A note about Palestinian Arab polls

I saw once again today that Westerners are saying that Palestinian Arabs consistently show a preference for a two-state solution in their polls - one a quote from a Georgia congressman, and one from an editorial in the Hartford Courant. Since I researched a recent poll from Bir Zeit University that showed the opposite:

19. As to funding the Palestinian National Authority, which one of these two directions do you support?
1) Hamas continues to reject recognizing Israel, while reaching out to countries like Iran and the Arab world to get funding	60.8%
2) Hamas recognizes Israel and continue to receive funding from the international community	31.0%

I decided to look at other polls and see what they said.

Besides Bir Zeit, the major pollster in the territories is JMCC. Their most recent poll from February 2006 had an interesting, relevant item:

Q17. Some believe that a two-state formula is the favored solution for the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, while others believe that historic Palestine cannot be divided and thus the favored solution is a bi-national state on all of Palestine where Palestinians and Israelis enjoy equal representation and rights. Which of these solutions do you prefer?

Two-state solution: an Israeli and a Palestinian 57.9
Bi-national state on all of historic Palestine 22.3
One Palestinian state * 10.5
Islamic state * 2.7
No solution 3.9
Don't know 1.6
No answer 1.1
*These answers were not included as part of the options read to the interviewee

So while the Western media will jump on the "fact" that most Palestinian Arabs appear to support a two-state solution, the poll didn't even ask about whether they would prefer a single Arab or Islamic-only state! And 13% of those polled felt strongly enough about that being the solution that they expressed their opinion without it being one of the choices!

In other words - Palestinian Arab opinion polls don't even ask the right question. Given a choice of an Arab-only state side-by-side with Israel or a state where they have to live with Jews as equals, they would rather be separated from the Jews. But how many would choose that option rather than having a single Palestinian Arab state that replaces Israel?

Given the indoctrination that Palestinian Arabs have received since birth, of a map of "Palestine" that stretches from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, it seems that the polls that Westerners like to quote are seriously flawed at best.

The other relevant question is - why didin't the JMCC include these other options in their polls? This is not the first time that they asked that question. Their May, 2005 poll also showed that some 11% of Palestinian Arabs answered that identical question saying that they preferred an Arab or Islamic-only state without it being one of the choices given. It could be that they want to keep the poll questions consistent so they could do accurate trending, or it could be that they don't want the world to know the real answer.

Also relevant is how the Palestinian Arab public looks at negotiation with Israel. Consistently they will say that they favor negotiations. This appears superficially to be a good thing. But look again at how questions can be phrased:

Q15. Some believe that the negotiations are the best path to achieve our national goals, whereas others believe that the armed struggle is the best way to do so. Which option is the closest to your opinion?
Through Negotiations 38.8
Through armed struggle 17.9
Through negotiations and armed struggle 40.3

So how do Palestinian Arabs view negotiations? Not surprisingly, they regard negotiations as a tactic to get their state, not as a means to give any concessions. A plurality view negotiations as a parallel track to terror, not a replacement for it. And why not? Historically, negotiations have netted them much from Israel without them having to give up anything concrete.

But you will be hard pressed to find a Western commenter look at these numbers and conclude that a majority of Palestinian Arabs want to continue terror to acheive their "national goals" (a number that, when the question was stated a different way, showed 96% want to continue terror attacks.)

Either way, to say that Palestinian Arabs consistently want a peaceful solution to their conflict with Israel and a two-state solution living in peace is not at all borne out by any poll I have yet seen, when one actually looks at the real numbers and not at the press release that accompanies the poll results.

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Abbas and Peres in dreamland

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vowed to continue a 16-month-old cease-fire with Israel - denying Hamas ever broke it, after meeting Saturday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Abbas said the militant group Hamas, which holds a majority in the Palestinian parliament, had not discarded the truce in the past week.

“Hamas did not break the truce, although some violations have happened, due to the killing of the family (on a Gaza beach on June 9),” he told reporters.

The Palestinian leader vowed to uphold the cease-fire “in order to have people living in peace”.

Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Saturday that Israel and the Palestinians were closer to peace than they’ve been in past 50 years.

“The distance between us is the shortest it’s been for the last 50 years,” Peres said at one-day security summit in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan. “The distance is very short, but the speed is very slow.”

Two men whose careers are heavily invested in the illusion that they have actually made a difference towards peace during their tenures, steadfastly holding on to their fantasies. Hamas of course made it clear that they are not interested in a cease fire.

Meanwhile, Peres' fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate was proven to have ordered the kidnap and assassination of American diplomats in 1973 in newly released State Department documents. The power of wishful thinking is amazing indeed, and the ability of otherwise intelligent people to overlook the obvious in order to advance their agendas based on that same wishful thinking is even more amazing.

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How enlightened Iranians treat women's rights protesters

Activists and police at the June 12 protest

(kosoof.com)

PRAGUE, June 13, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Iranian police violently dispersed a women's rights gathering in one of Tehran's main squares on June 12.

Activists said afterward that police forces detained more than 50 people shortly after the gathering started. One former reformist legislator, several students, and women's rights activists are reportedly among the detainees. Several activists were arrested and summoned to court ahead of the announced gathering.

Activists say several hundred demonstrators of both genders attended the peaceful gathering, which was held to protest legal obstacles for women.

They were planning to remain in front of a nearby park for one hour and voice their objections to discriminatory laws.

According to the interpretation of Islamic laws applied in Iran, a woman's testimony in court is worth half of a man's. Women's divorce rights are negligible compared with those for men. And women need the permission of their father or husband to travel.

Activists planned to call for equal legal rights in marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, and other areas.

They also said that they would read aloud a statement claiming that despite efforts to achieve equal status, women's most basic rights "have been ignored in the Iranian civil and penal codes.”

Authorities Were Prepared

But shortly after the gathering started, participants faced tough action by police forces, who dispersed the gathering within about an hour.

Keyvan Rafi, the spokesman of a newly founded group that calls itself Human Rights Activists In Iran, told RFE/RL that police and security forces outnumbered protesters.

He said they resorted to force to crush the protest.

"[Police] forces -- especially armed female officers with batons -- suppressed the protest," Rafi said. "Between 70 and 80 people were arrested -- former MP Mussavi Khoinia, women's rights activist from Amir Kabir University Leila Mohseninejad, and also members of Daftare Tahkim Vahdat [major reformist student organizations] are among those arrested -- in addition to many women whose name we have not been able to obtain yet."

Despite the clashes, some protesters managed to chant slogans urging that laws against women be abolished.

Some bloggers claiming to have witnessed the scene accused authorities of dragging women on the ground by their hair and savagely beating others. They say pepper gas was used against the activists.

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Why the long face?

I've been noticing a large number of pictures in the newswires of mourning Palestinian Arab women, such as these:



I was wondering - how come we'd seen so many relatives of past martyrs happy and handing out sweets, celebrating the entry to paradise of their terrorist kin, and now they are so sad? After all - they are certainly martyrs, they were trying to kill their enemies when they died, and they are certainly screwing lots of virgins right around now. What is different?

Then it hit me...

The suicide bombers that were celebrated in the past managed to kill some Jews while dying. The celebrations aren't for dying - they are for successful murder!

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Rachel Corrie and Caterpillar revisited

Yesterday was Caterpillar, Inc.'s annual meeting, and predictably the pro-terror crowd was out in force trying to force the company to not sell to Israel. The company rejected their arguments vehemently.

Over a year ago, the pro-terror crowd said they were suing Caterpillar, presumably for building bulldozers that could accidentally kill people.

If one goes through the Rachel Corrie website, for some reason one cannot find a single call for Arab nations or Palestinian Arabs to boycott Caterpillar! As the chairman pointed out yesterday, Arab nations themselves rejected the idea of a boycott, and the wonderful, warm Palestinian Arabs who Rachel was defending somehow manage to get their hands on some Cat bulldozers as well:

And now for today's gratuitous swipe at the MSM: It is widely believed and reported (in the article linked to above, for example) that Corrie was "crushed to death in 2003 by a Caterpillar tractor." In fact:

The army report obtained by the Guardian says Corrie: "was struck as she stood behind a mound of earth that was created by an engineering vehicle operating in the area and she was hidden from the view of the vehicle's operator who continued with his work. Corrie was struck by dirt and a slab of concrete resulting in her death.

"The finding of the operational investigations shows that Rachel Corrie was not run over by an engineering vehicle but rather was struck by a hard object, most probably a slab of concrete which was moved or slid down while the mound of earth which she was standing behind was moved."

Finally, for all of the supposed human rights supporters calling for hurting Caterpillar, it is fun to once again see how its stock has been doing since Corrie's death.

On the day she died, Caterpillar stock was at $22.10 in today's terms, after splits and dividends. Today it is at $70.85, more than tripling its price in a little over three years. Not too shabby! Perhaps an anti-terror mutual fund should be created - it would probably beat the market.

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111111111111111 and 1000000000000000

Others may celebrate milestones in boring Base 10, but I'm a binary type of guy.

Today, I received my 32,767th and 32,768th visitors (according to Sitemeter - StatCounter has me at well over 36,000 but I think Sitemeter is more accurate.) This is, of course, a power of 2, so in binary notation I just received my visitors number 111111111111111 and 1000000000000000. Now, those are numbers that would look cool on an odometer!

#32767 is from Argentina and #32768 is from Canada.

Readership is moving steadily upwards. While this blog is tiny compared to many, for the past few days I've averaged 150 unique visitors and over 200 pageviews (mostly because I was quoted a couple of times in the Backspin blog.) When I crosspost to Infidel Bloggers Alliance I get a much higher readership, of course.

The International Zionist Web that I founded is growing slowly as well. Feel free to join - just let me know and place the graphic on your site.

Thanks so much to all who hang out in my humble corner of the blogosphere!

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The BBC discovers the rocket threat - to a point

The BBC has an unusually sympathetic article about the threat to Israel from rockets. One of the illustrations shows the range of Palestinian Arab rockets from Gaza (older Kassams, newer Kassams and Katyushas):


Even with this article, the BBC falls short of telling the whole story:

What would happen if Israel would go back to the Green Line in the West Bank?

Let's look at a map I made based on this BBC map:

That's right - essentially all of the populated areas of Israel are in range of Katyushas from the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon.

So while the BBC at least began to inform its readers of the threat that their "Goliath" is under, it just couldn't quite take the next step and describe how life would be if Israel did what the BBC and most of the world has been pushing it to do.

It is easy to sit in the UK or in the US where you are thousands of miles from any real threat to your citizens and say that Israel should give back its only slight strategic advantage in its war with the combined Arab nations, but Israel doesn't have two oceans or an entire continent as a buffer. Defending against an enemy that is within walking distance from you is a little different from one that is far away.

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Phrases you won't hear describing Hamas/Fatah war

The coverage of the nascent civil war between Hamas and Fatah somehow never mentions certain phrases:

• Cycle of violence
• Extrajudicial killings
• State-sponsored terror
• Martyrs
• War crimes

Additions welcome!

UPDATE: The ones I like from the comments:

• Calling for restraint (based on Myackie)
• Disproportionate force (Callie)
  
• Disregard of civilian life (Callie)
• Illegal (GreenMamba)
  
• Assassination (GreenMamba)
  
• Against international law (GreenMamba)
• UN (Brutus)
  
• Violation (Brutus)
• Home-made (Brutus)
• Extremist (based on Callie)
• Provocation (Ricky at Backspin)
• Humiliation (Ricky)
  

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Arabs lie, MSM reports, you decide

This morning's Israeli airstrike against an Arab rocket cell is being universally reported as:

The Israeli military said its aircraft targeted militants on a mission to launch Katyusha rockets at southern Israel. Palestinian witnesses said one missile missed the militants' van, which then crashed into a curb and was struck by two other missiles.

The last two missiles killed and wounded the civilians. Also killed was Hamoud Wadiya, reported to be Islamic Jihad's top rocket launcher, and an unidentified second person in his van, whom the Israeli military identified as another militant.

Witnesses said at least one of the missiles struck some two minutes after the initial one and after a crowd had begun to gather around the scene of the attack.

Now, anyone who has followed Israel's targeted attacks against terrorists in Gaza knows that this sounds very strange. Israel doesn't wait two minutes to send another rocket into an area where civilians have gathered. But - Reuters and AP and UPI have eyewitness testimony!

Now - what really happened?

The Islamic Jihad said earlier that two of its operatives who were killed were Hamoud Wadiya, the group's top rocket launcher, and Shawki Sayklia. Seven Palestinian civilians, including two schoolchildren, were also killed Tuesday when the single missile fired by the IAF detonated the Katyushas inside the car. The army said it had proof that only one missile had been fired and that the terrorists were the only target in the strike.

With years of evidence that Palestinian Arabs habitually will lie to the press - provably and repeatedly - one would think that any "news" organizations that are committed to finding out the truth would at least temper their reporting with this understanding.

And perhaps one day someone from a wire agency might actually write an article that indicates that when Arabs are on their way to fire Katyusha rockets, when they travel through a populated area, when they are killed by Israel in a clearly justifiable manner, and when their own explosives kill Palestinian Arab civilians - that the fault lies wholly with the terrorists and not at all with the country that acted appropriately to stop a rocket attack against her citizens.

UPDATE: The IDF has admitted that it did send two rockets:

The army had originally said it had proof that only one missile had been fired and that the terrorists were the only target in the strike.

However, the IDF later rescinded that claim, saying that the first missile struck near the vehicle but failed to kill the terrorists. Following the initial strike a crowd of Palestinian onlookers gathered. By that time, said a senior IDF officer, an IAF aircraft had already launched a second missile at the target. The second missile, which could not be rerouted, struck the Katyusha-laden vehicle, causing the casualties.

It still appears that the number of casualties would not have been nearly as high had the explosives on the vehicle not contributed. And the fact that the terrorists had Katyushas and not Kassams would explain why Israel was not as reluctant to shoot sooner rather than later.

Also, AP is still claiming 3 rockets were sent, based on "witnesses."

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AP puff piece on anti-Israel/anti-US comic book

This morning AP published a puff piece about an Arab superhero comic book that is available in the US:

LOS ANGELES -- If Batman had a twin sister, her name most likely would be Aya, "princess of darkness."

Just like Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne, Middle Eastern comic-book superstar Aya launched her quest for vengeance against evil after witnessing her father's murder.

And while Batman stands vigil over Gotham City, Aya keeps watch over the City of All Faiths, which could easily pass for Jerusalem if it were ever overrun by cartoon villains.

Aya's creator, Ayman Kandeel, hopes such superhero similarities will resonate with Americans and that comic-book readers will embrace the new Middle Eastern crime-fighter and her fellow AK Comics superheroes - Lone Warrior Rakan, the Last Pharaoh Zein and Jalila, saviour of the City of All Faiths.

"I think our characters are global," says Kandeel, who launched AK Comics in his native Egypt four years ago and is now rolling out its stable of superheroes in the United States.

The part that the AP decides isn't relevant to this story is that the major female superhero, Jalila - a female scientist who at the age of 16 survived an explosion at the Dimodona nuclear plant (a reference to Israel's Dimona nuclear research reactor), and gained super-powers from the radiation. She protects the City of All Faiths (Jerusalem) from the warring Zios Army (guess who) and the United Liberation Force (guess who again.)

This story came out over a year ago. To be fair, from looking at the synopses of the comic books themselves it looks more like standard superhero fare than explicit hatemongering against Israel, but the subtext is there and it is crystal clear. The fact that the AP decides not to mention it is just another in a long string of whitewashing we've come to expect from the MSM.

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Al-Dura and Ghalia; Intifada II and III

There is another similarity between the fake al-Dura video and the possibly somewhat staged Ghalia video.

Remember, the second intifada was supposedly sparked by two events - the visit by Prime Minister Sharon to the Temple Mount on September 28, 2000, and the fake al-Dura shooting on September 30th. But in reality it was planned in July 2000, after the failure of Camp David. Sharon's visit was cleared ahead of time with the PLO, and al-Dura was fake from the start.

So in 2000, the PLO planned the war and cynically used the media and lies to inflame Arab passions to make the war have a more popular basis. In fact, they started attacking Jewish civilians and soldiers in earnest on September 13 in violation of Oslo.

Now we fast forward to this weekend. While the Ghalia family really were killed, unlike al-Dura, the piece of information that is most relevant to the timing of this episode can be seen in this article by Ze'ev Schiff:

An analysis of the situation leads to the conclusion that the decision to launch the offensive was made by Khaled Meshal, the Damascus-based political leader of Hamas, and the Gaza-based heads of the organization's military wing. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, also of Hamas, was informed of the decision and did not object to it.

The first decision to break the hudna came earlier this month. One contributing factor was the Hamas argument that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' call for a referendum over the Prisoners' Document must be neutralized.

What did Khaled Meshal say recently? Among other things:

Hamas and rival Palestinian faction Fatah should close ranks against Israel rather than fighting each other, according to Hamas leader Khaled Meshal. Speaking at the end of a two-day conference in Qatar, Meshal, who is based in Damascus, said Hamas and Fatah should jointly focus on "liberating Palestine, not recognizing Israel and adopting the path of Jihad and resistance."

The timing of this breaking the "hudna" seems awfully similar to the timing of the outbreak of the September 2000 "intifada" - use an external, televised event as an excuse to start killing as many Jews as you can.

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Anti-semitism and anti-Zionism

Soccer Dad and Judeopundit, among others, have had an interesting discussion on whether there are differences between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism.

There are certainly some theoretical differences, and some undeniable differences (Neturei Karta members may be bigoted, hateful, publicity seeking morons but it would be hard to characterize them as anti-semitic)

But for the majority of ani-Zionists there is little question that they are really anti-semitic, or self-hating Jews. Whether it makes sense to accuse them of Jew-hatred based purely on their anti-Zionist statements is a different question.

There are a few good "acid tests" to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel or Zionism and old fashioned bigotry against Jews. One of the better definitions comes from Natan Sharansky.

He calls it the "3D" test:

• Demonization - "When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel's actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz - this is anti- Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel."
• Double Standards - "When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel's Magen David Adom, alone among the world's ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross - this is anti-Semitism."
• Delegitimization - "When Israel's fundamental right to exist is denied - alone among all peoples in the world - this too is anti-Semitism."

So while it may not be prudent to yell out "anti-semite!" at every critic of Israel, it is more than reasonable to dig a little deeper and see if the critic fits one or more of the above criteria. It quickly becomes clear that the motivation behind Israel boycotts, for example, is pure Jew-hatred dressed up as liberal social values.

There may be another reason for some of today's irrational anti-Zionism.

One other great hatred that exists in the world today that is socially acceptable is the hatred of America. As the only superpower, as well as the major economic driving force, America is the object of intense envy that manifests itself as hate. Just as in the case of Israel, the United States' very existence and success is an implicit indictment of others - in America's case, it shows the impotence of Old Europe, in Israel's case, it shows the shortcomings of her neighbors.

In either case, some of the hatred of Israel may be because it is such a staunch friend and ally of hated America. It is probably not nearly as much of a factor as old-fashioned Jew-hatred, but it is a component that may be used to differentiate between some Israel-bashers and anti-semites. It may make more sense to say that French anti-Zionism is more a consequence of French jealousy of America than innate Jew-hatred.

At any rate, Judeopundit's main point that anti-Zionism is no less bigoted than anti-semitism is well taken and worth repeating.

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DEBKA: Family on beach killed by Hamas bomb

Again, not a mainstream news source, but DEBKA has broken accurate stories before.

Israeli leaders have ordered army commanders to put their counter-missile offensive on hold pending the findings of the military probe into the deaths of seven Palestinians, including children, on Gaza’s beach Friday, June 9. Cooperation between US, Israel, Palestinian Authority and Egyptian intelligence has yielded an initial impression that the blast that caused seven Paletinian deaths on a Gaza beach Friday, june 9, was caused by one of a series of bombs Hamas planted last week on the northern Gazan beach. They were put there as daisy chain traps in case Israeli commandos landed by sea to take Qassam missile launchers in northern Gaza by surprise. The theory gaining ground is that the Palestinian picnickers had the bad luck to detonate one of those bombs.

The day after the mishap, Saturday, dozens of people were sighted combing the scene of the blast and removing the bombs, according to information passed to Israel by Palestinian intelligence, which is engaged in a blood feud with Hamas

To explain this Palestinian helpfulness, DEBKAfile’s sources reveal how the close Abu Mazen associate Muhammed Dahlan was humiliated when he made the gesture of presenting his condolences for the killing of the new Hamas militia commander Jemal Semadhana last week at the official mourners’ tent. Instead of his courtesies being accepted, he was pitched out of the tent by Hamas and Semdhana’s Popular Resistance Committees’ musclemen. He was thus treated to the ultimate insult for a Muslim. Islamic canons enjoin even enemies to be treated with respect in a mourning period. Dahlan was so enraged that he ordered PA intelligence to assist Israeli in its probe to find out if a Hamas bomb rather than an Israeli artillery shell was the true culprit behind the death of the Palestinian family. As yet it is not yet clear how much information Dahlan will allow the Palestinian service to release on the episode.

YNet adds some details:

Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Sunday that the security established had completely excluded the possibility that the explosion was caused by an IDF air force or naval strike already during initial investigations. However, the possibility Israeli artillery fire caused the blast was still being examined.

“Out of six shells that were fired, the landing spot of one of them is unknown,” Peretz said. However, he added, there are great disparities between the time at which the army recording firing shells and the time the beachfront explosion occurred, according to Palestinian reports.

IDF investigations found that the shell that hit closest to the blast site landed a full 200 to 250 meters away, and therefore could not have caused the deadly explosion.

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Israel News Agency: Palestinian Arabs killed family on Gaza beach

I have yet to see any major Israeli newspaper report this, and I can't vouch for the quality of this source, but it is consistent with all we have been reading so far about the Friday incident that is turning into another Al-Dura:

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem-----June 11.......An Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer has confirmed that the explosion that killed eight Palestinians on Friday, was caused by a stockpile of Hamas explosives.

"Shortly after we stopped defensive firing at Hamas rocket launch pads which were deployed behind Palestinian human shields, members of Hamas scrambled to fire more rockets at our positions," said Col. M. "We have eyes on every meter of Gaza, from the sky, from the ground and from the sea. One of their rocket tripods collapsed inadvertently setting off an explosion of a stockpile of Qassam rockets. The Palestinians killed their own children. And this was not the first time."

Hamas terrorists fired rockets and mortar bombs from a crowded Gaza beach at southern Israel. Some of the rockets fell near the Israel city of Ashkelon. Some 17 rockets were fired between Saturday and Sunday morning. A man at a school in the Israel town of Sderot was wounded, Israel officials said.

Israel Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant said today that the Israel Defense Forces has additional evidence that it wasn't Israel artillery that hit the beach in Gaza. Galant, who commands Israel's southern command, said Israel stopped firing 15 minutes before the explosion. It's all on secure videotape from both sides of the conflict. Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he was sorry about the deaths, which included three children.

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UPI: Israel guilty until proven innocent

Even though the source of the shells that killed the members of a Gaza family on the beach on Friday is not yet known, and even though Israel is making very public statements that the investigation is still ongoing and that Palestinian Arabs may have very well been the ones responsible for the deaths, UPI even Sunday morning is saying:

An IDF official said 48 rockets had been launched at Israel since Friday when the truce was called off after Israeli rockets killed seven Palestinians at a Gaza beach.

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Reuters lies yet again

It looked for a while that the MSM might have gotten the message that the Hamas "truce" was illusory, and they had been saying things like "Hamas has largely abided by a truce" to be more technically accurate.

But it appears that the leading Reuters apologist for Palestinian Arab terror Nidal al-Mughrabi slipped one by the ever-vigilant and committed-to-truth Reuters editors:

The referendum would be the first chance that Palestinians have had to vote directly on whether they favor a two-state solution. Hamas is formally committed to Israel's destruction but has abided by a truce for more than a year.

I suppose that this week's Hamas rocket attacks are part of the "truce."

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Humanitarian crisis, part 11

Those poor, poor, poor Gazans. Starving, unemployed, no medicine, no money, an economy in ruins.

Luckily, they can always scrounge money for rockets, ammunition, M-16s and anti-tank rockets!

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s forces and Hamas rivals are expanding their arsenals as a power struggle intensifies, increasing the risk that a showdown could turn bloody, security sources and diplomats said.

New weapons and equipment can be seen on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank, while prices for black market guns and ammunition have soared in a growing arms race despite pledges by both sides to prevent civil war.

Western security officials in the Gaza Strip said members of one of Abbas’s elite bodyguard units had shown them newly issued anti-tank rockets concealed in backpacks.

In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, where Abbas has his headquarters, the guard recently acquired four brand new US-made armoured vehicles worth an estimated $100,000 each.

The government is under a Western financial embargo aimed at forcing Hamas to recognise Israel and renounce violence. But Hamas has been able to smuggle weapons and tens of millions of dollars and euros through the Egyptian border with Gaza, Israeli intelligence sources said.

In Gaza, where it has enough guns, Hamas has been buying up bullets, Palestinian security sources said.

Arms dealers and an Israeli military source said black market bullets were now selling for $1 each - a steep price in areas where up to half the people live on less than $2 per day.

In the West Bank, Hamas has been buying M-16 rifles. Dealers said heavy demand and a lack of supply have sent prices soaring to as much as $13,000 each, up from $5,400 a year ago.

OK, let's do the math: half the people live on less than $2 a day, and an M-16 is $13,000. So the money for an M-16 could have supported 100 Palestinian Arabs for two months.

Nice to know that Hamas cares as much about the people as Fatah did!

(Other "Humanitarian Crisis" articles can be found here.)

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AP's pro-Hamas bias, yet again

Besides writing articles to be distributed worldwide, the AP also writes headlines. News organizations are free to use them or to change them as they please, so you will typically find that most web news sites that take the AP feed directly will re-print the AP headline directly as well, while other news organizations may change the headline while keeping the article.

Today's article by Ibrahim Barzak about Israel's killing of master terrorist Jamal Abu Samhadana is not nearly as bad and one-sided as some articles we've seen, although it has the usual errors. Of course he eschews the use of the word "terror" (besides in a quote from Samhadna referring to the US government!).

But what is striking is the headline:

Hamas Continues Resistance Against Israel

Almost unbelievably, the AP has wholeheartedly taken the Hamas side in describing its terror attacks. "Resistance" implies something heroic, akin to calling Hamas terrorists "freedom fighters." Rather than mention that Hamas' shooting rockets into Israel puts a lie to the fake "truce" that the wire services have been mentioning over the past months, the AP spins Hamas' threat to Israeli civilians as "resistance."

Interestingly, some major news organizations kept the pro-terror AP headline, like CBS , The Guardian, the Washington Post and Forbes.

Not to say that the AP doesn't ever use the word "terrorist" without scare quotes. In fact, it does so often.

It referred to Zarqawi as a terrorist in many of its dispatches over the past day.

And in this story, the AP writes:

The USS Cole is heading to the Middle East for the first time since a terrorist bomb killed 17 sailors aboard the Navy ship in Yemen's port of Aden nearly six years ago.

So, according to the AP:

• Attacks against Iraqi civilians are terrorist attacks.
• Attacks against US Navy sailors are terrorist attacks.
  
• Attacks against Jewish civilians in Israel is resistance.

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Iranian earthquake watch

As I've mentioned before, Iran gets pretty much daily earthquakes, making it a very stupid place to want to build, oh, say, a nuclear reactor.

Here's the past three days or activity with the Richter scale measurement of each:

Tuesday: 3.7 and 3.6 in southern Iran
Wednesday: 5.0 in western Iran
Thursday: 4.6 and 4.0 in southeastern Iran

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And in other news...

There has been other notable news over the past day besides the obvious....

British Islamist brigade joins Al Qaeda in Iraq
It never ceases to amaze how some Western Muslims decide to fight their home countries.

PA refuses medicine from Israel; demands cash instead
Proving for the umpteenth time that the "humanitarian crisis" is manufactured for propaganda purposes.

PA is hiring thousands more "policemen" - from Hamas
Apparently, 90,000 "security forces" for 3.5 million people (one policeman for each 39 people) was not enough - the ratio is now approaching 1/36. When you redefine terrorists as policemen, the official crime rate goes way down!

But, 60% of Palestinian Arab civil workers no longer show up to work.

Yet somehow, they manage to find money for daily rocket barrages.

The rocket factory seems to have no problems getting TNT during this "crisis" as well.

Meanwhile, today's Rooz Gooz News: An aide to Iranian leadership, and a "historian", explains the phrase "dirty Jew" in that inimitable Iranian way. He also helpfully adds some possible evidence that Jews are behind the bird flu, worldwide epidemics and of course the Holocaust hoax.

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Another extrajudicial killing

Last night, the Zionist US occupational forces performed an extrajudicial terrorist murder of 8 civilians, as well as an illegal house demolition, as they destroyed a house 50km northeast of Baghdad, in the province of Diyala, just east of the provincial capital, Baquba.

One of the confirmed martyrs is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a peaceful, pudgy middle-aged man and Internet entrepreneur who even the terrorist Zionist American forces admit didn't know how to handle a machine gun.

This is but the latest proof of the big Satan's aggressive intent as it performs genocide against the Arab and Muslim world.

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The survey and the MSM

The only mention of the Bir Zeit University survey mentioned in my previous article is in this dispatch from AP, by terror-apologist Mohammed Daraghmeh:

A new survey released Tuesday showed 77 percent of Palestinians would vote in favor of the proposal. The survey of 1,200 Palestinians was conducted by Bir Zeit University in the West Bank and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Here is a textbook example of how the media manipulates the news it spoonfeeds to the world to conform to its already pre-existing script.

The script is that Mahmoud Abbas, man of peace, is pressuring Hamas to change its wicked ways and accept Israel's existence. Using the sheer will of the peaceful Palestinian Arab people, he is going to force Hamas to realize that peaceful means are the only way possible, by having the people vote directly for a peace plan that recognizes Israel and supports the idea of living side-by-side with Israel.

The reality is what I wrote in my last posting: the "proposal" is not peaceful at all, it does not recognize Israel, and it even advocates Israel's destruction under the "right of return"; the poll showed that Palestinian Arabs themselves are almost unanimous in supporting terror against Jewish civilians to some extent, and the authors of the proposal who are idolized by Palestinian Arabs are convicted murderers and terrorists.

It is not like the survey results are only in Arabic - they are in English and available to any reporter or person with a web browser. While it may be argued that the poll is not strictly scientific (the questions appear to be somewhat leading,) if the results that adhere to the MSM script are news, one would hope that the lopsided results that rip the script to shreds are at least as newsworthy. 96% of them supporting terror(with a margin of error of 3%!) is as close to unanimous as you will ever find in any survey, and at some point the world needs to look at what the Palestinian Arab people truly want.

Even if the answers may be very, very ugly.

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Latest Peaceful Palestinian Poll: 4% oppose terror!

A recent poll released by Bir-Zeit University:

19. As to funding the Palestinian National Authority, which one of these two directions do you support?
1) Hamas continues to reject recognizing Israel, while reaching out to countries like Iran and the Arab world to get funding	60.8%
2) Hamas recognizes Israel and continue to receive funding from the international community	31.0%
Do you support the following statement: 37. Commitment to resistance with a focus in the occupied territories.
1) Yes	83.4%
2) To some extent	12.6%
3) No	4%
42. Do you support or oppose that the (Prisoners’ Declaration) be the basis for a national unity program?
1) Support	81.1%
2) Oppose	13.0%

Now, one might be surprised that the same people who do not want to recognize Israel in question 19 overwhelmingly support the "prisoners' declaration" which the media has portrayed as "implicitly" recognizing Israel in question 42.

The answer is obvious - nowhere does the "prisoner's declaration" recognize Israel except in the fevered minds of wire service reporters. As has been very well documented by Honest Reporting and Israel Matzav, the entire initiative is a smokescreen that the wishful thinkers of the West are more than happy to pretend is a breakthrough.

The poll result that will not make the mainstream media at all is the fact that only 4% of Palestinian Arabs reject terror altogether. The question is ambiguously worded, but what is entirely clear is that the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs want to see continued attacks against Jewish civilians (what is euphemistically called "resistance.")

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French Black anti-Semitism - not only a Muslim issue

A scary piece of real reporting, from City Journal:

The Wrath of Ka

Black anti-Semites storm Paris’s old Jewish quarter.

by Nidra Poller
6 June 2006

On the last Sunday of May, 30 angry black men stormed into the heart of the old Jewish quarter, terrorizing residents, shopkeepers, and Sunday strollers. The self-styled militia of the Ka Tribe, a black separatist group originally connected to the no-longer funny black comic Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, embodied the worst fears of a Jewish community exposed, since January 2006, to a new rise in anti-Semitic attacks.

Three months after the torture-murder of Ilan Halimi, the intimidating incursion of the Ka militia into the narrow “Jewish” street of the Marais looks like an ominous sign of worse to come. The Ka Tribe is the lunatic fringe of a broad anti-Semitic movement originally inspired by Dieudonné, who has become a hero to a segment of black French society by focusing resentment on Jews. But Dieudonné, with a French mother and Cameroonian father, was not black enough for Stellio Capochichi, the Tribe’s leader, whose origins are Haitian and Ivoirian.

A self-serving interview with the college-educated leader, who calls himself Fara (pharaoh) Kemi Saba, appeared on the Ka website until the government shut it down two days after the rue des Rosiers incursion. Deftly manipulating the terms and gestures of French intellectual discourse, Kemi Saba, flanked by two husky bodyguards, lays out his latter-day ideology of “negritude,” a rehash of the worst of Cheikh Anta Diop, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, born-again Africanism, and Malcolm X, served up with the nastiness of the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam. Though Kemi Saba preaches total separation from leucodermes (anything less than 100 percent pure blacks) and rejects both Christianity and Islam, he has a soft spot for Islamism. In a communiqué attacking “Sarkkkozy the Jew,” the Fara’s spokesman lashes out at “[whites] who make caricatures of the prophet of Islam.”

Kemi Saba’s resentment is all-embracing: the injustice that rankles him began with the very origins of humanity. The kémites (the term replaces leucoderm words like blacks, Africans, or Antilleans) are the true chosen people, destined to rule the world. Victims of oppression of mythical proportions, they will liberate themselves by returning to original sources of spirituality and social organization. Ka males—medzatones—are noble warriors; the females—Aset—are sublime beauties and perfect mothers; the children learn to be true kémites in the “School of Hor” (Horus).

Eyewitnesses concur about the incursion: 30 men in paramilitary formation stormed into rue des Rosiers, shouting threats and insults against Jews. Some wore boxer’s mouthpieces and leather gloves with brass knuckles. They burned with anger and itched for a fight. Frantic calls to the police met with laconic replies: “Yes, we have been informed.”

The men stomped and shouted for what seemed an endless 20 minutes. People who had seen the interview with Kemi Saba on the Ka website recognized him, protected by his bodyguards and visibly directing the operation according to plan. Some shopkeepers lowered their metal shutters as soon as they saw the hostile group round the corner at rue Vieille du Temple and march into rue des Rosiers. Others took people into their fragile boutiques. Men, women, and children felt totally defenseless, delivered up to a storm of uncontrollable rage. Some witnesses report seeing baseball bats, sticks, knives; others suspected their presence under thick black jackets; all believed that these men were capable of committing a massacre. The police did not come until the militia had left. They did collar some members of the group later, close to their Belleville headquarters; they questioned and released them.

The capture of Youssouf Fofana—leader of the gang of barbarians accused of the torture-murder of Ilan Halimi—and his extradition from the Ivory Coast had provoked the Ka’s wrath. They sent a message to various Jewish groups and individuals, threatening to kill other Jews if anyone dared to touch a hair on Fofana’s head; it has circulated on the Web since late February. Another communiqué warns interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy of dire consequences if Fofana does not get a fair trial. Can he possibly get a fair trial from a “leucoderm” court? Can he be guilty in the eyes of kémites?

Veiled threats led to aggressive action even before the incursion as the Ka went after real or imagined members of Betar (a group that provides security for Jewish events) and the Jewish Defense League, accused of persecuting blacks and Muslims who penetrate their turf—rue des Rosiers—and beating up kémites during the memorial march for Ilan Halimi. On May 19, the Ka militia stormed a gym in the 9th arrondissement, looking for Betar and Jewish Defense League “strongmen.” There they terrorized kids (non-Jewish ones, as it happened) who were learning an Israeli martial art. The Ka packaged the rue des Rosiers incursion as a pre-arranged showdown with the “Zionist extremists” and announced a knockout victory—because the “extremists” didn’t show up.

This fantasized warfare is no less outlandish than the esoteric Ka mythology, built around worship of Aton, a smattering of hieroglyphics, and imitation of Jewish identity. The French government has tolerated the Ka for years, but their hero worship of Fofana, the increasingly vehement threats against Interior Minister Sarkozy, and, now, this show of force in the Jewish quarter has provoked signs of severity. The interior minister visited the rue des Rosiers this Wednesday to show his support and promise results. He has called for a criminal investigation and eventual dissolution of the group. Greeted in Montfermeil with shouts of anger, he found himself welcomed to the Marais with hurrahs and “Sarkozy for President.”

Outside the ORT school, where the minister met with residents, a dapper gray-haired shop owner said, with dignified regret, “It’s over for Jews in France.” And added, “The police told me . . . they said it’s over for us . . . they can’t handle this problem. . . . It’s too late.”

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Who will be the Sderot sacrifice?

Seven Kassam rockets hit Sderot yesterday and, miraculously, no one has died in the latest barrage, even though some hit houses.

It is inevitable that one day the miracles will run out and people will die in Sderot from Kassam attacks. And it is inevitable that Israel will respond with a small-scale ground operation to Gaza followed by a quick withdrawal. And it is inevitable that there will be more rocket attacks, and soon Kassams will be replaced with Katyushas. And it is inevitable that Israel will have to go back into Gaza more permanently to stop these inevitable attacks.

The only problem is, Israel seems to want to wait until some of her citizens are dead first.

Even though the motives of the scum launching the rockets are identical to the motives of suicide bombers - to kill as many Jews as possible. Even though the PA has not the slightest interest in stopping the terror.

Still, Israel is responding with the occasional assassination and lots of tough words, rather than taking care of the problem in the only way it will be taken care of anyway. Inevitably.

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New JBlog aggregator

JBlogsphere.net (notice the spelling!) is a new aggregator page like JRants and Jewish Blogging. One nifty feature is the ability to mouse-over a posting and read part of the post.

Of course, the bad news is that some people can read this post without going to my site and I don't get any hits...

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The Refugees of Zer'in

During Israel's War of Independence, the Palestine Post published occasional dispatches from Dorothy Bar-Adon called "Emek Diary" showing the human side of the war from her perspective.

In this amazing article, Bar-Adon describes the close relationships between her village's Jews and the Arabs of Zer'in (now Jezreel), who lived in a town overlooking much of the valley. The town's strategic position made it ideal for shelling and sniping at the Jewish villages below, and for months the Jews lived in fear of being shot in their houses or fields.

An Iraqi general and his troops arrived in Zer'in and built up fortified positions to attack from. It is unclear when exactly the residents of Zer'in left the town; most of them apparently left when the Iraqis arrived and before the Jews conquered the hill. But as this article makes clear, the Israeli soldiers could hear the Arab women of the village - neighbors and friends of the Jews in years past - shout out war cries during the first unsuccessful attempt to take the town.

Bar-Adon shows that she is in a position to be far more sympathetic to the Palestinian Arab refugees of Zer'in than the international community who were (and still are) insisting on allowing the Arabs to return: she knew them intimately, she celebrated happy times with them, she ate with them. But, as she explains, to allow Arabs to go back to Zer'in is unthinkable, knowing that they chose their sides, they waxed lyrically hoping and expecting the deaths of hundreds of Jews around Zer'in, and that they would choose sides again against the Jews if they are given a chance.

(See Palestine Post-ings for a larger version of the article.)

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Aw, isn't he cute?

A Palestinian child holds a weapon during a a demonstration in support of Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

A very large list of similar photos can be found at LGF.

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Latest Hamas "truce" news

Just another link to send brain-dead reporters and editors who insist on claiming that Hamas is holding by a truce:

From Ha'Aretz:

Hamas operatives in the West Bank have experimented with adding toxic chemicals to their bombs, security sources told Haaretz Monday.

The organization also is amassing large stocks of explosives so operatives will be ready to launch attacks immediately should its leadership decide to end the security "lull," the sources added.

Currently, Hamas' West Bank cells are focusing mainly on buying arms, training operatives, setting up explosives factories and conducting experiments. However, a few cells - mainly in the southern West Bank, around Hebron and Bethlehem - are continuing to carry out small-scale attacks. These cells are only loosely connected to the organization's leadership in Damascus and Gaza, and as long as they keep a relatively low profile and do not claim responsibility for their attacks in Hamas' name, the leadership does not interfere. One such cell was arrested early this year after murdering six Israeli civilians near Gush Etzion and Hebron.

In Gaza, Hamas operatives often assist attacks carried out by Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees. The rockets fired at Sderot last week, for instance, were made by Hamas, and "rebellious" members of the organization helped launch them. The Shin Bet security service also accused senior Hamas operatives of having helped the Popular Resistance Committees prepare a attack in April at the Karni crossing between Gaza and Israel. That plan was foiled by PA security personnel.

There is also one type of attack to which Hamas' leadership has given its unequivocal blessing: attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers or civilians for use in negotiations over the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

The Shin Bet and police arrested a senior Hamas operative in Ramallah two weeks ago who was responsible for planning several "mega-attacks." The arrest was made public Monday.

Ibrahim Hamed heads Hamas' military wing in the West Bank. His planned attacks included attempts to blow up railway tracks and an attempted bombing of the Pi Glilot gas storage facility.

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Kudos to the IZW Cartoon Division

Prosecutors launched a criminal investigation Monday of two Azerbaijani newspapers that published collages featuring the heads of Iran's spiritual leaders placed on the bodies of two dogs.

The collages appeared just weeks after a caricature published in an Iranian newspaper, depicting Azeris as cockroaches, sparked deadly riots among Azeris in Iran.

The images, published in the newspapers 'Gun' and 'New Fakt' last week, also prompted an official protest from the Iranian Embassy, which called them offensive and blamed the United States and Israel.

'Such a move serves the dirty intentions and unlawful goals of America and its Zionist allies and is intended to promote division between religions, faiths and ethnic groups, as well as in the unity of the Islamic world,' the embassy said in a statement.

The Cartoon Division of the World Media Section of the International Zionist Web was once considered a place for slackers to relax and shoot spitballs at the Sports and Hollywood divisions, but ever since late last year the Cartoon Elders have stepped up to the plate and done their fair share around here. Kudos!

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Flaming hoop jumping, explained

I was always curious about why Palestinian Arab terrorists/policemen spend so much time practicing jumping through flaming hoops:


It finally hit me! It isn't, as I conjectured in February, that the "policemen" were staring a circus to cheer up the poor Palestinian Arab children and alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

But the real answer can be seen in another picture, variants of which have been published many dozens of times (כן ירבו):


Notice the relative sizes of the flaming hoops and the burnt out car window.

Palestinian Arab "police" are pursuing a skill that is very practical and much in demand in the territories: they need to practice quickly jumping out of the windows of flaming cars!

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Just your ordinary terrorist

In today's Newark Star-Ledger is an amazing article about the Gaza economy that effectively sympathizes with a terrorist:

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip -- Silhouetted by the late afternoon sun, a lone family of Palestinian bathers gathers around a table at Ibrahim's beach café to sip tea against the backdrop of the shimmering Mediterranean.

The scene easily could have been lifted from a marketing pamphlet for an exotic beach resort. But Ibrahim's actually is located in Shirat Hayam, a former Israeli settlement, and the beach is surrounded by rubble where militant squatters make their own law.

The beach had been off limits to Palestinians before Israel ended a four-decade occupation of Gaza in September. Now, a strip of Spartan yet rustic cafés like Ibrahim's has sprung up in anticipation of a busy summer.

"We are hopeful that the coffee shops will be crowded," says Sabri el Khidra, the 48-year old owner of Ibrahim's and a local militia leader who plunked about $15,000 into the renovation. "There are a lot of plans to make this a tourist area and to make Khan Younis the most beautiful beach in Gaza."

The reporter, Joshua Mitnick, is quick to describe his ideas of the source of the problems with building the Gaza economy:

The problems here begin with economic isolation and the desperation it has spawned.

Bracing for cross-border attacks, Israel's military has sealed key commercial crossings and lobbed thousands of tank shells into Gaza. At the same time, the refusal of Hamas (the country's ruling party) to recognize Israel after taking power in March has brought a suspension of international aid.

Nowhere does Hamas' and other Palestinian Arab terror aims have any part of the equation. Israel's closure of crossings is described in the active voice; everything else is in passive voice. No responsibility for Gaza's problems is ascribed to those that practice or advocate terror.

After talking about the "success" of turning Jewish schools into a branch of Al-Aqsa University, Mitnick concludes:

Still, Ibrahim's owner, el Khidra, is hopeful the financial crisis will end soon. He even believes tourists one day might discover Gaza.

"I am prepared to protect any tourist that comes here," he boasts.

Almost any tourist. Israelis, as el Khidra points out in a stark reminder of how little things really have changed, won't ever be welcome here.

"If I could get inside (their country) today and blow myself up, I would do it."

So in paragraph 30 of this long story, we find out that the person that the reporter is profiling as a bright shining star in rebuilding Gaza is in fact a would-be mass murderer.

An article that could have emphasized that terrorists are running Gaza instead implies that Gazan terrorists are just ordinary people who want to build up their country despite Israel's and international pressure.

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The Palestinian Arab people's responsibilities

In comments on this posting, VJ claimed that I was demonizing Palestinian Arabs. Although that was not my intent, to an extent he is right, and while perhaps I was not as careful in my wording as I should have been, it got me to thinking about the actual responsibility that Palestinian Arab people (rather than their leaders) have towards a peaceful Middle East.

I strongly feel that nations and peoples have a mass psychology similar to individuals. Sometimes they coincide with their leaders' psyches, sometimes not. These psyches can change over time but it is usually a slow process. Understanding global patterns and knowing how to act properly in any given situation depends on knowing how all the players think and are likely to react, and a fatal mistake that global leaders often make is the assumption that people are all the same and would all act the same way that their own people would.

In a previous posting, I laid out my analysis of the Palestinian Arabs' psyche:

Arab people just want to raise their families with dignity and pride.

The entire brief history of the Palestinian Arabs shows this to be true. The ones who lived in Palestine in the 1800s didn't care that they were under Ottoman rule, they didn't crave independence. After the Jews started coming in serious numbers and the economy boomed, many (I believe most) of the ancestors of today's Palestinian Arabs moved into Palestine from Syria and Jordan, because that was how they could best provide for their families. More moved in under British rule than under Ottoman rule, because economic concerns were far more important than political concerns.

If "independence" was the uppermost concern of Arabs, then why do over a million choose to stay in Israel rather than move to PA-administered areas? As the Clinton team famously observed, "it's the economy, stupid."

The people who have screwed the Palestinian Arabs the most have always been their "leaders." It was their leaders who decided to force them to boycott Jewish goods to their detriment, it was their leaders who kept them in "refugee" camps, it was their leaders who forced them to fight losing battles against the hated Zionists.

The "golden age" of Palestinian Arabs was during the "occupation" - this was when they had good paying jobs, when Israel built them an electrical and safe water infrastructure, when the Zionists used their devious Jewish expertise to dramatically increase the Palestinian Arab life expectancy and slash their infant mortality rates. During Oslo, tens of thousands of Jordanians moved illegally into the West Bank so they could raise their families in the comparative paradise that Israel built for the Palestinian Arabs.

The ordinary Palestinian doesn't care who his leader is or about Zionism or occupation or terror or democracy as long as his basic needs are met.

This is the background needed to understand the Hamas victory.

While I still largely believe this to be true, I did not mention a strong component to the current Palestinian Arab psyche: the effect of decades of government-controlled, institutionalized hate speech against Israel and Jews. Years of blaming Jews for every problem, as well as years of telling people that they should live in a welfare state and that they are owed jobs, money and a country, will have a slow but cumulative effect. Palestinian Arabs are slowly turning from the most creative, ambitious and hard-working of all the Arab people into whining babies. (It is no coincidence that when they were in daily contact with Jews and Westerners was when they have traditionally acted the most maturely.)

Given all this, given the cards they have been dealt by their leaders, by other Arab leaders and by Israelis, what are the Palestinian Arab people's responsibilities? How should they be acting?

No matter what one's situation, one must act like a moral, mature and responsible human being. Growing up in a terror environment no more justifies becoming a terrorist than growing up in a crackhouse justifies becoming a criminal. It may be harder but ultimately we must be held responsible for our own decisions. This is basic.

While I do not believe that the Palestinian people voted Hamas in power because of Hamas' desire to create a Jew-free Middle East, they are in the end responsible for that result. They were aware of Hamas' goals even if that was not the primary factor in their decision to choose Hamas.

If a US state would elect a governor who is a KKK member and who advocates racist laws, even if the people elected him on a "law and order" platform, we would do everything we could to blunt the effect of that election - legally, economically and socially. We would expect boycotts of that state's products, we would expect conventions to move to other states, we would expect the federal government to pass laws to counteract any state laws the governor manages to pass, we would expect ordinary people to react with disgust and horror. Some of these actions would inevitably hurt the people of that state and in the end that is wholly appropriate.

The Palestinian Arabs should be ashamed that the bigoted and murderous Hamas ended up in power. One does not discern any sense of shame, however.

So the first responsibility is to treat a genocidal terrorist group as pariahs and not as heroes.

There is another choice that Palestinian Arabs have: whether to remain pawns in the power plays of their leaders, or to actually work to build their state and their economy.

I mentioned here that Israel's existence was no more certain in 1946 than Arab Palestine's is today, and the circumstances that the Jews lived under were quite difficult. Even so, individually and without a central quasi-governmental plan, they built universities, they built industries, they started projects that would take years to bear fruit. A people who want to be treated as an equal among other nations must act as if they deserve that status - and if they need handouts to reach that goal, the handouts should come from their own people before they demand it from the world.

In other words, their second responsibility is to build things unilaterally, not destroy them.

This posting is already going on longer than I expected, but I must mention that there are many other responsibilities that Palestinian Arabs should be taking on but on a whole are not: protecting their children from violence and from indoctrination into terror groups, teaching tolerance for other people, protesting against the culture of death, protesting against honor killings, stopping the hero worship of terrorists. The lack of responsible actions on the "street" is not the fault of their leaders, but of the people themselves. Until one sees public protests that are against violence and for acting responsibly, until one sees a huge groundswell from the people and from their press to act like responsible human beings, it is not unreasonable to criticize the Palestinian Arabs themselves.

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European support for Palestinian Arabs "crashing"

From the Jerusalem Post:

New public opinion surveys conducted among "opinion elites" in Europe show that support for the Palestinians has fallen precipitously, according to a leading international pollster, Stan Greenberg, who has been briefing Israeli leaders on his findings in the past few days. There has not necessarily been "a rush to Israel" but there has been a "crash" in backing for the Palestinians, he noted.

Greenberg told The Jerusalem Post that the shifts in attitudes reflected in the surveys were so dramatic that he "redid" some of the polls to ensure there had been no error.

He singled out France as the country where attitudes had changed most dramatically. Three years ago, 60 percent of French respondents said they took a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and of that 60%, four out of five backed the Palestinians. Today, by contrast, 60% of French respondents did not take a side in the conflict, and support for the Palestinians had dropped by half among those who did express a preference.

Greenberg said the figures were still being finalized, and so did not go into further details. But shifts such as these, he said, represented "an incredible pace of change," with significant consequences.

The Intifada combined with the Hamas victory in the elections has come close to ending Europe's love affair with Palestinian Arabs. Add to the mix the clear support among Palestinian Arabs for Al Qaeda, for the bombing attacks in London and Madrid, for Saddam Hussein and for Iran, and the Europeans are slowly realizing that they are backing people who want them dead.

Interestingly, this is not translating yet into support for Israel. Changing the anti-Israel attitudes will take much longer.

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Israel develops a second active protection system

From Defense Update.com, hat tip to Epaminondas.

Showing yet again who the good guys are.

Iron Fist Active Protection System (APS) Israel Military Industries (IMI)

In Eurosatory 2006 IMI is unveiling its new Active Defense System (ADS) called - Iron Fist. Until recently, the development of Iron Fist was shrouded in secrecy, as it was developed in parallel to a different Israeli developed ADS system - RAFAEL's Trophy, which entered full scale development in 2005. However, due to rapid development pace and successful testing, IMI expects to deliver the first systems for IDF testing and qualifications by mid 2007. Unlike competing systems, IMI's Iron Fist can be installed on light vehicles, including trucks and even Humvees, offering effective protection from RPGs. IMI conducted extensive testing against a full spectrum of threats, engaging various types of threats from stationary and moving armored personnel carriers. The system already demonstrated effective protection of light vehicles and heavy armored vehicles, from small rocket propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles and tank rounds equipped with shaped charge warheads as well as advanced kinetic threats (armor piercing tank rounds). The system uses a fixed radar sensor, mounted on the protected platform, to detect potential threats, measure distance and trajectory, providing the fire control system with data for calculates engagement plans. When a threat is identified as imminent, an explosive projectile interceptor is launched toward it. The interceptor, shaped similar to a small mortar bomb, is designed to defeat the threat even when flying in very close proximity. Unlike other systems, the Iron Fist uses only the blast effect to defeat the threat, crushing the soft components of a shaped charge or deflecting and destabilizing the missile or kinetic rod in their flight. The interceptor is made of combustible envelope, fully consumed in the explosion. Without the risk of shrapnel, Iron Fist provides an effective, close-in protection for vehicles operating in dense, urban environment. The use of close proximity, rather than "hit to kill" mechanism avoids complex interception techniques and contributes to reduced cost. One of the main advantages of the Iron Fist is its integration into routine operations. Its sensor provides essential input to situational awareness systems, based on ground radar surveillance, moving target detection, classification and tracking and motion detection. Furthermore, by loading other types of projectiles, such ass non lethal, anti-personnel, smoke or illumination, the system can be used in support of routine operation. Iron Fist is supported by Israel's MOD Defense Research & Development Directorate (DRDD). The program is designed to protect medium and light vehicles, but based on its performance, has the potential to be fielded on heavy armor as well. In future configurations, the system has a growth potential to protect sensitive elements of fixed installations or patrol boats, protecting from RPG attacks, frequently encountered in counter insurgency operations.

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Where kids are worth more dead than alive

In a twisted but not surprising story in today's Jerusalem Post:

A group of Palestinian children were sent towards the Gaza Strip border fence holding toy guns on Thursday in order to test the vigilance of the soldiers on duty.

From a distance, troops noticed four apparently armed Palestinians approaching the border north of the Kissufim crossing.

When the four were some 400 meters from the fence, the soldiers realized that they were children, who looked to be about 13 years of age, and that their guns were toys.

This is not the first time that Palestinian Arabs cynically played with their children's lives.

But in the sick world of the Palestinian Arab psyche, it makes sense. As has been pointed out many times, the actions of these Arabs are completely inconsistent with building a state and completely consistent with destroying Israel.

Dead kids that can be blamed on Israel get media attention, putting pressure on Israelis to be more careful as they try to come up with better ways to defend their own lives as well as the lives of Palestinian children. The mileage that Palestinian Arabs can get out of a dead kid (or pretend dead kid) can be enormous. Combine that with the culture of death that permeates the territories and you have a paradoxical situation:

Palestinian Arabs have a vested interest in having their kids be killed by Israel, and Israel has a vested interest in keeping Palestinian Arab kids as safe as possible.

So Israel spends more time and money and effort in protecting Palestinian Arab children than the Arabs do.

This reason alone demolishes the "argument" that far-left and pro-terror websites use that Israel is practicing genocide against Palestinian Arabs. Forgetting that Israel actually has some morals, unlike its enemies, even if Israel wanted every Arab kid dead she wouldn't do anything about it because it only ends up hurting Israel.

And yet, even when the two sides of a conflict have such diametrically different views of morality, the world insists on being "even-handed" in dealing with the conflict.

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Ha'aretz' Shavuot present to Arabs: the Kotel

In an editorial that is ridiculously far-far-left even by al-Ha'aretz' standards, the esteemed publication advocates Israel giving up all of the Old City of Jerusalem:

Israel is having trouble formulating a logical and consistent stance with regard to East Jerusalem, and therefore it has been taking inconsistent and hypocritical steps. The decision to allow East Jerusalem residents to participate in the PA elections is part of this same duality. East Jerusalem's residents live here, vote for the PA and are citizens of Jordan. Instead of removing Palestinian parliamentarians from the eastern part of the city, it would be better to remove East Jerusalem from the State of Israel and transfer it to the Palestinian Authority.

So, if Israel is hypocritical, we must punish ourselves!

In Ha'aretz' world, a Jewish-majority state is desirable, but Judaism is not. (Talk about hypocrisy!) The ideal Israel would be a clone of Delaware, or perhaps Duba'i. The Jerusalem that we've cried over for two thousand years is just a bit of worthless real estate.

I would suggest that Ha'aretz' editors just stop being wishy-washy and convert to Islam already, but Muslims would not be interested in anyone with so little attachment to any belief system.

(Interestingly, since it is apparent that al-Ha'aretz' Judaism is purely ethnic and not religious, the desire to disengage from Arabs really does smack of racism. So I predict that as soon as they realize this, they will be writing editorials advocating the right of return for all Palestinian Arabs and the renaming of Israel to Falashtin. Otherwise, they'd be guilty of the hypocrisy they pretend to be so concerned about.)

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United Press on the Palestinian Arab refugee problem, 1948

I have written previously about the origins of the Palestinian Arab refugee problem, talking specifically about the Arabs of Haifa and the Mufti's interest in creating and perpetuating the problem. I started tackling the Palestine Post sources on the birth of the Palestinian Arab refugee problem of 1948. It is actually a huge amount of research, but I found today an interesting article that was published in the Palestine Post but was written for United Press (now UPI).

The author's thesis is that Israel was using the Arab refugees as a bargaining chip in getting Jews out of Arab countries. Of course, this never happened, so the author's analysis is wrong, but the facts that he mentions surrounding the Arab refugees seem to be on target.


United Press' Robert Miller says explicitly that the Jews bent over backwards to stop the Arabs from fleeing ("the greatest concessions were made to the Arabs if they would remain in Jewish territory...The Arabs refused to listen.")

And then, he says that Israel started encouraging the Arabs to flee (he got the reasons wrong, as mentioned above.) But what is the worst that the Jews did?

"They pointed out that the Arabs were welcome to remain, but that the Jews couldn't furnish food. The Jews offered to provide trucks to take the Arabs to the front lines."
Here is the Israeli crime, as of August 1948: telling Arabs that if they wanted to leave, they would help them.

The article does not spell out why the Arabs left, whether it was out of fear or because they were encouraged to, but it does say explicitly that Jews did not force Arabs out of their homes. Not that this never happened - in the course of a war bad things happen and things are always a lot more muddled while they are happening. But so far I have found no contemporaneous evidence of it, although there were plenty of accusations to that effect by the Arab leaders at the time as they tried to demonize the Jews while they grappled with the undeniably huge refugee problem that was dropped on the doorsteps of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.

Interestingly, Saudi Arabia refused to accept any Arab refugees, claiming that they had no money for them, but offered to pay for fighting Jews:

See also Palestinian Media Watch where real Palestinian Arabs admit what happened in 1948.

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