Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Carter to EU: Stop being wimps. Defy the US. Support Hamas

Jimmy just takes every opportunity he can to prop up his Hamas pals:

Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza, former US president Jimmy Carter told the Guardian yesterday. Carter, visiting the Welsh border town of Hay for the Guardian literary festival, described the EU's position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as "supine" and its failure to criticise the Israeli blockade of Gaza as "embarrassing".
Referring to the possibility of Europe breaking with the US in an interview with the Guardian, he said: "Why not? They're not our vassals. They occupy an equal position with the US."
The blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza, imposed by the US, EU, UN and Russia - the so-called Quartet - after the organisation's election victory in 2006, was "one of the greatest human rights crimes on Earth," since it meant the "imprisonment of 1.6 million people, 1 million of whom are refugees". "Most families in Gaza are eating only one meal per day. To see Europeans going along with this is embarrassing," Carter said.
While being scrupulously polite to the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who represent the Fatah movement, he was scathing about their exclusion of Hamas. He described the Fatah-only government as a "subterfuge" aimed at getting round Hamas's election victory two years ago. "The top opinion pollster in Ramallah told me the other day that opinion on the West Bank is shifting to Hamas, because people [i.e., Jimmy - EoZ] believe Fatah has sold out to Israel and the US," he said.
Carter said the Quartet's policy of not talking to Hamas unless it recognised Israel and fulfilled two other conditions had been drafted by Elliot Abrams, an official in the national security council at the White House. He called Abrams "a very militant supporter of Israel". The ex-president, whose election-monitoring Carter Centre had just certified Hamas's election victory as free and fair, addressed the Quartet for 12 minutes at its session in London in 2006. He urged it to talk to Hamas, which had offered to form a unity government with Fatah, the losers.
"The Quartet's final document had been drafted in Washington in advance, and not a line was changed," he said. [Nah, he doesn't sound like a bitter old man who gets ignored by the young whippersnappers who replaced him. - EoZ]
Last night, before a packed crowd at Hay, Carter spoke of his "horror" at America's involvement in torturing prisoners, saying he wanted the next US president to promise never to do so again.
He left an intriguing hint that George Bush might even face prosecution on war crimes charges once he left office.
When pressed by Philippe Sands QC on Bush's recent admission that he had authorised interrogation procedures widely seen as amounting to torture, Carter replied that he was sure Bush would be able to live a peaceful, "productive life - in our country".
Sands, an international legal expert, said afterwards that he understood that to be "clear confirmation" that while Bush would face no challenge in his own country, "what happened outside the country was another matter entirely"

Women screaming at mosque. Helpful Imam prays faster.

From Arab News:

Worshippers at the Imam Malik Mosque in the Al-Rawdah district of Jeddah had their attention drawn to the screaming of women in the mosque’s women section during Isha prayers on Saturday.
The commotion was caused after two men entered the women’s part of the mosque to rob women worshippers, while two of their accomplices stood guard outside. According to eyewitnesses the four men then fled in a blue car.
“My mom went out with two of our maids, my siblings and our driver,” said the 17-year-old daughter of a woman who was robbed. “At prayer time the women and children went to the women’s section, whereas the driver and my teenage brother went to the men’s section,” she added.
“Toward the end of the prayer a youth entered the mosque. He told one of the maids who was taking care of the young daughter that he was looking for his mother,” said the daughter, who asked her name not be published.
She added that the youth then stole some handbags and other belongings.
“When the maid started screaming, a man came in and held her mouth from the back to prevent her from screaming. The gang then fled before anyone could come and help from the men’s section,” she said, adding that handbags containing cash, credit cards and mobile phones were stolen.
Meanwhile, hearing the screams the imam hastened the prayer. However, by the end of the prayer, the four men had fled.

Now, here's an Islamic hero - someone who knows that his prayers are more important than women screaming in your own mosque, and they must be finished no matter what. It doesn't matter why the women were screaming - they might have been stabbed, too - all that matters is that the prayers get done properly.

But, in extenuating circumstances, they may be rushed a bit.

Poll: Iran inching toward collapse

A recent poll suggests that, nearly thirty years after the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Iranian regime is moving toward collapse.

Over 99.8% percent of the 2672 votes in an Elder of Ziyon online poll are of the belief that after the Islamic revolution in 1979, which started an Islamic regime responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the regime's power is nearing collapse.

(For more exposition, see my previous entry.)

Utterly unscientific poll

I saw the Iran's PressTV had a poll that they reported on in this way:

A recent poll suggests that after 60 years of the Zionist occupation of the Palestinian territories, Israel is moving toward collapse.

Over 50 percent of the 2255 respondents to a Press TV online poll are of the belief that after 60 years of the establishment of Israel, the regime's power is nearing collapse.

The only people who participated in this poll are the ones who look to gain their news from a censored Iranian news site online.

So, in the interests of fairness, I am placing a similar poll on my site. Feel free to vote multiple times because it is all meant for pure propaganda anyway.

Enjoy!

Utterly Unscientific Poll
Do you think that the Iranian regime will collapse?

Yes
No
I don't know

view results

UPDATE: At the moment, the 352 votes say that Iran is doomed, and zero say otherwise. I will make the results "official" when we get 2255 votes, to make it exactly as authoritative as Press TV's poll.

Bahrain making overtures to Jews they kicked out?

Firas Press quotes Bahrain's quasi-governmental Al-Watan newspaper as saying that over the past six months, Bahrain has been quietly contacting the families of Jews who left Bahrain in the 1950s and offering to restore their citizenship.

Notably, one of the very few Jews left in Bahrain was expected to become Bahrain's ambassador to the US earlier this month.

More Palestinian Arab news you won't read anywhere else

The Palestinian press is buzzing over a package sent to Palestinian "prime minister" Salam Fayad which contained a powdered substance. His guards opened it and went to the hospital for treatment. It is being called an assassination attempt by at least one newspaper. One of the guards was sent abroad for treatment.

Egypt is reported to have discovered and sealed 12 more smuggling tunnels.

Iran pledged to increase support for Hamas and to send it more sophisticated weapons, even if there is an Israeli/Syrian peace treaty.

Iraqi mothers refuse to let Jews save their children's lives

Here is a follow-up of last week's story about Iraqi opposition to Israelis saving their children's lives - for free. From the Sunday Times:

The parents of Iraqi babies with congenital heart problems are facing a dilemma: should they allow their children to be treated in Israeli hospitals when they have been brought up to believe that Israel is their mortal enemy?
Hostility towards the Jewish state in Iraq is so strong that many parents refuse to travel to Tel Aviv for free life-saving hole-in-the-heart surgery.
Some accept the offer but never reveal where their children were treated, even though the operation has not been available in Iraq since its leading cardiac clinic burnt down after the American-led invasion in 2003.
Other parents are seeking treatment elsewhere in the Arab world, despite prices of up to £15,000 for heart surgery in private clinics. They fear the stigma of being treated in Israel.
Aria, an 18-month-old baby from Kirkuk in northern Iraq, was waiting to return home last week after a successful operation at the Edith Wolfson medical centre in Tel Aviv, where 11 Iraqi children are being treated. The surgery is sponsored by Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), a humanitarian organisation founded in Israel in 1996 and supported by private sources, including Christian charity groups.
Aria’s young mother, Paiman, paid tribute to the clinic and the surgeon, Dr Lior Sasson, saying: “He saved little Aria’s life.”
However, the parents of other Iraqi children in urgent need of surgery said they had rejected free treatment when they heard it would be performed in Israel.
Sara, 2, needs surgery for a defective heart valve. After taking her from Iraq to neighbouring Jordan for preliminary tests, her mother, Shatha, 37, turned down treatment at the Wolfson centre. She said she had had no idea before she left for Amman, the Jordanian capital, that the operation would be in Israel.
“We’ve been foes of Israel since before we were born. We firmly believe that they are our enemies. You can’t change this overnight,” she said.
She is now planning to have the operation performed in Algeria instead: its government agreed to pay for 14 Iraqi children to be treated there rather than be sent to Israel.
Shatha’s friend, an Iraqi Kurd from Kirkuk who was too afraid to give her first name, also travelled to Jordan so that her son, Ahmed, could be assessed for a heart operation. She too turned down the free treatment offered by SACH.
“Now I can sleep with a clear conscience. I’m able to hold my head up high and not be ashamed by having my son treated in Algeria,” she said.
The opposite view was taken by Mohammed, a 37-year-old Kurdish aid worker, whose daughter Souz, 22 months, needed urgent heart surgery. He borrowed thousands of dollars to pay for treatment in Iraq and Jordan, but the doctors there told him there was nothing they could do for her. When he heard she could be treated in Israel, he did not hesitate. She has now had surgery and is making a good recovery.
“I can honestly tell you that I didn’t worry for a moment about where or who will operate on my daughter,” he said. “Nor did I worry about the reaction of my family and relatives. Anyone who blames me should put themselves in my place and live for nearly two years watching his daughter die in front of his eyes, and then tell me what he’d have done.”
His wife, who accompanied Souz to Israel for the operation, added: “The doctors were helpful and understanding, and were sympathetic to our suffering.” She had not been charged anything and would be able to return home with the £1,000 given to her by her husband.
Apprehension about a hostile reaction in Iraq is common among families who opted for treatment in Israel.
The mother of Mustafa, 4, from Kirkuk, who has undergone two heart operations in six months, said: “My only fear, which spoils my joy at my son’s escape from death, is the revenge my family can expect when we go back to Iraq.”
Simon Fisher, the Liverpool-born executive director of SACH, said: “We welcome every child in need regardless of origin.”
Visit the Save a Child's Heart charity website

UNRWA head compliments Hamas

Palestine Today reports that the UNRWA Commissioner-General, Karen Abu-Zayd, complimented Hamas yesterday, saying, "[Hamas] has displayed good organization and discipline .. crime rates have plummeted, and clearly there is no longer the fear of being kidnapped among the staff of relief organizations [in Gaza.]"

She said that Hamas' strength in Gaza is because of "international isolation," blaming the world community for Hamas' strength and saying that it is more popular than ever.

Abu Zayd also stressed that there are no direct contacts between UNRWA and Hamas and they only cooperate in technical areas.

It appears that she did not say anything about Hamas confiscating fuel meant for UNRWA, but then again, she was speaking from Gaza where the UN workers supposedly have no fear anymore because of Hamas' benevolent rule of law.

There is no trace of this speech on the UNRWA website. The latest thing that she is quoted about on that website is her effusive praise of Palestinian Arab "refugees" in the context of a photo exhibition celebrating their life before the "Nakba" where she parrots the Palestinian Arab version of the events of 1948.

One more for the count

I just saw that one of the people injured in a "work accident" last month succumbed to his wounds a few days later.

So our 2008 PalArab self-death count is at 72.

Palestinian Arab site links to anti-Hamas censorship software

On May 15th, Hamas started blocking pornographic sites from sections of Gaza. It can be reasonably assumed that if Hamas is making deals with the Internet service providers in Gaza, that they are also watching where people are surfing to use against them later.

In response, the anti-Hamas Firas Press site put up a link to software that can get around the Hamas censorship and can also anonymize Web surfing. I don't know how good that software is,but apparently it was written to get around Chinese censorship of the Web.

(Two days ago, Firas was hacked, possibly by Hamas sympathizers.)

Firas just did more for freedom for Gaza citizens in one day than any number of "human-rights" groups have done in years.

Another Qassam falls short, injuring PalArabs

Firas Press and Palestine Press Agency both report:

A number of citizens were injured after the fall of a rudimentary domestically manufactured missile on a Palestinian house in the Al-Shojaeya neighborhood east of Gaza City.

Eyewitnesses said, "The 'missile' missed its target and landed on a house, which led to the injury of a number of citizens."

Earlier in the day Ma'an reported that Israel had shot artillery shells at a Qassam cell in that same neighborhood, injuring some people; chances are that this was the real incident.

Something to remember when Hamas claims that Qassams are meant to "defend" Palestinian Arabs....

May 21, 1948 Arab leader: "War is peace"

One of the best examples of 1984-style doublespeak comes courtesy of Arab League Secretary General Azzam Pasha, whose comments have to be seen to be believed:

How many lies and absurdities can be fit in such a short article?

War is peace, Jews will invade all Arab countries, Jews would never offer citizenship to Arabs and would never treat them as well as Arabs treat Jews, and many more.

And yet we see the exact same lies being given, with an equally straight face, by Azzam Pasha's spiritual heirs.

Another PalArabic news site hacked

Yesterday, Firas Press published an article saying that they had suffered cyber-attacks before and were not going to cower in the face of such activities.

Last night the site went down and has not recovered since.

A few weeks ago the Palestine Press Agency site was hacked and was down for a while. They have a similar anti-Hamas orientation as Firas.

It looks like the Hamas script kiddies are restless.

Anti-semitism disguised as "Palestinian Unity" in Anaheim

Recently, Anaheim hosted the Sixth International Al-Awda Convention, where Palestinian Arabs worldwide converged to talk about their "right of return" and the "ethnic cleansing" that was inflicted on them.

It is striking how much Jew-hatred can occur without the single mentioning of the word "Jew." It is also interesting to contrast how Palestinian Arabs speak to each other, how Palestinian Arab Muslims speak to each other and how they speak to the Western world.

For example:

The highlight of the Al-Awda convention was the evening banquet featuring Bishop Atallah Hanna and Chief Justice Sheikh Taiseer Al-Tamimi.

"Palestine is and will be Arab until the Day of Judgement," said Sheikh Taiseer. "Occupations come and go but Palestine persevered and maintained its Arab-ness. Palestinian cities will remain forever Arab."

This is an interesting assertion. "Palestinians" often claim to the West that they are the original habitants of the land, descended from the Canaanites. The Canaanites were not Arab, and Palestine was invaded by Arabs in the wake of the dawning of Islam.

But in a room full of Arabs, that narrative disappears.

Bishop Atallah echoed Sheikh Taiseer's words, underlining that Palestinians -- both Christian and Muslim -- are "one nation, one people". "Today we emphasise that the right of return is as holy as Jerusalem. It is inalienable, non- negotiable, and sacred," said Bishop Atallah. "The occupation failed at killing the resistance and the evidence is you," he added.

When they talk to a Western audience they take pains to say that the Jews who lived in Palestine continuously since the days of the Second Temple are also "Palestinian" and would have the same rights to the land as they do. But in a room full of Arab Christians and Muslims, the Jews' rights to this land literally disappear.

The convention also attracted its usual non-Arab supporters:

Richard Becker, a founder of the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition expressed his "full solidarity" with the Palestinian people. Becker told the audience, "No empire built on oppression is stable", adding, "No empire lasts forever."
"We stand in solidarity, we stand in awe of you, we are inspired by you," said John Parker of the New York-based International Action Centre. "From the river to the sea, we will not stop until all of us are free."

The convention featured a number of prominent speakers including Ilan Pappe, a leading historian on the Middle East. Pappe called "Zionist ideology" the motivating force behind the Nakba, adding that now, unlike in 1948, "we know what Zionism is all about, we understand the strategy of Israel." He described the Nakba as ethnic cleansing.

And here's a nice piece of doublespeak:

Saree Makdisi, professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, spoke about achieving a democratic, secular, multicultural state that gives equal rights to all its citizens. "Zionism represents exclusionist claims and separations. We must keep repeating to people that Israel is not a secular state and does not treat its citizens equally," said Makdisi.

No one seriously believes that a Palestine would be any more secular and inclusive than any other Arab state, and the other speakers (as well as the "Palestinian constitution") make clear that this state would be "Arab," and even Muslim, not multi-cultural.

Yet, as Makdisi points out, the point is not a reflection of the reality of how yet another Arab State, but rather a talking point to "keep repeating to people."

Salman Abu Sitta called the Nakba the "largest, longest operation of planned ethnic cleansing in history". He called it the 90th year of the longest war against a single people. Abu Sitta described Zionist objectives as threefold: conquering, eliminating and destroying Palestinian history. Abu Sitta said that today Palestinians number seven times more than they were in 1948. "In this open conflict, we haven't surrendered," he said. He called Gaza the biggest concentration camp in the world. "I call it the new Auschwitz," said Abu Sitta.

Among friends, it is easy to be inconsistent ("ethnic cleansing" vs. the Palestinian Arab population explosion) as well as clearly anti-semitic in equating Gaza to Auschwitz.

And, standing in the United States, what are the means that need to be used to overthrow the Zionist regime?

Asad Abu Khalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and author of The Angry Arab blog, spoke about new dangers in the Arab world, including how Zionism has won allies among nearly all Arab regimes. "After 60 years, we should be aware how Zionism has its tentacles throughout Arab media and government," said Abu Khalil. He said the battle against Zionism could only succeed if launched against Arab regimes in their alliance with the US.

Despite the successes of Zionism, Abu Khalil added, there are signs of its failures. "The 2006 war on Lebanon revealed a path of struggle against Israel that can be mounted if joined by Arabs -- not regimes -- of different countries."

So use politics to weaken US influence and use war to eradicate Jews from the Middle East.

Bishop Atallah said that what makes Jerusalem a unique city is its religious diversity. Muslims go to mosques and Christians go to churches, he said, praying for one God and "asking Him to relieve their oppression and to give them freedom."

Bishop Atallah travelled to the US from Palestine to attend the Al-Awda convention along with Chief Justice Sheikh Taiseer Al-Tamimi. Both religious leaders came to address the importance of the right of return and to emphasise strong unity among Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

"My presence with Sheikh Taiseer is a focus on our unity," said Bishop Atallah. "Our religions can never divide us. We are proud of both Christians and Muslims."

What word is missing here? Yes, the good archbishop does not foresee Palestine nor Jerusalem as including any members of a certain third religion, let alone any others.

This is the Palestinian Arab definition of "diversity" - one that includes only Arabs.

And when Muslims get together, any mention of Christians similarly disappear, as they emphasize the Islamic aspects of Palestine.

All of the pretenses of equal rights, of desiring peace, of multiculturalism, of negotiations - they all get stripped away when Palestinian Arabs speak amongst themselves. To them, Israel is just a temporal anomaly, and better that their people should suffer for centuries hence than to accept the existence of any non-Arabs - and especially Jews - on what they consider Arab lands.

Hamas losing its mojo?

Palestine Press Agency reports on internal Hamas fears of its collapse.

According to the article, Hamas commissioned its own investigation into its current problems in Gaza. It appears that Hamas has lost much of its popularity, and can no longer create huge "spontaneous" rallies and protests as it used to, as the people of Gaza are not cooperating any more (autotranslated, cleaned up):

The Palestine Press News Agency received a special document prepared by the leadership of Hamas several weeks ago which confirmed an investigation regarding the failure of the movement to mobilize the masses to participate in organized events, having witnessed the last months the case of absolute failure of many of the events especially marches that were advocated by the movement at the sector level, not only failure by the leadership of the call at rallies, but was at the level of participation in the funerals of martyrs and events to protest at the blockade organized by Hamas movement.

The results of the investigation included: --

Internal reasons: --

* Large numbers of Hamas members are primarily concerned with their positions in the government official article [local?], which led to concern about participation and interest in national action.

* Retreat of the role of mosques in the polarization of the elements and lack of accountability about the reason for absenteeism.

* Widespread frustration among the elements of Hamas and the feeling of the majority of discrimination in jobs and government appointments, which led to a sense of injustice and unfairness.

External causes: --

* Movement of the situation facing subside away from the masses, which led to considerable decline in traffic relationship with the Palestinian street in the sector.

* Movement lost the broad categories of public [relations?] as a result of the negative elements.

* The Palestinian people now feel that they are the only victims of the siege and those who belonged to Hamas members not affected by this blockade on the Palestinian people in terms of salaries and financial support and provide them with food by the movement in the late hours of the night at their party affiliation.

* Fuel crisis in light of Hamas members and leaders driving luxury cars, thus provoking massive citizen anger, who suffers from severe fuel crisis.

* Citizens no longer believe in slogans brought by the movement before the military coup, such as "Reform and Justice," security and movement became the worst conduct exercises the authority of Fatah.

PalPress is a fervently anti-Hamas news source, and it reports rumor as fact (although it has been remarkably accurate about many stories.) It is possible that this report was purposefully "leaked" by Fatah.

But it is possible; parts do ring true and we have not seen any massive pro-Hamas rallies in a while. It doesn't look like Hamas is losing its grip on power, though; on the contrary it is consolidating power throughout Gaza and eliminating competition.

Still, I was getting very skeptical about the efficacy of Israel's reduction of basic services to Gaza, and the chances that it would turn ordinary Palestinian Arabs against Hamas. This indicates that maybe, but only maybe, it is having an effect.

The first victim of the Gaza fuel crisis

Firas Press reports that a man stabbed his brother to death in a fight over a container of cooking fuel.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 71.

The "Peace Index" - Moonbattery masquerading as statistics

Yesterday a group called the "Economist Intelligence Unit" came out with a ranking of world countries based on how "peaceful" they are (h/t Michael Fridman for the link.) The US came in 97th out of 140 countries, and Israel came in 136th. It was heavily covered in newspapers worldwide.

They have a very elaborate methodology, taking into account many different factors. The factors themselves seem to be the product of an interesting mindset.

First, they try to make it sound like it is entirely the result of rigorous statistics:

Twenty-four indicators of the existence or absence of peace were chosen by the panel, which are divided into three key thematic categories. Many of the indicators have been "banded" on a scale of 1-5; qualitative indicators in the index have been scored by the Economist Intelligence Unit's extensive team of country analysts, and gaps in the quantitative data have been filled by estimates. Indicators of quantitative data such as military expenditure or jailed population have been normalised on the basis of:

x = (x-Min(x)) / (Max (x) - Min (x))

Where Min (x) and Max (x) are respectively the lowest and highest values in the 140 countries for any given indicator. The normalised value is then transformed from a 0-1 value to a 1-5 score to make it comparable with the other indicators.

Then they go into the specific indicators, which sound sort of reasonable until you dig in a little bit. They measure things like:

Number of external and internal conflicts fought: 2001-06
Estimated number of deaths from organised conflict (external)
Number of deaths from organised conflict (internal)
Level of organised conflict (internal)
Relations with neighbouring countries
Level of distrust in other citizens
Number of displaced people as a percentage of the population
Political instability
Level of disrespect for human rights (Political Terror Scale)
Potential for terrorist acts
Number of homicides per 100,000 people
Level of violent crime
Likelihood of violent demonstrations
Number of jailed population per 100,000 people
Number of internal security officers and police per 100,000 people
Military expenditure as a percentage of GDP
Number of armed services personnel per 100,000 people
Volume of transfers (imports) of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people
Volume of transfers (exports) of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people
UN Deployments 2007-08 (percentage of total armed forces)
Non-UN Deployments 2007-08 (percentage of total armed forces)
Aggregate number of heavy weapons per 100,000 people
Ease of access to small arms and light weapons
Military capability/sophistication

Then they weight it according to various factors.

The problem is that many of these "indicators" are purely subjective, and when subjective criteria are used to come up with objective data, the results are anything but objective.

In the case of Israel, their breakdown shows exactly where they go wrong. For example, here are some rankings where Israel did poorly according to the EIU:

Level of distrust in other citizens
Qualitative assessment of level of distrust in other citizens. Ranked 1-5 (very low-very high) by EIU analysts

Israel got a 4, on a purely subjective guess based on little knowledge.

Similarly:

Ease of access to weapons of minor destruction
Qualitative assessment of the ease of access to small arms and light weapons. Ranked 1-5 (very low-very high) by EIU analysts.

Israel got a 3 (out of 5). Unmentioned are any controls around the access to these weapons or training in their use, as Israel's handgun deaths are quite low.

Level of organised conflict (internal) - 4
Qualitative assessment of the intensity of conflicts within the country. Ranked 1-5 (very low-very high) by EIU analysts

Respect for human rights - 4
A qualitative measure of the level of political terror through an analysis of Amnesty International's Yearbook.

Potential for terriorist acts - 4
Qualitative assessment of the potential for terrorist acts. Ranked 1-5 (very low-very high) by EIU analysts

Any time it says "qualitative assessment" it is using a fancy word for "guesses based on reading newspapers and Amnesty International reports."

Number of armed services personnel per 100,000 people - 5
Active armed services personnel comprises all servicemen and women on full-time duty in the army, navy, air force and joint forces (including conscripts and long-term assignments from the Reserves)

Aggregate number of heavy weapons per 100,000 people - 5
Source: Bonn International Centre for Conversion (BICC)

Military capability/sophistication - 5
Qualitative assessment of the grade of sophistication and the extent of military research and development (R&D) Ranked 1-5 (very low-very high) by EIU analysts

See the problem here? Thius august group makes an assumption that any country that has a large and sophisticated military must be, inherently, non-peaceful. The logical fallacy of these assumptions are staggering, yet escape this think-tank.

The basic thinking of this group is that armies are inherently evil. This is breathtakingly stupid.

But there is a patina of objectivity around this extraordinarily flawed, and simply wrongheaded, analysis. The media is quick to lap these sorts of things up as if they have any real value.

Even more ironically, the EIU says that one of the biggest reasons for having such an index is to help businesses decide where to set up shop:

Business benefits greatly from an environment of peace. Understanding the attributes of peace allows governments to better understand what they can do to improve the business environment This knowledge allows business to make more confident investment decisions on the basis of actual and predicted stability in a community or nation.

They are pretty clearly saying that companies that choose to do business in Israel are idiots, because of their pseudo-scientific rankings.

Now, who do you trust more to make business decisions: a group that includes Google, IBM, Motorola, Microsoft and Warren Buffet, or the EIU?

The EIU has been doing this sham for a few years now, and one would think that they would adjust their sacred methodology to account for what is obviously a ridiculous conclusion, that Israel is less peaceful than most African nations where tens of thousands die monthly. But they get lots of press, and no one calls them on their basic methodological flaws, so why not keep it going?

Hamas digging weapons tunnels underneath schools

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is furiously digging tunnels in anticipation of an Israeli invasion of Gaza.

The tunnels serve two purposes: to hide caches of weapons and explosives, and to provide an escape route for Hamas leaders through Rafah.

The source quoted mentions that no matter what happens during any Israeli activity, Hamas plans to declare themselves "victorious conquerors" as soon as the IDF leaves by claiming that they "repelled the aggression in Gaza."

The article is unusually specific as to exactly where these tunnels are:

1. Hamas has been digging a tunnel under the house of one of their Qassam Brigades commanders named "Ismail Astal", leading to the ground under Khalid Hassan Secondary School for Boys in Khan Younis and a branch to a school for boys in Bani Suheila, another branch To the house of a Qassam leader Omar Al-Astal, this tunnel will continue to the house of another named Abdel Hamid Al-Astal. All these tunnels under the ground connected with each other.

2. The Hamas militia dug a tunnel in the house of another person named Ashraf Fahmi Al-Astal, an executive officer of the Hamas, and branches go to the Farhana School for Girls near the police station in Khan Younis and then to Haifa prep school for girls will go to the house in charge of internal security of Hamas in the south Ahmed "duck" (autotranslation.] Also, these tunnels have other ramifications associated with each other and continuous network under the ground.

3. The Qassam Brigades militia group is digging tunnels inside Gaza City and other provinces, including: a tunnel carved in the city of Arafat's police "Passport" to lead the Islamic University and another tunnel from the seat of government house in Gaza did not know its destination yet.

We have seen before that Hamas has dug bunkers and tunnels under even UNRWA schools, and they have fired rockets from schools as well, so this is more than plausible.

The dangers of "peace" with Syria

As I mentioned yesterday, during the NORPAC trip to Washington a congressman asked my group what we thought of the news about the negotiations between Israel and Syria.

My answer, after stressing that this was not NORPAC's position, was that I was extremely skeptical about the sincerity of Syria in wanting peace. I pointed out that the Syrian border was the quietest of all Israel's borders and the borders where Israel made compromises for "peace" were the ones where there was the least peace. I mentioned the possibility that Iran is really behind this "peace" offer, and if Syria could gain the Golan through negotiations then it effectively puts Iran's troops at Israel's doorstep, giving them a huge advantage in conventional warfare, let alone speaking about their unconventional warfare aspirations.

My brother EBoZ added that with Iran sponsoring Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, this would surround Israel with its most implacable foe.

Another member of my group pointed out that Arabs look at Israel as an aberration in the Middle East, and that they are very patient because in their view Israel will simply not exist in the long term. Indeed, I added, the internal Arabic press considers the sixty years of Israel's existence to be similar to the Crusades, when the Muslims ultimately regained control of Jerusalem and other areas.

The congressman seemed a little surprised but had no other comments.

Soccer Dad pointed out to me a YNet article saying that there is no way that the two sides will agree and to "relax." While he says that he thought the article was too optimistic, he recalls how previous negotiations over Syria (especially under Netanyahu) have broken down in the past over Syria's intransigence.

Perhaps. But the most uncomfortable part of yesterday's events in Washington came when former Knesset member and minister Dan Meridor, in the midst of a rousing Zionist speech and after hearing many senators and congressmen talking about their support of new versions of the Syria Accountability Act, stated as fact that Israel would have to make painful concessions to Syria (without mentioning it by name.)

This was greeted with complete silence and at least two "boos."

Jordanian media against freedom of speech

From Arab News:

A coalition of Jordanian media outlets, professional syndicates and political parties plan to launch a national campaign on June 10 for the boycott of Danish and Dutch products to protest anti-Islam moves in the two European countries, organizers said yesterday.

The campaign, entitled “The Messenger Unites Us,” came into existence after a dozen of Danish papers reprinted blasphemous cartoons in February.

The controversial pictures were originally printed by the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, sparking a spate of protests across the Arab and Islamic worlds. Dutch products were recently added to a list of blacklisted Danish goods after Dutch MP Geert Wilders released a short anti-Islam film on the Internet in March.

...
He pointed out that the campaign would include highway billboards, posters, printed T-shirts, bumper stickers and the like “to inform consumers not only to boycott foods but anything associated with Denmark and the Netherlands such as airlines and shipping agencies.”

Campaign organizers also decided to institute legal action against those involved in “demeaning the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him),” arguing that their behavior violated the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and several articles of the Jordanian Penal Code.

So if the Jordanian media themselves support persecuting people exercising freedom of speech, how much can you trust what they publish as being the truth?

Today we really had a "Zionist-Occupied Government"

Today, I am attending the annual NORPAC mission to Washington. Some 900 committed Zionists came down to speak to virtually every Senate and Congress office, sometimes to the congress members themselves and sometimes to their aides.

Before and after the meetings we are hearing speeches from some of Israel's best friends on the Hill. Most of them sound more pro-Israel than Kadima.

My group had three meetings. The first two were with aides, who politely listen and take notes about the specific legislation we are asking them to support.

The third meeting was with a Representative of a western state who was very friendly. His first question to us was to ask my opinion of the Syrian/Israeli talks reported this morning.

It is a very empowering feeling to be able to have a conversation with a member of the US House of Representatives about a topic you feel strongly about.

The halls of Congress were filled with yarmulka-wearing advocates for Israel today. The leaders just announced that because of our visits today the sponsor of one of the bills we are backing got many phone calls from people we met asking to co-sponsor the bill (one to make it harder for Iran to get foreign investments.)

It has been a long day but it is a rewarding experience, knowing that we can make a difference.

When detente is better than "peace"

Israel and Syria have started "peace" talks in Turkey.

At the moment, Syria's stance against Israel is entirely passive-aggressive. Everything that it has been doing - arming Hezbollah, building a nuclear weapons site, hosting terror groups - has a veneer of deniability, no matter how implausible. Which means that any agreement to stop those activities is essentially unenforceable, because they cannot be officially monitored.

On the other hand, the Syrian/Israel border has been Israel's quietest border since 1973. Israel's annexation of the Golan was perhaps the best move Israel has ever done for its own security, and military experts are unanimous as to the huge strategic importance of the Golan to Israel.

In other words, Israel's "illegal occupation" of the Golan has created more real peace than any number of compromises that Israel has made for what the world calls "peace."

Any embarkation of negotiations - or indeed, and change of a status quo - needs to be preceded by a calculation of the upside versus the downside. There is no way that Syria will agree to a peace agreement without getting the Golan back, placing much of Israel's population - not to mention its water supply - at great risk.

What's the upside? Is there any realistic chance that Syria would ditch its Iranian sponsor, abandon Hezbollah, stop incitement against Israel and become friends with the US?

If Syria wanted to get into the US orbit, it could do it without the Golan, and Syria has no threats from Israel as long as it doesn't make any aggressive moves. Today's detente is better than any other realistic scenario.

This is yet another folly where the pursuit of a "peace process" is antithetical to real peace.

Palestinian Arab news roundup

Lots of stuff going on in the Palestinian Arab press tonight...

Mostly from Firas Press:

There are rumors that Hamas was planning to hold a demonstration, shoot a Qasssam rocket into the crowd, blame Israel and use the situation to open Rafah. The Popular Committees nixed the idea.

An AP report is elaborated on where Palestinian Arabs are reluctant to embrace Bin Laden's support. Hamas considers Al-Qaeda "too extreme" for them, which is funny because recently Al Qaeda criticized Hamas for being too extreme as well. Either way, even Hamas realizes that making Bin Laden a hero is bad PR.

Also in Gaza,Fatah's terror arm, the Al Aqsa Brigades, claim to have found an Israeli spy device (with American parts) meant to video, and possibly remotely explode, terrorists. It looks a bit crude to me.

Speaking of spies, Islamic Jihad claims to have broken up a major spy ring, arresting many "collaborators." The self-death count may rise yet again. They used this opportunity to appeal to the ones they haven't yet found to repent or else, Allah forbid, they would be punished in this world and the next.

Hamas is planning a mass demonstration - and possibly an attempt to break down the fence - at the Karni crossing on Thursday. It is possible that this is the demonstration that they considered shooting a Qassam at.

Also, Ma'an reports that a Fatah-linked group claimed responsibility for the bombing attempt that happened yesterday at the Huwara checkpoint where a 16-year old was shot when he was found to have explosives strapped on. The other Palestinian Arab media don't believe the story altogether, preferring to tell themselves that Israel just shoots teenagers at checkpoints for no reason.

Worse than honor killing?

The Saudi-based Arab News describes a truly horrific story, where a family kicked their young mentally handicapped daughter for reasons of "honor," leaving her homeless - and then raped a year later.

And they still won't help her:

Neighbors of Maryam, an 18-year-old girl who was raped in a pedestrian tunnel here recently, are claiming that her family will not take her back because of the stigma associated with victims of sex crimes. Maryam’s family would not speak to Arab News.
Meanwhile, local police claim they have no cause to investigate the crime or find the perpetrators unless they receive complaints from the victim or her family.
“We cannot do anything about the alleged sexual assault that she suffered so long as we do not receive a formal complaint from her or her relatives,” Makkah police spokesman Maj. Abdul Mohsen Al-Mayman told Arab News yesterday.
Maryam was admitted to the King Abdul Aziz Hospital a few days ago for treatment of trauma resulting from sexual assault. She is currently under the custody of local health officials. A doctor at the hospital confirmed that the young woman was undergoing treatment at the hospital and that she is thought to be suffering from mental problems.
“As we cannot keep her in the hospital any longer, we plan to send her to the Taif Mental Health Hospital or hand her over to the Social Care Department. Her case is compounded because she has developed some mental disturbances besides being mentally retarded,” the doctor said, pointing out that the hospital has only eight beds for women patients who are on long-term care.
According to one neighbor, who did not want to be named, the family kicked the girl out 18 months ago on suspicion of being involved with a boy.
Since then, locals say she has been homeless and has showed signs of mental problems.
Describing the case of Maryam as not uncommon, the doctor appealed to charitable organizations to make sufficient shelters for homeless women like her.

With "honor killings" the torture ends. Maryam can only look forward to more abuse.

Tomorrow, EoZ and the Zionist Lobby visit Congress

Sorry that blogging has been light; it looks like Real Life will be intruding quite a bit over the next month or so.

Tomorrow, I plan to join some 900 other Zionist Jews to visit almost every single member of Congress or their aides with NORPAC, a pro-Israel political action committee. I've never done it before, but both EBoZ and OBoZ tell me that it is very enlightening and gratifying. I understand that one can learn more about how the government works from a single trip like this than from years of study.

It will be a very full day and I hope to blog about it afterwards.

PalArabs glorify intrafada violence, but MSM blames the Jews

The Australian writes about the latest photo-sharing craze in the territories:

A POPULAR pastime in Gaza is swapping gruesome footage of dead or dying victims of the Strip's incessant violence.

The images used to be almost exclusive legacies of clashes with Israeli forces but last year that changed. Now being far more keenly traded are snapshots of Palestinian fratricide, gruesome images taken by "militia-cams' that record scenes for posterity.

Spend any time near the emergency ward of Gaza's Shifa Hospital and security staff or ward workers will offer a look at their mobile phones, which they'll quickly switch to video mode to show images of victims of intra-Palestinian clashes being wheeled in agony from ambulances.

Sit in a town square for more than five minutes and you'll be quickly encircled by youths clamouring to outdo each other with images of death and mayhem.

A veritable library of the "intrafada" now exists in Gaza among militias and clans. Most were added during 2007, when the numbers of intra-Palestinian deaths jumped by 800 per cent - from 55 to 439 - almost all of the deaths in Gaza.

Images of men being tossed from the towers trade particularly well, as does a sequence of a Fatah youth leaping from behind a corner to shoot a rifle at entrenched Hamas men nearby. He hadn't levelled his weapon before being shot through the chest.

...Writing last month in The Jerusalem Post, Bassam Eid from the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group said, "Because Palestinians are accustomed to seeing weapons and are also exposed to verbal and physical abuse of the military occupation, verbal disagreements easily turn into fist fights and sometimes even escalate into gang or family feuds. Growing up in a spiral of violence means that individuals find it harder to determine the limits of aggression."

Of course, it has to be Israel's fault somehow, as if centuries of intra-Arab fighting never occurred before the Zionists came on the scene.

The trade in gruesome photos is not limited to kids trading them like baseball cards. The mainstream Palestinian Arab newspapers and terrorist websites delight in showing dismembered bodies - here's the latest collection of victims of Hamas terror in Firas Press, and it is not close to the most gruesome.

Yet this celebration of death is, of course, the Jews' fault.

(h/t EBoZ)

The Elder gets copied again

This time, my story on the "belly dancer torture" got picked up by Israel Today.

Unfortunately, they didn't credit me.

On the plus side, it is nice to know that reporters do occasionally read this blog and the stories get more circulation, even if they don't want to admit it.

Egypt finds 7 more Gaza tunnels, with American weapons

Palestine Press Agency (recently restored after a hacking attack) reports that Egypt has discovered seven more smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Hamastan in Gaza.

Egyptian police arrested two men who were found in the tunnels.

In addition, they found American-manufactured weapons and ammunition. They traced these to the multinational peacekeeping forces in the Sinai, and they are investigating the apparent theft.

UPDATE: Police in Rafah shot and killed a suspected drug dealer. Our 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 70.

Today's Palestinian Arab lie (#54,213)

Just because it caught my eye...

Ramzy Baroud, who writes obsessively anti-Israel pieces in many left-wing publications, just wrote another screed, and I noticed it contained this quote:

When Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time, compared Palestinians in a Jerusalem Post interview (August 2000) to “crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more,” he was hardly diverting from a consistent Zionist tradition that equated Palestinians with animals and vermin.

Sure enough, throughout the Internet one will find this quote by Barak in a supposed August 2000 interview with the Jerusalem Post. See, for example, Wikiquote on Ehud Barak.

So, did Barak really say that?

Two minutes of research in the Jerusalem Post archives finds this:

Tibi is acting like the scorpion on the turtle's back, in the well- known story: The scorpion promises the turtle not to sting him if he carries him over the river. In the middle of the river, the scorpion stings the turtle, and says proudly: "It's a matter of character. "Jews are the turtle that brought Tibi to the Knesset, to Kol Yisrael, and to television. A high-ranking source close to [Ehud Barak] has said that if an agreement is not reached, the Palestinians will be like crocodiles: "the more you feed them, the hungrier they get."

This is quite different than the quote that supposed Palestinian Arab "scholars" bandy about as fact. In fact, this quote - not by Barak - was meant to push Israel towards compromise with Palestinian Arabs, not to insult them.

It is not worth fisking someone like Baroud, as he is simply not that important. But this just shows, yet again, that the truth is not on the Arab side, and they know that if they make stuff up that their audience will willingly believe it anyway.

Hamas attacks mosque; no one reports it

I mentioned over the weekend that Hamas thugs attacked and trashed a mosque in Jabalya, injuring many. More details have emerged from PCHR:

Gunmen belonging to Izzedeen El-Qassam Battalions and members of the Police raided Imam Mohammad Naser El-Deen El-Albani Mosque in Jabalia refugee camp two days ago. They took control of the mosque after expelling its caretakers, beating several of them.

At approximately 15:45 on Saturday, 17 May, masked gunmen headed to the Imam Mohammad Naser El-Deen El-Albani Mosque in Bloc 5 of Jabalia refugee camp. A vehicle carrying Izzedeen El-Qassam Battalions gunmen and two police cars accompanied the masked gunmen. The gunmen entered the mosque and demanded that the Imam, Abd El-Halim Abdallah Awad, and the Director of the Kitab and Sunna Association, Ashraf Wadi, to leave the mosque and stop managing it under order from Hamas. After a discussion between both parties, Wadi went to the police station in Jabalia refugee camp and submitted a complaint against the gunmen. Then he returned to the mosque. Several Hamas supporters gathered inside the mosque and started to perform afternoon (Aser) prayers. The gunmen used their gun butts to attack Wadi and Awad and other members of the Kitab and Sunna Associations. Then they threw them out of the mosque. Several neighbors, including women, gathered to protest what was happening inside the mosque. The gunmen beat several women.

Imam Awad took the remaining members of the Association out of the mosque through a door connecting the mosque to his nearby house. The gunmen destroyed part of the wall separating the roofs of the house and the mosque. The whole episode resulted in the injury of more than 20 people with bruises.

It is noted that the Imam Mohammad Naser El-Deen El-Albani Mosque was established by the Kitab and Sunna Association, which is a benevolent society of the Salafi movement.

Two days later there is not one story about this in the English-language press. Not even Maan's English edition mentioned it.

Isn't it strange that an attack like this - which caused severe damage to the mosque - gets ignored?

The story is newsworthy by any real standard. We have irony that an Islamic movement is attacking mosques, we see that Muslims routinely see mosques as political and military objectives while they insist that Westerners treat them strictly as religious sites, we can only imagine how many Korans were damaged and destroyed in the carnage. All of these are the types of "hooks" that reporters routinely use to make stories more interesting to their readers, and even though there are daily attacks by Hamas against Gazans that might be considered too boring to make it into the news, this attack does not fit that category.

The reason is obvious. Hamas threatens, arrests and injures reporters who do not report things to their liking. All reporters left in Gaza are Muslims who live there and who are biased anyway against Israel but are scared of Hamas. As a result, reporters are reluctant to report, the news gets skewed towards the terrorist point of view, and this percolates throughout the entire mainstream media and into the hearts and minds of ordinary readers.

News organizations are supposed to report the news, and if they cannot do so they should tell their consumers why. They should not just choose to ignore stories that would get a huge amount of coverage in any other context.

Nahal Oz diary

April 29: Fatah shoots two mortars at the Nahal Oz crossing, where Gazans get most of their fuel.
April 30: Islamic Jihad shoots four mortars at Nahal Oz.
May 2: The PRC shells Nahal Oz.
May 2: The DFLP shoots two mortars at Nahal Oz.
May 4: Israel ships fuel through Nahal Oz.
May 5: The Abu Ala Reesh Brigades shoots a mortar at Nahal Oz; Hamas shoots two mortars at Nahal Oz
May 9: Islamic Jihad shoots four mortars at Nahal Oz
May 10: Hamas shoots at least one mortar at Nahal Oz.
May 12: Israel ships fuel to Gaza through Nahal Oz.
May 15: Hamas shoots two mortars at Nahal Oz.
May 15: Islamic Jihad shoots five mortars at Nahal Oz.
May 16: The DFLP shoots two mortars at Nahal Oz.
May 19: Israel ships fuel through Nahal Oz.

As far as the two other major crossings into Gaza:

The Sufa crossing was attacked on May 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19.

The Kerem Shalom crossing was attacked on April 29, May 5, 11 and 14.

Just something for "human rights" groups to keep in mind as they demand that Israel supply Gaza with all its needs.

Just another peaceful day in Hamastan

Firas Press published some photos of Hamas' greatest hits, including the obligatory tortured dead bodies.

Here's an interesting picture that shows what a Gazan might see on a typical day in his neighborhood.

(They did not caption it so I don't know when this picture was taken.)

Iraqis freak over Israelis saving their lives

From the Jerusalem Post last week:

The Iraqi parliament is angry over reports that an organization in the capital has been sending Iraqi children for medical treatment in Israel.

A parliament statement confirmed reports about this enterprise, even though government sources previously said it was untrue, according to Al-Jazeera.

The statement, released by the parliament's Health and Environment Committee, said the activities of this organization, which is operating out of Baghdad's Green Zone, was harmful both to the Iraqi people and to the government, since there are no diplomatic relations with Israel at any level, and this practice is a violation of the Arab League's boycott policy of Israel.

The committee demanded the government investigate the matter and take the necessary legal measures against the organization, if the allegations prove to be accurate.

A source at the Iraqi Health Ministry told Al-Jazeera the organization included Iraqi and American medical doctors and that it worked in conjunction with an Israeli organization.

The Iraqi Health Ministry insisted it had no knowledge of this organization's operations and that all the sick people the ministry sent outside of Iraq for treatment were sent through legal channels.

Chances are pretty good that the organization they are all upset about is called Save a Child's Heart, which I blogged about last year.

According to SACH statistics, they have helped some 42 Iraqi children in the past few years, as well as many hundreds of others from around the world, many from the PA-administered areas.

Well, you can understand how the Iraqis would be upset at an Israeli organization trying to save their children's lives. It is obviously a well-hidden land grab, not to mention a way to get Zionist spies into Iraq.

Those sneaky Jews, always trying to save Arab lives!

Saudi Arabia's 1937 threat to Great Britain over Palestine

In 1937, Col H.R.P. Dickson, former British Political Agent in Kuwait, was granted an interview or audience with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and they discussed Palestine. Dickson transcribed the king's words into a report.

This report (reproduced here from the invaluable MidEast Web site)shows the real problem that the Arab world had with Jews moving to the area, and it had nothing to do with "Zionism" - it was pure bigotry against Jews.

It is notable that the Arabs would not dare to say these words in their official statements even then; they always pretended to Westerners that their problems with Zionism were strictly political. Here the mask falls off as Ibn Saud attempts to appeal to Christian anti-semitism in order to gain an ally against the "accursed and stiffnecked" Jews.

Notice also how the king, hardly in the position of power that Saudi Arabia enjoys nowadays, still effectively uses threats against the United Kingdom to get them to fall in line with the racist policies of the Arabs:

'O Dickson when will your London Government realize that we Arabs by our very nature can be bought body and soul by an act of kindness and vice versa become implacable enemies for all time of those who treat us harshly or deal unjustly with us.

Today we and our subjects are deeply troubled over this Palestine question, and the cause of our disquiet and anxiety is the strange attitude of your British Government, and the still more strange hypnotic influence which the Jews, a race accursed by God according to His Holy Book, and destined to final destruction and eternal damnation hereafter, appear to wield over them and the English people generally.

'God's Holy Book (the Qur'an) contains God's own word and divine ordinance, and we commend to His Majesty's government to read and carefully peruse that portion which deals with the Jews and especially what is to be their fate in the end. For God's words are unalterable and must be.

'We Arabs believe implicitly in God's revealed word and we know that God is faithful. We care for nothing else in this world but our believe in the One God, His Prophet and our Honour, everything else matters nothing at all, not even death, nor are we afraid of hardship, hunger, lack of this worlds goods etc, etc. and we are quite content to eat camel's meat and dates to the end of our days, provided we hold to the above three things.

'Our hatred for the Jews dates from God's condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa (Jesus Christ), and their subsequent rejection later of His chosen Prophet. It is beyond our understanding how your Government, representing the first Christian power in the world today, can wish to assist and reward these very same Jews who maltreated your Isa (Jesus).

''We Arabs have been the traditional friends of Great Britain for many years, and I, Bin Sa'ud, in particular have been your Government's firm friend all my life, what madness then is this which is leading on our Government to destroy this friendship of centuries, all for the sake of an accursed and stiffnecked race which has always bitten the hand of everyone who has helped it since the world began.

Latest Israeli torture techniques: Belly dancers

Ma'an "reports":

Beatings and sexual humiliation are among the torments suffered by Palestinian detainees at an Israeli prison located near the West Bank city of Ramallah, new testimony from prisoners indicates.

Twenty-one-year-old Ramallah resident Sultan Abdullah Sulieman was recently released from the Ofer Prison, officially known as Incarceration Facility 386. In interviews with lawyers from the Palestinian Prisoners Society, he said that he spent forty days in solitary confinement in the facility.

Sulieman said that during one interrogation session, Israeli soldiers brought an "Iraqi girl" called "Nora" into the room. "Nora" danced "seductively" in front of Suleiman, moving close to him before moving away, he said.

The Arabic version reported by Palestine Today teases out more lurid details:

Sultan Sulaiman Abdullah (21 years) from Ramallah that the Ofer prison warders in the new style used in the investigation, where the girl who came and entered the prisoner during interrogation, sitting semi-naked in front of the captive and begin issuing the voices and gestures for tempting him and was approaching the degree of contact with her body and then his body.

Of course, this one person goes on to mention lots of other examples of torture, each of which sound as plausible as this one.

This article from 2004 listing Palestinian Arab prisoner demands interestingly didn't ask for a stop of such "torture."

Firas Press reports that Hamas attacked a mosque in Gaza, injuring 25 worshippers. They also attacked and damaged the house of the 70-year old Imam of the mosque. Here's a picture of the damage. One can imagine that many Korans were damaged or destroyed, but no one seems to be rioting over those.

Also, in a related incident, 20 were injured in the Jabalya camp as Hamas surrounded and attacked the house of the Shaban family.

They also arrested 45 people on Abu Hasira Street.

Just another peaceful day in the Islamic mini-state of Gaza.

They sound very angry. I think we should talk to them and let them get it off their chests.

Nakba illustration in Palestinian Arab newspaper

The Palestine Today website illustrates its "Nakba" coverage with this graphic:

Looks like they are truly interested in peace.

Dow Jones: Israel means business

Probably the most effective response to Ahmadinejad's claims that "The Zionist regime is dying. The criminals assume that by holding celebrations they can save the sinister Zionist regime from death and annihilation" - is anyone writing articles like this about Iran?

From Dow Jones:

Israel was born not only into war, carnage and controversy but also into shortage. Shorn of cash and goods, it had to ration meat, eggs and cooking oil through a coupon system that soon generated undernourishment, bread lines and a thriving black market.
Worse, lacking allies, trade partners and natural resources while swamped by poor immigrants, the Israeli economy was also burdened by its leaders' rigorous socialism. Central planning initially generated growth, but Israel's protectionist duties, sclerotic financial system, high labor costs, bloated public sector and exorbitant defense spending soon proved untenable. By the 1980s the stock market had collapsed, the major banks were nationalized, inflation hit 440% and foreign-currency reserves all but vanished.
As Israel celebrates its 60th birthday memories of this economic desolation seem exotic.
The shekel is now one of the strongest currencies in the world, inflation is 2.5%, last year's 5% growth was the developed world's highest for the fifth consecutive year, while unemployment slid to a 15-year low of 6.5%. While analogous in some ways to other economic miracles, Israel's is still politically, socially and culturally unique.
...
While the reforms of the 1980s stabilized the currency and began the retreat from socialism, these measures globalized Israel's economy. With the budget deficit shrinking within five years from 7% to 0.8% of GDP, and with the debt- to-GDP ratio reaching a 40-year-low of 81%, the global financial community began to understand that Israel means business.
Yet there were factors at play that transcended macro-economic policymaking.
One is, paradoxically, Israel's defense burden. Though in every other respect a liability, Israel's initial lack of arms suppliers compelled it to build its own military industry, which eventually climbed from manufacturing bullets to inventing submachine guns and finally developing tanks, battleships and fighter jets.
The arms industry -- led by aerospace giant Israel Air Industries -- not only became a major exporter, it also mass-produced technicians, engineers and inventors. In the late-1980s, when Israel was forced to cancel an overly ambitious fighter-jet project, thousands of suddenly-jobless engineers and programmers unwittingly launched the hi-tech start-up industry that soon became the darling of foreign investors.
Already then, well before any of them made his first million, Israeli techies came to epitomize the daring, mobility and originality that have historically been hallmarks of invention in general, and of Jewish commerce in particular.
Fortunately for Israel, all this coincided with the end of the Cold War.
First, huge parts of the world that had ostracized Israel, including Russia and China, suddenly traded with it, and nearby India and Turkey emerged as strategic trade partners. More importantly, a million immigrants thronged to Israel. These bought with them entrepreneurial energy, professional skills and a consumerist hunger that produced the world's largest per-capita rate of engineers and scientists, a massive retail expansion and a spectacular housing boom.
All these combined made the hi-tech industry take off. By last year its $32 billion in exports comprised half of all Israeli industrial exports. Meanwhile multinationals like Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Motorola, Inc. (MOT) and Google, Inc. (GOOG) set up R&D centers in Israel, and foreign buyouts of companies like software developer Mirabilis by AOL, now owned by Time Warner Inc. (TWX), for $407 million in 1998; or printing-technology developer Indigo by HP for $719 million in 2002; or disc-on-key inventor M-Systems by SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) for $1.5 billion in 2006 -- have become so common that they are no longer front-page news.
Success was not exclusive to the technology sector. Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries (TEVA), Tnuva Food Industries, the largest dairy products manufacturer in Israel, food giant Strauss Group and Iscar Metalworking, are but some instances of multi-billion-dollar companies excelling in such traditional industries as pharmaceuticals, food production and machine-tool manufacturing. Yet unlike the typical hi-tech success story, they employ thousands and focus on manufacture rather than invention.
Fairly or not, they are not automatically associated with the high-tech entrepreneur who has become a teen-ager's role model and the stereotypical Jewish Mother's dream child, unseating the historic doctor and lawyer.
Sixty years on, Israel's GDP is scratching $200 billion, nearly six times its original, relative per-capita level, while skyscrapers crowd Tel Aviv, multilane thruways, tunnels, fast trains and spaghetti junctions crisscross the country, and some 80 malls, the first of which only opened in 1986, are brimming with customers, turnovers and luxuries -- probably the happiest, and starkest, contrast to 1949's bread lines.

On the other hand, here is a round-up of recent news stories about Iran's economy:

Tahmasb Mazaheri, director general of the National Bank of the Islamic Republic, defies the executive order of the Iranian president and refuses to decrease the interest rate. More here.
Abrar says capital drain from the Islamic Republic's banking system has increased upon Ahmadinejad’s executive order to decrease the interest rate.
Government to increase loans to public servants, members of the armed forces, and people from the rural areas.
Donya-ye Eqtesad assesses the effects of lowering of the interest rate by presidential decree as "alarming."
Kayhan supports the Ahmadinejad government's decision to decrease interest rates.
Iranian economist Ahmad Shakiba says inflation in Iranian economy is due to incompetent management of the oil income.
Donya-ye Eqtesad calls Iranian economic decision makers "half-educated."

Which "regime" wil die first?

The UN's Nakba obsession

YNet reports:

Israel is demanding that the UN strike the word 'Nakba' from its lexicon, this after the world body's spokeswoman uttered it, apparently by mistake, in a press briefing she held Thursday night.

'Nakba', or 'catastrophe', refers to the refugee flight of Palestinian Arabs that followed Israel's inception in 1948.

The spokeswoman told reporters that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "phoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to stress his support for the Palestinian people on Nakba Day".

I was unaware that Israel protested every time the UN uses the word Nakba. If so, a cottage industry can be set up within the government just to protest every time UN agencies use the word.

Here's one from the UN Department of Public Information, one from the UN Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and countless times on the UNRWA page.

Palestinian Muslims' respect for other religions

The top story at Firas Press regards the supposed American shooting of Korans in Iraq, with these photos, captioned "Another crime against Islam":

Muslims often say that they care about the sanctity of all the three "revealed" religions (carefully avoiding the fact that they have no such respect for Buddhism or Hinduism.)

Yet in the past day, Muslims attacked a synagogue in Sderot - a crime that the religious-based Islamic Jihad was happy to claim responsibility for, greatly exaggerating the damage.

And a Christian school in Gaza was attacked by Islamists with a bomb as well.

Yet I have yet to see any Arabs concerned about the sanctity of any Christian or Jewish holy books that have been damaged in many attacks - let alone people.

The respect given to other religions is, as always, rhetorical - yet the respect demanded is absolute, and backed up with threats.