Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Freedom of the press, PalArab-style (X)

A British reporter details three incidents where Hamas stopped him from doing his job - and yet he still does everything he can to softpedal it.

From the Times (UK):

"I was arrested by Hamas"
Today I was detained while watching a demonstration by female students Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip.

They had gone on strike at noon in protest against the killings in the rally yesterday, and they had made their way to a nearby police station where they were singing and chanting. In particular, they yelled: 'Shia, Shia, Shia,' which is a reference to Hamas being funded by Iran.

Within a few minutes, baton-wielding police laid into the girls. Some fell to the ground, but most ran away.

As this was happening, some other members of the police force grabbed me and dragged me into a cell. They pushed me against the wall, and one of the officers shouted: 'Hit him, hit him, hit him' in Arabic.

They snatched the camera from me, and one of the police officers urged his colleagues to break my camera. Then, my cameraman was dragged into the room too.

Another police officer, more senior than the others, eventually arrived and insisted on viewing the videotape that my cameraman had. I kept telling them that I was a journalist and that I would telephone the chief of police unless I was released, and eventually they did so.

Today's incident follows two previous incidents yesterday, in which my activities as a journalist were deliberately curtailed.

The first took place just as gunfire erupted at the Gaza City demonstration yesterday. We were filming police officers standing by their station, when several officers rushed over, fired shots in the air, snatched my camera and dragged me into the police station, where they threatened to smash my camera and hit me.

When I convinced them that I was a British journalist they let me go, but only after telling me to leave the area.

The second incident took place shortly afterwards when I went to the Shifa Hospital where those wounded in the fighting were being taken.

While we were filming, the police arrived at the hospital. They had orders to clear the hospital of all cameramen, and they took my camera. The officer who seized my equipment was very polite to me. He told me that I would be able to get the camera back only if I went to the police station in an hour and a half's time.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for the press to operate in the Gaza Strip. This is very much a reflection of the high level of tension that exists at the moment.

But by comparison with some of the treatment I've had in other parts of the world, this was relatively mild.

Of course, this intrepid reporter didn't bother to ask the obvious question: if a British journalist is treated this way, how is Hamas treating Arab journalists?

A correspondent for the Ramallah-based Palestine radio was attacked and beaten by the de facto government's police in Gaza City while he was covering the Fatah-organized rally in Gaza City marking the third anniversary of the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in which seven people were killed and scores injured, he told Ma'an via telephone.

Thirty-year-old Tamim Abu Mu'ammar told Ma'an that he was trying to send a report by telephone to the Palestine radio in Ramallah about the attacks on the rally when the de facto government's police beat him with clubs and rifle butts.

He said they searched his cell phone and ordered him to leave the scene, threatening to attack him if they saw him again.

Mu'ammar said his whole body was covered in bruises.

PCHR adds:

The police also chased rally participants and beat them with batons and sticks. In the meantime, several journalists were attacked, including:

- Khaled Jamal Bolbol, a photographer for Zoom Press. He was beaten and his camera was broken and confiscated.

- Mohammad Sawalha, a photographer for Abu Dhabi Satellite Station. He was detained and his camera tape was confiscated.

- Mowafaq Matar, a journalist for Al-Hayat Newspaper. He was detained and pictures were erased from his camera.

Palestine Press Agency reports that more journalists were arrested last night by Hamas.

Business as usual in Hamastan.

Museum for Palestinian Arab suffering

Rashid Shaheen, in the Arabic edition of Ma'an, calls on turning the Arafat shrine in Ramallah into a "Yad Vashem" of Palestinian Arab suffering, for visiting dignitaries.

This is a great idea.

A museum showing a good, accurate history of how Arabs migrated en masse to Palestine in reaction to the economic boom from Zionism starting in the late 1800s; how they benefited from the Jews and raised their standards of living compared to all Arab countries, and then how their leaders started using them as fodder for political purposes and started what is now some eighty-odd years of suffering at the hands of their Arab "brethren" would be a good start, and a story that needs to be told.

The deadly fighting between the Husseinis and Nashashibis in the 1930s, and how the hundreds of deaths that resulted are now referred to fondly as a "Great Revolt," would be able to teach generations of Palestinian Arab children about how the current infighting has a long history behind it.

A section showing how Israel didn't allow UNRWA to build any refugee camps in Israeli territory, explaining how treating its Arab citizens in such a way was an insult and insisting on building them real homes in real towns and living in dignity, and comparing them with how they were treated in Arab countries, would be instructive.

Another section can describe how no Arab countries save Jordan will allow Palestinian Arabs to become citizens, even though they can become citizens of Western countries. An entire wing can cover Lebanese discrimination, and another on how Egypt treated Gaza from 1948-67. Statistics showing Palestinian Arab mortality rates and life expectancy before and after Israel controlled the territories could be a highlight.

There are countless other examples of Palestinian Arab suffering that need to be told, and a museum in Ramallah associated with the tomb of one of the biggest sources of their suffering would be quite appropriate.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is what the writer had in mind.

HRW on Egyptian religious discrimination

From McClatchy Newspapers:

CAIRO, EGYPT - Citing a long list of chilling testimonials, human rights groups Monday called on the Egyptian government to stop discriminating against converts from Islam and members of some religious minorities who want their faiths reflected on their national identity cards.
Egyptians must list their religion on their ID cards, which are required for enrolling in a university, starting a job, opening a bank account and most other aspects of public life. But authorities, drawing on Islamic law, essentially refuse to acknowledge Muslims who convert to other faiths and recognize only the three "revealed religions": Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Egyptians who belong to minority groups such as the Baha'i often find themselves stateless if they refuse to list "Muslim" or "Christian" on their IDs.
Two advocacy groups, Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, spent two years documenting such cases and released their joint report Monday in Cairo.
The report's authors stressed that they weren't seeking new laws or provoking a debate on Islamic doctrine. They say they merely want authorities to apply existing civil law, which permits Egyptians to change or correct information on their ID cards. As it stands, the activists said, many Egyptian officials take it upon themselves to refuse the changes. In several cases presented in the report, Egyptians faced harassment, job termination and detention for challenging the authorities.
The report is filled with examples such as elderly Baha'i retirees unable to receive their pensions, Baha'i parents unable to get their babies immunized, mixed-faith couples prevented from marrying, and the children of Christian converts being forced to study Islam in public schools. In some cases, families paid for bogus documents in order to conduct their lives and later were prosecuted for forgery.

Three years ago, Arab leaders didn't mourn Arafat

In the glare of the rallies and shootings celebrating Arafat's death, people tend to forget that even Arabs were sick of the old turd. From the November 18, 2004 Al-Ahram:

Relief is perhaps the best way to describe the private reaction of most Arab officials to the sudden and somewhat ambiguous death of Yasser Arafat, the icon of the Palestinian struggle for the past 40 years.

In public, before their own constituencies, these same officials laid on what they felt obliged to provide: a red carpet funeral. Most major Arab leaders and senior representatives were on hand in Cairo to pay their last, and somewhat belated respects to a man they had largely forgotten during his nearly three-year siege in Ramallah.

But beyond the honours of a brief state funeral, Arafat received very little recognition from his fellow Arab leaders. Official statements eulogising the Palestinian leader sounded more like a simple notification of another death, rather than any genuine outpouring of grief at the loss of a revolutionary hero.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, certain Arab diplomats, in particular those from countries with direct borders with the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, were explicit in expressing their relief at the death of Arafat. For them, his passing marks the end to the presumptuous obstacles that the Palestinian leader had thrown up on the road to a settlement with Israel, largely for the sake of his own glory. Some see his death as heralding an end to the oppressive control that he had exercised over the Palestinian resistance movements, including Hamas and Jihad. Other diplomats are breathing a sigh of relief at the demise of a leader they considered too self-centred to really care about the misfortunes of his own people.

In six interviews conducted by Al-Ahram Weekly since Arafat's death, there was not a single word of sorrow expressed by any Arab diplomatic source. Indeed, for many, Arafat's death would seem to mark not an end, but a new beginning. This sentiment was also expressed by some Palestinians, who were known for their opposition to Arafat's authoritarian style of rule.

Here is a rare time that the Arab nations were more pragmatic than the Palestinian Arabs themselves. Of course, Arafat's successors didn't seize the initiative to improve the situation and that's how we got to today, where any number of groups can effectively veto any "peace" agreement on the PalArab side.

Even so, it is instructive to look back and see past the nostalgia being shown by the Palestinian people who were so thoroughly screwed by the man they all claim was a hero.

Fatah spokesman: We want peace, but not that much

Palestine Press Agency reports (autotranslated):

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, advisor to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said today that the willingness of the Palestinians for peace does not mean relinquishing one inch of the West Bank and the city of Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

...He reiterated his assertion that Abu Ammar (Yasir Arafat) was killed because of his refusal to waive Jerusalem.

Israel should say the exact same thing: it wants peace but not at the expense of compromising. It would be fun to compare the world reactions to each statement.

The second paragraph quoted was just to emphasize the distance between Palestinian Arab beliefs and reality. The question is: Why does the world coddle their fantasies?

Detroit, the Islamic City (and more University of Michigan trivia)

Followups to the posting on the theft of Israeli flags at the University of Michigan/Dearborn have shown that the university doesn't even pretend to hide its biases.

Here is a lecture from last week(Google cache):

Detroit, The Islamic City

Description:
Middle Eastern Cities Colloquium Series lecture by Andrew Shryock. Detroit has been home to Muslim communities for over a hundred years. The city's first purpose-built mosque was established in Highland Park in 1921. Today, there are over 50 mosques in greater Detroit, and many areas (Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Hamtramck) have large, influential Muslim populations. Using materials drawn from the "Building Islam in Detroit" project, I will show how Muslim spaces have been created and transformed in Detroit over the last century. The mosque, as a physical object and a spiritual aspiration, is key to understanding larger processes of identity formation that make it possible to know Detroit (to inhabit, historicize, experience, and envision it) as an Islamic city.

The Center for Arab-American Studies at the university refers to Jerusalem as being in Palestine.

(h/t Anti-Racist Blog)

Shy Guy over at Israellycool comments about a few other facts about U of M:

- It employs the dishonest academic Juan Cole.
- It published a study finding no relation between Islam and terror.
- It is building Islamic footbaths in public university bathrooms.

Their Center for Middle Eastern and North Africa Studies has a program of extending their pro-Arab propaganda throughout Detroit's public schools. Typically, their idea of even-handedness is to give equal time to the claims of Syria, the PLO, UNIFIL, Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel and then ask kids to decide who they think has the best claim.

Erekat = Hypocrite

The latest proof that Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the PA, remains a hypocrite and a liar:

Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Monday rejected Israel's demand that the Palestinians acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state.

"There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined," Erekat told Radio Palestine.

Besides the utter foolishness of such a statement (how about Saudi Arabia? How about Iran?), perhaps it would behoove Erekat to peruse the 2003 Palestinian Constitution, Article 4:

1. Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect and sanctity of all other heavenly religions shall be maintained.
2. The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be the main source of legislation.
3. Arabic shall be the official language.

Previous examples of his lies can be found here and here.

3 killed in fresh Fatah/Hamas clashes

Palestine Today (Arabic), a pro-Hamas news site, says that three Fatah supporters were shot and killed during a pro-Fatah rally today commemorating Arafat's death.

Which brings our Palestinian Arab self-death count for the year to 577.

UPDATE: Palestine Press Agency quotes Palestine TV saying the number of dead is now 7. 581.

UPDATE 2: Up to 9. Plus more than a hundred wounded. 583. (UPDATE 2a: They've backed off again to 7. 581.)

UPDATE 3: I had missed this story from PCHR:

In another incident, at approximately 02:00 on Saturday, 10 November 2007, Ahmed Suleiman Abu Meghassib, 25, from Wadi al-Salqa village in the central Gaza Strip, died from a wound he had sustained on Wednesday, 7 November 2007. Abu Meghassib was wounded by a gunshot to the back fired by Palestinian militants when he attempted to prevent them from getting close to his house to fire at military posts of Israeli occupation forces.

582.

UPDATE 4: Wafa, the PA news agency, reports that Hamas is controlling access to hospitals to minimize the number of reported deaths. They give an example of a 14-year old boy who was officially listed as dying in a car accident who had three gunshot wounds. Palestine Today lists at least two minors killed. I'll wait to update the list when things clear up a bit.

UPDATE 5: I had in fact counted the death from Update 3. 581 again.

UPDATE 6: A 21-year old man, Marwan Alnono, died from Hamas gunshot wounds from the demonstration. 582.

The lack of an honest mediator

Batya from Shiloh Musings makes an important point:

There won't be any conflict mediation at that Annapolis Conference. There are no "third-party neutral" mediators. U.S.'s Rice and Europe's Blair have very well-defined and well-publicized agendas. Actually they have the same aim. It's not "conflict resolution." It's the establishment of another Arab State in the Land of Israel.

This is, in a nutshell, why Annapolis is a pre-ordained disaster - because the outlines for a "solution" have already been determined by the "third parties" and the entire point is how to prod Israel towards this "solution."

On Saturday, "moderate" Fatah terror leader Mahmoud Abbas pledged that mass-murdering terrorist Yasir Arafat will one day be re-buried in Jerusalem. Is there any possibility that Condi Rice made a phone call to him gently chiding him for saying something inflammatory? Is there anyone in the Bush administration or EU who would publicly condemn the idea of having Arafat's rotting, syphilitic corpse moved to be interred in the holiest ground on the planet?

It is hard to imagine a more disgusting idea to Jewish and Israeli sensibilities than the thought of burying the architect of modern terror near the Temple Mount. Just the mention is enough to evoke retching. From a purely political viewpoint is no less inflammatory - it prejudges that Jerusalem is "Palestinian" land that they can use as a burial ground with impunity.

If an Olmert would make a mildly parallel suggestion, that one day the Israeli flag would fly over the Temple Mount, he wouldn't even have to wait for the Arab world to react before he gets the phone call from Condi about how "unhelpful" such a position is.

The US has changed from an honest broker into an advocate of Arafat's original plan to destroy Israel in "stages." A good part of this is because the Israeli government itself has embraced that same philosophy, but it is not clear that this would have happened without Bush's declaration years ago that there should be another hostile Arab state on the west and south of Israel. American pressure since then has been overwhelmingly against Israel, helping make the idea of another terror state a fait accompli.

This is not mediation - it is nothing but pressuring one side to give up land vital to its security as well as culture, history and religion.

Israeli flag stolen from U. of Michigan twice

From the Michigan Journal (College newspaper, Dearborn):

During last week's Global Fest, the Israeli flag was stolen twice from the University Center.

Student Activities Office (SAO) hung between 55 and 60 different flags around the UC representing different nations.

These flags were hung earlier in the week before Global Fest. According to SAO, the Israeli flag was ripped down early Tuesday morning.

SAO then filled the missing space with another 3 x 5 ft. Israeli flag.

This second flag was then stolen again the next day on Wednesday.

None of the other flags were touched.

A mass e-mail from Vice Chancellor of Enrollment and Student Life Stanley E. Henderson went out to all registered students on Thursday.

The e-mail explained the "Expect Respect" program, informed students of what had happened and also encouraged students to attend today's Difficult Dialogues series.

The e-mail stated that the administration considers the stealing of the flag "more than just a theft," and "it is a violation of who we are as a university."

The administration rejects the notion that any nation could be singled out for such disrespect on our campus.

As for punishment, the e-mail states, "As a university we must condemn this action in the strongest tears and be clear that his cannot be tolerated."

Henderson confirmed that the Israel flag disappeared last year as well. "Last year the flag went missing went they were being taken down. It was up during Global Fest. This year the flag went missing before Global Fest even started," said Henderson.

Seems pretty clear-cut that this was a political act meant to intimidate any Zionist students, right? Three times over two years, only the Israeli flag, and Dearborn being the home to the largest Arab community in America -can anyone reasonably think this was other than a hate crime?

Well, the student editors managed to figure out a way to insult their own intelligence:

Reaction to flag theft overblown

...In this case, it seems that the administration is more concerned with punishing the motivation, not the crime itself.

If someone stole any country's flag from the UC, would the crime be treated similarly? Or if someone stole food from McKinley Café and said their motive was that they were starving due to a lack of money after purchasing this semester's books, would the school let them get away with it? Doubtful. Both would be treated as thefts and dealt with based on the values of the items stolen.

We don't condone the theft, but we think that the university should be consistent in its punishment and that the motive should play a less central role in deciding how to deal with the thief. The school has no proof that this was a hate crime, only an assumption. Without hard evidence, its presumptious [sic] to treat it as such.

Is it any wonder that these rocket scientists on the editorial board don't even know how to use spell-check?
(h/t Anti-Racist Blog)

November 11, 1947: State Dept. hedges on partition

As we continue to go through the Palestine Post archives from sixty years ago, there were four notable article on the front page that once again seem to come from today's headlines.

Firstly, the US State Department, even then tilting towards the Arab viewpoint, was showing more public resistance to the idea of partition:

I mentioned that at that time there was a terrible cholera epidemic in Egypt (and it was now starting to spread through the rest of the Middle East.) Even so, Egypt has refused to accept help from Hebrew University in the early stages of the epidemic. The Times of London noticed that Egypt instead waited to get vaccines from the Haffkine Institute in Bombay, and it mentioned a fact that the Egyptians probably didn't realize: Dr. Haffikine was a Jewish Zionist.

Meanwhile, the Post made fun of Egyptians and their Zion-phobia:

And yet another Muslim country pledged to help Arab Palestine by killing all the Jews - this time, Iraq:

The deja vu continues...

The miracle Allah-ear

Remember a couple of years ago a British ice-cream company had to replace its logo because some Muslims felt that it resembled the Arabic word "Allah"?

Then we heard about the "Allah-fish", where the same swirls were seen:

Well, there's a regular Allahpalooza going on, because now Muslims are seeing things in their babies' ears. In Ramallah, a baby was born a few weeks ago with an ear deformity that makes it appear like the word Allah.

From Palestine Today, in auto-translation:

Often heard about an oddity in the universe and anecdotal talked with the people in their lives, a child born Pracejn or Unsoder twin, or a child born with three legs ...

The city of Ramallah in the West Bank weeks ago saw the birth of a child wrote Majesty the word "God" in his ear, in Arabic, so that anyone can read easily, and without careful consideration.

The grandmother discovered the child Houcih ordered the Divine in dignity authorized her grandson after five weeks of birth.

Says the father of the child who is an officer in place to sell the clothing city of Ramallah that this label that has characterized the order, and leaves a message from God ", and expressed the hope that the best Fall him and his family.

In the view of the child's mother that this Mecca addressed by God created is a miracle requires reflection, and increasing closer to God, and from what anger.

15-year old killed by Hamas

Hamas got into an argument with the Ayad family east of Gaza City. Apparently, Hamas wanted to use their home to store explosives or fire rockets, and the Awads disagreed. This resulted in a gun-battle, killing the Ayad's 15-year old son, Mohammed Jawad.

This has only been reported in the Palestine Press Agency website. Other news sources are either pro-Hamas or cannot get press passes to report news from Gaza without harassment; PPA seems to rely more on underground pro-Fatah reporters and citizens, so it is somewhat less reliable. A number of readers in the comments section confirmed this incident.

My count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by each other this year is now at 573, with 40 of them women and 42 of them children.

UPDATE: PCHR reports that two were killed and four wounded in those clashes. 574.

Another inconvenient bump on the road to Annapolis

Reuters reports:

Hamas Islamists, who seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, would take over the West Bank if Israel pulled out of the territory, a senior Hamas leader said on Friday.

The comments by Mahmoud al-Zahar contrasted with remarks by Ismail Haniyeh, who serves as prime minister of a Hamas-led government dismissed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"Israel says the party in Ramallah (Fatah) serves Israel, and if Israel quits the West Bank, Hamas will take it over. And we say this is true," Zahar said at a rally for Hamas supporters in Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

"We say to those in the West Bank take a lesson from what happened in Gaza," Zahar said, an indirect reference to the fierce violence that led to Hamas's takeover of the coastal strip.

So if Israel gives up territory, Hamas is poised to take over the vacuum that would result as the PA "security forces" do not have the motivation or the ability to stop the Islamists.

Last week the scope of Hamas' organization and financial power in the West Bank started to become apparent:

...The initial examination of the seemingly innocent material, which was mostly confiscated at charity foundations and mosques, produces a scary picture: A giant octopus that controls hundreds of millions of dollars coming in from all over the world – an apparatus that looks exactly like the one that led to Hamas’ Gaza takeover within several days is also up and running in the West Bank.

The US is pretending that spending money will solve the problem but the PA's problems run much deeper - starting with a base of citizens who have a pathological hatred for Israel.

This little inconvenient fact won't slow down the Annapolis train, though. Too many egos are too highly invested in that folly to care that rather than bringing peace it will be a step closer to major conflict.

Freedom of the press, PalArab style (IX)

The moderate PA "security" forces have arrested the director of Al-Amal TV today. The Ma'an News website has shut down in solidarity and shows this message:

Palestinian security arrests Mu'taz Al-Kurdi, member of Ma'an's board of directors and director of Al-Amal TV in Hebron

Ma'an News Agency expresses its deep disappointment and indignation at arrests of journalists.

Al-Amal TV suspended it's broadcast on Friday in protest of the detention of their director.

Ma'an also announces the suspension of its work in protest. Several of Ma'an's local partners in TV and radio will also halt their broadcasts today in protest and solidarity with our colleague Mu'taz Al-Kurdi and Al-Amal TV.

Things are right on schedule for creating a Palestinian Arab state in Annapolis!

More déjà vu from November 10, 1947

The November 10, 1947 Palestine Post has a few more headlines that are eerily familiar.

Then, as now, there was much high-level discussion on how exactly to divide up Jerusalem:

Notice that Jerusalem had a solid Jewish majority in 1947.

Note also that (as now) clearly this committee was advocating "transfer"of Jews away from their homes in the "Arab section." Then, as now, the word "transfer" is considered tantamount to ethnic cleansing only when it is Arabs being transferred, never when it is Jews.

In November 1947, as now, feuding Palestinian Arab factions managed to start talks between them to try to stop killing each other and more effectively fight the Jews:

Then, as now, there was overt anti-semitism in Great Britain:

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Fun Fatwa Friday: Jesus never drank wine

From Islam Online's fatwa section:

Q: How would you respond to someone who says, "I don't see the wrong in drinking as Jesus himself drank, when he turned water into wine?"

A: Salam, dear questioner.

Thank you for your question.

Argument Based on Assumptions

As with many such arguments, it is based on the assumption that something is true, in order for the argument to make sense.

In other words, it is assumed as fact that Jesus drank wine because it says in the Christian Gospels that he did so.

If, however, such a thing is not accepted as a fact, then the whole argument falls down. There is no mention in the Qur'an of Jesus (peace be upon him) drinking wine, so Muslims have no belief that he did so.

Christians, for example, will tell us that Jesus died on the Cross. In the Qur'an we are told that:

*{… of a certainty they crucified him not.}* (An-Nisaa' 4: 157)

The Qur'an does not contradict itself. How could Almighty Allah make mistakes? If we read in many places that it is forbidden to drink alcohol and any intoxicants, then it would be a contradiction to believe that Jesus, one of the Prophets of Islam, did something which was forbidden.

...In other words, neither the Torah nor the Gospel can be relied upon as reliable sources. Why is this? It is because both the Torah and the Gospel were revealed to a specific people at a specific time in their history.

The Qur'an, though, was revealed for all people and for all time and that is why Allah has not allowed it to be corrupted through translation or any other means.

To say to a Muslim, then, that Jesus says such and such, because it is recorded that he says it in the Gospels, is not an argument that will convince them. Muslims believe that the only reliable record of anything Jesus said or did is to be found in the Qur'an.

Nice to know that Muslims don't fall into the trap of making assumptions the way Jews and Christians do.

Pity the poor Hamas "moderate"

Ahmed Yousef, advisor to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, is the West's point man when trying to make Hamas look more moderate.

He's the one who wrote the Washington Post op-ed last June trying to convince Americans that Hamas was the same as Fatah and deserved a chance. He's the one who the New York Times honored with another op-ed where he asks the world to give the "hudna" a chance ("Pause for Peace.") He was glowingly depicted in the Christian Science Monitor as "moderate and cooperative."

Earlier this week, Asharq al-Awsat wrote about the divisions in Fatah and Hamas, and it wrote "Some sources within the movement had severely criticized Yousef for his declared statements and positions, some going further to describe them as 'Fatah-inclined'."

Oooh, that's gotta hurt.

But he lived up to his reputation on Wednesday when he told reporters that the Hamas charter is obsolete, that Hamas would attend the Annapolis conference if invited and that being friendly with the United States is in Hamas' interests.

Predictably, today Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar denied everything Yousef said, saying that Hamas was against the Annapolis meeting and that its charter calling for the destruction of Israel is still in effect.

It certainly isn't easy trying to show Hamas' moderate side when that side is nonexistent.

November 9, 1947: "Arab threats are empty"

As the UN partition of Palestine loomed, a team of American "experts" opined that there is no way that the combined Arab armies would attack the Jewish state. As printed in the November 9, 1947 Palestine Post:

It is instructive to read this article now and see where these experts were wrong.

Militarily, they were quite correct. Although they ignored Egypt's army (as well as Iraq's), their estimation of the weaknesses of the Arabs besides Jordan were pretty accurate.

They were experts as far as facts on the ground as well as the relative capabilities of the armies. Their failure was in making assumptions as to how the Arab side thinks. Like countless other "experts" before and since, they assume that the Arab side would be logical when deciding whether to attack the Jewish state. They took no consideration of the importance of pride and honor to the Arab mind, which is often the exact opposite of logic.

The idea of a Jewish state in their midst was simply unacceptable, and the thought of defeat as not entertained. Making the assumption that the Arab side thinks the same way as Westerners would when weighing starting a battle is a major, and literally fatal, mistake.

Similar "experts" are still endemic throughout the world, where they predict with confidence that the Arab side will certainly make certain compromises because it makes the most sense. As with these 1947 experts, they almost always know more about current factual circumstances than they do about history, and they fail to draw the proper conclusions from the correct facts.

al-Ha'aretz admits it will ignore scandals against people it likes

In an scathing op-ed in the Jerusalem Post yesterday, Isi Liebler slams Ha'aretz:

CURRENT EDITOR David Landau is an observant Jew wearing a black kippa. He made aliya from London and is a highly talented writer....
Since he assumed the role of editor at Haaretz, the newspaper's traditional bias relating to the Israel-Palestinian conflict has intensified.
Landau concentrates much of his wrath on religious Zionists, regarding those who settled across the Green Line as messianic lunatics and the greatest threat to Israel. This obviously makes him a darling of the ultra-Left.
Today Landau allegedly even refuses to correct articles containing blatantly false information if they conflict with his political agenda. According to the Web site of the highly respected American Jewish media watchdog organization CAMERA, not only did Landau decline to consider its complaints regarding alleged falsehoods published in Haaretz, he even went on record informing the JTA that "as a matter of principle" he had instructed his staff not to respond to criticism from CAMERA because they were a "McCarthyite" organization.
NEEDLESS to say, this casts an ugly shadow on a daily newspaper purporting to represent the highest levels of journalistic integrity. It is now widely accepted that many policies promoted by Haaretz are effectively supportive of Israel's adversaries.
In fact, Nahum Barnea, the distinguished Yediot Aharonot columnist, went so far as to describe senior Haaretz journalists Gideon Levy, Amira Haas and Akiva Eldar as failing to pass the "lynch test" - i.e., even failing to condemn Palestinians when they murdered two Israelis in a lynch mob in Ramallah at the onset of the second intifada.
More recently, consistent with frequent Haaretz depictions of Israel as a racist entity, the paper's chief Arab affairs expert, Danny Rubinstein, told a UN body that Israel was indeed an apartheid state.
...BUT IT was only recently that Landau threw away all semblance of journalistic integrity and publicly confessed to crossing the ultimate red line that distinguishes reputable journalism from propaganda.
According to The Jerusalem Post, at the recent Russian Limmud Conference in Moscow, Landau, one of the few non-Russian-speaking participants, dropped a bombshell. He stunned those present by boasting that his newspaper had "wittingly soft-pedalled" alleged corruption by Israeli political leaders including prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, when, in the opinion of Haaretz, the policies of those leaders were advancing the peace process.
When participants challenged him concerning the morality of such an approach, Landau responded with the extraordinary assertion that "more immorality happens every day at a single roadblock [in Judea and Samaria] than in all the scandals put together."
He then unashamedly assured those present that Haaretz was ready to repeat the process in order "to ensure that Olmert goes to Annapolis."
...THE ISRAELI Press Council code of ethics contains clauses explicitly condemning such practices. Article 40 (and 16a): "A newspaper or a journalist shall not refrain from publishing information where there is a public interest in its publication, including for reasons of political, economic or other pressures."
Article 7: "Mistakes, omissions or inaccuracies which are in the publication of facts must be corrected speedily…."
If in the face of such violations of their charter by the editor of one of their most prestigious newspapers the Press Council fails to publicly condemn such behavior, it should be dissolved and the public must demand an accounting.
Exploiting a newspaper as a propaganda vehicle for a clique of leftist ideologues willing to do anything, including suppressing or "soft-pedalling" information about potentially criminal actions in order to pursue a private agenda must not be tolerated in a country which purports to adhere to ethical and democratic norms of conduct.

Israel Matzav asks if even the most left-wing American publications would do something like this.

Yisrael Medad wrote a letter to the Jerusalem Post saying that this is old news:

Isi Leibler's drubbing of Haaretz editor David Landau for his remarks at a recent Limmud Conference in Moscow comes, unfortunately, two years late ("Shame on 'Haaretz,'" November 7). Landau's admission that he ordered the low-keying of corruption by Israeli political leaders in order to protect the peace process - known as the "etrog behavior" of left-wing journalists, a phrase coined by Amnon Abromovitch - was first uttered at a Limmud conference in Nottingham, England. It was proudly declared in response to a question I had put to him from the last rows of a lecture hall filled with almost 300 people about the journalistic ethics of the absence of criticism of political corruption.

Like now, also then: When challenged, Landau declared that the "peccadilloes" of Ariel Sharon were minor compared to the greater damage, in his opinion, caused by revenant Jewish residents in the communities throughout Judea and Samaria.

His remarks were generally accepted, which caused me disappointment in the morality of the participating British Jews.

Augean Stables comments:

Landau’s boast that he had intentionally “soft-pedaled” allegations of corruption against Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert in order not to weaken their support as they worked toward a peace process should jolt any observer who understands the value of a responsible free press in a democratic society. The fact that Landau felt comfortable airing such a transgression is perhaps more alarming. It suggests an atmosphere among journalists in Israel, indeed across the West, that condones the promotion of a certain ideology at the expense of the standards that should serve as a guide to Western media.

Everyone has biases, of course, and it is perhaps too much to ask for journalists to banish all their biases when they report. It is literally impossible. Decisions must be made not only in the writing but also in how much prominence to give a story, which photos to publish, how the headline is phrased - it is not an enviable job to be objective when working under such limitations.

But there is a huge difference between the subconscious bias, mostly left-leaning, that most journalists have and a de facto policy of bias that Ha'aretz is not only admitting but boasting about. Landau is bragging about his own immorality in the pursuit of his version of "the higher good," which he is deciding for the benefit of his reading public and of Israel itself. This is not just another case of media bias - this is a scandal that should shake the foundations of Israeli journalism.

When Edmund Burke, referring to the press, said "Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all," he was making the assumption that there is at least a pretense of objectivity that underpins journalism. Ha'aretz is succeeding making the Fourth Estate irrelevant, as those members of the press who consciously try to exercise power will be the ones who lose it.

Egyptian intelligence minister blames Israel for Gaza weapons smuggling

Palestine Press Agency writes that Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman blames Israel for the smuggling of weapons into Gaza (autotranslated, cleaned up):

Egypt says that one of the main sources [from which] Hamas receives arms and ammunition are Israeli army soldiers who sell them weapons and ammunition. Suleiman added that most of the smuggling of arms and explosive materials for the Gaza Strip are by sea and soldiers of the Israeli Navy failed to stop them.

Remember that Egypt stands to lose some $200 million in US handouts if it does not do more to stop the huge smuggling operations into Gaza, and any doubts they can plant about the reality would help their case.

Just yesterday, one of those mythical smuggling tunnels from Gaza to Egypt collapsed, injuring 3.

1977 Israeli law: Attempting to give away land a capital crime

Martin Sherman in YNet notices:

The following is a verbatim quotation from the existing law in Israel:

A person who, with intent that any area be withdrawn from the sovereignty of the State or placed under the sovereignty of a foreign state, commits an act calculated to bring this about, is liable to life imprisonment or the death penalty.

Israeli Penal Code – 1977, Section 97(b)

Read the whole article.

Interpol:arrest Iranians involved in Argentina bombings

From AFP:

Interpol's decision to uphold arrest warrants against five Iranian suspects in a deadly 1994 bombing against a Jewish organization in Argentina was welcomed by Israel Thursday, but slammed by Iran.

"It sends the following message to the terrorists - that even if takes time, they need to know that they will eventually be brought to book," Israel's ambassador to Argentina Raphael Eldad told public radio.

Iran, which had fought hard to have the arrest warrants lifted, reacted angrily to the decision taken by a two-thirds majority at the world police body's annual general assembly in the Moroccan city of Marrakech.

"Iran strongly denounces the decision of Interpol to uphold the warrants requested by the Argentine judiciary," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in a statement issued in Tehran.

"Although the issuing of such warrants by Interpol does not amount to a confirmation of Argentina's claims of Iranian involvement in the AIMA [Argentine Israeli Mutual Association] bombing, we were not expecting this professional body to tarnish its legal status by accepting the political will of the Zionist regime," he said.

"Transferring the pressures from the Argentine government to Interpol in order to fulfil political aims is a matter of great sorrow, and is contrary to international law and utterly rejected and unacceptable," said Hosseini.

He added that Iran would continue "to fight through legal channels for the rights of its citizens" facing the arrest warrants, who include former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian and former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezaei, as well as three diplomats.

Arrest warrants were initially issued against three other senior Iranians, including former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, in November last year, but they were lifted by Interpol's executive committee in March.

The Israeli ambassador acknowledged that there was no immediate prospect of any arrest being made in connection with the July 1994 bombing, which leveled the seven-floor AIMA building in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people.

"I hope that the arrest warrants will be carried out, but I am not very optimistic, as Iran is not in the habit of cooperation in this sort of affair," Eldad said.

In a statement after Wednesday's meeting, Interpol president Jackie Selebi insisted that the agency had treated both sides "fairly and impartially" in reviewing the arrest warrants.

Argentina's chief prosecutor Alberto Nisman rejected any suggestion that the warrants were politically motivated, and also acknowledged that it was unlikely that Iran would extradite the suspects.

85 were killed in two bombings at Jewish centers in Argentina in 1994.

Australia's defense minister gets it

I'll leave Aussie Dave (whose blog I am now a contributor to) to give more context to this, but this was nice to read:

THERE is a direct link between security in the Middle East and Australia’s security situation, according to Defence Minister Dr Brendan Nelson.

He described the situation in Israel as vital to Australia.

“No longer can we accept the fact that this has nothing to do with us, it has everything to do with us,” Dr Nelson told the State Zionist Council of Victoria’s Annual Assembly last week.

Dr Nelson, the member for Bradfield – an electorate in Sydney’s north with a 4500-strong Jewish population – and a strong supporter of Israel, told the assembly that despite being located so far from Israel, the tiny Jewish country is vital to Australia’s security interests.

He told the audience that Israel’s survival and growth was important and that it would be “a bulwark against the kind of madness that is being promoted by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ambitions of the Iranians”. He also said he hoped the upcoming peace talks between Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would be fruitful.

Saudi king talks peace, presents sword to Pope

One year ago, Pope Benedict XVI inflamed the Muslim world by quoting a Byzantine emperor from 1391 as saying: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The Muslim reaction was, predictably, violence, with at least two killed and many more cases or arson and threats.

Now, the Saudi king has visited the Pope discussing "peace, justice and moral values." And the King didn't come empty-handed - he gave the Pope "a traditional Middle Eastern gift — a golden sword studded with jewels."

The King, representing Islam as the "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, " certainly showed his esteem for the Pope and for his calls for peace - by giving him a weapon.

November 1947 and Annapolis déjà vu

I have been looking at the pages of the Palestine Post from sixty years ago, in the run-up to the UN vote on partitioning Palestine. Reading the stories then, and comparing them to what is happening today in anticipation of Annapolis, one gets an intense feeling of déjà vu.

Sixty years ago in October and November there was a lull in Arab terror attacks against Jews. All actions seemed to be taking place diplomatically. Arab leaders were trying to do everything possible to stop the vote or influence nations to vote against it. It appeared to be a losing battle, already the Soviet Union and the White House were supporting it (although the State Department was ambivalent), but that didn't stop Saudi Prince Faisal from declaring to the Russian UN delegate that if partition passed, Saudi Arabia would quit the UN.

The relative quiet in Palestine seems even starker relative to violence in the rest of the Arab world: over 250 had been killed in one day in Syrian factional fighting in early November.

The Arab leaders were specifically refraining from inciting the masses in order to put their best face forward as the world watched. They made it very clear, though, that should partition pass they would start a campaign of terror and war against the Jews to ensure that a Jewish state can never be created. Westerners were not as impressed with these threats, thinking it was all just so much Arab hyperbole.

Today we are in a similar waiting period. The "moderate" Palestinian Arabs have already made their demands clear and they have made their threats equally clear should things not go exactly the way they want in Annapolis.

Most people now think that Annapolis will be a failure. But not as many people are thinking ahead to the day after. To get an idea of what might happen, look at what happened immediately after the vote (from Time):

While city crowds celebrated, Arabs ambushed two buses in an orange grove southeast of Tel Aviv, sprayed them with gunfire. Five Jews died, 14 were wounded. Arab prisoners attacked Jews in Acre prison. In Damascus, Syria, Moslem youths stoned the U.S. Legation, tore down the U.S. flag, and then looted the Russian-Syrian Cultural Center.
In Cairo, Arab League Secretary Abdel Rahman Azzam Pasha joined other Arab leaders in promising warfare on the Jews: "I cannot say where and when I will place my troops. I can only say we will fight and are preparing for victory." Azzam Pasha had just returned from a flying visit to Saudi Arabia's King Ibn Saud. In Azzam Pasha's pocket, said aides, was Ibn Saud's promise to use most of his U.S. oil royalties (about $20,000,000 a year) to modernize his Bedouin army and to arm Palestinian Arabs for the war on Zionism.
The Arab Higher Committee for Palestine pushed a recruiting drive for Arab soldiers, setting a quota for each Arab village: a minimum of 30 men from each, up to 120 in the larger ones.
The Arabs planned uprisings, an economic blockade, concentrated attacks on outlying Jewish settlements and pinpoint attacks against the long exposed borders of the crazy-quilt Jewish state. The Arabs seemed resigned to the prospect of an armed struggle. They regarded partition in its present form as so outrageous that there was no alternative.

Like making compromises for peace.

How do you treat a hostile entity?

If you are Israel, you help it build sewage treatment plants:

Ahead of the winter and fearing that sewage cesspools in Gaza could once again spill over and flood nearby villages, the IDF Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) has stepped up efforts to enable the Palestinians to complete the construction of a new sewage plant in the coming months.

...Defense officials explained that the decision to expedite the construction was made despite Hama's control over Gaza.

"We are doing this to help the Palestinians and to prevent another overflow," a defense official said. "There are security risks involved, but this is an important project and it is our job to figure out how to deal with them."

...To help facilitate the new plant's construction, the IDF has tracked down non-metal pipes that can be used in the facility without fear of their going toward Kassam rocket production, as metal pipes imported into Gaza have in the past.

In addition, the IDF has allowed the Palestinian water authority officials to work alongside the border fence near Beit Hanun, even though the construction has been used in the past as a cover for the launching of rockets and attacks against Israel.

When in history has any nation so bent over backwards to help its implacably hostile neighbor? Look at all the resources the hated IDF is giving to helping Palestinian Arabs who support Israel's destruction.

In the past, Hamas and others have used this very same Israeli generosity and benevolence against it. And even so, Israel continues to assist the terrorists and their supporters for humanitarian reasons.

Anyone who tries to claim that the conflict is symmetric, that both sides are equally at fault or that both sides are equally intolerant, would need to provide examples of Arab benevolence helping Israel. The very absurdity of imagining an Arab government donating money to Zaka or Hadassah Hospital or Mogen Dovid Adom is proof enough that there is no moral comparison between the two sides.

Morning links

Daled Amos on how little the Israeli economy needs a "peace" deal.

Israel Matzav on the thousands of Palestinian Arabs who want to become Israeli citizens.

Augean Stables on Wafa Sultan being more American than Americans..

Atlas Shrugs has a spreadsheet with lots of terror statistics worldwide.

Soccer Dad on understanding Condi's motivations.

Alan Dershowitz on "Democrats and Waterboarding."

Dan Gillerman's full statement to the UN on human rights.

Harvard professors: Being Jewish isn't a religious thing

At Harvard University, the Hillel is celebrating a week-long "Jewbilation". One of the events invited three Jewish Harvard faculty to discuss what Judaism means to them. The answers are saddening:

For the roundtable discussion called “Jewish in 2007,” some 60 people gathered at Hillel to hear Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, former Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71, and Professor Stephen A. Marglin talk about how they have merged their intellectual and spiritual lives.

In Dershowitz’s case, the famed law professor claims that he hasn’t.

A self-described “agnostic at best,” Dershowitz was the first to explain the nuances of his “secular, perverse, and confrontational” Judaism.

“I am absolutely sure that there is no God who writes Bibles and answers human prayers,” Dershowitz said. “The God I don’t believe in is very much the Jewish God.”

Organizer Asher A. Fredman ’08 said he hoped the discussion, part of a week of events called “Jewbilation,” would give students a chance to reflect on the role of Judaism in their lives.

During the talk, Marglin reinforced Dershowitz’s emphasis on personal choice in religious practice.

“We all have to make our own decisions in light of our own histories and exceptions,” he said.
...
Marglin also considers himself to be culturally Jewish, but his beliefs make him a “secular humanist.”

He added that he continued to practice Judaism for the sense of community it provides.

“Through Judaism, I learned that I could be something other than a self-interested individual, that I could be a member of a community, a link in a chain that went from family to clan to village,” Margolin said.

“This was something that nothing had prepared me for: not my upbringing nor my work at Harvard,” he said.

Gross echoed Margolin’s words, saying, “What I feel most powerfully about being Jewish is being a member of a community.”

“This community has sustained me throughout much of my life,” Gross said.

What these esteemed academics are saying is that while it might be important for them personally to identify as being Jewish, for all their intelligence they have absolutely no answer to tell their children if asked why they should remain Jewish.

They belong to a Judaism of superficiality, of convenience, and, in Dershowitz' case, of redefinition.

It is telling that the Jewish campus organization couldn't find a single professor who actually subscribes to basic Jewish beliefs.

The cycle of violence continues....

An Islamic Jihad leader succumbed to his wounds from Hamas/Islamic Jihad clashes last month.

Naturally, there was a big noisy funeral.

Naturally, Islamic Jihad members chose that solemn occasion to throw stones at a nearby Hamas headquarters.

And just as naturally, Hamas responded with live fire, killing one and wounding four more.

We'll see what the death toll will be at this next person's funeral.

My count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by each other this year climbs to 571.

UPDATE 11/8: A bomb meant to kill IDF soldiers exploded prematurely in Nablus, killing one. 572.

The Vast Gentile Conspiracy

After hearing an aged British professor launch a diatribe about how Jews control the media in the United States, Carol Gould decided to investigate:

If one accepts that the Sulzbergers are Episcopalian, they can be eliminated as ‘Jewish’ controllers of the New York Times. The Knight Ridder group controls many newspapers. Betty Scripps, who is a stalwart of my local Washington National Opera company, is not exactly a Hadassah lady. The mighty Scripps Howard empire, which rose to prominence a century ago alongside the Cowles dynasty, still controls numerous publications. Names like Gannett, Robinson and McClatchey dominate other media empires, along with Sumner Redstone of Viacom and Boisfueillet Jones of the Washington Post. Then there is the Southern Tennant-Bryan empire. Add to this mix Ted Turner, Murdoch, Dow Jones, Luce and Hearst and I do not see any Jewish conspiracy.

Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Charles Gibson are the three heavyweight network news anchors, and I do not recall any Jews ever sitting in these chairs in my lifetime. Peter Jennings was a fierce critic of Israeli policies and made this known in his ABC News reports. Israel is covered infinitely less on American television than on British media, but when it is it is often portrayed with a critical eye, most particularly on CNN.

The opinion-formers in the United States in primetime are non-Jews: Gwyn Ifyl, Stephen Colbert, Lou Dobbs, Chris Matthews, Bill Moyers Bill O’Reilly and finally Keith Olbermann, who is of German Lutheran extraction. In fact, except for the occasional appearance by Bill Kristol, the vast array of television and radio punditry is the exclusive realm of Christian commentators.

It may be time to create a GentileWatch website!

Rumsfeld correct on Gulf Arab mentality

Last week a bunch of internal, informal memos written by Donald Rumsfeld were leaked out and caused a minor embarrassment to the White House. In one of them, Rumsfeld wrote that oil wealth has at times detached Muslims "from the reality of the work, effort and investment that leads to wealth for the rest of the world. Too often Muslims are against physical labor, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed. An unemployed population is easy to recruit to radicalism."

Not surprisingly, the terror-supporting CAIR complained, and the White House distanced itself from the memo.

The White House on Thursday sympathized with Arab-Americans who took offense to a memo that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote saying that "oil wealth has made Muslims averse to physical labor."
Rumsfeld's belief is "not at all in line with the president's views," White House press secretary Dana Perino said.
Asked about Rumsfeld's memo, Perino acknowledged that some Arab-American groups took offense to his comment.
"We are aware that we have a lot of work to do in order to win hearts and minds across the Arab world and the Muslim world and I can understand why they would be offended by those comments," she said.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Rumsfeld's comment reflects the "stereotypical attitude" that led the United States to invade Iraq.
"Our policy was never based on reality," Hooper said. "It was based on the wild ideas of those who wanted to invade the region. ... It shows you what kind of wrong-headed policymakers we had at the time."

The problem is that Rumsfeld's observations were dead-on accurate if you understand that he was referring to residents of the oil-rich Gulf states. In context, it is clear that this was what he was talking about.

Anyone reading the Saudi-based Arab News for any period of time will see more than a few stories about the problems Saudis have with the sheer number of foreign workers they've brought in, legally or illegally, and not only from Pakistan or Korea but also from poor countries in Africa. Amnesty International estimates over seven million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia alone, with limited rights.

And this is not a new phenomenon - hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs migrated to the Gulf in the fifties and sixties, not only because the the economic opportunities there but also because the local Arabs were simply lazy and the Palestinian Arabs who were willing to move and get off the UNRWA dole were hard working and ambitious. It has been observed that Palestinian Arabs essentially built Kuwait's entire infrastructure.

As far as the other half of Rumsfeld's observations, that young spoiled Arabs are ripe for recruiting into terror groups, this is also beyond dispute. As studies have shown, the average terrorist is not poor but comes from the middle class and has above-average wealth and education - and in Saudi Arabia, the middle class means that you only have two or three maids in your house.

It is not a stretch to think that these young men are the prime recruits for terror. As was reported this week, Saudi Arabia is the "hub of world terror."

So what exactly did Rumsfeld say that was wrong or offensive? His observations and inferences were as accurate as any can be about a group of people.

If the White House wants to capture the "hearts and minds" of the Arab world, it will not succeed by pandering to fantasies and myths. Distancing itself from the truth about the Arab world and the sources of terrorism is a giant step backwards.
(h/t Jihad Watch)

Columbia professor: Muslims discovered everything!

From the Pakistan Daily Times:

LAHORE: Muslim scientists have made all discoveries of the current age, said University of Columbia’s Arabic and Islamic Studies prof George Saliba at a seminar at the Government College University (GCU) on Monday. The seminar, titled The Problems of Historiography of Islamic Science, was held at Fazl-e-Hussain Hall. Saliba gave a critique of the standard classical accounts of the rise of Islamic science. He detailed problems in the accounts and explained alternative historiography that described the rise of an Islamic scientific tradition as a result of social and political conditions within the nascent Islamic empire. He said Muslim philosophy was the impetus behind Islamic science that had contributed to various disciplines including botany, zoology, algebra, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology and mathematics in the pre-industrial era. He said the use of decimal fractions was not a Western invention and that it was discovered by a Muslim scientist. He said the binary system, on which the computer was based, was also invented by a Muslim scientist. He said Arab/Islamic science was not an intermediary between Greek science and European science, but was rather the Renaissance that integrated the Islamic science with European science. Saliba also visited the English Language and Literature Department where he engaged faculty members in a conversation on the Islamic and Renaissance paradigms.

From looking at the professor's web page it seems that he is even overstating his own research. For example, he writes much about how the Copernican theory would have been impossible without two crucial theorems from Islamic mathematicians, but that is a far cry from saying that Muslim scientists are responsible for what Copernicus discovered.

Now, it is possible that in this case the Pakistani reporter was not accurate, but what can we make of the assertion that the binary system was invented by an Islamic scientist? Binary arithmetic can be traced back to an Indian mathematician from 800 BCE, some 1500 years before Islam existed!

Saliba seems to contradict himself as well in the last paragraph of his on-line work describing Islamic influence on European science:

Even when such questions are asked, and their answers are debated -- and it will take more than political history to do that properly -- one could still ask the more perplexing question, namely, that of attaching cultural, civilizational, or linguistic adjectives to the scientists themselves when it is made so obvious that their works and concerns either knew no defined cultural, civilizational or linguistic boundaries, or whatever boundaries they encountered they were at best blurred boundaries. Most blatantly, one still has to find a name for the production of the Tusi Couple, that was first encountered in an Arabic text, written by a man who spoke Persian at home, and used that theorem, like many other astronomers who followed him and were all working in the "Arabic/Islamic" world, in order to reform classical Greek astronomy, and then have his theorem in turn be translated into Byzantine Greek towards the beginning of the fourteenth century, only to be used later by Copernicus and others in Latin texts of Renaissance Europe. What name could one possibly dream up for that kind of science, and whose science it was anyway?

Here he is arguing that referring to certain scientific endeavors or even scientists as being "Greek" or "Chinese" or even "Western" is misleading, because there were many influences on them. Yet he seems to have no problem referring to "Arabic/Islamic science."

Certainly there have been major contributions to various sciences by Islamic scientists, especially in the first half the the last millennium. But it does no one any favors to overstate or exaggerate this influence as if they are solely responsible for every major scientific breakthrough. And it is a bit hypocritical to try to discredit the achievements of non-Muslim scientists on the grounds that they were somewhat influenced by Islamic science, and not to credit the science that pre-dates Islam for influencing Islamic science itself.

h/t Eye on the World

Exclusive picture of "Jewish extremist"

The pro-Hamas Palestine Today website today published an article which it illustrated with this autotranslated caption:

متطرفون يهود Jewish extremists

What a scary looking guy!

It is especially telling that this same website is replete with photos such as this:

- and never will you see the word "extremist" applied to any of these fine upstanding gentlemen.

Fatah/Hamas fighting is temporary - hate for Jews is forever

Remember a few months ago when Hamas released a "Lion King"-type cartoon that took direct aim atFatah in general and "strongman" Mohammed Dahlan in particular?

Looking at the news from just a few months ago one would think that their break was absolute. The fatal mistake is to base decisions on such faulty analysis:

The deputy chief of Hamas' political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzouq, approached Fatah's former Gaza Strip strongman Muhammad Dahlan this week in an effort to mend the division that has plagued Palestinian politics since June, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported.

Al-Hayat said reliable sources indicated that the Hamas leader hoped to open a dialogue that will result in renewed cooperation between the two factions, in the interest of the larger Palestinian cause.

Dahlan reportedly rejected Abu Marzouq's overtures, saying he would not negotiate with Hamas after their takeover of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas and Fatah leaders have made a number of public gestures toward reconciliation recently, including a visit by four Hamas leaders to the presidential compound in Ramallah, the Muqata last Friday.

Al-Hayat said the Hamas officials' visit to Ramallah was not without problems, as the Secretary General of the Palestinian Presidency, Al-Tayyib Abdul-Rahim refused to host the officials in his Ramallah home after another Hamas leader made remarks last week that some Fatah officials interpreted as a plan to take over the West Bank.

Hamas leader Sheikh Nizar Rayyan had declared that Hamas would "pray in the Muqata," which is what the four Hamas leaders did last Friday at the invitation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Fatah/Hamas rapprochement changes the entire calculus of the wisdom of the West propping up Fatah as a "moderate" alternative and pretending that Hamas has been marginalized. This is a basic mistake that underpins the entire idea of Annapolis.

Hamas' strength has not been appreciably hurt by its takeover of Gaza and world disapproval. There is no sea change in Palestinian Arab opinion against Hamas. It may be laying low in the West Bank but its influence there is much stronger than what the press is reporting.

This is yet more proof that wishful thinking will cause even intelligent people to ignore facts and embrace fantasy.

Evidence of Arab collusion against Arab Jews starting in 1947

Today, "Justice for Jews from Arab Countries" is announcing new evidence that Arab nations colluded to persecute the Jews in their countries before 1948:

To back the claim, the group has reproduced copies of a draft law composed by the Arab League in 1947 that called for measures to be taken against Jews living in Arab countries. The proposals range from imprisonment, confiscation of assets and forced induction into Arab armies to beatings, officially incited acts of violence and pogroms.

Subsequent legislation and discriminatory decrees enacted by Arab governments against Jews were “strikingly similar” to the actions laid out in the draft law, Mr. Urman said.

In January 1948, the World Jewish Congress submitted a memo with the text of the draft to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It accompanied the submission with a warning that “all Jews residing in the Near and Middle East face extreme and imminent danger.”

At a meeting two months later, however, Charles Malik, the Lebanese ambassador and president of the council, succeeded in a parliamentary maneuver that ended consideration of the memo. Though the event drew news coverage at the time, it has apparently gone unnoticed since.

The Arab League draft law had been drawn up in response to the Nov. 29, 1947, vote in the General Assembly to partition Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish.

With the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the status of Jews in Arab countries changed dramatically, because most of those countries either declared war on Israel or supported the war to destroy the new state.

The group cites United Nations figures showing that 856,000 Jewish residents left Arab countries in 1948.

“This was not just a forced exodus, it was a forgotten exodus,” said Irwin Cotler, a former Canadian minister of justice who is scheduled to be the main speaker at Monday’s program to open the campaign on behalf of the Jewish refugees.

Ami Isserloff's wonderful resource site, zionism-israel.com, reproduces parts of this draft law created by the Arab League in 1947:

• “All Jewish citizens…will be considered as members of the Jewish minority of the State of Palestine and will have to register [“within 7 days”] with the authorities of the region wherein they reside, giving their names, the exact number of members in their families, their addresses, the names of their banks and the amounts of their deposits in these banks…”

• “Bank accounts of Jews will be frozen. These funds will be utilized in part or in full to finance the movement of resistance to Zionist ambitions in Palestine.”

• “Only Jews who are subjects of foreign countries will be considered ‘neutrals.’ These will be compelled either to return to their countries, with a minimum of delay, or be considered Arabs and obliged to accept active service in the Arab army.”

• “Every Jew whose activities reveal that he is an active Zionist will be considered as a political prisoner and will be interned in places specifically designated for that purpose by police authorities or by the Government. His financial resources, instead of being frozen, will be confiscated.”

• “Any Jew who will be able to prove that his activities are anti-Zionist will be free to act as he likes, provided that he declares his readiness to join the Arab armies.”

• “The foregoing…does not mean that those Jews will not be submitted to paragraphs 1 and 2 of this law.”

That same website reproduces a New York Times article from 1948 that described the World Jewish Congress' petition to the UN based on this draft memo:

JEWS IN GRAVE DANGER IN ALL MOSLEM LANDS

By MALLORY BROWNE

New York Times, May 16 1948, page E4

LAKE SUCCESS, N. Y., May 15 -- For nearly four months, the United Nations has had before it an appeal for "immediate and urgent" consideration of the case of the Jewish populations in Arab and Muslim countries stretching front Morocco to India.

Even four months ago, it was the Zionist view that Jews residing in the Near and Middle East were in extreme and imminent danger. Now that the end of the ,mandate has precipitated civil war or even worse developments in Palestine, it is feared that the repercussions of this in Moslem countries will put the Jewish populations in many of these states in mortal peril.

...Already in some Moslem states such as Syria and Lebanon there is a tendency to regard all Jews as Zionist agents and "fifth columnists." There have been violent incidents with feeling running high. There are indications that the stage is being set for a tragedy of incalculable proportions.

Nearly 900,000 Jews live in these Moslem and Arab countries stretching from the Atlantic along the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. Zionist leaders today are convinced that their position is perilous in the extreme.

When the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations meets in Geneva next July, this matter will come before it.

On Jan. 19. 1948, the World Jewish Congress submitted a memorandum on the whole problem to the Economic and Social Council, asking for urgent action during the spring session of the Council.

This plea arose to some extent from statements, made by Arab spokesmen during the General Assembly session last autumn, to the effect that if the partition resolution was put into, effect, they would not be able to guarantee the safety of the Jews in any_ Arab land.

The memorandum of the World Jewish Congress went into considerable detail on this danger. It cited the text of a law .drafted by the Political Committee of the Arab League which was intended, to govern the legal status of Jewish residents in all Arab League countries.

It provides that beginning on an, unspecified date all Jews except citizens of non-Arab states, would be considered "members of the Jewish minority state of Pales-tine." Their bank accounts would he frozen and used to finance resistance to "Zionist ambitions in Palestine." Jews believed to be active Zionists would be interned and their assets confiscated.

Later information submitted to the Economic and Social Council was to the effect that:

In Syria a policy of economic discrimination is in effect against Jews. "Virtually all" Jewish civil servants in the employ of the Syrian Government have been discharged. Freedom of movement has been "practically abolished." Special frontier posts have been established to control movements of! Jews. .'

In Iraq no Jew is permitted to' leave the 'country unless he deposits f5,000 ($20,000) with the Government to guarantee his return. No foreign Jew is allowed to enter Iraq even in transit.

In Lebanon Jews have been forced to contribute financially to the fight against the United Nations partition resolution on Palestine. Acts of violence against Jews are openly admitted by the press, which accuses Jews of "poisoning wells," etc.

...Conditions vary in the Moslem countries. They are worst in Yemen and Afghanistan, whence many Jews have fled in terror to India. Conditions in most of the countries have deteriorated in recent months, this being particularly true of Lebanon, Iran and Egypt. In the countries farther west along the Mediterranean coast, conditions are not so bad. It is feared, however, that if a full-scale war breaks out, the repercussions will be grave for Jews all the way from Casablanca to Karachi.

The National Post (Canada) adds that the UN was complicit in this affair as well, essentially ignoring months of entreaties by the WJC:

[Cotler] said he and his research colleagues will also present evidence showing the United Nations failed to investigate the matter, in part because an Arab League representative ran the agenda at one of its key debating chambers.

"It is now clear the United Nations has played a singular role in expunging the whole question of Jewish refugees from Arab countries on the Middle East agenda for the last 60 years," Mr. Cotler said.

The atrocities done by the Arabs against Jews in the wake of partition and Israeli independence are well documented - and the pages of the Palestine Post had many stories, big and small, contemporaneous with this persecution:

But this is the first time that proof has been offered that this persecution appears to have been pre-planned and coordinated.

What people search for to find me

Here are some recent keyword searches that people have used to land on this blog:

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This time at least there were no entries for "elder sex" which I've seen multiple times.

Hate speech at University of Oregon

As I mentioned last week, Holocaust denier Mark Weber ended up speaking at the University of Oregon and he publicly stated his sickening, anti-semitic views with campus approval:

A much-hyped lecture by revisionist historian Mark Weber and an accompanying protest of it happened last weekend - just not at the same time.

Originally scheduled for Friday night at McKenzie Hall, Weber's lecture was postponed because his flights were delayed. But the protest of about 50 people went on.

Quakers and local peace activists gathered outside the hall in the cold and listened to speeches from preachers and rabbis. One sign summed up the basic argument of those present: "Support Palestinians, Not Nazis."

Pacifica Forum is a weekly discussion group that meets in McKenzie Hall. Founded by Professor Emeritus Orval Etter, the groups' Web site has links to "Holocaust Revisionism" sites. Mark Weber is the director of the Institute for Historical Review, which describes itself as "the world's leading Holocaust denial organization."

Weber's speech happened on Saturday in the Fir Room of the EMU. Titled "Free Speech vs. Zionist Power," it focused on the influence of the Israeli lobby on U.S. foreign policy.

Weber compared himself to Desmond Tutu, opponent of South African apartheid, and former President Jimmy Carter, who have both come under fire for public criticism of Israel's policies toward Palestinians.

Weber dismissed what he called "silly arguments" presented in editorials and letters in The Register-Guard leading up to his visit, and said "the same arguments used by bigots throughout history" had been used to silence him or discourage people from attending his lecture.

The main point of Weber's speech was that the U.S. stands in opposition to the rest of the world when it supports Israel, and it does so because Jews are a minority with disproportionate power that comprises 11 percent of the nation's elite, including 25 percent of all journalists and publishers. Weber attributed those statistics to political science professor and author Benjamin Ginsburg.

Not only is it dangerous to give such influence to such a small minority, Weber argued, but he said Jews are by nature distrustful of non-Jews and are part of a worldwide separatist movement.

Weber said that history had already been revised by others who ignore that "Jews wielded tremendous if not dominant power in the first years of the Soviet regime."

"Bullshit!" junior Andy Saxton shouted.

"No, he's right," a man in the front row shouted back.

"I wanted to see if he really believed it or if he was just getting paid for it," Saxton later said of Weber's talk. "I think that his speech was anti-Semitic drivel in the guise of political dissent."

Saxton said he is a Democrat and leans "more toward supporting Israel than I do supporting this guy."

That seemed to be untrue of many in the room, even those who came to protest Weber.

"I find myself in 65 percent agreement with you tonight," John Saemann said. A self-described Jewish Quaker, Saemann said he opposes Israel's treatment of Palestinians and many other policies, but disagreed with Weber's broad strokes against all Jewish people.

"When I declared I was a Quaker, I said when I smell anti-Semitism I become an instant Jew," Saemann said.

Many in the crowd raised objections to Weber's past and his association with the National Alliance, a white nationalist organization. Weber served as the editor of that groups' newsletter, which he described as a "white racialist" publication.

But Weber said that was a red herring.

"It's irrelevant," he said.

"If (conservative author) David Horowitz is speaking, no one mentions he was a Communist. What I say should be judged on its own merits," he said.

Catherine Berger, who described herself as a non-traditional undergraduate, called Weber's remarks "a different generation of misinformation."

"My mother is German and grew up under the Nazis. I was told to be here to see if anything had changed, if they had gotten the right ideas, and they haven't. It hasn't changed," she said.

So U of E allows this group of bigots to have weekly meetings using its facilities. If they are willing to talk about all Jews as being a threat to the world in a publicized speech like this, who knows what they say when the press isn't there?

An interesting inference if one accepts Weber's premises: If Jews only comprise 11% of the nation's "elite" and 25% of our journalists, and they still manage to create the entire agenda for the nation, then Weber must feel that the other 89%/75% of non-Jews are really, really gullible and stupid.

He hates goyim more than the Jews do!