Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, July 13, 2007

Hamas, 1993

Soccer Dad was reminded by my Bir Zeit posting of a Harper's article from 1993 about Hamas' penchant for killing "collaborators."

At the time this was written, Hamas was still regarded universally as a despicable terror group. Now, they manage to write op-eds for major US newspapers.

I was most interested to see that 200 "collaborators" that this article notes were executed by Islamists during the first intifada. In fact during that conflict there were over 1000 PalArabs killed by each other, and in 1991 more Palestinian Arabs were killed by other PalArabs than by Israelis. It is an amazingly consistent fact of Palestinian Arab history that any long-term violence against Jews inevitably ends up with more Arab-on-Arab violence.

From a clandestine videotape made last summer by the Squads of Ez ed-Deen el-Qassam, the military arm of Hamas, the Islamic Palestinian group that in the past three years has risen to prominence in the Israeli-occupied territories. The squads, which number about 100 men each, are responsible for having killed about a dozen Israeli soldiers and settlers in the past year; last December the Israeli government deported 415 Palestinians to Lebanon in response to the kidnapping and execution by Hamas of an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip. The videotape, which is intended to recruit and inspire followers of Hamas, has been covertly copied and passed among Palestinians in the occupied territories. It is more than four hours long and contains news reports of Hamas attacks on Israelis, instructions on handling weapons, and interviews with members of the squads and with blindfolded Palestinians accused of collaborating with the Israeli security forces. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed during the intifada for "collaboration," a term that can include anything from working for the Israeli military to informing on other Palestinians. The speaker whose statement appears below is one of the leaders of the squads. translated from the Arabic by Harper's Magazine.

In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful. My name is Yasser Hammad al-Hassan Ali. I live in al-Nusseirat [a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip]. I was born in 1964. I finished high school, then attended Gaza Polytechnic. Later, I went to work for the Islamic University in Gaza as a clerk. I'm married, and I have two daughters.

The Squads of Ez ed-Deen el-Qassam are the only group in Palestine explicitly dedicated to jihad. Our name may be new, but our apparatus has been in place for years. Our primary concern is Palestinians who collaborate with the enemy, which we regard as one of the most dire problems facing the Palestinian nation. our enemies have dedicated themselves to luring as many Palestinians as possible down the path of collaboration. Many young men and women have fallen prey to the cunning traps laid by the [Israeli] Security Services.

Since our enemies are trying with all their might to obliterate our nation, cooperation with them is clearly a terrible crime. So our most important objective must be to put an end to the plague of collaboration. To do so, we abduct collaborators; intimidate and interrogate them in order to uncover other collaborators; and expose the methods that the enemy uses to lure Palestinians into collaboration in the first place. In addition to that, naturally, we confront the problem of collaborators by executing them.

...

In many cases, we don't have to make our evidence against collaborators public, because everyone knows that they're guilty. But when the public isn't aware that a certain individual is a collaborator, and we accuse him, people are bound to ask for evidence. Many people will proclaim his innocence, especially members of his family, his neighbors, and his friends, so there must be irrefutable proof before he is executed. This proof is usually obtained in the form of a confession.

At first, every collaborator denies his crimes. So we start off by showing the collaborator the testimony against him--written accounts of surveillance of his activities, taped accusations by other collaborators in his network. We tell him that he still has a chance to serve his people, even in the last moment of his life, by confessing and giving us the information we need.

We say that we know his repentance is sincere and that he has been a victim. That kind of talk is convincing. Most of them confess after that. Some others hold out; in those cases, we begin to apply pressure, both psychological and physical. Then the holdouts confess as well....

When we execute a collaborator in public, we use a gun. But after we abduct and interrogate a collaborator, we can't shoot him--to do so might give away our location. That's why collaborators are strangled. Sometimes we ask the collaborator, "What do you think? How should we execute you?" one collaborator told us, "Strangle me." He hated the sight of blood.

See how humane Hamas was back in their early days?

Friday morning links

Augean Stables writes another brilliant essay.

Two good articles on how jihadists are using the media better than we are.

German firms seem hellbent on a new Holocaust, as they are smuggling nuclear material into Iran. And with the amount of anti-semitism in East Germany, this is not surprising.

A French writer notices that Israel does a damn good job in preserving history.

A Palestinian Arab has much better advice about the PA than the entire State Department, EU and Israeli cabinet put together.

An nuclear scientist expects a Chernobyl in Iran - and that's even without worrying about earthquakes.

A small tribute to Doug Marlette

Editorial cartoonist Doug Marlette died this week in a car accident.

Like most of his profession, Marlette tended towards the liberal side, and he had a tendency to place a moral equivalence between Israel and terrorists. But one of his cartoons, for which he took an enormous amount of criticism from professional Muslim whiners, deserves to be highlighted:

Egyptians freak out when they find out lecturer was a rabbi

Good old fashioned Jew-hatred is alive and well in Egypt:

A seminar organised by Ain Shams University's Centre for the Study of Contemporary Civilisations (CSCC) ended in uproar when several participating Egyptian professors discovered that Robin Firestone, the American professor delivering a paper on the "Problematic of the Chosen in Monotheistic Religions", was a rabbi....

Mohamed El-Hawwari, head of the CSCC, defended the choice of Firestone as a lecturer. Interviewed by Al-Ahram Weekly El-Hawwari stressed that Firestone, while entitled to call himself a "rabbi", does not work in the religious field. "He is an American academic professor and it was in this capacity that he was invited to deliver his lecture."

In a statement issued once the row had become public, El-Hawwari described Firestone as a professor of Jewish history at Hebro Union College, California, and the author of many books on both Jewish and Islamic history.

"I have known the guy for more than 20 years. He has never attacked Islam, which he respects and appreciates," said El-Hawwari. "His lecture was based on texts derived from the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Talmud.

"When I invited Firestone to offer his lecture I did not expect him to utter the two testimonies of Islam and announce that he had become a Muslim. It's natural for him to adopt religious concepts different from our own," said El-Hawwari, commenting on Firestone's reference to Isaac [as the son almost sacrificed by Abraham - EoZ].

"Our main problem is that we still cannot accept the other. Whoever differs with us becomes our enemy," El-Hawwari continued. Yet the aim of holding such lecture series is to help in understanding the views of the other "in the hope this will facilitate a rapprochement between cultures and civilisations".

El-Hawwari dismissed allegations that the lecture's real aim was to provide propaganda for normalising relations with Israel as nonsense, and an insult to the integrity of Egyptian academics.

The furore has caused ripples beyond academia, with 20 parliamentary members quick to jump on the bandwagon and demand that the speaker of the People's Assembly summon members of the parliament's Educational Committee for an urgent meeting to determine who is responsible for the convening of such seminars.

They have also demanded that Hani Helal, the minister of higher education, be sacked.

"We are not going to allow Jews to desecrate our universities, spread their Zionist views and brainwash our students," railed independent MP Gamal Zahran.

A video tape and Arabic translation of the lecture are currently being studied by a committee formed by the university to investigate whether there is any substance to claims that the lecture was offensive to Islam.

Following the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979, Egyptian educational institutions have refused to deal with their Israeli counterparts and have steadfastly refused cultural normalisation.

Notice that even the academic that invited Firestone bristles at the very idea that he wanted to have Israeli thoughts presented at an Egyptian university.

In other words, this article from an Egyptian English newspaper proves that academic freedom at Egyptian universities is non-existent and that free inquiry is not only discouraged - it is threatened when it accidentally appears.

Not to mention that Egyptian Parliament officials can spout anti-semitism without the slightest fear of being criticized.

I wonder if any European country will call to boycott Egyptian universities?

PalArab Academia: Bir Zeit University

This week, there were violent fights between Hamas and Fatah students at Bir Zeit University, injuring 20 students, and culminating with Fatah security forces arresting the Student Council head who is a member of Hamas.

Bir Zeit, for its part, put out a statement where it claimed that these were very unusual events, that it was a tolerant and liberal university, and that the media shouldn't make such a big deal about the fights.

How tolerant and liberal is Bir Zeit?

Here's a picture of a photo exhibition that was shown at Bir Zeit a couple of years ago:

Portraits of Palestinian suicide bombers on a wall above pictures of Israeli victims and destroyed Israeli buses at an exhibit at the Birzeit University on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Ramallah. Some Palestinian children collect photos of the bombers. ©AP Images/Muhammed Muheisen

In 2003, during student elections, Hamas candidates blew up models of Israeli buses, and during a debate with Fatah candidates they boasted "Hamas activists in this University killed 135 Zionists. How many did Fatah activists from Bir Zeit kill?"

Yehiya Ayyash, a bomb maker also known as the Engineer, was killed by the IDF for his direct involvement in building bombs and explosives. He was a chemistry student at Bir Zeit.

In April 2001, Diya Tawil, a student of Engineering at Bir Zeit University, blew himself up at a bus stop in a Jewish settlement just outside Jerusalem, killing only himself but injuring more than 30.

Izzedine Al-Masri was a journalism student, and she was the planner and driver for the suicide bomber at the Sbarro pizzeria. She is now in an Israeli jail.

Bir Zeit's web page claims that "Birzeit University is the first institution of higher education to be established in Palestine." Notably, it acquired university status while under Israeli rule. Equally notably, Technion was established in Palestine in 1924, and Hebrew University in 1925. But why should we expect the truth to come out of Bir Zeit?

Today's hypocritical "human rights" group: Physicians for Human Rights (Israel)

According to their website:

Physicians For Human Rights-Israel was founded in 1988 with the goal of struggling for human rights, in particular the right to health, in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Human dignity, wellness of mind and body and the right to health are at the core of the world view of the organization and direct and instruct our activities and efforts on both the individual and general level. Our activities integrate advocacy and action toward changing harmful policies and direct action providing healthcare.

Wonderful words! However, when looking at the press releases of this "human rights" organization, one notices a bit of a one-sidedness as far as what these proud humanitarians condemn.

Some statements have to do with healthcare: they condemn Israel for not allowing Gazans who need medical attention to go into Israel proper to get it. Many of their statements have nothing to do with healthcare - for example, they condemn Israel's "occupation" on the grounds that it prevents Palestinian Arab academic freedom.

None of their statements have any bad words to say about Palestinian Arabs who attack, injure and kill Israelis, such as Sderot rocket attacks. More to the point, I couldn't find a condemnation of Wafa al-Biss, who planned on blowing up an Israeli hospital in 2005.

One would think that these misguided physicians are perhaps only sensitive to Palestinian Arab lives, not Jewish ones. But does that explain their silence when Gaza terrorists murdered patients in their beds in a hospital just last month as they used hospitals for gunbattles? And then did it again?

No, the pattern isn't that these physicians care about Palestinian Arabs more than Jews. The pattern is that they exclusively condemn Israel, period, despite their stated goals. Their silence about Arab on Arab fighting, killing hundreds of Palestinian Arabs this year alone, shows that they don't really care about PalArabs at all.

They're just another bunch of hypocrites hiding behind their status as doctors, and in effect their goals are no different than the doctors recently arrested in the UK. Their interest in human rights is nil.

Download the Elder Toolbar

I never wanted to put ads on my site, but I stumbled on a nice and unobtrusive way to make a few cents a month: a customized toolbar.

I only played with this a little, and it has a number of features that I haven't configured, but if you are interested in an Elder of Ziyon toolbar to help with your searches as well as pre-configured links to some nice sources, click here.

Right now it links to a few Israeli radio stations, the charities on my sidebar, and some news sources. You can also add gadgets like weather reports or a calculator. If people like it I can maintain it, add things like chat, messages, other radio stations and other RSS feeds.

It works with both IE and Mozilla.

If you hate it and delete the thing, I promise I won't be insulted :)

UNIFIL getting chummy with Hezbollah again

From Time:

After the war in south Lebanon last summer, the small United Nations peacekeeping mission here was bolstered by the arrival of thousands of crack European troops determined to keep Hizballah fighters away from the border with Israel. A year on, however, and some of those same European contingents are now seeking the cooperation of the Iran-backed Hizballah to help protect them from Al-Qaeda-inspired militants....
Sources tell TIME that, since the [June 24th bombing] attack, there have been discreet contacts between some UNIFIL contingents and Hizballah representatives. UNIFIL is supposed to confine liaison to the Lebanese army, and Graziano said that direct contacts between UNIFIL troops and Hizballah, or any other Lebanese political party, was "highly forbidden". But keeping some type of contact may be critical to UNIFIL's mission. The goal of the informal communications is partly to harness Hizballah's local intelligence gathering abilities, but also to ensure that the powerful Shi'ite group remains supportive of UNIFIL. The unspoken fear among some peacekeepers is that although Hizballah strongly denounced the bombing, it may have known of the attack beforehand or may even have been involved, which, if true, would have dire repercussions on UNIFIL's future. "I cannot dismiss that at a national level there is a diplomatic relation [between troop contributing states and Hizballah] but that has nothing to do with the United Nations," Graziano said. "If somebody [in UNIFIL] does have a relation [with Hizballah] it's against my will."

Nonetheless, a Hizballah official in south Lebanon confirmed to TIME that there was at least one meeting between Spanish UNIFIL officers and Hizballah representatives after the bomb attack. Furthermore, Hizballah officials have met with Spanish diplomats in Beirut and the Madrid government is believed to have held talks with Iran, Hizballah's patron, on the safety of its peacekeepers. At least one other European contingent enjoys regular direct contact with Hizballah, finessing Graziano's order by using a civilian advisor who was hired outside the UNIFIL framework.

To sum it up: Hezbollah was always dead-set against UNIFIL's expanded presence under UN Resolution 1701. UNIFIL is forbidden to have contacts with Hezbollah.

And the goal of the forbidden talks is to keep Hezbollah "supportive" of UNIFIL while at the same time it is admitted that Hezbollah may have had a hand in the fatal bombing of UN workers.

The long friendship of UNIFIL and Hezbollah continues....

"Arafat died of AIDS"

From MEMRI:

Following is an excerpt from an interview with Ahmad Jibril, Secretary-General of the PFLP General Command, which aired on Al-Manar TV on July 5, 2007:

Ahmad Jibril: When Abu Mazen came to Damascus with his team, I asked them: "What happened to the investigation into the death of Abu Ammar [Arafat]? The Israelis killed him. He was my colleague ever since 1965 and used to sleep at my home. He and I followed the same path." Is it conceivable that when Rafiq Al-Hariri was killed, all hell broke loose, even though he was just a merchant in Saudi Arabia, who later entered politics, whereas the death of Yasser Arafat, who for 40 years had been carrying his gun from one place to another, is not investigate[d]? Is this conceivable? They were silent, and then one of them said to me: "To be honest, the French gave us the medical report, that stated that the cause of Abu Ammar's death was AIDS." I am not saying this, they did.

So did I, before he even died....

From Arutz-7:

The Islamic Wakf is digging large ditches on the Temple Mount without archaeological supervision to protect antiquities at Judaism’s holiest site.

Photos of the construction were publicized earlier this week. Investigation revealed that the dig had been approved by the police, though not coordinated with any archeological authorities. The ditch is being dug in the direction of the Dome of the Rock, the site of the Holy Temple, according to most opinions.

Police approval of the project, which involves heavy machinery, as well as a JCB tractor, was apparantly approved by the head of Israel’s Antiquity Authority. "The trench depth varies from 50 – 100 cm deep!" reports Zachi Zweig, an archaeologist that has been involved in exposing the Islamic Wakf's campaign of destroying Jewish artifacts on the mount. "Grey earth was removed from the dig, which indicates that it is archaeologically significant. In addition, signs of ancient architecture was exposed beneath the current platform slabs. It should be mentioned that the bedrock level at this location is very close to the current platform."

Zweig, who started the Temple Mound Debris-Sifting Project following his publicizing the dumbing of artifacts by the Wakf in the Kidron Valley, says the Antiquities Authority shares responsibility for the destruction. "It is an atrocity for which Antiquities Authority Director Shuka Dorfman, who authorized the dig, is responsible," Zweig said. "Ancient architectural remains were exposed during this dig in the northern section of the trench. No reasonable archaeologist would justify conducting a mechanical dig in such a sensitive location. The core problem here is that the IAA director is not an archaeologist - but rather a politician."

Past excavations carried out by the Wakf resulted in tons of priceless archaeological artifacts being mixed with garbage and dumped in the Kidron Valley. Some of that dumped earth was transported to the Tzurim Valley, below Hebrew University, where Zweig organized a group of archaeological students and volunteers who are still sifting through it after finding antiquities from the First and Second Temple periods.

Two archaeology students were detained by police Tuesday after asking workers questions about the dig. “The workers ignored us and called a Wakf official over. He complained to the police and upon our exiting the mount we were detained,” one of the students told Arutz-7.

Another group of archaeologists, the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities, has protested the latest unsupervised construction by the Wakf, demanding that archaeologists be brought in to conduct the digging in a professional and documented manner.

Deadly riots by bloodthirsty extremist Jews should start any minute now. After all, all religious fanatics are the same.

Freedom of the press, PalArab style (III)

Another story showing how progressive Hamastan is:

The Hamas-affiliated Executive Force on Wednesday stormed the media tower in Tal Al-Hawa, in the south of Gaza City, and stole the car and mobile telephone of Palestine TV satellite channel manager, Muhammad Dawoudi.

Media sources told Ma'an that the Executive Force entered Dawoudi's home in the residential part of the tower and attempted to arrest him, yet dozens of journalists intervened and prevented the arrest.

The Union of Palestinian Journalists has condemned the repeated assaults against journalists, in general, and this attack against Dawoudi in particular.

In a statement to Ma'an, the union declared "such conduct represent a violation of the freedom of opinion", describing the attacks as "ideological terrorism" against journalists.

This of course begs the question of how so many liberals (like Jimmy Carter) can support a movement that goes against everything that is supposed to be important to liberals - like, you know, freedom.

Is Fatah al-Islam "Palestinian"?

Note this story from AP:

At least 150 Palestinians fled a northern refugee camp Wednesday in anticipation of an assault by the Lebanese army battling Islamic militants holed up inside.
Most of the refugees left with the help of the Palestinian Red Crescent, said Samar Kadi, an International Committee of the Red Cross communications officer.

Those fleeing arrived on foot at the southern entrance of the Nahr el-Bared camp. They were searched by soldiers at a Lebanese army checkpoint and then climbed into vehicles sent by the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Lebanese army held many of them for interrogation, Kadi said.
...
The mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement was reported to have called on its guerrillas inside the camp to leave as well.
...Fatah Islam group is believed to be made up of mostly foreign Sunni Muslim fighters, and Lebanon's Western-backed government has accused the group of trying, with Syria's backing, to launch a rebellion in the north of the country and destabilize Lebanon. Syria denies the allegations and has described Fatah Islam as a dangerous terrorist organization.

Notice how AP calls the people leaving the camp "Palestinian" but the terrorists inside the camp are only "Islamic." Are we to believe that a miserable "refugee" camp was infiltrated by non-Palestinian Arabs as a base to attack Lebanon?

It is hard to know for sure. Some people say that they are a Syrian organization, other say they are al-Qaeda.

We do know that the leader of Fatah al-Islam is a Palestinian Arab, Shaker Absi.
We do know that they managed to get into these camps whose security is run by Fatah without much difficulty.
We do know that many of the PalArabs fleeing are being held by Lebanon on suspicion of being involved with Fatah al Islam.

It strains credulity to think that a couple of hundred Syrians and Saudi Arabians went to Lebanese camp hell-holes just to have a base from which to attack the Lebanese. It seems more logical that radical Palestinian Arabs went into the camps in order to recruit more people for their cause, which would indicate a majority as being Palestinian themselves.

The AP, however, will not even entertain such a notion. To even imply that Fatah al-Islam is a Palestinian Islamic terror group would reflect badly on all those good Palestinian Arabs who are the real heroes according to the mainstream media. So don't expect this to be a topic that will be investigated too thoroughly - much easier to blame Syria or Al-Qaeda, the known bad guys.

M-16s found more effective than crib notes in passing tests

It seems that the Nablus "gunmen" who we mentioned were upset that they couldn't have their own secret matriculation exams somehow managed to force the testers to do what they wanted anyway:

Earlier this week, some 150 Fatah gunmen stormed a number of schools in Nablus and drove out hundreds of students who were taking high school matriculation exams.

The gunmen were protesting against Abbas's refusal to allocate secret halls for them so that they, too, could sit for the exams, without risking being arrested or killed by the IDF. The gunmen were later allowed to sit for the exams in special halls.

One of the teachers said most of the gunmen cheated.

"They opened books and copied the answers word by word," he said. "We were afraid to stop them because they were carrying M-16 rifles."

The peaceful PalArab territories also enjoyed some equally calm incidents:

Also on Tuesday, in the first protest of its kind since Hamas took control over the Gaza Strip, the families of dozens of Hamas supporters demonstrated in Nablus to demand the release of their sons from PA prisons.

Palestinian policemen fired into the air to prevent the demonstrators from approaching the city's central prison, witnesses said. No one was hurt.

Meanwhile, Fatah gunmen in Nablus kidnapped Shaher Saed, general-secretary of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions.

Sources in the city told The Jerusalem Post that Saed was abducted from his downtown office. They said he was released unharmed later in the day after being ordered by the gunmen to resign from his post.

Gaza is not being left out of the fun:

The Executive Force and members of Hamas' armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, stormed on Tuesday the house of the former director of general intelligence and member of Fatah's revolutionary council, Maj. Gen. Amin Al Hindi, in western Gaza City, Palestinian sources have reported.

Back in Fatahland:

Workers in a hospital run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in the West Bank city of Qalqilya have launched a strike following threats by gunmen against one of their coworkers.

Looks like it may be time for more peace initiatives!

Arab journalism ethics

I just thought this was funny. An item in yesterday's Ma'an News was copied almost verbatim today in Arab News - with a byline by who seems to be the plagiarist.

I discussed the Ma'an article yesterday.

Releasing only 250 Fatah prisoners is a blow to national unity, Palestinian prisoners' families say

Date: 09 / 07 / 2007 Time: 13:49

Gaza - Ma'an - The families of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails have expressed their reservations about the Israeli prime minister's initiative to release 250 Fatah-affiliated prisoners. They said that accepting such an offer would only fracture the Palestinian national unity, and they called on President Abbas to make a deal that includes all Palestinian detainees without exceptions.

Israeli Move to Free Fatah Prisoners Angers Palestinians
Mohammed Mar’i, Arab News

RAMALLAH, West Bank, 10 July 2007 — The families of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails have expressed their anger about Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s initiative to release 250 Fatah-affiliated prisoners.

They said that accepting such an offer would only fracture the Palestinian national unity, calling on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to reach a deal that includes all Palestinian detainees without exceptions.

The prisoners' families depicted freeing any Palestinian detainee as an accomplishment; however, they expressed their fear that the 250 whom Israeli Prime Minister Olmert intends to free would include only prisoners who have almost completed their sentences, and who are scheduled for release shortly in any case.

(Paragraph 5 in Arab News version.)The families depicted freeing any Palestinian detainee as an accomplishment, however, they expressed their fear that the 250 whom Olmert intends to free would include only prisoners who have almost completed their sentences, and who are scheduled to be released shortly in any case.

Such conduct would help improve the Israeli image internationally, the families said, while failing to serve the Palestinian people, of whom almost 12, 000 are detained in Israeli jails in dire conditions. In addition, most of the detainees are denied visits by their families.

.

Such conduct would help improve the Israeli image internationally, the families said, while failing to serve the Palestinian people, of whom almost 11, 000 are detained in Israeli jails in dire conditions. In addition, most of the detainees are denied visits by their families.

The prisoners' families held their weekly sit-in outside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday. They asserted that they would prefer a comprehensive prisoners' swap that includes all affiliations and is conducted under Palestinian conditions.

The prisoners’ families held their weekly sit-in-strike outside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) yesterday. They asserted that they would prefer a comprehensive prisoners’ swap that includes all Palestinian political factions and is conducted under Palestinian conditions.

The Israeli cabinet approved the release of 250 Fatah prisoners during their meeting on Sunday, as a "goodwill gesture" toward Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Israeli Cabinet approved the release of 250 Fatah prisoners “without blood on their hands” during their meeting on Sunday, as a “goodwill gesture” toward Abbas.

According to Ynet, the Israeli justice ministry and the Israeli domestic intelligence service (the Shin Bet) will formulate a list of 250 prisoners "without blood on their hands," meaning prisoners who were not detained for involvement in operations that led to the death of Israelis

However, several Palestinian factions share the Palestinians families their fears and concerns.

The other Palestinian groups, which have thousands of prisoners in the Israeli jails, are already complaining that Abbas cares only about members of his faction.

Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Islamic Jihad have expressed deep concern over the Israeli government’s decision to distinguish between the prisoners on the basis of their political affiliation.

“Israel is mistaken to think that the release of Fatah prisoners will strengthen Abbas,” said a senior representative of the PFLP in the West Bank.

“The families of the other prisoners will never forgive him for abandoning their sons. This move proves that he’s the president of only some of the Palestinians.”

Even Fatah leaders are unhappy with the decision to release only 250 prisoners. They say the number is too small and point out that most of the prisoners were scheduled to be released soon anyway, after completing their sentences.

Missing the point

Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigades are reported to be run by Hezbollah.

Fatah accuses Hamas of working with Al Qaeda.

Fatah and Hamas each accuse the other of being behind the kidnapping of Alan Johnston by the Dagmoush family ("Army of Islam.")

The media tries vainly to keep score of these alliances, trying to figure out who the "good guys" are.

It is all utterly pointless.

The differences between Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the "Army of Islam" and the myriad other terror organizations may seem large to them, but ultimately they all share the same goals: a military and political takeover of the planet by Islam. Compared to their common enemy - namely, all of us - their differences are trivial. Shi'ites and Sunnis have cooperated in the past in their war against the "Zionist cross-worshippers." Sure they sometimes fight each other but that does not ever make them friends to us.

When will the free world wake up to the simple fact that the so-called "moderates" are just as bad, and possibly worse, than the "extremists"? The "moderates" have learned to lie and use Western liberal terms and ideas to guilt us into paying for our own destruction.

All these terror groups and the culture that allows them to thrive must be eradicated. There is no compromise possible, no accomodation, no "understanding." Militant, political Islam is the enemy of the free world for the foreseeable future and it cannot be bought off. There may be tactical advantages of knowing how they interact with each other but that must not be confused with who we should ally ourselves with. They know with utter clarity that we are their enemy; it is way past time for the West to understand the same with equal clarity.

Abbas pretty much declared martial law. The West still loves him.

Sometimes, when the terrorists accuse the West of hypocrisy, they have a good point.

Everyone's favorite Holocaust denier has been completely circumventing existing Palestinian Arab laws in order to keep himself in power. Now, the quality of freedom and democracy in the PA was never very good to begin with, and there has been no judicial system to speak of for years. Even so, Abbas has now extended to the military a lot of judicial powers and he's done many other questionable actions. As PCHR mentions:

PCHR expresses its utmost concern over the latest presidential decree concerning the military judiciary under the state of emergency, which implies an extortion of the authorities of the Palestinian civil judiciary to be granted to the military judiciary. PCHR believes that this latest decree, which has been the most breakneck in a series of presidential decrees issued in the context of the state of emergency, is a prescription for the destruction of the judicial authority and the civil life towards the militarization of the Palestinian society, the derangement of the constitution, the confiscation of public liberties and the enforcement of a military dictatorship.

Some of PCHR's specific problems with Abbas' decress are:

1) PCHR believes that this decree opens the doors wide for militarizing the Palestinian society, enforcing a military dictatorship and destroying the civil life and judiciary under the pretext of the existing state of emergency, through:

- The extortion of the authorities of the civil judiciary to be given to the military judiciary;

- The extortion of the authorities of the Attorney-General to be given to the military judiciary; and

- The extortion of the authorities of judicial warranty officials to be granted to all members of security services.

2) PCHR is very astonished that the decree relied in its preamble on the PLO Revolutionary Law of the Regulation of Trials Revolutionary Penal Law of 1979, which are unconstitutional because they have not been ratified by the PNA. PCHR also denounces recalling Military Order #555 of 1959, which was issued during the Egyptian control of the Gaza Strip pertaining to the Egyptian Penal Law that is no longer effective in Egypt.

It has always been a mistake to pretend that Abbas was a real partner for peace, but to prop up someone who breaks his own laws will never work.

Seeing Condi Rice and President Bush and Ehud Olmert and the EU fall all over themselves to support this ineffective and impotent joker is not the way to win over Arab hearts and minds. The hole that was dug by allowing Hamas to run in the elections as a legitimate democratic party is getting deeper by the week, and I don't have a good short-term solution.

Today's example of MSM blindness

An AP dispatch from Ramallah shows the amazing ability for people to see facts for themselves and draw exactly the wrong conclusions:

Ramalah an island of Palestinian peace

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Mohammed Kilani, a computer technician, hits the gym every other day to swim laps and lift weights. Umm Hussein, whose husband sells BMWs, takes her kids to the mall to shop, eat in the food court and play video games.

Despite the crippling poverty and frequent violence in the Palestinian territories, the city of Ramallah, the unofficial capital of the West Bank, holds out as an island of middle class existence.

The Islamic militant Hamas is largely absent from this city of 57,000, meaning that Ramallah could provide the best glimpse of what a Palestinian state could look like without Israeli occupation, with its trade and travel bans — if moderate President Mahmoud Abbas' secular agenda prevails.

While armed militias rule the streets of Nablus, and Gazans largely survive on U.N. food handouts, residents of Ramallah take yoga and Salsa dance classes or sip cappuccinos and beer in mixed groups — behavior that could get them killed 10 miles away.
...
In the weight room at Tri Fitness, the city's swankiest health club, Kilani, 25, took a break from lifting weights to compare Ramallah to his hometown, Jenin, which is next to one of the West Bank's most militant refugee camps.

In Jenin, coffee shops are only for men, unlike in Ramallah, he said over the crooning of Arab pop singers from the TV sets on the walls. Fewer women in Ramallah wear veils than elsewhere in the West Bank, he added.
Ramallah's rise has coincided with the decline of other West Bank cities like Nablus, the West Bank's second largest, where armed militias roam the streets.
Hakim Sabbah, 30, said Nablus had three movie theaters when he was a child. Sabbah, who works for a local aid group, Project Hope, said he once acted in a theater group that performed in the streets of Nablus' old city. "That's something we don't do any more," he said.

The cinemas closed during the first Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s, and continuous street violence has prompted many businesses to relocate to Ramallah or neighboring Jordan, leading to greater unemployment.
...
Such worries feel distant from Ramallah's handful of Western-style coffee shops and bars, where English slang peppers Arabic conversations, men and women chat openly, beer is served despite an Islamic prohibition on alcohol and foreign passports abound. In neighboring villages, such behavior risks a violent reaction from conservative Muslims. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, it would be out of the question.

"I love Ramallah because you have these kinds of places that break gender stereotypes," said Saleh Hijazi, 24, sharing a table at the Pronto Resto Cafe with four other Palestinian twenty-somethings, all U.S.-educated.

"But I also feel that the place is very elitist," he added. "You can say that about Ramallah in general."

Hijazi sipped his beer and lit another Gauloise Blonde cigarette while the girl next to him discussed film theory with a guy in dreadlocks.

"You feel like you're living in a bubble inside of the West Bank," Hijazi continued, adding that he recently read a news report about 13 deaths in Gaza.

"I care about what's happening there," he said, "but physically and psychologically, it feels very far away."

The lead of the story indicates that all the PA territories could be just like Ramallah if it wasn't for those pesky militants. Then, as you read on, you see that Ramallah is the exception - that the entire West Bank is not much different than Hamas' Gaza in outlook.

Yet the author highlights how progressive Ramallah is, and how it can be a model for peace, rather than the real story - how the majority of Palestinian Arabs view Ramallah's residents as elitist sell-outs to the hated West.

All the facts are in the story, but the emphasis is clearly on the optimistic side.

The reason, once again, is that the MSM has a narrative about the Palestinian Arab/Israeli conflict:

Israel is an aggressive occupier of Palestinian lands.
Palestinian Arabs are mostly peaceful, secular people who are under merciless attack by Israel.
Hamas and the other "militants" are aberrations.
Islamic fundamentalism in the territories are aberrations.
Jewish fundamentalism, however, is the norm among fanatic intolerant settlers.

This narrative is so embedded in the collective MSM mindset that even when the truth is staring at them in the face, they choose to ignore and downplay it in favor of the higher truths that these reporters know in their hearts.

Israel accused of helping Hamas!

The pro-Fatah, anti-Hamas Palestine Press Agency (Arabic) "reports" (autotranslated):

An informed Palestinian source revealed that Israel is working hard to support Hamas in the Gaza Strip from behind the curtain against President Mahmoud Abbas symbol of the Palestinian legitimacy, and the recruitment of its policy of separating the West Bank from the Gaza Strip to destroy any chance of an independent Palestinian state, , which represents the continuation of the coup Hamas in Gaza greater service to it.

Quoting the "statement" issued today by the UAE source as saying that "the statements of Israeli leaders to close crossings to international aid for the Gaza Strip has become big lie because there is no siege on the Gaza Strip, Welfare and fuel up regularly."

This is another example of Arab projection: since Arabs would never consider allowing their enemies' civilians to get humanitarian aid, the fact that Israel does this is "proof" that Israel supports Hamas' takeover of Gaza.

Hamas repeats history: hurting PalArabs in a vain attempt to hurt Israel

People who have been reading my History of PalArabs series will find this story familiar:

Hamas's Finance Ministry on Monday barred Israeli fruits and vegetables from entering the Gaza Strip on Monday, according to the spokesman for the Fruit Growers Association.
The move is likely to cost Israeli fruit growers NIS 3-5 million a day, according to the association.
The Hamas decision will also make it harder for Palestinians to keep fruits and vegetables in their diet, particularly those items not grown in Gaza, according to Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
Upon hearing that Palestinian private contractors on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing planned to adhere to the prohibition, Israeli businessmen did not send out the scheduled 60 trucks of produce, Dror told The Jerusalem Post. The fruit and vegetable ban is the latest in a set of anti-Israel moves by Hamas, including continued mortar fire on the crossing, to keep Kerem Shalom closed.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, "We are against opening the Zionist-controlled crossing of Kerem Shalom." He added that its use was part of a conspiracy by Israel and the pro-American Fatah leadership in Ramallah against the Palestinians in Gaza.
But according to the United Nations, the use of Kerem Shalom and Sufa as alternative crossings has been a lifeline that has allowed the UN to provide food staples to 1.1 million of the 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza.
David Baker, a spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office, lashed out at Hamas's decision. "Israel endeavors to allow the entry of as much produce into the Gaza Strip as possible to alleviate the Palestinian situation. However, Hamas wants to exacerbate the plight at the expense of their own people by fomenting resentment against Israel."
...Dror added that the Hamas ban, along with the mortars it fires against the crossing, did not, however, prevent other goods' passage into Gaza through Kerem Shalom.
Israel and the United Nations have continued to help facilitate humanitarian aid, such as basic food supplies and animal feed, into Gaza via both through Kerem Shalom and Sufa. The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has also assisted operations at Kerem Shalom, which was the main commercial thoroughfare until Hamas seized power in Gaza last month.
According to Dror, an average of 150 trucks a day enter through Kerem Shalom and Sufa as alternatives to the Karni crossing, which has been closed - except to wheat shipments - since June 12th for technical and security reasons.
Israel and the UN have begun to rely on Kerem Shalom and Sufa, which are easier to secure because they are slightly set back from the border. Even then, said Dror, there have been almost daily mortar attacks on Kerem Shalom, while according to Eshel, Sufa is not suitable for transporting most produce as the high levels of dust in that area could easily damage delicate fruits and vegetables.
On average, approximately 500 tons of fruit, including bananas, apricots, plums and avocados, are moved into the Gaza Strip every summer.

So Hamas is shelling the crossing from which it gets most of its food, while the hated Jews and UN do everything possible to keep the flow of supplied into Gaza open.

In 1946-47, the Arab League announced a boycott against all Jewish goods, a farce that didn't end up hurting the Jews at all and resulted in Arab infighting. (The Jews found new markets for their goods and the Arabs bombed stores that ignored the boycott.)

At the very least, it should help Israeli charitable organizations to donate even more produce to Israel's own poor people, who actually appreciate getting help feeding their children.

Lions and squirrels and UFOs, oh my!

Hamas has tried to milk their theater of freeing Alan Johnston into political points but the momentum has slowed as they continue to shoot and intimidate their rivals in Gaza.

So they had to find another hostage to free:

On Monday, Hamas operatives raiding the hideout of a notorious drug ring stumbled upon a lion stolen at riflepoint two years ago from the Gaza Zoo, said a force commander, Abu Hamam al-Deeb. But she was malnourished, missing four teeth, claws and part of her tail, a veterinarian said.
The operatives found the 2-year-old lion - as well as drugs and a weapons cache that were the target of the raid - after exchanging fire with the gunmen, al-Deeb said.
Sabrina was brought back to the Gaza Zoo and reunited with her brother, Sakher, who had avoided capture by resisting the gunmen. The two playfully swatted each other in the face and chased each other. When a zoo guard tried to pet Sabrina, Sakher crouched as if ready to pounce on him.
"We will start a long, arduous treatment to ensure she can survive," said the zoo veterinarian, Soud al-Shawaa. "She will only eat minced meat from now on so we feel sorry for her. ... They should punish the criminals who did this to her."

Sabrina had last been seen during a recent Muslim holiday at a Gaza photography studio where her captors charged about a dollar (€.74) for a picture with the lion.

Those Hamas guys are all heart!

Then again, the lion might be a spy, like the Zionist squirrels of Iran:

According to IRNA, the official Islamic Republic news agency, the national Police chief has implicitly verified the news about the confiscation of a number of squirrels, equipped with eavesdropping devices, on the Iranian borders. He has declined to give any more details, but, reportedly, when asked about the confiscation of 14 spy squirrels, he stated, “I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information”. IRNA adds, “These squirrels were equipped by foreign intelligence services, but were captured two weeks ago by the Police”.

Go here to learn about not only the squirrels, but the fact that the 12th Imam may show up in a UFO:

2- The Iranian blogger Gameeron reports that he has heard on a state-run radio station that a cleric has been talking about the twelfth Imam, who is supposed to rise and make earth all Godly. He has reportedly mentioned, “It is not like Imam will use his sword to defeat the enemies. Have you not heard about the occasional news about the UFOs which are spotted in the sky? We know nothing about the passengers of those objects. Maybe, Imam will use UFOs to attack his enemies. Because, when the time comes, he will call you guys and will tell you, ‘You! Go and become the governor of London, You! Go and become the governor of Chicago. You! Go and become the governor of Berlin. You have to be ready for the time, when he calls on you to become the governor of Paris’”.

Syria invades Lebanon - and no one cares

From Michael Totten: (h/t LGF)

A few days ago Lebanese daily newspaper Al Mustaqbal quietly reported a limited Syrian invasion of Lebanon. (Via Naharnet.)
Syrian troops on Thursday reportedly have penetrated three kilometers into Lebanese territories, taking up positions in the mountains near Yanta in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
The daily Al Mustaqbal, citing sources who confirmed the cross-border penetration, did not say when the procedure in the Fahs Hill overlooking Deir al-Ashaer in the Rashaya province took place.
The sources said Syrian troops, backed by bulldozers, were fortifying positions "in more than one area" along the Lebanese border, erecting earth mounds and digging "hundreds" of trenches and individual bunkers.
This happened immediately before I left town for two days. When I returned I was surprised to find no mention of this whatsoever anywhere else in the media. I assumed the story had to be false. How could Syria invade three kilometers into any region of Lebanon without triggering a diplomatic and media storm?
So I emailed Michael Young, opinion page editor at Beirut’s Daily Star, and asked him if the story was nonsense. “It is true,” he said, “but the problem is that the 3 kilometers are in isolated areas, so that it isn't making headlines. However, the UN will be discussing border issues this week, I think, and that will be brought up. The Syrians are ratcheting up the pressure, but with the attack against UN troops in the south, they are, as one UN official put it, playing with fire.”

If Israel sent the IDF three kilometers into Lebanon and started digging trenches and building bunkers it would make news all over the world. But Syria does it and everyone shrugs. Hardly anyone even knows it happened at all.

Syria can, apparently, get away with just about anything. I could hardly blame Assad at this point if he believes, after such an astonishing non-response, that he can reconquer Beirut. So far he can kill and terrorize and invade and destroy with impunity, at least up to a point. What is that point? Has anyone in the U.S., Israel, the Arab League, the European Union, or the United Nations even considered the question?

Meanwhile, the Syrian government is evacuating its citizens from Lebanon in advance of…something they expect to happen after July 15, 2007.

Ahmadinejad in his own words

There are a number of people who are disputing whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ever really said the literal words that he wants to wipe Israel off the map (here's only one example.)

UPI has nicely decided to put together statements that Ahmadinejad has been reported to say from a number of sources. It sheds a bit of light on the possible motives of the madman's defenders:

Whether Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wants to wipe Israel off the map is still contested, even by anti-mullah Iranian Americans. But that he wants to wipe out the Jewish state, there can be no doubt. As he completes his visits to every Iranian town, the collection of his pronunciamentos is edifying reading.
Culled from a wide variety of sources, ranging from the London Daily Telegraph, to the Suddeutsche Zeitung Online, to France's Le Monde and Liberation, Ahmadinejad spells out the target and the strategy:
-- This regime (Israel) will one day disappear.
-- The Zionist regime is a rotten tree that will be blown away by one storm.
-- The countdown for the destruction of Israel has begun.
-- Zionists are the personification of Satan.
-- In the case of any unwise move by the fake regime of Israel, Iran's response will be so destructive and quick that the regime will regret its move forever.
-- The West invented the myth of the massacre of the Jews (in World War II) and placed it above Allah, religions and prophets.
Ahmadinejad's strategic recipe:
-- We don't shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world.
-- The wave of the Islamist revolution will soon reach the entire world.
-- Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance pf the 12th Imam, the Mahdi (a 5-year-old boy who vanished 1,100 years ago and who will lead the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but not before the planet is convulsed by death and destruction).
-- Soon Islam will become the dominating force in the world, occupying first place in the number of followers among all other religions.
-- Is there a craft more beautiful, more sublime, more divine, than the craft of giving yourself to martyrdom and becoming holy? Do not doubt Allah will prevail, and Islam will conquer mountaintops of the entire world.
-- Iran can recruit hundreds of suicide bombers a day. Suicide is an invincible weapon. Suicide bombers in this land showed us the way, and they enlighten our future.
-- The will to commit suicide is one of the best ways of life.
-- By the grace of Allah we will be a nuclear power and Iran does not give a damn about (IAEA) demands (to freeze enrichment of nuclear fuel).
-- Iran does not give a damn about resolutions.
-- The Islamic Republic of Iran has the capacity to quickly become a world superpower.
-- Iran's enemies know your courage, faith and commitment to Islam and ... Iran has created a powerful army that can powerfully defend the political borders and the integrity of the Iranian nation and cut off the hand of any aggressor and place the sign of disgrace on their forehead.
-- In parallel to the official political war there is a hidden war going on and the Islamic states should benefit from their economic potential to cut off the hands of the enemies.
-- Addressing a conference devoted to "The World Without Zionism," Ahmadinejad said, "To those who doubt, to those who ask is it possible, or those who do not believe, I say accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible."

Clear enough for you?

The futility of "goodwill gestures"

From Ma'an:

The families of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails have expressed their reservations about the Israeli prime minister's initiative to release 250 Fatah-affiliated prisoners. They said that accepting such an offer would only fracture the Palestinian national unity, and they called on President Abbas to make a deal that includes all Palestinian detainees without exceptions.

The prisoners' families depicted freeing any Palestinian detainee as an accomplishment; however, they expressed their fear that the 250 whom Israeli Prime Minister Olmert intends to free would include only prisoners who have almost completed their sentences, and who are scheduled for release shortly in any case.

Such conduct would help improve the Israeli image internationally, the families said, while failing to serve the Palestinian people, of whom almost 12, 000 are detained in Israeli jails in dire conditions. In addition, most of the detainees are denied visits by their families.

The prisoners' families held their weekly sit-in outside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday. They asserted that they would prefer a comprehensive prisoners' swap that includes all affiliations and is conducted under Palestinian conditions.

Israel is stupidly offering, for free, to release 250 known or probable terrorists, and their families are supposedly saying that it is not a good idea.

Now it is entirely possible that this is a contrived PR move where the families of known terrorist murderers, who know that their relatives will never be released, are being set up to be quoted in a newspaper purely for pressuring Israel. Nevertheless, it shows the absolute futility of "goodwill gestures" - they create no goodwill at all, and on the contrary, they engender even more demands.

The only goodwill that ever come out of moves like this are a very temporary PR bump for Israel in the West. These reactions generally last a few weeks. Then, Israel is stuck with the consequences of unilateral gesture that cannot be undone - in this case, dealing with hundreds of new terrorists in the territories.

The day that Palestinian Arabs thank Israel for unilateral gestures is the day that they may have real value. As long as they are greeted with jeers and insults, their goodwill value seems to be below zero.

Mustafa Barghouti's lies: Why Rafah is closed

The PA has a new professional spokesliar, doing for Mahmoud Abbas what Saeb Erekat did for Yasir Arafat for many years. He is Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, and he has been issuing daily statements about Israel that are filled with lies and half-truths.

His latest lies concern the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt:

PLC member and secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, said on Saturday that the Israel denying reentry to Gaza to 6,000 Palestinians trapped at Rafah Crossing is endangering their lives.

Barghouthi said in a press release that "28 Palestinians have died at the crossing since June 1st and the world has remained silent on Israeli actions, which transformed the strip into an open-air detention centre."

He added that a large number of Palestinians trapped at the crossing are in urgent need of medical treatment.

Barghouthi explained that even the deceased were not immune to Israeli punishment as they were denied entry to the strip and held in morgue in Egyptian hospitals.

Now, let's look at the truth:

Israel has offered to allow any stranded Gazans to enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
As soon as this offer was made, Hamas and Islamic Jihad shelled that same crossing and threatened the lives of any Palestinian Arabs who attempt to use it.
The next day, Egypt prevented thousands of stranded Palestinians from going to the Kerem Shalom crossing.
The EU is responsible for Rafah, and the agreement that opened Rafah to begin with specified that Fatah would be responsible for control there. The EU considers Hamas to be a terror organization and they cannot according to their own agreement allow Hamas to re-open the crossing.
The bodies of those who died at Rafah were transferred to Gaza through Kerem Shalom.

I think that's enough to prove that Barghouti is a liar.

Saudi Arabia sentences tragic teen to beheading

From the Asian Human Rights Commission:

This case concerns Rizana Naffeek who is facing the death sentence in Saudi Arabia, allegedly for the strangulation of a four month old baby. Through close study of the case the Asian Human Rights Commission is satisfied that, in fact, what has taken place was the tragic death of a baby in the process of being fed by an inexperienced teenager.
Rizana Naffeek was born on February 4, 1988 and comes from a war-torn, impoverished village. Here, many families, including those of the Muslim community try to send their under aged children for employment outside the country, as their breadwinners. Some employment agencies exploit the situation of the impoverished families to recruit under aged girls for employment. For that purpose they engage in obtaining passports by altering the dates of birth of these children to make it appear that they are older than they really are. In the case of Rizana Naffeek, the altered date, which is to be found in her passport now, is February 2, 1982. It was on the basis of this altered date that the employment agency fixed her employment in Saudi Arabia and she went there in May, 2005.
She went to work at the house of Mr. Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi whose wife had a new-born baby boy. A short time after she started working for this family she was assigned to bottle feed the infant who was by then four months old. Rizana Naffeek had no experience of any sort in caring for such a young infant. She was left alone when bottle feeding the child. While she was feeding the child the boy started choking, as so often happens to babies and Rizana Naffeek panicked and while shouting for help tried to sooth the child by feeling the chest, neck and face, doing whatever she could to help him. At her shouting the mother arrived but by that time the baby was either unconscious or dead. Unfortunately, misunderstanding the situation the family members treated the teenager very harshly and handed her over to the police, accusing her of strangling the baby. At the police station also, she was very harshly handled and did not have the help of a translator or anyone else to whom she could explain what had happened. She was made to sign a confession and later charges were filed in court of murder by strangulation.
On her first appearance in court she was sternly warned by the police to repeat her confession, which she did. However, later she was able to talk to an interpreter who was sent by the Sri Lankan embassy and she explained in her own language the circumstances of what had happened as stated above. This version was also stated in court thereafter.

The Arab News delivers the punchline:

Upon hearing the case, the judge urged Otaibi, the child’s father, to use his prerogative to pardon the maid, which he refused to do. Therefore, the Shariah court sentenced her to death by beheading and gave her a period of one month to lodge an appeal, which has been left up to the Sri Lankan government to file.

However, Sri Lanka has not been given access to the documents needed to file the appeal, and time runs out on July 16.

So far, Human Rights Watch has not taken notice of this case, but Amnesty International (UK) has:

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:

'The death penalty is always wrong but it is an absolute scandal that Saudi Arabia is preparing to behead a teenage girl who didn't even have a lawyer at her trial.
'The Saudi authorities are flouting an international prohibition on the execution of child offenders by even imposing a death sentence on a defendant who was reportedly 17 at the time of the alleged crime.
'Rizana's execution must be stopped and she must be allowed proper legal representation. Saudi Arabia should also freeze all further executions and stop what has become a torrent of judicial killing in recent months.'
Rizana has apparently informed the authorities that she was born in February 1988, but the Saudi authorities have reportedly ignored this on the basis that her passport indicated that she was born in 1982. According to information available to Amnesty International, no medical examination is believed to have been carried out to ascertain her age, nor was she given the opportunity to present her birth certificate, which reportedly shows that she was born in 1988.
In January 2006 Saudi Arabia assured the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child that no children had been executed in the country since the children's convention came into force in Saudi Arabia in 1997. This is a weaker commitment than is required by the convention, which demands that no one is executed for crimes committed when they were under 18, no matter how old they are now.
Amnesty International is raising urgent concern over the plight of Rizana Nafeek at a time when executions in Saudi Arabia have increased rapidly. In the first six months of this year nearly 100 people in the Kingdom have already been executed, including three women. Half of these have been foreign nationals, mostly from poor countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In 2006 Saudi Arabia was known to have executed 39 people (though the true figure may have been higher), the seventh highest number in the world. This year the execution 'rate' is approximately five times higher than last year's, and Saudi Arabia is now likely to have one of the highest execution tolls for 2007 of any country in the world.

AHRC is organizing a letter-writing campaign to the bereaved father asking him to pardon the girl, which is enough to spare her under Shari'a law. So far it hasn't helped.

AHRC is calling on Muslim scholars to speak out. That hasn't happened. In fact, I have not yet seen any of the prominent Muslim "human rights" organizations say a word about this case.

A single phone call from the US government would probably have more effect to help the girl than anything else. There's only a week left.

A Psychological History of Palestinian Arabs, part 9

(This chapter is a bit different, as I became fascinated by the story of Abu Ghosh and saw it as a great example of how things could have been in 1948. Here is a classic example of the exception that proves the rule.)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

----------------------------------------------
The village of Abu Ghosh was established in the 1500s on top of a Biblical site known as Kiryat Ye'arim. Within the town are some extremely important historical finds, including a Crusader church and evidence of the Roman Tenth Legion camping there during the siege of Jerusalem in the first century. It is named after the family that lived there, which for a while levied a toll on pilgrims coming on the road to Jerusalem. The original Abu Ghosh was regarded with some fear as a robber by the Christian visitors to Jerusalem in the 19th century.

Unlike most Arab villages in Palestine, Abu Ghosh enjoyed excellent relations with the Jews. They sold land willingly to Zionists in 1912, that was to become Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim. During the 1920 riots they assured their kibbutz neighbors that they would defend them, if necessary. There were no attacks on Jews from Abu Ghosh in 1921, nor 1929, nor the years of Arab terror from 1936-39. They emphatically did not support the al-Husayni family from Jerusalem, a mere ten miles away, and generally were more supportive of Husayni's rivals the Nashashibis. Husayni rewarded their impertinence with at least one attack on their leaders in 1946.

Of the 36 Arab villages in the hills around Jerusalem during the 1948 war, only Abu Ghosh (which was a crucial village in keeping the road to Jerusalem open) remained somewhat friendly to the Jews. (One of them, Yousef Abu-Ghosh, was even a member of the Jewish militant Stern Gang.) But after the first cease-fire in 1948, the residents of Abu Ghosh were told by the Arab Legion to get behind the Arab lines and abandon their village. They, along with hundreds of thousands of other Arabs, became refugees. Some of the Abu Ghosh refugees were treated with exceptional cruelty by the Transjordanians as being too friendly to the Jews.

Most of the abandoned Arab villages in crucial areas around Jerusalem were destroyed by Israel in 1948 and 1949, as the Jews feared being at the mercy of the Arabs in traveling the roads in their own state. One exception was Abu Ghosh, which was left untouched. The few families who managed to stay there remained as Israeli citizens.

Many of Abu Ghosh's former citizens infiltrated into Israel to move back to their old village in 1949 and 1950. In general, Israel treated them as they treated other Arabs who tried to sneak back into Israel - fearful of an Arab fifth column, and largely unaware of the previous friendship between Abu Ghosh's citizens and the Jews, they would deport them back to Transjordan.

Finally, after one such roundup of Abu Ghosh infiltrators in early 1950, the town publicly appealed directly to the Knesset to allow them to stay. Public pressure from Israeli Jews mounted immediately to the defense of Abu Ghosh's Arabs, and almost every single family came back to their homes.

Abu Ghosh shows how the events of 1948 could have turned out had the Arabs treated the Jews as equals. While some of what Israel did to the residents of the village may be regrettable, it also shows that Israel had no policy of ethnic cleansing Arab villages and that her wartime decisions were based on real life and death circumstances.

Abu Ghosh was not unique. There were other Arab villages that were, effectively, Zionist during the 1920s and 1930s. Unfortunately, these were the exceptions, and many Arabs whom the Jews considered friends ended up supporting the bigoted ideologies of the Mufti al-Husayni and Sheikh Qassam and cheered the death of every Zionist.

Today, Abu Ghosh remains a sterling example of Arab-Jewish cooperation. Prominent resident Jawdat Ibrahim, who won $20 million in an Illinois state lottery, invested some of his winnings in a scholarship program that benefits Jews as well as Arabs. A joint Arab-Jewish soccer team was created with the Arab members being from Abu Ghosh. A major music festival brings in Jewish as well as Arab fans.

The residents of Abu Ghosh are proud citizens of the State of Israel and the Jews are proud to have them as neighbors. The shortsightedness and bigotry of most of the Palestinian Arabs, however, keep them on the outside looking in. From there, they can see how the people they decry as "collaborators" are living with the hated Jews, and they can compare this to their own miserable existence at the hands of their so-called "brethren."

More scoops for the Elder. Where are the journalists?

I've been talking about it for weeks, and finally The Jerusalem Post and Newsweek are mentioning that Gaza is not the most hospitable place for reporters and journalists.

It is fun scooping the big boys, but it is very upsetting that organizations that have large staffs of full-time reporters are so consistently behind the curve.

In just the past week I reported about deal where the "Army of God"was possibly paid millions for Alan Johnston's release (beating MEMRI), prostitution in Mecca that wasn't reported anywhere else in the MSM, and Iran paying "martyr" families that was likely not reported anywhere else.

Why can I find things in a couple of hours a day on the Internet things that paid full-time professionals don't seem to notice?

I'm not trying to toot my own horn - I am just saying that the members of the media, even the Israeli media, are not doing their jobs.

Peaceful PalArab weekend

2 killed and 3 injured near Bethlehem in a "family dispute."

It was announced that 28 Palestinian Arabs have died while waiting for the Rafah crossing to open. Keep in mind that Israel offered to open the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow them back into the Gaza Strip and Hamas threatened to shoot the would-be crossers. Hamas is trying to use dead Palestinian Arabs to pressure Israel to open the crossing in violation of the agreement that opened it to begin with. At this time I am not going to count them in my PalArab self-death count, but I'm thinking about it.

The calm Hamas dudes threatened the Ma'an news agency, which has already moderated its coverage of Hamas, saying that Ma'an was not toeing the Hamas party line enough. And now Hamas is accusing Ma'an of lying. (Hamas had already threatened the Fatah -supporting Palestine Press Agency as well.)

Palpress is also reporting on Hamas breaking into homes and injuring people from the Fatah government, and YNet reports on Hamas arresting 30 members of a pro-Fatah clan.

In Nablus, hundreds of Al Aqsa/Fatah terrorists are upset that they cannot take their matriculation exams in private. In the past, they were protected by the "moderate" Fatah government, allowing them to take guns into secret classrooms to take exams (to get high-paying fake jobs for Fatah.) Now, Abbas told them they can't do that anymore so they stopped the exams altogether.

Our count of Palestinian Arabs killed violently by their own now stands at 484.

UPDATE: Another person has died from his injuries during the Fatah/Hamas fighting. 485.

UPDATE 2: "Collaborator" mysteriously dies in Hamastan prison. 486.

1948 flashback on PalArabs being told to leave their homes by the Arab League

As I continue to research my "Psychological History of Palestinian Arabs" series, I sometimes come across articles that are just too good not to share.

From the July 29, 1948 Palestine Post, Column One by David Courtney, a non-Jewish British writer:

This is one of the earlier sources that the Arab League encouraged the refugee problem in order to gain propaganda points. He is explicit that Abu Gosh residents were told to leave their homes by the Arab leaders.

Note also that Courtney believes that most Palestinian Arabs had no desire for this war, "except for a few hotheads." I think it was more than a few but to an large extent he is right. But they didn't fight very hard to keep their land either; they just wanted to move their families elsewhere so they could start again - and the Arab countries forced them to return to fight the Jews, because they didn't want to use their own people! My next chapter will elaborate on this and other topics from 1948-1950 (iy"H).

For another great Courtney column on the same topic a year later, see my posting here.

Palestinian Arabs set up illegal settlement - in Israel

From Ma'an Arabic, quoting Ma'ariv: (autotranslated)

Maariv newspaper reported that a group of Palestinian workers who have managed to infiltrate into Israel during the past few weeks in order to set up work camps inside them Mu near the town of Netivot in the Negev region.

The newspaper added that 13 Palestinians from the town of Dahariya south of Hebron erected tents inside Harsh them to decide where and elaborating them each morning to work in the Negev area only caught the Israeli police dismantled their tents and forced them to return to their town.

Will Peace Now issue a statement condemning this illegal activity?