Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, October 29, 2007

Bahrain freaks out over meeting with Israelis

The "moderate" Arab country of Bahrain routinely goes crazy whenever there is a whiff of Zionists (or Jews) in the air. From the October 12 Gulf Daily News:

BAHRAIN has denied claims that Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa acted against the conscience of Bahrainis, Arabs and Muslims by holding an unofficial meeting with his Israeli counterpart Tzipora Livni. MPs have condemned the minister for the meeting, which happened while both were attended a summit at the UN in New York last week.

Members of the opposition Al Wefaq parliamentary bloc are drafting a new law that would ban any normalisation of relations with Israel and include tough penalties for anyone who broke it.

Some have also threatened to push for the reopening of an Israel Products Boycott Office, which was closed according to terms in the US-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement.

MP Jalal Fairooz alleged that American Jewish groups were infiltrating Bahrain and demanded an explanation from the minister, saying he could face questioning in parliament if he does not make clear what happened.

The Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the meeting took place, but says it was within Bahrain's role in the Middle East peace process.

...The news was taken from Israeli daily Haaretz, which reportedly claimed that Bahrain held political meetings with Israel in the 1990s, along with Oman and Qatar.

It also said that Israel's former foreign minister Yossi Sarees headed a delegation to Manama 12 years ago to meet Bahraini officials on environmental issues.

Al Akhbar added that Livni had already met former UN General Assembly president Shaikha Haya bint Rashid Al Khalifa, according to Haaretz.

Last week, they were still talking about it:

A CALL to stop any normalisation of relations with Israel went out from angry MPs yesterday.
They demanded that the government immediately break any contact with the Zionists, saying it was hurting the feelings of Bahrainis.

The urgent proposal will now be studied by parliament's foreign affairs, defence and national security committee in co-ordination with the temporary Palestinian Support Committee.

The proposal was drafted by a cross-section of MPs, who said that tough measures should be taken to ensure that there are no meetings with Israelis, in line with Amiri Decree Number 15, issued in 1955. The MPs are parliament's first vice-chairman Ghanim Al Buainain, Al Wefaq bloc president Shaikh Ali Salman, parliament legislative and legal affairs committee vice-chairman Shaikh Jassim Al Saeedi, Nasser Al Fadhala and Hassan Al Dossary.

They also called for the immediate reopening of the Israel Products Boycott Office, which was closed under the US-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
"Bahrain's laws ban any type of normalisation and what's really annoying is that the meeting was held without anyone being informed about it, the government or even us, the people's representatives."
"We want MPs to prepare a report on what they want to do now on the issue to ensure that no other official follows his footsteps.

"The Israel Products Boycott Office should also be reopened to ensure that the Zionists' products don't enter our country in any way possible, because the moment one product enters the market, others would follow."

Aw, he hurt their feelings!

And the controversy has not died down in the week since:

ANTI-ISRAEL activists are calling for a wider public involvement in their campaign against normalisation with the "Zionists".
A meeting is being held today by the Bahrain Society Against Normalisation with the Zionist Enemy, Adliya, at 8pm, where a host of non-governmental organisations and MPs have been invited.

They will discuss steps to be taken following the Foreign Minister's unofficial meeting with his Israeli counterpart in New York earlier this month.

The society maintains that Bahrain should not have any interaction with anyone in Israel at any level.

"We are expecting a large number of people to attend this meeting where we will suggest presenting a number of letters to the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Arab League to denounce the move," said society secretary Abdulla Abdulmalik.

"The meeting will also discuss an incident that took place in a private school where students were asked to colour the Zionist regime's flag."

I am dying to know details about this flag incident, but cannot find it anywhere. My guess is that some Bahraini school got a hold of an International Flags coloring book and didn't censor it properly.

I think that if someone would spread a rumor that Bahraini toilets use a modern Israeli flushing mechanism then you will see a huge new market in outhouses.

Another day, another "protection racket" threat by Fatah

Fatah has a real good racket going on - they do the Mafia-style "threats" and no one calls them on it:

The top negotiator for the Palestinian Authority, Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), warned on Sunday that the region would suffer greatly in the event that the upcoming Annapolis peace conference failed.

"If the summit fails – frustration will win out over everything else and it will have a negative affect on the region. I cannot predict exactly what will happen, but it may lead to more wars.

"I warn now against failure there, which will open the door for extremists and extremism – and that door will be very difficult to close," said Qureia at a conference held by Meretz activists.

Oh, he can predict precisely what will happen all right - if past history is any guide, Fatah is planning the newest intifada phase right now in anticipation of a summit that doesn't accede to all of their demands, just as they did in 2000.

Notice also the usual Arab subtext that they cannot control their "street." This excuse has been used for decades, but for some reason they manage to control their people quite fine - and brutally - when they go against the wishes of whatever regime they are in. It is only when they want to do something that the Arab regimes agree with that they turn into such a "threat."

I have previously described this as "the diplomacy of fear," a well-used part of the Arab negotiating lexicon. It is quite effective so there is no reason for Arabs and Muslims to stop using it.

October 29, 1947: Egypt refuses Jewish help on cholera epidemic

Starting in September, 1947, a devastating cholera epidemic tore through Egypt. By the time it was done some 20,000 Egyptians were killed.

Neighboring Palestinian Jews followed the story closely, with daily Palestine Post articles like this one:

Soon after the outbreak, in late September, Hebrew University offered to help Egypt, saying that it could manufacture tens of thousands of vaccines immediately and, with help, millions within 4-6 weeks. Had Egypt taken this offer they could have turned the tide by early November.

Hadassah Hospital also formally offered to help the Egyptians.

But, of course, Egypt couldn't handle the indignity of being helped by lowly Jews:

In December, rumors started circulating in Egypt - not that the Jews offered to help stop the epidemic but that they had caused it by poisoning the water supply! In 1948, the Arab Higher Committee formally complained to the UN that the Jews were behind the epidemic

As recently as 2003, Egypt's Al Ahram Weekly has repeated the charges that Jews were responsible for the cholera epidemic, not only in Egypt but the smaller outbreak in Syria that started in December, 1947 (along with a host of other supposed crimes involving WMD.) "Evidence" cited is that the Syrians affected were near the Palestine border - while ignoring the fact that the Arab armies were coordinating to attack at borders of Palestine in that time period.

HH #CXXXVIII

This week's Haveil Havalim, the 138th edition pointing out the best of the JBlogosphere, is out at the indefatigable Soccer Dad.

My post on The Bidoon was included.

Check it out!

The best and the brightest PalArabs want more terror

A few days ago was the anniversary of the death of Fathi Shikaki, a master terrorist who co-founded Islamic Jihad. To celebrate, there was a massive rally in Gaza calling on fighting Israel, where Shikaki's successor said, "Palestine was usurped at the hands of the armed Jewish groups by force, and, therefore, it couldn’t be retrieved but by force and resistance....We should not allow ourselves to believe, even for a moment, that our struggle with Israel has come to an end...This conference is dangerous for the Palestinians, because its aim is to drag Arab countries into normalizing their ties with Israel, define its borders, and allow the US to attack Iran. The Palestinians must not participate in this conference."

You might think that these is only the rantings of a single, small terror group, and not representative of the larger PalArab population.

But not only was Islamic Jihad there, but also Hamas leader Islaml Haniyeh, who said, days after fatal clashes between Hamas and Islamic Jihad,"Our relation with Islamic Jihad is strategic, stable and will not be shaken with a few events."

You might think that these sentiments are only endemic throughout Gaza, but not in the more secular, peaceful West Bank. But at Bir Zeit University, where the future leaders of Palestinian Arab society are molded, they also had a celebration of Shakaki's death (autotranslated):

Bir Zeit University students in 12th anniversary of the departure of Dr. Fathi Shakaki affirmed that the resistance and the certificate is correct and proper way, the only solution is to liberate the land of the blessed impurity Zionists rapists.

The Council called in a statement all the resistance factions and cards to escalate the resistance and strike the Zionist occupier everything Ottey force.

Of course we already knew how much Bir Zeit students support terror.

Best Iranian headline of the day

Zionist meddling disturbs Darfur peace

Yes, things were so peaceful in Darfur until those meddling Zionists messed everything up!

Two Jewish professors at Columbia targeted

Apparently, anti-black threats at Columbia are worthy of national attention, but not similar anti-semitic threats:

Police are looking into a new bias incident at Columbia University.

The provost of Teachers College told students Friday that two faculty members received an anti-Semitic cartoon and anti-Zionist letters. School officials have not released the names of the two professors.

Police say the hate crimes unit is aware of the incident.

I only saw one other mention of these incidents, as an aside in an article in the New York Post about a different subject.

2 more women and a child killed in Gaza "work accident"

From JPost:

A powerful explosion went off in a house in southern Gaza on Saturday, killing two women and a four-year-old girl, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

The cause of the blast in the town of Khan Yunis was not immediately clear.

The blast tore down the facade of the house and badly damaged its interior. A neighboring house was also partially damaged from the force of the blast.

The IDF said it was not carrying out any operations in the area at the time.

Hamas police said they suspected explosives being handled by militants went off prematurely.

Our 2007 count of Palestinian Arabs being violently killed by each other now climbs to 564.
UPDATE: From both Arab sources and YNet it looks like it was two children and an adult woman.
UPDATE 1A: PCHR says 2 18-year old women and one child, so I'm going with that.
UPDATE 2: Hamas blames Israel even though pretty much everyone knows that's BS.
UPDATE 3: Hamas member killed in Rafah by "unknown gunmen."565.

Rabbi Kanefsky's plea to put Jerusalem on the table

A modern Orthodox rabbi from Los Angeles has published an essay in the Jewish Journal saying his reasons why Jerusalem should be negotiated. In order not to take any of his comments out of context I will print the entire article here:

The question of whether we could bear a redivision of Jerusalem is a searing and painful one. The Orthodox Union, National Council of Young Israel and a variety of other organizations, including Christian Evangelical ones, are calling upon their constituencies to join them in urging the Israeli government to refrain from any negotiation concerning the status of Jerusalem at all, when and if the Annapolis conference occurs. And last week, as I read one e-mail dispatch after another from these organizations, I became more and more convinced that I could not join their call.

It's not that I would want to see Jerusalem divided. It's rather that the time has come for honesty. Their call to handcuff the government of Israel in this way, their call to deprive it of this negotiating option, reveals that these organizations are not being honest about the situation that we are in, and how it came about. And I cannot support them in this.

These are extremely difficult thoughts for me to share, both because they concern an issue that is emotionally charged, and because people whose friendship I treasure will disagree strongly with me. And also because I am breaking a taboo within my community, the Orthodox Zionist community. "Jerusalem: Israel's Eternally Undivided Capital" is a 40-year old slogan that my community treats with biblical reverence. It is an article of faith, a corollary of the belief in the coming of the Messiah. It is not questioned. But this final reason why it is difficult for me to share these thoughts is also the very reason that I have decided to do so. This is a conversation that desperately needs to begin.

No peace conference between Israel and the Palestinians will ever produce anything positive until both sides have decided to read the story of the last 40 years honestly. On our side, this means being honest about the story of how Israel came to settle civilians in the territories it conquered in 1967, and about the outcomes that this story has generated.

An honest reading of this story reveals that there were voices in the inner circle of the Israeli government in 1967-1968 who warned that settling civilians in conquered territories was probably illegal under international law. But for very understandable reasons -- among them security needs, Zionist ideologies of both the both secular and religious varieties, memories that were 20 years old, and memories that were 3,000 years old -- these voices were overruled. We can identify with many of the ideas that carried the settlement project forward. But the fact remains that it is simply not honest on our part to pretend that the government of Israel didn't know that there was likely a legal problem, or that the government was confident that international conventions did not apply to this situation. That just wouldn't be an honest telling.

An honest reading of the story reveals that the heroes of Israel's wars who became the ministers in its government, who were most responsible for the initial decision to settle, were quite aware that by doing so they were risking conflict with the Arab population that was living there. They were aware that these Arabs would never be invited to become citizens of Israel, and would never have the rights of citizens. Nonetheless, they decided to go forward. Some believed that the economic benefit that would accrue to these Arabs as a result of their interactions with Israelis and Israel would be so great that they wouldn't mind our military and civilian presence among them. Others projected that some sort of diplomatic arrangement would soon be reached with Jordan that would soften the face of what would otherwise be full-blown military occupation. These may have been reasonable projections at the time. But as it turned out, both of them were wrong. And it's not honest to tell the story without acknowledging that we made these mistakes.

The Religious Zionist leadership (similar to today's Evangelical supporters of Israel) made a different judgment, namely that settling the Biblical heartland would further hasten the unfolding of the messianic age. Thus, the Arab population already there was not our problem. God would deal with it. This belief too -- reasonable though it may have seemed at the time -- has also turned out to be wrong. To tell the story honestly, this mistake too must be acknowledged.

And the difference that honest storytelling makes is enormous. When we tell our story honestly, our position at the negotiating table is one that is informed not only by our own needs and desires, but also by our obligations and responsibilities. The latter include the responsibility to -- in some way, in some measure -- fix that which we have done. Also included is the need to recognize that we have some kind of obligation toward the people who have been harmed by our decisions. Honesty in our telling of the story reveals the stark and candid reality that we also need to speak the language of compromise and conciliation. Not only the language of entitlement and demands.

To be sure, I would be horrified and sick if the worst-case division-of-Jerusalem scenario were to materialize. The possibility that the Kotel, the Jewish Quarter or the Temple Mount would return to their former states of Arab sovereignty is unfathomable to me, and I suspect to nearly everyone inside the Israeli government. At the same time though, to insist that the government not talk about Jerusalem at all (including the possibility, for example, of Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods) is to insist that Israel come to the negotiating table telling a dishonest story -- a story in which our side has made no mistakes and no miscalculations, a story in which there is no moral ambiguity in the way we have chosen to rule the people we conquered, a story in which we don't owe anything to anyone. Cries of protest, in particular from organizations that oppose Israel's relinquishing anything at all between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, and which have never offered any alternative solutions to the ones they are protesting against, are rooted in the refusal to read history honestly. And I -- for one -- cannot lend my support to that.

Without a doubt, the Palestinians aren't telling an honest story either. They are not being honest about their record of violence against Jews in the pre-State era, or about the obscene immorality with which they attacked Israeli civilians during the second intifada. They are not being honest about the ways in which their fellow Arabs are responsible for so much of the misery that they -- the Palestinians -- have endured, and they certainly are not being honest about the deep and real historical connection that the Jewish people has to this land and to this holy city. And there will not be peace (and perhaps there should be no peace conference) until they tell an honest story as well. But for us to take the approach that in order to defend and protect ourselves from their dishonest story, we must continue telling our own dishonest story, is to travel a road of unending and unendable conflict. Peace will come only when and if everyone at the table has the courage, the strength, and enough fear of God to tell the story as it really is.

For many decades we have sighed and asked, "When will peace come?" The answer is starkly simple. There will be peace the day after there is truth.

Rabbi Kanefsky says many right things, and he makes a few mistakes, to reach a very wrong conclusion.

He is entirely correct that there cannot be peace until there is truth. Unfortunately, he is not being entirely honest himself as he conflates the history of Jerusalem after 1967 with that of Judea and Samaria - the Israeli government annexed Jerusalem and did offer citizenship to all its Arab residents, so his arguments would be more powerful if he would only be referring to the rest of the West Bank and not Jerusalem.

His major mistakes, though, are not historical but tactical. His yearning for truth in negotiations may be admirable, but when one is in a situation where only one side is willing to tell the truth, it puts that side at an enormous disadvantage in a neutral forum.

I touched upon this point recently when I discussed the British commission of inquiry after the 1929 riots, where they listened to the Arab claims of ownership of the Western Wall and the Jewish claims that only God owns the wall - and they sided with the Arabs. The Jews could have made a compelling legal case for historic ownership of the entire Temple Mount but instead they told the truth. And in that forum, they lost.

Whenever third parties look at competing claims, they make the assumption that both claimants are fundamentally honest and that the truth is somewhere in between. When one side has no compunctions about lying, that side has a tremendous advantage over the side that is willing to admit mistakes. Honesty will be used against the truth-tellers.

Simply put, the Arab/Israeli conflict is a land dispute. If one side claims all the land and the other side equivocates about that question, naturally the side that claims it all is in a position of power.

This is not to say that Israel should lie. Its true claims are powerful enough, if they are not often stated as well as they should be. But this means that Israel should not negotiate by showing its hand as to what it is willing to give up - because these are essentially one-way negotiations, the question is how much land Israel will end up losing, and not what she will get in return because that is intangible (and almost certainly fantasy.) An "honest" negotiator will always lose because you will never find both sides putting on the table their final position.

Israel's legal, moral and historic claims to Jerusalem - and the entire West Bank as well - are very strong, but they have been given up by successive Israeli governments, in some part because of this desire for "honesty." Is Israel in better shape now than before Oslo? Is real peace any closer? Has Israel reaped rewards for its honest negotiations, which translates directly into capitulations?

It is unfortunate but becoming increasingly clear that "peace" is literally impossible with the current generation of Arabs. "Honesty," goodwill gestures, pleading, and the intense interest of most of the world has led to nothing. Israel's relative safety vis a vis its neighbors (as opposed to terror groups) is a result not of peaceful negotiations but because of Israel's success at war.

Sure Israel has made mistakes. No one should cover up errors or change history. But honesty has little to do with negotiations.

Kanefsky's major error is the assumption that both sides want peace and have the capability to deliver, and his advice (glowingly quoted in The Forward) is very, very wrong.

See also "The Case for a Larger Israel" for a completely different way of looking at things.

October Qassam Calendar

As usual, this is far from complete, and it is more to show how ignored the Qassam issue is rather than to show how many are being fired. Many Qassams never make it in the news, and the rare times that the IDF publishes statistics shows that I am usually undercounting by about 50%.

This list does not include mortars being shot from Gaza, which are usually 3-4 times higher on any given day.

Previous calendars:
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February

Hamas mass wedding for 100 grooms. Where are the brides?

From IHT:

The Islamic rulers of Gaza organized a collective wedding party Thursday for 100 couples, distributing almost a month's salary on grooms who celebrated without their brides in observance of Islamic law.

The party, sponsored by the head of the Hamas government, featured a band of drummers, Islamic songs and chocolate bars. About 2,000 relatives attended the party, including the brides, who sat in the audience.

"This is an Islamic wedding. The men are separated from the women," explained Ashraf al-Rifi of Hamas, who helped organize the party.

Despite economic sanctions imposed on Gaza, Hamas has been paying regular cash stipends and monthly allowances to supporters and workers, using money from smuggling and indirect aid.

The wedding party was the latest example. Each groom received a financial donation of $300 (€210), almost a month's salary in the impoverished territory.

The grooms, wearing green sashes with Hamas' name plastered on it, walked from the mosque nearby to the local park where the party was held. They then stood on a stage and swayed to the drumbeats. They were flanked by little girls dressed as brides.

This human interest article, almost as an aside, points out that Gaza's Hamas leaders give money to the people it likes - and doesn't help anyone else.

Egyptian newspaper compares Israeli prison - and Gaza - to Auschwitz

More imbecilic hate from Egypt:

At the notorious Kitziot Prison, a real concentration camp minus gas chambers, crack Israeli soldiers have been ganging up on helpless and fettered Palestinian prisoners, shooting, beating and humiliating them under largely concocted pretexts....

The pogrom-like attack on the helpless Kitziot prisoners lasted for more than two hours as a huge cloud of smoke hovered over the area...
Another man, a plasterer, also unemployed because Israel won't allow raw materials, such as cement, into the Strip, insists on more daring language. "I don't know why the world doesn't call things by their real name. Here the Jews are starving us to death. Gaza is a large concentration camp. It is very much like Auschwitz. Yes, there are no gas chambers and crematoria. But people are dying for lack of food and lack of medicine.

The entire article is so riddled with lies and omissions that it is no wonder that Egyptians hate Jews and Israelis as much as they do - they are incited by pseudo-intellectual haters like this one.

Forgetting the absurd claims that Gaza is a death camp - at least that part is only quoted, not stated as fact (even though the headline screams "Much like Auschwitz") - even comparing Ketziot to a concentration camp is simply Jew-hating slander meant to incite. While Ketziot is no picnic, prisoners watch TV and get newspapers, and a large number of them smuggle in cell phones.

Not to mention that at Ketziot, a thousand prisoners rioted and burned down their own tents, which caused the "huge cloud of smoke" mentioned in the article.

Contrast this with Egypt, whose prisons are scenes of exceptional torture. A recent Al-Jazeera report on torture in Egyptian prisons resulted in Egypt arresting the female reporter and throwing her into one of them. A video of one Egyptian prisoner being sexually assaulted with a stick caused a brief flurry of news earlier this year, and Egyptian authorities regularly use electric shock against prisoners. In 2005, Egyptian police sexually assaulted women at a peaceful demonstration in broad daylight - and they were protesting Egyptian prison torture. Police who do manage to get tried for torture are routinely freed.

If one wanted to compare prisons to concentration camps, one would find that Egypt's prisons fit the definition much better.

The magically disappearing nuclear reactor

From the NYT:

New commercial satellite photos show that a Syrian site believed to have been attacked by Israel last month no longer bears any obvious traces of what some analysts said appeared to have been a partly built nuclear reactor.

Two photos, taken Wednesday from space by rival companies, show the site near the Euphrates River to have been wiped clean since August, when imagery showed a tall square building there measuring about 150 feet on a side.

The Syrians reported an attack by Israel in early September; the Israelis have not confirmed that. Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting that Israel hit a largely empty military warehouse.

But the images, federal and private analysts say, suggest that the Syrian authorities rushed to dismantle the facility after the strike, calling it a tacit admission of guilt.

“It’s a magic act — here today, gone tomorrow,” said a senior intelligence official. “It doesn’t lower suspicions, it raises them. This was not a long-term decommissioning of a building, which can take a year. It was speedy. It’s incredible that they could have gone to that effort to make something go away.”

Any attempt by Syrian authorities to clean up the site would make it difficult, if not impossible, for international weapons inspectors to determine that exact nature of the activity there. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have said they hoped to analyze the satellite images and ultimately inspect the site in person. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that released a report on the Syrian site earlier this week, said the expurgation of the building was inherently suspicious.

“It looks like Syria is trying to hide something and destroy the evidence of some activity,” Mr. Albright said in an interview. “But it won’t work. Syria has got to answer questions about what it was doing.”

h/t EBoZ

PLO, version 2

From the Jerusalem Post:

Palestinian Authority officials here expressed concern on Wednesday over attempts by Hamas and other Palestinian radical groups to create a new PLO at a conference due to take place in Syria and the Gaza Strip early next month.

The officials told The Jerusalem Post that they were trying to persuade the Syrian government to ban the conference.

They called on the Arab countries and the US to join their efforts to thwart the planned conference.

The conference, which will bring together several Palestinian "rejectionist" groups, has been called in response to the US-sponsored peace conference, which is due to be held in Annapolis, Maryland, late this year. The conference will be held simultaneously in Damascus and Gaza City through a video-conference link.

"The conference in Damascus will deepen divisions among the Palestinians," warned a senior PA official. "This is the first time that several Palestinian factions are talking about the possibility of establishing an alternative to the PLO, which is still regarded by many Palestinians as their sole and legitimate representative."

In addition to the extremist groups, a number of prominent Palestinian figures have been invited to the conference in Syria, including estranged and veteran PLO leader Farouk Kaddoumi. The Tunisian-based Kaddoumi, who also serves as secretary-general of Fatah, is an outspoken critic of the Oslo Accords and the current PA leadership under Mahmoud Abbas.

Invitations issued by Hamas and its political allies described the Syria parley as the "Palestinian National Conference for Resisting Schemes Aimed at Liquidating the Palestinian Cause."

"Their declared goal is to foil the Annapolis conference," said another PA official. "What's worrying is that the conference will be held under the auspices of the Syrian regime, which is also unhappy with the US efforts to reach a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians."

Notice how the PA official accidentally acknowledges that the current PLO is only considered by "many" PalArabs as their representative, not "most."

Notice also how Hamas manages to set up video-conference links. They must really be starving!

Most of all, though, this is truly deja-vu from the original creation of the PLO:

As in 1964, this movement is not an indigenous Palestinian Arab movement but it sponsored by a separate Arab country (Egypt in 1964, Syria now.)

As in 1964, this new movement is not interested in an independent state but rather in destroying Israel and creating a pan-Arab or pan-Muslim nation-state. (The PLO version 1 didn't put a state in their platform until 1974 and that one was to replace Israel.)

Finally, as in 1964, this version of the PLO has one major political tactic: terrorism.

Four women murdered this week in the PalArab territories

From Ma'an:

Four women were killed in the Palestinian territories this week in an apparent series of feminicides.

A young Palestinian man from the West Bank city of Qalqiliya was accused of killing his two sisters on Thursday. The bodies of Sima and Iyman Al-Adil were found in the family's home Thursday afternoon.

Eyewitnesses said the two women appeared to have been shot. The motive behind the killings is unclear.

The Palestinian General Intelligence Service announced the suspected murderer admitted to killing his sisters after he was arrested. The suspect said his motivation was to protect so-called "family dignity."

Separately, Palestinian medical officials in Gaza City discovered the body of a female university student near Salah Addin Street Thursday.

The officials said the woman, the daughter of a university professor, had disappeared three days ago. They said the woman had been shot several times.

Iyhab Al-Ghussain, a spokesperson for the de facto Interior Ministry in the Gaza Strip, said the security forces are investigating the apparent killing.

Also on Thursday Palestinian security forces in Qalqiliya announced the arrest of suspects in the apparent killing of a twenty-nine-year-old woman named Wafa Wahdan, who was found dead on Monday near a landfill.

I already had reported on the last woman, so the Palestinian Arab self-death count for the year has now climbed to 561, with 37 of them being women and 40 dead children.

Why the horrible Israelis inspect Gaza-bound sugar

From Israel Insider:

The defense establishment decided that Israel will continue to supply products that are essential to prevent hunger, but "luxury" items will not be allowed.

"Oil, they'll get from us. Balsamic vinegar - no," Haaretz quoted a security source as saying.

Since Israel changed Gaza's status, it has blocked the shipment of certain merchandise into the Strip, including cigarettes, electric appliances, furniture, and toys. After Gaza-based terrorist groups tried to hide potassium for use in explosives in sacks of sugar, Israeli authorities also started inspecting sugar being brought to Gaza.

Do you think that the pro-terror crowd will mention that when they whine about Israeli restrictions on goods to Gaza?

Arrest in Lakewood rabbi beating case

From the Asbury Park Press:

Police have arrested a suspect and charged him with attempted murder of an Orthodox rabbi and schoolteacher, who was viciously beaten with an aluminum baseball bat the night of Oct. 9 while walking to synagogue to pray.
Lee Tucker, 37, of Ventura Drive is charged in the attack on Rabbi Mordechai Moskowitz, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of a weapon. Tucker was being held at the Ocean County Jail, Toms River, on $375,000 bail, Detective Lt. Joseph Isnardi said.
Tucker was arrested Wednesday afternoon near the Lakewood Community Center, about eight blocks from Princeton Avenue and Carey Street, where the attack occurred.
Moskowitz, 53, of Lakewood, is a third-grade teacher at Lakewood Cheder School, Detective Steve Wexler said. He remains hospitalized in a rehabilitation center for injuries to his face and head.
Moskowitz's nephew, Moshe Rothberg of Lakewood, called the arrest like having a huge weight lifted from the family. Rothberg said the attack had taken a terrible toll on the family, and speculation that it was a bias attack made dealing with it even more difficult.
"We were focusing on him getting better," Rothberg said. "The last thing we wanted it to be was bias. You don't want to think that someone has so much hate that they would do that."
Police had said from the start that they did not believe the attack to be based on bias, although they have not established what the motive might have been, Isnardi said.
Rothberg praised the Police Department and particularly Chief Robert C. Lawson, who worked with the family, assuring them that detectives would solve the crime, Rothberg said.
"He answered every question and had said he strongly believed it was not a bias incident," Rothberg said of Lawson. "The detectives were working double shifts, and now we can finally rest. They went way beyond the call of duty."
Police developed additional leads on Tucker after the Vaad — Lakewood's Council of Orthodox Leaders — and the Anti-Defamation League offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, Isnardi said. People came forward with pieces of information, Isnardi said.

Sometimes it appears that people bend over backwards to deny bias - not because of the facts but because they don't want to deal with the reaction.

As I mentioned previously, one news outlet reported that the attacker was yelling "Jew! Jew!" during the attack. And, interestingly, the Asbury Press article declines to identify the race of the accused attacker - a somewhat relevant fact if it was a bias crime. (He is black.)

More Holy Temple denial

Yet another prominent Palestinian Muslim (probably the same as in this Arabic article from yesterday) is claiming that there was never a Temple on the Temple Mount, and that Jews should not be allowed to worship at the Kotel:

The former mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrema Sabri, has made the claim that there never was a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall was really part of a mosque.

"There was never a Jewish temple on Al-Aksa [the mosque compound] and there is no proof that there was ever a temple," he told The Jerusalem Post via a translator. "Because Allah is fair, he would not agree to make Al-Aksa if there were a temple there for others beforehand."

Sabri rejected Judaism's claim to the Western Wall as part of the outer wall of the Second Temple.

"The wall is not part of the Jewish temple. It is just the western wall of the mosque," he said. "There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews."

Asked if Jews would ever be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount under Muslim control, he replied: "It is not the Temple Mount, you must say Al-Aksa. And no Jews have the right to pray at the mosque. It was always only a mosque - all 144 dunams, the entire area. No Jewish prayer. If the Jews want real peace, they must not do anything to try to pray on Al-Aksa. Everyone knows that."

"Zionism tries to trick the Jews claiming that this was part of a Jewish temple, but they dug there and they found nothing," Sabri added.

Notice the typical Muslim extremist "logic" - that if you want "peace" you must allow Muslims to take over everything. "Everyone knows that."

I have put here some of the "nothing" found there - Hebrew letters spelling "To the house of the (shofar) blast to..." Josephus wrote that a Kohen would blow the shofar from on top of the Temple every Friday afternoon to announce the coming of the Sabbath, and every Saturday night to announce that the Sabbath was over, and he did this from a high wall of the Temple Mount enclosure in order for most of Jerusalem to hear.

Treppenwitz' comments on this must be read as well.

UPDATE: Aussie Dave at Israellycool mentioned that this former Grand Mufti said the exact same thing four years ago.

The hypocritical Mufti

As we mentioned last month, the Waqf is systematically destroying priceless Jewish artifacts on the Temple Mount, with the permission of the Olmert government. The Israeli Antiquities Authority does have some archaeologists on site to watch the destruction being done with heavy machinery and to possibly retrieve bits and pieces of what doesn't get crushed by the Muslims.

A couple of days ago, in an earthshaking find, some artifacts from the First Temple period were discovered:

The artifacts, which date to the First Jewish Temple period—the eighth to sixth centuries B.C.—were found by employees of the Waqf Muslim religious trust doing maintenance work, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) reported.

The artifacts may be the first physical evidence of human activity at the Temple Mount—also known as Solomon's Temple—in that time.

Jerusalem's district archaeologist Yuval Baruch is supervising the Muslim maintenance project.

Baruch and Sy Gitin, director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, Ronny Reich of Haifa University, and Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University, concluded that the finds might help reconstruct the dimensions and boundaries of the Temple Mount during the First Temple Period.

The findings include animal bones; ceramic bowl rims, bases, and body sherds; the base of a juglet used to pour oil; the handle of a small juglet; and the rim of a storage jar, according to the IAA.

The bowl sherds were decorated with wheel burnishing lines characteristic of the First Temple Period.

In addition, a piece of a whitewashed, handmade object was found. It may have been used to decorate a larger object or may have been the leg of an animal figurine.
"This is the first time we have shards from the Temple Mount with a [uniform] date," Haifa University's Reich told National Geographic News.

The find "most certainly" indicates the presence of people in the temple during the late eighth century and seventh century B.C., he said.
"From an archaeological standpoint, this is the first time this has happened," Reich said.
"You can say that this was written in the Bible—but the Bible is a text and texts can be played around with. This is physical evidence."

As one would expect, the Muslims who completely deny that Jews ever lived in ancient Jerusalem - the same ones who deliberately destroy all evidence of Judaism on the Temple Mount - are strongly denying that these finds mean anything. Here's an autotranslation of an Arabic article from Al-Hayat al-Jadida:

Astonished Sheikh Mohammad Hussein General Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian imam and the Al-Aqsa mosque, yesterday, allegations of Israeli occupation authorities and the so-called alleged Temple Mount during excavations carried out by the Waqf Islamic before the close of the extension the electricity cables in the Al-Aqsa mosque.

The Mufti statements issued several months ago on the effects of Israel and which claimed to have found remnants of dust effects in which the Waqf Islamic factions in 1999 outside the Al-Aqsa mosque.

He said: that these allegations are lies and fabrications denying the existence of any implications for the structure of the alleged yards in the Al-Aqsa mosque or the mosque or close to, adding that this earth that the Waqf Islamic factions are superficial and external back to the Ottoman era and not from the Old Testament as they claim.

The Sheikh Hussein that the city of Jerusalem had been many times for demolition and landfill because of earthquakes in Palestine throughout history, so the soil is excavated in recent times have been of the effects they are talking about nothing.

He added that the occupation authorities claimed each time she found the alleged effects of the structure and mean it behind interference in the affairs of Al-Aqsa mosque and the withdrawal of Endowments and the transfer of powers to the conflict and is impeding the restoration.

The discourse and spending excavations carried out by the occupation authorities since 1967 on the Al-Aqsa mosque and the bottom of walls, occupation authorities warned of the consequences of interference in its affairs.

He appealed to all international bodies and organizations to intervene to stop these practices against the Palestinian holy sites, especially the Al-Aqsa Mosque, also called the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference to move soon to stop the campaign Althudi of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa mosque.

If chutzpah wasn't a Yiddish word, it would have to be invented in Arabic. In the same breath where he claims that there are no problems with excavating directly on the Temple Mount, he calls on the world to condemn Israeli excavations far away from the Al Aqsa Mosque - excavations that are being done with utmost care.

The Mufti's casual dismissal of any finds as being from the Ottoman period - and any sixth-rate archaeologist can easily tell the difference between pottery from the 7th century BCE and pottery from 2400 years later - shows how he is, in the most simple terms, a liar. But his embrace of the destruction of Jewish artifacts while calling on Israel to stop their own work is breathtakingly hypocritical.

Of course, when his purpose is to establish Islamic supremacy and deny any Jewish history in Jerusalem, then his statements are quite consistent, if still as dishonest as can be. Making up fairy tales about Mohammed's flying horse being tied for a couple of hours to the Kotel, which is a story made up entirely by the Grand Mufti in the 1920s in order to get the Jews away from the Western Wall, proves to anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty that the Muslim claim to Jerusalem is exaggerated specifically in order to de-legitimize Judaism itself.

It is a scandal that the West places equal weight on the liars.

For the Red Sox fans

Once upon a time I made some Hebrew logo equivalents for some sports teams. Here's the Boston Red Sox logo I made:

Not my best, though.

"Kill Jews everywhere"

Another Palestinian Arab terrorist momentarily forgets the fiction that he is only supposed to hate Zionists, not Jews:

Prominent leader of the Popular Resistance Committees Abu Al-Sa'id on Wednesday called on the de facto Palestinian government to hasten disbanding the Palestinian Authority and establish a 'Resistance Authority' instead in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Speaking during a press conference, Abu Al-Sa'id urged Palestinian resistance factions, particularly the Salah Addin Brigades of the PRC, to "kill Jews everywhere without waiting for permission", in retaliation for the murder of Muhammad Al-Ashqar and the violent treatment of Palestinian detainees at Ktziot prison.

The PRC and Hamas are linked together, there have been numerous cases where they worked together for terror attacks.

Yesterday' s airstrike against a Qassam cell is a case in point:

An Israeli aircraft attacked a car in central Gaza on Tuesday, destroying the vehicle and killing a senior security official in the Hamas government, Palestinian officials said.
Hamas radio identified the dead man as Mubarak al-Hassanat, a senior official in the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry. The ministry oversees all Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip.
Al-Hassanat, 37, also was a top member of the Popular Resistance Committees, a Hamas-linked group that frequently fires rockets into Israel.

So Hamas has effectively just declared open season on Jews worldwide. And since the vast majority of Arabs have no problem with Jews, only Zionists, we can expect to see a torrent of Arab and Muslim condemnations against this anti-semitic statement any minute now.

Any....minute....now.....

Meanwhile, I will also wait for any other media outlet to publish this story. At the moment the phrase "kill Jews everywhere" comes up empty on Google News. I guess it is not newsworthy.

The Amnesty report on PalArab infighting

The Amnesty International report I mentioned yesterday is now online. I don't have time to read or comment on the whole thing now, but it can be found here.

From skimming the report it looks to give a decent overview of international law and how it applies to non-governmental fighters, and it also has many first-hand testimonies of some of the most horrible cases of abuse and torture by both Fatah and Hamas, many of innocent civilians.

Islamo-fascism Awareness Week

This week is being called "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" on some hundred college campuses. Led by David Horowitz, it is garnering an impressive amount of attention (hundreds of articles on Google News.)

Many are offended by the term itself. Christopher Hitchens defends it in Slate; the Huffington Post responds.

I am not thrilled with the term - it is great for publicizing events like these but it has the potential to obscure more than it illuminates; my preference would be "Political Islam" as it points out that the dangers of Islamism are not so much religious as political, and attacking a political movement is far different from attacking a religion. Alas, it isn't as catchy.

Some notable articles about this week include:

- Zombie's photo essay of Nonie Darwish's speech at Berkeley and the protests around it.
- Darwish's own speech and comments about the atmosphere there.
- The Daily Pennsylvanian on how it turned into "Terrorism Awareness Week" at Penn. Hmmmm.
- Robert Spencer on the entire topic.
- A Columbia U op-ed pointing out that the same people who were for Ahmadinejad speaking are against anti-Islamist speakers
- FrontPage's roundup of Day One.

Amnesty Int'l blasts Fatah, Hamas

From al-Guardian:

Amnesty International has slammed the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and the rival Fatah group for serious human rights abuses in the recent factional fighting in Gaza and the West Bank.
Hamas is accused in a report published today of "increasingly resorting" to arbitrary detention and torture since its forces took control of the Gaza Strip in June. In the West Bank Fatah security personnel are accused of detaining, abducting and abusing hundreds of Hamas supporters, with help from Israel.
The Palestinian president and chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is the leader of Fatah and a key partner for Israel, the US and the west. Hamas has been boycotted as a terrorist organisation which refuses to renounce violence, recognise Israel or accept peace agreements.
"The leaders of both the PA and Hamas must take immediate steps to break the cycle of impunity that continues to fuel abuses, including arbitrary detentions, abductions, torture and ill-treatment by their forces," said Malcolm Smart, AI's Middle East director. "The ongoing factional struggle between Fatah and Hamas is having a dire effect on the lives of Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip ... exacerbating the human rights and humanitarian crisis caused by Israeli military campaigns and blockades."
Amnesty's report catalogues the infighting that culminated last June when Hamas seized control of PA security institutions in Gaza. Both sides "displayed a flagrant disregard for the safety of the civilian population by launching indiscriminate attacks and reckless gun battles in residential neighbourhoods," it says.
Lawlessness and impunity were already the norms before 350 people were killed. Both sides mounted attacks in and around hospitals and targeted patients in their beds. Fatah activists were thrown from tall buildings.
Amnesty has issued reports critical of Israeli practices in the occupied territories, and says it is anxious to demonstrate that it is not ignoring abuses committed by the Palestinians. "The international community must hold all Palestinian parties accountable to the same human rights standards," said Mr Smart.

The last paragraph is most interesting. It shows that the criticism of Amnesty as being one-sided about alleged Israeli human rights violations has stung, and Mr. Smart is pretty much admitting that it is true.

Of course, Amnesty cannot resist blaming Israel for some of the abuses mentioned above. And clearly Amnesty does not use the same yardstick when criticizing Fatah and Hamas because of the sheer number of reports that target Israel, whose alleged abuses pale in comparison to the daily murder and torture that Palestinian Arabs do to each other. Even so, this proves that shining a light on the absurdly biased condemnations that Israel has suffered, not only by NGOs but also at the UN, can cause enough discomfort to prod these organizations to take a deeper look at how Israel's sworn enemies act.

For an example on how bias still pervades Amnesty, do a search on "Qassam rockets" or "Sderot." Every mention of Palestinian Arab rocket attacks is "in context" of Israeli attacks against terrorists; there are no articles dedicated only to PalArab abuses. But there are plenty that mention only Israeli abuses, with perhaps a passing reference to Israeli "claims" that their attacks against terrorists are in response to rocket or terror attacks.

Still, it is a step in the right direction. As of this writing, the report is not yet on the Amnesty site.

Palestinian Arabs freak over Sarkozy's statements

French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday made some statements that have the Palestinian Arabs up in arms:

"Each side should have its own nation-state," he said, according to Israeli officials who were present at the two leaders' meeting. "It is not reasonable for the Palestinians to demand both an independent state and also the refugees' return to the state of Israel, which even today has a minority of one million Arabs."

Sarkozy, who hosted Olmert at the Elysee Palace, expressed strong support for Israel, describing its establishment as "a miracle" and "the most significant event of the 20th century."

"They say that I support Israel because my grandfather was Jewish, but this isn't a personal matter," he continued, according to the Israeli sources. "Israel introduces diversity and democracy to the Middle East. It's a miracle that out of the remnants of the ... scattered Jewish people, such a state has arisen."

"Israel's security is a clear red line, which is not up for negotiation," he added. "That is an inviolable condition, which we will never concede."

Naturally, the Palestinian Arab reaction to the idea that Israel has a right to exist was fast and furious.

IMEMC sniffs in its "news" article about the statements:

In a highly-partisan speech, Sarkozy branded the creation of Israel as a "miracle," arguing that the state "introduces Democracy and diversity to the Middle East," a statement ignoring Israel's record of human rights violations, the fact that the apparently democratic Israel currently refuses to negotiate with a democratically-elected Hamas government, and the associated fact of Israel's continued policy of collective punishment against residents of both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Nicloas Sarkoy, the 23rd President of the French Republic, was elected to the position on May 6, 2007 on a right-wing ticket. While he is well-know for his uncompromising and controversial views on law and order and immigration, he is most famous for attending a press conference while apparently drunk.

Do you get the impression that this "reporter" isn't happy?

The PA's own refugee committee demanded an apology for those hurtful words.

Expect to see much more vitriol as Arab editorialists scramble to write pieces on how Jews must be banished from the West Bank while Arabs must be allowed to move where ever they want.

The Bidoon

Palestinian Arabs aren't the only ones who are treated like dirt by the Arab world. There is also a large population known as Bidoon, short for Bidun jinsiya which means "without nationality" in Arabic. Most are Arab.

There are between 110,000 and 120,000 stateless Bidoon in Kuwait. Many have lived in Kuwait their entire lives, but Kuwait reserves full citizenship rights for those who established residence in the country prior to 1920. In some cases, residence prior to 1920 was not sufficient for acquisition of nationality...

The Bidoon in Kuwait are not allowed to work or to receive welfare services. Security ID had been taken from the majority of them leaving them no access to public health care. They are banned from travel. Bidoon children may be denied birth certificates needed to attend school.

(In Saudi Arabia), stateless Bidoon are not given passports.

The UAE also has a population of a roughly estimated 100,000 stateless Bidoon. Despite the fact many of these individuals were born in the U.E., they are not considered to be citizens.

Bahrain, to its credit, did naturalize most of their 15,000 Bidoon in 2001.

The only possible reason we don't hear about the Bidoon is because they haven't embarked on any terror campaigns against Western targets. If they would try to fight for their rights in the lands that they came from they'd be destroyed without anyone really caring - a couple of hundred thousand Arabs being killed by other Arabs is hardly newsworthy. There are no UN committees that condemn Kuwait or the UAE for their "apartheid" against fellow Arabs, no outraged editorials pretending to care about these Arabs' civil rights, no international campaigns for allowing basic human rights to these Arabs. And of course there are no UN refugee camps for these people providing free food and education.

Because the oppressors are Arab, which means that the victims don't really matter.

Egyptian Koran for kids tells them to fight Jews and Christians

MEMRI quotes from an Egyptian article that uncovers a children's Koran that incites against Jews and Christians - and it was approved by Al-Azhar University:

The article stated: "This Koran commentary, intended for children, includes erroneous ideas which incite against the followers of the [other] monotheistic religions. For instance, the interpretation of the Al-Fatiha Sura [the first Sura of the Koran], states that [the expression] 'those who earn Thine [i.e., Allah's] anger' refers to the Jews, and [the expression] 'those who go astray' refers to the Christians. [2] This [rendering] contradicts the tenets and the tolerant character of the Islamic faith.
"We wished to find out who was behind these inciting interpretations, especially since they are intended for children and teach them notions of hatred and extremism. It should be noted that the Muslim scholar Gamal Al-Bana was the first to call attention to this book, in his critical article about various Koran commentaries which contradict the principles of shari'a... [3]
"We discovered that the book was first published 10 years ago by Dar Al-Sahaba Lil-Turat in Tanta, and was edited by Sheikh Magdi Fathi Al-Sayyed. Since then, there have been five more editions, and the book has been translated into several languages, including Indonesian, Malaysian, and Turkish. The question arises: How could the [Al-Azhar] Academy of Islamic Research allow the publication of such ideas? After all, [one of its] duties is to monitor [publications] that misrepresent Islam and disparage the [other] monotheistic religions. Considering [the Academy's] involvement in cultural conflicts, and its persecution of anyone who has innovative ideas in areas of thought, culture and philosophy, its [scholars] ought to revert to their original role.
"The hidden poison [of extremism] has seeped into the pages of this book, which was approved [for publication] by the Al-Azhar Academy of Islamic Research... [after being] examined by four of its scholars. [One of the authors] of the introduction is the president of Egypt's Koranic schools, and a hadith expert at Al-Azhar University, Dr. Ahmad 'Issa Al-Ma'sarawi..."

Deliberate Inculcation of Extremist Ideas
The article continued: "Overall, the book is characterized by incitement to extremism and by extremist interpretations that do not reflect the true meaning of the verses... [For example,] the book divests Islam of its most fundamental principle - [the principle of] peace - and even incites against this [notion] in its interpretation of the [following] verses: 'Forgive them, and overlook [their misdeeds], for Allah loveth those who are kind [5:13]'; 'And if the enemy inclines towards peace, then incline towards it and trust in Allah, for He is all-hearing and all-knowing [8:61].' [The book states that] these verses are abrogated by the 'Verse of the Sword,' which descended later, and which says: 'Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the Latter Day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book [i.e. among the Christians and Jews], until they pay the jizya [the Islamic poll tax on non-Muslims] and they are in a state of subjection [9:29].' [According to the book], peace and reconciliation agreements [with Christians and Jews] have been forbidden since this verse was revealed.
"In its interpretation of this verse, [the book] says: 'Allah commands the believers to fight all the infidels who do not believe in Allah and in the Latter Day [i.e. in the Day of Judgment], who do not follow His instructions regarding what is allowed and prohibited, and who do not believe in the true faith, which is Islam - i.e. the Jews and the Christians'...
"One of the most appalling parts of the book is a section quoting several verses from the Al-Maida Sura ['The Table Spread'], which the book labels as 'proof of the heresy of the Christians.' The ideas planted [by this section] in the children's minds are like a time bomb that will lead to civil war, since the children learn by heart [verses that indoctrinate them] to accuse the Copts of heresy. This is totally inexplicable, and also contradicts [the spirit of] the Egyptian constitution...
"In its interpretation of verse [9:41] - 'Go forth light and heavy, and strive hard in Allah's way with your property and your persons; this is better for you, if you know' - the book says: 'Allah the Almighty told the believers - both young and old - to set out and fight for the sake of Allah.
"In explaining verse [9:66] - 'O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey's end' - the book says: 'Allah commanded the believers to wage jihad against the infidels by [fighting them] with the sword, and to wage jihad against the hypocrites by imposing upon them the punishments and constraints mandated for those who violate the commands of Islam..."
The article further stated: "The expected consequence of this [book] is that, in future, thousands of young children will be willing to blow themselves up [in terrorist operations] against [non-Muslims]. This is the danger [that this book represents]. [The book's aim] is not to interpret verses, but to deliberately instill children with ideas that incite [to extremism]. This is evident from its deliberate ignoring of other verses... that reflect the true [face of] Islam, which does not discriminate among the followers of the monotheistic religions but [calls for] brotherhood among them..."

Notice, of course, that the author of the article proves Islam's peacefulness by showing that 'true' Islam doesn't call for the destruction of Christians and Jews, but only for their subjugation ("until they pay the jizya [the Islamic poll tax on non-Muslims] and they are in a state of subjection.") So while the author is to be commended for showing this incitement in this edition of the Koran, he also shows Islam's bigotry at the same time.
(h/t Yid with Lid)

Palestinian security forces arrest a supporter of Hamas at a protest demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails in the West Bank city of Hebron, Monday, Oct. 22,2007.

A Palestinian security force officer points his rifle towards supporters of Hamas, not seen, at a protest demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails in the West Bank city of Hebron, Monday, Oct 22,2007.

Do you think these are police-issue ski masks?

WaPo on Palestinian Arab economy since the Intifada

Some choice quotes from this article in the Washington Post:

According to the World Bank, the Palestinian gross domestic product per capita has shrunk 30 percent -- to $1,129 -- since the uprising began. Unemployment and poverty rates have spiked across the territories, especially during the 16-month international embargo that followed Hamas's election victory.
By contrast, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Israel's per-capita GDP is $31,767, nearly double what it was on the eve of the Palestinian uprising.

It appears that the intifada hurt Palestinian Arabs far, far more than it hurt Israel. Just like in 1947, an attempt to hurt Israel economically (in this case, with terror) backfired badly, hurting the people it was supposedly meant to help. Israel adjusted to the situation to the point that tourism is now back at pre-intifada levels and the Palestinian Arabs, who cheered every bus bomb, are left with nothing.

Even so, rather than see the writing on the wall, they look at the facts exactly backwards:

The Israeli government says the steps it has taken help ensure Israel's security in the absence of a peace deal. But Palestinian officials argue that the impoverishing effects of the economic separation spawn unrest in the territories and increase the potential for attacks inside Israel.

Somehow, they didn't need that incentive back in 2000, when they decided to attack Israel while they still had jobs and money and a future. For some reason they managed to attack random Jews anyway.

On the eve of the uprising, 136,000 Palestinians, or nearly a quarter of the labor force, worked inside Israel or in Israeli-owned enterprises in the territories. ...Today, 47,400 Palestinians from the West Bank, or less than 9 percent of the workforce, have such permits.

Less than 5 percent of Israel's exports are sold in the Palestinian territories. By contrast, roughly 90 percent of Palestinian exports are sold inside Israel.

Half of the Palestinians with Israeli work permits are employed by Israeli-owned enterprises in the occupied territories.

According to these numbers, some 22,000 Palestinian Arabs are now employed by Israelis in the territories. The hated settlers are now responsible for a very large portion of the Palestinian Arab economy!

Just as Gaza suffered huge unemployment when Israel left (well before the Hamas takeover,) the ordinary Palestinian Arabs would suffer huge economic losses should Israel do the same from the West Bank.

The record over the pas century is clear - when Palestinian Arabs work together with Zionists, they prosper. When they choose terror instead, or they force a separation, they are the ones that suffer most. The settlements are not an impediment to real peace - they actually help the Palestinian Arabs who want to support their families in dignity.

Once again, the Palestinian Arab people themselves pay the price for their leaders' shortsightedness and arrogant pride.

Another example of Iranian human rights

From the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty:

The Farsi Christian News Network reports that an Iranian Christian couple were flogged after being declared "Mortad", or apostates. The couple, a woman from an Assyrian-Iranian family and a man who had converted to Christianity, were denied a Christian marriage ceremony due to the rules governing the marriage of ex-Muslims, and thus married in accordance with Islamic law. However, the courts consider marriage by Islamic law equivalent to re-conversion, and when the couple were later found at a Christian prayer meeting, they were denounced as apostates. In September, agents of the Revolutionary Court visited the couple at their home to execute the sentence of flogging. The full article can be found here; please be warned that it contains graphic photos.

I imagine that if they decided not to get married to avoid the appearance of converting to Islam, they'd be flogged for living in sin. Either way, if you are an ex-Muslim in Iran, you are screwed.

PalArabs doing what they do best

Over the weekend we've seen more snapshots of what a Palestinian Arab state would look like, as the death count continues to rise. It cannot possibly be because of the culture of death, or because generations have been raised glorifying violence and martyrdom. Nope, ultimately, it must be because of Israel, somehow. Maybe because of the cigarette shortage.

The latest additions to the hit parade:

An Islamic Jihad member was killed Sunday night by Hamas.
A man died from injuries inflicted by Hamas in September.
A six year old boy was kidnapped for ransom in the West Bank.
A second man in two days was found, tortured and shot, in Gaza. (Here are pictures of the first one, who looks like Hamas gouged his eye out.)
A 18-year old girl was abducted by Hamas.

The 2007 PalArab self-death count is now at 556.

UPDATE: Another body found of a 29-year old man east of Qalqiya. 557.
UPDATE 2: That body was a woman's body.
UPDATE 3: Hamas announced the death Wednesday of a fighter on a "mission," probably in a tunnel collapse. 558.

From YNet:

Iranian police have decided to crack down on "inappropriate behavior of couples in public", the semi-official FARS new agency reported Sunday.

"If someone walks in the street with his partner and commits an offense, we will deal with it," Ahmad Ruzbahani, chief of the morality police, was quoted as saying.

Iranian law forbids women to be seen in public with men who are not family members. However, not all Iranians comply, and many meet their significant others in public parks.

Now police have decided to put an end to the growing phenomenon and forbid couples to hold hands in public. Ruzbahani said married couples were also called upon to "act modestly" in public.

"They should not act in an inappropriate manner or in a way that will attract attention," he said.

Other police officials said kissing in public was also strictly forbidden.

Last week it was reported that a young woman committed suicide after being arrested for a "moral offense". Zuhara Bani, a 27-year-old med student, was caught in a public park with her boyfriend.

She was taken to a detention facility, where she hung herself 48 hours later with a piece of cloth she had found.

Which means, of course, that she was in jail for over 48 hours for her "crime."

Interestingly, a Google News search for Zuhara Bani comes up empty before today.

UPDATE: Ruth points out that Iranian blogger Kamangir has been following the story - the girl was a medical student, she spoke with her parents and seemed OK right before her "suicide," and her boyfriend was going to be released, possibly because he had connections.

MEMRI translates an article about her as well.

But still nothing in the English-language MSM before today.

Don't cry for Khaled Salman Hamdan

Here's an interesting item, that from what I could tell was not reported in any news media whatsoever:

A child was killed and 3 others injured by the Police in Sheja’eya Quarter yesterday evening. The Center’s preliminary investigation indicates that at about 16:00 on Saturday (20 October 2007), a group of youth in Mansour Street in Sheja’eya attacked a policeman and beat him. A police force arrived and fired indiscriminately, killing Khaled Salman Hamdan (8) by a bullet to the chest as he was walking with his mother to a wedding in the area. Three others were injured, including one child who was critically injured.

Hamas "police" firing indiscriminately, killing an eight year old?

One would expect that this would make world headlines. It is, after all, symbolic of Hamas' reckless endangerment of human life, and their culpability for his death is far worse that the hoax of Mohammed Al-Dura. But there will be no intrafada in defense of Hamdan, no world headlines screaming for revenge, no Reuters pictures of his funeral, no apologies to come from Hamas. This is expected behavior, a dog-bites-man story, and if it wasn't for the Palestine Center for Human Rights (which is shamefully biased itself) no one would have ever heard of Khaled Salman Hamdan.

Don't cry for Khaled, because the Arab world and their supposed supporters sure aren't.

The PalArab self-death count for the year is now at 553, including 40 children.

Moderate Fatah would-be assassins against Olmert get two months in jail

From YNet:

A group of gunmen affiliated with Fatah attempted to hit Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's convoy as it made its way from Jerusalem to Jericho for a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on August 6, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet ministers Sunday morning.

Israel learned of the plan from intelligence information received several days before the visit. The attack was eventually thwarted by the Shin Bet and the Palestinian Intelligence Service headed by Tawfik Tirawi.

Following the incident, the Palestinians arrested three suspects, who were later released, according to Israeli officials. Two other cell members are being held in Israel.

On Sunday, Israel filed an official complaint with the Palestinian Authority following the suspects' release.

Israeli security sources expressed their anger over the release, which took place "after these terrorists' involvement in the foiled attack was made clear."

The cell included five members who were involved in terror attacks and previous failed attacks in the West Bank. The information was disclosed to the PA, which arrested three of the cell members. The other two were detained by the IDF and the Shin Bet.

Israeli officials claimed Sunday that the PA released the three suspects, whom Israel claims are members of the Palestinian security organizations, on September 26. The three, Ynet was told, admitted to the plot before they were released.

You have to understand that this is a cultural thing - attempted murder in the PA is as serious as graffiti. How dare Israel impose its obscene Western standards on the peaceful Palestinian Arabs!

Another rare photo of a "non-violent" protest

Palestinian Arab terror apologists consistently refer to the weekly protests at Bilin as "non-violent" and they characterize Israeli actions against them at the protest as being completely unprovoked.

Reuters, for once, actually took a photo at last Friday's protests:

Palestinian demonstrators throw stones at Israeli troops during a protest against Israel's controversial barrier near the West Bank village of Bilin October 19, 2007. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (WEST BANK)

Notice how Reuters refers to using a sling, which is a deadly weapon by any definition, as "throwing stones."

Related story here.

Another PalArab kid killed by PalArabs

This time by Hamas.

From Ma'an:

A Palestinian man and a child were killed on Saturday when armed confrontations erupted between the Palestinian Hillis family and Hamas' Qassam Brigades in the eastern Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses reported that thirteen-year-old Palestinian boy Muhammad Al-Susi was killed after receiving a bullet to his head. Al-Susi's brother was also injured during the clashes.

Sources from within the Hillis family announced that Muhammad Hillis was killed and several other family members were injured.

Director of Ambulances and Emergencies in the Palestinian Ministry of Health Dr Muawiya Hassanein confirmed that several people were injured and were transferred to Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Our 2007 PalArab self-death count is now at 548.

UPDATE: A 50-something man's body was found, stabbed and tortured, in Khan Younis. 549.

A woman was killed in Hamas/Islamic Jihad fighting in Rafah - 550.

UPDATE 2: A third person was killed in Saturday's clashes. 551.
A man was killed Sunday in Islamic Jihad/Hamas fighting. 552.

Why the Gazans died

The clashes yesterday between the Hillis family and Hamas yesterday, that left at least 4 dead (I counted five and I think one is brain dead accounting for the discrepancy) was at least for a very good reason, according to the family:

They said the reason for the fighting was that one family member had bought a car from the national security service a year before the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip and Hamas were trying to seize the car from its new owner by force.

Once again proving that Palestinian Arab lives really are cheap, by their own standards.

More on the cheapness that Arabs hold of Arab life here and here.