Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 19, 2007

A case study in Jew-hating paranoia

The People's Voice, one of my favorite anti-semitic "news" sites, has a laughable analysis proving that Israel could not possibly have hit a Syrian nuclear facility in September. Check out this impeccable logic, by a writer named "Xymphora":

The timing and nature of the Israeli admissions are all wrong. Normally, this kind of propaganda exercise would have been preceded by background about the Syrian ‘nuclear threat’ in the Jew-controlled press, and followed by a huge Israeli-American psych-op, with pictures and videos and images of heroic Israeli soldiers and pilots. Steven Spielberg would then make a movie about it. The fact that the information had to be pried out of the Israelis proves that the entire story was fabricated to cover up some unsuccessful Israeli military incursion. Add to the circumstances of the admission the rather obvious neocon attempt to upset the delicate North Korean negotiations by bringing the North Koreans into it, and I’d say we have a conclusive case for horseshit. You might also note the trick of using a mistranslation (a common Zionist ploy these days) to implicate the Syrians, and the complete absence of any evidence, even pictures, of a Syrian nuclear establishment.

There you have it! Since Jews and the media and the government sources are all known to be Zionist Jew neocon liars, and since this episode didn't follow the well-established Jew media playbook, it must be just a cover up, a conspiracy with all these players participating!

Thank God for people like Xymphora, who are all-knowing because they know how nefarious the evil Joooooz are.

Today's auto-translated recipe: CD potatoes fried eggs

Sometimes, Google Translate from Arabic is pretty good, but this recipe in the Palestine Press Agency has me scratching my head:

CD potatoes fried eggs

Amounts:
Habtan potato of scale.
Whittan.
Workshop small black pepper and salt workshop.
Some of PARSLEY ON MARKET decorate.
Oil for thee.

Method:

1-Asgay potatoes well.
2--fragment then Ahersiha potatoes in a container filled with the addition of salt, and pepper.
3--Adivi eggs with Flipping hand.
4-After becoming mix Kajeenh coherent, more expensive oil, in Fryer.
5-formality paste by hand and in the form of tablets and then Akulaiha oil.
6-plate Zinni little PARSLEY ON MARKET hot and feet

The hot and feet part sounds yummy!

Abbas tells Rice he'll resign and Al Qaeda will take over if Annapolis fails

The pro-Fatah Palestine Press Agency reports that Mahmoud Abbas threatened to resign as chairman of the PA:

Kuwait-Palestine-Presse (A Kuwaiti newspaper today) revealed that President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he would resign from his post as chairman of the Palestinian Authority, if the "Annapolis" next peace process completed without results, and demanded of Rice, "that there should be a timetable and a clear political agenda before attending the Conference, but it would not be prepared to sacrifice himself to sacrifice for a popular Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert."

According to the Palestinian official, "there was a sharp political rivalry between President Abbas and the American minister stressed that alternative before his resignation and his retirement from political action letter is clear and public will be one of two possibilities bring troubles to the United States and not a political earthquake in the Palestinian territories alone, but in the All-States allies of the United States."

Abbas said that "the absence of its political moderate lead Washington to deal with a third intifada may be impossible. (Without progress) such as a road map or a new international conference, the United States will find that Al-Qaida, which permeates secretly in the Gaza Strip has become enemy number one and deducted face-to-face in the Palestinian territories if not met possibilities together and then the entire region will not be able to achieve anything. "

So it sounds like Abbas is saying that he is the moderate bulwark against terrorism and that if he falls, America will have a wave of terror attacks. He somehow doesn't seem to address the issue that Al-Qaeda came to Gaza on his watch.

This is behavior we've seen before. Just like the explicit terrorists threaten the West if they don't get what they want, moderate terrorists like Abbas threaten that the other terrorists will attack the West if they don't get what they want. It is the Arab version of good-cop, bad-cop - and too many in the West believe what the "good cop" says.

The last group of a total of close to 100 Palestinian refugees who lived in Iraq, but had to flee to the Jordanian desert, have arrived in Brazil. The 25 refugees are being settled in the southeastern state of São Paulo and in Rio Grande do Sul state, in the Brazilian South.
Another group of 36 had arrived earlier this month after the first 35 Palestinians who came to Brazil in September. All of them were sent by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The Brazilian government will offer the Palestinian refugees financial help for two years as well as Portuguese classes. They will also be receiving accommodations and medical care.

The refugee agency says Jordan's Ruweished camp, where the refugees lived, will be shut down in the coming weeks.

Many Arab and Western countries with strict immigration policies have refused to host the Palestinian refugees.

The UN has two agencies dedicated to refugees: UNHCR and UNRWA. The UNRWA isdedicated exclusively to Palestinian Arabs, while the UNHCR takes care of everyone else worldwide.

While specific refugee populations around the world have dwindled, only the "refugees" under UNRWA responsibility have increased.

The reasons are simple: UNRWA defined Palestinian Arab "refugees" to include descendants of the original 700,000 refugees, the UNRWA has morphed from an organization that truly wanted to solve the refugee problem into one that only wants to perpetuate it to keep its bureaucracy in existence (it is mostly staffed by Palestinian Arabs,) and the neighboring Arab countries refuse to resettle their Arab "brethren" to live in peace and dignity, preferring to keep them in limbo for 60 years.

This story shows that the UNHCR actually takes its job seriously, trying hard to find a way for its refugees to become normal members of society. It shows that Brazil has more empathy for Palestinian Arabs than any Arab country. Above all, it shows the utter corruption and hypocrisy of the UNRWA and all Arab countries who refuse to truly solve the original refugee problem.

One year ago I found an Arabic editorial upset over the resettlement of some 46 Iraqis of Palestinian origin to Canada, because happy PalArabs mean less "unity". The editorial proved the hypocrisy of the Arab world and how much they want the Palestinian Arabs to suffer as a strategy. I've also pointed out how the Arabs have turned their backs on the Iraqis of Palestinian origin for years.

This story is a damning indictment of the Arab world and the UNRWA, and yet more proof of their pure hypocrisy as they do everything they can to perpetuate Palestinian Arab suffering while they pontificate about how much they love them. Hundreds of millions of Arabs over hundreds of millions of square miles have institutionalized discrimination against Palestinian Arabs for decades, the UNRWA perpetuates the problem, and the world is silent.

Palestinian Arab group succeeds in torpedoing peace concert

An idealistic organization named OneVoice is dedicated to ending the PalArab/Israeli conflict on a grassroots level, through cooperation between the two peoples.

OneVoice planned a set of twin concerts for yesterday, in Tel Aviv and Jericho, to advance its agenda. The Israeli side enthusiastically embraced the idea, but things were a bit more difficult on the PalArab side:

Palestinian civil society groups claimed victory Wednesday after the collapse of a planned pair of concerts in support of negotiations with Israel.

Opposition from Palestinian activist groups and high-profile mismanagement resulted in the cancellation of the OneVoice People's Summit, a concert event planned to take place in Tel Aviv and Jericho simultaneously. The concerts were originally scheduled for Thursday.

The event's stated purpose was to call for the implementation of "a two state solution." The concerts signed on such acts as Canadian rock singer Bryan Adams, and the popular Palestinian hip hop group DAM. The sponsoring organization, One Million Voices, boasted the support of notables including former UN High Comissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, US envoy Dennis Ross, and Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat.

A range of Palestinian groups, under the auspices of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), succeeded in persuading several high-profile artists, including DAM, to withdraw from the concert.

The major thesis of OneVoice is that most people on both sides want peace. PACBI feels differently.

Like the current crop of Palestinian Arab negotiators, PACBI believes that everything is Israel's fault and as a result the Arab side has no responsibilities. The natural outcome of that is that they are against any group that actually advocates compromise, no matter how vaguely worded.

On their website they have a brochure, in Arabic only, that tries to explain to Palestinian Arab kids not to participate in any joint Arab/Israeli peace programs. The document justifies bus bombings as legitimate "resistance," specifically, "the resistance, in all its forms, is a legitimate right for all peoples of the occupied protected by international law, including international human rights instruments."

Both sides claim the majority of Palestinian Arabs support their side. Apparently, in this case at least, the terrorist supporters seemed to have more clout.

October, 1947 Gallup poll of German anti-semites

Another illuminating - and depressing - gem from the Palestine Post, October 20, 1947.

Two years after the fall of Nazism, only 2% of the German population could be said to be against racism. Of the group that was least biased, only 22% said that Jews should try to rebuild their lives in Germany.

While there is no doubt that there was a heavy amount of anti-semitism in Germany that predated Hitler, it is amazing that 12 years of incitement could make virtually an entire nation into racists (normally I wouldn't use the term, but the Germans themselves considered Jews to be a race.)

If twelve years of incitement was successful in creating an entire nation - 98% of the population - into bigots, try to imagine how impossible it would be to change Arab attitudes about Zionists and Jews after a century of daily, sustained incitement.

In 2006, a Pew poll showed that 44% of Germans still had unfavorable opinions of Jews - after sixty years of intense effort to undo the toxic effects of their bigotry. And the same poll found that 98% of Jordanians, and 97% of Egyptians, had the same unfavorable attitudes towards Jews.

The pure hatred that Arabs feel towards Israel and Jews, way out of proportion to anything Israel has ever done, simply cannot be erased or even effected by a "peace treaty" or "goodwill gestures." What needs to be done is a sea change in the Arab and Muslim worlds against this kind of hate, a sustained, multi-decade campaign teaching universal principles of responsibility and equality. Realistically, this will never happen, perhaps unless the Islamic world is utterly defeated militarily - and even then it would take another half century to see real results.

Those poor Gazans

Yesterday, Hamas fought with a pro-Fatah Gaza family for some eight hours, destroying their house (and five died in the process.)

Palestine Press Agency printed pictures of the damage done to the house, and once again it appears that some poor Gazans are not so poor - this was a mansion!

UPDATE: See also this poor slum of a home from earlier this year. The marble foyer was damaged!

Best-selling Turkish book claims Jews behind Islamists

From Omedia:

A book resembling the Protocols of the Elders of Zion has become a bestseller in Turkey. What makes this book so special is that the blood libel against the Jews takes on a new twist. The Washington Post reported the story.

The book is called The Children of Moses. Its cover shows Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan inside a Star of David. Reporter Mustafa Akyol writes that this is the first in a series of four volumes. The book argues that Erdogan and his conservative allies in the pro-Islamic party are in fact crypto-Jews with secret ties to the conspiratorial forces of "global Zionism."

The book is not a rarity. Copies are on display in bookshops, on Independence Avenue (Istiklal), in the secular part of Istanbul and in Turkey’s international airport. They are displayed alongside a Turkish book with an international reputation by Pamuk Orhan. The publishers claim that over 520,000 copies – an astonishing figure – have been sold since it came out earlier in the year.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion blamed “International Jewry” for destroying both Czarist Russia and communism as well as for the capitalist system. But this is the first time Jews have been blamed of all things for setting up an Islamic state. Most ironically, the book portrays Israel as allied with the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The author, Ergun Poyraz, is a self-declared Kemalist, i.e. a loyal follower of Kemal Ataturk, who founded modern Turkey in 1923. “Zionism has decided to turn Turkey from its secular path and make it a moderate Islamic republic," Poyraz maintains in all seriousness, offering no support for his arguments, which are not documented and have no factual backing.

A clear case of anti-Semitism does not spring from virgin soil. Last February saw the exposure of a fascist group calling itself the Union of Patriotic Forces, led by retired colonel Karadag Fikri. The group’s secret oath included the words, "I am of pure Turkish blood and there is no Jewish convert in my lineage." Its members promised to "kill or be killed" so that "the Turkish nation will rule the world."

In June, police found 27 hand grenades and sticks of dynamite in a house in Istanbul belonging to one of the group members with shady links to someone in the security forces. The arrest led to other cells and Poyraz, the anti-Semitic author, belonged to one of them. The lawyer hired to defend him was Kamal Kerincsiz, who is suing Nobel Prize-winning author Pamuk for "insulting the Turkish people." The trial of Poyraz and his comrades continues.

This anti-Semitic book recalls a dark chapter in Turkish history. When Ataturk died in 1942, his successor Mustafa Ismet Inonu imposed heavy taxes targeting mainly the Jews. When unable to pay, the Jews were sent to labor camps in Eastern Turkey.

Remember - the secular Turks are considered the "good guys!"

The PalArab welfare state

Even though I have been busy with other stuff, I continue to research for the next installment of my Psychological History of Palestinian Arabs series. In August I found a fantastic article by Martha Gellhorn written in 1961 where she described in detail her visits to many UNRWA refugee camps, and more recently I found a short follow-up she wrote for The Nation after the Six Day War (not available for free.)

In this 1967 article, Gellhorn talks about the mindset of the Palestinian Arabs, in camps and outside of them:

In 1961, I had made a long tour of the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) Palestinian refugee camps m Lebanon. West Jordan and the Gaza Strip, and I had been at this camp near Jericho before. It is disheartening. The world believes, because it is constantly told, that the Palestinian refugees have lived in physical misery for nineteen years. Middle-class refugees will confide, in private, that their poorer compatriots, those who remarn in the camps. owned nothing at home and are no worse off now than before. The majority of refugees, educated, skilled, semi-skilled, live outside the camps and manage like any other Arabs.

The refugees’ misery is in the head. They are sick in their minds from a diet of propaganda, official Arab dogma and homemade fantasy, which they have gobbled for nineteen years. Schooled in self-pity, encouraged to believe they are the worlds unique vlctims of mjustice, they have never been allowed to forget the daydream past or to settle for the real future. Since the third Arab-lsrael war hardly touched them, they learned nothing from it.

...Then, as on remembered cue, we went into the fantasy phase of conversation. It consists of recounting how many acres of fine fields and orchards, what splendid houses, were left behind in Palestine and stolen by the Jews. There is competition in fantasy ownership: if you add up the lost acreage claimed by the inhabitants of any camp you usually arrive at a total larger than the whole recovered arable land of Israel. One very nice man in another camp told me that he had owned 11,000 acres of citrus groves: legend has it that once the Sultan of Turkey owned that much land in Palestine and sold it to the Rothschilds. But I think this ownership fantasy is the real human core of the Palestinian refugee problem, as opposed to the unreal Arab propaganda problem.

Gellhorn uncovered a basic fact that nobody else noticed. UNRWA created a welfare state for Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants, and while the ambitious and successful ones managed to get out of these camps on their own, the ones who stayed - the lazy ones - are quite happy being on the dole, spinning fantasies about how successful they were in old Palestine while they partake of free food, housing and education.

A hint that this is true can be found, of all places, buried in the "tourism" section of the Palestinian National Information Centre website:

Before its withdrawal from Gaza strip, Israel tried to dismantle some camps and transfer their inhabitants to settlement projects as; Al Sheikh Redwan project. Others tried to do the same procedures before but the refugees insisted to stay in their camps rejecting to leave them without a just political solution to their problem.

This is not quite true - Israel did manage to move some willing Palestinian Arabs out of the camps and into brand new housing projects, as the UN itself admitted (A/43/653 30 September 1988, from Google cache):

11. The Israeli authorities, according to information available to the Commissioner- General, have to date allocated a total of approximately 3,914 plots of land in the Gaza Strip for housing projects. A total of 2,583 plots have been built on by 3,653 refugee families comprising 22,732 persons, buildings on 257 plots are under construction, 937 plots are still vacant and 137 have been built on by non-refugee families. In addition, 3,034 refugee families consisting of 18,823 persons have moved into 2,666 completed housing units consisting of 5,893 rooms.

12. Refugee families are continuing to purchase plots of land at subsidized rates for the construction of houses in the projects developed by the Israeli authorities in the Beit Lahiya, Nazleh and Tel-es-Sultan areas. The construction of multi-story apartment blocks in Sheikh Radwan, sponsored by Israeli authorities and offered for sale upon completion, as reported last year (A/42/507, para. 12), continues.

While some PalArabs took Israel up on this offer, the vast majority did not.

The Gaza City Website adds:

The quarter of Sheikh Radwan was established to the north of the city so as to evacuate Shati Camp and resettle the refugees whose houses were demolished by the Israeli occupation authorities, in the first stage. In the second stage, anyone else who wanted to move from Shati Camp to Sheikh Radwan Quarter had to demolish his house in order to obtain a house there. The goal behind this project was to resettle the refugees and put an end to their case, but the attempt was unsuccessful.

Even Palestinian Arabs admit that Israel wanted to help them move out of camps and into houses, but they will twist the facts to make it sound like this was a bad thing:

Since the Gaza Strip is distinguished by a huge concentration of dispossessed Palestinian refugees maintained in large camps, the Israeli authorities, from the early stage of the 1967 occupation of the area, have devoted major effort to breaking up the camps and relocating their inhabitants elsewhere. The Israeli authorities have applied a clear policy of systematic destruction of refugee shelters and initiation of resettlement schemes, aimed in the short run at making the refugee camps less congested, while in the long run, the policy appears designed to remove these camps from the landscape entirely, since they remain a constant reminder of Palestinian uprootedness and exile. To date (1990), the Israeli strategy of demolishing the entire refugee camp network has failed to achieve its final objective.

In general, the Arab leaders have wanted to keep as many people in the camps as possible because keeping them in misery helps their political goals, and it has been no secret that Arab leaders have vied with themselves to use Palestinian Arabs as pawns for decades. But what was not clear was that a large percentage of Palestinian Arabs are willing to perpetuate the problem of being stuck in camps themselves - because it is a free ride. The fact is that their so-called "leaders" will happily exploit this, as will UNRWA in its attempt for self-preservation.

No better proof is needed than the fact that since Israel left Gaza, the camps are still there, along with the free UNRWA handouts. This benefits everyone: the UNRWA stays embedded in Gaza and feels like it is useful, the PA/Hamas can point to "refugee" camps as examples of Israeli cruelty, and the camp residents themselves get all the UNRWA benefits without having to actually try to work for a living.

Egypt blames IDF for arms smuggling to Gaza

Egypt, worried about potentially losing $200 million in US aid this year because of its human rights record, has written a document for Congress claiming that most arms smuggling to Gaza is done by Israeli soldiers:

An Egyptian document distributed in Congress asserts that Israeli soldiers cooperate with smugglers in allowing arms and military equipment into the Gaza Strip. ...

The Egyptian document was circulated among congressmen by a group of Egyptian generals visiting Washington for meetings. The document was also given to legislators serving in the House Appropriations Committee. Representative Nita Lowey (D-NY), who chairs the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee was the driving force behind a freezing of $200 million worth of American aid to Egypt for reasons that included Cairo's refusal to act more forcefully to prevent smuggling. The official reason given for freezing the funds is Egypt's human rights record.

During briefings made to congressmen by the Egyptian delegation, it was argued that most of the smugglings into the Gaza Strip are carried out from the sea, not through Egyptian territory. They also maintained that Israeli soldiers collaborate with smugglers and allow them to cross into the strip. The Egyptians are also charging that Israel is exaggerating in its assessment of the amount of smuggling activity.

In the draft of foreign aid appropriations, approved by the House Appropriations Committee chaired by David Obey (D-Wisconsin), and by Congress, $200 million out of a total aid package of $1.7 billion to Egypt are frozen. The draft proposal brought before the Senate does not note the frozen sum. The final version of the appropriations bill on foreign aid will be decided during a conference of both houses. In an effort to affect the result in its favor, Egypt is lobbying hard to convince legislators to adopt the Senate version of the bill.

In the deranged minds of the misozionistic Egyptians, it makes perfect sense for IDF troops who fight daily in Gaza - and sometimes get killed, as one soldier fell yesterday - to facilitate the smuggling of weapons there, just to make Egypt look bad. Lying to Congress is just par for the course.

Hamas/Fatah fighting in Gaza, five dead

Whenever there is a period of relative calm in Gaza, it is always followed by a real explosion. This one was between Hamas and a pro-Fatah family, where they battled overnight using RPGs and other peaceful weapons smuggled in from Egypt, and the death toll has hit 5.

Our 2007 Palestinian Arab self-death count is now at 545.

UPDATE: One of those "mysterious explosions " at a training camp in Gaza, killing a 19-year old. Palestine Press Agency quotes people who think that this man was actually killed during the fighting mentioned above but they try to cover up any of their battlefield losses. 546.

Saudi prince: "Islam guarantees justice for all"

From Arab News:

Crown Prince Sultan said yesterday that the newly issued Judiciary Law and Court of Grievances Law were important turning points in the Kingdom’s judicial history. He said the new laws would ensure justice and protect public rights. Prince Sultan made this statement as he opened an international conference on engineering arbitration organized by the Saudi Council of Engineers. “Islam guarantees justice for all,” the prince said. Eastern Province Gov. Prince Muhammad ibn Fahd and his deputy Prince Jalawi also attended the opening session.

This may be the most unintentionally ironic quote of the decade.

The US State Department 2005 report on human rights in Saudi Arabia found:

• no right to change the government
• infliction of severe pain by judicially sanctioned corporal punishments
• beatings and other abuses
• arbitrary arrest
• incommunicado detention
• denial of fair public trials
• exemption from the rule of law for some individuals and lack of judicial independence
• political prisoners
• infringement of privacy rights
• significant restriction of civil liberties--freedoms of speech and press, assembly, association, and movement
• no religious freedom
• widespread perception of corruption
• lack of government transparency
• legal and societal discrimination against women, religious and other minorities
• strict limitations on worker rights.

The government does not provide legal protection for freedom of religion, and such protection did not exist. Islam is the official religion, and Islamic law as interpreted by the government requires that all citizens be Muslims. Government leaders called for tolerance and moderation, and King Abdullah and other leaders made public pronouncements condemning religious extremism.

...Christians were detained for practicing their religion. For example, the newspaper Al-Jazeerah reported that 40 Pakistani citizens, including one Muslim, were arrested on April 12 after conducting Christian religious services in an apartment in Riyadh.

...Proselytizing by non-Muslims, including the distribution of non‑Islamic religious materials such as Bibles, was illegal. Anyone publicly wearing any kind of religious symbols risked a confrontation with the religious police.

Under the Hanbali interpretation of Shari'a, judges may discount the testimony of persons who are not practicing Muslims or who do not adhere to "correct doctrine".

...There continued to be instances in which mosque speakers prayed for the death of Jews, including from the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina.

...Male citizens have the freedom to travel within the country and abroad; however, the government restricted these rights for women based on its interpretation of Islamic Law. All women in the country were prohibited from driving and were dependent upon men for transportation. Likewise, they must obtain written permission from a male relative or guardian before the authorities allow them to travel abroad.

...Women were not permitted either to vote or to stand for office.

It looks like we need to amend "justice for all" to "justice for all Muslim Sunni religious adult males who don't upset the Muttawa."

Remember the roadmap?

Here are some of the requirements for the Palestinian Arabs under the "roadmap" that are considered way too onerous by them, so much so that they want to skip all of these Phase I steps and go right to the final status negotiations. We've also added a helpful description of why the Roadmap requirements are untenable from the Arab perspective.

At the outset of Phase I:

* Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel's right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel.

We can all understand how this is simply unacceptable. Ending violence and incitement would be antithetical to Palestinian Arab culture and is just a Western attempt to impose colonialist hegemony on the poor, semi-indigenous people.

* Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conduction and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.

Another insane demand. Planning attacks against Israel helps foster community and unity among the PalArabs and to ask them to stop would be like asking them to stop breathing itself.

* Rebuilt and refocused Palestinian Authority security apparatus begins sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. This includes commencing confiscation of illegal weapons and consolidation of security authority, free of association with terror and corruption.

Pure insanity. Expecting some 80,000 police to actually stop terror attacks is clearly untenable when the policemen are the people doing the attacks. One cannot expect the police to arrest each other, as that would negatively affect morale.

* Arab states cut off public and private funding and all other forms of support for groups supporting and engaging in violence and terror.

Clearly the infidel crusaders who drafted this obscene requirement do not understand the Muslim concept of Zaka, where Arab states give millions of dollars of charity towards Hamas and other charitable organizations dedicated to defending poor Palestinian Arabs from aggression by purchasing weapons and explosives. This is a religious and moral obligation!

One can now easily understand why Palestinian Arabs do not want to agree to any sort of preconditions to getting 100% of their demands met. It is obvious that these conditions are way beyond their capability - the roadmap was drafted back in 2003 and they have still not begun most of the Phase 1 requirements.

The fundamental problem is that the roadmap expects the PalArabs to act like human beings who actually respect life, and that is really a deal-breaker for them.

The West Bank economy is booming - for weapons

From the peaceful, moderate West Bank:

Two years ago, an M16 automatic rifle could fetch $5,400 or more in the Palestinian West Bank. Now buyers at Hebron's clandestine gun market are asked to pay more than double.

Four months after Islamist Hamas routed secular Fatah in the Gaza Strip, fears that clashes between the Palestinian rivals could erupt in the West Bank and uncertainty ahead of a U.S.-led peace conference are fueling a scramble for guns.

Dealers at the gun market in Hebron, the West Bank's most populous city, say weapons sales have jumped by up to 70 percent since Hamas took control of Gaza, while buoyant demand and supply bottlenecks due to tighter security have inflated prices.

In the northern West Bank city of Jenin, every bullet for an AK-47 rifle costs 35 Israeli shekels, or more than $8. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, an AK-47 bullet goes for 4-6 Israeli shekels, $1-1.50.

Militants from both Hamas and Fatah, and the powerful family clans who are often called in to deal with West Bank crime or land disputes, are driving the market, according to gun dealers and senior Palestinian security sources.

But ordinary West Bankers, too, are taking no risks.

"I don't feel safe anymore," said 28-year-old Abo Abdo, who sold his car this month to buy a rifle to protect his wife and two children. "Everyone is buying guns."
Since the Gaza takeover, Western powers have started pumping cash into the West Bank in an attempt to bolster Abbas and further isolate Hamas in Gaza, and are training police and security forces loyal to the Fatah-backed administration.

But despite the drive to support him, many Palestinians doubt Abbas has the clout to keep the peace.

"We are facing a very grave situation," a Palestinian security source said. "People distrust the Palestinian police. They are buying guns to defend themselves."

Hebron restaurant owner Salam Shabanah is a case in point. He wants guns to protect his property, but says the scramble by militants and family clans for guns is inflating prices to the point he can barely afford them.

"The money I am saving is not enough to buy the guns I need," he said.

The Palestinian Authority, with tens of thousands of "security forces," cannot be trusted to keep the basic minimu standards of public safety. Hundreds of millions of dollars are going towards this sham of a government which is utterly incompetent.

The West trusts the PA far more than its own people do.

It goes beyond the immediate security problem - the entire Palestinian Arab culture is conditioned to look at violence as the solution to all problems. The thought process that a man needs to sell his car to buy a rifle is bad enough, but even worse is the idea that his owning a single rifle will actually protect him from the roving gangs in the streets with their RPGs and machine guns. This is the PalArab culture - glorifying violence - and since it was so successful at making heroes out of terrorists it is natural that the same mindset would spill over into intra-Arab relations.

The PA owns the media. It has had since at least Oslo to turn around this mentality from terror to co-existence, from violence to peace - but instead it has done the opposite. An entire new generation has been raised to romanticize death and terror.

It is difficult to imagine a group of people, and a leadership, that are less qualified to run their own affairs than the Palestinian Arabs and the PA.

More law and order from Hamas in Gaza

From Ma'an:

Unidentified gunmen hurled two grenades at a house in Nusayrat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Monday.

The grenades caused material damage to the house, which belongs to the Abu Marahil family. None of the residents was hurt.

Eyewitnesses told Ma'an's reporter that the attack came after the house owners prevented Hamas activists spraying mottos on their walls on Sunday. They said a heated argument then erupted between both sides.

Great to see how life in Gaza has improved under the Hamas government.

Sure looks like child-killer Kuntar will be released

The recent deal between Israel and Hezbollah and statements by both Olmert and Nasrallah seem to strongly indicate that any prisoner swap will include Samir Kuntar, one of the most loathsome terrorists in history (despite Israeli denials.)

Kuntar, it will be remembered, murdered a father in front of his four-year old daughter before smashing her skull, among other atrocities. (And this sickening piece of human garbage is also considered a hero to Palestinian Arabs, with the "moderates" demanding his release.)

I am not wise enough to know whether it is worth trading him for Goldwasser and Regev today. I just want to point out that Nasrallah planned the kidnapping of Israelis specifically to get Kuntar in a swap, by his own statements. A prisoner swap would, as always, encourage more kidnappings in the future.

And if Israel would have had the death penalty for uberterrorists like Kuntar back in 1979, the incentive for kidnapping the two Israelis would have not existed - and the Lebanon war may never have occurred.

Gaza City Syndrome and its treatment

Sometimes, visitors to Jerusalem have intense psychotic episodes of a religious nature, often claiming to be Biblical figures or the Messiah. This phenomenon is known as "Jerusalem syndrome." When it happens, the Israeli authorities hospitalize the deluded individual and it usually clears up in a few weeks.

Not to be outdone, we now have the first known case of Gaza City Syndrome, where a man claimed to be the Mahdi who is mentioned in the Koran to herald the Resurrection:

The self-professed Mahdi went to a Hamas-affiliated Imam in Rafah to state his claims, stressing that people follow his divine direction.

According to eyewitnesses, an enraged Imam contacted the police.

The Gaza police treated this case with all the sensitivity one has come to expect from Palestinian Arabs:

The man was arrested and ordered to revoke his claims. When he refused, the police shot at his feet, before releasing him.

This treatment of Gaza City Syndrome seems to be as effective as the infidel Zionist treatment of Jerusalem Syndrome - plus it saves much money.

Quick question

What exactly would Palestinian Arabs have to do for the US to decide that maybe they don't deserve their own state?

Anything I can think of, they've already done.

PalArab "negotiator" says his side has nothing to negotiate

The chief Palestinian Arab "negotiator" has today repeated what I reported him saying last week in an Arabic autotranslation, now being quoted in a real translation saying the same things - and more:

Ahmad Abed al Rahman, the spokesperson of the Fatah movement and President Abbas' advisor said in a statement on Tuesday that the Palestinian side focuses in its meetings and negotiations on two basic issues.

Firstly, is the need for Israel to abide by its commitments to remove military checkpoints, release detainees and halt the construction of settlements and the Separation Wall.

Did Israel ever commit to any of these? Plus, this sounds like four issues, not one.

The second issue relates to the final status issues and the necessity for Israel to be ready for dialogue over these issues in order to arrive at a solution. Otherwise everything that has been done up to this point will be useless.

Abed al Rahman denied the rumours in some of the media, that the US Secretary of State is trying to convince the Palestinian to lower their demands regarding a joint agreement between them and the Israelis, on the kind of document to be presented to the international conference in Annapolis in November. He declared that Palestinian participation in the conference will help them to restore their legitimate rights.

He also said that the ongoing meetings between the Palestinians and the Israelis in recent weeks have been mainly aimed at reaching a final agreement to end the Israeli occupation. He added that negotiations are another form of resistance through which Palestinians can bring an end to the occupation. He clarified that one form of struggle is the international conference which President Bush had called for, especially as most officials are saying that had this is the moment for the establishment of an indepenent Palestinian state.

Abed al Rahman went on to say that even if the Israeli side was behaving in an arrogant way, this does not mean the Palestinians should despair as the negotiating team will continue to work with all means possible.

In response to reports that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has demanded more compromises as a condition of his government's acceptance of a formula for a joint document, he said that " The Israeli side does not want to end the occupation and the settlements. All they think about is plastic surgery for the reality of occupation; this will not lead to peace. The Israelis should take a historical decision to end their occupation of Palestinian territory."

He concluded by saying that the Palestinian side has nothing to give up.

Apparently, the chief "negotiator's" entire role is to try to extract everything he can from Israel and not to give anything in return - and then prepare for the next summit, where the exercise will be repeated. This farce is official PA policy.

By any reasonable standard, this would be considered "extremist" or "hard-line" or "intransigent" - but since we are talking about the Good Terrorists from Fatah, who are the darlings of the West, one will never hear any of those pejorative words applied to the PalArabs, only the Israelis. (And Hamas conveniently seems to exist to make Fatah look good in comparison. We'll just sweep under the rug that Hamas was democratically elected by the peaceful Palestinian Arabs, and probably would be again.)

What kind of a joke is going on here? Why on earth would Israel even consider attending this absurd exercise in being demonized, not to mention outnumbered? What can Israel possibly get in return when the Palestinian Arab negotiator cannot even say that he would try to stop terror attacks?

IDF buying produce from Gaza???

From the Jerusalem Post:

During the shmita [Sabbatical] year the IDF will accommodate the stringent kashrut demands of about 2,000 Nahal Haredi soldiers by providing fruits and vegetables grown by Arab Israelis and Palestinians, including those living in Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

The vast majority of IDF soldiers, who do not adhere to haredi standards of kashrut, will eat fruits and vegetables provided by Jewish farmers according to a halachic loophole called heter mechira [permitted sale] in which farmers' land is "sold" to a non-Jew for the duration of the shmita year.

However, haredim reject heter mechira as a halachic option and are careful to eat only fruits and vegetables that are grown by non-Jewish farmers in land that does not belong to Jews.

The first shipment of vegetables under the supervision of Rabbi Yosef Yekutiel Efrati, who is closely associated with Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the most important halachic authority of Lithuanian Ashkenazi Jewry, will be delivered on Chanukah, which begins December 5.

It is bad enough to buy vegetables from the PA and its corrupt, terrorist government - but the IDF buying vegetables from Hamas?

I hope this was a mistake on the JPost's part.

Another peaceful day in Hamastan

Just this morning's headlines in the Palestine Press Agency Arabic website:
- Internal Hamas fighting in Gaza City, a number injured (autotranslate says "killed" but I believe that is a mistranslation of "shot" from the context)
- The PA Health Ministry condemned Hamas taking over medical and pharmacy services
- Hamas attacked two Palestinian Arab journalists and destroyed their cameras
- Another Hamas attack on the "courts compound" in Gaza
- Someone burned a Hamas car in Jabaliya

All of these events were reported today.

Peace is at hand!

Arabs importing poisonous "holy water" to UK

From Arab News:

Allegations that poisonous Zamzam water is being smuggled into Britain are exercising the minds of UK Muslims. The containers, which sell for the equivalent of SR25 each, are purporting to come from Makkah on their labels.
Containers that have been analyzed by UK health and safety officials have been found to hold water that contains raised levels of arsenic and nitrates that, if consumed over extended periods of time, could prove fatal.
Saudi Arabia forbids the sale of Zamzam. The holy water is freely distributed at its source. Its bottling and distribution is strictly controlled and monitored by the government and commercial export is illegal. Each year, however, millions of foreign pilgrims carry containers home as private export.
Genuine Zamzam, analyzed in 1971, contains greater quantities of calcium and magnesium salts than most other waters. It also contains fluorides that strengthen teeth’s enamel.
However, some of the fake Zamzam has been analyzed and found to contain almost three times as much nitrate and twice as much arsenic as the World Health Organization believes is safe. Children under six months and elderly people are particularly vulnerable to excessive nitrate while regular consumption of arsenic in water is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths a year in southeast Asia.
...The Health and Social Services website of the Central London Mosque (www.iccservices.org.uk) quotes a BBC article reporting the seizure of a consignment of suspected fake Zamzam at the start of Ramadan by Westminster City Council.
The “Muslim Weekly” in the UK reported last week that inspectors in the London Borough of Hackney seized a vanload of contaminated counterfeit cases of the water.
Similar seizures have been carried out in Gloucester, Barnsley and Leicester.
The potential for fraud and the profit in sale of fake Zamzam to the unwary is huge. In a recent case quoted by Teinaz, an Islamic bookshop was selling an estimated 20,000 liters of Zamzam water a week.
Teinaz said he “was aware” of examples of vans transporting vast quantities of the fake water to mosques where their imams ordered their followers to buy the substance. Some of the water, according to customs officials, is smuggled into Britain in crates of vegetables and furniture.
Speaking to “Muslim Weekly”, Teinaz said traders had misled the authority at air and seaports for years telling them that Zamzam was for external use.
“I would like to urge those selling the water to fear Allah. They’re making money at the expense of their brothers and sisters’ health who will end up very ill by consuming the contaminated water,” he said. “It is very sad to see a Muslim cheating another Muslim.”

As opposed to....?

The Arab News is adamant that this water is not from the real Zamzam well, seemingly based on a chemical analysis from 1971. It would be interesting to see if newer analysis confirms that.

Misoziony at a San Francisco art gallery

From Oy Bay:

Himmelberger Gallery, a well-known art gallery located in San Francisco’s tony Union Square, has decided to cancel plans to publish an art catalogue of one of its represented artists, noted author Alan Kaufman, who is under contract to the gallery. The decision is due to use of the word Zionism in the catalogue’s title ‘Visionary Expressionism: A Zionist Art.” Kaufman said in response:
For myself, I want to say that to see oneself and ones colleagues censored for expression of a Zionist perspective is one of the most shocking experiences I’ve ever had as an artist, or writer. But what made it especially hard was to see my fellow writers, David Twersky, David Rosenberg, Etgar Keret, Polly Zavadivker, also censored. It was then that I understood that this was not merely censorship of me: this was censorship of an entire community, of my people, the Jewish People; of my colleagues, my fellow writers and artists. This drove home to me like nothing else that I must never accept such censorship from anyone, under any circumstances. I must stand up proudly as a Zionist and express myself freely, without shame or reservation.

The gallery objects to the expressly Zionist focus of several essay contributions to the catalogue by well-known authors and journalists, including David Twersky, contributing editor of the New York Sun and senior adviser, International Affairs for American Jewish Congress; noted scholar David Rosenberg, author (with Harold Bloom) of The Book of J and most recently of Abraham: The First Historical Biography; Etgar Keret, widely acknowledged as Israel’s most popular young writer, and whose books include The Nimrod Flip-Out and The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be G-d ; and Polly Zavadivker, a young scholar completing graduate studies in Hebrew and Judaics at New York University and currently working as a grants officer at the Jewish Federation in Oakland, California. Kaufman, whose critically acclaimed books include the memoir Jew Boy and the novel Matches has an essay and an interview, conducted by Zavadivker, in the catalogue.

The catalogue was to present 15 of Kaufman’s paintings which are under contract to the gallery and whose subjects range from the Holocaust to Israel to the New Antisemitism. The gallery’s prices for the works in question have been cited at between $3,275 and $36,000. The works have hung in the gallery and a cross-section of them also appeared on the gallery website .

At a meeting between gallery head David Himmelberger and Kaufman, Himmelberger surprised the artist and author with an eleventh hour decision not to proceed with the catalogue due to the Zionist “agenda” of the essays as well as some of the paintings. Himmelberger said that such a presentation was antithetical to the aims of the gallery, which promotes “international understanding” and forswears all forms of nationalism and religion. But the authors see this as a transparent example of the way in which the word Zionism has been exiled from civil discourse and has been turned by the cultural establishment into a refugee of a word, a pariah of an idea, and a euphemism for Antisemitism.

The Himmelberger Gallery website seems to have deleted its web pages that used to feature Alan Kaufman (the Google cached versions are here. )

The reason given by Himmelberger, that the gallery "forswears all forms of nationalism and religion," seems highly improbable - it did once feature some 9/11-themed paintings that included the artist's interpretation of the American flag.

It seems far more likely that the very word "Zionist" used in a positive context is so viscerally disgusting to the gallery owner that he had to invent a reason to stop the exhibition that would save face.

Aspen station decides not to air Holocaust denial film

An Aspen public-access TV station has decided not to air a Holocaust-denial video that was being pushed by a 9/11 "truther":

The GrassRoots TV board of directors voted Monday to ban a controversial Holocaust-denial film.

Steve Campbell, founder of Citizens for 9/11 Truth, asked the station to air "Judea Declares War on Germany: A Critical Look at World War II" on Oct. 1.

But after prescreening the film, which questions conventional wisdom about the Holocaust, GrassRoots TV board members stopped the airing, pending further debate.

The board held an open forum on the matter Oct. 11 to gauge community reaction.

"The GrassRoots Television board has decided not to air the film 'Judea declares War on Germany,'" GrassRoots TV board chairman Alan Feldman said in a statement after the board meeting Monday.

"After careful consideration and community input, the board concluded that this film is obscene, repugnant to the generally accepted notion of what is appropriate in our community. GrassRoots TV will not allow the station to be used as a vehicle to incite hatred against any group. GrassRoots Television will issue a more detailed statement to our community in coming days."

Feldman promised a board policy in the future: "Our community spoke, and we have given it a lot of rational thinking," Feldman said. "We have the ability to refuse to air something if we believe it's obscene."

Campbell called it a "poor decision."

"Unfortunately, it shows basically what I and others have tried to say about this whole issue," Campbell said. "There are those who don't want you to see this information, and they'll do anything they can to stop you from watching it. And that's just what they're doing."

Campbell has shown other controversial films on GrassRoots, as well as on Rifle's public access station, he said.

He called the debate over "Judea Declares War on Germany: A Critical Look at World War II" a matter of "conscious-raising."

"I just think that it's a travesty what's going on," Campbell said.

Campbell said he is not planning any legal action against GrassRoots but added, "By censoring this film, it's only going to make people watch it more."

Campbell said that while he is being censored now, "The truth will come out. It's just like the grass that grows between the cracks in the sidewalk."

He said he might try and air the film in another venue, but he was disappointed that the large audience in Aspen wouldn't see it.

"This is part of the beginning of the loss of our freedoms of expression and speech and the dissemination of information just so certain people can maintain their status quo," Campbell said.

As I mentioned last week, the Aspen Times newspaper editorialized that the film be shown.

Notice how they cover this story above: giving far more space to the illiterate anti-semite ("conscious-raising"?) than to the people who made the decision. Not to mention the oh-so-politically correct way of referring to one of the purest forms of hate speech as simply "controversial" and as "question(ing the) conventional wisdom about the Holocaust."

The "censored" video is available at Amazon (one reviewer, 4 stars) and can be seen on-line if you care to look for it.

The name of the production company, believe it or not, is Amalek Productions.

Sixty years ago: Wishful Western thinking about Arab goals

Sixty years ago, in October 1947, the big news from Palestine was that both the US and the Soviet Union had accepted the idea of partition. It was still very unclear how exactly partition would occur - the prevailing thoughts were that a multinational force, perhaps the UN, would go into Palestine and enforce the partition.

The entire world was very concerned as to what would happen. The Arab League met in Beirut, plotting a response, and there were reports of Arab armies mobilizing on the borders of Palestine, getting ready to attack.

In the October 13th Palestine Post, Great Britain sought to assure the world that the Arabs were only posturing, and had no intent to actually attack. American experts concurred:

Arab leaders in Haifa rushed to assure everyone that while Arabs might want to use oil as a weapon against America for their support for partition, they would never attack anyone:

Three additional stories in the October 15 Palestine Post quoted various people who assured the world that there was nothing to worry about.

Great Britain had this to add:

Yes, everything would be orderly. They wouldn't just leave and allow the Jews to be indiscriminately slaughtered, would they?

And the Arabs also were at pains to show that they had no intentions of provoking violence, and any reports to the contrary were Zionist lies:

Experts had no problem weighing in as well. After all, the very idea of Arabs attacking was simply not logical:

On the 16th, it was reported that Egypt was sending troops to the Sinai border - but this move was also dismissed as just posturing:

Meanwhile, Syria and Lebanon openly called for war. But the all-knowing analysts for the Great Powers knew that they were not serious:

So sixty years ago the Middle East was on the verge of a momentous decision; a meeting at the UN to happen in November that would have far-reaching implications. The best and brightest political minds on the planet had an array of facts before them - Arab threats and statements, how Arabs had acted in the recent past, the seething hatred Arabs had for the Jews. And almost every single one of them chose to ignore anything bad that the Arabs did or said, and replace cold facts with wishful thinking and assumptions that Arabs are more pragmatic than they had shown themselves to be in the past.

Over this four day period, as the region was hurtling towards a war whose impact is still being felt, the prevailing conventional wisdom was that everything would be all right. Immediately after the UN partition vote would start a string of major Arab attacks against Jewish civilians from all directions.

In the months to come it would become more and more clear that despite all of these assurances, despite all these rosy predictions, despite promises that everything would be done to keep things peaceful - despite all that, no one would protect the Jews from the Arab armies who were preparing even this early to destroy them. The Zionists realized this and they knew that they could only rely on themselves, and God, to help them.

Sixty years later, the Arabs are making it clear that if things don't go the way they want, they will start a new round of violence. Even so, the world's superpower is assuring Israel that the Arabs have no intention of continuing their murderous ways, and is pressuring Israel to turn itself back towards how things were in1947, with hostile Arabs living once again amidst the Jews they hate with a passion. The great powers are promising that there will be no rockets from the West Bank, that Hamas is not biding its time for the PA to gain land diplomatically that could then become the basis for a West Bank Hamastan, and that - however improbably - Gaza will once again come under "moderate" PA control.

Once again, wishful thinking is replacing real analysis and observations, and empty promises are being offered in exchange for Israel's security.

The Arabs are highly sensitive to symbolism, and they are looking at November 2007 to be the watershed event that will help turn back the events of November 1947. And so far, they have willing partners in the UN, EU and United States - and even the Israeli government itself - all anxious to risk everything on the basis of blind hope.

After all, it is easy to gamble with lives when they are not yours.

Condi: Now is the time to reward terror

From AP:

Secretary of State Condoleezza said Monday it was "time for the establishment of a Palestinian state," and described Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts as the most serious in years.

Let's see. In the seven years since the last great lame-duck presidential push to create a Palestinian Arab state, what have the Palestinian Arabs done to make them more deserving of a state?

Have they decided to compromise on land? No.
Have they decided to give up on their demands to destroy Israel demographically? No.
Have they done any concrete moves to stop terror attacks against Israel? No.
Have they stopped terrorists from taking over Gaza? No.

In fact, since 2000, they launched a major terror war against Israel, they've launched hundreds of rockets and thousands of mortars, they've killed thousands of Israelis and each other, they've freely elected a terrorist government, they've cheered Israeli and American deaths, they showed allegiance to Saddam Hussein, they've smuggled thousands of weapons into Gaza, and they've increased their anti-Israel rhetoric. They've watched their justice system collapse, they've hired thousands of terrorists to be their "security forces," they've fought each other, they've circumvented democracy, they've threatened and kidnapped journalists. The relative peace that Israel enjoys now is entirely because of Israeli actions, and not at all because of the PA. Hamas still has great influence in much of the West Bank outside Ramallah. Fatah still exists as a terrorist organization behind many terror and rocket attacks, despite being part of the "government." Palestinian Arab heroes are those who managed to kill the most Jews. Their universities churn out terrorists; their imams broadcast incitement against Israel and America on TV, every official from the President on down continues to extol the "resistance".

So, Condoleeza, why exactly is now the time for them to get their own state? I'd love to know what they've done to impress you so much since 2000. Installing (probably illegally) a well-respected prime minister who is too scared to speak against terror publicly seems to be their greatest accomplishment from your perspective.

From their own perspective, however, their greatest accomplishment had been to get the Secretary of State to respond to all of their 7 years of terror and incitement with a statement that now is the time to establish a Palestinian Arab state.

How else can this be perceived besides being a reward for terror and hate? If there is another way to interpret this, please enlighten us, Condi. I must be too dense to figure it out.

Anti-semitic act at the UN? Reporters stay mum.

Steven Edwards in the National Post writes an opinion piece saying that sometimes it is best to ignore racist and bigoted acts because publicizing them plays into the hands of the haters. The example that he brings, of a Jewish/Israeli colleague brushing off such an incident, seems to imply that someone at the UN made a threat against a Jew there:

A Jewish colleague recently returned to his desk at the United Nations to discover someone had anonymously dropped off a full-colour map showing Nazi-controlled Europe in 1942.
An Israeli, he had days earlier been among journalists Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the anti-Israel Iranian President, had approached after giving a press conference.
Ahmadinejad had no idea who any of the journalists were as he sought to charm them with a handshake, and quickly withdrew his hand when my colleague announced he was a "proud Zionist."
The colleague could have made all sorts of fuss about the appearance of the Nazi map, suggesting there had been a connection between that occurrence and the handshake with Ahmadinejad, or even other anti-Israel sentiment at the UN, of which there is much.
To my surprise, he did not dwell on the incident, saying only he wouldn't mind knowing who exactly left the map and why.
It seems likely the map depositor was trying to make some sort of negative -- even threatening -- point. My colleague's reaction disempowered that person.

With all due respect to Mr. Edwards and his friend, an explicit anti-semitic act at the United Nations should be exposed. This is not the same as a random swastika in a public place, which is bad enough, but this implies that an employee or associate of the organization that is supposed to be a major upholder of peace is guilty not only of misoziony but also of naked Jew-hatred. That is, by definition, newsworthy.

It is arguable whether the Jewish victim disempowered his attacker by ignoring him, or it is entirely possible that his ignoring it could empower that person to do something worse later, but what cannot be denied is that this event is something that should have been exposed.

For that matter, so should the handshake incident between this Israeli and Ahmadinejad. I could find no record of this, from any of the hundreds of journalists that covered the Iranian thug's visit, just as they ignored Karnit Goldwasser's encounter with Ahmadinejad - witnessed by dozens of reporters and academics.

What the hell is wrong with journalists when they argue that they should be reporting less, or when they accept invitations from a dictator for dinner and refuse to report it, as Brian Williams and Christiane Amanpour evidently did?

Journalistic bias should be towards more news, not less, especially in an era of unlimited Internet bandwidth. Imagine the outcry from journalists if a politician would argue that they shouldn't have covered the Columbia bias cases last week.

These stories not being reported seem to indicate that the mainstream media is an old-boys club as opposed to a group of people dedicated to exposing real news.

These guys love him!

Only Israel can "raise tensions"

From Arab News:

The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) is set to renew its excavations soon at the Al-Magharebah Gate in the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound near the Western Wall (Al-Buraq Wall) in Jerusalem after receiving the approval of an Israeli ministerial committee, which may exacerbate tensions with neighboring countries ahead of next month’s planned Annapolis peace summit, the Israeli organization Ir Amim reported yesterday.

Also from Arab News:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday she will tell Israel that its expropriation of Arab lands erodes confidence in its commitment to a two-state solution.

Let's review a couple of stories from just the past couple of weeks:

Palestinian Arab negotiators demand to control the holiest spots in Judaism
Arabs turned Joseph's Tomb into a garbage dump
Palestinian Arab leaders threatened a third intifada if they don't get what they want
The PA newspaper had a cartoon calling on Allah to kill Americans

For some strange reason, none of these news stories was accompanied with phrases saying how these Fatah moves could "exacerbate tensions" with Israel, or that they could "erode confidence".

It's almost as if these "negotiations" are pre-determined to be completely one sided! Naaaaah, there must be some other explanation.

PalArabs love statistics. So do I.

The PA put out a press release today saying that since 1967, some 191 Palestinian Arab prisoners have died in Israel jails. As usual they are spinning this as an example of horrible human rights abuses by Israel, and they painstakingly break down how many were jailed pre-Oslo and post-Oslo, how many died from alleged torture and other causes. Lots and lots of numbers.

Let's forget the fact that this year alone at least 540 Palestinian Arabs have been killed by each other, which makes 191 dead over 40 years seem to be a pretty good record. But let's try to look at the numbers.

At the moment, there are some 11,000 PalArab prisoners in Israeli jails, and that number has been rising the past couple of years. In 2004 there were 7000. During the Oslo process, Israel had released practically all of its prisoners; in 1997 there were only about 250 and in 1999 there were at least 650. In 1980 there were close to 3000.

Another Palestinian Arab organization claims that since 1967, some 650,000 Palestinian Arabs have been detained by Israel.

These are hardly complete numbers, but it sounds like a reasonable assumption that at any point in time since 1967, a couple of thousand Palestinian Arabs would be in jail on the average.

Now, according to the CIA Factbook, the current mortality rate in the West Bank is 3.85 deaths per thousand, and in Gaza it is 3.74. So in any given year, one would expect some 4 prisoners per thousand to die anyway (this could be considered misleading because the majority of prisoners are young males, but the media age for Palestinian Arabs is only about 16 years old anyway and there are significant risks of death for young males in the territories from both Palestinian Arab and Israeli defensive actions.)

We would assume that, mirroring standard Palestinian Arab mortality rates, and guessing that the rate of increase in numbers of prisoners from 2000 to 2007 is fairly steady, that just in the years 2000-2007 we would have seen over 180 prisoners die. However, only 68 have died since 2000 according to the new statistics.

For the years prior to 2000 it is a bit harder to guess, but from 1993-1999 we will assume 400 per year average, which would come out to an expected total of 10 to die in that timeframe.

Similarly, if we assume a steady average of 3000 prisoners at any time from 1967 to 1992, we would expect to see 11 to die a year, which would add up to 275 dead prisoners since in that timeframe.

So, if we assume a constant mortality rate over all those years (which is clearly underestimating the real numbers), we would have expected about 465 prisoners to die naturally, rather than the 191 recorded.

The only conclusion one can make is that Israel treats its Palestinian Arab prisoners far better than they would be treated in their hometowns, and that when they are in prison they die at less than half the rate that they would be expected to die at home.

This doesn't jive with the reports of torture and horrid prison conditions that Palestinian Arabs love to tell the world.

I would like to thank the PA for releasing these statistics that show the world that even Palestinian Arab prisoners, in less than optimal conditions directly under Israeli control, are still treated far better than they pretend.

HH CXXXVI

Haveil Havalim #136, a compendium of the best of the JBlogosphere, is out at Soccer Dad.

This week I am honored that he chose my posting on Misoziony. My thirst for the power of coining a new word continues unabated - Google now has 11 listings for that word, almost all of them from automated aggregators that picked up on my postings, but still...

Check out HH!

Terrorists for Hillary

Excerpts from an article by the incomparable Aaron Klein in the Jewish Press:

There is a tendency to think of terrorists as living like barbarians in caves. Actually, a lot of terrorists, certainly those in Gaza and the West Bank, reside in well-decorated apartments with all the trappings of a modern production company. They have some of the most advanced communications equipment in the world and are quite Internet-savvy.

While terrorists spend much of their time in the field carrying out or planning attacks or undergoing or leading military training, they also find the time to follow the news media closely....

I was stunned by how closely some terrorists follow U.S. developments – how familiar they are with our political system and a lot of the top players. The day after the April Democratic debate, I happened to call Abu Jihad, one of the leaders of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror organization, for an article I was writing about Palestinian rocket capabilities. Out of the blue during our interview, without any prompting on my part, Abu Jihad commented on how thrilled he was with the Democrat debate.

"We see Hillary [Clinton] and other candidates are competing on who will withdraw from Iraq and who is guilty of supporting the Iraqi invasion. This is a moment of glory for the revolutionary movements in the Arab world in general and for the Iraqi resistance movement specifically," said Abu Jihad. "I think Democrats will do good if they will withdraw as soon as they are in power."

...One of Abu Jihad’s bosses, Nasser Abu Aziz, the deputy commander of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank, said the debate proved "the invasion of Iraq was judged by Allah to be a failure. America needs to stop letting its foreign policy be dictated by the Zionists and the Zionist lobby. The Democrats understand this point and want to prevent this scenario." He declared it is "very good" there are "voices like Hillary and others who are now attacking the Iraq invasion."

With America heading toward 2008 presidential elections, I talked with the terrorists about which parties they favor and who specifically they want to see in the White House.

Overwhelmingly they told me they hope Americans sweep the Democrats into power, in part because of the party’s position on withdrawing from Iraq – a move, as they see it, that ensures victory for the worldwide Islamic resistance.

"Of course Americans should vote Democrat," said Jihad Jaara, an exiled member of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades and the leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. "This is why American Muslims will support the Democrats, because there is an atmosphere in America that encourages those who want to withdraw from Iraq."

...Regarding the Democrat debate, Ala Senakreh, chief of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank, said making statements is not enough, but Democratic policies make him hopeful.

"It is not enough to compare Iraq to Vietnam. There must be a big campaign to start this withdrawal. What is happening now in the Congress is encouraging, it gives hope for a change, but I am afraid that it will still take time. As for us, this proves that the resistance always succeeds by the end of the day."

I read to the terrorists an interview on CBS’s "60 Minutes" in which then-House Minority Leader and now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stated, "The jihadists [are] in Iraq. But that doesn’t mean we stay there. They’ll stay there as long as we’re there."

Muhammad Saadi, a leader of the Islamic Jihad terror group in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, laughed. "There is no chance that the resistance will stop," he said.

An American withdrawal from Iraq, Saadi explained, would "show the resistance is the most important tool and that this tool works. The victory of the Iraqi revolution will mark an important step in the history of the region and in the attitude regarding the United States."

Abu Ayman, an Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin, said he is "emboldened" by those in America who compare the war in Iraq to Vietnam.

The exiled Al Aksa member Jihad Jaara said an American withdrawal would "mark the beginning of the collapse of this tyrant empire [America]." He added that America’s vacating Iraq would also "reinforce Palestinian resistance organizations, especially from the moral point of view. But we also learn from these [insurgency] movements militarily. We look and learn from them."

Hamas’s Abu Abdullah argued that a withdrawal from Iraq would "convince those among the Palestinians who still have doubts in the efficiency of the resistance."

...I asked them about particular presidential candidates. Overwhelmingly, they favored Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Brigades chief Ala Senakreh, who planned and orchestrated multiple suicide bombings and has himself carried out at least a dozen shooting attacks against Israelis, told me he "hope[s] Hillary is elected in order to have the occasion to carry out all the promises she is giving regarding Iraq.

"I hope also she will maintain her husband’s policies regarding Palestine and even develop that policy. President Clinton wanted to give the Palestinians 98 percent of the West Bank territories. I hope Hillary will move a step forward and will give the Palestinians all their rights."

Abu Hamed, leader of the Al Aksa Brigades in the northern Gaza Strip, said,"...The Iraqi resistance is succeeding. Hillary and the Democrats call for withdrawal. Her [Clinton’s] popularity shows that the resistance is winning and that the occupation is losing. We just hope that she will go until the end and change the American policy, which is based on oppressing poor and innocent people."

Ramadan Adassi, leader of the Al Aksa Brigades in the Anskar refugee camp in the northern West Bank, said he also backs Hillary. With a straight face, Adassi said he was worried that if Hillary defies Israel she will be brought down like her husband, claiming White House intern Monica Lewinsky was an Israeli implant sent to lure Bill Clinton into a sex scandal after he pressured the Jewish state to evacuate territory to the Palestinians.

"If Hillary goes too much against the Zionist interests she will face the same conspiracy like her husband who fell into the trap of Lewinsky," said Adassi. "I have no doubt [Lewinsky] was planted by the Zionists, who wanted to send a message to all future American presidents – do not go against the Israeli policy. Bill Clinton made the Oslo agreement and promoted peace but the Israelis did not give him a chance."

The notion of Lewinsky as an Israeli agent is commonly believed in the terror community. It came up many times in my conversations and interviews with Palestinian terrorists.

The terrorists weren’t familiar with the particulars of some of the other presidential hopefuls, but they all knew of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. He is quite famous in terror circles for the time in 1995 when he booted Yasir Arafat from an invitation-only concert at New York’s Lincoln Center celebrating the UN’s fiftieth anniversary. ...

"Giuliani doesn’t deserve to live or even to be mentioned," said Brigades leader Ala Senakreh. "He wants war and he will most probably receive war. He hates Palestinians and we hate him. He hates Arafat and I tell him that it is Arafat who brought us to be very close to our independent state after decades during which Israel and your government did everything in order to prevent us from having our state."

Ramadan Adassi threatened Giulani: "If I had the occasion to meet him, I would hurt him. For the sake of the American people Giuliani shouldn’t be elected. He is a disgusting guy and I think Americans must think very hard about their future and their soldiers who will be killed when they come to elect their leaders."

A few notes on Coulter

The Ann Coulter/Donnie Deutsch kerfuffle has elicited a lot of comment in the JBlogosphere, with the battle lines seeming to mostly depend on the political leanings of the specific blogger. Right-leaning Jews tended to defend her, saying that her comments were simply a statement of her beliefs which coincides with that of many Christians. Left-leaning Jews tended to label her anti-semitic. At least one crossed party lines but then came back (although his viewpoint seems to be far more nuanced than most.)

While it appears that her "replacement theology" is not necessarily universal Christian thinking, I think we can safely make the assumption that she was espousing a set of personal beliefs that many other Christians share. For a Jew who is secure in his/her beliefs, this should not pose a problem - everyone who has a belief system, by definition, thinks that others are wrong.

Her comments were not anti-semitic by any means, but they were offensive.

Jews who grow up as a minority in a largely Christian nation often must fend off unwelcome but well-meaning attempts by Christians to embrace their beliefs, and, yes, to become "perfected." This can be considered a minor annoyance or a major offense, depending on the temperament of the receiving party, but in no case are these considered welcome. Religion is a personal thing and when others feel it is their right to try to enlighten you, they are by definition causing offense on some level. The fact that most religions condone proselytizing is no excuse for actually proselytizing in a multi-religious society - as with one's fist, the right to swing it ends at my face. Most Christians know this. Coulter cannot be unaware that while her beliefs are not offensive, describing them to a mass audience is offensive to Jewish listeners.

Coulter is a very intelligent woman. Unfortunately, as with most loudmouthed pundits, intelligence does not equal wisdom, and Coulter is far from wise.

IQ-type question

What is the next number in this series:

1,0,17,27

Bonus: What's the ninth number in the series?

The Iranian inferiority complex - Nobel Prize edition

According to the Iranian Fars news agency:

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2007 was awarded to Doris Lessing, an English writer of Iranian origin.

Lessing who was born in Iran's western province of Kermanshah is now a citizen of Britain.

Now, her real biography says:

Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran) on October 22, 1919. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

She may have been born in Persia (not Iran), but she is far from Iranian. As the BBC says, she was a "child of the British empire," and she is British through and through.

For Iranians to have such a compelling need to pretend that a prestigious prize has anything remotely to do with them betrays a massive inferiority complex. Reading the Iranian press shows this to be true - the smallest accomplishments are trumpeted as huge victories and Iran is especially sensitive in the area of scientific and military research, trying mightily to show how advanced it is.

While the Iranian psyche is not the same as the Arab psyche - Persians are much harder workers and value education more - this inferiority complex is a trait that Iranians share with the Arabs. The common denominators is probably the honor/shame culture combined with the West's supremacy in practically every cultural and scientific sphere. The fact that Iran and the Arab world "loses" in most of these "battles" (as they would think of them) is a constant source of pain to their pride, so whenever they actually accomplish something, no matter how trivial or peripheral, it takes on a huge symbolic importance.

Life in honor/shame cultures is a zero-sum game - if they "win" a Nobel Prize, for example, they think they have also caused the West to "lose" it and therefore they think that they have "humiliated" the West. This is of course their projection of their own thoughts every time a Westerner (or, especially, an Israeli) does something that is way beyond their own abilities.

Peaceful Palestinian Arab Eid al-Fitr

Today's the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, and what better way to celebrate than violence?

Ma'an reports in its headline (no link yet) that a family feud in Hebron resulted in one dead and two injured.

Hamas claims that PA security forces stormed a mosque in Nablus.

A Hamas car was bombed in Gaza injuring a man; Hamas blamed Fatah.

A 16-year old boy took down a Hamas flag in Deir al-Balah in Gaza; a number of Hamas forces severely beat him.

Hamas was accused of stealing medical supplies from a hospital in Gaza.

One injured in Hamas/Islamic Jihad clashes in Rafah.

My count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by other Palestinian Arabs this year is now at 538.

UPDATE: A 22-year old and a 5-year old were killed in Qalqiya in what appears to be a clan clash with some "security forces." 540, and the number of women and children killed so far this year is at 70.