Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 11, 2008

What a difference a couple of years makes

Russia, 2006: "One cannot justify the continued destruction by Israel of the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and in Palestinian territory"

Russia, 2008: "Our goal was not to harm civilians, and to the best of my knowledge, we only hit military installations. But like they say, war is war – and it could be that civilians were hurt, this also happens in Israel's military operations in Gaza, for example. "

It's 1947 again! Arabs demand "binational state" - or else

YNet:

A top negotiator said on Sunday Palestinians may demand to become part of a binational state with Israel, if the Jewish state continued to reject the borders they propose for a separate country.

Ahmed Qurei, who heads Palestinian negotiators in US-brokered talks with Israel, told Fatah party loyalists behind closed doors that a two-state solution could be achieved only if Israel met their demands to withdraw from all occupied land.

"The Palestinian leadership has been working on establishing a Palestinian state within the '67 borders," Qurei said, referring to land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that Israel captured in a 1967 war, which Palestinians seek for a state.

"If Israel continues to oppose making this a reality, then the Palestinian demand for the Palestinian people and its leadership (would be) one state, a binational state," he added at the meeting held in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Isn't it interesting that Palestinian Arabs, who supposedly are so desperate for their own independent state, keep acting as if they can "demand" everything they want with no concessions on their part from israel? One would think that they have won a war or something. But, no. All they have is the ever-present threat of terror and the continuing absence of any desire for real peace and compromise, as their list of "demands" keeps including things that Israel cannot and never will accept, no matter how left-wing the government is.

As Ami Isseroff notes:

The "1967 borders" were negotiated as armistice lines with Jordan, Egypt and Syria. Along the frontier with Jordan, they reflected no justice or demographic realities. They reflected the achievements of the Trans-Jordan Legion, made possible by arms and officers supplied by the British, in order to further their imperialist designs in the Middle East. No Arab country, and no Palestinian Arab group ever recognized or honored these borders while they existed. These borders, in the version of the Palestinian authority, put East Jerusalem in "Palestinian" territory. But officially, Jerusalem was to have been internationalized. As that was never implemented, owing to Arab and British opposition, Jerusalem is a subject for negotiation. It is unimaginable that Israel would agree to surrender all national rights to the old city of Jerusalem and environs. The Palestinian claim to Jerusalem seems to be based on the fact that no Jews lived there before 1967. Evidently, the Palestinians think the world has a short memory, and it might be so. The Jewish community of Jerusalem, which had lived there for hundreds for years, was forcibly "ethnically cleansed" from Jerusalem by a series of racist pogroms, culminating in the removal of the remaining Jewish population when the Jewish quarter was conquered by the British officered Trans-Jordan Legion in the Israel War of Independence (see The Ethnic Cleansing of Jerusalem).

It is also noteworthy that the Arabs have made this demand before.

As the UN was arguing over what to do with Palestine in 1947, the Arab solution was simple: a single Arab state, period. As partition came closer to reality, the Arab counter-offer stayed the same, along with some words about how much they would protect the Jewish minority in this state. But this is only as long as Jews remain the minority - because they were adamant that no Jews would ever be allowed to immigrate.

Note all of the verbiage meant to assuage Western concerns that this would be another Arab state where the Jews would be delegated to permanent dhimmi status.

This was all a sham, of course, a last-ditch effort to stop a Jewish state from ever being created. The fact that the new Palestine would be pre-defined as "Arab" shows that democracy was the last thing on Arab minds.

And five days later, as it became clear that the world saw that the Arabs weren't serious about planning to treat the Jews fairly, the Arabs proved them right. Jamal Husseini gave an implicit threat against Jews in Arab countries if a Jewish state would exist:

On the same day, Egypt made the threat a bit more explicit, couching it in terms like "we of course want to protect our Jews, but if a Jewish state turns into reality, well, we cannot be responsible for what our hot-headed people do:"

Qurei is following in the exact footsteps of his Arab forefathers - not accepting compromise and threatening to kill Jews if he doesn't get exactly what he demands.

Today's PalArab news

Mahmoud Darwish was the leading Palestinian Arab poet who died over the weekend. His burial is being politicized as some of his friends are demanding that he be buried in pre-1967 Israel, not Ramallah.

Fatah is mulling abandoning Gaza altogether. If they do, will they still be sending 58% of their budget to Gaza?

Palestine Today is reporting on secret European talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia about the common threat from Iran - including Israel offering advice on Saudi defenses and intelligence cooperation.

A long standing feud between two families in Beit Lahia is apparently over as they decided to have two members get married. We'll see how well the ceremony goes before passing judgment.

Tunnel collapses!

Yesterday there was a tunnel collapse between Rafah and Egypt. Initial reports claimed 6 dead; the latest reports say there are 3 dead and seven still missing, so I am adjusting the self-death count accordingly until we hear more.

But meanwhile there was another tunnel collapse this morning, killing a 22-year old who was in the process of digging it.

On August 1, five were killed in a major collapse but I didn't count them because of Ha'aretz reports that Egypt had caused the collapse. Yet in reports about yesterday's tunnel collapse in Palestinian Arab media they did not refer to the earlier collapse as being the fault of Egypt, although they have accused Egypt of pumping poison gas in the tunnels in the past.

The tunnel industry is booming, and a Gaza man even stocked his zoo with animals smuggled under the border, including lions and monkeys that were drugged and dragged through tunnels (not to mention "frilly underwear.") Meanwhile, demand for goods that Israel has allowed into Gaza has been reduced greatly, while more exotic items are coming daily.

Which begs the question: if Gazans are still dying daily because of the "siege" (the latest claim in PalArabic media is about 230 dead since last year), why are they not smuggling sick people into Egypt?

I guess their lives aren't worth as much to Gazans as having a couple of monkeys in a dusty zoo.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is downwardly adjusted for now to 147.

UPDATE: A second dead man from today's collapse, possibly the two are a father and son. 148.

The mysterious Iranian sports illness

It is really intriguing that there are so many sheer coincidences that stop Iranian athletes from competing with Israelis.

In 2004, Iranian judoka Arash Miresmaeli strangely missed his weight and thus didn't get to compete against an Israeli.

The International Judo Federation investigated and concluded that he didn’t miss his weight to avoid the bout.

Even so, in the spirit of fair play, Iranian president Ahmadinejad rewarded Miresmaeili with the same $125,000 that Iranian gold medal winners received.

And in this Olympics, Iranian swimmer Mohammad Alirezaei mysteriously developed "stomach cramps" a half hour before his meet, where, coincidentally, an Israeli was going to compete. From IRNA:

Iranian swimmer Mohammad Alirezaei has pulled out of the Olympic men's 100m breaststroke heats due to severe pain in his stomach, an official with the Iranian team said on Saturday.
The head of Iran's Swimming Federation, Vahid Moradi, told IRNA that Alirezaei failed to attend the competition as he felt a severe pain in his stomach and nauseous 30 minutes before the contest.
The physicians accompanying Iranian swimming team have diagnosed Alirezaei with appendicitis or herina rupture and said he should immediately be taken to hospital, Moradi said.
He added that Alirezaei's coach has informed the Olympic Games Committee of his sickness prior to transferring him to hospital.

The IOC says it will investigate, but as long as there is no proof that he didn't get sick, there will be no sanctions.

And Alirezaei stands to profit mightily from his "illness".

Some Muslims believe that astronauts heard call to prayer on the moon

I just read a fatwa in Arab News where the response included an answer to a question that was not published:

As for your other questions, I may say that there is no truth whatsoever in the story of an American astronaut having heard the call to prayer as he landed on the moon. He denied it himself. It simply does not fit. There are no humans living on the moon. There may be other creatures, having a totally different form of life, but then they would not be using human language in calling to prayers.

Which prompts the question: do some Muslims believe that astronauts heard the Muslim call to prayer on the moon?

Sure enough, there has been such a belief among some Muslims for decades. Muslim newspapers published these rumors as fact in 1983 (you can see some of the titles in this footnote to a biography of Neil Armstrong) and it is still being spread.

Here is how the current version of the rumor looks:

Armstrong and his two fellow astronauts, Aldrin and Collins, saw an object on the Moon’s horizon, which looked like an open book, and then they heard some mysterious “music.” They reported this back to Earth. At first, no one on Earth believed them: how could there be a book on the Moon and music in airless space? But the “music” was also heard on Earth over the radio transmission, and the “book” was photographed.
It is believed that the book the astronauts saw on the Moon is the prototype of the earthly Koran that exists in the heavens.
But all this information was classified.
In February 1983, fourteen years after his flight to the Moon, Astronaut Neil Armstrong went to Egypt to participate in a scientific conference. During the meeting, the azan sounded. Armstrong, sitting in the presidium, went pale and asked: “What is that music?” Surprised by the astronaut’s behavior, the conference participants explained that it was the Muslim call to prayer. “That voice. That’s what I heard when I first stepped on the Moon, hearing it is giving me goose bumps!… O Allah! I found You not on Earth, but on the Moon!… I stepped onto the Moon without praying, but now I will pray, you can consider me a Muslim.” So the first person to walk on the Moon, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, became a Muslim.
Later a NASA employee, who recorded all the conversations between the spaceship and Earth during the astronauts’ time on the Moon, declassified this information by allowing the public to listen to the tape.

The same website goes into full details:

Astronaut Aldrin: “We can see some object that looks like an open book. Right above the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis).”
Astronaut Armstrong: “It looks like two rings, or to be more exact, like an open book.”
Astronaut Collins: “I changed the position of the sextant, now we can clearly see that it is shaped like a book.”
Observation from Earth: “What are you talking about, how can there be a book on the Moon?”
The voices were recorded on tape. The next day the book disappeared, however some external interference constantly jammed the radio transmission, a sound kept breaking in similar to the siren of a fire engine.
Collins: “Earth, can you hear me, get rid of the interference, that siren, or I’ll go deaf…”
Earth: “That sound is not coming from Earth, it’s coming from without, are you sure there isn’t another ship there besides yours?”
Armstrong: “And now some music has started, Earth, are you going to get rid of the music or not?”
Earth: “Everything here is in working order. The music is coming from you.”
Aldrin: “What nonsense! Can we agree or not? That music is coming from you!”

* * *

The next day, Armstrong went onto the Moon again. “The Eagle has landed!” he said with emotion. A person was walking on the Moon for the first time. Suddenly the sound like a siren was heard again. But this time (this is all recorded on tape), the following words were heard: “RABBI-EL ARDZ-DINI ENDAHU-IZA-KUN-ALIM.”
Earth: “Hey, who’s talking?”
Armstrong was walking on the Moon at this time. Again the sound of music was heard: “Ashgadu ala illaga illallag.” (I testify – there is no God but Allah.)
Earth: “UFOs again? What were the words in that music?”
Collins: “Ashan mahatma rasamballa…,” something like that. Sounds like Indian…”
Armstrong: “I heard it (the Arabian prayer presented above. – Ed.) to the end. It somehow makes you feel good. I think it’s from African radio stations…”
Aldrin: “I changed the frequency, the same sound again. It’s coming from the Moon. It’s not a radio wave. It’s something hard to believe.”
Earth: “What, have you all gone crazy up there? How can there be sound in airless space?” Collins: “So what is it then? UFOs?”
Armstrong: “Can UFOs be shaped like books?”
Earth: “A strange indisposition. Or some space wave? It’s obvious that the voices, sounds, are all figments of your imagination?”
Armstrong: “You can’t take pictures of figments! You can’t record an imaginary voice on tape!”
Earth: “Alright, but how can sound spread in airless space?”
Sometime later, the astronauts returned to Earth. The cassettes were listened to again. In the meantime, consultations were held with Al-Baz, NASA’s executive secretary. He gave an explanation of the “music” heard on the Moon, declaring it to be a holy saying in Arabic.
Much time passed, and Warden, an Apollo 16 astronaut, heard the same “saying.”
What is more, while photographing the Earth in infrared rays, he picked up something akin to the aura of our planet, which looks like the Arabic inscription of the Creator’s name – Allah.
This photograph, which was published in “National Geographic,” has traveled around the whole world.

Details about this hoax can be seen at Answering Islam. Neil Armstrong has had to deny these rumors multiple times, and even the State Department got into the act (click to enlarge):

Death Dung re-Dux

Since I shamelessly stole Aussie Dave's "Zionist Death weapon" phrase, I point you to his followup post on the real weapon that Israel was testing out that convinced the protesters that they were being sprayed with feces last Friday.

Guess what country is the "Holy Land" to NBC?

The NBC Olympics site has brief country descriptions. Some are briefer than others.

Here is the description of Israel:

Located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea and is bordered to the west by Egypt, to the east by Syria and Jordan, and to the north by Lebanon. Proclaimed its independence in 1948 as the state of Israel.

But check out the more expansive description of "Palestine":

Often called the "Holy Land." A historic region of southwest Asia between the eastern Mediterranean shore and the Jordan River, comprising parts of modern Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Israel has handed most of the Gaza Strip and seven West Bank population centers to Palestinian rule under a process set in motion by the historic Israel-PLO peace deal in 1993.
In the late 1990s, the PLO and Israel agreed to expand The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), headed by Yasser Arafat, was founded in 1964 and is recognized by the United Nations as the government of the Palestinians. After a three-year hiatus, negotiations to determine the future of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank began in September 1999 but were cut off in September 2000 after violence broke out in both regions.
In April 2003, United Nations, European Union, United States and Russian officials announced the "Road Map to Peace," which outlined the steps that Israel and Palestinian authorities would have to take to achieve peace - including the creation of an independent Palestinian state - by 2005. The path was stymied along the way, as Palestinian authorities were unable to stop anti-Israeli terrorism and Israel's military struck back against Palestinians with force. But in 2005, all Israeli settlers were evacuated from the Gaza Strip and control was transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

So "Palestine" is the "Holy Land" while Israel is just some country that started in 1948 and has no history at all. And I I didn't know that "Palestine" claims some land in modern Jordan and Egypt; I wonder which parts?

(Other Arab countries have more expansive descriptions, but curiously all the descriptions of the Gulf nations seem to revolve around the US and Iraq.)

The Holocaust wasn't a secret in 1942

It isn't that the West didn't know about the Holocaust; it is that it chose to ignore it.

Here is an article in the Palestine Post from November 26, 1942 that was quite detailed as to what was happening to Jews in Poland, before the bulk of Jews were murdered:
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

In December 1942, many more details were published and widely disseminated. The genocide of the Jews was very well known by the end of 1942 in England, the United States and worldwide. (The following three articles were all from the Palestine Post, December 20, 1942):

London newspapers all published the information as well as ideas on how to help the remaining Jews:

Jewish agencies pleaded for help and prominent politicians were informed about the details of the Holocaust, many of whom professed their support:
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

And yet at this point there were still over 3 million more Jewish men, women and children who were fated to be butchered over the next two years, while the Allies did almost nothing to save them.

Weeping over the ruins of Jerusalem

Today is Tisha B'Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem.

In the 19th century a large number of Christian pilgrims voyaged to the Holy Land, and a good number of them recounted their experiences in books and lectures back in their native lands. Here are three descriptions of how the Jews would, year-round, weep over the destruction of the two Temples from within the ruins of Jerusalem.

From "The Quiver", 1862:

THE Jews' Wailing Place," says Dr. Stewart, "is a narrow court or passage adjoining the western wall at the Haramwhich has been lately paved by a Jew tor the benefit of his brethren, and is one of the most interesting places in the city. No one can look at the immense blocks of stone in that wall without being convinced that he has before him, in its original state, a portion of the Temple enclosure.

It is from thirty to forty feet in height, built with large stones, some of which are nearly twenty feet in length. The Jews have purchased from the Government the privilege of resorting to this place ; and on every Friday many of both sexes are to be seen sitting in the court, reading the Scripture and their prayer- books, and weeping over the ruin of their temple and nation

Some of them rock their bodies about, rattling over their prayers at the same time with a tremendous rapidity. Others go up to the wall, and putting their mouths to the openings between the stones, pray in that attitude, because tiiey imagine that their prayers are more sure to reach Jehovah's ear when breathed through the foundation walls of what was once his holy and beautiful house. It is a most touching sight to see these mourners weeping over the fallen Jerusalem.

The account which Dr. Robinson gives of this spot is as follows : — " I went with Mr. Lanneau to the place where the Jews are permitted to purchase the right of approaching the site of their Temple, and of paying and wailing over its ruins and the downfall of their nation. ...Two old men, Jews, sat there upon the ground, reading together in a book of Hebrew prayers. On Fridays they assemble here in greater numbers. It is the nearest point in which they can venture to approach their ancient Temple... Here, bowed in the dust, they may at least weep undisturbed over the fallen glory of their race, and bedew with their tears the soil which so many thousands of their forefathers once moistened with their blood. This touching custom of the Jew is not of modern origin. Benjamin of Tudela mentions it, as apparently connected with the same spot, in the twelfth century ; and very probably the custom has come down from still earlier ages.

The Jew who was our guide, on approaching the many stones, took off his shoes, and kissed the wall." Speaking of the large stones, they tell us " some of them are worn smooth with the tears and kisses of the men of Israel."

The Land and the Book, William McClure Thomson, 1870:

No sight meets the eye in Jerusalem more sadly suggestive than this wailing place of the Jews over the ruins of their Temple. It is a very old custom, and in past ages they have paid immense sums to their oppressors for the miserable satisfaction of kissing the stones and pouring out lamentations at the foot of their ancient sanctuary. With trembling lips and tearful eyes they sing, " Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever : behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people. Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste."

My Trip to the Orient, John Collinsworth Simmons, 1902:

I went down to what is known as the "Wailing-place of the Jews." Here were scores of Jews, from lads of a few summers to old men who had grown gray and stooped in waiting. Stretching for a hundred yards or more was a part of the old wall of their city. These stones were there in the days when their Temple stood on Mount Moriah, when their altars smoked with their sacrifices, and they were the people of God, known and recognized among all men. And now they were strangers in their own city, and here they, and their fathers for generations, have assembled every day, and, with their faces to these unsympathizing stones, are wailing out their sorrows, and waiting for the coming of their Messiah. I saw nothing in Jerusalem that touched me so deeply as the scene at this wall. I heard their murmur all along the line as they stood with their backs to the light, and their faces to the hard, senseless stones....

It is said that these Jews at their wailing-place use the Lamentations of Jeremiah as their texts. Among those there the day I saw them, my guide told me were some of the richest Jews in Jerusalem. 1 could not but mark the earnestness and the seriousness that characterized old and young. When I knew of the oppression to which they are subjected in this the land of their fathers, I could not wonder so much that they never wearied in crying for help. And one generation is taught by another that here they are to find relief.

Zionist Death Dung

The ridiculous IMEMC "reports:"

The Israeli army dispersed the weekly nonviolent protest located in Bil'in village north of the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday midday with gas, guns and grenades.local sources reported.

A number of civilians reported suffering from gas inhalation and for the first time Israeli troops threw smelly manure at the protestors.

I couldn't find any wire service photos from today's Bil'in protest, but yesterday's Naalin protest which the IMEMC also described as "non-violent" was captured by this AP photographer, showing a non-violent protester punching an aggressively violent IDF soldier in the face. (Also a picture of some non-violent rock hurling with slingshots.)

Ah, but that's not the half of it. The Arabic media is reporting that the nefarious IDF did much, much worse things in Bil'in, calling this "field testing" new weapons (autotranslated):

The march started from the village centre and headed towards the wall, where participants tried to cross into their confiscated land , but the occupying soldiers fought them with fire hoses (using) contaminated wastewater cow dung and chicken (dung) with some chemicals, thus leading to the injury of dozens of cases Altakiu , Where demonstrators surprised color green and fragrant water stinking, and that became his clothes for several hours.

Just imagine the infrastructure necessary to weaponize cow dung and wastewater. You gave to fill out the necessary paperwork, requisitioning the manure for the purposes of stopping non violent protests; you have to establish a relationship with the manure bendor, you have to test the manure to make sure that it has the correct consistency for flinging at the optimum distances (you don't want blowback!) which means having farms dedicated to creating consistent diets for cows and chickens in order to ensure quality dung; you need a good mechanism for dung delivery which means that weapons need to be created for each type and size of manure bullets or cannons (as the case might be), you have to have a way of loading the weapons without getting dirty or smelly, meaning special gloves and clothing....and that's just the dung. For the wastewater you need to transport it in special trucks just for the purpose of putting down protesters....

Wow, my respect for the IDF's logistics personnel just went up a hundredfold!

The three star general of wishful thinking

Ha'aretz has a wide-ranging interview with General Keith Dayton, who is tasked with building up the PA security forces so that they can effectively defend against terror groups as well as give the IDF enough confidence to be able to leave security tasks to them.

The challenge facing him is very complicated. He must convince the Palestinians that if they manage to organize their security forces, they will be bringing statehood closer. He must show the Israelis that if they loosen their restrictions a bit, the Palestinians will prove they are a responsible neighbor, and that it is worth the Israelis' while to support the Palestinians and not focus only on Iran and the Hezbollah. He must also explain to the Congress in Washington that American taxpayers' money is not being wasted on another futile attempt at reform in the Arab world.

"We're trying to build their capacity to govern themselves, in such a way that their territory does not become a launchpad for attacks against Israel."

The question troubling Israelis is whether that force will ever be able to take responsibility, to allow us to live without fearing rockets and without the Israel Defense Forces having to maintain a presence among the Palestinians all the time.

Dayton: "I'll give you a one-word answer, which is yes, but it is going to take time. I work with your defense forces. I understand very clearly the challenges they face. But I take great inspiration from something I heard, and I've heard more than once, from [IDF chief of staff] Gabi Ashkenazi. He says: As they do more, we will do less. My goal is to give them the capability to do more, so that the IDF will do less. And I have to assume logically that, eventually, the IDF will feel comfortable that it can leave altogether. I think they can do it."

Dayton is not stupid. He is doing everything he can and in many ways he is making sure that mistakes from the past aren't repeated.

But this initiative, like all others, is doomed.

Even if we accept the premise that the PA truly wants peace - a dubious assumption at best, given their continued incitement in their media and canonization of terrorists - the fact is that the days of Fatah having a true leadership role are numbered, if not already expired.

The current PA leaders have no charisma and no message. While corruption has decreased since the heyday of Arafat, so has the PA's ability to lead the people. The simplistic Islamist and terrorist message of "destroy Israel" resonates much more deeply with the average PalArab then "say we'll destroy Israel and continue to demonize it while we work together with it to help its security and meanwhile fight against the extremists who are our fellow Muslims and Arabs whom we profess solidarity with." The PA tries to appeal to the base - which consistently supports terror attacks against Israel.

A real leader, by definition, leads. He would use his leadership abilities to convince the people to agree with him. In the Arab world, it is much easier to sway public opinion: in the late 1970s Anwar Sadat managed to convince an entire nation who were weaned on unremitting hatred towards Israel to support Camp David - and then a short time after Egypt reclaimed the Sinai, the entire nation swung almost entirely back to hatred.

The PA does not only need a real leader, but an exceptionally skilled leader who can convincingly say to his people that if they are ever going to have a chance for a state it will involve real compromise and no more sloganeering for "right of return" and "100% of the territories" which are never, ever going to happen. The choice is clear - a real state or a continuation of 60 years of limbo. The Arab world is already getting sick of the Palestinian issue in part because the PA leadership keeps on being wishy-washy.

The people who depend on the PA payroll - really welfare - go with the flow but have no enthusiasm. (The welfare component also hits at Arab pride, a factor that cannot be discounted.) Gaza showed this problem starkly; Fatah simply didn't put up a fight, even with all its support from world leaders. It doesn't matter; no matter how well trained a security force is, and no matter how good its weapons are, its members need to believe that what they are doing is right.

That belief in the cause simply does not exist among the PA security forces that General Dayton is trying so hard to shore up. He can teach them discipline and he can teach them tactics, but he cannot teach them to believe in their cause enough to die for it. This is the fundamental difference between the Islamist terror groups and today's Fatah, and that hasn't changed since Hamas' Gaza coup. Even the polls that seem to show more support for Fatah in the West Bank don't say the whole story, because the passion is overwhelmingly on the side of the Muslim extremists, and passion is what wins in the end.

Today's peaceful PalArab news

An Islamic Jihad leader says that there are a large number of "human bombs" waiting for the "calm" to end so they can be sent into Israel for what Arabs refer to as "quality attacks." In this case, "quality" means "lots of women and children murdered."

The Arab media is upset over a story that a delegation of Arab students, as part of a young leadership program sponsored by the US government, went to the Israel embassy for a briefing - and then had the gall to take souvenirs and pose for photos with the Israeli speaker, saying that he is the first Israeli they have ever met.

Palestinian Arabs are starting a new lobbying and PR organization in the US today that is meant to battle the Israel lobby. Does this mean that they will try to influence American policy towards a foreign entity? I thought that was immoral!

A Sharia question was asked about whether it is permissible to drink soda daily. The fatwa in response was complex, but the gist seems to be that while carbonated drinks are not forbidden per se, one has to be mindful not to support Zionist soda companies. The question gets a little muddled, though, because the fatwa author realizes that one cannot boycott every Western company or else the Arab world would go back to living in tents in the desert (my phrase, not his!), so one needs to be wise as to when to avoid American and Zionist products and when to embrace them until the Arab world is strong enough to reject them and dictate its own terms to the West.

UPDATE (8/9): Clan clash in Hebron, one dead. The 2008 PalArab self-death count is at 142.

UPDATE(8/10): Another member of the Helles family succumbed to his injuries from Hamas' attack last week. 143.

Six dead in Gaza tunnel collapse. I'm including it in the death count unless there is any reason to think that Egypt caused the collapse. 149.

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.