Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Tehran lies and Israeli morality

An article in both MehrNews and the Tehran Times pretty much makes up facts to describe the "naqba":

TEHRAN, May 16 (MNA) -- When the sun descended behind the Al Khalil mountains on May 15, 1948, the inhabitants of the verdant village of Kafar Qasem in Palestine were once again waiting for the men to return from the fields.

Reports then began trickling in of a massacre of Palestinians carried out by members of the terrorist organizations the Hagana and the Stern Gang in a nearby village.

The family of Mahmud al-Natsha, one of the poor farmers of Kafar Qasem, was waiting for him to return, but suddenly a terrible sound descended over the entire village.

The Zionist terrorists, backed by British colonial forces, entered the village and massacred innocent women and children.

Hagana’s leader at the time was none other than Menachem Begin, who later went on to become prime minister of the Zionist regime, despite his terrorist past.

The Hagana’s terrorist attack left over 200 dead just in Kafar Qasem, all of whom were innocent women and children.

Say what? A massacre on the very day of Israel's independence? And Begin heading the Haganah?

Of course, the author, Hassan Hanizadeh, is a bald-faced liar, but he knows that his normal readership at MehrNews and Al-Jazeerah.info and far-left Western media outlets will be even more ignorant than he is.

There was a bad incident at Kafr Qassem - in 1956, not 1948. And that incident, as unfortunate as it was, underscores the differences between a fundamentally moral nation and a fundamentally immoral one:

On October 29, 1956, on the eve of the Sinai Campaign, the Israeli army ordered all Israeli Arab villages near the Jordanian border placed under a wartime curfew that was to apply from 5 p.m. until 6 a.m. the next day. Any Arab on the streets was to be shot. The order was given to Israeli Border Police units at 3:30 before most of the Arabs from the villages could be notified. Many of them were at work at the time.

At Kfar Kassem, villagers began to arrive from work to their homes after the curfew. Israeli Border Police opened fire on them. A total of 47 Israeli Arabs were killed (some sources say 51 dead). The news of the killings was censored and the general Israeli public did not learn what happened until several weeks later when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced the findings of a secret inquiry.

There are the facts. And the aftermath of that event shows the difference between Israel and Palestinian Arabs:

The event was shocking to the Israeli public who demanded, and got, a full investigation. Prime Minister Ben Gurion said the act, "struck at the holiest principles of human morality", perhaps reminded of Nazis who claimed they were "just following orders".

The extensive investigation revealed that the local commander had issued an illegal order. As a result, about two years after the event, eleven border policemen were charged with crimes and eight were convicted of murder on the grounds that it is immoral to fire on unarmed civilians and no possible military order could justify that act. Among the convicted were the unit’s commander who had instructed his soldiers to "kill anyone who violated the curfew." ...

The Israeli Supreme Court made a new ruling on the right and duty of soldiers to disobey unlawful orders. That ruling has been incorporated into Israeli martial law. On the 43rd anniversary of the incident (1999), Israeli civics teachers were instructed to lead a one-hour discussion on Kafr Kassem in their classes. Israel wants its future soldiers to understand the need to identify and disobey an illegal order in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling.

So there was a crime that occurred there, and the Israeli public was stunned.

No handing out candies, no dancing, no celebrations. No annual holidays to commemorate the deaths of Arabs. They displayed deep shame rather than the deep pride that accompanies Arab murderers.

The lesson from Kafr Qassem is the exact opposite that the lying author is trying to convey. The real lesson is that while Israel is far from perfect (and indeed the murderers even got out of jail much earlier than they should have), the Israeli psyche is the polar opposite of the Arab psyche that celebrates the deaths of innocents and idolizes the murderers.

So I must thank the propagandist Hassan Hanizadeh for allowing me to learn once again how utterly immoral his society is compared to Israel's.

My letter to Reuters (Hamas "truce")

In your article on Mahmoud Abbas, you say:

Hamas is formally committed to destroying Israel, though it has observed a truce for more than a year.

This is simply a lie. There have been many documented attacks by Hamas during the so-called "truce", including rocket attacks, although they have not been all successful. In addition, it is clear that many attacks that used to be "joint efforts" of Hamas and other terror groups now still happen, just without Hamas taking credit.

For example, see this blog article that refers to US terror statistics from 2005:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2006/04/that-hamas-truce.html

Since you claim that you quickly correct mistakes,

Reuters news operations are based on the company's Trust Principles which stipulate that the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters must be upheld at all times.
Reuters has strict policies in place to ensure adherence to these principles. We are committed to accurate and balanced reporting. Errors of fact are always promptly corrected and clearly published.

I would appreciate if you can point me to where you correct this one.

(The feedback form is buried way deep in the Reuters website. Here is the form I used.)

Mahmoud Abbas: Terrorist

It is time for the world to stop buying into the charade of "good cop, bad cop" being played by Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas. Abbas is just as bad as Hamas, and maybe more so because he hides his support for terror and genocide against Jews.

For example: Abbas is the nominal head of Fatah, which has never dissociated itself from its own Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, responsible for countless terror attacks. The most charitable interpretation of this relationship is that Abbas is a bumbling figurehead with no real power to stop his own (paid!) people from terror attacks; the worst is that he approves everything that they do. As the heir to notoriously two-faced Yasir Arafat, one tends to believe the latter explanation.

His own Al Aqsa leader was just quoted as celebrating the death of 16-tear old American Daniel Wultz:

Abu Nasser, a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in the West Bank, rejoiced in Wultz's death. Abu Nasser is part of the Brigades leadership in the Balata refugee camp suspected of plotting the attack.

"This is a gift from Allah. We wish this young dog will go directly with no transit to hell," Abu Nasser said.

Terror group Islamic Jihad commented on the idea that they might try to assassinate Abbas:

"There is no difference between us and President Mahmoud Abbas that would make anybody even think of throwing a stone on him," said Khaled al-Batsh, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza.

His pals at Al-Aqsa also threatened Europe and America for withholding their welfare checks:

"We won't remain idle in the face of the siege imposed on the Palestinian people by Israel, the US and other countries," said a leaflet issued by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Gaza Strip. "We will strike at the economic and civilian interests of these countries, here and abroad."

At a Naqba celebration, Abbas said:

"Our first priority is to lift the economic and political siege, then to end the occupation of our land once and for all, and to establish our independent Palestinian state."

Any question as to which land he is referring to? The Fatah logo answers that nicely:

Also notice the priorities: the state is the last of his list, even though he could declare an independent state today.

Of course, we cannot forget that Abbas was one of the first Arabs to jump on the Holocaust-denial bandwagon, back in 1983:

In 1983, in an early public example of denial from an indigenous Middle Eastern source, a Palestinian named Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) wrote The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. In the book, Abbas suggested that the six million figure was "peddled" by the Jews but that in fact "the Jewish victims may number six million or be far fewer, even fewer than one million." In 1995, reports of the book's existence reached the Western press, largely because of the public prominence that Abbas had attained as the chief PLO architect of the Oslo peace accords and cosigner of the 1993 Declaration of Principles in Washington. The California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center publicly called for Abbas to clarify his position on the Holocaust, but no clear statement was forthcoming. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, Abbas tried to frame the issue in terms of realpolitik. "When I wrote The Other Side...we were at war with Israel," Abbas said. "Today I would not have made such remarks...Today there is peace and what I write from now on must help advance the peace process."

In other words, my words do not necessarily reflect my reality.

Abbas is also less than forthcoming as he circles the globe trying to extort money from Western governments, money that history has shown goes towards terror - either by paying PA "policemen" who moonlight as terrorists, or by freeing up money for terror, or that is laundered through UN agencies and NGOs towards terror.

Contacts with solid information – all speaking off the record – describe the current PA fiscal crisis as political or “artificial” in nature. There are other PLO holdings – of considerable magnitude – Abbas would be able to draw upon.

So while Abbas may not brandish a gun like his predecessor, and while he may wear suits, his goals and methods are indistinguishable from Arafat, the godfather of modern terror. And an Abbas-led PA is no more peaceful in its goals than Hamas. Anyone who tries to prop up Abbas is acting according to the terror playbook, and a West panicked by Hamas needs to remember that the alternative is no more peaceful and considerably less honest.

Happy Naqba!

I just wanted to wish all of my readers a Happy Naqba!

As Hossam Ezzedine, the terror apologist for AFP, describes it:

Palestinians marked the worst day in their history, determined to lift damaging economic sanctions and warning that Israeli unilateralism could kill off a two-state solution.

Indeed, it was the worst day of their history. (Notwithstanding that they weren't called "Palestinians" for at least 15 years afterwards...)

Because what exactly happened in May of 1948? Instead of accepting a Palestinian Arab state that the UN offered, they decided to try to wipe out the Jews.

Of course it was a disaster! They chose wrong and lost!

In 1948 there could have been a Palestinian Arab state with its own flag, currency, and international legitimacy. If they would have chosen peace with Israel they would have jobs, a good economy, oceanfront property, and an incredibly tiny Jewish state next door.

So, in commemoration of the incredibly bigoted and stupid move that their forefathers chose, they celebrate the annual event of the disaster of their own making. They wave flags and shout empty slogans and threaten the West and make friends with Iran and Syria and support terrorists.

And here's the funniest part - they could have a state today! They could declare a Palestinian Arab state in Gaza and easily get more than half the UN to recognize them as a legitimate state - any hour of any day they choose. They could invite the gigantic Palestinian "diaspora" to help them build their country in the areas that Israel no longer enters. They could be preparing the institutions needed to run their state. It is all there for the asking.

After all, the very day that Britain left Palestine was the day the Israel declared itself independent. It isn't that hard.

But evidently it is preferable to complain about a naqba rather than do anything about it.

Because they do have a currency today - and that currency is whining.

They have learned that they get more attention by whining to the world about their self-imposed catastrophe than by doing something about it. They whine about occupation, they whine about having no money, they whine about Israelis defending themselves, they whine about a Jewish mom in Samaria building a new bathroom on her house. They love when their kids get killed, because a funeral is worth many, many whines.

Complaining is its own reward. It gets results - nations throw money at the whiners, at least at whiners about Israel.

So we will be seeing many, many more decades of Naqba celebrations. You can whine more easily about catastrophes that you pretend happened to you than about the hard work you refuse to do. And it is hard to teach an entire generation how to work when they have been raised to whine.

Humanitarian crisis, part 9 - Isn't it strange?

Our friends the Palestinian Arabs are showing yet again how much they value their economy:

Several greenhouses belonging to the former settlement of Morag in the Gaza Strip were destroyed over the weekend during an attempt by dozens of gunmen to take control of the area.
The Palestinian Company for Economic Development, which is in charge of thousands of greenhouses that used to belong to Morag and other settlements in Gush Katif, said the attack, which took place on Friday, was the latest in a series that began almost immediately after the settlements were evacuated.
The company revealed that hundreds of greenhouses and other agricultural installations have been sabotaged over the past few months, expressing its outrage over the recurring phenomenon. The company issued an urgent appeal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Interior Minister Said Siam to intervene to halt the attacks on the lands belonging to the former settlements.
"These greenhouses and other installations and projects provide a source of income for over 4,500 families," company officials said. "We are very disturbed by the recurring attacks and thefts. Such actions jeopardize the largest agricultural project carried by the Palestinian Authority after the Israeli withdrawal."

Isn't it strange that 90,000 policemen can't guard a few hundred greenhouses?
Isn't it strange that the Gaza Arabs who are the subject of so many sympathetic newspaper sob stories about how rough they have it can tolerate the destruction of their economy?
Isn't it strange that the world nations (including Israel) are tripping over themselves to help people who have a history of wasting every penny they ever received?
Isn't it strange that a people who pretend to want a state so much cannot expend any effort on actual state-building?
Isn't it strange that the bulk of the money that these emotional infants receive come from the West that they hate with a passion, and not from their own Arab brethren?

Another American victim of Arab terror dies

Daniel Wultz, HY"D, the 16 year old victim of last month's Tel Aviv bombing from Miami, died today.

It is mystifying how any American can continue to support the terrorist Arab side of this conflict when in fact Americans are just as much targets as Israelis. What strange psychological illness makes people so willing to identify with their would-be murderers?

Forget the fact that by any rational argument, Israel is in the right in essentially every important aspect of the war. But just normal human self-preservation should allow every single American and Westerner to be able to clearly see that one side is on our side and the other is against us. One is an expert in building, the other an expert in destroying. One wants to help Americans and the other celebrates their deaths. One wants to build a better world and the other wants to conquer it.

An American boy died today at the hands of an evil and depraved culture. Where is the spontaneous anger? Where is the outrage?

It is way past time to wake up, because the longer it takes, the more Daniel Wultzes will be murdered.

Greetings to The Great Jamahiriya

One good benchmark of how politically isolated a nation is comes from its state-run media. It is fun to read Iran's websites, for example, for their daily articles about how some former EU diplomat agrees with a narrow part of their policies, or how a minor parliament member in Pakistan or Lebanon praises their leader. When you read that you know they are grasping at straws, despite their bravado.

Here's a great example of a country hitting rock bottom, and it is instructive as to who, exactly, is singing its praises.

The Palestinian President Mohmmoud Abbas praised the Leader of the Revolution and the Libyan people expressing his profound thanks and appreciation for the support and assistance made and still being by Great Jamahiriya to the Palestinian people in these difficult and harsh conditions wishing further progress and prosperity to the Libyan people.
This came in a cable sent by the Palestinian President to the participants in the 1st session of the Permanent Bureau of the Arab Bar Union which began Saturday morning in Sert He referred in his cable to the situation experienced by the Palestinian people due to the escalating aggression by the Zionist army terrorist organization against the Palestinian people.

With all due respect to the Great Jamahiriya and the Arab Bar Union, this has got to be one of the funniest press releases I've seen this year.

But it is nice to know that Abbas is keeping himself busy as he continues his long slide into irrelevance.

Humanitarian Crisis, part 7

Apparently, the PA has access to a lot more money then they are letting on.

But if by lying they can get free money from the EU, US and Israel, why argue with what works?

Israel Matzav blog is superb

Carl in Jerusalem, who runs the Israel Matzav blog, follows things much more closely than I do, and he has none of the reluctance to criticize the Olmert government that I do.

(I always feel that it is a bit unfair for someone like myself in the Diaspora to criticize the Israeli government publicly, for a number of reasons: there may be nuances I am not aware of, I aim at Jewish unity in this blog, and I try as hard as I can to give benefit of the doubt to those whose lives are directly at risk based on their own decisions. This doesn't mean that I haven't been very disappointed and upset at various actions taken by the leaders of Israel, but this is not the venue to tackle those topics. Israeli bloggers don't have the same constraints that I impose on myself.)

Here are three in a row that are must reads:

Weapons, money, men

Once again, Hamas makes its priorities clear.

"We ask all the people in surrounding Arab countries, the Muslim world and everyone who wants to support us to send weapons, money and men," Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal said in a speech at a pro-Palestinian event in Qatar.
"You should not shy away from of this. This is resistance, not terrorism," said Meshaal whose group -- sworn to the destruction of Israel -- leads the Palestinian government.

Somehow he didn't seem to ask for food, or medical supplies, or fuel, or any of the other things that are causing the bogus "humanitarian crisis" that the West is so upset about.

And, of course Reuters has to add this lie at the end of the article:

Hamas, which has largely abided by a ceasefire for more than a year, has been under increasing Western and Israeli financial pressure to recognize the Jewish state, abandon armed struggle and accept interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals.

Money for nothing

Well, the US and the EU caved.

The United States bowed to pressure from its allies Tuesday and agreed to support a new program to temporarily funnel additional aid directly to the Palestinian people.

Temporary is never temporary when it comes to welfare.
Any money going to Palestinian Arabs who voted for terrorists gives the terrorists more money to buy bombs and missiles.

A surprise statement by Mideast peacemakers, issued after a day of closed-door diplomatic meetings, did not say precisely how much or what kind of aid they would provide. But the agreement seemed to underscore a concern that months of withholding most aid from the Palestinians, part of an effort to pressure the new Hamas-led government toward a more accommodating stance with Israel, was harming the Palestinian people.

The newspapers played their part - writing up stories about how Palestinian Arabs can't buy gas and aren't getting paid and are holding signs saying "hungry." When in fact, the Palestinian Arabs are in better shape than a good percentage of the world's people economically.

The United States and European Union have cut off direct aid to the Palestinian government while pledging to help meet the crushing humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people through charities and other means.

An entire nation on welfare, living it up and terrorizing the world on the world's dime. No real industry, no forward thinking, no creativity except for ways to build new rockets and tunnels. Sure, let's give them aid.

Speaking Wednesday in Ramallah on the West Bank, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh slammed the United States and its Western allies for demands on his government, but did not reject the temporary program.

The world should be more understanding that when they decide to give Arabs millions of dollars, they will get insulted in response. Saying "thank you" would violate his cultural norms, and we need to be sensitive to those.

"The Quartet brings from time to time conditions to force the government to concede the rights and recognize the legality of the occupation," Ismail Haniyeh said.

"I believe the government will remain faithful to the Palestinian rights and will keep seeking the equation that protects the Palestinian people. The financial crisis has never been a factor dividing the Palestinians. It will be a factor that unites them," he told reporters.

Of course, just a few days ago Palestinian Arabs started protesting Hamas because of their not getting any money. The Quartet cannot abide Arab protests against other Arabs, only against Denmark and other countries that offend Arabs.

Overseas donations, mostly from Europe, have long sustained the cash-strapped and bloated Palestinian government.

Isn't it interesting that everyone knows the government is "bloated" but no one dares suggest that the terror supporters slash, say, 75,000 jobs from their payroll? Nope, the donors do not have any say in such matters.

The new fund is supposed to administer only money for basic human needs. But both European and U.S. diplomats said that at some point it might be used to pay salaries for urgently needed doctors or teachers or for other services that the Hamas government otherwise would be expected to provide.

Ah yes, teachers who teach that Palestine is a country that extends from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, and it will be Jew-free, inshallah.

Frustrations rose to the surface over the weekend, when hundreds of Palestinians staged strikes and demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza to demand payment, the first public signs of discontent with Hamas' handling of the situation.

So at the exact time that it looks like the sanctions might have a positive effect in weakening the terror group Hamas, what does the West do?

European governments in particular have been alarmed at the worsening plight for unemployed Palestinians and concerned that charities and U.N. agencies could not meet the demand for services or handle the amount of money that might be needed, diplomats said.

They pressed the United States to agree to the new humanitarian fund, even though that kind of assistance may be an indirect benefit to Hamas. The United States agreed on condition the fund be temporary and limited to programs that meet basic needs, a senior State Department official said

"It would be against our values to let people starve," said Marc Otte, the EU's special envoy for the Mideast.

Let's see - the Palestinian Arabs have farms, crops, livestock, poultry, fruit trees, and even some greenhouses that are still intact after Israel abandoned them. Who, exactly, is in danger of starvation?

And if a few would go hungry, why are Palestinian Arab terror supporters more deserving of food than the millions of truly starving people worldwide?

The entire exercise of withholding money was a sham, with the Eurabians so eager to strengthen those who celebrate when Westerners die. This is humanitarian aid; this is where limited money should go, according to the dhimmis that are in reality trying so hard to make sure that their supply of oil never gets disrupted. And if hundreds of Jews get blown up in the meanwhile, no biggie.

Insane Muslim protestors of the day - The Next Generation

The cartoon protests have entered the second generation!

A little background:

A Pakistani student, carrying a knife, was caught by German police trying to enter a building housing a newspaper that published the dreaded Mohammed cartoons.

The student, Amir Cheema, committed suicide in jail using his bedclothes. He left behind a suicide note written in Urdu and a will.

Pakistanis are outraged, calling the would-be murderer a martyr and a hero and claiming he was murdered by German police.

Now they are staging violent protests, burning German flags, in honor of their terrorist hero:

The world just doesn't seem right unless hordes of insane Muslims are protesting in support of terror.

Iranian human rights doesn't extend to women

Der Spiegel reports on the latest misogynist moves by Ahmedenijad:

Tehran's deputy attorney general, Mahmoud Salarkia, has begun a new drive against "immoral behavior in public" directed largely at the capital city's young female population. The relaxed appearance of many women in Tehran has long bothered archconservative politicians and the country's religious leaders. Headscarves have become shorter and more colorful and among the brave, bare feet in flip-flops are considered all the rage in summer.

But now Iran's feared moral police, founded by Islamic revolution leader Ayatollah Khomeini, are to be strengthened with 50 more patrol groups. They will be equipped with police cars from Germany that should allow the mullahs to monitor "un-Islamic behavior" spreading through the land more closely. Women that show too much hair peeking from their headscarf or wear figure-defining clothing face a fine of around Â€300 -- roughly a month's salary for a teacher -- or ten days in jail. Taxi drivers that pick up such fashion sinners also face punishment. The expanded patrols are also supposed to crack down on pop music in public and dog owners will be banned from walking their pets -- considered unclean in Islam -- in city parks.

The government's hard line is also feared by Iran's intellectuals, especially after Ramin Jahanbegloo, a prominent Iranian philosopher and writer who also has a Canadian passport, was arrested on charges of "spying and endangering domestic security" last week. The move was condemned by a leading liberal cleric, Mohsen Kadivar, as "completely arbitrary." But Jahanbegloo's detention is likely retribution for his publicly critical comments about Ahmadinejad's notorious anti-Israel rhetoric.

Ahmadinejad, who has been seen kicking around a ball with Iran's national soccer team, has also apparently decided not let his fondness for the sport cloud his conservative agenda. The president had in April surprisingly chosen to allow women fans to watch men's soccer games. But on Tuesday, the Iranian ISNA news agency reported that following intense criticism from clerics over lifting the decades-long ban, Ahmadinejad had reversed his decision.

Speaking of Ramin Jahanbegloo:

A mouthpiece of mullahs daily newspaper accuses detained Iranian intellectual Ramin Jahanbegloo, a prominent thinker and writer on democracy and non-violence, of having links to US and Israeli intelligence services.

"Ramin Jahanbegloo has been linked to the CIA and the Mossad for a while but he has been under surveillance," Jomhuri Eslami newspaper charged, without giving a source.

Yes, this is the country that lectures the US on human rights and morality. This is the country that intends to become a nuclear superpower. This is the country that has explicitly called not only for a world without Israel, but a world without America.

Ahmadinejad's letter - prelude to attack? (Jihad Watch)

A very important point made by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch:

An initial thought on Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush. When he says this, he is calling Bush to accept Islam -- since in traditional Muslim belief it is only Islam that guarantees "monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day."

Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world – that are the result of disobedience to the Almighty and the teachings of prophets – and improve our performance? Do you not think that belief in these principles promotes and guarantees peace, friendship and justice? Do you not think that the aforementioned written or unwritten principles are universally respected? Will you not accept this invitation? That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets? Mr President, History tells us that repressive and cruel governments do not survive.

In a Hadith, Muhammad tells his followers to call people to Islam before waging war against them:

Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya [the tax on non-Muslims specified in Qur’an 9:29]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)

In light of that, this letter could be -- but is not necessarily -- a prelude to an attack.

Hat tip: Pastorius.

Diplomacy of Fear - the Muslim way

Many liberals like to decry conservatives for what they call the "politics of fear." This means that neocons like to use fear as a battering ram of sorts to spook people into voting for them, specifically fear of terror.

There may or may not be merit in this argument, but I have hardly anyone talk about the flip-side of this concept, one that liberals wholeheartedly embrace, usually without realizing it.

I call it the diplomacy of fear.

For decades, the Arab world specifically and the Muslim world in general has used threats as its main leverage to get the West to bend to its will. The threats aren't usually direct; most often they take the form of "if you don't do what we want, the Arab street will erupt" or "the terrorists will have an excuse." In other words, if Arab thugocracies do not get what they desire from the West, then they will be powerless to stop the irrational forces within their borders from damaging Western interests.

I touched upon an early example of this in this recent posting about Arab sympathies with the Nazis, and the British reaction:

“If war were to break out, no trouble that the Jews could occasion us, in Palestine or elsewhere, could weigh for a moment against the importance of winning Muslim opinion to our side,” Britain’s Minister for Coordination of Defence, Lord Chatfield, told the British cabinet in 1939, shortly before Britain reversed its decision to partition its mandate, promising instead all of the land to the Palestinian Arabs.

Think about this for a minute - the British are saying that since Jews are not troublemakers and the Arabs are, it is in the British self-interest to appease the Arabs (at the expense of thousands of Jewish lives).

And this theme is so widespread, so much a part of the fabric of the way the world thinks today, that it is unthinkable that there could be an alternative.

European Mideast policy is almost wholly driven by fear of upsetting Arabs and Muslims. Those who claim to be seeking "peace" make the assumption that asking Arabs for concessions is useless and could ignite some sort of negative response - so is makes more sense to pressure Israel into making even more concessions.

How many times have we seen a variant of this recent pronouncement from Mahmoud Abbas:

Mr Abbas said the freeze was causing hardship to ordinary people and would lead to further instability.

"Instability?" We all know what he means by that - he means violence and terror, which is apparently a natural reaction in the rules of Arab physics. If the West doesn't give Palestinian Arabs more and more money, well, hey, he sure can't control his people from the spontaneous inevitable violence (remarkably similar to the violence they seem to have perfected when they had a billion dollars a year coming into their coffers.)

Mahmoud Abbas threatens the Western world and no one bothers to call him on it.

Similarly, a Canadian imam threatened Canada with similar unspecified terror last year. Iran threatens the West daily with implied terror and eventual nuclear bombs. It is the main leverage the Saudis have when lobbying Europe and America - they are more "moderate" and if the royals don't get their request taken care of, they might fall and those "militants" will take over.

This climate of fear is so endemic that fundamentally irrational and immoral acts by the Muslim world are accepted by the West with little question - to challenge it could put you in the same category as a Salman Rushdie or a Danish cartoonist, and who needs that hassle?

Maybe it is pure bigotry that causes Saudi Arabia to not allow Christian bibles or any Jews altogether to be on holy Saudi soil - but you won't see any EU inquiries into that matter. By any objective measure, the Arab world is the center for terror and human rights abuses today. But it is much easier to concentrate on supposed Koran abuse at Guantanamo. Much safer to call Israel with its million Arab citizens "an apartheid state."

Because the US and Israel don't threaten the EU with terror the way the Arabs do.

So, the diplomacy of fear has an excellent record since the first part of the twentieth century, and there is no indication that it will slow down any time soon. After all, it works.

Humanitarian crisis, part 7

Once again, the poor starving Palestinian Arabs are forced to go to great lengths just to acquire the bare necessities of life.

Israel last week seized a large cargo of high-grade explosives which an Egyptian boat tried to transfer to two Palestinian boats from the Gaza Strip, the army told AFP.

According to a military source on Tuesday, an Israeli navy patrol off the Mediterranean coast of Sinai last Wednesday spotted "an Egyptian boat trasferring a cargo to two Palestinian boats".

The suspicious cargo was dropped off by the Palestinian boats once their crews noticed the Israeli ship, the source told AFP.

"Navy divers later retrieved the cargo from the seabed and found it contained 550 kilograms (1,200 pounds) of full-grade TNT (trinitrotoluene) explosives," he said.

Part 6 and links to the others of the series here.

Abu Marzouk: Hamas will never recognize Israel

Since Jimmy Carter is so convinced that Hamas fully intends to recognize Israel and renounce terror if only Israel would abandon all the post 1967 territories, to the point that the world should throw money to Hamas now, perhaps he should read the Muslim Brotherhood website - in English! An interesting interview with Hamas' "deputy chief" Abu Marzouk:

Ikhwanweb: There are statements attributed to Mr. Khaled Mesha’al indicating that Hamas will recognize Israel if it withdraws to the 1967 borders. Your comments.

Abu Marzouk: One of Hamas founding principals [sic] is that it does not recognize Israel. We ran in elections and the people voted for us based on this platform. Therefore, the question to recognize Israel is definitely not on the table unless if it withdraws from ALL Palestinian lands, not only to 1967 borders. How can we be expected to recognize an occupying entity when there are millions of our people refugees and thousands others prisoners! Why must we recognize them when they do not recognize us as a sovereign state with full independence.

Ikhwanweb: what is the future ahead of Hamas amidst the mounting international pressure?

Abu Marzouk: I believe that the formation of Hamas government in itself is a major turning point in the history of Palestinian cause. Hamas government will help transitioning the Issue of Palestine from its international framework to that of the national resistance. Palestinian people will stand resolute and will support their democratic choice. I truly believe that Hamas will succeed by the will of God in addition to the steadfastness of Palestinian people and the support our Muslim and Arab nation.

But no matter how explicitly Hamas states its goals, no matter how clearly they say that their aim is military and terroristic, there will always be useful idiots willing to believe in their make-believe world where all problems can be magically wished away with people in suits talking in conference rooms.

(Hat tip - MEMRI. But the terror apologists like Carter can't claim that MEMRI mistranslated this interview!)

"Wiping Israel off the map is just one step in Iran's attempt to create a new world order," said Brig.-Gen Yosef Kuperwasser, head of the IDF Military Intelligence's research division.
"Iran is interested not only in turning into a superpower, but also in changing the world order," Kuperwasser said at a conference on power projection at the Fisher Institute of Strategic Studies in Herzliya.
"Iran is at the forefront of global terrorism, and aids Hizbullah in Lebanon, al Qaida, and Palestinian terror organizations, and is behind attacks on US armed forces in Iraq," the general asserted.
Just hours before the UNSC votes on sanctions against Iran, Maj-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad said that he believed Iran was vulnerable to sanctions. "Iran is Not North Korea," Gilad said. "It's a country of intelligent, intellectual people."

While it is nice to see that my own analysis is confirmed by the IDF, I can't help but worry why a solitary person reading the Internet can see things so clearly six months before an organization that presumably has much better tools at its disposal.

Gibberish in the Yemen Times

Either there's some secret message here to the mujahedeen or the Yemen Times will print whatever gibberish comes its way as long as it appears to be anti-Zionist and anti-American.

After reading it a few times, it seems that the author (getting a doctorate in the Arab world is apparently pretty easy) is saying that Jews created Al-Qaeda sometime during the Clinton administration, and tried to get him to kill all American Muslims or something like that. When he balked, the Jews created the Monica Lewinsky scandal to punish him and then convinced Bin Laden to lead their Zionist movement, deceiving him.

The upshot is, as usual, it is all the Jews' fault. As always. Those Jews are so damn smart that only an illiterate Arab PhD is capable of unscrambling their nefarious plans!

Was Bin Laden deceived?
Dr. Abdullateef Al-Adham

“But they worked their plan, and their plan was before God, and their plan was such as would move the mountains”

(Surat Abraham 14-46)

God had depicted the extent to which deception may reach at times. Mountains may diminish under its intensity; leave alone a weak creature like the human being.

We all witnessed on the 11th of September the collapse of one of the buildings of the International Trade Towers in New York, which was followed, by the second one, shortly afterwards. They became just a trace of ruins. They became a rebel that was lately removed. The site of the destroyed towers was given the name ‘ground zero’. We also witnessed the direct impact, which rocked the whole world, with the Islamic world, who was immediately accused, on top.

In fact, what happened on that day was a model to which the conspiracy might amount. What happened was the result of the theory of “civilizations conflict”, which was fabricated by the Zionists’ mind, whose leaders thought that the opportunity of dominating the world had ripened following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Yet they think that the only obstacle that hiders their plans is Islam. They attribute this to the significant populace, and civilization. They think of the necessity of directing a destructive blow to it.

The American and British decision makers were convinced with the civilizations conflict theory and its advantages was circulated. The Zionist cupidity was not understood. The Al-Qaeda organization was formed, and some Muslim youth were lured to join it, to carry out some operations that were attributed to it. This was accompanied by exaggerated media campaigns of the role of the organization and its leader Bin Laden.

However, President Clinton’s hesitation, especially in executing an immense attack inside America, hindered a great part of the Zionist project. He was punished for that with the scandals and the shameful prosecutions. Bush agreed to do what Clinton had rejected. He set out to take a number of measures, including the provocation of China and the withdrawal from Durban Human Rights Conference and others. He carried out the 11 September attack, and incidents continued. But Gods prodigy was observing their actions. He disclosed their conspiracy and the theory of conflict of civilizations failed. Yet was Bin Laden aware of the Zionist cupidity? There is a possibility that he was deceived, like the others, but the fact remains that he is a part in a serious crime, engineered by the Zionism. However, God will hinder their intrigue.

Another Nazi-Arab connection

YNet yesterday published a fascinating article about German Nazis arming Palestinian Arabs before World War II, seeing in the Arabs a natural ally:

Historical documents in Britain’s National Archives in London show that Nazi Germany attempted to ship arms to Palestinian forces in the 1930s.
A British Foreign Office report from 1939 reports of “news of a consignment of arms from Germany, sent via Turkey and addressed to Ibn Saud (king of Saudi Arabia), but really intended for the Palestine insurgents.” Britain’s chief military officer in Mandatory Palestine also noted reports “regarding import of German arms at intervals for some years now.”
British documents from the same period, and German records photographed by an American spy and sent to the British government, said that a number of Nazi agents were sent to Mandatory Palestine, in order to forge alliances with Palestinian leaders, and urge them to reject a partition of the land between the Jewish and Arab populations.
German documents photographed and sent to Whitehall by an American spy revealed that in 1937, German officials had calculated that “Palestine under Arab rule would… become one of the few countries where we could count on a strong sympathy for the new Germany.”
“The Palestinian Arabs show on all levels a great sympathy for the new Germany and its Fuhrer, a sympathy whose value is particularly

high as it is based on a purely ideological foundation,” a Nazi official in Palestine wrote in a letter to Berlin in 1937. He added: “Most important for the sympathies which Arabs now feel towards Germany is their admiration for our Fuhrer, especially during the unrests, I often had an opportunity to see how far these sympathies extend. When faced with a dangerous behaviour of an Arab mass, when one said that one was German, this was already generally a free pass.”

Even more troubling was the fact that Britain decided not to save 20,000 Jewish lives in a shortsighted attempt to stay on the Arabs' good side in Palestine:

The records also show that the news of increased Nazi-Arab cooperation panicked the British government, and caused it to cancel a plan in 1938 to bring to Palestine 20,000 German Jewish refugees, half of them children, facing danger from the Nazis.

Documents show that after deciding that the move would upset Arab opinion, Britain decided to abandon the Jewish refugees to their fate.

“His Majesty’s Government asked His Majesty’s Representatives in Cairo, Baghdad and Jeddah whether so far as they could judge, feelings in Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia against the admission of, say 5,000 Jewish children for adoption… would be so strong as to lead to a refusal to send representatives to the London discussions. All three replies were strongly against the proposal, which was not proceeded with,” a Foreign Office report said.

“If war were to break out, no trouble that the Jews could occasion us, in Palestine or elsewhere, could weigh for a moment against the importance of winning Muslim opinion to our side,” Britain’s Minister for Coordination of Defence, Lord Chatfield, told the British cabinet in 1939, shortly before Britain reversed its decision to partition its mandate, promising instead all of the land to the Palestinian Arabs.

Britain chose to let thousands (and ultimately, millions) of Jews die rather than upset their Arab "friends" - who were naturally sympathetic to Hitler.

There have been other connections shown between Arabs and Nazis, here and elsewhere. But this story sheds new light on this topic and it has more than just theoretical historical importance.

I would not expect this story to create major headlines around the world, but a search through Google finds that not a single other news outlet has published this story, a full day after Yediot Aharonot uncovered it. Not in England, not in Germany, not in any Arab news source.

More hypocrisy from Dhimmi Carter, Terror Apologist

Jimmah is at it again, showing his clear preference for murderous Palestinian Arab thugs to Israeli Jews.

In his latest execrable piece written for the International Herald Tribune, he writes an insane series of idiotic ramblings to the effect that by not paying Hamas all the money it wants, the world is punishing innocent Palestinian Arabs who only want peace. It "deprives them of their basic human rights" - apparently, paying terrorists is a basic human right according to Carter. He bends over backwards and sideways and inside-out to portray Hamas as a misunderstood group of people who are honorably holding up their end of a cease-fire.

His astonishing ability to ignore explicit Hamas statements praising terror and reading deeply into side comments that could be construed as possibly being less-than-terroristic is perhaps the worst case of wishful thinking trumping reality ever witnessed:

With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary cease-fire [really?] , or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me that this "can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will reciprocate." Although Hamas leaders have refused to recognize the state of Israel while their territory is being occupied, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for peace talks between Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. He added that if these negotiations result in an agreement that can be accepted by Palestinians, then the Hamas position regarding Israel would be changed.

The upshot of the article is that exerting economic pressure on Hamas is immoral.

Interestingly, Carter has in the past argued that exerting economic pressure on Israel is desirable:

There are two existing factors that offer success to American efforts at persuasion.
One is the legal requirement that American weapons are to be used by Israel only for defensive purposes...
The other persuasive factor is approximately $10 million daily in American aid to Israel.

So here we have it in black and white - Jimmy Carter prefers Hamas terrorists to Israeli Jews.

Could it because the Nobel Prize recipient is also the recipient of millions of Arab dollars?

Crocs vs. Zeeba

In the brilliant (and twisted) Pearls Before Swine comic strip by Stephan Pastis, it seems that the artist has a little symbolism going on with his series of a bunch of crocodiles trying to kill their neighbor, the zebra.

The main themes are that Zebra is very smart, the crocodiles are usually dumb, and often the crocs end up either killing themselves or otherwise failing spectacularly.

The comics can be appreciated more when you realize that almost certainly (but perhaps subconsciously on the artist's part), Zebra represents Israel and the crocodiles are Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Here is a recent series that demonstrates this (notice the punchline at the end):

The idea that the artist is passionately pro-Israel and anti-terror is apparent from this uncharacteristically somber strip from December of 2003:

Stephan Pastis, for his part, does not divulge any symbolic meaning to the crocs. But to my mind at least, the battle is remarkably consistent the Palestinian Arab war against Jews. Today's strip even includes the religious dimension of the terrorists:

Even if I'm wrong (and I don't think I am), it adds a bit to my enjoyment of the strip.

The precarious state of Iranian Jews

From the Scotsman:

FOR the dwindling Jewish community in Iran, a sacred ritual is observed at 6.30 every evening as shortwave radios are switched on to listen to the daily Farsi broadcast from Israel.

Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power last June, life for Iran's 25,000 Jews has become even more precarious as the president defiantly pursues a nuclear policy while declaring Israel should be "wiped off the world map".

Israel has long identified Iran as its biggest threat, and these concerns have grown amid repeated calls by its hard-line president for Israel's destruction.

Last Thursday, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert issued a strongly worded warning that the Jewish state took seriously Iranian threats to wipe out Israel and would defend itself against a country the West suspects of seeking nuclear weapons.

His remarks also came as Western powers sought action by the United Nations to curb Iranian uranium enrichment and other key nuclear processes. "It is becoming a serious matter of concern for Iranian Jews should there be any military action between Iran and Israel," said Israeli broadcaster Menashe Amir.

"The Iranian regime says it does distinguish between Judaism and Zionism, but the local Jewish community knows that is a lie since it has been frequently written by extremists in religious circles that 'every Jew is a Zionist'."

While it is still the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel, a vast number of the population have fled Iran.

The first major movement came in 1948 when the state of Israel was established and the number of Jews in Iran stood at about 150,000. The Islamic revolution in 1979 prompted another movement.

"Every Iranian Jew who had the financial possibility or courage has already left, but there's still a small but flourishing community," said Amir, who moved to Israel from Iran at the age of 20 in 1959. He has been broadcasting for 46 years in Farsi for Israeli state radio.

He is all too familiar with the precarious position of Iranian Jews who are called on by the government to declare their public support for the country's nuclear policy.

"Not to mention, every time Iran publicly condemns Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories, the Jewish community is expected to issue a statement of support," he said.

Even though the regime officially recognises Judaism as an official religious minority and the Jewish community is even allocated a seat in the Iranian parliament, the reality on the ground is different.

Jewish leaders are reluctant to draw attention to incidences of mistreatment of their community, due to fear of government reprisal, along with fear of being arrested or accused of being spies. In 1999, 13 Jews were arrested in the city of Shiraz and charged with spying for Israel. While eventually all were pardoned, it exposed the fragile position of the country's Jewish community.

"While there are Jewish schools, the principals and most of the teachers are Muslim, the Bible is taught in Farsi, not in Hebrew, and the schools are forced to open on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath," Amir said, as he played Hebrew music for his listeners.

"So while the regime declares that there is freedom of religion, it is all just for the sake of appearances."

Any resemblance is purely coincidental

Gaza City rally for Hamas:

Nuremburg rally for Nazism:

Let's see:
They both want to pretend to be oppressed by powerful Others.
They both want to replace democracy with a totalitarian state.
They both want to place the entire world under their control.
They both glamorize death.
They both like that cool salute.
They both spend a lot of time on organized rallies to brainwash their populations.
They both rely on repeating lies over and over again.
They both regard the free world as their enemy, while they want to get as much money as they can from that same capitalistic society.
They both want to slaughter every Jew alive.

All just a coincidence, I'm sure.

6M African Muslims convert to Xtianity annually

A fascinating translation of an interview at Al-Jazeerah in 2003 (original Arabic no longer on the site.) (Hat tip American Thinker via Iris.)

It looks like the "fastest growing religion" may have been overstating the case, and there is panic in the Muslim world as to the huge number of African Muslims converting to Christianity.

Maher Abdallah:
Dear viewers, peace of Allah be upon you, greetings and welcome to a new episode of the program Islamic Law and Life.

Our topic this evening will be Christianization in the Dark Continent ... Africa. For after Islam was the religion of the majority, the great majority of that continent, the number of Muslims now is no greater than a third of the population. This is taking into consideration, of course, that a large portion of this group are Arab Muslims. No doubt that the missions of evangelization and Christianization played a great role in this demographic shift of Muslims in the continent.

To discuss this topic, it is my pleasure to introduce today a man who is an expert on the issue of evangelization and Christianization in Africa, even though he will concentrate on the issue of Christianization first and foremost…. Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani; the president of The Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya, which is an institution specializing in graduating imams and Islamic preachers.

Sheikh Ahmad, welcome to you on the program.

Ahmad Al Katani:
Greeting to you.

Maher Abdallah:
If we start by inquiring about your strict stance against the Christian missions in Africa, don’t the followers of every religion have the right to seek new converts, exactly as you train and graduate young Muslims to propagate Islam?

Ahmad Al Katani:
I seek refuge in Allah the Seer, the Knower, from the stoned devil. In the name of Allah the Merciful the Beneficent. Thanks to Allah the One, the Only, the Permanent One, who did not give birth nor was born, to whom no one was equal. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah who has no partners, and I bear witness that our master Muhammed – Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him - is his messenger and seal of prophets; Allah prayers be upon him and his brothers the prophets and messengers and their families.

The question that you pose is a result of not comprehending the difference between the concept of Christianization and the concept of evangelism.

The concept of evangelism: is inviting the non-Christians to the Christian or Nazarene religion, and this is the right of every Christian and the right of every believer to call others to his faith. However, we are talking about a different matter; which is Christianization. Christianization means the following: preparing plans, and executing these plans and evolving these plans to change Muslims into Christians by taking advantage of the ignorance and poverty (of the people) and whatever necessitates from similar circumstances.

So, we are faced with the issue of taking advantage of circumstances, taking advantage of humanitarian needs, taking advantage of the lack of education for example, that these people (missionaries) use to take Muslims out of their religion.

Maher Abdallah:
Fine. This is a big and dangerous phrase. Taking advantage of poverty, of ignorance, of lack of education, of some need is something that a Muslim can also be accused of. So if you don’t back up what you say with examples, with references, your words remain in the air without much weight to them.

Ahmad Al Katani:
The reality is that these words say a lot less than they should. As we said in the beginning, everyone has the right to invite others to his religion; this is what is known as evangelism (or proselytizing). As for Christianization, no one has the right to take Muslims out of their religion, and you asked for references and the references are too numerous.

Islam used to represent, as you previously mentioned, Africa’s main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa. So in the section of Africa that we are talking about, the non Arab section, the number of Muslims does not exceed 150 million people. When we realize that the entire population of Africa is one billion people, we see that the number of Muslims has diminished greatly from what it was in the beginning of the last century. On the other hand, the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to 329 million 882 thousand (329,882,000). Let us round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000.

As to how that happened, well there are now 1.5 million churches whose congregations account for 46 million people. In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed …..

It is a long transcript including questions from callers. One Christian caller was lectured as to how Christianity is more bloodthirsty than Islam.

The problem with the BBC

The BBC just completed a third-party study on how impartial its coverage is of the Israeli/Palestinian Arab conflict.

There seems some disagreement as to what the conclusions are (the Times claimed the study concluded that BBC coverage favored Israel, which does not seem to be quite true.) There was one welcome recommendation that the BBC use the word "terrorism" when appropriate.

From reading the report itself, it is obvious that the authors tried very hard to ensure that the BBC's coverage was "balanced." In fact, that was one of the purposes of the report:

...[T]he BBC [is] committed, as our terms of reference make clear, to fairness, impartiality and balance. (While fairness and impartiality are legal requirements, balance is a concept adopted by the BBC in seeking to give effect to them.)

And much of the report details suggestions on how exactly to get balanced reporting out of an asymmetrical conflict.

The problem is that the premise is wrong.

Israel's legitimacy is not a valid topic for a balanced debate any more than that of Great Britain. Terrorism's legitimacy is similarly not a valid topic for debate. Any sensible person makes reasonable assumptions that the fundamental moral basis of the reporter is somewhat similar to the reader. These moral absolutes make "impartiality" in itself immoral.

To give a specific example, the report mentions that BBC coverage favors multiple Israeli deaths in terror attacks compared to multiple Palestinian Arabs killed in Israeli attacks (in terms of time given and percentage of incidents reported). The point is that this imbalance needs to be addressed.

That is absurd. There is a huge difference in motive for the killings, and that difference is the difference between morality and immorality. If motive is not important, one would expect the BBC to cover every auto accident in England with as much airtime as an assassination of a Prime Minister. Nobody but the far Left and Arab terror apologists claim that Israel targets civilians, while the Arabs themselves celebrate the murder of Israeli and Western civilians. The very idea that the coverage of both events deserve the same sympathy is in itself immoral.

Nobody is saying that the BBC should not provide in-depth analysis of the conflict, nor that it shouldn't cover anything from the Palestinian Arab viewpoint. But "balance" is immoral.

A more basic premise that is wrong in this report is that the conflict is between Israel and Palestinian Arabs. If the conflict is framed in such terms, it is easy to make Israel look like the big bully with the huge advantage in strength. This idea is so ingrained in the world psyche that even the BBC, striving for impartiality (and it truly appears to be trying) cannot see the forest for the trees.

It is not a conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israel. It is a conflict between the entire Arab world and Israel. (One can plausibly argue that it is a single battle in the conflict between Islam and the West as well.)

The Palestinian Arab people are not in great shape, but the idea that they have been pawns in the geopolitical and military power play between the entire Arab world and Israel is not addressed by most news outlets. The basic question of whether the Arabs want independence for their Palestinian brethren, or the destruction of Israel, is not addressed. When framed this way, the "conflict" can be seen in an entirely new, and more accurate, light.

But the world has been brainwashed into accepting the idea of a Palestine-centric conflict, and this fundamentally affects how the news is reported. If the BBC and other news outlets truly want to be fair, accurate and balanced, they need to look beyond the incorrect framing that is implicit in the BBC report itself.

If you cannot define the issues correctly to begin with, you cannot dream to cover them accurately.

Humanitarian crisis, part 6

Buried in an article about the brewing civil war between Hamas and Fatah comes this small item:

Hamas recently bought a black market shipment of 100,000 bullets after outbidding Fatah, according to one official involved in the negotiations.

According to this article, last fall after the Israeli abandonment of Gaza black-market AK-47 bullets there were going for a little less than a dollar apiece.

Once again, the poor Palestinian Arabs are forced to forgo food and medicine just to be able to afford the real necessity of life - ammunition. Human rights organizations and NGOs must go in immediately and make sure that they can get food, medicine and bullets.

(Part 5 here.)

Another Fatah training pic

Recruits for Fatah drill how to act when they are caught by IDF soldiers.

Reuters' fawning coverage of Hamas

Today, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal gave a speech at Damascus University.

Reuters made it look like he was considering peace with Israel, as long as certain conditions are met, with Israel's response seeming irrational and hardline:

DAMASCUS (Reuters) By Khaled Yacoub Oweis - Hamas could reciprocate Israeli moves toward peace if the Jewish state agrees to withdraw from all lands occupied in 1967 and acknowledges Palestinian rights, the group's political leader Khaled Meshaal said on Wednesday.

But Israel's president reiterated that talks with the Hamas-led Palestinian government could not commence unless it renounced violence, recognized the Jewish state and interim Palestinian peace deals with it.

"If Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem, acknowledges the right of return, lifts its siege, dismantles the settlements and the wall and releases the prisoners, then it is possible for us as Palestinians and Arabs to make a serious step to match the Zionist step," he said.

Meshaal, who is in exile in Syria, told a packed auditorium at Damascus University that there was "no chance for a compromise" unless Israel fulfilled such conditions and because it was unlikely to do so in the near future, the Palestinians had no option but to resist occupation.

The further you read the article, the more that Reuters' grudgingly admits that Hamas is sworn to Israel's destruction and was behind many terror attacks. But in newspapers, the first couple of paragraphs are the important ones, and Reuters chooses to whitewash Hamas in the lead.

Reuters' duplicity does not end there. Meshaal made another couple of interesting statements during the same speech at the university, but apparently Reuters did not consider these other topics newsworthy.

AFP highlighted part of the speech that escaped the Reuters' reporter's attention:

Hamas supremo [sic] Khaled Meshaal has defended Palestinian suicide bombings as a "natural right" while denouncing what he called Washington's ambitions to dominate the Middle East.

"Our enemies ... don't understand that a suicide operation ... is a natural right," the exiled leader told students in Damascus, adding that Palestinians live "under Israeli occupation and have the right to fight and defend themselves".

Philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries defined a number of natural rights, like life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. Meshaal the supremo's addition to that list seems worth mentioning.

UPI also attended the same speech, and found another item to put in the lead of the story:

DAMASCUS, Syria, May 3 (UPI) -- Hamas Politburo chief Khaled Meshaal deplored the financial blockade averting payment of salaries to Palestinian Authority employees as a "real holocaust."

The Damascus-based Meshaal told a gathering at Damascus University Wednesday that "the Arab League and the Palestinian government are trying to coordinate the transfer of the salaries of some 164,000 employees through private accounts without success."

He said he had told a foreign diplomat in the Syrian capital that what is happening to the Palestinians in the occupied territories "is the real holocaust and a crime taking place in broad daylight."

So we have three news agencies attending the same speech. Two of them clearly imply that the speaker's opinions are off-the-wall insane, while one of them makes him look like a risk-taker for peace - and ignores any part of his speech that would give one the opposite impression.

Proud to be a Zionist (5766 edition)

I wrote an essay a few years ago that I posted here last year called "Proud to be a Zionist." For this Yom Ha'Atzmaut, I thought it is time to update it.

In prayers every morning Jews say a phrase praising G-d, describing Him as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית - He who continually renews the act of Creation. In other words, the Jewish concept of G-d has him in an active role keeping the universe running, and as such it is appropriate to praise Him.

It is a little hard to conceptualize this idea, that the very laws of physics, of the world turning and revolving around the sun is not automatic, but only occurs due to the constant will of G-d. But perhaps it is easier to understand this phrase if we apply it to the modern state of Israel.

Every single day that the Jewish state continues to exist cannot be explained adequately with historical or social or military reasons. Which means that we are witnessing a miracle every day.

This was a hard year for Zionists. It was an especially hard year for religious Zionists. Yet when we step back and look at the big picture, Israel remains something to be very proud of.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF is conducting itself during the current war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened and murdered in cold blood. We may argue whether the IDF's moral standards end up being counterproductive, but what other army could one even have this discussion about?

I am proud of how the IDF is performing doing the most difficult type of battle, that of looking house to house for terrorists, while maintaining amazing professionalism under fire and minimizing its own casualties. I defy anyone to find any other nation who has performed as well -- and as ethically -- as Israel has done during the current conflict.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war situation. Any other nation, again besides the US, would have imposed martial law to maintain peace.

I am proud of how Israeli citizens are going through their day to day lives, even while knowing that a despicable terrorist can still make it in to their hometowns.

I am proud of how many terror attacks have been thwarted by the Israeli police and citizens, and how many lives have been saved. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous.

I am proud that Israel will investigate any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keep trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the Palestinian people. And over the years of the "intifada" we can see that the number of civilians killed accidentally by Israel has gone down dramatically. I challenge anyone to find an example of a country that was as restrained under these circumstances as Israel has been.

I am proud that Israel takes steps to stop vigilante actions from its own citizens living in impossible conditions.

And, of course, I am proud of Israel's many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, world class universities and culture. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming.

I am proud that the vast majority of Americans support Israel as I do, and that the rabid terror-lovers we see on the Internet are the aberration.

Right after the Jewish prayer phrase I quoted above is this one: מה רבו מעשיך ה , "How great are Your works, O G-d." It is easy to find faults but in the big picture, the accomplishments are remarkable and need to be highlighted.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Good news: Israeli breakthrough in solar power

More good news....

As the world continues to become more and more dependent on fossil fuels, with the US alone consuming 17 million barrels each day, the question of the future looms larger every day: What is the world going to do when oil runs out?

Solar power has usually been dismissed as a possible answer to the problem because of its high cost and relatively low efficiency. But a new type of solar power cell being developed in Israel by one of the world's foremost experts in the field promises to change that.

In Professor David Faiman's world of concentrator photovoltaic cells (CPV cells), solar power just might be the answer to the fuel dilemma.

"Traditional photovoltaic cells do two things: collect sunlight and generate electricity from it," said Faiman of Ben-Gurion University's Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research in Sde Boker. "What we've done is simply split those two functions, so that the sunlight is collected and concentrated by a dish-shaped mirror, and a small number of concentrator cells generate electricity from that highly concentrated sunlight. Photovoltaic material is far too expensive to waste on something that can be accomplished with cheap glass and steel."

Faiman's apparatus, which resembles an enormous satellite dish, rises high above his modest offices in the middle of the Negev desert. Each of the dish's mirrors can concentrate the sun's energy by a factor of about 20 before reflecting it up to the solar cells that hang suspended over the apex of the dish. When all 50 of the mirrors used for the project are uncovered (sometimes only one or two are used for testing purposes), the cells are on the receiving end of the light of a thousand suns.

The dish, which weighs about 10 tons, is wheel-mounted onto a rotating base so that it can turn around, following the sun over the course of a day. The dish's motors move it using a minute amount of the power that it generates.

A recent Faiman research paper analyzed the weather conditions in California and the southwestern United States, concluding that the economics of building concentrator solar power plants there were nothing short of phenomenal. The paper was published in a journal called Energy Policy instead of Faiman's usual Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells because he thought that "there's more of a chance Governor Schwarzenegger will pay attention to a journal with the name Energy Policy."

"This kind of power plant will cost a little less than $1,000 per kilowatt to build, which is exactly the same as the cost of current fossil fuel plants - except that you wouldn't have to buy any fuel," Faiman told ISRAEL21c. "If the electricity were sold at Israel's going rate of nine cents per kilowatt-hour, the profit margin would be such that the entire investment in solar energy infrastructure could be paid off within twenty years. And all that while, the country could be building more solar power plants using some of the profit from existing ones."