Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Tegart's Wall

As my four year blogoversary is coming up, I'm hoping to find interesting old postings of mine from when my readership was much smaller.

One such posting was from going through old Palestine Post archives, about how the British tried to stop terror attacks in 1938 - by building a fence:

Nowadays, of course, building a fence is considered a terrible crime by many of the descendants of these British. Funny how one's perspective gets changed when one is the target of the terror.

Notice the last line in the first column: in 1925 and 1926, there was a problem of Arab troublemakers moving from Syria into Palestine and Jordan. These people's progeny, today, are called "Palestinian."

Similarly, a Time magazine article at the time stated:

Britain's most ingenious solution for handling terrorism in Palestine was revealed in Geneva last week to the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission by His Majesty's Government's Deputy Permanent Under-Secretary for Colonies, Sir John Shuckburgh. Following a suggestion of mail-fisted Sir Charles Tegart, now adviser to the Palestine Government on the suppression of terrorism, a barbed wire barrier to keep out terrorists is being strung along the entire Palestine frontier at a cost of $450,000. This includes a nine-foot barbed wire fence between Palestine and French-mandated Lebanon and Syria, which border Palestine on the north and northeast. A lot of Palestine's tougher Arabs come from those two mandates. The fence will be completed in August, announced Sir John. Almost as he spoke, a band of Arab terrorists swooped down on a section of the fence, dubbed Tegart's Wall, ripped it up and carted it across the frontier into Lebanon.

Again, the grandchildren of these Syrians and Lebanese Arabs who came to Palestine in 1938 to join the "great revolt" are now known as..."Palestinians."

The Jericho plot

From JTA:

A music CD with a provocative title triggered Israeli suspicions that nuclear secrets were being leaked.
Yasmin Sabah, a 22-year-old Israeli nurse, became the target of an undercover security probe last month after a passer-by saw a music CD in her car with the handwritten title "Jericho IV -- Nuclear Upgrade."

Israel is widely believed to have developed ballistic missiles known as Jerichos, though it is a state secret.

According to Sabah, who came forward with her account this week, two secret service agents posing as car buyers voiced interest in her vehicle and, having arranged a rendezvous, listened to every song on the CD before confiscating it.

Sabah said she was given the CD by a friend and she did not know the origins of the title. Israel's Defense Ministry confirmed that Sabah had been investigated.

"Honor killings" are different when a dhimmi is involved

Usually, a woman who is found to have an "improper" relationship is the one who gets killed in "honor killings."

But what if the person she is having the relationship with happens to not be a Muslim?

Things turn out slightly differently:

Local Pakistani police declared the death of a young Christian man in May to be a suicide requiring no investigation, but a high inspector has reopened the case and taken two Muslim suspects into custody.

Adeel Masih, 19, was found dead on May 4 in Hafizabad, Pakistan. His family and human rights lawyers believe the relatives of a 19-year-old Muslim woman, Kiran Irfan, with whom Masih had a one-year relationship, tortured and killed him. His family has dubbed his death an “honor killing.”

Marriage between Christian men and Muslim women is forbidden according to a strict interpretation of sharia (Islamic Law), and even social contacts such as these can incite violent reactions in Pakistan, a majority-Muslim nation of 170 million.

Local police in Gujranwala, in Punjab province, did not charge Irfan’s family with any crimes and effectively declared them innocent when Masih’s family first came to the station in May, according to the Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), a Lahore-based Christian legal advocacy group.

CLAAS then presented the case to the office of inspector general of Punjab province, who reopened it on July 18. Afterwards the young woman’s father and one uncle, Muhammad Riasat, were taken into custody. The district police office is currently leading the investigation.

Members of the Masih family said that when they first tried to register the case with local police three months ago, officers did not cooperate in launching an investigation because the suspects were Muslim and the victim was a Christian, according to CLAAS.

“The police said, ‘We will first inquire whether Adeel has committed suicide,’ because the culprits told the police about the fact that their daughter wanted to embrace Christianity because of Adeel,” said Aneeqa Maria, a case worker for CLAAS. “[In] this way the police were biased and lingered on the matter, because if there is a long delay in the lodging of a first incidence report, the case becomes weak.”

On July 4 the Masih family brought the case to CLAAS, which applied to the district police in Gujranwala. The case moved up the police chain of command and went all the way to the office of the inspector general of Punjab. It was reopened two weeks later.

Masih’s friendship with Irfan began about one year ago. His mother learned of their contact six months later and warned his son to end it due to the dangers. She then told Irfan’s family about their relationship, which both families considered culturally inappropriate.

Irfan’s family began to harass Masih’s parents and threatened to kill him if they ever again heard that their son was contacting their daughter. They said they “would not allow a Christian man to disgrace Islam this way,” according to CLAAS.

Masih disappeared on May 1 while en route by motorbike to visit Irfan. Her father, Mohammed Irfan, and her two uncles, Muhammad Amjad and Muhammad Riasat, reportedly followed him. They then abducted him and threw his motorbike into a nearby canal, a local resident told CLAAS.

Two hours after Masih disappeared, Irfan’s family called his relatives, claiming he had committed suicide near a canal 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Gujranwala. The family searched for two days with the assistance of divers but failed to find him. Police found Masih’s body on May 4 in a canal in Hafizabad, 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Gujranwala.

Links!

Another busy day at work, so here are some links to tide you over.

Worries of rocket attacks against US from offshore boats - 70% of Americans in range

You still can't write stuff about Mohammed - Random House pulls a book even before the first death threat

Good article on Gaza's smuggling tunnels in Der Spiegel.

Soccer Dad's posting on the Gaza Fulbright kerfuffle, which I didn't cover.

Two articles about the failings of UNRWA and the real reason there are so many "refugees":

Palestinians are not the world's first refugee population, but they may be the first to lament their perpetual refugee status while resisting any effort to resolve it.

Today's PalArab news

Al-Jazeera actually apologized to Israel for its coverage of child-killer Samir Kuntar's release, saying that they violated their own code of conduct:

Egypt says that it has found 20 smuggling tunnels this week. AP manages to write the entire story without using the word "weapons" once, and implies that each of the 20 were only to give fuel to poor hungry Gazans.

The PCHR complained that Hamas is not allowing lawyers to see clients in Gaza prisons, and explains that the reason probably has to do with reports of torture in those prisons.

One of the deported terrorists that used the Church of the Nativity as a place to shoot Israelis from was the object of an assassination attempt in Ireland. The shooters were a Palestinian Arab and a Moroccan.

Two rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel last night, no injuries. There were also three fired on Saturday.

Egypt opened the Rafah border briefly. Was it to take sick or injured people to the hospital? Not quite - it was to send Abdul Ghani Yassin across the border into Gaza. If the name sounds familiar, that's because he is the son of the Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin.

Members of the PA's Ministry of Education were arrested for stealing a million shekels from their employers. Nice to see Fatah's finances are so much more transparent. (Then again, there would never have been an arrest under Arafat - he would have been doing the stealing.)

A Palestinian Arab group is accusing Israel of threatening its Arab female prisoners with rape. This pack of lies will spread like wildfire, as usual.

The Nissan ad that riled up the Saudis

Last night I tweeted about a Nissan ad in Israel that upset the Saudis.

As Ha'aretz reported it (and they have their own video report:)

Saudi Arabia's MBC TV began its Sunday night news edition not with Syrian President Bashar Assad's trip to Iran, nor with Palestinian infighting in Gaza - but with an outraged report on an Israeli TV commercial.

The advertisement shows wealthy Arab oil barons enraged that a Nissan car is so fuel efficient.

MBC proceeded to interview a Saudi representative, who was asked why he thought Israel would broadcast the commercial. He warned of a boycott of Nissan by Persian Gulf states, and demanded the company apologize.

Here is a version on YouTube that has Russian subtitles, but it is pretty clear what is going on.

Those genocidal types like to stay tight

From Sudan Vision:

President Omer Al-Bashir, has appreciated the stance of the Palestinian Hamas movement in rejection of the allegations of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Sudan and its sovereignty. During his meeting Tuesday at the Republican Palace with the delegation of Hamas, led by Khalid Mishaal, President Al-Bashir reiterated Sudan support to the Palestinian people and their right to establish their independent state with Quds as its capital.

In a press statement after the meeting, Mishaal affirmed Hamas solidarity with Sudan and its leadership against the foreign plots, especially the unfair allegations of the International Criminal Court (ICC). He said that the Palestinian people are facing similar imperialist and Zionist targeting.

Sudan is still ahead in their body count, but Hamas manages to endorse genocidal aims and still gain support from a significant number of Westerners. So they have a lot that they can learn from each other.

More on the love story between Sudan, Hamas and Iran can be seen here.

NGOs and lazy reporters

Others have blogged or written about the recent "Physicians for Human Rights- Israel" report that accuses the Shin Bet of forcing Gazans who require medical treatment to act as spies. In particular, check out NGO Monitor's critique of the report.

One of the things that was striking about this episode is that many of the news reports about the accusations made little attempt to give Israel's side of the story. If they contacted any Israeli spokespeople the comments were buried way after the accusations, and often they weren't even mentioned except in very general terms.

What is interesting about this is that the PHR-I report itself, available to anyone over the Internet, includes the Israeli responses to the report, both from the Prime Minister's Office and from the IDF. It would have taken zero effort for any reporter to open the report, look at the table of contents, turn to page 71 and find the Israeli government's (and Defense Ministry's) answers to these and other accusations in the report, often showing PHR-I's facts to be completely wrong and sometimes finding contradictions.

So without even a phone call, any writers could have seen Israel's response. Of course, the reporters didn't bother to look at the report and only parroted the PHR-I's press release, showing once again that the number of reporters who actually report is diminishingly small.

Arafat the messiah

Firas Press just published a gushing tribute to Yasir Arafat that seeks to elevate him from being merely the symbol of PalArab nationalism into virtual sainthood, together with miracles.

It is a little hard to interpret in autotranslation because the author uses very poetic imagery but some of the more nauseating points he makes include:

The stones and trees are mourning Arafat
His birth was a miracle that highlighted the "cosmic struggle"
He was miraculously born during the Arab riots of 1929, when Arabs wantonly slaughtered dozens of Jews throughout Palestine, and the implication is that he was the reincarnation of some Arab "hero martyrs" who were hung by the British for their terrorist activities
The author tries to relate Arafat to the 1936 Arab riots as well (when he was seven), not sure I follow the logic there
He was friends with all the other "great leaders," like George Habash, and he had an "intimate relationship" with Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
"Leader of liberation movements throughout the world"

A couple of days ago there was an article about a new push to name lots of Palestinian Arab boys "Yassir Arafat." It might get confusing when they get to school.

Today's peaceful PalArab news

Masked men attacked a tourist village north of Gaza City, setting fire to the village, stealing property, and handcuffing and beating security guards on Wednesday.

The powerful Dugmoush family, after seeing Hamas massacring the Helles family over the weekend, decided to start a dialogue with Hamas. They started a joint committee to resolve issues between them. (The Dugmoushes are associated with the Army of Islam.)

Hamas started allowing the Al Quds newspaper to be distributed, but it still bans Al Ayyam and Al Hayat al Jadida.

Hamas raided another PA office in Gaza, stealing all its supplies, after "torturing" a Fatah official attached to it.

The summer camp named for terrorist Dalal Mughrabi participated in the opening of a mental health center in Salfit. Sounds like they need it badly.

MEMRI causes Kuwaiti to self-reflect

From the Kuwait Times:

It is funny how it takes a foreign entity to repertoire and sample numerous clips that were aired on public TV here in the Middle East, and to further add subtitles to them; clarifying them for every one's viewing pleasure. Memritv.org, better known as "The Middle East Media Research Institute TV Monitor Project," albeit could be claimed to be biased with the explicit aim of pin-pointing the outrageous comments made by certain individuals. This is nothing more than showing actual clips that were aired, nothing more nothing less.

For instance...we can perhaps turn to a Friday sermon made by a Palestinian Sheikh, whereby he claims, "With the establishment of the State of Israel, the entire Islamic nation was lost, because Israel is like cancer that spreads through the body of the Islamic nation. This is because the Jews are viruses that spread like AIDS, the which the entire world suffers from." This is only an excerpt of the sort of rhetoric that is not unfamiliar in our part of the world, and is a rhetoric that only proves our inherent weakness and lack of self-esteem.

When we place our very own miseries in the hands of others, we are externalizing our problems that we are not able to solve, not because we cannot with some will and desire do so. Rather, we put our problems in the hand of foreigners because as such we can allow ourselves to do nothing about it for whatever reason we wish to ascribe to such act.

It is an undeniable fact that we in the region, have a great potential to create an Arab Union, which would mimic the European Union and would ensure that every country gets a chance to prosper and develop. It is unlikely to happen if we are unable to be honest with ourselves. We need to reform our respective countries; we need to stop externalizing our troubles, and to take a deeper look at our malaises, noting that we will not be able to fix them in a year or two. If we start a process of self-examination, in the near future, we would be able to start bringing forward solutions. One solution that has served many Arab States is the external threat, and that will only work for a short period.

It is fascinating that for this Arab writer, the outrageous things said daily on TV in Arabic don't make an impression on him, but seeing them in English - where such rhetoric stands out so much more - allowed him to be more conscious of his own culture and its shortcomings.

The Miraculous Terrorist Talking Dolphin

Terrorists who participated in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, led by Palestinian Arab heroine Dalal Mughrabi, were interviewed on Al-Manar TV:

Fatah terrorist Hussein Fayadh: We spent two days in the dinghy, with all the [bad] weather. Before that, we spent two days aboard the ship. For four day, we didn't eat, drink, or sleep. In addition, I must say for the sake of history that a fish was our guide after we got lost. On the second day, when we had no idea which way to go, along came a dolphin fish and said to us: That is the right direction: Palestine is there. We set the compass to the direction of the fish. We sailed the entire day, and on the second night, we knew we were on our way to Palestine.
[...]

Sister Dalal Al-Maghrabi had a conversation with the American journalist [Gail Rubin]. Before killing her, Dalal asked: "How did you enter Palestine?" [Rubin] answered: "They gave me a visa." Dalal said: "Did you get your visa from me, or from Israel?" I have the right to this land. Why didn't you come to me?" Then Dalal opened fire on her. We must recall these issues as cases... as human experience.

Hearing the word "human" come out of the mouth of such filth is especially nauseating.

But maybe I'm just jealous that dolphins speak to him.

(Video clip here.)

Autotranslation of the day

From the Palestinian Arabic Ma'an news, auto-translated by Google:

Infanticide Club in Green Valley Fukui, honors students excelling and successful in high school

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Systems Club Infanticide Verde - The Phuket, in observance to honor the excellent students in the classroom and successful in high school, so during a celebration rally held at the Plaza Club, attended by a wide audience of students and families of the sons of the village and the faculty and headmaster Professor Ashraf Lashkar, And representatives of local institutions in the village.

Opened the festival, took the customs of both Ahmed sugar supervisor's cultural club, Mohammed advocate cultural committee member.

Bassam gave a speech advocating the club, a speech welcoming and congratulating the students and their parents and teachers on this success and excellence, calling on them to continue to achieve these results supervising, and praised the management of the school and the teaching staff and their role in access to these results.

I know they celebrate death, but an entire infanticide club brings things to a whole new level!

Today's Palestinian Islamic hypocrisy

The current Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, is (based on apparently no evidence whatsoever) accusing Israel of building cattle stables on top of Muslim cemeteries:

Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, General Mufti of Jerusalem warned that in some quarters of the Israelis they are converting Muslim graves in the territory of the 1948 into stables for cows, stressing that the occupation authorities that the attack violated all heavenly religions that prohibit interfering with the sanctities.

Al-Tamimi in a statement today called on the occupation authorities to stop these aggressive practices against the dignity of the dead after having touched the dignity of neighborhoods.

He pointed out that occupation authorities were destroying the holy sites and cemeteries and transformed into stables for cows or stores or clubs, stressing that such practices are incompatible with the laws and international norms and traditions.

He stressed that the Islamic cemeteries are the property of Muslims alone may not be for non-Muslims interfering in their affairs, and called all organizations, international bodies and local communities need to act to stop such practices which harm the holy sites and cemeteries.

Making baseless accusations is nothing new for the Mufti; he issues press releases like this every couple of weeks to make sure that he stays in the news and that he can keep a constant stream of incitement against Jews flowing among his constituency.

The hypocrisy, of course, is to remember what Arabs were documented to have done to Jewish cemeteries when they had the chance:

On the Mount of Olives, the Jordanian Arabs removed 38,000 tombstones from the ancient cemetery and used them as paving stones for roads and as construction material in Jordanian Army camps, including use as latrines. When the area was recaptured by Israel in 1967, graves were found open with the bones scattered. Parts of the cemetery were converted into parking lots, a filling station, and an asphalt road was built to cut through it. The Intercontinental Hotel was built at the top of the cemetery. Sadar Khalil, appointed by the Jordanian government as the official caretaker of the cemetery, built his home on the grounds using the stones robbed from graves. In 1967, the press published extensive photos documenting that Jewish gravestones were found in Jordanian Army camps, such as El Azariya, as well as in Palestinian walkways, steps, bathrooms, and pavement.

Elder's First Rule of Arab Projection lives!

Egypt discovers 8 more tunnels

Not a bad day's work. from Firas Press (autotranslated):

Egyptian security forces discovered today 8 tunnels on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egyptian territories that were used for smuggling into Gaza. The Egyptian security official explained that these tunnels were discovered north of the Rafah border crossing during the last 24 hours and that they arrested Egyptians.

In another incident police opened fire on Egyptian smugglers near the Egyptian-Israeli border in Sinai. The smugglers fled from the scene leaving behind five hundred kilograms of hashish.

Today's peaceful PalArab news

There were clashes yesterday in Bir Zeit University between Fatah and Hamas students; the university was evacuated. The Fatah students planned to protest Hamas' violence in Gaza, and the Hamas students objected a bit forcefully.

Hamas abducted a prominent Fatah activist and his brother in Gaza.

The PFLP radio station, Voice of the People, remains closed in Gaza after Hamas closed it on Saturday.

The Fatah camp named after terrorist Dalal Mughrabi ended its season. Its goals were to "strengthen the bonds of love, unity and tolerance" - although apparently it does not preach tolerance for any non-Arabs in the Middle East, based on its name.

PA PM Fayyad opened up a "hall for martyrs" in a camp in the West Bank. What percentage of their "martyrs" are dead terrorists?

A Salafi leader in Gaza called for Muslims to stop helping out Hamas financially. (Salafist preachers have been targeted by Hamas.) Does this mean that Muslims support those evil economic sanctions?

And, finally, Hamas partially destroyed a restaurant in Gaza City. The reason? Because the restaurant provided free food to young boy and girl scouts ("cubs and flowers") who were associated with Fatah.

And now, the video

How could I resist making a video out of "Hello martyr, hello Fatah"?

Luckily for my audience, I did resist singing, choosing instead to make a version that you can sing along with, karaoke-style.

Muslims freak over Israeli Quran project

An Israeli professor at the University of Haifa was teaching developmental psychology to a group of Bedouin students last year. One of them mentioned to him that the modern concepts he was teaching them would have no impact upon their likely patients; for example, a parent might tell them that "a devil has entered my child." The professor, a Jew, asked what would help them, and they answered that if they could base their psychological therapy on the Koran then the parents and kids would be very receptive.

The result of this conversation is the Quranet project, where some 300 verses of the Koran are used to teach universal concepts like taking responsibility, respect, and telling the truth. The project shows the verse and gives a psychological background as well as concrete examples for each verse.

A Flash example can be seen here, and an interview with the professor - who is now a big fan of the Koran - can be seen here.

This project does not try to interpret the Koran and it is not meant to be a scholarly study; it is merely using the Koran to enforce universal concepts of basic human kindness and dignity.

Which means, of course, that the Muslim world is freaking out at what they are convinced is an Israeli plot to twist the Koran into a work that teaches, well, universal concepts of basic human kindness and dignity.

From Gulf News:

Shaikh Dr Abdullah Al Mutlaq, member of the Senior Ulema Board in Saudi Arabia, denounced the project, which was developed by 15 Muslim bedouin academics in Israel as part of their Masters programme in educational counselling, supervised by Jewish professor Dr Ofer Grosbard and reviewed by three Islamic preachers.

In a statement to Gulf News, Dr Al Mutlaq stressed that the Israeli Quranet project should not be trusted by Muslims since it is run by Jews who openly show their hatred to Islam and Muslims.

"A Muslim who wants to abide by Islamic teachings should not depend on this website for interpretation of the Holy Quran whatever the case," he said.

He warned that Muslims should not be deceived by Israeli statements that "the Quranet transforms the Quran into a unique and useful educational tool for parents and teachers, and thereby renders the beneficial power of the Quran widely accessible".

"We regard this denounced move as an attempt to create a generation of Muslims who understand the Quran in the way that Israel and US want after misinterpreting the verses of the Quran to serve Israeli Zionist projects in the world", he said.

Abdullah Al Shihri, the prominent Islamic researcher, asked since when had Israel become keen to implant Islamic education in the minds of other nations and to enhance the face of Islam in the West?

"It is our right to be suspicious about the aims of the project which has been denounced by Muslim scholars all over the world," he said.

Al Shihri described the initiative of the Israeli Foreign Ministry to promote the Quranet website as suspicious, noting that Muslims are not in need of other people to interpret their holy book and that the relationship of Muslims with the West does not need middlemen.

Saudi propagator Fahd Al Harbi expressed his conviction that the main aim of those who are behind this project is to divide the Muslim world in a way that serves the Israeli political agenda.

"Otherwise how can we understand the good intentions alleged by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs unless we link this website with political motives," he said.

From IslamOnline:

"Israel wants to lure Muslims into its trap by interpreting the Qur'an in a way that suits Israeli projects," Sheikh Shawqi Abdel-Latif of the Egyptian Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) has told Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper.

Dr. Manae Abdel-Halim Mahmoud, professor of Qur'anic sciences at Al-Azhar University, also blasted the Israeli project.

"Israel only harbors enmity to Islam and Muslims," he said.

"This project aims to tarnish the image of Islam by giving wrong interpretation of the Noble Qur'an."

The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs also rejected the project, saying there was no reason to re-interpret the Qur'an into Hebrew as the Holy Book has been interpreted correctly many times before.

From the Iranian Quran News Agency:

But a short review of the Islamic history shows that the recent move, which is aimed at producing Zionist-oriented interpretations of the holy Quran, is not something new. From the early days of the advent of Islam, this tactic has been used to hinder the progress of Islam, but this time they have only done it in a modern way.

This old tactic is based on producing fake interpretations which are generally based on personal experiences and viewpoints. Their strategy is to sow seeds of misunderstanding and skepticism among Muslim generations but the tactics are different from time to time.

In an era called the era of dialogue, culture and reasoning, some imperialist colonists and Zionist Capitalists are still obsessed with their outdated mindsets. In an era in which Islam has conquered hearts and minds of billions of people across the globe and has acquired the title of the fastest growing religion in the world, the wretched Zionists and their imperialist allies can't make much of a difference by resorting to old tactics.

Muslims are educated and vigilant today and it is not a wise policy to try to beguile billions of people by spreading lies and forged information while there is an easy access to authentic sourses.[sic]

Yup, the critics certainly seem to disagree with anyone having the audacity to come along and assume that the Quran teaches love, respect for others and truth.

The Hamas threat to the West Bank - and Israel

We mentioned last week that a Hamas spokesman made an oblique threat that Hamas would take over the West Bank just as they did Gaza. It turns out that on the same day, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahhar made the threat a little more explicit:

In a sign of reassurance to the residents of the West Bank who are facing a joint campaign by the occupation forces and the Palestinian [National] Authority of Mahmud Abbas. Al-Zahhar said: "We tell our oppressed people in Ramallah that the sun of freedom has shone in the Gaza Strip and will shine on them in Ramallah, God willing."

Addressing the senior officials of the PNA in Ramallah, Al-Zahhar said: "Those who think that by oppression and imprisonment they can put off the candle of freedom which has been lit in Gaza are entertaining illusions. Those who did not read the Gaza history, let them read it."

He added: "Those who have sought negotiations and peace with the Zionist occupation are accusing us of resorting to the calm. Calm is a weapon in our hands, not a sword brandished on our necks." He said that the Al-Qassam Brigades continue to arm themselves, to manufacture arms, to train and to prepare themselves to be ready for self-defence."

Others have started noticing something we've been saying for years, that Hamas has far more power in the West Bank than is generally believed.

From Maariv (Daily Alert translation):

According to the IDF General Staff, the IDF is the only force preventing a Hamas takeover in the West Bank. The talks between Israel and the PA are purely cosmetic, since Israel's negotiating partner does not represent any real political force.

Anyone who is counting on Fatah to reform itself in order to serve as a counterweight to Hamas in the West Bank is fooling himself.

If Israel frees Hamas' West Bank political leadership - which was arrested two years ago in the wake of the kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Shalit - in a prisoner exchange for Shalit, this will only help Hamas to take over of the West Bank.

From JCPA (also translated by Daily Alert):

With the most recent fighting, Hamas has ended the role of Fatah in Gaza and is patiently organizing toward the next stage, which includes the takeover the West Bank.

This is to occur after the completion of a prisoner-exchange deal for Gilad Shalit, in which key Hamas cadres and parliament members will be released from jail and return to the West Bank.

What is striking is that of all the players in the Arab/Israeli conflict, Hamas and Hezbollah (as Iranian proxies) seem to be the only ones with real plans, strategies and the ability to follow through. The current Israeli government's strategy is more based on wishful thinking plus some IDF contingency plans, and the PA has long ago become a joke.

Hamas, though, knows what it wants: it already replaced Gaza with an Islamic state, and it is mopping up any leftover opposition. It plans to take over the West Bank as well.

If, G-d forbid, Israel abandons large areas of the West Bank to Hamas, it really will become another Gaza. Anything Israel does to defend itself from the inevitable rockets will involve civilian deaths. Giving the Palestinian Arabs a state wouldn't slow Hamas down - on the contrary, it would accelerate Hamas' reaching its goals. Hamas' prestige will grow and affect Jordan as well as Egypt, and Israel will literally be surrounded by Iranian proxies.

Liberals scoff that Israel doesn't face a real existential threat from what are dismissively described as a few kids with stones, but the real threat is what I've described - at least two Iranian proxy armies on Israel's doorstep from the south, east and north.

And the only thing that can stop this sequence of events is Israeli "occupation," which, from decades of propaganda, is regarded as evil incarnate.

Israel has to retake the initiative on stopping this from happening. It can no longer afford to wait and then react; it has to change the narrative back to what it used to be: where every terror attack would be retaliated automatically, immediately and harshly; where pre-emption was regarded as a necessity and not evil, where world opinion was not considered as important as Israeli lives, where the enemy would have to guess how Israel would react rather than push Israel into a corner with no choices. To do that requires real leadership and vision, something that has been sorely lacking in recent years.

Continuing Twittering

So far I like Twitter; I'm using it to put up anything I come across that may or may not make it into a post, and that may not be 100% accurate if it is my initial impression of an autotranslation. (For example, I think that the police didn't run away from Bir Zeit but they had the students evacuate.) So I intend it as an early-warning system of raw info I encounter on the Web. (No, I do not intend to inform you all of what I'm eating for lunch. I'll leave that to others.)

I moved the Twitter gadget to the right side of the blog so that it can be seen without scrolling. I wish it auto-updated, but for now if you want to see the latest you'll have to refresh the screen. Obviously I am sometimes busy doing other things, so don't get too used to having updates as often as it has been.

I would like to have some feedback on what I write but I haven't figured out how that could work yet besides asking you to simply comment on a post like this one.

Even PalArabs hate PalArabs

And I'm not speaking about Hamas and Fatah.

An article in the Jerusalem Post shows that even West Bank Arabs hate Fatah Gazans:

The Palestinian Authority's refusal to receive members of the Hilles clan who fled the Gaza Strip Saturday did not come as a surprise to many Palestinians.

Although the Hilles clan has long been known for its loyalty to Fatah, the PA leadership in Ramallah asked Israel Sunday to send almost all those who fled the Gaza Strip back home.

For many of the Hilles clan members, returning to the Gaza Strip is tantamount to a death sentence. However, this did not stop the PA from asking the men to return home.

PA officials explained that the reason behind their refusal to absorb the new "refugees" was their desire not to encourage other residents of the Gaza Strip to leave.

"Everyone knows that if we allow people to leave the Gaza Strip, almost all the residents living there would try to cross the border into Israel," said a senior PA official. "We don't want to leave the Gaza Strip to Hamas."

Yet there are also other reasons why PA President Mahmoud Abbas doesn't want the new refugees in the West Bank.

One is related to Abbas's fear that the presence of the Hilles "refugees" in Ramallah and other West Bank cities would damage his efforts to impose law and order there.
...
Past experience has shown that the Palestinians in the West Bank have never been enthusiastic about the presence of their brethren from the Gaza Strip among them.

Shortly after the establishment of the PA in 1994, former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat deployed dozens of policemen from the Gaza Strip in a number of West Bank cities. This resulted in an "intifada" by the residents of these cities, many of whom openly rejected the presence of the Gazans in their communities. In many cases, West Bank families refused to rent out apartments to the "undesirables" from the Gaza Strip.

The experience was repeated in June 2007 when hundreds of Fatah members fled the Gaza Strip following Hamas's violent takeover of the area. Most of those who arrived in Ramallah are still finding it impossible to rent apartments in the city.

Many others continue to be shunned by local residents who treat them with great suspicion and often mock them for escaping from Hamas. A former Fatah security commander who was among the June 2007 "refugees" said recently that he had stopped going to public places in Ramallah because he felt that he was "unwanted" and because of the "ridiculing" looks he got from people.

Even the 150 Fatah men who fled to Egypt following the Hamas takeover have not been welcome there or in any other Arab country. In a recent letter to Abbas, the Fatah men, all former residents of the Gaza Strip, complained that they were being held in "military bases" belonging to the Egyptian army and were being treated as criminals rather than political refugees.

The population of Gaza is expected to double in the next twelve years. They simply won't fit in Gaza anymore without a serious development effort that is not forthcoming. Israel certainly won't take them; Egypt doesn't want them; other Arab countries have already made clear how much they loathe Palestinian Arabs - and now we see that even their fellow Palestinians Arabs in the West Bank can't stand them.

Which goes to show yet again that everyone pretends to love Palestinian Arabs but everyone really hates them, even their own people.

Why exactly do they "deserve" a state again?

Assassination attempt against Fayyad?

Firas Press is reporting that there was an assassination attempt against PA prime minister Salim Fayyad today.

According to the story, he first received threatening messages, I believe on his mobile phone, which were followed by gunfire towards his home.

Security had been beefed up at his house since there had been previous threats from Fatah loyalists.

No other PalArabic media is reporting this yet, and Firas' reporting is very tabloid-like.

Burning a flag lands PalArabs in jail

Several Palestinian Arabs were fined and sentenced to a year in jail for burning a flag.

There isn't much outrage over this, though, because it was the Jordanian flag that they were burning, after a soccer match last April.

The match was between a team that had many Palestinian Arab players against one that had Jordanian players. This wasn't even a political statement; it was simply the normal actions of fanatic Jordanian sports fans.

Don't hold your breath to see if "human rights" organizations will get involved here, though. People who pretend to care about freedom of speech as well as people who pretend to care about Palestinian Arab rights become strangely quiet when the perpetrators are Arab.

The definitive version: Hello martyr, hello Fatah

Earlier today Soccer Dad made a posting about to the phenomenon of Palestinian Arab summer camps that teach murder and hate, brilliantly named "Hello martyr, hello Fatah". (For those who don't get the joke, it refers to a classic Allan Sherman song, circa 1963 about a letter being written from a miserable camper at sleep-away camp. Before continuing this post you need to hear the original song; here's one from YouTube where the video isn't too irritating.)

I decided that a title like that needed lyrics, so here is the official EoZ version of:

Hello Martyr, hello Fatah

Hello martyr, hello Fatah
Here I am in Islamic Gaza
I must tell you, I'm having great fun
In my camp they teach us how to use machine guns

We blame things on the Jewish Lobby
Our hero is Dalal Mughrabi
We can march now, we can holler
And we love to pray five times a day to Allah

I keep ammo in my pocket
I just learned how to shoot a rocket
Just imagine how great I felt
When I was fitted for my first suicide belt!

We watch videos of friendly mouses
We practice mortars at Jewish houses
You remember Ahmed Fakid
He just lost his legs practicing to be a Shahid

Now my bombing's a routine task
I love wearing my new ski mask
Why should I learn a trade?
I just got my first rocket propelled grenade!

Just one problem, but it's old news
Lots of weapons, not enough Jews
But don't worry, dad and mother
I'll be practicing my new skills on my brother!

UPDATE: I just made a video of the song.

Trying Twitter

Since Twitter is so popular, I figured I'd give it a shot. I added a gadget on the left side where I will put up info I see around the net but that won't necessarily make it into their own blog posts.

My Twitter also has an RSS feed, if you're into that sort of thing....

This is only a test, so if I don't like it I might abandon it without notice. So far it looks useful.

Obamas: $1000 good, $1200 not so good

I don't like to comment on American politics much, but Michelle Obama just said something singularly stupid:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, complained the government’s $600 economic stimulus check was only enough to buy “a pair of earrings” while stumping for her husband.
“You're getting $600 - what can you do with that?” Mrs. Obama said in Pontiac, Michigan last week. “Not to be ungrateful or anything, but maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn't pay down every bill every month. The short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good, and it may even feel good that first month when you get that check, and then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings."
She made these remarks at a “working women’s roundtable discussion.”

Others are noting how elitist it sounds for a candidate's wife to think that most American women spend $600 on each pair of earrings, but what bothers me is that Obama's big plan to help families with their energy bills is to give them $1000 each:

We'll provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate for every family that will offset the increased costs of gas for a working family for the next four months. Or, it could be used to pay any of your other bills.

So according to the Obama camp, giving $1200 to each family is ludicrous but giving them $1000 each is a brilliant stimulus package.

I don't think Michelle was a math major at Princeton.

Shalit deal getting closer?

The Palestinian Arab press is reporting tonight that Israel is releasing a number of Hamas MPs that had been in Israeli custody, including former PA Finance Minister Omar Abdal Razeq.

Razeq and other PA Hamas ministers were arrested by Israel right after Shalit's kidnapping, and although Israel denied using them as bargaining chips it seems pretty clear that this is exactly what they were.

One can only pray that this is part of a deal that will result in the return of Gilad Shalit. Unfortunately, with the current Israeli government, one can never be sure what if anything Israel will gain from any deals.

"Peace activist" unplugged

There has been a bit of attention given recently to a group of people, mostly from the ISM, who call themselves "Free Gaza." Their gimmick is to sail a ship from Cyprus to Gaza with hearing aids for Gazan children, in order to either break the Israeli blockade or to video themselves getting stopped by those vicious IDF patrols. If they're lucky, there will be violence. Either way, they win.

The leader of this group is a longtime Israel basher named Greta Berlin. I just saw an interesting letter written about her to Daniel Pipes' website - from her former-stepdaughter:

Having read about the incident at UCLA I must admit that I was appalled by Ms. Berlin's behavior, but not at all surprised. I should know, she is after all my ex-stepmother...
After reading your article, I went on to research some of the links that your site provided and found it rather difficult to comprehend some of the titles that are now associated with Ms. Berlin's name. The title of "Peace Activist" is the one I find particularly hypocritical.

On numerous occasions I heard Greta launch the insults "the god damned Israelis, and those F****** Jews" at the dinner table in front of my father (a Jew) and the few Israeli friends and relatives who ventured to visit. Additionally, any rational debate attempted by anyone with an opposing view to Greta's, was immediately terminated with the responses: "Shut up" or "You don't know what the hell you're talking about." The rebuttal usually presented in screaming form.

These comments in juxtaposition to her role as "Peace Activist" I find hard to rectify. It prompts me to ask what should be an obvious question; "At what point did terms of hate and bigotry become synonymous with Peace?"

I was always under the strange impression that the road to peace laid in the arms of those who were tolerant, compassionate, and vehement in their will to understand and to promote understanding. God help us all if this is the role model that we hold up as an embodiment of those ideals!

Sincerely,
Ava E. Berlin

Could it be possible that some supposed supporters of Palestinian Arab rights are rabidly anti-semitic? Naaaaaah....

Ultra-Left hates PA, loves Hamas

The radical left is often amusing with its abject hypocrisy, and one of the funnier examples is its embrace of radical Islam, which is as anti-liberal as possible.

Two recent articles in leftist publications show how far the far left has gone.

From Cleveland Indymedia, and article by prolific hater Khalid Amayreh:

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY ZIONIST PROXY SCUM!!!

So, as if Zionist ethnic cleansing were not enough, the PA is finding it necessary to complement Israeli criminality by arresting, humiliating and tormenting patriotic Palestinians for criticizing the Ramallah regime for compromising Palestinian national interests and for throwing itself squarely into the lap of the Bush administration which itself is at Israel’s beck and call.

It is really difficult to make any sense of what is happening except that the PA is effectively becoming another layer of the Israeli occupation.

Yes, wanting anything less than the total and immediate destruction of Israel is clearly a form of collaboration with the Zionist enemy. Much better to stay angry and stateless for the next few hundred years.

And in Redress.cc, an article by a self-styled charity worker and surgeon named David Halpin:

Gaza and humanity versus Zionist ethnic cleansers and their stooges

A scrupulous election was no bar to stifling a democracy emerging under brutal occupation. In spite of generous offers [by Hamas] to include the main opposition party Fatah in government, that attempt at plurality invited the annihilation of Hamas by the engine of destruction and its many subservient nations, led by the USA. Any adherents to Islam must be isolated and driven by goading to division and self-destruction. Thus was the medieval siege laid on Gaza in March 2006 against all morality and all major international laws.

The medieval siege laid on Gaza is against all morality and all major international laws The Hague Rules and Nuremberg Principles were never enunciated and they do not exist; barbarism is the only rule.

Yes, this British man is invoking international law to defend an organization whose founding principles emphasize the murder of Jews worldwide as well as the rejection of any possibility of peace.

This love of Islamic extremism on the part of the radical Left has nothing to do with loving Muslims - and it has everything to do with hating Jews. If Hamas wasn't opposed to the idea of Jews living in the Middle East as anything but dhimmis, people like Halpin and the other radical leftists would hate Hamas for all it stands for. Yet their hatred of Jews and Zionism makes all pretense of consistency go out the window.

PalArabs update blood libel

A new study released by the coordinator of the "Palestinian Farmers Union" accuses Israel of secretly dumping nuclear and chemical wastes near Palestinian Arab communities.

The reason?

Because Israel wants to cause Palestinian Arab men to become sterile, thus creating a method of mass birth control!

It seems that this is not the first time that Palestinian Arabs have accused Israel of this idea, because the Firas Press article that mentions this also mentions an earlier accusation by the equally esteemed "Dr. Mahmoud Deputy Chief of the Middle East in the International Physicians for Protection from Radiation and Nuclear War" that Israel has done the same thing in other "Palestinian territories" - burying nuclear waste from Dimona in the territories and causing "cancer, sterility, mental disorders and skin diseases."

Accusing Israel of poisoning the wells is so last century. Nuclear and chemical waste is the hip new way of fomenting blood libels!

More from Hamas leader's Christian son

Ha'aretz printed the full interview with Masab Yousef, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef and now a Christian in California. I wrote about this last week as well as the family's denials.

Here are some excerpts:

The younger Yousef is well aware of the implications of this interview, and how it will likely offend his family, as well as of the slim chance that he will be able to return to Ramallah one day. But apparently he is on a crusade of his own. "I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family the patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I'll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah together with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God."

Masab-Joseph has five brothers and two sisters. He is in regular contact with them and keeps them informed of his situation. However, until recently he refrained from telling his family that he had converted to Christianity, and at the time of this interview his father the sheikh still did not know that his son had converted. And in spite of the secrecy surrounding his conversion, sometimes he seems like a veteran missionary who is trying to get entire communities to change.

"You'll see, this interview will open many people's eyes, it will shake Islam from the roots, and I'm not exaggerating. What other case do you know where a son of a Hamas leader, who was raised on the tenets of extremist Islam, comes out against it? Although I was never a terrorist, I was a part of them, surrounded by them all the time."

How were you exposed to Christianity?

"It began about eight years ago. I was in Jerusalem and I received an invitation to come and hear about Christianity. Out of curiosity I went. I was very enthusiastic about what I heard. I began to read the Bible every day and I continued with religion lessons. I did it in secret, of course. I used to travel to the Ramallah hills, to places like the Al Tira neighborhood, and to sit there quietly with the amazing landscape and read the Bible. A verse like "Love thine enemy" had a great influence on me. At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves 'great believers.' I studied Islam more thoroughly and found no answers there. I reexamined the Koran and the principals of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading. The Muslims borrowed rituals and traditions from all the surrounding religions."

"I respect Israel and admire it as a country. I'm opposed to a policy of killing civilians, or using them as a means to an end, and I understand that Israel has a right to defend itself. The Palestinians, if they don't have an enemy to fight, will fight each other. In about 20 years from now you'll remember what I'm telling you, the conflict will be among various groups within Hamas. They're already beginning to quarrel over control of the money."

He does not conceal his abhorrence of everything representing the human surroundings in which he grew up: the nation, the religion, the organization.

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death. They have to take revenge against anyone who did not agree to accept the Prophet Mohammed, like the Jews who are seen in the Koran as monkeys and the sons of pigs. They speak in terms of historical rights that were taken from them. In the view of Hamas, peace with Israel contradicts sharia and the Koran, and the Jews have no right to remain in Palestine."

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

"More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the 'heroism of the shaheeds' and that causes the young people to imitate the suicide bombers, in order to achieve glory. I'll give you an example. I once met a young man named Dia Tawil. He was a quiet boy, an outstanding student. Not a Muslim extremist and not radical in his ideas against the Israelis. I never heard extreme statements from him. He didn't even come from a religious family: His father was a communist and his sister was a journalist who didn't wear a head covering. But Bilal Barghouti [one of the heads of the military arm of Hamas in the West Bank] didn't need more than a few months to convince him to become a suicide terrorist." (Tawil, 19, blew himself up in March 2001 next to a bus at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem; 31 people were wounded.)

My Christian readers will definitely want to read the whole thing.

Top advisor to Assad assassinated

Syria's formerly airtight grip on internal security seems to be unraveling.

From Jordan's Albawaba:

Well known sources informed Albawaba that General Mohammed Suleiman, an adviser to Syrian president Bashar al Assad, was assassinated on Friday. Suleiman also served as Syria's liaison officer to Lebanon's Hizbullah movement.

According to the sources, Suleiman was shot dead by a sniper in the Syrian port city of Tartous. They added the funeral service will be held on Sunday in Suleiman's home-town of Driekesh which is located less than 20 kilometers away from Tartous.

The sources told Albawaba the Syrian authorities have been making huge efforts to prevent the publication of the news regarding Suleiman's killing. It should be mentioned that on February 13, 2008 Imad Moughniyeh, the military commander of Hizbullah, was assassinated in Damascus.

Peaceful PalArab weekend

It is a little hard to keep up with everything going on, but....

At least nine were killed in clashes between Hamas and the Fatah-linked Helles family in Gaza. At least one of the dead was a 14-year old child from that family. There are reports of 90 wounded. The fighting included lots of mortars and machine gun fire. Hamas has been blaming that family lately for the bombing a week ago that killed 5 Hamas members.

At least two of the dead today were Hamas members.

There are reports that Hamas prevented ambulances from reaching Helles family members during the fighting.

Hamas has also been using machine guns against Army of Islam members in Gaza, no reports on injuries there.

There have been a number of arrests in Gaza of Fatah members, and Fatah in the West Bank has been retaliating against Hamas members there as well.

In the West Bank, two were killed and several wounded in fighting in the town of Jaba under unclear circumstances. One of the dead was also a 14 year old boy.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 137.

UPDATE: PCHR counts the bodies: 8 from the Helles clan, 2 from Hamas, one other. Unlike earlier reports, no children dead.

All of the Helles deaths were from gunshots to the head or chest, making it sound like executions.

The count is now at 139.

UPDATE 2: Clan clash in Bethlehem, one dead. 140.

UPDATE 3 (8/4): Another member of the Helles family has succumbed to injuries from Hamas. 141.

Tunnel collapse! Plus more!

At least 5 Palestinian Arabs were killed and 14 injured when a smuggling tunnel being dug collapsed in Rafah.

Also, a 65-year old Khan Younis man died of a heart attack while witnessing his son being beaten by Hamas terrorists who entered his home.

An Al-Quds terrorist was injured in a "work accident" when a bomb exploded in his home.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 132.

UPDATE: The tunnel didn't collapse while being built, the Egyptians blew it up, so the count is back to 126 for the moment.

"Top ten intellectuals all Muslim"

The Arab American News joyfully reports:

Two prestigious Western magazines — Foreign Policy in the United States and Prospect in Britain — asked their readers to choose which among the world's 100 public intellectuals deserved the top honours.

Over 500,000 people cast their votes via the internet. The results published this July were surprising. The first ten names on the list were Muslims, from countries as diverse as Turkey, Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and Uganda.

Heading the list was the Turkish Sufi scholar, Fethullah Gülen. He was followed — in order of voters' preference — by Muhammad Yunus, the microfinancier from Bangladesh; Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Egyptian cleric who hosts the popular “Sharia and Life” TV programme on Al-Jazeera in Qatar; the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk; the Pakistani lawyer and politician Aitzaz Ahsan; the Egyptian television preacher Amr Khaled; the Iranian religious theorist Abdolkarim Soroush; the Islamic philosopher Tariq Ramadan; the Ugandan cultural anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani; and the Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi.

Wow, the top ten intellectuals are all Muslim? Is it coincidence, does it reflect Islamic intellectual superiority, or does it mean something else?

One only needs to look at Foreign Affairs magazine to see the answer:

Rankings are an inherently dangerous business. Whether offering a hierarchy of countries, cities, or colleges, any such list—at least any such list worth compiling—is likely to generate a fair amount of debate. In the last issue, when we asked readers to vote for their picks of the world’s top public intellectuals, we imagined many people would want to make their opinions known. But no one expected the avalanche of voters who came forward. During nearly four weeks of voting, more than 500,000 people came to ForeignPolicy.com to cast ballots.

Such an outpouring reveals something unique about the power of the men and women we chose to rank. They were included on our initial list of 100 in large part because of the influence of their ideas. But part of being a “public intellectual” is also having a talent for communicating with a wide and diverse public. This skill is certainly an asset for some who find themselves in the list’s top ranks. For example, a number of intellectuals—including Aitzaz Ahsan, Noam Chomsky, Michael Ignatieff, and Amr Khaled—mounted voting drives by promoting the list on their Web sites. Others issued press releases or gave interviews to local newspapers. Press coverage profiling these intellectuals appeared around the world, with stories running in Canada, India, Indonesia, Qatar, Spain, and elsewhere.

No one spread the word as effectively as the man who tops the list. In early May, the Top 100 list was mentioned on the front page of Zaman, a Turkish daily newspaper closely aligned with Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. Within hours, votes in his favor began to pour in. His supporters—typically educated, upwardly mobile Muslims—were eager to cast ballots not only for their champion but for other Muslims in the Top 100. Thanks to this groundswell, the top 10 public intellectuals in this year’s reader poll are all Muslim. The ideas for which they are known, particularly concerning Islam, differ significantly. It’s clear that, in this case, identity politics carried the day.

Zaman, the Turkish newspaper that promoted the contest so heavily, has a circulation of 700,000, far more than the number of votes cast, which means that this list was essentially a list of intellectuals chosen by Muslims. (And Noam Chomsky was #11.)

Like all online polls, this one reflects nothing. It is striking that people who are supposedly "intellectual" would lobby for votes so cravenly; this reflects not intellect but egoism.

But as usual, idiots will use this "poll" as reason to push their own political agendas.

Good Israel News Friday

Blooming Deserts Turn Israeli Water Industry Into Money Magnet

A hip reconstruction that mimics nature

Jasmine as a cancer fighter

An exoskeleton that helps paraplegics walk

Making plants use water more efficiently

Hamas hints at taking over the West Bank

In yet another little-reported story, Hamas on Thursday made a slightly oblique threat to the PA. From Ma'an:

Hamas refused to rule out the option of taking control of the West Bank if Fatah do not change their policies towards Hamas activists in the area. The statement was made in a press release by Sami Abu Zuhri, the official Hamas spokesperson in the West Bank on Thursday.

Abu Zuhri said "the current situation in the West Bank is similar to that in the Gaza Strip before Hamas took control. Security forces are committing crimes in their interrogation and torture centers."

"We remind them [Fatah]," he continued, "that they planted thorns and they will harvest regret."

Hamas have been accused by Fatah of the creation of an executive to carry out a coup in the West Bank similar to the one in the Gaza Strip. They have previously denied any plans to overthrow the caretaker government in the West bank, and while this falls short of a declaration of such an intention, it will be seen as a stepping up of the rhetoric around this issue.

I've noted before that Hamas' support in the West Bank is extensive and Fatah's is not nearly as strong as wishful thinkers in the West assume:

In the local PA elections of 2005, before the Hamas victory in the legislative elections, Hamas won the majority of seats in Nablus (73% of the vote to Fatah's 13%) , Al-Bireh (72% of the vote) and Jenin (winning eight seats to Fatah's four.) Fatah didn't even win a majority in Ramallah; although it outpolled Hamas there it ended up tied with the Popular Front.

This is yet another elephant in the room that the international community chooses to ignore. While Hamas is probably not in a position to take over the West Bank today, chances are very good that in the aftermath of any Israeli withdrawal from territory for "peace" that Hamas would move into the vacuum before Fatah even realizes it. Hamas is better organized and has a stronger ideology than Fatah, and its strength attracts recruits. Fatahs' major security accomplishment has been a crackdown on car thieves.

In Gaza, Fatah didn't just lose - it folded rather than seriously challenge Hamas. What objective reasons can anyone bring to say that this couldn't or wouldn't happen in the West Bank? The hundreds of millions of dollars that poured into the PA coffers for "security" were completely wasted in Gaza, and chances are very good that they are being equally wasted in the West Bank, while Hamas is methodically increasing its budget, ties to Iran, operational efficiency and firepower.

And as usual, the West as well as Israeli liberals choose to ignore the lessons of last year's coup and barrel forth with an exact repeat of the mistakes of Gaza.

More Peaceful PalArab news

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas swept through Gaza and arrested many more Fatah leaders, as well as a 70-year old sheikh.

This happened only hours after Mahmoud Abbas ordered all of the Hamas detainees in the West Bank who had been arrested in the past week to be released.

Meanwhile, for the first time in ten years, Jordan has started talking to Hamas.

One reason that Hamas is being seen as more mainstream is because of the existence of the even more extremist groups emerging. Today was apparently the anniversary of the fall of the Ottoman empire, and Hizb ut Tahrir (The Liberation Party) tried to demonstrate in the West Bank, but the PA arrested many of them instead. However, in Gaza, hundreds of its members demonstrated for the restoration of the caliphate, for all Muslims to live in that pan-Muslim state under Sharia law, and to continue to fight the Jews ("a conflict with no limits") - not the "Zionists" - as well as the USA and current Arab regimes.

To be sure, in this same time period there were much worse atrocities against Jews in Europe, especially Russia. But whenever Arab apologists claim that "For centuries, Jews and Arabs lived together in peace," keep in mind what kind of peace it was.

Family denies son of Hamas leader converted to Christianity

This has got to be one of the funnier denials of all time:

Reports that Massab Yousif, son of Sheikh Hassan Yousif a high profile Hamas leader, has converted to Christianity and rejected Palestinian resistance, have been denied by his family.

The initial report was printed on Thursday in Ha'aretz, a leading Israeli paper, which said that their correspondent had interviewed Massab.

The Ha'aretz interview quotes Massab as saying that "the nation, the religion, the organization," of his youth were what made him convert. The article claims that Massab does not want to be part of a society that he apparently described as, "sanctifying death and the suicide terrorists."

Suhaib, Mussab's brother, has strongly denied these claims. He said that while his brother is indeed in United States, he has not converted to Christianity and is adhering to Islam.

Suhaib went on to express his disappointment that Palestinian news outlets, including Ma'an, had picked up the story from Ha'aretz saying, "how could they report such news and quote Hebrew newspapers without contacting Mussab?"

The family said they are considering their legal options to deal with what they called a totally made up story.

Hmmm, who has more credibility - Ha'aretz or a Hamas family? This is a tough one....

Obama: "Israelis crazy not to accept Saudi peace plan"

Via Middle East Times, I have not yet been able to find the original:

Al-Hayat (London): Abbas: 'Obama Told Me Israelis Crazy Not To Accept Arab Initiative' – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the Palestinian community in Cairo that US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama had told him Israel would be "crazy if they don't accept" the Arab peace initiative, "because that would allow them to live in peace and security from Mauritania to Indonesia." Abbas said this was Obama's response when he explained to him the 2002 initiative, in which the Arabs offered to normalize relations with Israel in return for the latter's withdrawal from the territories it captured in 1967.

This plan is of course suicidal for Israel, as it calls for Israel to accept hundreds of thousands if not millions of Palestinian Arabs, for Israel to abandon 100% of its 1967 territories and return to a state that is nine miles wide, for Israel to abandon the Golan and to lose east Jerusalem including the Old City.

If this is what Obama believes then he is somewhere between stupidly naive and maliciously dangerous.

Today's peaceful PalArab news

Hamas infighting is intensifying; leader Ismail Haniyeh was injured when trying to break up a fight between members of the main two factions of Hamas, requiring hospitalization. The argument deteriorated into a fight and eventually to people firing bullets in the air. It was first announced that Haniyeh would be in the hospital for only a day, but now it is three days. Reporters are not allowed in the hospital.

Many believe that recent bombings in Gaza were the result of Hamas infighting, not from Fatah or Islamists.

There are reports that Hamas is now blaming the "Helles" family for the bombings that killed 6 last Friday; and that this family was retaliating for resisting the arrest of a member. The family denies it.

A man was shot dead upon apparently being released from Hamas detention in Gaza. There are claims that it was a clan clash but that is unclear.

There are reports that 21 people are in the Shifa hospital in Gaza recovering from a Hamas torture technique - poisoning them with cooking gas. (Separating fact from rumor is literally impossible, but I've seen this claim before.)

A terror group, apparently from Gaza, claims to have shot at some Israeli houses in the Negev. No confirmation from Israel.

Teh 2008 PalArab self-death count is now 126.

Hamas leader's son converts to Christianity, loves Israel

From Haaretz:

Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef who is also the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization, a young man who assisted his father for years in his political activities, has become a rank-and-file Christian. "I'm now called Joseph," he says...

Nor does he attempt to hide his affection for Israel, or his abhorrence of everything representing the surroundings in which he grew up: the nation, the religion, the organization.

"Send regards to Israel, I miss it. I respect Israel and admire it as a country," he says.

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death."

The full interview will be published tomorrow.

This news is the top headline in the Palestine Press Agency and one of the top headlines in Ma'an. There are no comments yet in the PalPress story.

Can Israel recover from the Olmert era? (TNR)

From Yossi Klein Halevi in The New Republic:

Is it really time for eulogies? Is the abyss known as the "Olmert era" closing? Ehud Olmert has been eulogized so often that, even now, after announcing his intention to resign as Israeli prime minister when the Kadima party holds primaries for a new leader in mid-September, some Israelis don't quite believe it. What's the catch, they wonder?

Like a parody of Jewish survival, Olmert has persisted, indestructible. The Lebanon fiasco of summer 2006 ended the careers of defense minister Amir Peretz and IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz, but Olmert lingered. So far, he has evaded a half-dozen police investigations. (Israeli joke: What do Olmert and the Torah have in common? Parshat hashavuah--a phrase that means the weekly Torah reading but could also mean the "scandal of the week.") He admitted to receiving cash in envelopes from New York fundraiser Morris Talansky, and Israeli newspapers have published copies of letters Olmert sent to prominent businessmen soliciting help for Talansky's business interests. But still the indictment tarried.

Then came the revelation that he may have subsidized family trips with funds stolen from the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and from an organization for handicapped children--a scandal the press called "Olmert Tours." How, we wondered, could even he survive that one? But Olmert--portrayed in one newspaper caricature as a bandana-wearing contestant in the reality show "Survivor"--has continued to make life and death decisions for the Jewish state.

Olmert is the embodiment of what has been, for Israel, the year of scandal: a president accused of rape, a finance minister accused of massive embezzlement, a deputy prime minister found guilty of forcing his tongue into the mouth of a young woman soldier. Olmert, two years after assuming office and promising to make Israel a more "fun" place to live, leaves us a nation in shame. He went to war in Lebanon to restore our military deterrence and destroy Hezbollah's military capacity. Instead, he shattered Israeli self-confidence in our ability to defend ourselves, and empowered Hezbollah as the strongest force in Lebanese politics, with an arsenal three times larger than it possessed before Olmert's war.

Olmert is the first Israeli leader--perhaps the first democratic leader anywhere --to threaten his own country with destruction if it rejected his policies. Israel, he warned, is "finished" if it didn't withdraw from the West Bank. Yet in failing to defeat Hamas, he has insured the impossibility of a two-state solution for the foreseeable future, leaving us without a political or military option.

Perhaps Olmert's greatest offense was in debasing our public discourse with terms like "Talansky's envelopes" and "Olmert Tours," diverting our attention from the imminent nuclearization of Iran and the growing power of Hezbollah and Hamas. Instead of focusing on Israel's survival, we have been preoccupied with the melodrama of Olmert's survival.
Now comes the hard work of restoring sanity to Israeli politics. Neither of Kadima's leading candidates to replace Olmert--Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz--has the trust of the public. Livni is seen as honest but ineffectual, lacking minimal security credentials; Mofaz, though a former IDF chief of staff, is a lackluster politician with a credibility problem. (As a former Likud leader, he promised to remain in the Likud and immediately abandoned the then-sinking party for Kadima.)

Whoever wins in the Kadima primaries will almost certainly try to create a national unity government that will include the Likud. So far, though, the Likud is insisting it will remain in opposition until general elections are held. But that could abruptly change if Israeli military intelligence concludes that Iran is about to go nuclear--a threat whose neutralization requires the credibility of a unity government. The emergence of such a government will be the most telling sign that the country is beginning to heal itself from the tabloid scandals of the Olmert years and is now ready to restore Israeli deterrence by dealing with the Iranian crisis.