Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 28, 2008

Guess who Pakistan is accusing of terrorism?

Go on, take a guess.

From Palestine Today (autotranslated):

The Pakistani intelligence service accused the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency and the Indian and the Afghan intelligence services of cooperating together to destabilize the security of Pakistan.

According to Pakistani intelligence, the Indian intelligence and the Mossad were planning and organizing terrorist operations against the Pakistani army deployed on the Pakistani - Indian border and other terrorist operations from the territory of Kashmir and within Pakistan.

Pakistani intelligence accused Indian intelligence and the Mossad of being behind the recent terrorist operations that took place inside Pakistan which killed a number of victims and injured dozens of Pakistani nationals.

Yes, the Mossad clearly has interest in destabilizing Pakistan so that nuclear-armed state can be taken over by Islamists.

Freedom of the press, Hamas-style

For the second day in a row, Hamas has confiscated all of the West Bank newspapers delivered to Gaza: al-Hayat al-Jadida, al-Quds and al-Ayyam.

Hamas is still saying that Fatah is responsible for the Friday bombings that killed five of its members and it does not want Gazans to see Fatah's denials, and especially evidence and accusations that the blast was because of Hamas infighting.

Hamas had already raided and destroyed the offices of the Fatah-based WAFA news agency in Gaza over the weekend.

Meanwhile, both Hamas and Fatah continue to arrest members of the other organizations in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively.

Hamas using "calm" cement for bunkers

One of the major items that Israel had not allowed into Gaza before the current "calm" was cement. Human rights organizations and others complained bitterly about how this cement shortage was affecting Gazans' lives.

So now that Israel has allowed many truckfuls of cement into Gaza, what is happening to it?

Everything that goes into Gaza, either from Egyptian tunnels or from Israel, gets taken by Hamas. Hamas takes everything it needs first and then places the rest on the market, heavily taxing it to ensure that the "international boycott" against that terror organization is meaningless.

Cement is a major item that Hamas covets. As the Shin Bet's Yuval Diskin testified yesterday, Hamas is using the cement it is receiving to build fortified bunkers and tunnels to transport and store weapons.

This is not just Israeli propaganda. Even last January, when Hamas breached the wall to Egypt, it was reported that Hamas was taking delivery of hundreds of bags of cement to build bunkers and tunnels.

And since the story of Israel cruelly blocking shipments of concrete from poor starving Gazans is so much more compelling than that of Hamas taking the concrete from those same citizens for aggressive purposes, the media and world community yawns. Human rights organizations are silent and the UN, which just last week said that the "calm" has not helped Gazans in their daily lives, wholly blames Israel.

Big surprise there.

Saudi grand mufti condemns Turkish soap operas

We've mentioned before how crazy the Arab world has gone over a Turkish soap opera dubbed in Arabic named "Noor."

Well, the Saudi grand mufti has decided enough is enough:

The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, has condemned Turkish soap operas, which have charmed millions of people across the Arab world, and prohibited people from watching them, Al-Watan daily reported yesterday.
“It is not permitted to look at these serials or watch them. They contain so much evil; they destroy people’s ethics and are against our values,” said the mufti during the closing ceremony of a forum, which took place in Riyadh on Friday. He added that these “malicious” Turkish soap operas corrupt individuals and spread vice in society.
“Any TV station that airs them is against God and His Messenger (peace be upon him). These are serials of immorality. They are prepared by people who are specialists in crime and error, people who invite men and women to the devil.”
Al-Asheikh was referring to two Turkish soap operas, “Noor” and “Lost Years,” which have become extremely popular in the Arab world over the last couple of months. The soaps are dubbed in colloquial Syrian Arabic and are currently being shown on channels run by the MBC Group.
The soaps are proving such a big draw in the Kingdom that many people plan their day around the programs, which have also become popular dinner table conversation.
According to mbc.net, “Noor” has become “a turning point in the lives of its Arab audience and the way Arabs view Turkish dramas.”
“The TV series is awaited daily by millions of eager Arab viewers from the Atlantic to the Gulf who follow the latest developments in Muhannad and Noor’s love story. It has opened the door for Arab viewers, especially since it contains an area of romance, which Arabic dramas have recently lacked,” says MBC’s webpage.
Maha Al-Hujailan, a Saudi columnist and a medical researcher at King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh, wrote that the women’s attachment to male characters in “Noor” and “Lost Years” cannot just be attributed to their good looks.
“What really attracts women and gets them attached to these characters is the romance and the way they show their genuine love to their loved ones... Saudi women miss something important in their men: the feeling of love and security,” wrote Al-Hujailan.
A Saudi grandmother in her mid-70s told Arab News that, although she usually watches Arabic dramas, “Noor” has turned her life upside down.
“I couldn’t sleep the night when Noor was kidnapped. Her image haunted me. I just want to see what is at the end,” she said.

Al Watan recently reported that the number of Saudi women naming their children after characters in these two soap operas have skyrocketed.

More "Noor" news can be seen at MBC.net's Noor page, where they happily cite articles that are even critical of the show.

Peaceful PalArab weekend (UPDATED)

After yesterday's series of bombings, including the beachfront bomb that killed 5 Hamas terrorists having a picnic and a seven year old girl, Hamas has been keen to blame Fatah while Fatah is blaming internal Hamas infighting.

That doesn't stop Palestinian Arab columnists from blaming - all together now - The Jooooos!

Hamas held a series of raids today against Fatah, and also shot and seriously injured Fatah Sheikh Imad Khalil with nine bullets to the pelvis.

Hamas claims to have confiscated a large number of Fatah explosives and weapons, and they also raided some Fatah charities as well as the official Fatah WAFA news agency.

Meanwhile, an unknown group claimed responsibility for the Friday morning Internet cafe bombing that accidentally killed the bomber himself, saying that they were trying to rid Gaza of vice and adultery.

UPDATE: Looks like Fatah is retaliating - by arresting pro-Hamas journalists in the West Bank.

Also, Hamas had arrested a journalist for a German news agency, Sawwah Abu Seif. Funny how that has not stirred up a big stink.

A man died from wounds in a clan clash a few days ago.

Hamas continues to arrest every suspected Fatah person they can find, now going after student committees in Al Azhar University.

Hamas is also fighting the Army of Islam, and there have been at least 6 injuries on both sides in clashes.

A Hamas newspaper is claiming that Egypt arrested three Gazans trying to infiltrate - who admitted that they were from Fatah and admitted involvement in Friday's bombing. No confirmation from anyone else yet.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now 123.

Five more killed in a new Gaza blast

YNet (h/t Soccer Dad):

A bomb exploded at a major junction in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing four Palestinians including Amar Masbach, a senior member of Hamas' Izz al-Din al-Qassam military wing. Notably, Masbach survived an Israeli assassination attempt last year, after elite troops attempted to kill him in the Strip.

Two other Hamas men were killed in the blast, including Iyad al-Haya, the cousin of senior Hamas figure Khalil al-Haya. A girl who happened to be in the area was also killed. More than 15 people were wounded in the explosion, west of Gaza City. The blast is believed to be related to intra-Palestinian tensions.

The circumstances of the blast were not immediately clear. According to one report, the explosion occurred while the two Hamas men were carrying explosive devices. A gas tank was apparently found in their vehicle. However, another possibility is that the blast was a deliberate attack on Hamas members.

Firas lists 5 dead.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 121.

UPDATE: The death toll is now 5 Hamas members and one girl. 122.

The wonderful illogic of Matthias Klein

In a Comment is Free piece in The Guardian, Matthias Klein argues that it is counterproductive for the UK to publicly declare Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization.

In the amazing logic of the Left, his argument is roughly this: Since in the pro-terror world of Hezbollah and their friends it is considered a badge of honor to be vilified by the West, and conversely it is considered awful to be friendy with the West, then any Western vilification of Arab terror groups makes them stronger.

As usual, the argument is high on cleverness and low on common sense. While indeed Nasrallah said that this classification was a "badge of honor," we have seen pro-terror groups use the prestige that comes with being treated with respect by the West in an exactly similar manner.

In other words, Klein naively assumes that Nasrallah is telling the truth when he says that he is happy.

It never seems to occur to him that, perhaps, the reason to label Hezbollah as terrorist is because they are, in fact, terrorists. Klein's argument against that is that since the West is not consistent in this labeling (for example, not labeling Israel as "terrorist") then it should not label anyone - a manifestly absurd position.

The idea that coddling terrorists will take away their bite should have been discredited long ago, but to the clueless Left, this is still considered an intelligent argument.

Obama's note at the Kotel published

In a pretty tasteless move, Maariv retrieved the note that Barack Obama placed at the Kotel.

(I removed the note, as it was upsetting a number of people.)

Al Ahram prints a critical letter

Kudos to Egypt's Al Ahram for actually publishing a letter that ridicules some of its pseudo-intellectual Israel bashing:

Sir -- 'Of jackals and crocodiles' (Al-Ahram Weekly 10-16 July) regurgitates the theory that the war in Iraq was initiated for the purpose of protecting Israel or, in any case, that Israel played a "leading role" in the war.
You state that Ehud Barak, Israel's minister of defence, is part of a government that is "largely funded and sustained by the US government". Israel's annual gross domestic product is over $130 billion and it receives $3 billion in aid annually from the US. In other words, US aid is insignificant in the context of the size of Israel's economy. Aside from being factually inaccurate, you would like us to draw the inference that Israel's aggressive lobbyists in the US are responsible for this largess and that their talents of persuasion were also put to work in manipulating the US government into deciding to invade Iraq. If Israel is so weak as to require "sustenance" from the US (i.e. support without which it would collapse), how in the world could it compel the US to enter into a $1 trillion war?

My intent here is to point out the internal inconsistencies in your thinking and, unfortunately, many others in the Middle East. Rather than face the realities of the backwardness of Arab politics and economics, you prefer to see their woes as being the result of a colonialist implant on the Middle East (Israel) which, if not for the support of the master imperialist power (or the Great Satan, if you prefer), would be blown away like so many grains of sand in the wind of jihad. However, this would leave the Israelis/Jews looking like pathetic puppets rather than the omnipotent Machiavellian conspirators that Arabs know them to be.

Where is the evidence that Israel is "directly and indirectly responsible for a large share of the war efforts"? Despite providing no money, troops or logistics for the Iraq war, Israel is accused of playing a big part in the planning and implementation of US policy. All we get in support of this are a few quotes from people uninvolved in the war and a report of Israeli operatives in Kurdistan. Yes, no doubt Israeli military intelligence shared their findings with the US, but it was American military intelligence that manipulated the data, not Israel. In fact, many or even most senior Israeli military officials were not in favour of the war in Iraq. The reason: Iran was and is the greatest threat to Israel and, as is now obvious, to weaken Iraq is to strengthen Iran. That the war was not in Israel's interests is implied by the Seymour Hersh story cited in yours. Moreover, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld planned and ran the war on their own (maybe with a little help from George Bush) and, unfortunately, were completely unsusceptible to outside advice or influence.

There are many reasons why the US (and the rest of the West, for the most part) and Israel are allies, but the main one is that today they see the world in the same way. The path forward is through economic growth and liberal democracy; fantasy and fanaticism will leave Arabs forever on the wrong side of the separation wall.

Jacques Cousineau
Paris
France

Internet cafe blown up in Gaza, two dead

There have been plenty of attacks on places that the Islamists don't like but this is the first fatal attack in recent memory in Gaza. From Firas (autotranslated):

An explosion had taken place a short time ago in a cybercafe in western Gaza. Unknown attackers blew up the cafe, which led to the death of a citizen and injuring a number of citizens with various injuries.

Palestine Press reports that two were killed in the explosion, and that there was a second bomb within ten minutes of this one that targeted a Hamas leader in Gaza. There were also reports of "violent clashes" in another section of Gaza City.

I'll wait for verification that the second person died, so for now the 2008 PalArab self-death count is at 116.

UPDATE: PalPress also reports that Hamas stormed Al Azhar University and tore down posters of Yassir Arafat.

Another case of ethnic cleansing of Jews (1898)

From the New York Times, describing an event in Eastern Palestine/Syria in 1898.

Do they have a "right of return?"

"I'm Muslim and hate Jews"

From The Calgary Sun:

Attacking a Jewish girl and the friends who came to her rescue has landed a Muslim man a one-year jail sentence.
Mustafa Taj must also serve a year of probation following his release for what provincial court Judge Bill Cummings ruled was a racially motivated assault.
"In this case, I'm satisfied that imprisonment is necessary," Cummings said in accepting the Crown's bid for a jail term.
Prosecutors Ken McCaffrey and Inayat Jetha had sought a sentence of up to two years for the hate crime.
Taj, 21, was convicted in May of attacking four teenagers the night of Nov. 3, 2006, while they waited for a C-Train at the Sunnyside LRT station.
Taj approached the group around 10:45 p.m. and asked "who's Jewish." Nichola Cordato, then 16, stated "me" and Taj grabbed her and said, "I'm Muslim and hate Jews."
He then slapped her in the face and pulled her hair before her friends, Jessica Motta, Kayla Hungle and Daniel Ball attempted to intervene.
Hungle attempted to prevent Taj from further attacking Cordato and was punched in the face by him.
Motta then intervened and was punched in the face, pulled to the ground by her hair and kicked in the stomach and ribs.
When Ball tried to stop the assaults, he was thrown onto the C-Train tracks where he fell onto his back and was spat upon by Taj.
During the melee, Taj called Cordato a "Jewish piece of (crap)."

He forgot to substitute "Zionist" for Jewish. Then he would have gotten off scot-free!

300K

If it's summer, it must be time for another set of blog milestones.

Yesterday I passed 300,000 visitors and within the past two days I passed 400,000 page views, according to Statcounter.

I've also recently seemed to pass the 10,000 comment mark, which is pretty cool since I don't usually participate too much in the comment threads.

It took a little less than six months to go from 200K to 300K. My traffic keeps on steadily increasing on average; I am now averaging 588 visits per day and 755 page views per day.

Even though my traffic increase has mostly been since I have been posting links from most of my postings on Little Green Footballs, it appears that about half of my readers come here directly. Which means that there are a couple of hundred people who check this blog regularly. That is most gratifying!

My fourth blogoversary is coming up in a couple of weeks, right before the first JBlogger convention in Israel (wish I could go!), so I might be making some more reflective posts about the state of the JBlogosphere between now and then.

As always, though, I want to thank you all for coming here and participating!

More of today's PalArab press

Every day I see so many stories in the Arabic press that don't merit their own posting, but I think it is important for people to understand the stuff that goes on there. So here is Part 2 of today's PalArabic press review:

Gazans have found a new way to smuggle small items into Gaza - having friends in Egypt fly kits and attach the items to the kites. Smuggled items include plant seeds, cellular phone parts and medicines. They do this while the Egyptian guards are on break in the afternoon, as they get out of the sun when it gets too hot - which shows the level of commitment that Egyptian army guards have to their jobs.

An article decrying the practice of burqa-clad ladies showing their eyebrows. Since eyebrows are essential in that "come-hither" look, they need to be covered by the burqa.

PA PM Fayyad is considering cutting salaries across the board.

Israel today allowed 174 truckfuls of goods into Gaza as well as 80 tons of gas.

Islamic Jihad claims that Israel has violated the calm 43 times so far. They include things like overflights and Israel arresting Arabs who try to sneak into Israel.

Today's PalArab press roundup

Al-Hayat al-Jadida has an op-ed celebrating the anniversary of Egypt's 1952 revolution that brought Nasser to power. The writer believes - even today - that Nasser was the best thing for the Arab world. This typifies the mentality that Arab pride - which usually involves militarism and harsh rhetoric - is more important than peace and cooperation with the West. This is a mainstream attitude; I have yet to see any Egyptian celebrating the anniversary of Camp David.

Ma'an (English) says that Obama rejected the idea of East Jerusalem as the capital of any Palestinian Arab state. Of course he didn't say that at all, but Ma'an put together his statements of "Jerusalem must not be divided" and "Jerusalem should be the capital of Israel" as implying this. Accuracy has never been the strong suit in the Arab press.

Firas reports on an Israeli Internet "sting" operation where Shin Bet members recruit Palestinian Arab youths in chat rooms and fake Islamist Internet sites to perform terror attacks and then arrest them. It is more likely that they just observe Palestinian Arab youths going to these sites on their own; the recent arrest of a suspected Al Qaeda cell in Israel seems to be related.

One writer is upset that while Saudi Arabia's shops will routinely close for prayer, electronics stores will keep their TVs on and some non-Muslims as well as Muslims will watch sports through the windows instead of go to mosques.

Tensions are increasing between Hamas and Islamic Jihad over the "calm" (even as one rocket was launched today, that fell short of Israel). Islamic Jihad is accusing Hamas of collaboration with Israel and it is upset over Hamas arrests of PIJ rocketteers; Hamas accuses it of being counterproductive.

Samir Kuntar still enjoys daily interviews with a fawning Arab press, today daring Israel to assassinate him and saying that Hezbollah can only win through military means.

Anderson Cooper strikes out

I don't get to watch too much TV, but last night I happened to catch the beginning of Anderson Cooper 360, where he breathlessly announced that John McCain made a major gaffe. After listening to the intro, I couldn't figure out what this mistake was, something about getting the order of some events in Iraq wrong. Here's the transcript:

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with breaking news tonight: Barack Obama in the Middle East and John McCain taking shots at him back home. This could be a game changer.
Senator McCain says Obama doesn't understand the significance of the surge. Now he appears to have given critics reason to believe that he doesn't know one of the most basic facts about it, namely when it even began.

Here's what he told CBS' Katie Couric for an interview that aired tonight. He was responding to a question about Senator Obama, crediting the Sunni awakening in Anbar Province with improving conditions in Iraq, not just the surge.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, CBS NEWS)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel MacFarland, was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge, we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others, and it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history, thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: In other words, he's saying the surge made the Sunni awakening possible, except the timeline is wrong.

The surge was announced in January of 2007, with troops starting to arrive in early spring. Colonel Sean MacFarland, who McCain mentions, briefed reporters on the awakening back in September of 2006.

Here's what "The New York Times" said in April of 2007 -- quote -- "The turnabout began last September, when a federation of tribes in the Ramadi area came together as the Anbar Salvation Council to oppose the fundamentalist militants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia."

And this from a recent history of Iraq in "Foreign Affairs" magazine: "The awakening began in Anbar Province more than a year before the surge and took off in the summer and fall of 2006 in Ramadi and elsewhere, long before extra U.S. forces started flowing into Iraq in February and March of 2007." We will have more on this shortly.

But, first, let's get you up to speed on the Obama trip, the backdrop for tonight's headline.

Cooper is so overjoyed at finding this gaffe that he can barely explain it properly, as he quotes the New York Times and Foreign Affairs and puts the audience to sleep trying to figure out the point of this breaking headline story.

After the obligatory Obama worship section of the news comes the meat of the accusation against McCain, as Cooper gathers a group of reliable analysts to back up his McCain-gaffe story. Unfortunately, they are not as excited as Anderson is.

He previews it first when talking to Ed Henry:

COOPER: Ed, in a moment, we are going to talk to you and Joe Klein and David Gergen about what appears to be a pretty big mistake by John McCain tonight, talking about the surge.

And a little later:

COOPER: In a moment, we're going to have more with Ed Henry and, as I said, Joe Klein and David Gergen on this apparent gaffe by John McCain. We will talk about the significance of it.

Finally, his big moment. After playing the clip again:

COOPER: John McCain apparently confusing the Iraqi timeline. The surge began in early spring of 2007. The Sunni awakening started in early autumn of 2006.

Let's talk about the political repercussions, if any.

Ed Henry is at the White House. Also "TIME" magazine's Joe Klein, and CNN senior political analyst David Gergen joins us on the phone.

Joe, I don't like to play gotcha. You know, a word slip-up here and there, I usually tend to ignore. But how significant a mistake is this?

KLEIN: Well, I don't know how significant a mistake it is, although it does tend to reinforce my sense that John McCain kind of skims the surface of Iraq....

COOPER: David, David Gergen, given that this is a central attack that John McCain has against Barack Obama, how significant do you think this is?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Anderson, I do think it's a mistake, but I think the bigger mistake today was arguing, as you said earlier -- John McCain said twice today that he personally would rather lose a campaign than lose a war....

But, on this -- on this issue of the gaffe regarding the surge, it's -- when President Bush announced the surge, he acknowledged that there was an awakening among the Sunnis, that there was something going on that was very positive. And everyone since then has understood that what has worked in Iraq is the surge, but it's been with a confluence of other events. It's been the joining together of the surge with other events. Yes, the surge -- and John McCain, as a chief architect, deserves credit for that. But it's also true that it was a confluence.

But, Anderson, where I think this story is probably going to go is toward the issue of age. John McCain nearing his 72nd birthday coming this August, you know, in the last few days has confused the border of Iraq and the border of Afghanistan. Not long ago, he confused Somalia with Sudan.

COOPER: But, David, just to play devil's advocate on this, given the 24-hour nature of these campaigns, it's natural that people would make mistakes if they're being video-recorded every minute of the day, no?

GERGEN: Absolutely. That's absolutely true. And Barack Obama has certainly made his share of mistakes.

And John McCain is given -- he likes to do these impromptu interviews. That's what made him -- as Joe Klein said, at one time, he was the darling of the press because he was so frank and candid, and certainly back in the 2000 campaign, and I think even in this Republican primary season.

But if you're asking -- what you're asking about the political significance of something like this, it goes to the question of how your opponents can use it, and what they can use it as is a way to plant doubts or plant questions in people's minds.

This is -- at one point, this age issue in the 1984 reelection of President Reagan became his biggest vulnerability, Reagan's biggest vulnerability. He went on to win a thumping reelection. And this is not to say that it will penalize John McCain for a long time. I don't think that's the case. But I do think a pattern would -- would allow his opponents to plant those seeds.

COOPER: Right.

HENRY: (after an aside on what McCain's campaign's response to this "gaffe" was):But, in fact, what General Petraeus said in April of 2008 is -- quote -- "The first awakening, which, to be fair, took place -- it started before the surge, but then very much was enabled by the surge, because that enabled us to clear areas over time within Iraq."

So, essentially, General Petraeus is saying it's a little gray, that the awakening started before the surge, but then the surge, once it got into place in 2007, helped the awakening go further.

COOPER: Right.

HENRY: John McCain didn't quite put it that way.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And, Joe, that's a fair argument.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: That's a fair argument, Joe, that the fact that there were troops helped -- that there were a surplus of troops did help the Sunni tribes who wanted to awake.

KLEIN: It wasn't the surplus of troops. It was the fact that Petraeus really knew how to leverage this and move it into other parts of the country.

But, if you want to be absolutely precise about this, the Sunni awakening -- and David Petraeus is absolutely precise about it -- the Sunni awakening began earlier.

Now, to go to David's points, I think that these sort of gaffes aren't very serious. You know, the Iraq-Afghanistan -- Afghani border, everybody makes mistakes like that. Or at least people my age do. And Barack Obama has done it on the trail....

COOPER: We're going to have to leave it there.

Cooper's hand-picked analysts all ignored Cooper's attempt at smearing McCain, usually trying to find othr more TV-friendly ways to do the same thing, and finally Cooper is forced to realize that he had no story.

But why should anyone think that this indicates media bias?

Marwan Barghouti - the great murdering hope

It appears that there is a good chance that Marwan Barghouti will be released, either as part of a deal to get Gilad Shalit back or as a "goodwill gesture." The fact that Olmert the habitual liar is denying it only lends it more credence.

Barghouti is an interesting person. From a purely objective viewpoint, he may be the best-qualified leader for Palestinian Arabs. He was a leader of the first Intifada which was home-grown (not run by proxy by Arafat from Tunisia) and a leader of the "young guard" of Fatah. He opposed Yasir Arafat's corruption, although Arafat the master politician managed to co-opt the intifada and used it to re-assert his leadership of the native Palestinian Arabs, marginalizing the first intifada's leaders.

Barghouti remained opposed to Arafat through the rest of the syphilitic terrorist's life, and considered a run for PA president after Arafat died, finally demurring in the name of Fatah unity.

Since then he has fully split from Fatah, starting his own political party from prison named al-Mustaqbal ("The Future") with other members of the "young guard." Unlike Fatah's entrenched, corrupt and senile leadership, the "young guard" seems to truly care about Palestinian Arabs.

Some advocate his release to strengthen Fatah against Hamas, even though he is no longer a Fatah member. He is respected by Hamas as well and is rumored to have been instrumental in the formation of the short-lived Fatah/Hamas unity government. He seems to a accept Israel's existence.

The only problem is that he is a terrorist. He has supported the murder of civilians who live beyond the Green Line and he was convicted of murdering five; he was the head of Tanzim during the beginning of the second intifada and Tanzim murdered many more.

(Incidentally, in his trial he was only convicted of murder of five civilians [thanks for the correction from Soccer Dad - EoZ] plus one attempted murder; and he was acquitted of other murder charges. But as head of Tanzim he certainly bears some level of responsibility for the outbreak and escalation of the second intifada.)

Here we have the Palestinian Arab story in a nutshell. Historically, they have been led by incompetent, corrupt and selfish leaders. Yet their most competent and least corrupt leaders are still unrepentant terrorists.

And it cannot be any other way. Since the Palestinian Arab psyche is so heavily invested in making murderers into heroes, it is impossible to imagine in this generation that an effective leader could emerge who is not a terrorist. Simply put, if you haven't spent time in Israeli jails for murder, you have no street cred.

The world has implicitly accepted this for decades. Rather than insisting on changing Palestinian Arab society from the ground up to be tolerant, liberal and moral, the world accepts as an unchangeable fact that Palestinian Arabs will remain enthralled with child murderers and terrorists, and the hope is that their leaders will not be quite as bad as others. Compared to Hamas or Al Qaeda, Barghouti the multiple murderer and terrorist looks positively saint-like, and he has more than his share of fans among the left worldwide.

This is today's "realpolitick" - better a murderer than an extremist murderer. The idea that a non-murderer, someone who truly wants peace and is willing to work for it, could be a popular leader of Palestinian Arabs is so absurd as to be considered fantasy.

This logic might make sense to the people who are not the stated targets of the terrorists, but to most Israelis the distinction is not too relevant.

Morning Links

When I can't find anything original to post, it's time to look at others you might have missed....

Peace Now Lies

Al-Jazeera's party for a child-killer

Obama Photo of the Day

Arab media cartoons about US elections

Fatah names summer camp after terrorist Mughrabi

Ma'an Arabic reports of a new summer camp in Hebron named after female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, in order to teach the children that murdering Jewish children is praiseworthy.

I wonder how much EU and US money goes to keep this camp going?

This is of course not a new phenomenon. The PA has previously named camps and at least one school after Mughrabi.

The Palestinian Authority has also named two summer camps after Ayyat al-Akhras, a 17-year old who exploded herself in a Jerusalem supermarket. They've also named one after Wafa Idris, another female terrorist who murdered and injured many.

In addition, a camp was named for Jihad Al-Amarin, the founder of the suicide terror division of the Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades.

You can tell a lot about a people by looking at their heroes.

Those obstacles to peace

It is striking that the three civilians who killed the three Jerusalem terrorists (Mercaz HaRav and the two bulldozer attacks) were all members of the religious Zionist movement, all "settlers," and all considered the "enemy" by the leftists of Ha'aretz and Israel's academia.

Others have noticed this (including some amazing connections between the three).

Isn't it funny that those who are regarded and derided as "obstacles to peace" are the ones who end up protecting Israelis more than the Israelis who want them to lose their homes?

Oh well - Iran really isn't friends with Israel

A couple of days ago, an Iranian vice president of tourism and cultural affairs was widely quoted as saying, "Today Iran is friendly with the peoples of America and Israel. No people in the world is our enemy and this is a source of pride."

This created a bit of a stir and incredulity, given Iran's longstanding hatred of all things Zionist.

Well, it turns out that this gentleman really didn't mean what he said:

The following day, 20 July, Rahim-Masha'i denied the reports of his speech. "This is not what I meant and these are all lies. During my speech I also said that Israel was dead and only its funeral ceremony has been postponed, but they [the press] did not publish these statements," Iranian state radio quoted him as saying.
Fars news agency, which appears to have been the sole source for the vice-president's original, contested, remarks, cited him as declaring: "By `Israel' I meant the Palestinian and Jewish people living in Palestine, not the immigrant Jews or Zionists, because we do not recognize the Zionists at all."
The original Fars report on Rahim-Masha'i's remarks was carried by a number of Iranian newspapers on 20 July, including the reformist E'temad-e Melli and Aftab-e Yazd.
The hardline daily, Keyhan, on 21 July criticized the vice- president over his remarks.

The Iran Press Service adds:

“Sorry, when I said Iranians are friendly with the Israeli people, actually I wanted to say Palestinian people”, Mr. Esfandiar Rahim Mosha’i, the Iranian vice-President in charge of Tourism and Cultural Heritage Organisation corrected on 21 July 2008 his earlier statement...

What surprised more political analysts is that not only the statement by Mr. Rahim Mosha’i is in total contrast with the usual anti-Israeli outbursts by the President and his denial of the Holocaust, postures that have outraged international public opinion, but also he used the words “Israel” and “Israelis” even though that these references are officially prohibited by the Islamic Republic, referring to Israel as the “Zionist Entity” and to the Israelis as “Zionist Occupiers” or “Usurpators”.

In an official, but mild denial, published by the same Fars News on Monday 21 July, Mr. Rahim Mosha’i says “it is obvious that Iran can not be friendly with Zionist usurpators. Everyone should have understood that I made a mistake by saying we are friendly with the Israeli people while I had the Palestinians in mind”, he said, adding “however, as stated by our dear President several time, Iranians have no enmity with the American or the Jewish people, which we distinguish from the Zionists who occupied Palestinian’s homeland”.

How predictable was this?

Initial PalArab joy at new bulldozer attack

Here are the first three autotranslated reader reactions in Firas Press to today's copycat terror attack in Jerusalem that injured at least 16 people. Keep in mind that Firas is pro-Fatah.

Khosetm my brothers and apes and pigs and you should defend its borders shame you Zionism and the establishment of our Lord God accepts the hero martyr Ghassan Aboutir and enter it in eternal peace and shame to customers sons Qassam

Moreover, God bless
No benefit with the Jews, however, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and apparent darkest .. Oh God, mercy and Shahid Khaldeh Jinan Radwan and inspired his family patience and solace

God have mercy, and it has to be appointed who will tell Iasirlhm

Across the board, Palestinian Arab newspapers are referring to the terrorist as a "martyr."

Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, made his usual equivocal "condemnation":

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, saying it 'hurts peace efforts'.

Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah: "We always condemn any terrorist act, and we condemn any attack on civilians regardless of what '.

He added: 'I understand today that there was intentional attack, we certainly condemn it does not accept it, because it marred the reputation and marred the peace in general'.

I have never yet heard any Palestinian Arab leader condemn a terror attack against Israel on moral grounds. It is always because the attacks make them look bad or appear counterproductive to their cause, never because human beings were killed or injured.

How a Saudi paper prints pictures of women

In the "Books" section of the Okaz newspaper there are articles written by both men and women. But while those written by men are accompanied with their photographs, for the women's articles the pictures are all the same:

Why don't they just use a generic picture like this?

It's more accurate - and more modest. You never know what evil thoughts might go through men's head from looking at the illustration - with hair visible, no less.

Work accident! Plus other peaceful PalArab news

A 24-year old Hamas man was killed when the bomb he was working with exploded a bit earlier than he expected. Of course, he was home at the time and he also injured a baby and a 17-year old with the same last name as his.

Hamas said that he was on a "special Jihad mission," which means that Hamas is actively planning terror attacks during the "truce."

A wedding in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City turned into a fight, and 15 were injured in the melee as happy guests grabbed any sharp objects they could to try to kill members of the other family. Palestinian Arabs often treat funerals as weddings and weddings as battlefields.

Hamas abducted a woman in Beit Lahia.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 115.

Gillermania!

Dan Gillerman, outgoing Israeli ambassador to the UN, is always good for a sound-bite. Here are a couple of highlights from an interview in yesterday's NYT:

You recently called Jimmy Carter a “bigot” after he met with Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas. Is it true you were reprimanded by the U.S. State Department? There was no complaint or reprimand. The only reaction I received was very positive.

The Bush administration, it seems, has not done much to advance the Mideast peace process. Would you agree? I think the key is in the Arab world. The Palestinians’ real tragedy is that they have not been able to produce a Nelson Mandela. Every single day, Muslims are killed by Muslims. You do not see a single Muslim leader get up and say, “Enough is enough.” It’s nearly as if we live in a world where if Christians kill Muslims, it’s a crusade. If Jews kill Muslims, it’s a massacre. And when Muslims kill Muslims, it’s the Weather Channel. Nobody cares.

You are about to be replaced at the U.N. by Gabriela Shalev, a law professor at Ono Academic College with no experience as a diplomat. Can any regular person be a diplomat? I’m sure Gaby will do great. Diplomacy is not something you can learn at school or in the foreign service. A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell and actually make you look forward to the journey.

I'll miss this guy.

Jordanians to king: "Pardon mass murderer of Israeli schoolgirls"

In the wake of Israel's release of despicable murderers of Jewish children, prominent Jordanians are asking King Abdullah to do the same:

King Abdullah II was urged on Sunday to pardon a Jordanian soldier who is serving a life sentence for killing seven Israeli schoolgirls in 1997.

"After around 12 years in prison, Ahmad Dakamseh deserves your majesty's special pardon," a group of 70 Islamists, unionists, lawyers, human rights activists and former officials said in a signed letter to the king.

In March 1997, Dakamseh fired an automatic weapon at a group of Israeli schoolgirls as they visited Baqura, a scenic peninsula on the Jordan River near the Israeli border, killing seven and wounded five others as well as a teacher.

The attack came almost three years after Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty, only the second between an Arab country and the Jewish state.

"Following the recent release of Arab prisoners, we hope to see Dakamseh free again," they said, referring to Israel's prisoner swap with Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group last week.

The signatories Islamic Action Front secretary general Zaki Bani Rsheid, former prime minister and intelligence department director Ahmad Obeidat, Jordan Bar Association head Saleh Armouti, and Hani Dahleh, president of the Arab Human Rights Organisation.

"The current political stage requires a policy that would make people happy and ease their socio-economic and political pressures. Pardoning Dakamseh will have a great effect on people," the letter said.

It remains to be explained exactly what kind of people would become happy that a mass murderer is freed in their country.

Notice that the president of the Arab Human Rights Organization is one of the people urging the release of this murderer. Apparently, the "human rights" of Arab murderers to walk around free is more important than the rights of Jewish schoolgirls to live.

Let's hope that King Abdullah will remain as aghast at this crime as his father was and let the killer rot. At the time, King Hussein went to Israel to pay his condolences to the families and truly condemned this act, not like the fake "condemnations" that we are used to hearing from Palestinian Arab leaders.

On the other hand, Daqamesh's mother defended him on Al Jazeera TV:

"I am proud of my son, and I hold my head high. My son did a heroic deed and has pleased Allah and his own conscience. My son lifts my head and the head of the entire Arab and Islamic nation. I am proud of any Muslim who does what Ahmad did. I hope that I am not saying something wrong. When my son went to prison, they asked him: 'Ahmad, do you regret it?' He answered: 'I have no regrets.' He treated everyone to coffee, honored all the other prisoners, and said: The only thing that I am angry about is the gun, which did not work properly. Otherwise I would have killed all of the passengers on the bus."

Although at his trial, his mother was quite willing to say something different in order to get him a lighter sentence: "I know my son is mentally ill because he used to have fits of rage and faint."

At least one terror group has named itself after Daqamesh, showing yet again that even the most heinous murderers of Jews are heroes in some Arab quarters.

Morning links....

Yourish: UN Troops salute dead terrorists

SoccerDad: Horribly wrong part II

Augean Stables: CNN’s Wedeman: I Black Heart Palestinian Children

Dhimmi Watch: Iranian woman, 31, to be hanged after 18 years in jail

My Right Word: First International Jewish Bloggers Convention
Anyone who wants to send me tickets to Israel to participate, feel free! I'll even lead a session!

I saw this poster at a Palestinian Arab site.

The site freely admits that this was a poster designed by Zionists, but for some bizarre reason they claim that the existence of this poster is "embarrassing" to Zionists:

This poster was originally designed by Franz Kraus in 1936 and published by the Tourist Association of Palestine, a Zionist development agency. The poster shows the city of Jerusalem, with its neat parks, homes, and the Dome of the Rock.

Embarrassingly for the Zionists, this one poster effectively debunks three of their core myths; that Palestine was a land without people, that Palestine was a barren desert, and that there never was any such thing as Palestine. Well, here is a populated and green Palestine, called by name in a Zionist-published poster!

The incredible naivete in the last paragraph is breathtaking. Of course there was an area known as Palestine, but what the poster is showing is that Zionists had pride in the nation they were building. In 1936, only Jews were proudly identified as Palestinians, and the Western world also identified Palestine as the Jewish homeland. Jews were proud Palestinians before 1948, creating the popular Palestine Pavillion at the 1939 World's Fair, for example.

If anyone should be embarrassed by this poster, it is the Arabs of Palestinian lineage, because they didn't create any posters like this! This poster proves that Zionism is what made Palestine relevant, Zionist muscle and brainpower turned a backwards land into a modern marvel, and Zionists were the people who took the greatest pride and interest in Palestine in that time period.

More similar posters that for some reason are not being sold by Palestinian Arab online stores, probably because they have that evil word "Jewish" in them:

UPDATE: Here are a couple of other "embarrassing" posters I just found on the Web:

Religion of peace

This photo accompanied a story in the Al Quds newspaper of London. It is apparently a picture of Shehada Jawhar, one of the leaders of Jund al-Sham Islamic group in Lebanon, who was killed this morning in continuing clashes in Lebanese "refugee" camps.

Do people who call Islam the "religion of peace" cringe when they see Islamist leaders explicitly equating weapons with the Koran, or do they perhaps have a different definition of "peace" than the rest of the world?

Today's marriage news from Saudi Arabia

In an update to last week's story about a 64 year old Saudi man who was to marry a 10-year old girl, we can all breathe a sigh of relief:

In the latest twist to a high-profile marriage in this central Saudi city, a 64-year-old man has announced that he would wait five years to consummate his marriage with his 10-year-old bride.
According to local newspapers yesterday, the man — who has already paid a SR100,000 dowry to the father of the girl and signed the marriage contract — now says he would wait until the girl is 15 to complete the marriage.
Explaining the circumstances that led to the marriage, the man’s son said his father never had a second wife. He said the girl’s father taunted his father saying he was willing to marry his daughter to him if he paid SR100,000 in dowry. “My father accepted the challenge, paid the money and became the husband of the young woman,” the son was quoted as saying.

Apparently, if you only have one wife in Saudi Arabia, there must be something wrong with you.

It is most heartening to know that this man claims he won't be raping the girl nightly. She'll just be his slave.

In other news about the wonders of polygamy in Saudi Arabia:

When a man discovered that his wife was secretly urging their son not to get married, he took revenge on her by marrying a second, younger woman.
According to yesterday’s Okaz daily, the couple, living in the southern Saudi city of Al-Madaya, has a son studying in the US. The father had been urging the young man to get married the next time he was visiting home. After discovering that his wife was tugging the young man in the other direction, the father used polygamy to get back at his wife. When the wife discovered her husband had married a 21-year-old woman, she insisted that no second wife was going to live under the same roof with her. So the man moved in with his new, younger bride.

In other Saudi marriage news, a man shot and killed his wife over a "family dispute" and a woman with her 16-year old son burned her husband to death.

PA lawmakers praise murderers, advocate Israel's destruction

Israel's "peace partners" have come together to praise Samir Kuntar and Dalal al-Mughrabi in this women's program on PA TV with female Fatah members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (from MEMRI):

Lowlights:

Jihad Abu Zneid: Today has stirred the emotions of all Palestinians and the whole world [towards] a Palestinian woman who was, and still is, a commander and a fighter for the sake of Palestine. Allah willing, we hope that the day is near when the remains of this fighter and martyr, who has been dubbed "the Princess of Female Martyrs" – sister Dalal Al-Maghrabi, will return, Allah willing, to Jaffa, and will be welcomed by Jaffa and by the entire homeland, and we will celebrate our liberation.

[...]

We extend our deepest salutations to that Palestinian mother, to the mother and sisters of Dalal, and to all the female martyrs [who died] for the sake of Dalal and Palestine. I say to them: You have won [this honor]. Becoming the mother or sister of a martyr is an unparalleled opportunity. I wish I could be the mother or sister of a martyr, or even be martyred for the sake of Palestine myself. This would be a great honor. We all wish to die, Allah willing, for the sake of Palestine, and to become brides for the sake of Palestine – all the women and girls of Palestine wish for that. Dalal was a role model, and we were raised on her memory, and on this outstanding Palestinian image of that great Palestinian commander, Dalal, who led the best Palestinian operation for the sake of Palestine and its liberation.
Najat Abu Bakr: To Dalal, confined in her coffin, I say that ...today, you made all the Israeli and Zionist warlords pay the price. Your price is higher than anything they expected. You are present, because while death means absence, martyrdom means presence. Oh leaders of the Zionist enemy, we are here to stay, and you will be gone.

So Israel's "peace partners" advocate on their own TV shows that all Zionists die, that all of Israel gets destroyed, and that murderers of Jewish children be considered heroes.

As LGF writes, this TV show is like a death-cult version of The View.

Guess who offered to help Palestinian Iraqi refugees?

We've previously discussed the plight of some 3000 Arabs who lived in Iraq for generations and are now in dire straits because they have Palestinian ancestry.

None of the oil-rich Arab countries in the Gulf have offered any help. Syria, which has accepted tens of thousands of other Iraqi refugees, refuses to allow them into the country. Jordan and Egypt have likewise been silent, despite efforts by the UNHCR for years to find countries that can accept them.

But one Arab country has stepped forward.

Sudan.

In what is clearly a public relations move, Sudan has offered to accept all the refugees to change people's focus away from its genocide in Darfur.

The UNHCR, while clearly not happy about this, is considering this idea as Sudan is marginally better than the camp they are in now. The PLO seems to agree to the plan as well.

Refugees International, rather than blaming other Arab countries for refusing to settle these refugees, is asking the US to pick up the slack:

"Relocating Palestinian refugees to Sudan does not offer this population a real choice for a permanent, stable home, and simply moves them from one marginalized situation to another," said Kristele Younes, Senior Advocate with Refugees International.

"We must not allow this vulnerable population to be used as pawns in a greater political game," said Younes. "The U.S. government should acknowledge the vulnerability of this stateless population and resettle them here. It is appalling that Sudan, a country infamous for its violations of international humanitarian law, has stepped in to protect these people when the U.S. would not."

To resettle this vulnerable population expeditiously, Refugees International urged the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to create a special category to process refugee applications. Any process should be held without prejudice to the Palestinians’ right to return to their homeland.

Ironically, this organization which says it tries so hard to solve refugee problems and to allow them to become normal citizens in their host countries still feels obligated to say that even if the US would accept them as citizens they should not forfeit their "right to return" to a place they have not lived in for three generations. Indeed, RI has bought into the very using the Palestinian Arabs as pawns that they rail against, and rather than looking for a permanent solution to the rampant discrimination that Arabs of Palestinian ancestry suffer in the Arab world they continue to advocate a solution that would destroy Israel. RI apparently agrees with the UN that Palestinian Arabs should be labeled "refugees" for generations, uniquely among all the world's refugee populations, and that the West is responsible to solve all Arab suffering, allowing petrodollar-stuffed Gulf states to abdicate all responsibility for the PalArabs.

What a bold move!

Peaceful PalArab weekend

Hamas is accused of killing a 23-year old Fatah member of the Gaza "naval police".

Hamas continues to raid houses of prominent Fatah members in Gaza, today stealing the Jeep of a former deputy minister.

Egypt found another cache of explosives meant to go to Gaza, the second in two days.

Hamas conducted military exercises in Gaza with live ammunition and missiles - in the densely-populated residential al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. This panicked the residents and damaged many houses, but it was late Friday night, so no big deal.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 114.

Internal Hamas friction leads to violence

According to Palestine Press Agency, a bomb exploded east of Gaza City, injuring 7 Hamas members, two seriously.

The anti-Hamas paper claims that this was the result of internal Hamas disagreements.

UN "peacekeepers" salute terrorists

From AP (h/t LGF):

U.N. soldiers salute as a tractor-trailer loaded with coffins of nearly 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters and bearing the picture of slain Hezbollah top leader Imad Mughniyeh, right, arrives in the southern city of Tyre, Lebanon, Thursday, July 17, 2008.

These look like the kinds of people who will zealously hold Hezbollah to every provision of UN Resolution 1701, don't they?

The Guardian's "correction"

I pointed out yesterday that the Guardian wrote an execrable biography of Dalal Mughrabi that took the Palestinian Arab narrative of her terror attacks at face value.

Today, they issued a slight correction, changing the words "Israeli soldiers" in the sentence "On the coastal highway, Mughrabi's team hijacked two buses full of Israeli soldiers" with the words "civilians." But that was hardly the only problem with the article:

* Referring to the 18-year old as a "girl," making her sound like an underaged hero, especially by referring to hijacking a bus of unarmed civilians as "daring."

* Not mentioning the earlier murder of American photographer Gail Rubin by her gang.

* One bus was hijacked, not two.

* The story of her raising a Palestinian flag is almost certainly apocryphal.

* The terror group's intent was not Israel's Ministry of Defense but rather a Tel Aviv hotel filled with civilians.

* To even report with a straight face the idea that Israeli helicopters would fire from the air into a bus filled with Israeli civilians wavers between truly stupid and purposefully malicious.

* To give any credence to the Palestinian Arab boasting that they killed 70 people, when the names and ages of the victims are public record, betrays an equal amount of stupidity to which no real reporter would ever admit.

* I have not found any of the supposed pictures of Barak shooting Mughrabi's dead body and it strains credulity that he would have done that. If the Guardian knows that "the media" captured such images, it should at least say who took them.

In other words, these two short paragraphs were not factual at all. The Guardian's credibility should be severely damaged by this sloppy, poor excuse of a biography. If there are this many mistakes in this case, how can anyone trust anything the Guardian ever says?

Arab press: Israel exploding nukes, causing earthquakes

Firas Press published an article claiming that the recent series of earthquakes felt in northern Israel were really underground Israeli nuclear tests.

The author, Mahmoud Daoud, marshals an impressive array of facts: since the earthquakes are in the north of the country, far away from the Dimona nuclear plant, they must have really been nuclear weapons, because Israel would never test them in the south and risk an accident at Dimona. The logic is impeccable.

Once this irrefutable fact is established, it is up to crusaders - oops, activists - like Daoud to explain what Israel's plans are.

One possibility is that, after finishing its archaeological digs undermining the Temple Mount, Israel plans to destroy the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque with a small nuclear weapon.

Another likely scenario is that Israel is developing small nukes that would only destroy Arab villages or "refugee" camps, as a possible response to conventional weapons.

Indeed, the author goes on to say, the Zionist entity is already known to have used uranium bullets and bombs in Lebanon. And as part of the West, Israel already has previous experience in using nuclear weapons against civilians in Japan in World War II.

Daoud goes on to say that all of Israel's recent concessions, including the prisoner swap, the calm in Gaza, the negotiations with Syria and the talk about Shebaa Farms is part of the conspiracy, as a kind of misdirection to keep the world from seeing Israel's obvious nuclear testing.

As if further proof is needed, a large meteor seen over Israel earlier this month was really an Israeli rocket test.

In hindsight, it is all so obvious!

Nefarious Zionist rats terrorize J'lem PalArabs

We've seen Zionist pigs, trained by settlers to attack innocent Palestinian Arab gardens during prayer times.

We've seen Zionist wolves, raised by the same settlers who know only to attack PalArabs.

We've even seen Zionist lions, kept by settlers as pets, instilling terror in the hearts of the oppressed West Bank Arabs.

Now, thanks to Zionist technology and the implacable hatred that Jews naturally have towards everyone else, we can witness the latest scourge: Zionist rats.

From Palestine Today (autotranslated):

Rats have become a weapon used by new Israeli colonizers against citizens in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, in order to displace and expel them from their homes.

Districts in the old part of town are suffering and facing recently this new type of Israeli actions that aim to harass Jerusalemites in order to force them to leave.

For two months, dozens of settlers have been going to the alleys and streets of the old town, carrying with them dozens of iron cages full of rats, and to release them in the town into open drainage channels.

The citizens of the old town say that the rats grow very large, adding that different types of poisons did not contribute to eradicating them, and pointed to the large municipal slowness in dealing with this issue which is causing a humanitarian catastrophe and environmental losses.

According to Hassan Khater, Secretary General of the Islamic-Christian Front for Defending Jerusalem and its Holy Sites, these rats pose a major threat to Jerusalemites who inhabit these neighborhoods, and that the situation is serious and very poor, emphasizing the failure of the occupation in the municipality of Jerusalem to address the issue.

He reported during a press conference held in the government media center in Ramallah yesterday that the purpose of this measure is to increase the suffering of Jerusalemites in the old town, transforming their lives through the tragedy of fact, with the aim of pushing them to leave their homes and leave the city.

Khater added that the Front had received many complaints and comments from citizens Jerusalemites living in the revival of the old town, according to sabotage these rats property large number of houses and shops, calling to shed further light on this disaster.

There is a link between the colonists active in the deployment of rats in alleys of the Old City meant for the deportation and displacement of populations, and between the occupation and the deployment of hundreds of pigs in the mountains and valleys of the West Bank aimed at sabotaging the property and crops.

Yes, right now, in secret underground Zionist labs, brainy Jewish scientists (funded by the Zionist lobby) are breeding these super rats who are impervious to poisons, and trained through a combination of Pavlovian methods and embedded microchips to only attack Arab sections of Jerusalem and to leave the Jewish Jerusalemites alone. But thanks to the efforts of people like Dr. Hassan Khater (who has advocated genocide against Jews on PA TV) these schemes can be exposed for all the world to see.

Saudi Vice, episode 17: Tat's all, folks

A Filipino worker in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was very happy with his life. He was so happy that he even got a tattoo during one of his visits home that said "Lady Hunter ... KSA."

He came back to the Kingdom and went about his business. But a Saudi Electricity Company worker noticed his tattoo and was aghast.

He followed the man home to find out his address, and then conscientiously called our heroes, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, telling them that clearly this man was aiming to have an illegal illicit affair with innocent Muslim Saudi women.

Our heroes at the Muttawa didn't waste any time investigating these allegations. They searched the man's home, and found even more reasons to punish the Filipino - he had pictures of Filipino women workers in his home!

Will the horrors never cease?

The Muttawa had seen enough. The man was deported away from the Kingdom and its holy places, and Saudi Arabia is a little bit safer from such deviants who dare have tattoos and pictures of women.

Now we know that Hezbollah murders POWs

Almost absent from all the discussion about the prisoner swap is the fact that Hezbollah murdered two captured soldiers, probably way after they were captured.

As David Bedein writes:

Exactly two years ago, a few days after Goldwasser and Regev were captured, the Israel government cabinet secretary Attorney Yisrael Maimon, convened a press briefing following the Israel government cabinet meeting, which this reporter attended, in which Maimon reported to the media that the Goldwasser and Regev were captured alive.

Maimon held at least 12 more briefings over the next few months in which he declared that Goldwasser and Regev were captured alive.

Maimon told the media that he relied on Israeli intelligence data which confirmed that the two Israeli POW's were captured alive.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, acting as an independent envoy, along with the Red Cross and the UN, all confirmed that Israeli POW's Regev and Goldwasser were alive.

Now that it is clear that Goldwasser and Regev died at the hands of Hizbullah while they were held in captivity, the responsibility for the murder of Goldwasser and Regev rests with the Hizbullah organization and with their sponsors in Syria and Iran.

The government of Israel now has a responsibility to the people of Israel and to the soldiers of Israel to hold Hizbullah, Syria and Iran accountable for murder of the two POWs.

Where are the human rights organizations? Where is the outcry of anger at Hezbollah's flouting of the Geneva Conventions and other international laws? Who in the West is standing up and calling Hezbollah murderers?

UPDATE: As my commenters have noted, Israeli sources are now saying that Regev and Goldwasser were killed during the initial attack.

So, were Jesse Jackson and the others lying?

The Guardian's disgusting biography of a terrorist

The Guardian (UK)'s Hugh Macleod wrote a brief bio of Palestinian Arab terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, and disregards the truth for PalArab propaganda:

As an 18-year-old Palestinian girl from Lebanon, she led a daring and bloody attack against Israel that still haunts the public imagination on both sides of the border 30 years later.

In 1978, Mughrabi led a team of 13 Palestinian and Lebanese fighters who landed at Jaffa beach intent on attacking the ministry of defence in Tel Aviv. On the coastal highway, Mughrabi's team hijacked two buses full of Israeli soldiers. An intense 15-hour gun battle ensued with forces led by future Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak. Mughrabi raised her national flag and declared the Palestinian state.One of the buses exploded, killing many inside. Israel says Mughrabi threw grenades into it; Palestinians maintain the bus was fired on from the air by Israeli helicopters. At least 37 Israelis (Palestinians claim 70) were killed, as well as 11 guerrillas. Mughrabi's body was dragged off the tarmac and shot several times by Barak in images captured by the media. (HM)

Mughrabi hijacked one bus of civilians, 13 children were murdered by her gang that day. Macleod's pretending that the Palestinian Arab lies about the attack having the same credibility as Israel's is simply obscene. It is not as if the facts are hard to come by; the Guardian just disregards them.

For the truth, read here.

UPDATE: Israeli media reports that her body was not returned to Hezbollah and that it was lost. Hezbollah claims that her body was returned. Either Hezbollah has a DNA lab or it is lying.

But it doesn't matter, because in the honor/shame society, appearances are all that matters, not facts.

Today's PalArab press roundup

A few articles of note, although I won't have time to elaborate too much on any of them.

An Iraqi Shiite leader has issued a fatwa allowing women to undergo surgery to repair their hymens. The article assumes that all such women are "adulterous" and although it does mention that this procedure may save their lives, the primary reason for allowing the surgery was to maintain family "honor."

The spread of AIDS has slowed down dramatically in Gaza, and medical sources say that the Israeli "blockade" is a major reason why.

Hamas denies yesterday's report that their headquarters is moving to Beirut, saying that nothing could affect the good relationship between Hamas and Syria.

All of Lebanon celebrates a multiple murderer

It isn't only Hezbollah celebrating the imminent return of the most sickening terrorist in recent memory, Samir Kuntar.

The entire government of Lebanon is joining in.

According to the Palestine Press news,

The Lebanese Prime Minister instructed the closure of all public administrations and public institutions and private institutions, municipalities, public and private educational Lebanon on Wednesday, 16/7/2008, in observance of the liberation of prisoners from the prisons of the Israeli enemy and the restoration of bodies of the martyrs to the soil of the homeland.

It is expected that permeated the celebrations all regions of Lebanon on this occasion.

Similarly, the Lebanon Daily Star said:

Lebanon is planning a welcome ceremony in Naqoura, and President Michel Sleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora will later greet the prisoners at Beirut's airport.

It can perhaps be expected that traditional murderer-worshippers like Hezbollah or Hamas would celebrate the release of such a murderer. But this is the entire government of Lebanon, which despite Hezbollah's influence is still considered to be pro-Western by the West, celebrating; every major political leader falling over themselves for a photo-op with this damned pitiful excuse for a human being.

It isn't just the terror organizations that embrace Samir Kuntar. It is the entire Arab world. Because anyone who kills Jews in Israel is, by definition, a hero to the Arabs across all political leanings.

If anyone can find a single Arab editorial that considers Samir Kuntar to be anything less than a hero, in any language, please let me know. Because I have not yet found it.

UPDATE: Not all of Lebanon is celebrating.