Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Shari'a Sunday, part 1: Update on Saudi rape case

From AFP:

A woman in Saudi Arabia sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes despite being gang raped has confessed to adultery, the justice ministry said on Saturday as it tried to fend off mounting criticism.

Despite being sexually assaulted by seven men who kidnapped her with a male companion at knife-point, the unidentified 19 year-old woman was sentenced in November 2006 to 90 lashes.

The judge sentenced her for being in a car with a man who was not her relative, a taboo in the conservative Muslim kingdom which imposes strict segregation of the sexes.

But her story hit international headlines last week when her sentence was increased to six months in jail and 200 lashes after she spoke to the media.

The justice ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency that the woman had owned up to having an extramarital affair with the man in the car.

"She admitted to ... exchanging sinful relations," the statement said, adding the woman was in state of undress with the man in the car before the attack took place.

The woman and her alleged lover remained quiet about the attack, which was only reported to the authorities several months later when the woman's husband received an e-mail from an unidentified source informing him of the affair.

"She admitted to what happened and the husband then reported the incident three months after it happened," the justice ministry said, adding it wanted to correct the "largely incorrect" details published in the media about the case.

The ministry also stressed the Saudi judicial system was based on Islamic law derived from the holy Koran and that a court ruling in the kingdom was only made after both sides in a case are given a fair and balanced hearing.

The men were initially sentenced to one to five years in jail, but those terms were also toughened on appeal to between two and nine years.

A rape conviction carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, but the court did not impose it due to the "lack of witnesses" and the "absence of confessions," the justice ministry said on Tuesday.

The woman's husband told local media that they would appeal, even though the judge had warned that the sentence could be increased again if she loses the appeal.

The justice ministry noted that the law gives the right of appeal, but warned that "resorting to the media" could have "a negative effect on the other parties in the case."

AFP seems to have some details wrong. From Arab News:

“She went out with him without a mahram, a legal guardian, and exchanged forbidden affairs through the illegal khalwa,” the statement said. “They both confessed to doing what God forbids.”

The statement went on to accuse the woman and the man of causing the crime.

“They are the main cause of what happened, the woman and her companion, as they exposed themselves to this horrible crime and violated the rule of Shariah,” the statement said. “That’s why the sentences were increased for everyone due to the dangerous nature of the crime.”

The ministry also claimed that the woman violated the sanctity of marriage.

“She knows that ‘khalwa’ with an unrelated man is forbidden by Shariah and by doing this she has broken the sacred matrimonial contract,” the statement said.

“The woman mentioned in her signed confession that she called from her husband’s house using her cell phone asking for a forbidden ‘khalwa’ in front of a shopping center,” the statement said.

So what is "khalwa" and was this woman really married?

The matrimonial contract that the ministry refers to is known as “qiran”. In Saudi Arabia the “qiran” is viewed as a contract of betrothal, similar to marriage except that the woman and man must live with their families until they come out to society with an official wedding ceremony.

Arab News learned yesterday that the rape victim and her betrothed had signed a “qiran” contract; they have never lived together as husband and wife.

The sentence of the two rape victims is based on the Saudi interpretation of “khalwa”, the principle that an unrelated man and woman cannot be in seclusion together. The interpretation of “khalwa” under Saudi law — which judges say is the proper interpretation of the Sunnah — includes unrelated men and women being together even in public. The judicial interpretation of “khalwa” in Saudi Arabia also includes an unrelated man and woman inside a vehicle.

The ministry claimed the woman was “in a state of indecency, having thrown off her clothes” and the two were abducted in a “dark side of the (Qatif) corniche” by the attackers after they saw the couple in this alleged state of indecency.

The woman’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, had said in a previous interview with Arab News that the police investigation records states that the two victims were abducted in a public place, in front of a shopping mall.

The statement claimed that the two victims of the gang rape hid the incident for three months until an e-mail was sent to the woman’s betrothed “informing him what happened to his wife, and her betrayal.”

A source close to the case that wishes to remain anonymous told Arab News that no e-mail was sent and that the woman’s betrothed didn’t find out about the crime until he was told by his friends that the rapists were bragging about the crime in the small community of Qatif.

This is a great introduction to how Shari'a law works as a basis for a modern legal system. Two victims of a crime are not valid witnesses against the rapists because one of them is a woman; appealing a sentence while talking to the media will make your sentence more severe; and the police and judicial system can lie to cover up their own embarrassment.

And Saudi Arabia's isn't the only shari'a-based legal system:

Kuwait, as a state and people, views the Holy Book the Koran as the reference of guidelines for managing and maintaining the homeland, a senior official affirms.

Undersecretary of Awqaf Adel Al-Falah underscored the fact that the commitment to the holy book helps in maintaining social security and stability for the homeland and the whole Islamic nation, noting the Koranic guidelines for moderation and positive manners.

Freedom of the press, PalArab-style (XI)

From Ma'an:

Ma'an journalist Hafith Asakra was kidnapped on Saturday evening by five masked gunmen as he headed to work at Ma'an's main office in Bethlehem.

The abductors bound his hands and legs, detaining him for 12 hours.

They demanded to use his Ma'an password to post a fictitious news story, aimed at stirring up trouble between Ma'an and the Palestinian factions and security services.

He refused to give in to his abductors' demands.

Keep in mind, this isn't Gaza. This is the "safe" section of the PA-controlled territories.

News headlines

Lots of interesting links on today's JCPA Daily Alert:

- Palestinian Arabs have been systematically attacking and damaging West Bank Jewish farms and agricultural gear. That's not surprising - what is surprising is that Ha'aretz actually covers the story.

- Also from Ha'aretz: news about the links between German companies and Iranian nukes.

- Articles on the looming Annapolis debacle from Natan Sharansky, WSJ, Emmanuel Sivan, Dore Gold.

- A cool Esquire article on Gal Luft, an Israeli who has concrete ideas on how to get away from dependence on Arab oil.

Unsportsmanlike behavior

From PCHR:

In the past 10 days, 3 sports clubs in the Gaza Strip have been attacked in the context of the state of security chaos prevailing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 03:00 on Thursday, 22 November 2007, unknown persons attacked Deir al-Balah Sports Club in Deir al-Balah refugee camp and set fire to the office of the administration, heavily damaging it.

At approximately 01:00 on Wednesday, 21 November 2007, unknown persons attacked Gaza Sports club in al-Remal neighborhood in Gaza City. They stole two computer sets from the offices of the board and the accountant.

On Sunday, 11 November 2007, militants from Hamas seized al-Tuffah Sports Club in al-Tuffah neighborhood in the east of Gaza City, and prevented its staff from entering it.

PCHR is deeply concerned over these attacks, which constitute an assault on the right to association, and are part of the state of security chaos prevailing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Sports clubs? Are these teams, or community centers, or gyms? Either way, it looks like Hamas' paranoia is increasing.

About that Gaza humanitarian crisis....

From Ma'an (Arabic):

The commander of the [Fatah-based] Ahmed Abu Rish Martyr Brigades yesterday claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Sufa three military-type missiles Amr 2.

The battalions in a press release wrote: "This operation came in a series Covenant and fulfill the spirit of the martyr leader Yasser Arafat, the symbol, stressing adherence to the approach of resistance as a strategic choice".

There are multiple daily bombing and rocket attacks attacks against crossings between Gaza and Israel, so this would hardly be noteworthy if it wasn't for this:

Israel will allow the opening of the Sufa crossing for the passage of agricultural produce, beginning with strawberries and flowers and then expanding to include other produce, [Agriculture Minister Shalom] Simchon told Israel Radio.

For the first time in weeks, the crossing was opened Tuesday for two hours to allow the passage into the Gaza Strip of 200 calves, the radio said.

So the "militants" are doing everything necessary to shut down Gaza's lifeline.

In the unparalleled logic of Palestinian Arab leaders and their apologists, hurting thousands of PalArabs is a strategic long-term goal because the perceived benefit - that forcing their people to suffer helps their public relations - far outweighs the misery that they inflict on their own people.

The funny thing is that events like this gain next to no coverage in the Western media, and Hamas certainly doesn't dare condemn such acts of "resistance," so in a perverse way it works. People see Gaza suffering, no one sees how much of it is inflicted by Gazan "leaders" themselves.

Hajj becomes a political tool for Hamas/Fatah

Hajj, the obligatory pilgrimage that Muslims make to Mecca and one of the most important Islamic precepts, has been turned into a political farce by the Palestinian Arab "leaders."

In early November, Hamas accused Fatah of conspiring to stop Gaza Muslims from performing Hajj:

Speaking during a 90-minute speech in downtown Gaza, Haneyya blamed the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority for colluding with the Zionist regime for the purpose of starving, impoverishing and tormenting the Palestinian people.

"They (the American-backed PA) collaborated with Israel at the UN to scrap an international resolution condemning Israel . This happened for the first time in history. They conspired to close all the border crossings, they conspired to prevent all raw material from entering into Gaza…even in matters of pilgrimage, they are conspiring to bar our people from carrying out their religious duties such as Umra (minor pilgrimage) and Hajj (pilgrimage)."

Apparently, this is not entirely true. Pro-Fatah Palestine Press Agency reports (autotranslated):

threatened visited Awqaf and Religious Affairs article, which send out Hamas militias outside the law in the Gaza Strip today, the pilgrims who are trying to send their passports to the Palestinian government in Ramallah to coordinate them to perform Hajj in the occupied Alhijazih imprisonment and prosecution. "

The ministry said it would prevent pilgrims from the Gaza Strip who approved by the government in Ramallah on the exit and completed their coordination to perform the Hajj to emerge verbally pursued. "

She said in a press statement that "every citizen passport sent to the Ministry of Ramallah government will not be allowed to travel and will be legal and judicial prosecution him."

This statement is a clear recognition of the Hamas movement and the government as the article is the reason to prevent the completion of the pilgrimage season for the people of the Gaza Strip which hinder the process of facilitating travel for their own partisan and narrow. "

I have no idea what the truth is, but what is clear is that the commitment to Islam seems to fade from the radar of their "leaders" as they jockey for political points.

And, as has historically been the case, the Palestinian Arabs themselves get screwed by their supposed leaders. But never fear - they are only doing it for the greater good.

Arab economic benefit from Zionism, 1933

Here's another article from the Palestine Post that shows how Arabs benefited from Jewish investment in Palestine. The issue was October 10, 1933. Even if one argues that the source is biased, the figures are precise.

It shows that the number of dunams of land planted by Arabs skyrocketed, unemployment dropped sharply, and that the major beneficiaries of agriculture tax were Arabs.

The editorial in that issue expands upon the findings and compares them to the awful economic conditions in Palestine's Arab neighbors:

This continued to be the case until the 1936-39 Arab "revolt," meant as a strike to cripple the Jewish economy, instead it only retarded the Arab economy in Palestine. As we've seen countless times since, the Arab leaders directly caused their own people to suffer in their vain pursuit of destroying the Jewish national movement.

Arab immigration into Palestine, 1922-1931

One of the interesting sub-conversations I've been having with my Palestinian Arab correspondent in my comments section concerns illegal Arab immigration into Palestine. He claims that it essentially didn't happen; I claim that it was significant as a result of economic factors.

While my claim mirrors that of Joan Peters in her book "From Time Immemorial" it takes nothing from that book; rather my information comes from contemporaneous articles in the Palestine Post. My correspondent dismisses pretty much all evidence that doesn't fit his dogma as unreliable Zionist lies, although he is unclear on exactly what the motive is for a newspaper to put its own reputation on the line by making up stories.

Peters' methodology is heavily criticized in Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens' book, Blaming the Victims. The actual article that takes issue with Peters is written by the hardly-unbiased Norman Finkelstein. He brings up some good points about sloppiness on Peters' part but he is hardly blameless in the other direction. For example, on page 48, Finkelstein takes pains to quote a British official denying a significant number of Hawranites moving from Syria to Palestine because "the Palestine Government had taken special measures" on the Syrian border to keep out undesirable people. Yet a few paragraphs later he admits that there was significant immigration from Hawran, and then claims that the Hawranites all went back into Syria later in the decade. He doesn't bother to point out that if the British denied the the fact of the Hawranites' entry to begin with, that they also would have missed a large percentage of illegal immigrants that they didn't know about.

This is a hard topic to research as the hard numbers that are available are not necessarily accurate. But one scholar that took on this challenge was Fred Gottheil, who took an economic perspective into the issue, in an article in Middle East Quarterly in 1973, predating Peters. He summarized his findings - and showed problems with the critics - in a 2003 article for Middle East Quarterly.

He first establishes well-known patterns of migration from undeveloped economies to more developed economies. He then shows current migratory patterns for Palestinian Arabs towards oil-rich states. He then goes on to document the economy of Palestine as being much better than that of surrounding countries in the 1930s, with the daily wages of Arabs in Palestine more than doubling those of its neighbors. Thus he sets the stage - it would be highly unusual if there wasn't mass migration into Palestine by Arabs in that timeframe.

Direct evidence for this immigration remains fragmentary and somewhat anecdotal, but it does add up:

There are several problems associated with estimating Arab immigration into Palestine during the 1920s, the principal one being that Arab migration flows were, in the main, illegal, and therefore unreported and unrecorded.[17] But they were not entirely unnoticed.

Demographer U.O. Schmelz's analysis of the Ottoman registration data for 1905 populations of Jerusalem and Hebron kazas (Ottoman districts), by place of birth, showed that of those Arab Palestinians born outside their localities of residence, approximately half represented intra-Palestine movement—from areas of low-level economic activity to areas of higher-level activity—while the other half represented Arab immigration into Palestine itself, 43 percent originating in Asia, 39 percent in Africa, and 20 percent in Turkey.[18] Schmelz conjectured:

The above-average population growth of the Arab villages around the city of Jerusalem, with its Jewish majority, continued until the end of the mandatory period. This must have been due—as elsewhere in Palestine under similar conditions—to in-migrants attracted by economic opportunities, and to the beneficial effects of improved health services in reducing mortality—just as happened in other parts of Palestine around cities with a large Jewish population sector.[19]

While Schmelz restricted his research of the 1905 Palestinian census to the official Ottoman registrations and used these registrations with only minor critical comment, he did acknowledge that "stable population models assume the absence of external migrations, a condition which was obviously not met by all the subpopulations" that Schmelz enumerated.[20]

Like U.O. Schmelz, Roberto Bachi expressed some reservation about the virtual non-existence of data and discussion concerning migration into and within Palestine. He writes:

Between 1800 and 1914, the Muslim population had a yearly average increase in the order of magnitude of roughly 6-7 per thousand. This can be compared to the very crude estimate of about 4 per thousand for the "less developed countries" of the world (in Asia, Africa, and Latin America) between 1800 and 1910. It is possible that part of the growth of the Muslim population was due to immigration.[21]

Although Bachi did not pursue the linkage between undocumented immigration into Palestine and the 6 (or 7) to 4 per thousand differential in growth rates between Palestine and the other less developed countries (LDCs), the idea that at least one-third of Palestine's population growth may be attributed to immigration is—using Bachi's own growth rate differentials—not an entirely unreasonable one.

Lacking verifiable evidence did not prevent Bachi from stating the obvious concerning internal migration within Palestine:

The great economic development of the coastal plains—largely due to Jewish immigration—was accompanied both in 1922-1931 and in 1931-1944 by a much stronger increase of the Muslim and Christian populations in this region than that registered in other regions. This was probably due to two reasons: stronger decrease in mortality of the non-Jewish population in the neighborhood of Jewish areas and internal migration toward the more developed zones.[22]

In the footnote accompanying this quote, Bachi writes: "As no statistics are available for internal migration, this conclusion has been obtained from indirect evidence."[23] Bachi's footnote is instructive. The "indirect evidence" he referred to no doubt included his understanding of the important role economics plays in explaining demographic movements. While appreciating the value of Ottoman registrations and British mandatory government censuses in providing estimates of Palestinian demography, they were, in his judgment, still crude and incomplete.

Reference to Arab immigration into Palestine during the 1920s is made as well in the British mandatory government's annual compilation of statistical data on population. The Palestine Blue Book, 1937, for example, provides time series demographic statistics whose annual estimates are based on extrapolations from its 1922 census.[24] The footnote accompanying the table on population of Palestine reads:

There has been unrecorded illegal immigration of both Jews and Arabs in the period since the census of 1931, but it is clear that, since it cannot be recorded, no estimate of its volume is possible.[25]

The 1935 British report to the League of Nations noted that:

One thousand five hundred and fifty-seven persons (including 565 Jews) who, having made their way into the country surreptitiously, were later detected, were sentenced to imprisonment for their offence and recommended for deportation.[26]

The number who "made their way into the country surreptitiously" and undetected was neither estimated nor mentioned.

Historian Gad Gilbar's observation on Ruth Kark's contribution to his edited volume Ottoman Palestine, 1800-1914, touches on the issue of Arab immigration into and within Palestine. He relates her ideas in "The Rise and Decline of Coastal Towns in Palestine" to Charles Issawi's thesis concerning the role of minority groups and foreigners in the development of Middle Eastern towns. Explaining why no other Palestinian cities grew as rapidly as Jaffa and Haifa did during the final three decades of the Ottoman rule, Gilbar writes: "Both attracted population from the rural and urban surroundings and immigrants from outside Palestine."[27]

Each piece of the demographic puzzle by itself may reveal no identifiable picture. But given a multiplicity of such pieces, an image does begin to appear. The Royal Institute for International Affairs adds another piece. Commenting on the growth of the Palestinian population during the decades of the 1920s and 1930s it reports: "The number of Arabs who have entered Palestine illegally from Syria and Transjordan is unknown. But probably considerable."[28] And C.S. Jarvis, governor of the Sinai from 1923-36, adds yet another:

This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Trans-Jordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery.[29]

Gottheil goes on to show the undeniable patterns of intra-Palestine migration towards areas with high Jewish population, again proving that Palestinian Arabs were highly itinerant and providing more circumstantial evidence that Arabs outside Palestine, given the same disparity in economic opportunity, would have great incentive to move into Palestine.

Finally, he looks at Justin McCarthy's "1990 The Population of Palestine" which discounts Arab immigration emphatically without any evidence - in fact, McCarthy uses some numbers from another demographer to "prove" very little immigration while ignoring that other demographer's own caveats that he was not counting illegal immigration. McCarthy makes the same mistake that others do in assuming that British records on illegal immigration were accurate, when in fact they only recorded the number of people they caught and jailed.

Putting it all together, even though Peters' numbers may be exaggerated, it is undeniable that a significant number of what we today call "Palestinians" actually moved into Palestine as a result of the economic opportunities that came in the wake of Jewish - and British - capital and investment. Similarly, the Arabs of Palestine profited greatly from Jewish economic growth, consistently moving towards Jewish areas in order to cash in.

Turkey and cholent at Brooklyn soup-kitchen

From JPost:

Though not a well-celebrated holiday among the haredim, come Thursday night, Masbia - a soup kitchen that serves hot meals five nights a week in the heart of Borough Park - will also partake in the [Thanksgiving] festivities.

The mixed crowd the soup kitchen attracts - ultra-Orthodox and non-Jew alike - will get a taste of two traditions, side by side. Thursday's menu will include a serving of turkey and cholent, as part of a four-course meal planned to begin with coleslaw and pickles and end with dessert.

Weeks in advance, Jews were already calling Masbia, looking to volunteer at the soup kitchen on Thanksgiving - a holiday many use as an opportunity to thank God and give back to the community.

This year, food pantries can use all the help they can get, as shortages have reached an all-time high. The scarcity has been caused by steady cuts to a federal food program over the last five years, combined with growing demand.

...
Masbia's founders witness the growing poverty daily. Not a week goes by when Alexander Rapaport, who co-founded Masbia with Mordechai Mandelbaum, doesn't see a member of his community searching through the garbage bins.

On its opening night two-and-a-half years ago, Masbia served eight meals. Today, it serves 160 dinners a day.

To meet their $500,000 annual budget, Masbia, which does not receive steady government funding, has come to depend on a daily spirit of "thanksgiving." The founders have found a way to resurrect an "old world" ritual and at the same time ensure that the supply at Masbia never dries up.

Today, most of their annual budget comes from newlyweds and their parents, who thank God by sponsoring a meal at the soup kitchen in the days before the wedding celebration.

"The most appropriate thing to do before my wedding was to pay for a hot meal," said Meir Neuman, who got married less than a week ago. "This is the way to give gratitude to God and let the poor join in my simcha."

To sponsor an entire night costs $960, or roughly $6 a meal.

The tradition dates back to the "old world," where the custom was to sponsor a "poor man's meal" in the days before the wedding. The Talmud and Midrash relate stories in which giving to the poor at the time of the wedding saves the couple from potential danger. What evolved was a tradition of giving to the less-fortunate as part of the pre-wedding ritual.

"When Europe was still a bustling Jewish center, everyone made a 'poor man's wedding' for poor people to have good meal," said Neuman.

In America, that tradition largely faded. But Masbia has found a way to bring it back into style.

"If tomorrow will be the day I rejoice the most, at least let others less fortunate rejoice with me," said Neuman, who came to Masbia dressed in his wedding garb. "[At] my wedding, I spend time with my family and friends, but at Masbia, I am with klal yisrael [the Jewish people]."

Recently, a man visiting from Israel came to eat at Masbia. He came alone, but behind him, a family with small children sat down to eat.

"I couldn't believe what I found here. I never saw it in Israel or anywhere in the world," he said. "Haredim and non-haredim eat together, goyim [and] not-goyim, everyone eats in harmony."

Come Thanksgiving, he said, "we will all celebrate here together."

Pictures of jailed Palestinian lawmakers are seen during a Hamas lawmakers' session of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza November 21, 2007. REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah (GAZA)

More on the Saudi rape case

I mentioned the case in Saudi Arabia of a woman who met a male friend when both were abducted and repeatedly raped by a gang of Saudi men, and the victims ended up getting sentenced to prison and 90 lashes.

And when her lawyer tried to appeal, the Saudi justices doubled the victims' sentences to 200 lashes and more prison time.

Well, the Saudi Ministry of Justice is backing the judges' ruling:

The Ministry of Justice made its first public statement regarding the second verdict in the so-called “Qatif Girl” rape trial, justifying the decision to punish the victims with lashes and jail time on the basis of “some proved charges.”

The statement, which was released through the official Saudi Press Agency, said the ministry “welcomes objective criticism that benefits the general good, away from emotional responses.”

Last week “Qatif Girl”, whose name has not been released to protect her identity, and a male companion saw their sentences increased from 90 lashes to 200 lashes and six months in jail on orders by the Higher Court of Justice.

The two were found guilty of being in a state of khalwa, when an unrelated man and woman are found together, prior to their abduction and rape. The sentences of the seven men found guilty of abducting and repeatedly raping the young woman and her male companion were also increased to between two and nine years each...

The ministry also said yesterday in its statement that anyone has a right to appeal verdicts, but also warned of “stirring up agitation through the media that may not be objective and cannot grant anyone any right as much as it can negatively affect the other parties involved in the case.”

The ministry statement used the term “the woman and her male friend” and “the woman and her companion” without referring to either of them as rape victims.

The Qatif General Court also revoked Al-Lahem’s license to practice law for “disobeying rules and regulations” at a hearing during Ramadan, according to yesterday’s statement from the ministry.

The statement didn’t elaborate on the nature of the violations the lawyer allegedly committed in the courtroom.

Al-Lahem told Arab News on Sunday that the incident was sparked when he objected to the presence of the rapists in the courtroom, saying that under Saudi law she did not need to be present and in the same room with her attackers.

Sounds like just the kind of country the US should be selling weapons to.

A "Shabbos goy" robot?

Israelity reports:

A robot programmed to work on Shabbat will do it: clear the table, turn off the oven, control the a/c and click lights off and on - especially the bathroom one that gets turned off accidentally in the middle of the night by half-awake innocents.

According to the Hebrew press, “Shabbat Robot” is the brainchild of White Box Robotics, a subsidiary of Frontline Robotics.

The robot is meant to replace the traditional Shabbos Goy - a controversial term used for non-Jews hired to perform work-related tasks for Jews on the Sabbath.

But it’s gonna cost ya; About $4000 when product hits the market.

I can't wait to see what ShaBot 6000 will think of this.

Giving your enemies weapons in the name of peace

The (literally) criminal government of Olmert, Barak, Livni and company has crossed another couple of red lines, endangering not only Israeli citizens but the entire state - since yesterday.

When we last checked, the Olmert gang decided to release some 430 terrorists to appease a Palestinian Arab government that has no ability to govern. This came on the heels of other "gestures" like settlement freezes, amnesty of Fatah "militants," agreeing to bypass Phase 1 of the roadmap and put all of Israel on the table (even inside the Green Line,) floating ideas to divide Jerusalem - and pretty much doing everything necessary to ensure that in five years there will be a barrage of rockets coming from the heart of Eretz Yisrael towards the Jews huddled by the Mediterranean.

Yesterday, the government with the lowest approval rating in the history of democracy threw in a few more rewards for terror: allowing the PA to receive 25 armored vehicles, a thousand rifles and 2 million bullets.

Oh, Ha'aretz also reports that Israel has dismantled some 25 checkpoints in the West Bank as well.

And just one more tiny thing - there are reports that Olmert is also agreeing to the Palestinian Arab "right of return" in principle, and allowing as many at 20,000 Arabs to move into Israel.

The major PalArab "gesture" in the past week has been to add a couple of hundred out of their 80,000 "policemen" to make some cosmetic arrests of car thieves in Nablus. Of course, this meant that Israel pulled back from Nablus and removed some checkpoints.

And by sheer coincidence, the attack that killed Ido Zoldan came from the Nablus area that was being controlled so well by the incompetent, terror-leaning "policemen" of Fatah.

The goodwill doesn't only apply to Fatah terrorists. Hamas gets some action as well, as Ma'an is reporting this morning that Barak is allowing the export of strawberries and flowers from Gaza, just to add some more cash to Hamas' coffers.

See also Israellycool and Israel Matzav.

Annapolis blog entries (Think-Israel)

Think-Israel asked bloggers to contribute their postings about Annapolis to be consolidated and publicized:
-------------------------------------------

"An invitation to Annapolis," by Ellen W. Horowitz.

"Munich 1938, Annapolis 2007" by Chaim Szmidt. Read it at Freedom's Cost. [Submitted by TM. , who wrote: "This isn't my blog but it's from one of my favorites"]

"The Libel Tourist video", Rachel Ehrenfeld speaking. See this documentary at The Libel Tourist blog. Also viewable at astuteblogger.blogspot.com. [Saudis fund terrorists; ultimate objective -- to impose Sharia (Muslim Law) on everyone.]

"Mandate for Palestine: The Legal Aspects of Jewish Rights" by Eli E. Hertz. Download it at Myths and Facts website. Or download it directly by clicking here. A Hebrew version is also available. [Israel's right to Biblical Israel (the "West Bank") is irrevocable by international law.]

"Questions And Answers About Israel, Annapolis, And 'Peace'" by Steven Plaut (www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com). Read it at the Jewish Press. [Why Israel should not go to Annapolis.]

"Anti-Americanism Dangerously Misunderstood, While Israel is Still Expected to do all the Heavy Lifting," by Phyllis Chesler. Read it at Chesler Chronicles. [Israel gives. Gets grief. Gives more. Gets no respect.]

"Stacked Deck! Peace conference invitee list revealed." by Batya Medad. Read it at Shiloh's Musings. [Hail, hail, the gang's all here and Israel gets to play the sacrificial lamb.]

"Honest Broker or Dangerous Scam?" by Batya Medad. Read it a Shiloh Musings. [Blair and Rice aren't honest brokers. They're partisan.]

"Annapolis..." by Chaim Szmidt. Read it at Freedom's Cost. [Olmert buys off countrymen who could bring his administration down and kowtows to administrations that could wipe out his country.]

"November 1947 and Annapolis déjà vu," by Elder of Ziyon" Read it at Elder of Ziyon. [However failure or success is measured at Annapolis, the day after there will be violence.]

"Quo Vadis Annapolis?" by Yoram Ettinger. Read it at The Ettinger Report. [Arabs view peace as just another a tactic to defeat their enemies.]

"Jerusalem" by Akiva. Read it at Mystical Paths. [Jerusalem is too important to Judaism to lose her.]

"Condi's Fatal Error" by Arlene Kushner (http://www.arlenefromisrael.info/). Read it at Front Page Magazine. [Sec-State Rice's judgment is poor.]

"The Annapolis Summit" by Bernice Lipkin. Read it at Think-Israel. [This "peace process" is as wrong-headed as the previous ones. We need a new paradigm for peace.]

"Surprise... Not! Palestinians Abuse Their Own Kids!" by Barbara. Read it at Barbara's Tchatzkahs. [Monster Alley isn't where you make a deal.]

"Annapolis: The very definition of antisemitism" by Anne Lieberman. Read at Boker tov, Boulder. [Annapolis applies a double standard. That's anti-Semitism.]

"Dangerous Times We Live In," by Ralph Levy. Read it at Ralph's Rant. [Points out indicators that Olmert is disregarding Israeli wishes and is recklessly willing to damage Israel.]

"Motivation" by Ralph Levy. Read it at Ralph's Rants. [Why the push by the Bush administration? Ralph speculations.]

"Ancient History" by Ancient Clown." Read it at Lest we forget. [Breaking treaties isn't a new concept that needs time to understand.]

"Coordinating Committee to Save Jerusalem and other items" by Yid With Lid. Read it at Yid with Lid. [Catch up with what many bloggers are writing.]

"Every Party Needs A Pooper," by Jeff Dunetz. (www.jeffdunetz.com) . Read it at Jeff Dunetz [How the Arabs play "who wants to make mid-east Peace?"]

"At Annapolis, Will Israel Sink Or Swim?" by Yisrael Medad (myrightword.blogspot.com). Read it at Arutz-Sheva. [Annapolis proposals sound upbeat but they are in Israel's worst interests.]

"Israel should say to US, 'Bring it on?'" by Ted Belman. Read it at IsraPundit, November 15, 2007. [Saying "no" to America's goal of creating a Palestinian State could be very good for Israel.]

" Let's give them a state!" by Carl in Jerusalem. Read it at Israel Matzav [93.3% Palestinian Arab children experience domestic violence. A state is the gestalt of its citizens. So what can we expect of their State?]

Higher education, PalArab-style

From Ma'an:

Birzeit University near the West Bank city of Ramallah suspended classes until further notice following fighting among students from rival political factions on Tuesday.

Birzeit Public Relations director Ghassan Andoni told Ma'an that the university administration has suspended teaching and evacuated students "for their safety."

A Birzeit student said that students were hospitalized after a fight broke out between supporters of the ruling Fatah party and supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

A source close to the Fatah-affiliated student bloc alleged that four masked PFLP students assaulted a Fatah-supporter in his room.

Ma'an Arabic adds some detail, which I do not fully understand in autotranslation but the word "assaulted seems to be an understatement:

Sources claimed vicinity of Youth "that four masked from Algiha People attacked at about one o'clock at dawn today, the student housing (a. C) calculated on the Youth and their Blaatdae by a savage blow with nails through the feet and the point of burning coal and sticks strike, requiring his transfer to hospital Sheikh Zayed in Ramallah for treatment. "

At least they are too moral to drink beer.

Red Cross to terrorists:"Play nice"

From the BBC (h/t Backspin):

Thirty hooded gunmen sit at desks around a flip chart, pen and paper in hand, listening to a lecture on the laws of war by the international Red Cross.

All the Palestinian armed factions have signed up to the course, though they are being taught in individual groups.

The head of Gaza operations for the Red Cross, Anthony Dalziel, said the course was part of his organisation's worldwide effort to teach international humanitarian law to all parties in armed conflict.

Here in Gaza the classes are lively. The teacher is locally-recruited Red Cross staffer Iyad Nasr.

"The guys like to push and to challenge us. They seem to enjoy, to be interested even in the material they are given.

Mr Nasr told me how surprised some of the gunmen were to find that groups like theirs have a status under international law.

"But then they also have to realise they have responsibilities. Legal ones. And if they don't keep them, they can be prosecuted under international law.

"And that comes as quite a surprise to these guys, most of whom have always viewed themselves as the victims."

And as freedom fighters, with right on their side.

As the class progresses, bandage wrappers are torn open. The gunmen are given a practical lesson in first aid.

All over the room, masked men pair up to practise, juggling bandages, splints and rescue lifts.

It is an incongruous sight but it sums up the main message of the Red Cross here - it doesn't matter who you are, in times of armed conflict it is your duty to protect civilians, the injured and prisoners.

But will these men change their behaviour outside the classroom?

I asked Abu Hotheifa, one of the gunmen on the course.

"There are things we learned here that surprised us. Things we weren't aware of but as to whether our actions will change on the ground, that is up to our leaders. They decide. Not us."

Civilians are often the victims in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in Palestinian in-fighting.

Gunmen use busy streets, even private homes, as battlegrounds.

Armed Palestinian groups fire rockets at Israeli towns like Sderot, just over the Gaza border, almost every day. Sometimes using public areas, like schools, as launch sites.

Abu Khaled is a local factional leader in Gaza. He told me his fighters were told to take the Red Cross course to show the world they are not as many see them.

"People think we are terrorists," he said. "But actually the Islamic law we follow is far stricter than international law in its rules of how to protect civilians and prisoners in war.

"By coming to the courses, we want to prove we are aware of international regulations. In fact, it is the other side which attacks civilians and kills innocent people."

I asked Abu Khaled about the rockets fired at Israel by his faction and others, with the aim of killing ordinary Israelis.

"They are responsible," he insisted.

Then came a threat not entirely in keeping with the Red Cross class going on around us.

"If they keep hurting our civilians they should know - today we may be targeting their people in Sderot , tomorrow and in the future, with new technology, our resistance will spread further.

"Our missiles will reach deeper inside Israel."

I suppose if the terrorists are spending hours watching immeasurably boring Powerpoint presentations, then they aren't spending that time preparing bombs in residential areas, so this course will help the situation marginally.

So far this year, over 80 Palestinian Arab women and children have been killed - by their own people.

1907: Moroccan Arabs kill Jews, rape women

I've been spending some time lately looking through old books at Google Books. Here's something I didn't know.

From the 1907 New International Year Book:

During the revolt of the Kabyles near Casa Blanca in August, following a bombardment of the town by a French battleship, the Arab tribes attacked 6000 Jews in Mallah, killing thirty and wounding sixty, and carrying off 250 young women and girls. The Jewish quarter was left in ruins and more than half the Jewish population wandered to Tangier, Gibraltar, and elsewhere in destitution.

In the latter part of November the town of Setlat was plundered by a tribe of Arabs and the Jewish population fled. On December 6 the Jewish village near Sefron was attacked by Berbers and a number of women and children were carried off. During this month nearly 500 Jews emigrated to Spain from Morocco.

Once again, we see that while Jews in Arab countries were certainly treated better on the whole than their compatriots in Europe, they were hardly treated as equals, and sometimes they were massacred - simply because they were Jews.

How Palestinian Arabs respond to goodwill gestures

Today, Israel announced that they were releasing some 441 prisoners ahead of Annapolis as a "goodwill gesture."

This evening, Israel was rewarded with the murder of a 29-year old Jew in the West Bank.

And who proudly took credit for this terror attack?

Fatah, of course.

A spokesman for the organization said that the terror attack was "an act of protest against the Annapolis conference and a response to Israeli crimes."

Now, keep in mind that just yesterday, the PA pretended that they already had disarmed Fatah and was now going after the PFLP:

The PA minister ...Yahya confirmed that the PA leadership had promised Israel to dismantle all militias and armed groups in the West Bank ahead of the Annapolis peace conference. He added that the first to be targeted were members of Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, so as not to give anyone an excuse to say that the PA leadership is favoring one group over the other.

So which is it: Abbas can control his own Fatah party, which means he is responsible for their terror attacks; or he doesn't, which means that he is nothing more than a figurehead?

Either way, he is not a man who Israel has any business making deals with, let alone unilateral concessions in the name of "peace" that invariably make things worse.

Great Moments in Saudi Jurisprudence

From Arab News, edited to show the historical order of events:

A year-and-a-half ago in the Eastern Province town of Qatif, a seven men gang-raped a 19-year-old girl 14 times. Three judges from the Qatif General Court sentenced the rape victim to 90 lashes for being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape. The sentences for the seven rapists ranged from 10 months to five years in prison.

The case was referred back to the General Court by the Appeals Court judges last summer after Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, the victim’s lawyer, successfully contested against the initial verdict saying it too lenient for the rapists and unjust for the victim.

Yesterday, the General Court in Qatif doubled the number of lashes for a rape victim as well as jail terms for her assaulters. In its verdict, the court also suspended the victim’s lawyer from defending her.
The Appeals Court sentenced the victim to 200 lashes and six months in prison. The seven rapists had their sentences increased to between two and nine years. The verdict came in as a shock to everybody.
A source at the Qatif General Court said that the judges had informed the rape victim that the reason behind doubling her punishment was “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.”

That's right - when the rape victim complained that punishing her for being raped was a bit unfair, the judges decided to she needs to be doubly punished for daring to tell them her opinion.

After all...she's just a woman.
(h/t Omri)

Reuters, AP photographers face off on important story

Reuters was the first out of the gate with their intrepid photographer, poised to take the picture that would perfectly illustrate all the subtleties of the conflict in one iconic image:

The convoy of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrives at the residence of Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem November 19, 2007.

A few seconds later, the AP photographer, clearly upset over missing this scoop, decided to take his photo with a bigger focus on the Israeli security guard with the gun, especially having him look to the side ominously:

An Israeli security guard stands in the street as the convoy of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrives at Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's residence for a meeting in Jerusalem, Monday, Nov. 19, 2007.

Then the AP photographer took advantage of his position to take a second photograph a few seconds after this one, designed to appeal more to the news editors who preferred landscape orientation:

The Reuters photographer, livid at this escalation in the cycle of wire service photographer violence, pushed the AP photographer out of the way to create his iconic landscape representation of the scene, also with the sideways glance:

Either that, or one must conclude that wire-service journalists are just sheep who don't try to find news nearly as much as they just lazily follow what everyone else is doing.

Even the PalArab "goodwill gestures" are meaningless

Israel, stumbling down the stairs leading to Annapolis, has made a number of "goodwill gestures" ahead of the meeting in order to appease the PA and the State Department. It is releasing hundreds of prisoners, freezing building in the settlements, dismantling others, Olmert met Abbas in PA territory for the first time, Israel granted amnesty to known Fatah terrorists, and Israeli officials have publicly floated possible concessions that go beyond Barak's ridiculous offer at Camp David.

On the other side, there has been one major PA initiative ahead of Annapolis: an increased deployment of a few hundred (out of the tens of thousands) "security forces" in Nablus, in an effort to re-impose law and order.

Last week, all the headlines from Nablus seemed to indicate that the crackdown was working. It seemed so successful that the US decided to throw another $1.3 million to the PA as a reward for finally doing a small percentage of its basic job for which it already gets hundreds of millions of dollars.

Today, we see that like most of the things the PA does, this crackdown was mostly a myth:

The PA minister said his forces were currently carrying out a massive security operation against armed gangs in the Nablus area. "These gangs have harmed the residents and caused them a lot of damage," he said. "We are determined to end the state of lawlessness and anarchy and dissolve all militias and armed groups." Yahya confirmed that the PA leadership had promised Israel to dismantle all militias and armed groups in the West Bank ahead of the Annapolis peace conference. He added that the first to be targeted were members of Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, so as not to give anyone an excuse to say that the PA leadership is favoring one group over the other.
Despite the PA's ongoing security operation in the Nablus area, local residents said that many armed groups were still operating there and that those taken into custody were not top gunmen.
"They are making many arrests, but it's mostly of suspects involved in petty crime," said a prominent businessman living in Nablus. "The latest security operation, which has nevertheless been welcomed by many here, is apparently aimed at appeasing the Americans and Israelis on the eve of the peace conference and showing that the Palestinian Authority is making a serious effort to impose law and order."

Apparently, the PA and Al-Aqsa have agreed to cool things off until Annapolis, and the PA will make a show of force like surrounding a (UNRWA-run) PFLP-stronghold "refugee" camp without any intent to enter it and disarm real terrorists. Everything the PA is doing is cosmetic, reversible and meaningless.

But it is enough to convince people who desperately want to continue to believe that the Palestinian Arab people desire to build a peaceful state.

The entire "peace process" is the grown-up equivalent of closing your eyes tightly and wishing really, really hard that this time, the Palestinian Arabs are serious.

Let them eat crabs

An interesting poll, reported by Ma'an (Arabic), shows that only 45% of Palestinian Arabs think that the existing government with Fayyad as prime minister is legitimate. Only 19% say that the Hamas government is legitimate.

Annapolis looks more and more like the "Geneva Initiative" where people from both sides who call themselves "leaders" negotiated a supposed solution. Of course, this "Annapolis Initiative" is supported by the United States.

Maryland is known for its crabs. Most Americans can eat and enjoy crabs, and sea crabs are halal - but they are not kosher.

Annapolis looks more and more like a crab banquet where the only people who cannot enjoy it are the Jews who actually care about being Jewish.

(And it is not a coincidence that the original authors of the Geneva Initiative are pretty much the only ones who are enthusiastic about Annapolis.)

The Great Thanksgiving Meeting, December 2, 1917

In the wake of the Balfour Declaration, British and world Zionist leaders gathered at the London Opera House to publicly show their thanks to the British government in promising them a homeland.

The speakers and audience members were almost all Zionists or very sympathetic to Zionism. If one wants to have a good idea of the mindset of early Zionists, reading their own words to their own people is invaluable.

So it is instructive to see how these Zionist leaders talked about the existing Arab population in Palestine. If, as some would claim, Zionism has always been inherently antagonistic to Arabs, and it had always planned to expel the Palestinian Arabs from their homes, one would guess that these speeches would provide an inkling of that plan.

Here is everything said on that day about Arabs in Palestine:

LORD ROBERT CECIL, K.C., M.P said:

We welcome among us not only the many thousands of Jews that I see, but also representatives of the Arabian and Armenian races who are also in this great struggle struggling to be free. (Hear, hear.) Our wish is that Arabian countries shall be for the Arabs, Armenia for the Armenians, and Judaea for the Jews. (Applause.) Yes, and let us add, if it can be so, let Turkey, real Turkey, be for the Turks.

MR. HERBERT SAMUEL, M.P. said:

Three conditions must indeed be observed in any new developments that may take place in Palestine. In the first place, there must be full, just recognition of the rights of the Arabs, who now constitute the majority of the population of that country. Secondly, there must be a reverent respect for the Christian and Mohammedan holy places, which in all eventualities should always remain in the control and charge of representatives of those faiths. (Cheers.)

COLONEL SIR MARK SYKES

And if there is one thing that gives me great pleasure here to-day it is to feel that you—at this turning-point in your history, when the Government made its Declaration—you thought not only of yourselves, but you thought also — and afterwards you will look back with joy on the fact—when the hope of redemption was held out to you, you thought not only of yourselves but also of your fellows in adversity, the Armenians and the Arabs. (Lend cheers.)

The British Chief Rabbi:

The spirit of the Declaration was that of absolute justice, whether to Jews out of Palestine or to non-Jews in Palestine. They especially welcomed in it the reference to the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. That was but a translation of the basic principle of the Mosaic legislation. (Cheers.)

"SHAHK ISMAIL ABDUL-AL-AKKI addressed the meeting. He spoke in Arabic, and his speech was translated by Mr. I. Sieff, who mentioned that the speaker was under sentence of death by the Turkish Government for having joined the Arab national movement":

Shahk Ismail said he desired to tender deep gratitude to the British nation and the British Government for affording his countrymen and himself help and asylum in their hour of persecution. His country was held in chains by the Turks, who were supplied with German gold, and he looked with confidence to England and France to deliver them from bondage, as he believed in the ultimate good over evil, and was confident in the victory of the Allies. He not only spoke as an Arab, but as a "Moslem" Arab, having studied five years in Theological Schools and being granted a Degree, and it was the duty of every Moslem to participate in the movement for the liberation of their countrymen.

The meeting was to celebrate the great act of the British Government in recognising the aspirations of the Jewish people, and he appealed to them not to forget in the days of their happiness that the sons of Ishmael suffered also. They had been scattered and confounded as the Jews had been, and now began to arise, fortified with the sense of martyrs. He hoped that Palestine would again flow with milk and honey. (Cheers.)

M. H. N.
MOSTDITCHIAN, a member of the Armenian Delegation, said he availed himself of the opportunity of giving their Jewish brethren the heartiest greetings of the Armenians — (cheers) —and sincerest congratulations for the dawn about to break upon the glad valleys of their ancestral land. ...It was not the time to say what the Armenians had suffered during the last three years—a state of things to which the worst pogrom was a heaven; but they, as well as the Jews, looked towards "tomorrow" with great fervour as a result of the Declaration. They had waited long enough with their Jewish brethren, for centuries and centuries, and these two nations as well as the Arabs would make Palestine another Promised Land and a Garden of Eden—a centre to which humanity might look up. (Cheers.)

MR. NAHUM SOKOLOW: (later to become president of the World Zionist Organization and to write his own History of Zionism, 1600-1918)

Relations between Jews and Arabs had hitherto been scanty and spasmodic, largely owing to mutual ignorance and indifference. There were no relations whatever between the two nations as such, because the oppressive Power did not recognise either of them, and whenever points of connection began to develop they were destroyed by intrigue, to the detriment of both nationalities. We believe that the present hour of crisis and the opening of a large perspective for epoch-making developments offer a fruitful opportunity for a broad basis of permanent cordial relations between two peoples who are inspired by a common purpose. We mean a real entente cordiale between Jews, Arabs, and Armenians, such an entente cordiale having already been accepted in principle by leading representatives of these three nations. From such a beginning we look forward with confidence to a future of intellectual, social, and economic co-operation; we are one with the Arabs and Armenians to-day in the determination to secure for each of us the free choice of our own destinies. We look with fraternal love at the creation of the Arab kingdom, re-establishing Semitic nationality in its glory and freedom, and our heartiest wishes go out to the noble, hardly-tried Armenian nationality for the realisation of their national hopes in their old Armenia. Our roots were united in the past, our destinies will be bound together in the future.

A few days later, Mr. Sokolow in a later demonstration said:

We appreciate deeply the important remarks offered by our distinguished friend Sir Mark Sykes on the subject of the relations between the Jews, the Arabs, and the Armenians. My reply to these remarks is: We are Zionists—not only Zionists for ourselves, but also for the Arabs and the Armenians as well. Zionism means faithfulness to one's own old country, to one's own old home. Zionism means consciousness of a nation. Can we Jews be ignorant of the fact that the Arab nation is a noble nation which has been persecuted? Is not the co-operation between the Arabs and ourselves, the Jews, in the Middle Ages for civilisation and for true culture written in our hearts and deep-rooted in our conscience? Our membership of the Semitic race, our title to a place in the civilisation of the world and to influence the world and take our share in the development of civilisation, have always been emphasised. If racial kinship really counts, if great associations exist which must serve as a foundation for the future, these associations exist between us and the Arabs. I believe in the logic of these facts. In the principle of nationality lies the certainty of our justice. There lies also the certainty of our brotherhood with the Arabs and the Armenians. We look most hopefully to the happy days when these three nations will create—in fact they have already created in the consciousness of some of their leaders—an entente cordiale in the countries of the Near East which have been neglected for so long. We are not going to take away anybody's property or to prejudice anybody's rights. We are going to find the land which is available and to settle down wherever there is room, and to live in the best relations with our neighbours—to live and to let the others live. Palestine is not yet a populated, civilised, prosperous country. We are going to make it so by investing our means, our energies, and our intelligence....

We Zionists hate the word toleration, and Sir Mark Sykes really struck the very point when he condemned the word. We don't like mere toleration by non-Jews, and we don't want them to be tolerated. We know that Palestine is full of sanctuaries and of holy places, holy to the Christian world, holy to Islam, holy to ourselves. Are we blind not to see that there are these places of worship and of veneration? Palestine is the very place where religious conflicts should disappear. There we should meet as brethren, and there we should learn to love each other, not merely to tolerate each other. (Applause.)

Even in the wake of an astounding political victory, the Zionists took pains to say that they wanted to be partners with the Arabs; that they were looking forward to Arab states becoming independent side-by-side with the Jewish state; that Zionism should inspire the Arabs and other oppressed peoples to greater heights.

The worst that can be said about the early Zionist vision of Jewish/Arab unity is that it was hopelessly optimistic, that wishful thinking was allowed to trump common sense (as history was to show only a few years later as the Arabs, goaded by "leaders" who were motivated out of self-aggrandizement and pure anti-semitism, started their first deadly riots against Jews in Palestine.) But to read these words and conclude that the early Zionist leaders had anything but respect for their Arab neighbors would be to be purposefully blind.

Latest PalArab Annapolis demands

Palestine Press Agency notes (autotranslated, cleaned up:)

Dr. Saeb Erakat, head of the Negotiations Affairs in the Palestine Liberation Organization, said that the instructions of President Mahmoud Abbas were not to sign any agreement or treaty with the Israeli side in Annapolis unless they include the release of all Palestinian prisoners without exception.

Erekat stressed during his meeting with a number of wives and mothers of prisoners and detainees in Tulkarem this evening, that any "treaty or agreement with the Israeli side is unacceptable and will not sign unless it also includes opening all offices of the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, and the complete elimination of the settlements, and withdraw from the West Bank." He stressed that this is not disputed.

Once again, the Palestinian Arabs have shown that they have no ability to even think about compromise.

Which means that once again, their so-called leaders are willing to sentence their own people to more decades of misery rather than accept anything that falls short of their maximal demands.

And in fifty years, after they have killed a few more thousand of their own and perhaps a few hundred Jews, their grandchildren will be saying that they will now consider accepting the Barak offer.

Hamas arrests al-Dura's father

From AP:

Hamas security briefly detained on Saturday the father of a Palestinian boy who became a national symbol when he was killed during intense fighting in Gaza seven years ago.

Jamal al-Dura, 44, said he was held for four hours in a central Gaza police station and interrogated for allegedly shooting in the air during a family wedding. Al-Dura, a Fatah supporter, denied the accusations and said he can't carry guns because of his medical condition.

Is Zionism racist?

During my (so-far) civil dialog with Palestinian Arabs in the messages, one recurring theme that my second correspondent is convinced of is the racist origins of Zionism.

This has been a basic motif whenever critics of Israel start their arguments to Western audiences, as the accusation of "racism" is emotionally charged and provokes a visceral disgust at the accused. It is not always easy to strip such an emotional argument down into any sort of logical context, but it is still worth taking seriously if only to fully air it out. After all, it wasn't that long ago that the UN agreed with this vile formula that "Zionism is the same as racism."

The anti-Israel crowd will bring up supposed evidence of racism - out-of-context quotes from Zionist leaders, real-life examples of discrimination against Arabs in Israel, the entire 1948 war as an example of Zionist aggression against Arabs, the "law of return," plus the colonialist charge we recently discussed, with the implication that colonialists always looked at the natives of the colony as subhuman savages.

The pro-Israel crowd typically answers these charges by pointing out that Arabs have equal rights in Israel, that Israeli Arabs are in much better shape than those of Arab nations, and that it is hypocritical to accuse Israel of racism when Arab nations are much worse.

Even the brilliant speech by Chaim Herzog in response to that infamous UN resolution used this same formula:

We in Israel have endeavored to create a society which strives to implement the highest ideals of society -- political, social and cultural -- for all the inhabitants of Israel, irrespective of religious belief, race or sex.
Show me another pluralistic society in this world in which despite all the difficult problems, Jew and Arab live together with such a degree of harmony, in which the dignity and rights of man are observed before the law, in which no death sentence is applied, in which freedom of speech, of movement, of thought, of expression are guaranteed, in which even movements which are opposed to our national aims are represented in our Parliament.

The Arab delegates talk of racism. What has happened to the 800,000 Jews who lived for over two thousand years in the Arab lands, who formed some of the most ancient communities long before the advent of Islam. Where are they now?

The Jews were once one of the important communities in the countries of the Middle East, the leaders of thought, of commerce, of medical science. Where are they in Arab society today? You dare talk of racism when I can point with pride to the Arab ministers who have served in my government; to the Arab deputy speaker of my Parliament; to Arab officers and men serving of their own volition in our border and police defense forces, frequently commanding Jewish troops; to the hundreds of thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East crowding the cities of Israel every year; to the thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East coming for medical treatment to Israel; to the peaceful coexistence which has developed; to the fact that Arabic is an official language in Israel on a par with Hebrew; to the fact that it is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel as it is incongruous to think of a Jew serving in any public office in an Arab country, indeed being admitted to many of them. Is that racism? It is not! That, Mr. President, is Zionism.
Zionism is our attempt to build a society, imperfect though it may be, in which the visions of the prophets of Israel will be realized. I know that we have problems. I know that many disagree with our government's policies. Many in Israel too disagree from time to time with the government's policies ... and are free to do so because Zionism has created the first and only real democratic state in a part of the world that never really knew democracy and freedom of speech.

While all of this is true, it would not convince any Arab critic. They would point out that fundamentally Arabs are still second-class citizens in Israeli society, and that for all the talk of Arab accomplishments in Israel, it is somewhat condescending - somewhat like how Saudi Arabia might brag about women's rights in the kingsom nowadays.

I firmly believe that all of this is a smokescreen - that very few of Israel's critics really care about this real or imagined discrimination, and they are using this as a rhetorical device to destroy Israel, one weapon among many. It is an emotional argument dressed up as a logical one. This belief is a major reason that the actual issue has not been dealt with too much - Israel's supporters feel that even addressing these issues somehow gives them legitimacy.

Even so, I think that there is a tiny germ of truth in such absurd talk, and it needs to be addressed honestly and forthrightly. Truth is not anything to be afraid of, even when it reveals that things are not entirely black and white.

Any discussion of the topic needs to do away with the word "racism." To say that Zionism is racist is absurd by any real definition of the term, and even with the broadest definition it does not apply. After all, a large number of Israelis are descended from Arab Jews and there are Israelis of every race. The term is used purely as a club to incite.

So Israel's critics need to define "racism" to begin with. This accomplishes two things: it establishes a means to communicate without both sides talking past each other, and it also points out that criticizing Israel in a vacuum without seeing it in context is itself a form of discrimination. If every nation on Earth is equally or more guilty of the same thing, this doesn't excuse it but it also shows that the accuser probably has an agenda that is totally unrelated to the accusation.

Nevertheless, there is a fundamental issue: is the establishment of a homeland for the Jews a discriminatory act against the Arabs that lived there? Taking away the discrimination that Arabs have against, well, everybody else, taking away the fact that Arabs can become MKs and judges in the Jewish state - even ignoring all those issues, is the basic idea of Zionism discriminatory?

We can look at this issue from a number of angles.

Let's first look definitionally. As I mentioned in a previous post, a good definition of Zionism is:

Zionism is the national revival movement of the Jews. It holds that the Jews are a people and therefore have the right to self-determination in their own national home. It aims to secure and support a legally recognized national home for the Jews in their historical homeland, and to initiate and stimulate a revival of Jewish national life, culture and language.

So pure Zionism doesn't address the issue either way. It is a pro-Jewish movement, not an anti-Arab or anti-Gentile movement. It defines, accurately, Jews as being a distinctive people and it asserts the right for the Jewish people for self-determination.

Historically, there is no question that early Zionists discussed the issue of the existing Arab inhabitants in Palestine, and even that some of them anticipated the possibility of a war sometime down the road. I would argue that any such discussions were meant as contingency planning, not as a strategy (at least from the mainstream Zionists, as opposed to the Revisionists.) I've already addressed why I believe that ordinary Zionists at the time had an intense desire for peace with the Arabs without bloodshed, that they wanted to live together. If I can find a dozen quotes yearning for peaceful co-existence for every quote that seems to prepare for war, I think that it could help prove my point. Unfortunately, historians with an agenda will purposefully ignore such quotes.

Moreover, contrary to critics' claims that Zionism always intended to take Israel by force, the Zionists were happy with the original UN Partition plan - where they would have received a tiny, indefensible state with a large Arab minority, without firing a shot. History shows that all their actions were diplomatic, and that the Haganah was created purely for defense against the Arab riots that broke out periodically against the Jews.

In practice, however, no one can deny there was an element of supremacy in the early European Zionists - not only towards the Arabs, but also towards Sephardic Jews, towards religious Jews and others. There was discrimination towards other groups that often goes together with pride for their own.

And, at the crux of the issue: Israel is meant to be a state for all Jews, and while it is not conscious, this means that non-Jews will always suffer some discrimination. It may be tiny, it may be less than other countries, but by definition it will always be there. Israel will discriminate in immigration policy by definition, for example.

As that issue of the Palestine Post I quoted before stated it, in 1946:

[Dr. Weizman] showed an anxiety to be fair...the most important example was his plea for a solution which would accept "the line of least injustice." The Committee shoudl analyze that phrase closely. It will help them to map the area of genuine conflict. For the Arab citizen of Palestine, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are not at stake. Neither as an individual nor as a member of a culture-group is he threatened. The State visualized in the Jewish Agency's case will cause him loss in one single respect: Palestine cannot become an Arab state, like the countries around it. The the Arab national leaders would have it otherwise is understandable; that the special rights and special needs of the Jewish people should be sacrificed is impossible. If there are just claims on both sides they do not hold the scales level.

And this indeed is the issue. It is not a case of Palestinian Arab human rights in a vacuum, it is a case of competing human rights cases of Palestinian Arabs and Jews in the same land. It is literally impossible to have both sides get 100% of what they want.

There will be discrimination.

It is not ideal, but it needs to be acknowledged. By realizing this basic fact, which too many Zionists sweep under the rug, then we can get closer to what needs to be done: assert the rights of Jews to live in their own homeland with full rights in every sense of the word, including the rights of self-determination - and to work assiduously to minimize the discrimination against non-Jews who live in that same land, without jeopardizing the Jewish rights.

Discrimination is a necessary evil - and it must be minimized.

Calling for a single, democratic state may sound to the naive as a just solution, but it is discriminatory against the Jews who live there because it would destroy their right to self-determination.

No matter what happens, someone's rights will be reduced. The goal is to be cognizant of this and minimize these instances as much as possible while insuring the maximum human rights for all. In Weizman's words, we need to find "the line of least injustice."

Israel, for all its faults, has done a magnificent job of walking that line - and it could do better. Every day, Israelis struggle with the myriad of issues of balancing the Jewish rights and the Arab rights in the land. Sometimes they err on the Jewish side, sometimes they err on the Arab side. The questions of army service, or providing service to Arab towns, of land ownership, of allowing Arab members of Knesset to do what would be considered treasonous in other countries - not to mention the huge number of issues on how to treat Jews and Arabs in the "territories" - these are all very real issues, and they all have (at least) two sides.

So, yes, Israel is often discriminatory against Arabs. (At times, it has discriminated against Jews as well.) The key is not to pretend it isn't there - it is to tackle the issues head on, to maximize the rights of all people in the land.

So Israel is far from perfect, but to call Israel or Zionism "racist" is simply nonsense.

Jews left behind 100,000 sq km of land in Arab countries

From JPost:

The government needs to bring up the issue of hundreds of thousands of Jews who left their homes in Arab countries following the establishment of the State of Israel as part of any future peace agreement with the Palestinians, the president of the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries said Thursday.

About 850,000 Jews fled Arab countries after Israel's founding in 1948, leaving behind assets valued today at more than $300 billion, said Heskel M. Haddad.

He added that the New York-based organization has decades-old property deeds of Jews from Arab countries on a total area of 100,000 sq.km. - which is five times the size of the State of Israel.

Most of the properties are located in Iraq, Egypt and Morocco, Haddad said.

In an interview, he said that it was imperative for Israel to bring up the issue of the Jews who fled Arab countries at any future peace talks - including those scheduled to take place in Annapolis in the coming weeks - since no Palestinian leader would sign a peace treaty without resolving the issue of Palestinian refugees.

Haddad said that the key to resolving the issue rested with the Arab League, which in the 1950s passed a resolution stating that no Arab government would grant citizenship to Palestinian refugees, keeping them in limbo for over half a century.

At the same time, the Arab League urged Arab governments to facilitate the exit of Jews from Arab countries, a resolution which was carried out with a series of punitive measures and discriminatory decrees making it untenable for the Jews to stay in the countries.

"No Jews from Arab countries would give up their property and home and come to Israel out of Zionism," Haddad said.

He said that the Israeli government was "myopic" not to utilize this little-known information, which he said should be part of a package financial solution to solving the issue of Palestinian refugees.

An Israeli ministerial committee on claims for Jewish property in Arab countries, which is currently headed by the Pensioners Minister Rafi Eitan, has been virtually dormant since it was established four years ago.

What's new here is the actual proof of such vast amounts of land that Arabs had confiscated from Jews, dwarfing the size of Israel itself. The $300 billion number is also new to me.

Arabs, of course, will refuse to discuss their role in their real ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab countries in the late 1940s and 1950s. They will claim that Zionists are the ones who forced the Jews out (their only example is a much-disputed case of a series of bombs in Iraq in 1950, and ignore the series of anti-Jewish laws and terror attacks that occurred throughout the Arab world.)

It is indeed shortsighted for the Israeli government not to raise this issue during negotiations. The facts about the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab countries, and the land taken away from them, should have always been as prominent as the Palestinian "refugee" problem.

Israel fixes Gaza electricity problem

As the misozionistic world (and their useful idiots) keep claiming that Israel has already started reducing electricity to Gaza, it turns out that Israel has done the opposite: gone out of their way to fix Gaza electrical grid problems:

Earlier this week a technical malfunction in the electricity network in northern Gaza caused a power outage that some Palestinians thought was the beginning of the "Gaza blackout" plan proposed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

To solve the problem, the Israel Electric Corp. (IEC) agreed to transfer the equipment needed to fix the network to their Gazan counterparts. Senior Israeli officials confirmed that the IDF had facilitated the transfer.

The officials further said that the operation had been a success and the Palestinians were able to restore power.

The IEC emphasized that none if its personnel entered Gaza or directly participated in the repairs.

Palestine Press Agency (Arabic) quotes Maariv as saying that Israeli involvement went much deeper (autotranslated):

[The IDF] decided to introduce the crew of technicians from the Israeli Electricity Company in the Gaza Strip under heavy security protection since been transferred professionals Israelis are wearing flak jackets in armored cars within the sector and after the Israeli Electricity Company technicians careful examination lasted several hours, Israeli technicians returned to Israel after it was identified that cause the imbalance in power outages north of the sector and found that the defect lies in a malfunction in the electrical transformer located in an area Attatrh Beit Lahiya.

After further assessment of the situation on the Israeli side, ...the Israeli army decided to introduce professional Israelis once again within the sector to the settlement of Nisanit, where they previously divorcing electric transformer from the Attatrh They took him to the settlement of Nisanit, where they [repaired] under the cover of air and land and sea by the Israeli army.

What a bunch of genocidal racists these Israelis are, risking their own lives to fix the electricity of people who overwhelmingly want to destroy them!

Runner-up

Thanks to Soccer Dad for nominating my post, November 1947 and Annapolis déjà vu, for the weekly non-council Watcher of Weasels honor. The post came in tied for a distant second, but second place is second place!

The first place Council post by JoshuaPundit, "Land for Peace" American-style, is excellent.

Another tunnel collapse, another dead terrorist

Palestine Press Agency reports (autotranslated):

Presse said Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip this evening that the citizen was killed bottleneck effect of the collapse of one of expenditure which is used for smuggling on the Egyptian border with the southern Gaza Strip. "

According to Dr. Hassanein Maaouya director of emergency ambulance and the Ministry of Health death citizen Mohammed Abdul Nabi 34 years bottleneck in one spending Rafah governorate.

Abdul Nabi arrived this evening to Abu Yousef Najjar Hospital Rafah Governorate dead.

Still not sure what "bottleneck" is supposed to mean, but Mr. Abdul Nabi is most sincerely dead.

The 2007 Palestinian Arab self-death count rises to 583.

This keeps driving me crazy

From AFP:

An Israeli woman places her hands on the Western Wall as she prays at Judaism most sacred site in Jerusalem's Old City.

I've discussed this in the past, but one more time....

The Western Wall is not "Judaism's most sacred site." It is a small part of the retaining wall for a platform that encompassed Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount and the site of the "Kodesh K'dashim" the "Holy of Holies", that is within.

It is easier for many to pretend that the Wall is the holiest site, because then they can guess that it is a trivial solution to divide Jerusalem and give the Temple Mount to the Muslims and the Wall to the Jews. When they admit that the Temple Mount is holier to Jews, then people might start to wonder why the Dome of the Rock was purposefully built on top of Judaism's holiest site. They might start asking questions about whether the Koran mentions Jerusalem, or whether Mohammed ever flew there on a winged horse. They might start to see analogies between the Islamic destruction of Buddha statues, Hindu temples and Jewish holy sites.

They might even start to wonder why the Dome of the Rock, if it was such a holy Muslim site, was pretty much in ruins before the 1920s.

No, it is less messy to keep pretending that the Wall is Judaism's most sacred site, and that the Jews have no religious claim on the Temple Mount.

Sorry for not posting...

I've been spending way too much time in the messages discussing things with two Palestinian Arabs, and as usual I have too much to say. Others have chimed in as well.

I don't know how long I can keep this up, though. It is fun having a real thread for once in my messages but I prefer blogging - most of the stuff I am saying there I have said on the blog many times. Also, it is clear from the outset that no one will convince anyone else of anything, and I am familiar enough with the "other side's" arguments already. But it has been civil, and for those who want to jump in, I ask that it remains that way.

If you want to peek in, the threads are here.