Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Israel working with Kenya against Islamists

From the BBC:

Israel has offered to help Kenya secure its borders as it tackles Somalia's Islamist group, al-Shabab, the Kenyan prime minister's office has said.

It said Kenya got the backing of Israel to "rid its territory of fundamentalist elements" during Prime Minister Raila Odinga's visit to the country.

Last month, Kenya sent troops to neighbouring Somalia to defeat al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda.

It blames the militants for a spate of abductions on its side of the border.

In a statement, Mr Odinga's office quotes Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that "Kenya's enemies are Israel's enemies".

"We have similar forces planning to bring us down," he is is quoted as saying. "I see it as an opportunity to strengthen ties."

At least 15 people were killed in a suicide bombing on an Israeli-owned hotel in the Kenyan coastal resort of Mombasa in 2002.

Four years earlier, more than 200 people were killed in co-ordinated bomb blasts on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Al-Qaeda carried out the attacks, with some of its senior members operating from Somalia.

Mr Odinga - who is accompanied on the visit by Internal Security Minister George Saitoti - said Israel could help Kenya's police force detect and destroy al-Shabab's networks in Kenya.

Kenya also needed Israel to provide vehicles for border patrols and equipment for sea surveillance to curb piracy off the East African coast, he said.

"We need to be able to convincingly ensure homeland security," Mr Odinga said.

The statement quoted Mr Netanyahu as promising to help build a "coalition against fundamentalism" in East Africa, incorporating Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Tanzania.

Israel's President Shimon Peres had promised to "make everything available" to Kenya to guarantee its security within its borders, the statement said.

"Consistently, Kenya has shown a very positive attitude towards Israel and Israel is ready to help," the statement quotes Mr Peres saying.

Look closely, and you can see the hate dripping from he face of the evil extremist right-wing hawkish racist supremacist Israeli leader.

Or at least some people can.

(h/t Yoel)

PA says Israel building a "Talmudic garden" in Silwan

The official Palestinian Authority Wafa news agency says:

The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem Thursday seized a piece of land belonging to a Palestinian Orthodox Monastery in the neighborhood of Al-Thawri, west of the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, according to a press release by the committee for the defense of Silwan.

The release said the Israeli municipality seized the 850 square meter piece of land in order to turn it into a Talmudic garden and a parking lot.

The committee expressed fear that the land would be turned into a Talmudic garden under the control of the Israeli nature and parks authority, surrounding the areas of Wadi Hilweh and Al-Bustan in Silwan.

I have no idea what they think a "Talmudic garden" is. Perhaps it looks like this:

The Arabic press often uses the word "Talmudic" to add an extra degree of vitriol to anything that Israeli Jews decide to do.

It is most often used in articles about Jews going to the Temple Mount where they are accused of "performing Talmudic rituals" - by which they mean, prayer.

Their use of the word shows that the real fear the Arabs have is not of "Zionism" but of Judaism. Zionism is regarded as a modern construct whose expected lifespan would not be any greater than that of Communism, but Judaism is far more ancient and lasting than Islam - and that is their real fear.

That's why their cartoons and caricatures always depict Jews as hook-nosed, black-hat wearing religious Jews rather than, say, stereotypical Sabras. They project their fears into illustrations and articles like this because they know that Islam will outlast the political flavor of the decade or century - but it will never outlast the religion from which it was derived.

Interestingly, the phrase "Talmudic garden" was used by rabidly anti-semitic Christian leaders who were behind some of the censorship of the Talmud. One wanted every reference to non-Jews in the Talmud to be excised, saying he wanted "the total uprooting of all such weeds from 'the talmudic garden of Satan, the paradise of Hebrews, revered by them as the gospels of the talmudic Antichrist.' " Modern Islamic use of the term mirrors the use from medieval Christianity.

Ironically, much of the Quran comes from Talmudic stories that are not mentioned explicitly in the Torah.

Finally, a "Talmudic garden" actually was dedicated last month in Bet El, in the courtyard of a school where students would be encouraged to study Talmud outside.

It is also worth reviewing out my previous article on Kfar HaShiloach - what is now called Silwan - showing the Yemenite Jewish village on an otherwise empty hillside in 1891 and how the Jewish community grew until they were ethnically cleansed and turned into refugees by the Arab riots in 1921 and 1929.

The photograph I obtained of the area in 1891, thanks to Robert Avrech of Seraphic Secret, is now featured in the Wikipedia entry on "Silwan," showing a small victory of truth making it into the mainstream.

It looks like a good place for a Talmudic garden.

Egypt TV: "Jews use women to harm Muslim society"

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Amin Al-Ansari, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on October 26, 2011:

Amin Al-Ansari: In The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, they say: "Women benefit us. They help us, wherever they may be. Whenever a woman comes to our aid, we must not reject her, because we will definitely benefit from her." If women use their clothing to do that – [Jews] benefit. If women use their makeup to do that – they benefit. If women use their moral values to do that – [Jews] benefit. If women aid them through their rebelliousness – they benefit. If women do so through any means – they benefit.

Of course, when Zionism and Judaism, benefit, it means the decline not only of Muslim women, but of humanity as a whole. As proof, whenever any woman extends her hand to them, they cut off this pure hand, and it becomes – Allah forbid – despicable.

Look at the women of Hollywood, who extend their hands to the Jews – after all, it was the Jews who created Hollywood, and this is the most elite class of women in the world that cooperates with the Jews.

What did they do? Marilyn Monroe once said… A woman once said to her: "I’d like to be just like you. I'd like to become a famous actress like you." Marilyn Monroe wrote to her – and this letter still exists: "My girl, you'd be better off marrying a man who goes to work, then returns at the end of the day with the daily bread, and you will live happily with him, raising your children. It's better than being famous, but devoid of will and devoid of honor. Take a look at me. The Jews made me what I am, and now they are killing me."

We Jews don't only own the banks, the government, Hollywood and the media - we also control all women worldwide!

Now, that's power!

(h/t jzaik)

Springtime! Tunisia's next leader goes full Islamist (updated)

Hang onto your hats; there's a lot in this small article.

From Tunisia Live:

Tunisian Islamist party Ennahda invited Houda Naïm, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council based in Gaza, to speak at a rally in Sousse, a coastal Tunisian city, this past Sunday. The event marked the first time in known memory a member of Hamas has addressed the Tunisian public.

Naïm praised the victory of the Tunisian people in establishing democracy, and stated her hope that the “liberation” of Tunisia would lead to the liberation of Palestine.

The event also saw a speech from Ennahda’s general secretary Hammadi Jebali, recently proposed by the party to be the new Prime Minister of Tunisia.

Jebali declared that the occasion was “a divine moment in a new state, and in, hopefully, a 6th caliphate,” referring to the historical system of Islamic monarchies.

The tone of this last comment is in sharp contrast to many of the party’s public statements, where it has denied any intention of instituting Sharia or Islamic law in the nascent democracy.

The general secretary also echoed Naïm’s words, stating, “The liberation of Tunisia will, God willing, bring about the liberation of Jerusalem.”

The Tunisian blogosphere and liberal media are in an uproar over this. One article in English at AllVoices is representative, and it claims that Jebali also was saying he was seeing signs from Allah. A newspaper reportedly placed an illustration on its front page showing Jebali dressed in the robes of a caliph.

And this insane Islamist is the next leader of Tunisia.

(h/t jzaik)

UPDATE: MEMRI now has the video:

Millions of Muslims occupied for six decades - where?

From Eugene Kontorovich at Opinio Juris back in 2009:

In 1949, a land that had for hundreds of years been home to Muslim peoples was forcibly seized by outsiders. They implemented a policy of ethnic dislocation and colonization. While some of the Muslims, chafing under the occupation, turned to terrorism, the recalcitrant state refused to budge even until today.

And the occupied country is — the Second East Turkestan Republic, home of the Uighurs.

The extensive media coverage of and diplomatic reaction to the recent and perhaps ongoing ethnic violence between Han and Uighurs in Xinjiang seems to have missed an important detail.

The Uighurs are not simply a minority group in China that may not be getting the fairest deal. Rather, they are arguably an occupied people – and the massive Han Chinese population in the area almost entirely settlers.

China conquered the independent Second East Turkestan Republic in 1949, in an open land grab. This was news to me — the illegal conquest of Tibet the subsequent year is well known, but apparently without a Dalai Lama, the Uighurs’ national aspirations are paid even less lip service than Tibetans’.

How could there be such silence about an ongoing illegal occupation? I briefly looked at the media coverage and reports of international human rights organizations (Amensty, HRW), and I can find none that discussed the situation as an occupation or the Han as illegally “transferred” people under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Nor does this appear to be the position of any nation, though again I don’t claim to have done meticulous inquiry and would be happy to be corrected.

Is there some reason this issue is not on the international law radar? Or have I missed something? Naturally I don’t expect anyone to rush to liberate East Turkestan – I’m a realist. But what about “soft power”? And the role of NGOs? If this is an occupation, it is probably one of the worst ongoing ones — something like 10 million people occupied, which I think is more than West Bank, Western Sahara, Northern Cyrus, Tibet, Abkazia/Ossetia, etc. combined.

Let's start an NGO to free the millions of Uighurs. Millions of dollars can easily be raised when Muslims are living under horrendous occupation, right? Perhaps an overland flotilla of aid to get the ball rolling.

Leftists should be falling over each other to volunteer to help.

(h/t Zach N)

Human shields surround Iranian nuke plant

On Sunday, I posted about a game called Persian Incursion that essentially war-games an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. I haven't played it yet but the review I quoted made it sound really interesting.

I had a brief discussion in the comments with one of the game designers about what possible scenarios are included, and I wrote:

My only remaining question about the likelihood of civilian casualties would be if Iranian civilians are coerced or volunteer to be human shields for military or nuclear sites. Less likely than Hamas, but certainly in the realm of possibility.

The game co-designer, Jeff Dougherty, answered:

That is indeed a possibility, and one we didn't consider in the game. I can see it going either way depending on how it's presented, how deep the media digs on the story, and what the attitude of the rest of the world is at the start....

Well, my scenario has already happened.

Hundreds of students on Tuesday formed a human chain around the uranium conversion plant in central Iran, in a demonstration staged by students to show that Iranians were ready to sacrifice their lives if the nuclear sites were attacked by Israel.

After holding a noon prayer session in front of the plant's main gate, students from Isfahan universities shouted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." They vowed to resist in the event of an attack.

Wow!

There is a small body of literature on the legal status of voluntary human shields. From what I can glean, if they are protecting an unquestioned military installation or target, according to most (except HRW) they forfeit their status as civilians and become considered combatants under international law. If they are shielding a dual-use facility, which would include nuclear research and nuclear material refining, it appears that they would maintain their status as civilians.

Which makes my question, all of a sudden, really relevant.

(h/t Omri at Commentary)

An effective anti-Israel protest in Detroit - and a question

On November 1, Wayne State University's "Students for Israel" group sponsored Gil Hoffman, a Jerusalem Post writer and IDF reservist, to speak.

Anti-Israel students came up with an effective protest. They jammed the auditorium where Hoffman was speaking, some of them holding signs or with their mouths taped up, and at one point they all got up and left, leaving the hall with only 15 or so people left to hear Hoffman.

While it shows that they have no interest in dialogue or co-existence with Israel, there is nothing wrong with their methods - as long as they didn't disrupt the talk or stop interested people from attending, it is a fine and legal way to show displeasure.

However....

According to this account, about 150 protesters participated and it was well organized and planned. They were not only from WSU but also from Fordson High School.

Fordson High is about 95% Arab. Its principal and most administration are Arab as well. There have been charges that the administration has discriminated against non-Muslim teachers.

Hoffman's talk was scheduled for 12:30 PM, right in the middle of a normal school day.

Fordson High is about seven miles away from WSU, a 15 minute drive but it takes some 45 minutes to get there by public transportation.

My question is, did the administration of a public high school allow - or encourage - its students to attend an anti-Israel demonstration during a school day? And if so, did they provide transportation to the event?

If so, the high school administrators should have to answer for their actions.

Crusader inscription discovered - written in Arabic!

From Israel's MFA:

An Arabic inscription that bears the name of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, and the date "1229 of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus the Messiah", was recently deciphered by Professor Moshe Sharon and Ami Shrager of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During the deciphering it became evident that this is a rare archaeological find - the only one of its kind.

The 800-years-old inscription was fixed years ago in the wall of a building in Tel Aviv. The original location of the gray marble slab, on which the inscription is engraved, was probably in Jaffa's city wall.

As Professor Sharon relates, "Frederick II led the Sixth Crusade of 1228-1229 and succeeded, without resorting to arms, in achieving major territorial gains for the Crusader Kingdom. His most important feat was the handing over of Jerusalem to the Crusaders by the Egyptian sultan al-Malik al-Kamil as a result of an armistice agreement the two rulers signed in 1229. Prior to achieving this agreement, the emperor fortified the castle of Jaffa and left in its walls, as it now appears, two inscriptions, one in Latin and the other in Arabic. The Arabic inscription was drafted by Frederick's officials, or possibly even the emperor himself, and it is the one which has been now deciphered".

Although just a small part of the Latin inscription was preserved, it was enough to ascribe it, already at the end of the 19th century, to Frederick II. Today, with the aid of the Arabic inscription, it is possible to virtually complete the text of that fragment.

The unique Arabic inscription is almost completely intact. It lists all of the titles of Frederick II, and as already stated, has no counterpart elsewhere. In Sicily, where Frederick's main royal palace was located, no Arabic inscription of his has been found to date. Furthermore, until now this is the only Crusader inscription in the Arabic language ever found in the Middle East.

Frederick II, despite having been excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX, crowned himself king of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and mentioned his being the 'King of Jerusalem' in this inscription. He knew Arabic and maintained a close relationship with the Egyptian royal family.

I wonder what would happen to such a find if it was discovered in an area that was ruled by a government that includes Hamas.

I'm sure UNESCO would protect Arabic writings that extol Crusaders from any possible harm.

The UN is selective in their cartoon outrage

Remember last week when UNESCO strongly protested a cartoon in Ha'aretz that was intended to make fun of Netanyahu but which they thought was incitement against them?

"And on your way back, you're gonna hit the UNESCO office in Ramallah!"

Well, it seems that there are some anti-UN cartoons that the UN has no problem with.

Read it all at UN Watch.

(h/t Blazing Catfur)

Apartheid? Enlistment rate in IDF higher for Druze than for Jews

From the IDF website:

Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz on Friday (November 4) visited the Bedouin village of Zarzir and met with community leaders, including Hassan al-Hayeb, head of the local council.

Lt. Gen. Gantz also visited the Druze village of Julis in honor of the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday and met with community leaders there as well, including Sheikh Muwafak Tarif.

Lt. Gen. Gantz thanked his hosts and talked about the importance of increasing the enlistment rates from all sectors of Israeli society. He expressed his appreciation for the dedicated service that Bedouins and Druze soldiers have given to the IDF.

In recent years, the enlistment rate in the IDF has increased in the Bedouin and Druze communities. Data shows that the enlistment rate in the Druze sector is higher than in the Jewish sector (83% compared to 72 %) and that 60% of Druze soldiers in the IDF serve in combat units.

Data also shows an increase in the enlistment rate in the Bedouin sector (from 345 in 2005 to 492 currently).

Language poses the largest challenge to minorities serving in the IDF, although surveys show that most minority soldiers view their army experiences as positive.

Shhhhh...the idea of non-Jews being happy and willing to contribute to Israel's defense is a secret that must not get out.

It could really hurt all those conferences and books and people that swear that Israel is an apartheid state.

Today's anti-Israel stunt - plus poster (updated)

Today a bunch of anti-Israel agitators are pretending to be civil rights activists by going on buses meant for Israeli citizens in the territories to travel to Jerusalem. For obvious reasons, these buses do not allow (Arabs and*) non-citizens to enter Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria - communities that for the most part are gated to stop Arab terror attacks.

Anyway, they are all a-twitter on Twitter about how the army is taking them off the buses. Awful, isn't it?

So I made up a poster for the occasion:

*UPDATE: I am told that Arab citizens of Israel do take the buses that go east of the Green Line.

A fire in Gaza

I mentioned yesterday that a pilot program for exporting furniture from Gaza is planned to start next month in an agreement hammered out between Israel, the EU and Gaza exporters.

Israel insists that all goods exported from Gaza, whether agricultural or manufactured, adhere to international quality standards. Very few furniture factories in Gaza meet those standards.

One of those is named "Biseiso" after its owner, who worked hard to meet those standards. He was excited to have the opportunity to export his furniture to the EU and his workers had been working hard to set everything up.

This morning at 5:30, Biseiso's factory was destroyed in a massive fire. Multiple fire companies were needed to control the flames.

Beseiso does not think this fire is a coincidence.

According to him the other factory owners in Gaza are fearful as well that the same fate awaits them.

Whether it is from jealous competitors or from people who believe that Gazans should not profit from "collaborating" with Israel, there are some big problems in Gaza that do not get any attention because so many want to keep the focus relentlessly on alleged Israeli crimes.

And people like Mr. Beseiso are the victims.

Melanie Phillips: Blaming the Victim

The widespread fallacy that the ‘peace process’ has stalled because Israel keeps building more Jewish ‘settlements’ on ‘Palestinian land’...is not only totally wrong but utterly perverse.

Al Arabiya: Al Qaeda returns to Egypt under Iranian cover

If Arab countries are not attacked by Israel, they will certainly be attacked by Iran, and al-Qaeda is ready to help.

Jewish Ideas Daily looks at a WaPo article praising young, attractive PalArabs who want to peacefully destroy Israel.

An Iranian source for the Guardian blames the Mossad for the explosion in Iran on Saturday.

My Right Word notes an interesting loophole in an initiative to register Palestinians to vote directly for the Palestinian National Council - every Israeli and many Jews would be considered "Palestinian."

Khaled Abu Toameh asks why Israeli Arabs don't have better representatives in the Knesset?

The role of Arab Knesset members should be to fight for increased budgets, better infrastructure, new working places and full integration into Israeli society. The overwhelming majority of Israeli Arabs are fighting for integration into Israel, not separation.

The next time Israeli Arabs go to the ballot boxes, they should vote for those who represent their real interests, and not candidates who only know how to deliver fiery speeches and promote hatred.

Video parody: Jewish and you know it (not exactly safe for work)

(h/t Benny, Yoel, Hadassah)

Human organ trafficking war between Sinai Bedouins (updated)

From Al Masry al Youm:

The Al-Tiaha tribe has besieged the Al-Nakhalwa tribe in Sinai since Sunday, accusing it of smuggling Africans and stealing their organs. They killed a Nakhlwa tribesman, whom they believe is involved in human organ trafficking, and arrested his assistant in order to deliver him to the police following fierce gun battles between the two tribes.

Nakhalwa tribe elder Sabbah al-Nakhlawy denied his tribe is involved in such activity.

Meanwhile, a woman by the name of Hanan Mohsen reported to the police that a gang tried to kidnap her and take her organs.

For his part, North Sinai Security Director Saleh al-Masry said the matter was exaggerated. “We have a firm security plan for the area,” he said.

I can't wait for all the people who slam Israel for organ trafficking to denounce Egyptian organ-trafficking.

Because it is obvious that they are motivated by pure humanitarian concerns and not hatred of the Jewish state.

(h/t Dan)

UPDATE: This article by Mordechai Kedar reveals much more about the illegal organ trade in Egypt, and it is shocking. (h/t Jean)

40 killed in first major armed battle in Syria

From Reuters:

At least 40 Syrians were killed in fighting on Monday between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and insurgents in a town near the border with Jordan, local activists said, in the first case of major armed resistance to Assad in the region.

They said troops backed by armour killed 20 people — army defectors, insurgents and civilians — in an assault on Khirbet Ghazaleh in the Hauran Plain, and in fighting that ensued near the town. A similar number of troops were killed, they added.

The troops attacked Khirbet Ghazaleh, 20 km north of the border, on the main highway between Amman and Damascus, after army defectors attacked a security police bus at a highway intersection near the town, the activists said.

Even though everyone is urging the activists to stick to peaceful protests, I don't think Assad would step aside without any military pressure.

Meanwhile, official Syrian news reports that over the weekend Syria staged huge pro-regime rallies to protest the Arab League's censure:

The photos, provided by Syria and showing large rallies in multiple cities, appear to be legit - but it is hard to know for sure. And, of course, there is no way to know what incentives or threats were offered to people to attend.

Some amazing video footage from Israel

From Creative Media Group:

Yemen, Lebanon voted against Syria's suspension from Arab League

The much heralded vote over the weekend calling to suspend Syria's membership in the Arab League was not unanimous.

Iraq abstained:

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Monday defended his country's abstention from a vote on suspending Syria from the Arab League, emphasising that events in Syria have a direct impact on Iraq.

"Iraq's stance was not easy," Zebari told a news conference on Monday.

"Syria is a brother country. It is an important country in the area, and we have special relations with it, as it hosted hundred of thousands of Iraqis in difficult circumstances," he said, referring to Iraqi refugees who fled to Syria to escape violence at home.

Yemen voted against.

And Lebanon voted against:

Where does one begin? In a year of so many lows, Lebanon, by choosing not to sanction Syria at Saturday’s Arab League meeting in Cairo, has probably reached its nadir. For in doing so, it has torn up its much-vaunted democratic credentials and sided with the forces of repression and systematic murder. Subsequent explanations from both the Lebanese president and prime minister did little to justify the way Lebanon, along with troubled Yemen and Syria itself, voted.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati explained that the decision to side with a regime that has killed more than 3,500 protesters, and which has constantly broken all promises to embark upon a program of reform, was based upon “historic and geographic considerations and facts that take into account the Lebanese peculiarity, which we know that [our] Arab brothers understand.”

Lebanon’s “Arab brothers” understand only one thing: Beirut and Damascus are joined at the hip, and the March 8 forces that overthrew the democratically elected government of Saad Hariri in January of this year did so with the overarching aim to restore Lebanon to Syria’s orbit after a six-year hiatus. It is for this and this reason only that Lebanon sided with one of the region’s darkest forces.

Iran is trying to spin the vote as if it was closer than it was, by claiming that Jordanian leaders were divided:

Jordan's vote for the suspension of Syria from the Arab League earlier this week has reportedly caused a rift among the Jordanian government officials.

According to Arab media reports, senior members of the Jordan's foreign ministry have slammed the order made by the League which calls on member states to withdraw their ambassadors from Damascus.

A spokesman for the Jordanian foreign ministry has allegedly called the decision not binding and that any Arab country can choose not to follow such orders.

This seems to be fiction as far as I can tell, but one of the comments in this PressTV article is too good to ignore:

All these Zionist gutless puppets who call them selves Arabs have their day coming, their western stance and silence on Israel will bring their destruction by their own people , if you research that fake king abdullah you will find that his mother is a British Jew who was an actress

Wow, a halachically Jewish king in Jordan? Why haven't we heard this before?

(Abdullah's mother Princess Muna did convert to Islam when she married King Hussein - it is one of those racist Jordanian laws we never hear anyone complain about - but she was not Jewish in any way. Her family tree can be seen here.)

Fatah official says elections will be in May 2012

Ma'an (Arabic) quotes Fatah Central Committee member Azzam al-Ahmad as saying that he hedl a number of secret meetings in Cairo ahead of a planned meeting between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas' Khaled Meshal there next month (update: later this month.)

He says that agreements have already been made to hammer out a consensus government ahead of planned May 2012 elections, along with some agreements on restructuring security services and around the elections themselves.

He said Hamas was on board with this agreement even though they have made combative statements against Fatah in recent days.

I'm skeptical, to say the least. So far all the agreements have been for show, and the idea that Hamas would consider loosening its grip on power in Gaza is far fetched. It is only a little less far-fetched that Fatah would cave on the issue of security in Gaza.

What seems clear is that Fayyad will be gone, and whoever replaces him will not be as popular among Western governments. Chances are pretty good that whoever becomes caretaker prime minister will have some terror background.

From UN stunt to "unity" stunt

I reported yesterday that Hamas was complaining that Mahmoud Abbas did not live up to his end of the "unity" agreement from last May and that they would not accept that Salam Fayyad stay prime minister.

Now that the Fatah-led (and Hamas-opposed) UN stunt has spectacularly failed, Abbas is ready to re-consider the unity stunt.

Anything to avoid real negotiations.

From Al Arabiya:

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad signaled on Monday he is ready to step aside to help reconcile the two rival factions of the Palestinian national movement and pave the way for presidential and parliamentary elections.

The departure of the U.S.-educated former World Bank economist, 59, would be a concession by President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the mainly secular Fatah movement which is dominant in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to his Islamist rivals Hamas, who control the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip.

Abbas will call in a speech on Wednesday for a government of independent experts to prepare for the elections, presidential adviser Nemir Hammad told Reuters.

This scenario was part of a reconciliation deal signed last April but never implemented. Elections were last held in 2006.

Abbas is also due to hold face-to-face talks in Cairo this month with his arch-rival, the exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. One official said the meeting could bring reconciliation closer “should Abbas abandon his commitment to Fayyad” as his candidate to head the caretaker government.

The narrative of perpetual Palestinian Arab victimhood

At a speech given in September, Shelby Steele said:

The Arab-Israeli conflict, is not really a conflict, it is a war – a war of the Arabs against the Jews. In many ways, this conflict has been a conflict between narratives. We who strongly support Israel have done a poor job in formulating a narrative which will combat the story spun by the other side. We can do better.

The Durban conferences, the request for UN recognition of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, and the general animus in the Middle East and elsewhere toward Israel and toward the Jews, what are they really about? Is the Durban conference and the claim that Israel is a racist nation really about reforming the people of Israel and curing them of their racism?

I think their real interest is to situate the Palestinian people within a narrative of victimization. This is their ulterior goal: to see themselves and to have others see them as victims of colonialism, as victims of white supremacy.

Listen to their language; it is the language of colonial oppression. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas claims that Palestinians have been occupied for 63 years. The word oppressed is constant, exploited. In this, there is a poetic truth; like poetic license, in a poetic truth a writer will bend the rules in order to be more effective.

...Focusing on the case of the Palestinians, who would they be if they were not victims of white supremacy? They would just be poor people in the Middle East. They would be backwards. They would be behind Israel in every way. So this narrative is the source of their power. It is the source of their money. Money comes from around the world. It is the source of their self-esteem. Without it, would they be able to compete with Israeli society? They would have to confront in themselves a certain inferiority with regard to Israel – as most other Arab nations would have to confront an inferiority in themselves and be responsible for it.

The idea that the problem is Israel, that the problem is the Jews, protects Palestinians from having to confront that inferiority or do anything about it or overcome it. The idea among Palestinians that they are victims means more to them than anything else. It is everything. It is the centerpiece of their very identity and it is the way they define themselves as human beings in the world. It is not an idle thing. Our facts and our reason are not going to penetrate easily that definition or make any progress.

...Freedom is a dicey thing to experience. When you come into freedom, you see yourself more accurately in the world. This is not unique to the Middle East. It was also the black American experience, when the Civil Rights bill was passed in 1964 and we came into much greater freedom. If you were a janitor in 1963 and you are still a janitor in 1965, you have all these freedoms and they are supported by the rule of law, then your actual experience of freedom is one of humiliation and one of shame. You see how far you have to go, how far behind you are, how little social capital you have with which to struggle forward. Even in freedom you see you are likely to be behind for a long time. In light of your inability to compete and your underdevelopment, freedom becomes something that you are very likely going to hate – because it carries this humiliation.

At that point formerly oppressed groups develop what I call bad faith. Bad faith is when you come into freedom, you are humiliated and you say, "Well you know the real truth is I am not free. Racism still exists. Zionism is my problem. The State of Israel is my problem. That is why I am so far behind and that is why I cannot get ahead."

You develop a culture grounded in bad faith where you insist that you are less free than you really are. Islamic extremism is the stunning example of this phenomenon. "I have to go on jihad because I am fighting for my freedom." Well you already have your freedom. You could stay home and study. You could do something constructive. But "No, I cannot do that because that makes me feel bad about myself." So I live in a world of extremism and dictators.

This is the real story of the Palestinians and of the Middle East. They will never be reached by reason until they are somehow able to get beyond bad faith, to get beyond this sort of poetic truth that they are the perennial victims of an aggressive and racist Israeli nation.

Challenging their narrative with this explanation will enable us to be more effective. Until now, we have constantly used facts and reason and have not progressed.

...The irony and the tragedy of all this is that it keeps these groups in a bubble where they never encounter or deal with the truth. This becomes a second oppression for all these groups. They have been oppressed once, now they are free and yet they create a poetic truth that then oppresses them all over again.

How are you going to have good faith if you are raised being told that the society in which you are trying to compete is against you, is racist? It is always the Palestinians who suffer, and will continue to suffer, because all of their energy is going into the avoidance of their situation rather than into being challenged by it and facing into it.

Read the whole thing.

A textbook example of this kind of thinking comes from the comment pages of todays' Al Quds al Arabi (Arabic.) In an article about the Arab League suspending Syrian membership, at Al Quds al Arabi, commenter Majid Dudin says:

The Jews stole all our land, language, and technology from us; they robbed and raped the Canaanite language and corrupted it into what is called the Hebrew language, and their technology is stolen from Europe at the hands of Jonathan Pollard and others.

How perfectly a single comment encapsulates Shelby Steele's argument! Blame everything on the Jews - to avoid being blamed for your own inadequacies and failures.

An entire culture has been raised with this kind of thinking for generations. And they are enslaved by it just as they try to enslave the rest of the world by this false and bigoted framework.

(h/t CHA)