Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Nahoul the dead bee/Assud the killer rabbit update

MEMRI has both the death of Nahoul the bee and the rise of his replacement, the vengeful killer rabbit Assud, shown on Hamas TV.

Their clip can be seen here, I converted it to YouTube so other browsers besides IE could view it:

Meanwhile, here is the transcript:

Nahoul: I can't stand it, Mom, I can't...
Mother: What can I do? You've been sick for a whole month. We went to Al-Arish, but we couldn't get you to Egypt to have an operation.

[...]

Nahoul: All the children of Palestine are dying without treatment. I can't die, I don't want to die... Father...

Attempts to perform CPR on Nahoul fail

Father: Nahoul! Nahoul!

[...]

Child host Saraa Barhoum: Dear children, let me welcome on your behalf our new friend, Assud. Allah be praised, our friend Assud has returned safe and sound to his land, to Palestine, after he emigrated to a different Arab country – a country which is not this noble homeland, dear children.

[...]

Assud: Mom, I want to ask you something.

Mother: Go ahead.

Assud: Where is Nahoul? I haven't seen him for such a long time.

Mother: He went for a walk, and he'll soon be back, Allah willing.

Assud: Where did he go? Who goes out at night?

Mother: What do you want me to do... He'll be back soon, Allah willing.

Assud: Father, where is Nahoul?

Father [whispering to the mother]: How long can we keep what happened to Nahoul from him?

Father [to Farfour]: You are a believer, and our God...

Assud: What happened to Nahoul, father?

Father: Allah be praised, you are a believing Muslim, and you know that we place our trust in Allah... Your brother Nahoul got sick...

Assud: What hospital is he in, father?

Father: He's not in any hospital. He died a martyr's death, Allah have mercy upon him.

Assud: No, father!

Assud weeps

[...]

Assud: Just like Nahoul took Farfour's place when he was martyred, I will replace Nahoul, Allah willing. I will bring smiles and joy back to the children of Palestine, and the children of the whole world - the Arab and Islamic world, Allah willing.

[...]

Assud: I come from the diaspora, carrying the Key of Return. This is the Key of Return. Do you see it? Allah willing, we will use this key to liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque. Here is a picture of the noble Al-Aqsa Mosque. Here it is, can you see it? Allah willing, we are the soldiers of the Pioneers of Tomorrow.

Saraa Barhoum: Yes, Assud, we will continue in the path of Nahoul and Farfour, Allah willing. We will not let them down, Assud.

Assud: We are all martyrdom-seekers, are we not, Saraa?

Saraa Barhoum: Of course we are. We are all ready to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of our homeland. We will sacrifice our souls and everything we own for the homeland.

Assud: Saraa, I'd like to ask you something.

Saraa Barhoum: What is it?

Assud: How many soldiers of the Pioneers of Tomorrow are there?

Saraa Barhoum: There are many, many soldiers of the Pioneers of Tomorrow.

Assud: Allah be praised.

Saraa Barhoum: By Allah's grace, they will help us liberate our homeland Palestine.

Assud: Saraa, you and I will be the first, right?

Saraa Barhoum: Yes, by Allah's grace, Assud.

Assud: And will we take Al-Aqsa?

Saraa Barhoum: Of course, Assud. We will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of those Zionists.

[...]

Saraa Barhoum [to girl in the audience]: Is there anything you want to share with us?

Girl: Arnoub ["Rabbit"]?

Saraa Barhoum His name is Assud ["Lion"].

Girl: How come you are called Assud, even though you look like a rabbit?

Assud: Because a rabbit is not good. He's a coward. But I, Assud, will get rid of the Jews, Allah willing, and I will eat them up, Allah willing, right?

Saraa Barhoum: Allah willing.

UPDATE: Israel Matzav points to Palestine Media Watch's Hebrew translation of an episode aired after Nahoul's death, where Saraa tells her audience not to be sad for Nahoul:

"We say today to you, Nahoul:
Congratulations, this is your wedding day!"

Vancouver Public Library to host anti-semite

From the Vancouver Sun:

Terry Glavin, Special to the Sun

British novelist Martin Amis recently confessed to being at a loss for words whenever he encounters the hysterical, "endocrinal state" that seems to befall certain people when the subject of Israel comes up in conversation.

"I just don't understand it," Amis said. "I know we're supposed to be grown up about it and not fling around accusations of anti-Semitism, but I don't see any other explanation."

And this got me to thinking. If it's not anti-Semitism, then what's the proper word for it?

What is the right word for a book like Greg Felton's The Host and the Parasite: How Israel's Fifth Column Consumed America?

What is the right word for Felton's thesis, which is that a Zionist "junta" was at work on Sept. 11, 2001, and that al-Qaida is a mere concoction in a secret plan to subvert the American Constitution, demonize Muslims and commit mass murder?

What do you call it when the Vancouver Public Library decides to present Felton, an apologist for the book-banning, journalist-jailing Iranian theocracy, as the featured author on the evening of Feb. 25, and as the library's contribution to national Freedom to Read Week?

What are we allowed to call Felton, who traces his Zionist plot back to the 1940s, when these same Zionists made "common cause" with the Nazis to rid Europe of its Jews, and participated in the herding of Jews into Hitler's gas chambers?

What Felton calls himself is an award-winning investigative reporter and Middle East specialist. His last legitimate journalism job appears to have been with a Vancouver weekly newspaper in the late 1990s, when his brief career as a columnist came to a famously embarrassing end. The column that got Felton into such trouble was also about Zionists.

In that column, Felton traced Zionist swindles and trickery back through time and across Europe to a massive coverup of events that occurred in the Caucasus Mountains about 1,000 years ago.

Europe's Jews aren't Jews at all, Felton wrote. Almost all of them are "Khazars," a long-extinct Turkic tribe from somewhere north of the Caspian Sea.

Felton has been peddling this kind of thing ever since his departure from the weekly Vancouver Courier. He now writes for fringe Arab webzines and an online journal out of Tehran affiliated with the Iranian theocracy's Islamic Propagation Organization.

Felton's byline also routinely shows up on neo-Nazi websites, conspiracy-theory bulletin boards, and sometimes even in pamphlets of the Marxist-Leninist sort. And now, Vancouverites can hear Greg Felton in person.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, Janice Douglas, VPL's director of youth services and community relations told me.

Felton approached the library looking for a gig. There was a "banned book" cachet about his tome, and the library hadn't hosted a Freedom To Read event in years. And Felton's book was "a book that people might not feel free to read."

That last bit was odd, I thought. From Dandelion Books, Felton's obscure little Arizona publisher, you can readily acquire titles about the lost continent of Atlantis, space aliens, New Age mysticism, mind control, 9-11 conspiracies, and even a novel by Yvonne Ridley, the disgraced, Taliban-admiring British journalist now working for an Iranian television network.

The Khazar legend was a staple of 1930s-era European racism. Long after it had been wholly discredited by geneticists, linguists, archeologists and historians, the lie was revived by late 20th-century neo-Nazis.

Neo-Nazis find it useful as a twisted justification for their Jew-hatred. For Israel's more conspiracy-prone enemies, the Khazar legend completely delegitimizes the notion of Israel as a Jewish homeland. That's how Felton employs it, and he gets extra mileage out of it as further evidence of the world's real, hushed-up history, which the Jews don't want you to know.

No, wait. Wrong word. Felton doesn't use the word "Jews" quite that way. It's the Zionists who are behind the curtain with their hands on the levers. Sometimes he uses two words to describe them. Zionist Jews. Jewish lobby. Zionist parasite.

When he calls them Khazars, he can attribute to them "the declared purpose of dispossessing and terrorizing" the Palestinian people, and by that one word -- Khazars -- the Palestinians become the only real Semites in the Holy Land, and Israel itself becomes anti-Semitic.

See how it works?

In Felton's words, Hamas is not an Islamist death cult animated by that classic anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's the equivalent of the French resistance during the Second World War, the "passionate defender of Palestinians."

There are no suicide bombings in Felton's lexicon. There are only "sacrifice bombings." Israel itself is a creation of the Nazis. It's the "Zionist Reich."

And that's the sort of ugliness that rushes in the moment the word "Israel" is mentioned in certain fashionable company these days. Martin Amis settled on the words "secularized anti-Semitism" to describe it.

If those aren't the right words, then words fail me.

Of course, Felton wins either way. Felton, who resembles the character Dwight Shrute from The Office, either he gets to speak and gets free publicity for his bigotry, or pressure builds on the Vancouver Public Library to drop the program and Felton can go back to his neo-Nazi and Iranian buddies and claim "censorship," gaining more publicity.

By the way, even on Felton's website he doesn't bother to mention the specific "awards" he supposedly has received. One can only imagine: "Best Disciple of Mein Führer 1997," perhaps.

VPL should be ashamed in its role in promoting pure anti-semitism and its lack of forethought in seeking scum like Felton to speak.

Adar 6

Not specifically a Jewish joke, but at least I hadn't heard it before...

Bill Gates came up to heaven and God wasn't sure what to do with him. On one hand, he gave a lot of charity, but on the other hand, he created Microsoft Windows which is a terrible operating system.

So God decided to give Bill a choice, let him decide whether he wanted to go to heaven or hell.

"Well, what are heaven and hell like?" asks Gates.

God takes Bill Gates to heaven where he sees a bunch of rabbis pouring over Talmudic texts. Then, he takes him to hell where he sees a beautiful beach with palm trees.

Without giving it much thought, Gates concludes, "I'll take hell."

A couple days later, God goes down to see how Gates is doing, and he's furious.

"I'm burning to a crisp down here! This isn't what I saw before!"

To which God replies, "I'm sorry, you must have seen a screen saver!"

Genetics and Jewish identity

I'm not keenly interested in this topic - my definition of a Jew is more halachic than genetic, and my definition of a "people" is more self-identifying than familial - but since there have been some vigorous discussions on this topic in the message boards, here is one of the more thorough treatments of the issue I've ever seen, from The Jerusalem Post.

Arab News article defending Saudi misogyny

This (obviously male) author is all over the place trying to deflect the problems of Saudi women on anyone and anything he can find:

The United Nations’ interest in the situation of women in the Kingdom really puzzled me. It looked as though Saudi women live in a huge prison guarded by people whose only interest is to humiliate and degrade women as much as possible.
It seemed as if the women in this country were desperately seeking words of help and promise of rescue from these organizations so that that they can begin life afresh enjoying all the freedom they lost a long time ago.
I wonder how members of such organizations — whose hearts apparently bleed for those oppressed and suppressed — are so concerned about the Saudi women, but fail to realize the tragic plight of the women in Palestine and Iraq.
UN organizations are not concerned about Palestinian women languishing in Zionist jails. They are being held unfairly without any charges or trial. They are being kept away from their children and husbands. How I wish these organizations opened their eyes and talked to us about these continuous tragedies and traumas. As for the situation of Iraqi women, they’re in endless distress. They’ve been traumatized with no end in sight to their miseries. How come these organizations don’t see a tragedy that TV screens bring to our living rooms?
I won’t say that the reason for their silence is that all these catastrophes are caused by America and Israel and they don’t want to annoy the global superpower and the regional superpower. I’ll only assume that they have good intentions and are trying to find out the truth. Maybe they want to make every nation feel happy.

OK, so the reason the UN criticizes Saudi Arabia is because it is way too Zionist. Obviously. (BTW, the UN has spent countless hours whining about PalArab women.)

These organizations should realize that every nation has its religious distinctiveness that’s taken into consideration when it comes to enacting laws. Islam has its Shariah rules, whether in granting women their rights or treating them as equals to men. Islam doesn’t deny other people their religious distinctiveness.
The Jews guard their religious distinctiveness with zeal. The same applies for Christians, Buddhists and others. This religious distinctiveness is respected in their laws. I’ve never heard a country or an organization objecting to Jewish religious regulations. No country, individual or organization can criticize Jews without inviting charges of anti-Semitism. In fact, nobody can question the truth about the holocaust even if it is scientifically and historically documented.

No, it is not that the UN is too Zionist - it is that it is Islamophobic! (And that sweet extra touch of Holocaust denial is always a welcome part of any article defending Islam.)

It would’ve been fair and more acceptable if the person who prepared this report considered — integrally — the primary role of Islam in the laws of the Kingdom. Since he didn’t, I’ll make some observations.
Let’s take the issue of women driving cars. The way the issue is discussed abroad would give the impression all the problems of women in the Kingdom would vanish once they were allowed to sit behind the steering wheel. The point not to be missed here is that no one in the Kingdom, whether rulers or religious scholars, has ever said that it’s religiously forbidden for a woman to drive a car. The minister of foreign affairs has clearly stated that if women don’t drive in the Kingdom it is because of the force of social custom. There are those who approve the idea of women driving and those rejecting it. We must find out what the majority wants and I believe a decision one way or the other will be taken very soon.

No, its not Islamophobia - it is not understanding that social customs that have nothing to do with Islam, although very much shaped by Islam, drive Saudi laws. It is up to people to decide whether women can be treated as human or not, not the UN.

As for the freedom of women when it comes to marriage and divorce, I know that the system in the country obliges the person who will tie the knot legally to directly communicate with the woman and make sure she agrees with the proposal.
As for divorce, I also know that it’s a woman’s right, under the Shariah rules, to ask for kulu (to file for divorce and give the husband back his dowry) the moment a she dislikes being with her husband. Judges are aware of it.
I know there are instances where these rules are ignored or violated by fathers or judges. Some judges delay the procedures of kulu because they want to sort out the problems between a man and his wife to avoid a divorce. But these violations don’t mean that women in the Kingdom are oppressed when it comes to marriage and divorce!

Of course not - the fact that women are treated like cattle doesn't mean they are oppressed! These are all aberrations, you see.

The issue isn’t about good intentions, but about ruining religions, ruining women and men and then corrupting societies. I can’t eliminate the political factor in the report. The UN seems to be thinking that taking away the religious identity from Muslims is the first step toward reforming their societies.

Hold on, we've switched gears again - apparently all of the misogyny really is from Islam, not social customs, and therefore it is correct.

Finally, I say to all those who cry over the situation of women in Saudi Arabia, whether they are outsiders or citizens: Leave the woman alone. Saudi women are capable of taking care of themselves without the help of these busybodies.
I also tell them that this country has a religion that can’t be ignored or destroyed. As for other habits or traditions, those are negotiable. Women have problems in Saudi Arabia that need to be addressed; men too have problems worthy of attention. If you really want to address these problems you should be fair in your comments and free from preconceived notions.

Luckily, the Arab News has also published some articles from real women. As I mentioned in November, here is what one wrote:

It is surprising and frustrating to see that women in Saudi Arabia, despite all their achievements, continue to be treated as underage dependents who need and are forced to be managed by their male guardians.

We cannot claim that a Saudi woman has all her Islamic and civil rights when the system insists on considering her immature, irresponsible and dependent on her male guardian no matter how old she is, how highly educated and intelligent she might be or what she has achieved in her professional career. At what age and under what circumstances is a woman in Saudi Arabia considered an independent, sane, responsible adult?

...Why does a young intelligent, ambitious woman needs her guardian’s permission to enroll in a university or apply for work? Does the system even realize that this male guardian does not necessarily have the best interests of the woman when he denies her the right to an education and a job?

...what about the daily obstacles women face if they want to purchase property, apply for divorce, gain custody of their child, or travel abroad? In all these cases, she needs a male guarantor or a male representative or permission from her male guardian.

So which person represents a more accurate view of women in Saudi society - the man who can't put together a coherent argument as he sputters all over the place, or a real live woman who lives there?

Assud, the Hamas killer rabbit, eats Jews

First we had Farfour, the Mickey Mouse ripoff that was brutally murdered by the Jews on Hamas TV.

Then we had Nahoul, the bee. Apparently, he starved to death in Gaza because the Jews refused to allow him to get food, or medicine, or something.

Now we have Assud, the killer rabbit who eats - Jews!

It is interesting that both previous cartoon characters who pledged to kill the Jews ended up dead. So how will Assud kick the bucket?

A work accident? A clan clash? Will he be shot to death at a wedding or a funeral?

Or will he die spectacularly as he drives his car and gets targeted by a missile?

I'd love to see that car swarm.

(h/t Israel Matzav)

UPDATE: I got the clip of Nahoul's death.

Followup on Egyptian freak-out over Hebrew

It turns out that last week's story on Egyptians freaking out over the idea of teaching Hebrew in school was based on ...nothing.

The Egyptian political world is once again up in arms against Israel. The reason this time: A declaration that was attributed to Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Shalom Cohen, in which he purportedly called for the inclusion of Hebrew classes in the official Egyptian school curriculum.

The alleged comments appear to have been published in Egyptian newspapers and from there they were taken by the al-Jazeera news network. According to the report, "Ambassador Cohen claimed that the Camp David Accords include a clause that mandates the inclusion of Hebrew in the Egyptian educational program." That seems to have been enough to reignite the fire of fury against Israel.

Egyptian academics have not remained on the sidelines on this matter. "Cohen's request is a new humiliation for Egypt, its government and nation," Dr. Abdul Wahab al-Masri, an English literature lecturer, said on al-Jazeera.

"The Hebrew language is an artificial language taken from the past and even Israeli writers suffer from a lack of interest in writing it and (Hebrew articles) are usually translated into foreign languages," al-Masri said.

He added that the study of Hebrew must be completely prevented in junior colleges and other institutions and that it should only be taught to students in at the highest levels of education.

"We don't want to give this language the power that it doesn't deserve. It is enough for us that people will learn it in master's degrees and doctorates in the social sciences and this is only in order to become acquainted with Israeli society in order to know the enemy."

Israeli political officials denied the report in conversations with Ynet and claimed that Ambassador Cohen had never made the alleged remarks. "This is the continuation of a report by an Egyptian newspaper that we have already refuted in the past," the head of Arabic communications in the Foreign Ministry, Amira Oron said.

Gaza - a paradise for children

From the Guardian:

The armed men who assaulted eight-year-old Shahab al-Akhras on a street corner in Rafah covered their faces with balaclavas. Shahab, who is small for his age, was wearing the hata, the black-and-white checked scarf associated with Fatah - the party once led by the late Yasser Arafat.
The four men who pushed him into a corner and thrashed his hands on new year's day were wearing the uniforms of Hamas's Executive Force, these days Fatah's deadly rival. 'They took off my shoes and put them on the scarf and stamped on them,' he said. 'Then they told me to put out my arms in front of me and beat me with a stick. They said that if they saw me wearing the scarf again they would shoot me in the legs. I hate them!'
The internal struggle between the Islamist Hamas and the Fatah movement in Gaza - which Hamas thought it had won after three days of fighting last June - has resurfaced. While acts of violence continue to be committed by adults on both sides, the battleground now is over Gaza's children....
The case of Shahab al-Akhras is far from unique. Anecdotal evidence suggests teenagers are arrested and threatened, or their families are threatened. Ahmad Arawar, 16, was playing football in a sandy back alley. His story is typical. 'The Executive Force arrested me and beat me up last year at the Arafat memorial.' He was wearing the hata and trying to post a picture on a wall. His friend Faris Bakr, 12, said: 'I am Fatah because it is my origin. I'm not afraid of Hamas.'
Iyad Sarraj blames a wider issue than the simple question of competing politics - and factional fighting - for what is happening. For children who have witnessed the breakdown of family relationships or lost respect for fathers whom they have seen beaten or threatened, Sarraj believes the factions seem to offer protection, certainty and discipline. 'Hamas, for instance, functions as a clan,' he said. 'It is a new family. It offers protection to the children who follow it. It offers an identity.'

The point about clans is terrifically important, as one cannot understand the history of Palestinian Arabs without understanding clans - or, historically, tribes. The average Palestinian Arab historically tends to identify far more with his clan than with the national movement.

This is a topic I plan to explore in much more detail in a future post, hopefully.

Hate speech at UC Irvine

A report on the speech at the Muslim Student Union by Imam Mohammad Al-Asi:

The Muslim Student Union invited Imam Mohammad Al-Asi to speak on Feb. 7. During the event, entitled “From Auschwitz to Gaza: The Politics of Genocide,” Al-Asi compared the Nazi death camps to the Gaza Strip in order to persuade listeners of the “evil Zionist power that is Israel.” When you listen to the man speak, it’s hard to miss the venom in his voice when he spits out the words “Zionist,” “Jew” and “United States.”

While Al-Asi only compared concentration camps to the Gaza Strip for about 10 minutes, he spent the rest of the hour spouting propaganda one would expect to hear from Hezbollah, the radical Islamic terrorist group causing so much death and destruction in the Middle East. What’s that? You say he forgot to mention his association with Hezbollah? What else can you expect? He also unashamedly harbors heavy anti-American ideals and is opposed to “Westernism and Western modernity, which is proving to be a failure.” When the U.S.-led coalition moved into Kuwait to protect the country in 1990, Al-Asi called for the Muslims to vanquish the United States by “creating another war front for the Americans in the Muslim world—and specifically where American interests are concentrated.”

Because his views are so extreme, Al-Asi has been stripped of his title as Imam of the Washington Islamic Center. Saudi Arabia refused to give him a visa when he wanted to visit the country for the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Al-Asi’s hatred of Saudi Arabia and the United States (the “Great Satan”) is surpassed only by his acidic hatred for Israel and the Jewish people. A RAND Corporation report has marked Al-Asi as a “fundamentalist masquerading as a traditionalist.” He is known for preaching hate-filled ideas, including this passage from the Qur’an: “The final hour shall not commence until the Muslims engage Yahud (Jews) in warfare. … These Yahud will hide behind timber and boulder that will call out […]: ‘O Muslim, there is a Yahudi in disguise, come and annihilate him.’”

Read the whole thing.

Peaceful West Bank weekend

Forget the infighting in Gaza - the West Bank itself, which is regarded as under control of the "moderate" PA, is anything but peaceful.

From Ma'an:

A health clinic in the northern West Bank town of Huwwara has come under frequent attack recently, culminating on Saturday night when unidentified gunmen vandalized the interior of the building, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Sunday.

The Ministry said that the clinic has been fired upon several times, and its main electrical generator was stolen.

A Health Ministry statement said that the only losers in such attacks are the thousands of Palestinians served by the clinic. The Ministry said health servives should not be attacked in political or family conflicts.

What a peaceful place, where a health clinic is considered fair game!

Another story, ignored in the Palestinian Arab press, of a kidnapping last week of a female lawyer from Ramallah, the center of the "moderate PA:"

On Wednesday, 6 February, unknown assailants kidnapped the the lawyer Amani Taha Abu Arqoub (28) from the town of Durra southwest of Hebron. The kidnapping took place in Ramallah; and the lawyer’s fate is still unknown.

PCHR’s preliminary investigation and the statement’s of the victim’s family indicate that the lawyer Amani Abu Arqoub left her house on Wednesday morning and headed to the appeals court in El-Bireh for a case against the Palestinian Development Fund. At approximately 11:00, she called her colleague in the law firm, Suheil Ashour, and informed him that she won the case; and that she was on her way to the office of the Palestinian Development Fund in the Masyoun area in Ramallah to collect a check. At 13:37, three of the lawyer’s brothers and sisters received a telephone message from the kidnappers stating that “Amani will be away for 7 days. We will let you speak to her after that.”

The fact that this was not reported, or buried, in the Palestinian Arab press indicates that kidnappings such as these happen with some frequency. Which means that the hundred thousand strong PA "security forces" are a joke that the world continues to fund.

PalArabs try to have it both ways in Gaza

Dry Bones points out a link from the ZioNation blog which describes a funny exchange that occurred during a 2007 UN press conference:

Question: ...A year and half after the last Israeli withdrew from Gaza, the UN system still refers to Gaza as an Occupied Palestinian Territory. The only people who are not Palestinian in Gaza currently are UN people. Do you mean that Gaza is occupied by the UN?

Spokesperson: Definitely not.

Question: So who is it occupied by?

Spokesperson: Well…

Correspondent: I think there are some Israeli soldiers on the border…

Question: Not borders, who is Gaza occupied by?

Spokesperson: Traditionally, this is the terminology we have used. Yes?

Question: But the situation on the ground changed since Israel withdrew from Gaza.

Spokesperson: I will look into this.

Correspondent: Thank you.

Since that absurd press conference the UN continues to refer to Gaza as "occupied" but usually puts it in context of being a part of the "OPT" - "Occupied Palestinian Territories," lumping it with the West Bank.

This was made explicit by a statement made Friday on behalf of UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon:

Asked whether the Secretary-General would visit Gaza, the Spokeswoman said that there were no plans for such a visit at this point. Asked about the fuel cuts in Gaza, she noted that the Secretary-General had already expressed his opinions about the need to lift the restrictions on Gaza. The Secretary-General sees Gaza as part of a single Palestinian territory, she added.

This position is often reiterated by the PA, most recently by Saeb Erekat today. He lashed out at Tzipi Livni for saying "Gaza is today a problem for anyone who seeks peace, and therefore can never be part of a future Palestinian state." Erekat retorted that the "Palestinian state" would include Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem and that any attempts by Israel to separate the two is just a ploy to stop a Palestinian Arab state from being established.

If the PA wants to continue to consider Gaza as part of its territory than it is obvious that they must take responsibility for Gaza.

It is an indication of the puerility of the PA leadership that they cry about Israeli actions in Gaza while they do not take any responsibility for the territory themselves. They keep negotiating with Israel - with the approval of the world - pretending that cosmetic changes on the ground in Nablus are enough to show that they can control their people and territory.

They want to be treated as if Gaza doesn't exist but they insist that Gaza belongs to them.

Obviously, any negotiations, secret or not, while Gaza is an active terror base are a waste of time - or worse, they are an exercise in wishful thinking that will force Israeli concessions while the PalArabs get off scot-free.

It is time for the PA to be forced to make a choice: include Gaza and take responsibility, or abandon Gaza and try to negotiate a state in the West Bank. This game must end.

Adar 5

The only cow in a small town in Poland stopped giving milk. The people did some research and found that they could buy a cow from Moscow for 2,000 rubles, or one from Minsk for 1,000 rubles. Being frugal, they bought the cow from Minsk.

The cow was wonderful. It produced lots of milk all the time, and the people were amazed and very happy. They decided to acquire a bull to mate with the cow and produce more cows like it. Then they would never have to worry about the milk supply again.

They bought a bull and put it in the pasture with their beloved cow. However, whenever the bull came close to the cow, the cow would move away. No matter what approach the bull tried, the cow would move away from the bull and he could not succeed in his quest.

The people were very upset and decided to ask their wise rabbi, what to do. They told the rabbi what was happening. "Whenever the bull approaches our cow, she moves away. If he approaches from the back, she moves forward.

When he approaches her from the front, she backs off. An approach from the side and she just walks away to the other side."

The rabbi thought about this for a minute and asked, "Did you buy this cow from Minsk?"

The people were dumbfounded, since they had never mentioned where they had gotten the cow. "You are truly a wise rabbi," they said.

"How did you know we got the cow from Minsk?"

The rabbi answered sadly, "My wife is from Minsk."

Smart women alarm Iranian leadership

Yes, the mullahs are threatened by smart girls:

Who’s afraid of girls? The Iranian government, it seems. Recent years have seen a dramatic rise in the number of Iranian girls enrolling in universities and other institutions of higher education. While many governments would see this as a blessing worth boasting about, that's not the case in Iran.

In a report to the administration of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s Research Center of the Majles (parliament) recently called the trend of more girls going to universities "alarming" and urged the government to stop it.

The research center documented what it called a worrisome rise in the number of females to enroll in universities and other centers of higher education. The report said that over the last two decades there’s been a 23-percent increase in the number of girls taking university entrance exams, with the number of girls who passed the tests nearly doubling -- to 65 percent -- over the same period.

The influential research center -- which has decision-making powers in both parliament as well as in government agencies -- also warned that the rise in female students could eventually lead to "social disparity and economic and cultural imbalances between men and women."

In other words, wives might make more money than their husbands, which would throw the Islamic Republic into a tizzy.

The report says the rise in female students has created other concerns, such as "securing university dorms and maintaining their [girls] physical security in confronting possible social perils."

But, I thought that hijab and high male Islamic standards ensure that no man harasses women!

Another problem, according to the report, is economic, "such as the possibility that expenses will be underused for specialized skills, as well as a change in the gender of the workforce."

Outside of having to pony up money for women's restrooms, I have no idea what the concern is here.

The center's report also warns about a detrimental affect on families and urges officials to swiftly find a solution to the "disproportion between the number of men and women" in Iran’s universities.

Shahla Shafigh, an Iranian-born women’s rights activist in Paris, told Radio Farda that she believes the opposition to female students is ideological.

"With the door of opportunity closed to most young girls, with all the control their families and others exert over them, young women are mostly going after knowledge and science to gain freedom and human dignity," Shafigh said. "And this is a good thing to happen in a country."

Well, not if you consider women to be less than human.

But what steps the government might take in regards to the situation is unclear.

Last year, after reports that the government might limit female enrollment in entrance exams, women’s rights activists in Iran expressed concern. The government later denied that there had ever been any such plans.

But there are signs the government intends to act on the gender issue, including recent media reports suggesting there could be a change in textbooks based on "gender differentiation."

Last week Zohre Tabibzadeh Nouri, who runs the government's office of Women’s Participation, told reporters in Tehran that "gender discrimination" will be implemented in certain sectors of the workforce. She added that the government must help women attain the kind of education and expertise suitable for them.

Iran once again shows what a bastion of human rights it is.

Arabs and Jews meet in Hebron

YNet reports:

Heads of local Palestinian clans in Hebron met on Sunday with representatives from Israeli settlements in the area and discussed the easing of tensions between the two sides.

The settlers reported that sheikhs Abu Khader Jabri and Haj Abu Ahram Abu Sneina representing the city’s Arab Muslim population in the West Bank city met in Jabri's home with the Kiryat Arba Regional Council head Tzvi Katzover, former Knesset Member Elyakim Haetzni and other settler leaders.

The commander of the IDF's Hebron Brigade, Colonel Yehuda Fuchs, also took part in the meeting.

The Israelis said Sheikh Jabri told them during the meeting that "I do not regard you as settlers but as residents. This city is yours just as much as it is ours."

The Jewish participants described the meeting as cordial, adding that the sides agreed to strive to live in peace with one another.

According to the Israelis, shortly after the meeting began, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades issued a proclamation throughout the city that called for dealing with the meeting's participants "with an iron fist."

Haetzni said following the meeting that "the fabric of life throughout the entire country has been destroyed by the fake peace produced by the Oslo Accords, which only resulted in more hatred, the spilling of blood and destruction."

Some five months ago Jabri denied a request by left-wing activists to sign an order allowing them to destroy the Hazon David synagogue near the entrance to Kiryat Arba, which Jabri has claimed is built on land belonging to his clan.

Since then the settlers have been waiting for the opportunity to thank the sheikh for coming to their aid.

This story perfectly illustrates one of the the major themes of this blog: The average Palestinian Arab is much more practical and willing to live with Jews than their so-called "leaders" and the inciters in their press and organized gangs.

It also shows that the Jews of Hebron, unfailingly portrayed in the Western press as the most rabid and hateful of all the "settlers," are anything but. Rather than being die-hard haters striving to make Hebron Arab-free they are willing to work with local Arabs who show no desire to murder them.

In addition, it shows that left-wing Israelis - the ones that tout "peace" the loudest - are far more hateful than the Arabs they pretend to be defending, and their hatred for Jews living in biblical Israel outstrips their hatred for real terrorism.

Their actions, as well as the reaction of the Fatah-based Al Aqsa Brigades (which the PA claims nominal control over) show who really cares about a true and realistic peace and who works to prolong the conflict.

Decades of non-stop incitement have created a huge dent in the historic pragmatism of Palestinian Arabs, but it is heartening to know that it has not yet disappeared.

UPDATE: More details at Arutz 7.

The brains of Bahrain and their Arab friends

A delegation from Bahrain sneaked into Gaza and now can't get out:

A BAHRAINI aid delegation stranded in Gaza could be back in Bahrain today, as talks have been stepped up to get them out through the sealed border with Egypt.

But Egyptian and Palestinian envoys in Bahrain yesterday accused the four-man team of slipping into the territory without telling the embassies here or the proper authorities.

The delegation arrived in Gaza on January 31.

They have been trying to leave since last Tuesday, having missed a chance to get out when the Salaheddin border crossing was resealed by the Egyptian authorities on Feburary 3.

"We are pained to say that we were not consulted by the delegation when they left," said Egyptian Ambassador Dr Azmy Khalifa.

"We should have been taken into their confidence."

He said the delegation crossed the border from Salaheddin "in an unauthorised manner" and "without permission".

Palestinian Ambassador Ahmed Ramadhan accused the Bahraini delegation of making political mileage out of the situation.

He said the first time he knew about the aid mission was from the local papers.

"I am surprised that they went with aid for our people without even letting the embassy know," said Mr Ramadhan.

He said the delegation "violated the border" and was now suffering the consequences.

"When people in Gaza, including the delegation, were given 48 hours to leave, they did not and now they say they are stranded," said Mr Ramadhan.

"Of course, we are trying to get them to Bahrain, but this situation should not have happened at all."
...

Mr Al Fadallah said some intermediaries had made the delegation an offer to leave Gaza through Israel.

"We have turned down that offer. We have nothing to do with the Zionist enemy," he said.

The delegation had earlier refused offers to be smuggled out of the troubled Palestinian territory.

We see that the Bahrainis could have left through Israel but they refused.

So who exactly is keeping them stranded in Gaza? Could it be their Arab brethren?

(belated h/t to jusa for pointing out an earlier version of this news)

Arafat's picture hangs at the Oxford Union

No joke:

The 185-year-old society, a jewel in Oxford University's crown, is a bastion of free speech where the elite of Britain and many other countries have cut their debating teeth. The framed photos in the entryway honor luminaries from Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Winston Churchill to Robert Kennedy and Yasser Arafat who have addressed the Oxford Union.

This makes it a bit easier to understand the sham "debate" that occurred there last month.

Olmert to Sderot: Stop whining

From YNet:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the situation in Sderot at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, saying that "there is no doubt that we all share the pain and the anger is understandable and natural, but the anger is not an action plan."

Perhaps it is time to remind everyone of my Olmert Qassam statement history, last published in September:
----------------------
In late November 2006, Olmert said "we are a little disappointed" that Qassam attacks continued even during a "cease fire" that Israel held to unilaterally.

The Qassams continued.

In December 2006, Olmert wrote a letter to the UN, saying "this restraint cannot continue for much longer."

The Qassams continued.

In February 2007, Olmert said, "We are not going to restrain ourselves forever. The continued attacks challenge Israel's patience. In the end, if the attacks continue, we will respond."

The Qassams continued.

In April, Olmert said "[Israel] cannot continue to ignore the Qassam lunching [sic] and infiltration attempts of terrorist cells."

The Qassams continued.

Finally, in May, Israel gave up on the fictional "cease fire" and started targeting Qassam launchers.

Even so, the Qassams continued.

Month after month after month. Every single rocket causing celebrations and congratulatory articles in Palestinian Arab newspapers and websites.

Now, the Sderot schools are open and the number of Qassams is increasing.

And what does Olmert say in September?

"We will not come to terms with it and we will not let it go by."

-------------------
So Olmert has had plenty of time to devise a plan and the best he can do it reducing Gaza's electricity by 5%? And then he has the chutzpah to ask the victims of the daily attacks to not protest but to provide him with an "action plan" - isn't that his job?

Rather than reducing Qassams, they have increased greatly over the past couple of months.

Forget Winograd. The inability of Olmert to do anything to defend Israel against Qassams is enough reason on its own to demand his resignation.

Followup on the Beatles and Israel

Judeopundit noticed a hilarious article in the Ramattan "news" agency where "Over 40 Human Rights organizations from around the world called on the 'Beatles' to boycott Israeli 60th anniversary."

One can only imagine what the names of these "human rights" organizations are, how they spend their time and money, and whether they are writing to, say, the surviving members of The Dave Clark Five.

Followup on AP's discovery of Hamas war crimes

Soccer Dad noticed that the Washington Post managed to report on the Israeli airstrike on rocket launchers hidden in a school without mentioning that the rocket launchers were hidden in the school.

Being the astute and responsible blogger he is, he wrote to the Washington Post ombudsman to ask about what must certainly have been an oversight on the part of the esteemed newspaper that also happens to publish unfiltered Hamas propaganda on occasion.

Followup on Irish woman in Gaza

In the latest on the Irish woman who was stuck in Gaza, the BBC writes:

Treasa Ni Cheannabhain, her daughter and an Egyptian niece were allowed back into Egypt on Thursday.

However, Ms Ni Cheannabhain was immediately taken in for questioning.

On Saturday, she said she was given a choice by the Egyptian authorities - to come before a military court, or to return to Gaza indefinitely.

I guess this woman who spends her life preaching her solidarity with poor Palestinian Arabs has decided that Egyptian military court provides better odds for a good life than her Hamas buddies.

Adar 4

Egypt is starting to control the crowds of Palestinians pouring in from Gaza.

Everyone is being put into a line, given a special plastic bracelet, and there is a limit of three bombs per person.

-Jake Novak

Gazans celebrate an 8-year old's injury

A tiny throwaway paragraph in YNet's coverage of Saturday's Qassam rocket attack that injured two brothers, with an 8-year old severely injured in his legs:

Within Gaza, terrorists celebrated their "success", as gunmen from the Al-Quds Brigades fired in the air and broadcasted victory messages from mosque loudspeakers.

From this single sentence we can learn three things:

1. Palestinian Arab terrorists remain depraved as ever, celebrating the pain of innocent civilians.
2. Islamic Jihad's morale must be amazingly low, as they continue to lower the bar of what they consider "victory" just so they can have something to celebrate and not feel like total losers.
3. Mosques in Gaza are used, today, to promote terrorism.

Adar 3

Since I won't be posting on Shabbos, he is the joke for the third of Adar...

Ethel, a little old lady with a lovely smile, makes a living selling roses on the corner of Middlesex Street for £1 a rose. Maurice, on the other hand, works for a bank in Middlesex Street and is doing very well for himself.

Maurice has always felt sorry for Ethel and whenever he leaves his office for lunch and passes Ethel, he always gives her £1. But Maurice never takes a rose from her and although this has been going on for 2 years, the two of them have never spoken to each other.

One day, as Maurice passes Ethel and leaves his usual £1, Ethel speaks to him for the first time. "I appreciate your business, sir. You really are my best customer, but I must point out to you that the price of a rose has now gone up to £1.50."

Adar 2

From last night's Tonight Show:

A minister, a priest and a rabbi go into a bar. After a couple of drinks they get somewhat philosophical. The bartender asks them, "What would you want people to say at your funeral?"

The minister says, "I would hope that they would say that I was a good family man and that I always found the time for my congregants."

The priest says, "I would hope that they would say that I was kind, charitable and always thoughtful."

The rabbi says, "I would want them to say, 'Look! He's moving!'"

Church being built in Qatar

From Radio Netherlands:

The Arab emirate of Qatar witnesses the building of the first church since the coming of Islam. Conservative Muslims are furious, but the reform-minded emir of Qatar thinks it is time to show that Islam is a tolerant religion.

"If all goes well, we will celebrate Easter in our new church", says father Yashun of the almost completed church of the Virgin in the Qatari capital Doha. The Catholic church, which will open next month, is the first church to be built in Qatar since the coming of Islam 14 centuries ago.

Like other countries in the Arabian peninsula, Qatar does not have an indigenous non-Muslim minority, but among the guest-workers that have come there in the past decades are many Christians. The new church will serve no less than a hundred thousand Catholics residing in the tiny emirate, most of whom are from the Philippines, India and Lebanon. A Protestant church is also under construction.

"A few years ago, opening a church in Qatar was sort of impossible", the Italian ambassador in Doha, Ignatio Di Pashi, recently told a local Qatari newspaper. "But Qatar has changed since the coming of the new emir."

Prince Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani is a reform-minded man who, when he came to power in 1995, decided it was time to show the tolerant face of Islam and to accommodate the new Christian minority in his country.

Since 2001, a yearly 'Conference of the 3 Religions" is held in Qatar during which representatives of Judaism, Christianity and Islam engage in dialogue. Dialogue between Muslims and Christians is rather common in the Arab world, but a religious dialogue including Jews is revolutionary.

And in 2005, the emir announced that churches would be built for the Christians in Qatar, who until today have to conduct their religious services in private homes or schools.

The building of the church has shocked conservative Muslims of Qatar and has led to heated debates in the local media. Most Qatari Muslims belong to the Wahhabi sect, one of the most conservative currents in Islam and the state-doctrine in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

Opponents of the church quote a Tradition attributed to the prophet Mohammed which reads: "There shall be no two religions in the Arabian peninsula." Alluding to this Tradition, articles have appeared in the local press bearing titles such as "No cross shall be raised under the sky of Qatar and no church-bell shall ring!"

But advocates of the church, too, support their views with religious arguments. One of them is Dr Abdelhamid al-Ansari, former dean of the Qatari shari'a college. "Establishing places of worship for different religions", he writes in one of his articles in favour of the building of churches in his country, "is a basic right guaranteed to all human beings by the Koran and the Tradition of the prophet." Dr Ansari also recognizes the prophetic Tradition quoted by his opponents, but says it only applies to the Hijaz, the province of the two holy cities of Islam Macca and Medina.

Another Qatari shaykh, Ali al-Qardaghi, went even further by assuring a French reporter that Islam does not prohibit the building of churches "nor any other places of worship." His statement is significant because traditional Islam indeed explicitly grants all kinds of rights to Christians and Jews - the so-called 'people of the Book' - but has great difficulty in recognizing the beliefs of Hindus and Buddhists as 'religious.' And after all a large section of the guest workers in Qatar are not Christians but Hindus from India.

The church, which costs 18 million dollars, will contain a conference hall, a library, accommodation for clerics and a café. But it will have no cross on the outside and the catholic cardinal heading it had to promise the authorities that he will not engage in missionary activities.

A miniscule step in the right direction, but one that gives an indication of how long the journey will be.

Clan clash in Gaza City

Palestine Today reports on the death of Muhammad al-Badawi, 25, for reasons of "family revenge."

How honorable!

The 2008 self-death count is now at 16.

Ian O'Doherty on stupid pro-PalArab activists

The Irish Independent has a somewhat snarky column that mentions the Irish woman stuck in Gaza:

Really, if anything proves the utter credulousness and stupidity displayed by many of the members of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, it has to be case of Galway woman -- quelle surprise she's from Galway -- Treasa Ni Cheannabhain and her daughter.
The pair smuggled themselves illegally into Gaza and are now complaining that they are not being allowed to get back into Egypt.

The pair were refused entry into Gaza but entered illegally by wearing those charming full length niquabs (the charming black dress that makes women look like a walking letter box) and met up with some ministers from the charming Hamas government -- which caused the humanitarian crisis in the first place -- and then went around distributing money to local charities.

And how have indymedia.ie responded to the Egyptian authorities not allowing these people back into Egypt?

Well, according to them: "Treasa Ni Cheannabhain, from the Galway Palestine Solidarity Campaign, on a humanitarian mission to besieged Gaza with daughter, Naisrin, is now trapped there by the Israelis."

Um, sorry guys. It's the Egyptians. Still, facts are only a Zionist conspiracy, eh?

Although the quote from Ni Cheannabhain on the situation in Gaza was interesting in its insight and political understanding: "We hadn't expected this -- it's very scary."

The phrase dumb and dumber springs to mind.

MSM keeps ignoring Hamas war crimes

AP released a dispatch yesterday:

Hamas policemen seized a convoy of humanitarian aid bound for the Palestinian Red Crescent on Thursday evening, the second convoy it has taken from the aid agency, aid employees said.

Policemen from Hamas halted 14 trucks filled with food and medicine at a checkpoint after it crossed an Israeli checkpoint into Gaza on Thursday, said employees of the Palestinian Red Crescent, who declined to be named, fearing reprisals from ruling group Hamas. A Hamas official said the aid was seized because the organization was distributing aid to former Fatah fighters and not to impoverished Palestinians.

Employees from the Red Crescent said they were meant to distribute the aid to some 8,000 needy Gaza residents from lists of people the organization keeps. The aid came from the organization's regional headquarters in Jordan, an employee said.

...The food aid was unloaded in the warehouses of the Hamas Ministry of Social Affairs, and two trucks of medicine were taken to a nearby Hamas-run hospital, he said.

The employee said that it was the second time Hamas policemen seized aid meant for the Red Crescent. Last month the group seized the aid from warehouses.

This article was essentially ignored by newspapers and other Web news outlets outside of Israel, and only a handful mentioned it buried in other articles about Gaza. And absolutely no one goes slightly beyond the article to ask the basic question of how much of Gaza's "humanitarian crisis" is being engineered by Hamas itself.

On a similar note, the number of Qassam rockets fired at Israel has increased dramatically in the past few days compared to a relative lull for a couple of weeks. This issue is also being all but ignored by news outlets, mentioning them in passing in other articles about the Egypt/Gaza border, for example. The fact that there are as few casualties in Sderot as there are is nothing short of a miracle.

Finally, yesterday's AP story of Hamas hiding rockets in a school was also picked up by only a dozen or so newspapers worldwide according to Google News counts.

Each of these stories show that Hamas and its partners are engaging in daily war crimes according to the Geneva Conventions. Shooting indiscriminately at civilians, using civilian areas to hide legitimate military targets and confiscating humanitarian aid are all explicitly illegal in international law as well as humanitarian law.

While Israel is constantly being accused of war crimes, either explicitly in the media or by their quoting handpicked "experts" to confirm the bias of the reporters, Palestinian Arab terror actions - all of these three in the past 24 hours - get a free pass, either ignored completely or reported in a passive manner.

The media is a big part of the problem, and a large reason why Hamas feels that it can act with impunity.

Hamas hid rocket launcher in school

Sometimes you have to go digging in the mainstream media to find a gem. AP writes:

An Israeli missile on Thursday struck a makeshift school that Hamas militants apparently used as cover to launch attacks, killing a Palestinian teacher.

Six militants also died when Israeli ground forces backed by warplanes exchanged fire with Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip, part of the escalating violence that is hobbling peace efforts.

...The 38-year-old teacher was killed when a surface-to-surface missile struck the agricultural school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, Hamas security forces said.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Gaza Health Ministry said the man was killed outside the school gate. The Israeli military said it opened fire in the area at a group of rocket launchers. It denied firing at a school.

Associated Press Television News footage showed the school to be a series of huts in a rural area. A rocket-launching device was spotted between some olive trees, indicating militants had used the school for cover to launch attacks.

Placing a rocket launcher on the grounds of a school is, of course, a war crime. But Hamas, as well as the "moderate" PA, will cynically use use the death of a teacher as proof of supposed Israeli attacks on civilians.

(h/t EBoZ)

Increase in Gaza motorcycle accidents since border breach

The media had a couple of pictures of "poor" Palestinian Arabs bringing motorcycles purchased from Egypt into Gaza:

Apparently, this cyclemania has some consequences. From Palestine Press Agency (autotranslated):

Palestinian medical sources announced this evening the death of a citizen and the injury of two others in a motorcycle collision domains in the Tel Sultan neighbourhood of Rafah town in southern Gaza.

For his part, Dr. Hassanein Maaouya director of emergency ambulance and the Ministry of Health "that the hospital sector received twenty injured in similar incidents [recently], including critical situations."

It is noteworthy that the hundreds of motorbikes purchased after opening the border with Egypt where he led teenagers failed to get a driver's license with it lacks those bikes for licensing and insurance.

It wasn't a handful of motorcycles bought in Egypt by the starving, poverty-stricken PalArabs - they purchased hundreds! And their poor, hungry kids without drivers' licenses are being given these gifts worth thousands of dollars, where they can crash into other poor Gazans with impunity.

Sounds like a wonderful society being built there.

(No, I will not count this in the self-death count.)

It's the first of Adar!

Which means it is time to dust off some old Jewish jokes!
--------------

During his school holidays, 17 year-old Avrohom decides to take a temporary job as a delivery boy for Minky’s Restaurant. One evening he delivers a meal to Bernie’s house. He hands over the meal and Bernie pays the bill. Then Bernie looks at Avrohom for a few seconds and somewhat begrudgingly says, "I suppose you also want me to give you a tip?"

Avrohom doesn’t answer immediately, but looks at Bernie for a few seconds before replying. "Yes, sir, that would be most appreciated, especially as the guy who normally delivers to this area told me that I shouldn’t expect much from you. He said I should be thankful if I got 10p."

"Well," says Bernie, "just to prove your friend wrong, here’s £2 for your efforts."

"Thank you very much," says Avrohom. "This will go into the fund I’m building up to pay for my future education."

"Really?" says Bernie. "So what are you going to study?"

"Applied Psychology," replies Avrohom.

Blair claims PA implementing roadmap - let's fact check

From Ynet:

International Middle East envoy Tony Blair said on Thursday the Palestinians were meeting their security obligations under a long-stalled Road Map peace plan and that Israel should start responding.
"I think it is important to recognise that what has happened here in Nablus over these past few months is, of course, precisely what phase one of the 'road map' asks for," Blair said during a visit to the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Really?

The roadmap includes:

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

So let's see some recent examples:

A new video clip broadcast continuously since October 2007 by Palestinian
TV promises a mother that that Palestine will be violence, claiming the
Palestinians have the right to all of Israel:

Oh Arab, oh noble son, your blood is my blood,
and your cause is my cause
This land is Arab in history and identity
Palestine is Arabic is history and identity.
We will live in peace, oh mother and
our lives will not be lost…
From Jerusalem and Acre
and Haifa and Jericho and
Gaza and Ramallah
From Bethlehem and Jaffa and
Beersheba and Ramla
From Nablus to the Galilee
and from Tiberias to Hebron
And from Nablus to the Galilee
and from Jenin to Hebron
We are all in the same ditch, oh mother
And our resolve is [as sharp as] a sword

Another video currently heard is a song called “My Enemy, My Enemy,”
broadcast many times in the past. It depicts the Jews as snakes twisting in the
earth (the snake is an anti-Semitic symbol for the Jews).

And here are a couple of cartoons published in the PA official or semi-official media since Blair was declared an expert envoy on the Middle East:

The Nablus PA operation was a cosmetic sham that was geared towards petty criminals and PR more than towards eradicating terror. Nablus is still the hub of terror in the West Bank, and Nablus is where 3 PA policemen murdered an Israeli in December.

Tony Blair, like most Western leaders, is letting his desire for a fictional "peace" cloud his common sense and ability to see facts clearly.

The PA has done next to nothing to implement Phase I of the roadmap except for superficial actions to fool Westerners desperate to believe them.

More counterfeit news

Looks like Hamas' printing presses have been busy....

Egyptian authorities have seized more than a million dollars in forged US currency allegedly produced in the Gaza Strip since the Gaza-Egypt border was toppled by Palestinian fighters two weeks ago, Egyptian sources told Ma'an on Thursday.

The sources expect more counterfeit banknotes to be discovered, as hundreds of dollars are being found every day. Egyptian merchants in towns bordering Gaza, such as Al-Arish, Rafah and Sheikh Zwaid have helped investigators by saving counterfeit bills.

See also this posting wondering how Hamas manages to get so many pristine $100 bills.

WRMEA blames Israel for persecuting Gaza Christians

One of the more egregious examples of turnspeak I've seen lately, from the Arab lobby in Washington. Check this out:

AS THE SUN rises in the east on the first day of Advent, the bells of Gaza’s churches fill the air, mixing amicably with the Muslim call to prayer. There is an air of quiet serenity spiced with excitement as the faithful walk to their churches and mosques, the doors swinging open, and Christians and Muslims bid each other good morning on yet another Sunday.

Gaza’s oldest church, the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrus, dates back to the 16th century. The majority of Gaza’s Christians are served by the Roman Catholic Church on Al Zayotoun St. and the Gaza Baptist Church, which offer living room prayer groups, interfaith outreach, several schools, and humanitarian/medical Christian charities staffed by both locals and internationals. Today Gaza is home to approximately 3,000 Christians, the majority of whom live near these Gaza City churches.

Until November 1947, when the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 181 partitioning Palestine, Palestinian Christians lived peacefully among the Muslim and small Jewish populations of the area. With the passage of the nonbinding resolution, however, Zionist forces began their ethnic cleansing campaign in earnest. At the time Christians represented 18 percent of Palestine’s population, with many families tracing their ancestry back to the time of Christ. Today Christians comprise less than 2 percent of Palestinians, with the loss of Jerusalem’s Christian community being the most profound—plunging from a peak of 51 percent in 1922 to just 4 percent today. By the time of the Deir Yassin massacre in early April 1948, over a quarter-million Palestinians—many of them Christian—had been displaced, either killed or made refugees.
...
It is well known that one of the most effective tools for rendering a society subservient is the tactic of divide and conquer. Thus the October kidnapping and murder of Rami Ayyad, the manager of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore, presented a dangerous challenge. Speculations about the motive still abound: was it a hate crime or simply a random tragedy?

Father Manuel Musallam, the senior Roman Catholic priest in Gaza, doubts the attack was religiously motivated.

“Rami was not only Christian,” the priest explained. “He was Palestinian. Violent acts against Christians are not a phenomenon unique to Gaza.”
...
Asked if Christians in Gaza are being harassed by Hamas or the Palestinian police, all the students agreed that this is not the case.

“Every society has extremists,” Ali observed. “Like sometimes I’m criticized for not wearing my hijab. But that has nothing to do with being Muslim or Christian. Those people don’t represent our Palestinian society.”

Once again, Israel somehow manages to selectively oppress Christians, according to the apologists for Islamist terror against Christians. The Zionist war machine manages to force only Arab Christians to leave the territories while it keeps Muslims there.

Even though Israel's Christian population has grown over the years.

Compare to this recent article on Gaza's Baptists:

Hundreds of people crowded around a small stage on the sidewalk in Bethlehem. Traffic slowed not only to dodge those dancing in the street but so passengers could listen to the musicians publicly proclaiming God's love for the nations.

A visiting Gaza woman nervously looked around, checking the crowd for troublemakers at the outdoor praise and worship concert by Bethlehem Bible College students.

"We couldn't do something like this in Gaza. People are always watching," she whispered, afraid someone might hear. "Ever since our dear brother was killed for his faith, Gaza Christians live in fear."

Rami Ayyad, a prominent Baptist, was kidnapped and found dead less than a mile from a Christian bookstore he managed for the Palestinian Bible Society. Officials say there has been no progress in the investigation of the October incident. The bookstore was bombed last April but no one was injured.

Life has been increasingly difficult for Christians in Gaza since Hamas seized control of the coastal strip last June. Attacks against Christians have been rare; however, the Baptist community has been a target for extremists because of its evangelical work.

Many Baptist leaders have fled Gaza Strip, taking refuge in the West Bank. Pastor Hanna Massad and his family are among eight families who relocated because they felt it was too dangerous to remain in their homeland.

"The Lord is teaching us many things during this time. To follow Christ is very real to us now," Massad said. "There's a price to pay to follow our Lord. We see people willing to give their life for Christ. Every day, Gaza Christians are confronted with the question, 'Are you willing to follow?'"

These refugees spend much time worrying about their Baptist family back home and praying for their safety. Christians living in the Gaza Strip number around 3,000. Most are Greek Orthodox, but there are a few hundred Catholics and a small community of Baptists living in this 140-square-mile territory where more than 1.5 million Muslims live.

Massad said believers in Gaza have been robbed or threatened in recent months. When a 6-year-old girl answered the intercom system at her house recently, a voice told her he plans to kill her father.

"The man threatened isn't a leader in the Baptist church, but he is a very committed Christian," a Baptist worker said. "Most of those left in Gaza are not high-profile Baptist leaders, but they are still identified as part of the Baptist church. The threat to them is still very high and very real."

The Arab propaganda machine is spinning furiously.

Gaza morality police continue blowing things up

Last night a billiards (snooker) hall was torched in Rafah.

This is just the latest of a series of bombings and arsons against establishments that are deemed to be not Islamic enough for some.

That Gaza open-air prison

AP reports on a mother and daughter stuck in Gaza:

An Irish woman who crossed a breached border into Gaza with her daughter said Wednesday that border guards were preventing them from returning to Egypt.

Treasa Ni Cheannabhain said she and her daughter, an Egyptian national, entered Gaza on Saturday, more than a week after Hamas militants knocked down the border wall.

As hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flooded into Egypt, Ni Cheannabhain, 56, said she sneaked into Gaza with her 19-year-old daughter, Naisrin el-Safty, to distribute money to needy Gazans.

Egyptian guards resealed the border Sunday, ending the 12-day breach. Ni Cheannabhain said she had not heard warnings that the crossing would close.

The pair tried to return to Egypt late Tuesday, but were stopped by Egyptian border guards.

"I admitted I entered illegally, but we want to come back in legally," Ni Cheannabhain said in a telephone interview from the border town of Rafah.

Ni Cheannabhain is married to an Egyptian physician.

Ireland's Foreign Ministry is trying to help but only Egypt can authorize the pair's return, a ministry spokesman said.

"The Egyptian authorities apparently are refusing to let her cross back over to Egypt," said the spokesman on customary condition of anonymity.

As we all know, Gaza is an open-air prison run by the heartless Zionists. So this must be Israel's fault, by definition.

The entire world that blamed Israel for its not allowing Gazans to freely come and bomb Jews - and ignored the many hundreds of people Israel did allow to leave for medical or religious reasons - somehow remains silent when forced to confront the fact that Gaza is bordered by two countries, not one, and that Egypt can allow its fellow Arabs to roam freely back and forth as well.

(h/t Global_Freezing)

2000 Arabs entered Gaza to fight Israel

Ma'an reports:

Around 2,000 men from different Arab countries entered the Gaza Strip, after the toppling of the Rafah border wall, wanting to join the Palestinian resistance against Israel, reliable Palestinian sources told Ma'an on Wednesday.

Sources within Hamas told Ma'an that the men, many of whom are Egyptian young men offered to join the Palestinian resistance. He added that Hamas expressed its appreciation for the solidarity shown by the move. However, he added that Palestinian resistance factions are not interested in foreign fighters.

Amazing what years of non-stop incitement can do to people. When millions grow up hearing how evil the Jews are and how dying while fighting them guarantees you a place in Paradise, it is no wonder that thousands of them want to join the bandwagon of hate and terror.

Old City snowman

The beautiful and talented Daughter of Ziyon snapped this shot last Friday after the snowstorm in the Old City of Jerusalem:

Man sentenced to death in Iran for drinking alcohol

From AFP:

TEHRAN -- A young Iranian man has been sentenced to hang for repeatedly drinking alcohol which is strictly banned in the Islamic republic, the Etemad newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old, identified only as Mohsen, was handed down the death penalty by a criminal court after being found guilty of drinking alcohol for a fourth time, the daily said.

"The defendant in this case has been sentenced to death and the official notification will be given soon," it quoted Judge Jalil Jalili as saying.

"According to article 179 of the Islamic penal code, if someone drinks twice and is punished for it on each occasion he should be executed on the third offence," Jalili said.

See how lenient the Iranians were in not hanging him after the third offense?

Truly, Allah is most merciful.

Louise Arbour's journey

Sorry I've been too busy to blog much, but this is a good article from UN Watch that I didn't see any other JBloggers address:

UN rights chief reversal on anti-Semitic Arab charter

In an unprecedented reversal, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has backed off from her earlier endorsement of an Arab text calling for the “elimination” of Zionism, in response to a UN Watch protest. News of the controversy was covered internationally, sparking a series of Canadian newspaper editorials critical of Ms. Arbour’s initial statement and her overall handling of the affair.

Following is a timeline of the events as they unfolded around the globe.

Jan. 24, 2008, Geneva: High Commissioner Arbour issues an official statement: “I welcome the 7th ratification required to bring the Arab Charter on Human Rights into force... the Arab Charter on Human Rights is an important step forward [to] help strengthen the enjoyment of human rights.” At U.N. headquarters in New York, Marie Okabe, spokesperson for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, highlights Arbour’s statement. When asked, she does not have the text of the charter.

Jan. 25, 2008, United Arab Emirates: The Arab world takes note of Arbour’s support for the Arab Charter, prominently featured in this article by the United Arab Emirates news agency.

Jan. 28, 2008, Geneva: UN Watch is the first to speak out, exposing the hateful provisions in the Arab Charter, and demanding action from Arbour. UN Watch sends her a detailed letter:...[click on link for full description]

Jan. 30, 2008, Geneva & New York: Arbour changes course. Now she asserts that various Arab Charter provisions are “incompatible” with international norms. The UN headquarters in New York issues a new release, entitled “Arab rights charter deviates from international standard.”

Read the whole thing.

Egyptians freak over idea of studying Hebrew

In the interests of normalization, Israel's ambassador to Egypt suggested that Egyptians study Hebrew in their schools.

The reaction is both hilarious and telling:

The Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Shalom Cohen, called for the Hebrew language be taught in Egyptian schools on Tuesday evening . The suggestion has provoked an angry response from Egyptian political parties who claimed that the demand came as part of the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978.

Jamal Zahran, an independent Egyptian lawmaker, told the Al-Khalij daily newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates that the Israeli ambassador’s comment reflected Israeli efforts to encourage the Egyptian young people to learn the Hebrew language and travel to Israel to ‘assimilate in its society.’

He criticized the Egyptian government for remaining silent in the wake of Cohen’s comments. Zahran urged Egypt to announce its rejection of the demand and to warn Israel against what he called intervention in internal Egyptian affairs.

"The Hebrew language does not possess any heritage or civilization, and it is spoken by very few people, and so Egypt can't adopt it in its schools as a foreign language," the deputy president of the Nasserite party, Husam Issa said. He described the Israeli ambassador's demand as "stupidity and triviality" and reminded the ambassador that most of the Egyptian people antagonize the Israeli government for its brutality against the Arabs in general and the Palestinian people in particular.

The fact that Egyptians are worried that hundreds of millions of Arabs could "assimilate" into Israeli society betrays a deep insecurity in their own culture. The fact that an Egyptian politician can even utter a sentence such as "the Hebrew language does not possess any heritage or civilization" also shows how hate can trump common sense.

Interestingly, there is increasing interest in Hebrew language instruction in Egyptian universities, as YNet noted recently:

An unexpected new trend among Egyptian university students... Hebrew language studies. Foreign Ministry data indicate that over 1,400 Egyptian students are currently enrolled in full-time Hebrew studies programs.

More than 10 Egyptian Universities currently offer Hebrew courses, usually as part of Oriental Language faculties that also teach Turkish and Persian.

Two major Egyptian universities, Ain Shams University and al-Azhar University, even boast a separate Hebrew language faculty. This is a major accomplishment, especially in universities that are considered bastions of strong anti-Israel sentiments.

One Hebrew lecturer, an Egyptian that has never visited Israel, recently told an Israeli diplomat that he teaches his students Hebrew through “Ha'Gashash Ha'chiver” comedy skits and Israeli music.

The lecturer even asked the Israeli diplomat for new movies to show his students, stressing that they must show absolutely no sex or nudity, or he could be charged with corrupting his students with Israeli pornography.

State officials explained that this burgeoning interest in the Hebrew language stems mostly from Egyptian curiosity, but also of a keen desire to “know the enemy”. Many students are sent to Hebrew studies programs by Egyptian intelligence, who frown upon students who study Hebrew of their own initiative.

Students who attend the Israeli academic Center or frequent the Israeli embassy in Cairo are likewise harassed by security personnel, who incessantly question them and often warn them not to return. Those few students brave enough to attend Hebrew lecturers are deemed highly courageous.

My letter to the Arab News

I know it is a waste of time, but sometimes I can't resist...

An article in the Arab News said:

The situation in Gaza represents misery, not only for the Palestinians but also for all civilized people of the world.
The West is preoccupied with human rights issues in the Middle East and the collapse of the American economy when children of Gaza are dying because of the blockade. Hunger, cold, darkness, pain and blood covering women and children and many other traumas are part of the bigger picture.
...The situation in Gaza represents a slap in the face of the civilized world. Children are living outdoors, women are dying from bullets and old people are freezing to death.

I wrote:

I have been following the events in Gaza pretty closely, and I do not recall any children dying (besides a very few who were already extremely ill), I do not recall anyone starving to death nor do I recall anyone freezing to death. Do you by any chance have names and the circumstances?

And if not, why does the Arab News keep publishing absurd lies like these? Self-perpetuating myths that incite hundreds of millions of Arabs is not quite the best way to get to a peaceful solution.