Jubilant crowds of Libyans gathered in Tripoli’s central Green Square Monday to celebrate a hard-fought victory over the forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, reportedly staying in the Tajura-Cardiac hospital, east of Tripoli.

Rebels and Tripoli residents waving opposition flags and firing into air swept into the square, a symbolic showcase the government had until recently used for mass demonstrations in support of the now embattled Qaddafi. Rebels immediately began calling it Martyrs Square.

The armed brigades of Colonel Qaddafi quickly melted away as rebel forces from the western mountains entered the capital on Sunday to join local rebel groups who rose up against Qaddafi a day earlier.

The whereabouts of Colonel Qaddafi were not immediately known, but a reporter from Tripoli told Al Arabiya TV that he was being treated in the Tajura-Cardiac hospital, east of Tripoli. There were no reports on whether Colonel Qaddafi was undergoing treatment in the hospital or simply taking refuge the facility.

The reporter said rebels had taken control of most of Tripoli neighborhoods. He added Qaddafi loyalists could not be seen in the city.

Opposition fighters captured his son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, who along with his father faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. Another son, Mohammad, was under house arrest.

“It’s over, frizz-head,” chanted hundreds of jubilant men and women massed in Green Square, using a mocking nickname of the curly-haired Colonel Qaddafi. The revelers fired shots in the air, clapped and waved the rebels’ tricolor flag. Some set fire to the green flag of Mr. Qaddafi’s regime and shot holes in a poster with the leader’s image.

The startling rebel breakthrough, after a long deadlock in Libya’s 6-month-old civil war, was the culmination of a closely coordinated plan by rebels, NATO and anti-Qaddafi residents inside Tripoli, rebel leaders said. Rebel fighters from the west swept over 20 miles over a matter of hours Sunday, taking town after town and overwhelming a major military base as residents poured out to cheer them. At the same time, Tripoli residents secretly armed by rebels rose up.

When rebels reached the gates of Tripoli, the special battalion entrusted by Mr. Qaddafi with guarding the capital promptly surrendered. The reason: Its commander, whose brother had been executed by Colonel Qaddafi years ago, was secretly loyal to the rebellion, a senior rebel official Fathi Al-Baja told The Associated Press.

Mr. Fathi al-Baja, the head of the rebels’ political committee, said the rebels’ National Transitional Council had been working on the offensive for the past three months, coordinating with NATO and rebels within Tripoli. Sleeper cells were set up in the capital, armed by rebel smugglers. On Thursday and Friday, NATO intensified strikes inside the capital, and on Saturday, the sleeper cells began to rise up.
...
The day’s first breakthrough came when hundreds of rebels fought their way into a major symbol of the Qaddafi regime - the base of the elite 32nd Brigade commanded by Qaddafi’s son, Khamis. Fighters said they met with little resistance. They were 16 miles from the big prize, Tripoli.

Hundreds of rebels cheered wildly and danced as they took over the compound filled with eucalyptus trees, raising their tricolor from the front gate and tearing down a large billboard of Qaddafi. From a huge warehouse, they loaded their trucks with hundreds of crates of rockets, artillery shells and large-caliber ammunition.

One group started up a tank, drove it out of the gate, crushing the median of the main highway and driving off toward Tripoli.

The rebels also freed more than 300 prisoners from a regime lockup, most of them arrested during the heavy crackdown on the uprising in towns west of Tripoli. The fighters and the prisoners - many looking weak and dazed and showing scars and bruises from beatings - embraced and wept with joy.

“We were sitting in our cells when all of a sudden we heard lots of gunfire and people yelling ‘God is great.’ We didn’t know what was happening, and then we saw rebels running in and saying ‘We’re on your side.’ And they let us out,” said 23-year-old Majid al-Hodeiri. He said he was captured four months ago by Qaddafi’s forces crushing the uprising in his home city of Zawiya. He said he was beaten and tortured while under detention.

From the military base, the convoy sped toward the capital.

Official Palestinian Arab news agency rewrites even recent history

WAFA, the official PA news agency, is known for rewriting history - for example, it has said multiple times that there was never a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

But this symbol of the "moderate" Palestinian Authority has no compunctions with lying about recent history either.

Sunday was the anniversary of the attempted firebombing of the Al Aqsa Mosque by a deranged Austrialian Christian named Denis Michael Rohan.

Yet WAFA, in its article about the anniversary, says that Rohan was Jewish. Three times.

When the official news media of the Palestinian Authority has such reckless disregard for the truth, why should anyone believe anything the PA ever says?