Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Today's peaceful PalArab news

A "mysterious explosion" Deir al-Balah in Gaza injured 3. Those words are the usual euphemism for "premature terror bomb explosion."

Hamas' leader promised that Gaza will never go back to the way it was before Hamas' coup, bragging about how much better it is now. The few dozen Christians left in Gaza and the doctors who are still on strike had no comment.

The PA, meanwhile, continues to indirectly bankroll Hamas in Gaza, today offering $500 to the families of every Gaza prisoner.

Ma'an (English) reports that Israel confiscated "vast areas of Palestinian lands" in the Jordan Valley. What exactly is a "vast amount of land"? 140 dunams, which is about 0.05 square miles.

In protest of Israel's restrictions of concrete to Gaza (which Hamas uses to build Hezbollah-style military bunkers and weapons tunnels) a Palestinian Arab in Rafah decided to build a sturdy house out of mud, straw, wood and garbage, to symbolize to the world Palestinian Arab suffering. A picture of the house shows that he included at least one other essential item to prove how bad things are in Gaza - a satellite dish.

UPDATE: 2 dead in a new tunnel collapse. The 2008 PalArab self-death count rises to 187.

Hamas humiliating doctors

Here is a section of a video shown on Israel's Channel 2 news, showing how Hamas treats doctors who went on strike in Gaza.

Dozens were blindfolded, brought into a mosque (!) and forced to chant and clap their hands to humiliating songs.

As of today, the Doctors Without Borders website still has no condemnations of the arrests, torture and humiliation that Gaza doctors, nurses, pharmacists and lab techs have been forced to undergo for the past month.

Saudi cartoon: Wall Street is the Devil

From The Arab news, a Saudi newspaper:

It is interesting to see Saudis make fun of anyone as being greedy devils.

For example, in an article in that same newspaper this week:

THE presence of a housemaid in a Saudi house has become inevitable. If this inevitability is not because of her services, then it is because of the need to imitate others. This is a fact that everybody knows. The need for housemaids is connected to the ways Saudis live — women go to work, responsibilities for the social and educational welfare of children, men failing to help with house duties, few day-care facilities for children, large and spacious homes, extended families and increasing numbers of children. The net result is that the majority of families need to have housemaids. The truth of the matter is that some of us need more than one housemaid.

Saudi families are not only expected to have at least one maid, but also a driver, as this article on the disparity between rich and poor Saudis shows.

Of course, super-rich Saudis will spend exorbitant amounts of money on whatever they fancy. Greed is hardly an American trait, and Saudi Arabia along with the other Gulf countries are Exhibit A.

One only needs to recall the sheikh who shipped his car from the Gulf to Great Britain last summer - for an oil change.

Iran's Supreme Leader: All Israelis are targets

It is easy to ignore the hateful rhetoric that regularly comes from Iran, but it seems to me that Iran's religious/Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has just upped the ante:

Iran can not become reconciled with the Israeli people, Ali Khamenei, supreme religious leader of Iran said. During Friday prayers, Khamenei sharply criticized statement by the assistant to the Iranian President Isfandiyar Rahim Meshai on friendship between Iranian and Israeli people. “The statement about Iranian and Israeli peoples being friends is nonsense”.
Supreme Leader of Iran said Israeli people are invaders who occupied trade facilities, sown areas in Palestine and its territory. “They are army of Zionist regime. Muslims can not show friendly relations toward those who fulfill order of enemies of Islam”.

“We do not have any problems with Jewish, Christians and other religious confessions, but we can not become reconciled with those who occupied Palestine’s lands,” he said.

The use of the word "army," I believe, is significant. Officially, Islam says that it is against killing innocent women and children, but if Khamenei is classifying every single Israeli as being effectively military, he has just given the Islamic justification for, let's say, exploding a nuclear device in Israel.

This is similar to the justifications for terror given in the past by various terror groups against Israel, but they would say that all citizens are legitimate targets by the virtue of the military service they are presumed to be doing, have done or will do. That "logic" was always a stretch. Now, in Iranian eyes, the very existence of Zionist Jews living on land in the Middle East is considered an aggressive act, no matter who they are - and by implication, it would be mandated to get rid of them.

This might sound silly, but in the end all terrorists strain to find religious justifications for their actions. Last April we saw al-Qaeda chide Hamas - using sharia - for indiscriminate rocket attacks, and Hamas defend itself by saying that children aren't the targets.

Khamenei might have just given the sharia-compliant green light for Iran's politicians and generals.

UPDATE: Although he is not a cleric, Ahmadinejad just said something else that would justify genocide against all Jews in Israel:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that the Zionists are not Jews but infidel.

Islam treats Jews and Christians better than infidels, like Hindus, who should all be killed rather than just subjugated.

These two statements happening on the same day - both escalations of already extreme rhetoric - may not be coincidental.

More peaceful PalArab news

Another Palestinian Arab died in a smuggling tunnel, this one apparently electrocuted.

An Islamic Jihad member who was shot a few days ago died from his wounds. Hamas says it was an internal Islamic Jihad dispute, PIJ says that Hamas militia entered a fight and was responsible for his death. (It is once again notable that Ma'an accepts the Hamas version of the story without question.)

The moderate Al Aqsa Brigades in Gaza says that if things don't improve soon, they will end the "calm" at the end of this month. Part of their demands is the stopping of Israel's "Judaization" of Jerusalem.

Perhaps they will next demand the ending of the wetness of water.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 185.

Today's PalArab press roundup

Keep them in cages: Mahmoud Abbas' spokesman denied earlier reports that Abbas was amenable to permanently settling any Palestinian Arabs in Jordan. Because what good are they when they are happy?

Olmert's parting shot at surrender? The PalArab media has reported that Ehud Olmert offered to apologize to Palestinian Arabs for the "naqba" in 1948. I couldn't find this in the English media. The PLO welcomed the move and, in reciprocation, said it was not enough and demanded everything else they always demand as well.

Legacy of fewer checkpoints?: A PalArab woman was detained in Netanya with a "large bag". Reports said that she had told her family that she would be "the headline of a big story." No details in the Israeli press yet about this.

Freedom of the press, Hamas-style: A journalist for the Fatah-based Wafa agency was arrested by Hamas in Gaza.

Egyptians trying to open Rafah: An Egyptian group is going to try to "break the siege" of Gaza on the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. This is probably the same ISM- and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group that tried last week.

Meanwhile, Egypt is planning to open Rafah this weekend for patients and students as well as Ramadan pilgrims, plus probably a few terrorists just to mix things up.

That Brazilian Jewish lobby: An article in Firas about how the Jews in Brazil control the media and don't allow any pro-Arab opinions to be publicized.

Stop killing Arabs and go back to killing Jews: Islamic Jihad remains saddened at the internal fighting that happened this week and urges Hamas to get back to doing what it does best, terror.

US Consul: "Ugly rumors of US bias towards Israel"

Ma'an has an interview with US Consul for Public and Media Affairs Micaela Bluhm.

Fluent in Arabic, Bluhm consistently surprises Palestinians who speak to her in English.

Bluhm concluded the interview by summarizing the US attitude on a number of issues.

As the cultural representative to Palestine, Bluhm said she tries “each year, especially during Ramadan, to increase cultural activities and correct ugly rumors about the US bias toward Israel.”

When questioned on upcoming American presidential elections, Bluhm said that whoever wins will not change America’s commitment to Palestine.

“We are all still concerned, and whoever wins will be just as committed to creating a state called Palestine,” she said.

She said that in the next three months America could still lead negotiators to a peace agreement.

Despite numerous complaints about US policy toward Palestine, Bluhm said that America hopes to “encourage the Palestinian people.”

Why would a US bias towards Israel - which is undeniable - be considered an "ugly rumor"? Why is a US official apologizing for US policy?

She has said some eyebrow-raising statements before:

In her speech, Schweitzer-Bluhm applauded the Palestinian journalists for their "dedication to service", "commitment to getting at the truth" and "solidarity and bravery in the face of intimidation."

She particularly expressed her appreciation of the obstacles Palestinian media personnel must overcome to carry out their jobs, mentioning roadblocks, checkpoints, accusations of bias, threats, violence and gunfire. "Despite these obstacles, you do get the news out every day," she congratulated.

She applauded Palestinian journalists for challenging their own government, governments of neighbouring countries and the government of the United States. "Your inquiries and reports are a required part of a democratic Palestinian society," she said. "You are providing your fellow citizens with the information, the tools, to make decisions and be active members of their society. I urge you to continue to question and investigate and report."

As I wrote then, for her to praise the Palestinian Arab media - which is responsible for consistent incitement against Israel, as well as out-and-out lies - is ridiculous. And it has only gotten worse since I wrote that posting, as Ma'an has turned from a somewhat reasonable media outlet into one that is too scared to say anything negative about Hamas.

This US consul is sacrificing truth for appeasing her audience.

The lies of Lauren Booth

Lisa Goldman, a left-wing Israeli reporter, exposes Lauren Booth's absurd lies:

In an interview with PJM, Ms. Booth says she has tried three times to leave Gaza — once via Erez Checkpoint, which leads into Israel, and twice via the Rafah border crossing into Egypt. She was turned away by both the Israelis and the Egyptians, but told me she holds Israel solely responsible for her predicament. I pointed out that both a senior IDF spokesman and several well-informed Palestinian journalists confirmed that Israel has “zero control” over who crosses the Rafah border. In other words, perhaps Egypt was at least as responsible as Israel for forcing her to remain in Gaza. This elicited an angrily dismissive response from Ms. Booth, who claimed that “high up sources told her” that Israel is pressuring Egypt into keeping her trapped in Gaza. She would not reveal the source of her information, nor did she explain how it would serve Israel to have her stay indefinitely in Gaza.

...Referring to the interview she gave to Noa Raz, I asked if she had compared Gaza to the Nazi concentration camps. “Yes I did,” answered Ms. Booth. And do you really think the situation in Gaza is comparable to that in Darfur, where 400,000 people have been killed over the past five years? “Well,” she said, “Do we want to wait until 400,000 Gazans are dead?” She added that she had visited a camp in Gaza where 16,000 families had malnourished children, and the rate of unemployment hovered around 90 percent. If accurate, these are shocking figures that should concern all Israelis. But does Ms. Booth really expect to arouse our sympathy by making the grossly inappropriate suggestion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza?
“Do you think that Gaza receives less media attention than Darfur?” I asked. “Absolutely!” the British activist answered vehemently. So I did a search on Google news for “Darfur,” where 400,000 people have been killed over the past five years, and received 13,912 results. A search for “Gaza,” where, according to B’tselem, 810 Palestinians were killed in 2006-2007, brought up 17,605 results.

Asked how long she thought she would be stuck in Gaza, Ms. Booth answered tartly, “As long as the Israelis decide I should be here.” Then she added in a passionate tone, “I must see my children! They are 5 and 7 and they are waiting for me in France!” She did not explain why, if she was so concerned about her children, she elected to stay illegally in Gaza when she had the option of leaving on the same boat that brought her there.

But what irritated me the most about Ms. Booth’s long tirade was her description of what happened at Erez Checkpoint, which leads into Israel. I crossed Erez several times before it was closed to Israelis, and remember it vividly.

According to Ms. Booth, she arrived at the checkpoint without a permit to cross, which means that the Palestinians, who coordinate via phone with the Israeli border police on the other side of Erez, would have prevented her from continuing. Ms. Booth: “I tried to coordinate with the Israelis two days in advance, via the British Council, but that didn’t work. So I went with an old lady who did have a permit to cross, although she had been turned back several times.”

Ms. Booth said she was prevented by Israeli soldiers, who threatened to shoot her. “There were Israeli soldiers on the Gazan side of Erez?” I asked. Hearing the incredulity in my tone, she answered with irritated impatience, “Oh, I don’t know what they were. They were uniformed men with guns, alright?”

“Okay, I said.” “They were Palestinian men guarding the checkpoint. So, did they stop you?”

“Oh no!” she answered. “The Palestinians advised me not to cross, but I walked right into the tunnel and started walking. I was nearly at the Israeli side when a Palestinian man came running up behind me, holding a mobile phone and shouting that the Israelis had told him they would shoot me if I took another step.”

Perhaps the Palestinian border guard really did call his Israeli counterpart to tell him that Ms. Booth was trying to cross into Israel against their orders, and to ask him what the Israelis would do to her if she continued. And perhaps the Israeli border guard really did tell his Palestinian counterpart that he would shoot Ms. Booth if she continued another step. But I really doubt the incident occurred as Ms. Booth recounts it. Here’s why:

The entrance to Israel via Erez is practically impenetrable. It is a maze of turnstiles that lock automatically, bulletproof glass, closed circuit cameras and disembodied voices that issue instructions via the public address system. One does not see an Israeli soldier until one has passed through security, which is remotely controlled. During the June 2007 civil war, dozens of Fatah members took shelter from Hamas fighters in the Erez “sleeve.” But none tried to make a dash for Israel, because it is simply not possible — physically — to just push through.

By the way, since I am still upset over the JPost stealing my idea and pretending that they don't steal from bloggers, I was the first blogger to report that members of Free Gaza were stuck in Gaza after being denied permission to cross both the Israeli and Egyptian borders, and the excellent Media Backspin looked at my sources and noticed that Lauren Booth was one of them, before any of her many interviews seeking sympathy.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

From Ma'an:

Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said Thursday that the recent Kadima election is Israel’s first step in “the next state” of “aggressions against the Palestinian people.”

Commenting specifically on Wednesday’s election in Israel, Barhoum said that candidates all supported “establishing an extremist Jewish state.

Barhoom added that the vote, which Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni appears to have won, “was nothing but a competition between extremists in the Israeli policy institution.”

When Hamas calls you an "extremist"......

13 weeks in a row

For the thirteenth consecutive week, Palestinian Arabs have managed to kill each other in far greater numbers than the evil IDF has managed to kill them.

The score this week (Thursday-Wednesday) is 20-1, based on my tracking PalArab self-death and the PCHR tracking of those killed by the IDF.

So is Hamas guilty of "genocide"?

One of the joys of being a blogger is when others recognize your hard work in breaking stories.

One of the disappointments is when so-called "journalists" just steal from you and take credit for your hard work.

Last week, I noted that Lauren Booth compared Gaza to concentration camps and Darfur - on the same day that I saw multiple pictures of a huge Iftar feast being thrown by Islamic Jihad for journalists. These pictures were published on the pro-Islamic Jihad Palestine Press Agency website (to which I gave credit and linked.)

Yesterday, the Jerusalem Post noticed the exact same thing (as well as some details that other bloggers had mentioned, like her shopping in a well-stocked grocery store in Gaza, something you would be a bit hard-pressed to find in Buchenwald.) They even published one of the pictures I found.

Strangely, they didn't give credit to where they found it.

I commented about this fascinating coincidence in their comments section. We'll see if they own up, or if they have fewer journalistic ethics than the Christian Zionist site Israel Today (which did something similar and then apologized and corrected it.)

(Thanks to Israellycool for noticing this!)

UPDATE: The JPost did not print my comment (and this article is currently the most-commented article on the site), so I emailed their editors this letter:

It appears that one of your reporters took some material from my website. See http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2008/09/jerusalem-post-rips-off-elder.html for details.

I mentioned this in the comments of the offending article but my comment wasn't published.

Please acknowledge and comment. I may not be a paid journalist but I work hard discovering and writing original material and I would appreciate having common courtesy extended.

Feel free to peruse my blog and I would be thrilled if my many scoops would be published in JPost, but just give me credit.

Thanks

If I get a reply, I'll print it.

Bragging about killing civilians

Hamas' Al Qassam website, in English, has an article where they detail the adventures of a terror cell based in Nablus that managed to survive for four years before Israel discovered and arrested them.

The heroes of Hamas whine that other terror groups, specifically Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, took credit for their attacks.

Then, in an aside, they blow up the Western liberal myth of how poverty creates terror, by saying that

The unit consisted of five members from the city of Nablus, they met together and pledged to inflicting the Zionist enemy, they choose the path of resistance despite their families were in a good situation, money.

They then go into details of their attacks, where they claim they managed to kill 3 "Zionists."

For example:

The two mujahedeen who dressed the Zionist military uniforms directed to the place of implementation and put a "Stop" on the side street, a vehicle belonged to the Zionist settlers came towards the fake barrier. The Zionist car eased its speed. One of the Mujahedeen approached from the car and rained it with bullets.

For those who see a moral equivalence between Israel and terrorists, notice how they brag that they dress in the uniforms of the enemy (a violation of Geneva Conventions) and that they shoot at civilians (another violation.) Their goal is, of course, to maximize civilians deaths while the IDF goal is obviously to minimize said deaths. Yet this context and motivation is often lost among those who pretend that both sides are equally culpable.

More "martyrs"

As I mentioned last night, there was a fatal tunnel collapse yesterday in Gaza. Now we know that two were killed. It is interesting that Ma'an refers to them as "civilians."

Palestine Press Agency says that there are six missing in a second tunnel collapse.

In addition, a Hamas member was killed while performing a "military maneuver" in Khan Younis.

Our 2008 PalArab self-death count has now risen to 183.

Peaceful PalArab evening

Two car bombs were discovered in Gaza, and Hamas is warning that more might be coming. One had 150 kg of explosives, which would have caused many casualties. The Doghmush clan is suspected.

A 31-year old who worked in "military intelligence" in Gaza was kidnapped, tortured and killed.

Another tunnel collapse, this one seems to have had several victims but the details aren't yet known.

Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades called on its members in the West Bank to resist arrest by the PA security forces "by all means," which means we might be seeing more deaths on the other side of Palestan.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 181.

Dirty political campaigns? You ain't seen nothin'.

Every time I see someone whine about how underhanded and dirty one side or the other is playing in this election, I have to laugh. Here is a short history of dirty tricks and insults that previous presidential elections have enjoyed, from a New York Times interview with an author on this topic last year:

Q: You describe the intense mudslinging that went on during the 19th century, with accusations being thrown around of infidelity, substance abuse, cross dressing, and treason, among others. Has campaigning gotten any more civilized over time? How have mudslinging and other forms of negative campaigning evolved throughout U.S. history?

A: I think the mudslinging definitely is still a big part of our election process, but it’s less broad and vulgar. For instance, there is less aimed at other people’s physical attributes. The 19th century was very big on that. In the election of 1800, one of the dirtiest in American history, the venomous hack writer James Callendar (secretly hired by Thomas Jefferson) assailed then-President John Adams as a “repulsive pedant” and “a hideous hermaphroditical character,” whatever that means. Later in the 19th century, Martin Van Buren was accused of wearing women’s corsets (by Davy Crockett, no less) and James Buchanan (who had a congenital condition that caused his head to tilt to the left) was accused of have unsuccessfully tried to hang himself. Oh, and Abraham Lincoln reportedly had stinky feet.

The 20th century began this way; at the 1912 Republican National Convention, Teddy Roosevelt, wearing a sombrero and smoking a cigar, cheerfully referred to William Howard Taft, the sitting President and Roosevelt’s former vice president, as “a rat in a corner.” (The rodent motif is popular — FDR liked to call Alf Landon, his 1936 opponent, “the White Mouse who wants to live in the White House.”) You won’t find this kind of thing out in the open too much today, although you still see it in some of the nastier primary campaigns, such as the hatchet job done on John McCain in 2000 by his fellow Republicans.

Q: What role did the media play in early elections? What was the relationship between journalists and presidential candidates? How did it change over time?

A: The first attack I found against a newspaper came in 1800, when a Federalist poet decided that his party’s defeat at the hands of the Republicans could be blamed entirely on the media. He penned this bit of doggerel.

And lo! In meretricious dress
Forth comes a strumpet called “THE PRESS.”
Whose haggard, unrequested charms
Rush into every blaggard’s arms.

In early American elections, newspapers — then the only form of media around — played a huge role. Papers were unabashed party cheerleaders, rooting openly for their candidates and leading the way in smearing the candidate of the opposing party. Being trashed by a 19th century newspaper was no joke. They really sank their teeth into you. Even no less an authority than the New York Times was guilty of this. In the epic William McKinley vs. William Jennings Bryan contest of 1896, the Times, which supported McKinley, published a series of articles in which prominent alienists discussed quite seriously whether Bryan was crazy. One expert wrote: “I don’t think Bryan is ordinarily crazy … but I should like to examine him as a degenerate.”

By the latter part of the 20th century, this type of blatant electioneering for candidates had pretty much died out, although newspapers obviously still have their preferences. But certain television networks and talk radio shows, on both sides, have taken up the slack with a vengeance, and I think they are just as influential among voters as the old party newspapers were.

Q: What was the ugliest campaign in history?

A: So many dirty elections, so little time… There have been stolen elections (the Rutherford Hayes - Samuel Tilden contest in 1876 was certainly stolen by Republicans in the South, a foreshadowing of 2000, and the Democrats may have altered the vote enough in Cook County in 1960 to let John Kennedy beat Richard Nixon). But “ugly” has a different connotation. I would have to say that 1964 was the ugliest presidential contest I have researched. President Lyndon Johnson, seeking his first elective term after taking over for the assassinated JFK, set out not just to defeat Goldwater, but to destroy him and create a huge mandate for himself.

Not that destroying Goldwater, who believed that field commanders should be given tactical nuclear weapons, was all that difficult. But Johnson’s dirty tricks were at least as bad as those of Nixon’s Watergate bagmen eight years later. He created a top secret after-hours group known as the “anti-campaign” and “the five o’clock club.” These sixteen political operatives, in close contact with the White House, set out to influence the perception of Goldwater in America’s popular culture. They put out a Goldwater joke book entitled You Can Die Laughing. They even created a children’s coloring book, in which your little one could happily color pictures of Goldwater dressed in the robes of the Ku Klux Klan.

This committee also wrote letters to columnist Ann Landers purporting to be from ordinary citizens terrified of the prospect of a Goldwater presidency. And they sent CIA agent E. Howard Hunt to infiltrate Goldwater campaign headquarters, posing as a volunteer, where he gained access to advance copies of Goldwater speeches and fed them to the White House, causing Goldwater to complain that whenever he put forth an initiative, the White House immediately trumped it.

But perhaps the ugliest thing about the 1964 election was Johnson’s treatment of the press. He remarked to an aide that “reporters are puppets,” and had his people feed them misleading information about the Goldwater campaign. One White House aide wrote a secret memo saying, “It might be healthy to get some respected columnist to give wider circulation to adverse Goldwater impact on the stock market.” A well-known financial columnist was then influenced into writing two columns on that very topic.

The author goes on to say that "This was perhaps the last election in which the media could be so easily manipulated," but I think it is possible that the media can still be manipulated this way - as long as the manipulation corresponds to the already-existing prejudices of the reporter.

Oh, by the way: IAEA finds Iran worked on nuclear missiles

No reason to make a big deal out of this or anything, though:

The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency shared new photos and documents purporting to show that Iran tried to refit its main long-distance missile to carry a nuclear payload, said diplomats who attended the meeting Tuesday.
Responding to the presentation to the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a senior U.S. envoy said the information was compelling evidence against the Islamic Republic. His Iranian counterpart said the material shown was fabricated.
The presentation "showed board members for the first time photographs and documents of work undertaken in Iran on the redesigning of the Shahab-3 missile to carry what would appear to be a nuclear weapon," said Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. representative to the IAEA. He said the senior IAEA official doing the briefing "told us that information they have is very credible."

I'm sure that Iran can be set straight if we only talk to them.

Quick PalArab news roundup

Another member of the Doghmush family died from his wounds in the Hamas raid two nights ago. The 2008 PalArab self-death count is at 180.

As far as I know, this was the last major militant clan in Gaza, sort of aligned with the Army of Islam, and right now Hamas is cooperating with Islamic Jihad and the PRC (and, to a lesser extent, Al Aqsa.) There is no credible threat to Hamas' power at the moment in Gaza.

Civil service workers in Gaza plan to strike on Sunday in solidarity with striking teachers and doctors. Unlike the doctors' strike, the civil service strikes seem to be purely politically motivated and a last-gasp power play by Fatah.

Hamas leaders plan to meet with the Egyptian Minister of Intelligence in the next month.

Israel is today resuming its shipments of food and supplies to Gaza after suspending it in reaction to the Qassam attack over the weekend.

A new poll in Gaza finds that 48% of Gazans would like to emigrate and 55% feel that they are less safe after Hamas' coup than they were before.

Studies at al-Azhar University in Gaza were suspended today; no reason given.

Hamas' gluttony - and Israel's complicity

An amazing article in a leading Arab newspaper, by its editor.

A few days ago, a striking statement was made by Palestinian sources in Damascus through Asharq Al-Awsat, suggesting that the Hamas Islamic movement is financially thriving.

At a time when the people of Gaza were left without a loaf of bread, Hamas was paying approximately 18,000 militants who are associated with the movement- what amounts to 16 million dollars a month.

This statement comes at a time when United Nations Special Humanitarian Envoy, Mr. Abdulaziz Arrukban, highlighted to the Kuwaiti "Alqabas" newspaper the tragic Palestinian humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, and how 60 percent of the population survives on 1.5 dollars per day, while 80 percent solely depend on aid for survival.

This is a puzzling matter; who should we believe? The UN special envoy speaking of a tragic situation in Gaza, or rival Palestinian sects accusing the brotherhood movement of financial gluttony?

Bewildered by the conflicting statements of Hamas's opponents and the international envoy, I came across a statement by the official spokesman of the Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, which helped put things nicely into perspective.

Abu Obaida, spokesperson of the Al Qassam Brigades revealed that his group has developed into an army similar to major professional armies, in terms of the level of preparation and precision, which was achieved by the recruitment of many of Gaza's youths; the movement continues to recruit youth and develop its capabilities and its fighters.

So how can there be talk of lifting the Gaza siege and relieving the distress of its people, while Hamas concentrates all its efforts on recruiting and providing for its thousands of fighters. It is clear that Hamas's priority is to look after its militants, at the expense of Gaza's people and their suffering! Isn't this a deliberate exploitation of their humanitarian suffering, their poverty and need?

This also raises a pressing question regarding the ceasefire which Hamas committed to with Israel. Was it to relieve the suffering of Gaza's people and bring some order to their lives after a long period of agony? or was it a chance by Hamas to exploit and consolidate its coup against the Palestinian Authority, as well as suppressing their opponents in Gaza by firing them from their jobs in education, healthcare and other institutions in Gaza in an effort to impose its brotherhood's ideology?!

Aside from the movement's power reinforcement in Gaza, it is obvious that the Hamas truce (as I mentioned in a previous article) comes with the instructions of keeping a low profile in Lebanon, Gaza, and other places, while all considerations indicate that Hamas's Leaders last concern is the Gaza people's suffering.

Hamas has learned nothing from its past mistakes, and will reverse its coup and its dividing of the Palestinian front. Equally, it is not concerned with the suffering of Gaza's people, while their talk of dialogue and negotiations with Fatah is disingenuous and merely a time-stalling tactic.

However, Hamas and its policies are not to be blamed, but those who fund it, and support it politically. They are the beneficiaries of the Palestinian cause and partners in the suffering of Gaza's people.

Ironically, this leading Arab editor is more hawkish concerning Hamas than Israel is. An intriguing analysis of Jordan's newfound interest in Hamas from JCPA says that Israel is partially at fault:

According to leading Jordanian columnist Muhammad Hussein al-Mu'mini, writing in the mainstream Jordanian daily al-Ghad, "the problem began when Israel made the tahdiya [calm] agreement with Hamas after conducting negotiations with them through the Egyptians as if Hamas is a sovereign political entity."3 Al-Mu'mini also noted, "the tahdiya caused great embarrassment to the PA and the moderate Arab countries, even to the international community that put Hamas in siege." Israel, he said, "exploded the policy of isolating Hamas."

Israel's regional policies have thrown Jordan off balance. Mu'mini noted that in the prisoner deal with Hizbullah, Israel "sharpened Hizbullah's spear and gave it both international and Lebanese legitimacy. It would have been better to hand the prisoners to the Lebanese government." There was a Jordanian aspect to the deal with Hizbullah, as Israel also agreed to hand over to Hizbullah the bodies of Jordanians. According to Mu'mini, this was an "extreme provocation to Jordanian diplomacy." He explained that, "There is a peace accord with Jordan giving Jordan and Israel the legal cover for the exchange of the dead prisoners' bodies." If Israel, for pragmatic reasons, finds it appropriate to engage with Hamas, why shouldn't Jordan do the same?

Additionally, Gilad Shalit's family is also accusing Israel of coddling Hamas:

The parents of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit demanded Tuesday that Israel stop funneling funds to Gaza and convene a cabinet meeting which would discuss their son's abduction. Should their demand be turned down, they threatened, they would petition the High Court of Justice.

The demand was made in a letter sent by the lawyers of Aviva and Noam Shalit to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Noam Shalit told Ynet that "the ongoing funds transfer to Hamas constitutes a clearly unreasonable policy on the part of the State."

According to Shalit, "This is not about the funding of bread and milk, this is about funding given by the State to essentially keep Hamas in power."

.. According to Shalit, despite Israel's generous policy towards Hamas, the organization has halted the talks for Shalit's release, even during the ceasefire in Gaza.

Hamas may declare independence in 2009

Firas Press quotes sources close to Hamas that the terror group may declare Gaza an independent state next year:

A source close to Hamas said that there is a desire for Hamas to declare an independent Palestinian state in Gaza after 9/1/2009, which ends the period of [Mahmoud Abbas'] presidential term. ...Hamas' reasona re that Gaza has no Israeli soldiers and thus this would be a first stage to liberate the rest of the occupied Palestinian state.

The source hinted that Hamas ...wants to declare the state on any piece of land,..and it would take this step with the blessing of Iran and the State of Qatar. And Iran will recognize that State, as well as Syria, and Qatar is likely to recognize the State in the future.

With this step after Hamas had declared full independence it will be able to hold presidential and legislative elections in the Gaza Strip as an independent Palestinian state...

The source and that this is the reason that Hamas accepted the degrading calm [with Israel] - to achieve the dream state of Hamas.

This sounds a little fishy, as the source is seemingly not from Hamas itself. Some other parts of the story sounded a little "off," but it is possible that there is some thinking along these lines by Hamas or Iran.

No worries: PalArab terrorists never heard of Paul McCartney

From WorldNetDaily:

There is no credible threat against Paul McCartney ahead of his concert this month in Tel Aviv, according to a terrorism expert and author who called Palestinian terrorists about the former Beatle today.

An Islamic militant leader in Lebanon had warned McCartney could be the target of a suicide bombing unless he canceled his first concert in Israel, scheduled for Sept. 25, Britain's Sunday Express reported this weekend.

But Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief and author of the book "Schmoozing with Terrorists," said in response to the threat he called senior leaders from every major Palestinian terror organization, and not one had heard of McCartney or the Beatles.

Klein said he proceeded to sing to the terrorists top Beatles songs, including "Yesterday," "Let It Be" and "She Loves You," but the tunes didn't ring a bell for a single one.

"I don't know any of this," said Muhammad Abdel-Al, spokesman and senior leader of the Popular Resistance Committees terror group.

Abu Ahmed, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad in Gaza, told Klein, "We don't know these Beatles."

Ala Senakreh, chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank city of Nablus, told Klein he, too, is unfamiliar with the star singer and his former group.

"Listen, I have a friend at the University [of Nablus]. I can call him. Maybe he knows of McCartney," Senakreh told Klein.

Senakreh recently was granted amnesty in a deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Klein said he also called members of Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a lesser-known group, the Army of Islam. Those terrorists also drew blanks when asked if they were familiar with McCartney.

While the terrorists may not have heard of McCartney, Klein wrote in one chapter of his book Palestinian terrorists he interviewed all had recognized Madonna and Britney Spears. One terrorist threatened to "cut the heads" of Madonna and Spears for spreading Satanic culture. "If I meet these whores I will have the honor – I repeat, I will have the honor – to be the first one to cut the heads off Madonna and Britney Spears if they will keep spreading their satanic culture against Islam," said the Committees' spokesman Abdel-Al.

Maybe I'm amazed.

Maybe not.

Notable

David Bedein: Genesis of an Anti-Semitic State (h/t Callie)

Clifford D. May: Confused 'plot' lines

Shrinkwrapped: Sense of humor in American politics

Sultan Knish: How post-Zionism became anti-Zionism

Mordechai Kedar: The Myth of Al Aqsa

By the way, in that last article I wrote Kedar an email:

Thanks for your article in YNet about the Muslim political uses of Jerusalem.

I was wondering if you could clear something up for me, though. You said:

"He tethered the horse to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and from there ascended to the seventh heaven together with the angel Gabriel."

My understanding was that traditionally the Al Buraq wall was considered either the eastern or southern walls (see here: http://www.likud.nl/press37.html) and that the idea of the Western wall being al-Buraq was pretty much made up by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1920s in order to stop the Jews from using it for prayer. I have said so on my blog .

Could you please clarify if you have evidence that the Western Wall was ever identified as Al-Buraq?

I have not yet received a reply, unfortunately.

Americans traditionally don't like US Senators for President

One fascinating tidbit from this election that I have not seen anyone really expound upon: this year the US will elect a sitting Senator as President for the first time since 1960, and only the second time ever!

Here is a brief chart showing the highest previous office held by every President since 1904:

2000	George W. Bush	Governor
1992	Bill Clinton	Governor
1988	George HW Bush	VP
1980	Ronald Reagan	Governor
1976	Jimmy Carter	Governor
1968	Richard Nixon	VP
1964	Lyndon Johnson	VP/Pres
1960	John F Kennedy	Senator
1952	Dwight D Eisenhower	General
1948	Harry S Truman	VP/Pres
1932	FDR	Governor
1928	Herbert Hoover	Sec'y of Commerce
1924	Calvin Coolidge	VP
1920	Warren Harding	Senator
1912	Woodrow Wilson	Governor
1908	William H Taft	Sec'y of War
1904	Theodore Roosevelt	VP/Pres

Harding was the first sitting senator to ever become President.

With the exception of Nixon, all vice presidents who became president were incumbents (at least in this time period.)

It appears that Americans trust governors far, far more as leaders than they do senators. The numbers seem to indicate an almost visceral distaste for senators - when senators go up against governors,

This could partially explain the appeal of Sarah Palin - even though she is a first-term governor, so were Jimmy Carter and FDR (although they were in office longer.) Americans seem to trust governors more with the presidency than they do Washington insiders; I believe that Harding was the only senator to ever defeat a governor for president.

How the UN lies

The UN "Human Rights" Commission, in its zeal to demonize Israel, has resorted to yet another bald-faced lie.

Buried in the latest report they've issued - saying that the accidental shelling of Beit Hanoun may be a war crime - they say flatly that Gaza is "occupied" by Israel.

As evidence, they bring a footnote:

Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda, International Court of Justice, 2005, paras. 173 174.

I could not find the full ICJ court ruling in this case online, but there is a comprehensive summary in an ICJ press release. Here is the relevant section:

The Court then considers the question as to whether or not Uganda was an occupying Power in the parts of the Congolese territory where its troops were present at the relevant time. It observes that, under customary international law, territory is considered to be occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army, and that the occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised. In the present case, it has before it evidence sufficient to prove that Uganda established and exercised authority in Ituri (a new province created in June 1999 by the commander of the Ugandan forces in the DRC) as an occupying Power.

I did find part of Paragraph 173 mentioned above:

In order to reach a conclusion as to whether a State, the military forces of which are present on the territory of another State as a result of an intervention, is an "occupying Power" in the meaning of the term as understood in the jus in bello, the Court must examine whether there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the said authority was in fact established and exercised by the intervening State in the areas in question. In the present case the Court will need to satisfy itself that the Ugandan armed forces in the DRC were not only stationed in particular locations but also that they had substituted their own authority for that of the Congolese Government.

By the ICJ's definition, which is consistent with the Hague definition as well as the apparent Geneva definition, Israel is certainly not occupying Gaza! The reason that the ICJ recognizes parts of Congo under Ugandan occupation is because Uganda created the province and managed its day to day activities.

So when the UN is calling Gaza "occupied," it is consciously relying on a footnote in an irrelevant ICJ ruling as "proof," knowing that nobody will actually research this claim and call them on it. They are not only lying, but they are being doubly deceptive by obscuring the source for their statement. (And they have used this same ruse before. In that case they also buttressed their arguments by footnoting a paper written by a highly partisan Gaza advocacy group, and ignored any legal arguments made by others that show otherwise, thus again proving the UN's mendacity.)

The UNHRC is emotionally tied to the idea of Israeli "occupation," and they have no qualms about twisting the truth - and the law - in order to maintain that fiction. Conversely, while Hamas is unquestionably the effective controller of Gaza nowadays, the UN refuses to give them any legal responsibility for their war crimes, using the same bizarre reasoning that a country outside of Gaza that has partial control over one of its borders has more responsibility than the group that has seized day-to-day control, including the police, the schools, the hospitals and the judicial system.

Grim milestone

The number of dead in Gaza City from the overnight Hamas attacks on the Doghmush clan has risen to 12, and the 2008 self-death count rises to 177.

This marks the 1000th Palestinian Arab violently killed by PalArab actions since I started counting in late June, 2006.

I started this count at the outset of Operation Summer Rains, to counterbalance the incessant MSM counts that were fashionable at the time of the number of Palestinian Arabs killed by Israel since the intifada began. My methodology has stayed the same, with the main gray area being which tunnel deaths to count.

UPDATE: Speaking of...another tunnel collapse, one dead. 178.

UPDATE 2: Man stabbed to death in Hebron. 179.

Déjà Vu: Egypt to allow Gazans to go to Mecca

From Ma'an:

Egypt agreed on Monday to allow 600 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to travel to Mecca for the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage, through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with Gaza next Saturday.

Talib Abu Sha’r, the minister of Waqf and Religious Affairs in the de facto government in Gaza said that all 600 who were approved to leave have already booked their flights and secured visas from Saudi Arabia.

Abu Sha’r said that 2200 Gazans had applied for permits, but only 600 had received approval from the Egyptian and Saudi authorities.

Of course Muslims are very sensitive to allowing their co-religionists to perform one of their sacred rights.

But last year, many of the pious individuals that Egypt allowed to go to Saudi Arabia were in fact Hamas terrorists who met with their patron Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Mecca. He gave them some $50 million, and Egypt ended up allowing them to return to Gaza. (The non-terrorists who returned came through Israel's Keren Shalom crossing; the others refused until Egypt relented.)

There were also reports at the time that some Hamas members took advantage of Egypt's opening Rafah to go to Iran for terror training or to return from that training. Not to mention that Egypt's opening of Rafah is a breach of existing agreements between Israel and Egypt.

Meanwhile, the EU team that is supposed to be monitoring the Rafah crossing for just this kind of activity stays on its extended vacation in Israel, while their bosses are utterly silent about the multiple breaches of agreements concerning the opening of that border.

Hamas kills 10 members of Doghmush clan

From Ma'an:

Eleven people, including a police officer and a young girl, were killed in clashes between de facto government security forces and members of the Dughmush clan in Gaza on Tuesday morning.

A fierce gunbattle broke out after security forces attempted to arrest three members of the family. Medical sources said that 11 people were killed, contradicting an earlier report from the police that only four were killed.

Sources from police department confirmed that Jamil, Ibrahim and Sa’eb Doghmush were killed during the raid.

Twenty-two-year-old Sameh Mahmoud An-Naji, a member of the security forces, was killed, and an unknown number of others were injured.

Members of the Doghmush were reported to have been responsible for the kidnapping of BBC reporter Alan Johnston in 2007.

Eyewitnesses said that they saw body of a few months year old girl in Ash-Shifa hospital in Gaza who appeared to have “lost her head.” She is said to be daughter of Abu Al-Qassem Doghmush, the leader of the An-Nasser Brigades, and armed group close to Hamas.

Medical sources at Ash-Shifa hospital confirmed that there are a “large number” policemen were injured.

Shahwan described the campaign as “successful” adding that it included other fugitives accused of killing a policeman and other crimes.

The police announced that they seized a explosives and weapons from the building they raided.

YNet adds:

Among those injured in the exchanges of fire was Army of Islam leader Mumtaz Doghmush, who was involved in kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. His brother was killed.

Yesterday, the UN "Human Rights Commission" declared that the accidental 2006 Israeli shelling of Beit Hanoun might be considered a "war crime." Don't hold your breath to hear them say anything negative about the use of mortars and rockets against a house with a family in it, decapitating a baby girl.

My "self-death count" of the number of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by their own actions this year climbs to 176.

UPDATE: To be fair, the Doghmushes are hardly innocent. According to the usually anti-Hamas Firas Press, the Doghmushes fired rockets and mortars from their compound towards Mahmoud al-Zahhar's house in Gaza City during the fighting as well. So both sides have wanton disregard for civilian lives.

Not that this is a surprise.

UPDATE 2: PCHR lists two children killed, a 1 year old boy and a 16-year old. Nothing about a girl. For now, I'm assuming two children.

"Human Rights" organization news

CAMERA takes the New York Times to task for describing the Free Gaza freakazoids as "human rights advocates":

the Times is whitewashing Israel’s adversaries. This time, it is lending undue credibility to the Free Gaza Movement, a controversial group of extreme pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel activists, by describing them not as a pro-Palestinian activist group – which they undeniably are – but rather with the noble designation “human rights advocates.” This description, which appeared several times in Taghreed El-Khodary and Isabel Kershner’s Aug. 24 story Rights advocates defy Israeli blockade of Gaza, is prejudicial, subjective and misleading, and should not appear in the news section of a serious paper – certainly not to describe a group that includes people who advocate against the existence of the Jewish state, accuse Israel of genocide, and explicitly legitimize violence.

Read the whole thing for details and proof, as well as the NYT's absurd response.

In other "human rights" organization news, the Jerusalem Post has a profile of Yuval Steinitz, who was an enthusaistic supporter of Peace Now during Oslo but woke up to the dangers of a Palestinian Arab state a few years later:

"Oslo could have been right. I gave it a chance, but then I had to be a skeptic and reexamine my position. Then I felt that what we did was a terrible mistake," said Steinitz.

"I realized that, to my frustration, we were giving up land for war and terror and incitement," he said.

To his sorrow, said Steinitz, the principles of Oslo remain intact in the Annapolis process and direct negotiations continue between Israeli and the Palestinian leaders, despite the dangers they pose.

His objection to territorial compromise is not rooted in a belief in biblical Israel, but is the outcome of a security analysis, said Steinitz, who is a former head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

"For any foreseeable future I do not see a partner, or any possibility to leave Judea and Samaria or even part of it," he said.

"The idea of a two-state solution should be dead, today, because unfortunately a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would bring about Israel's demise," he added. Such a Palestinian state, he warned, would "immediately become an outpost for Iran." The Hamas takeover of Gaza less than two years after Israel withdrew from the area was a scenario that could repeat itself in the West Bank, he warned.

The only reason Kassam rockets had not been fired at the center of the country or at Ben-Gurion International Airport was because Israel had a military presence in the West Bank, said Steinitz.

And, finally, we get to the sad news that another supposed "human rights" group has been unmasked, and will lose its EU funding:

Jerusalem-based watchdog NGO Monitor has learned this week that the European Union (EU) has decided not to renew its funding of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

In an 'urgent message' to members of ICAHD-USA, the organization's director Jeff Halper announced 'We have just heard that our request for re-funding has been rejected…So we now face a real crisis'. The message went on to plead with supporters for extra funds.

For several years, despite its extreme anti-Israel agenda, ICAHD has been a recipient of major EU funding under the Partnerships for Peace framework. The EU has consistently stated that these grants are directed towards specific projects and are not intended as general funds for the organization. However, as NGO Monitor demonstrated in, "Europe's Hidden Hand" an EU grant of 473,000 Euros in 2005 constituted the majority of ICAHD's annual budget.

ICAHD consistently manipulates the language of human rights to promote an anti-Israel political agenda. ICAHD routinely refers to Israel as an 'apartheid' state while Jeff Halper promotes a one state solution which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. This is in direct contradiction to the EU's official policy, which promotes a two state solution.

NGO Monitor's Executive Director, Prof Gerald Steinberg commented, "ICAHD's façade has finally been acknowledged, and the European Commission has acted appropriately in ending further funding. In reality, ICAHD does nothing to advance coexistence and instead promotes extreme views which fuel the conflict. Following this precedent, we urge the EC to review all such NGO funding in a transparent manner, and establish consistent criteria."

In a world where anti-Zionism tries to masquerade as "human rights," this is a rare piece of good news.

Who fires rockets at Sderot? AP is clueless

From AP:

Israeli children gather at the site where a rocket, allegedly fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza, landed in the southern town of Sderot Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008. Police say a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza has exploded in an Israeli town just across the border fence. They say the rocket hit an open area in the town of Sderot. It set a fire, but no one was hurt. It was the first rocket attack in nearly three weeks. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket attack.
(AP Photo / Tsafrir Abayov)

"Allegedly fired by Palestinian militants"? Does this mean that AP is leaving open the possibility that Israelis are firing rockets at each other and blaming it on Arabs from Gaza, which only the looniest of the loonies claim? Or perhaps they don't consider people who shoot potentially fatal rockets targeting civilains to be "militant" enough to be called militants?

It's not like AP can see where the rocket landed; they can only claim that the Israeli police say that the rocket landed in Sderot. It is of course possible that those notoriously unreliable Israeli police are lying and they just took one of the old rockets out of inventory and placed it there for the benefit of the AP photographer - you can never be sure! And the person who suffered from shock and was hospitalized - could be fake. You never know.

And the fact that Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for this attack? Well, that didn't make the deadline, and only when Palestinian Arab terrorists say something can you report it as fact.

Latest "Zionist": Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi

In a particularly humorous turn of events, the Arab press is reporting that Iranian media are heavily attacking notorious Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Qaradawi, it may be remembered, is an Sunni cleric who calls suicide bombings against Israeli civlians mandated by Islamic law. But what seems to have gotten under the Iranians' collective skins is Qaradawi's anger at Shiites. Last week, Qaradawi warned his fellow Sunnis against threats from Shiites:

”Unfortunately, there are Shias now in Egypt…Since the age of Saladin until very recently, there wasn’t a single Shia Egyptian. They tried to gain one but they never succeeded.” But now they are openly spreading their ideas in the newspapers and on television” he said. According to Qaradawi, this might be because the Sunni societies have a certain vulnerability because the Sunni ulema did not fortify Sunni society against the Shia threat because we always employed the phrase “avoid/stay away from fitna in order to unite all the Muslims.”
What he seems to be saying is that the Sunnis were taking the high ground, in pleading for greater Muslim unity, so as to avoid fitna. As a result the Shias took advantage of this to try and spread or recruit Shias in the Sunni societies.

But he is clear what has to be done: “We (the Ulema) must stand up and protect Sunni societies from the Shia assault."

This is not a new position, but apparently, this is enough to make the Shiites go apoplectic:

The Iranian newspapers accused Sheikh Yusuf as speaking on behalf of the leaders of global Freemasonry and rabbis. They published a torrent of words of insult and defamation against Qaradawi, saying that he speaks the language of hypocrisy and the hypocrisy stems from sectarian ideas, and he uttered such obscene words against the Shiites Messenger of Allah peace be upon him.

They further accused him of serving the interests of Zionists and rabbis who warned against the tide of Shiite after the defeat of the Israeli army in south Lebanon in 2006.

I gotta admit, the Iranians are right. Sheikh al-Qaradawi (or, as we Elders like to refer to him, "Joey") has been on the Zionist payroll for years. He goes on Egyptian TV (owned by us, natch) and rails against Zionists and then we meet him in the Green Room and reward him with some bagels and lox flown in from the Lower East Side. (Joey loves that stuff; he particularly likes Philly Light cream cheese with garden vegetables.)

Qaradawi started off as a stand-up comedian but we quickly saw his potential as a firebrand anti-Zionist clown who can help stoke the separation between Shiites and Sunnis, one of our grand plans. (Wait till you see what happens with the Salafis next year!)

Personally, he's a nice enough guy, although he does have a funny smell. Not sure if that is part of his act or if he really smells like that, but, hey, whatever works in that part of the world.

Go for it!

Western intelligence has been slowing down Iranian nukes

From the New York Sun:

WASHINGTON — Israel and America are intensifying a clandestine war against Iran that has run hot and cold since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 but has grown more urgent as Iran races to obtain an atomic bomb.
That is a central claim in a new book, "The Secret War with Iran," by an Israeli journalist, Ronen Bergman, who also details a series of mishaps during the past 2 1/2 years that have likely delayed Iran's efforts to go nuclear.

While President Bush and other Western leaders have warned of the seriousness of the threat that Iran may obtain a nuclear weapon, little reporting has surfaced in the West on the efforts in the shadows to stop the Iranians. Mr. Bergman himself has had to skate a close line in this area, in part because of military censorship in Israel, where some of his reporting has been withheld from publication pending rulings from the Israeli Supreme Court.

Nonetheless, the Israeli journalist compiles a picture that suggests that the West has had some successes in the war to stop the Iranian bomb. Mr. Bergman reports, for example, that in January 2007 Iran determined that some of its nuclear suppliers in Europe were fronts for Western intelligence services, specifically Britain's MI6.

And Mr. Bergman writes that between February 2006 and March 2007, at least three planes "belonging to the Revolutionary Guards crashed in Iran, while carrying personnel connected with the security of the nuclear project." Specialized pipes for centrifuges sold to Iran have been modified, he writes, and specialized computers sold to Iran for its nuclear laboratories contained viruses that sabotaged the code.

The secret efforts appear not to be limited to modifying equipment: On January 18, 2007, an Iranian expert on electromagnetics who worked in an Isfahan enrichment facility, Ardeshir Hosseinpour, died in his apartment, Mr. Bergman writes.

The author quotes the deputy director of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Eli Levite, as saying in a closed forum that operations against Iran "gained time for us" and have "doubtless caused significant delays in the project. The process has led to the revealing of large parts of the program in the areas of sources of supply, of the infrastructure, and of the goals, which were not known or were known at a different resolution."

While Israel's Mossad and military intelligence have targeted Iranian terrorists almost since the 1979 revolution, the Jewish state was relatively slow to pick up on the full extent of Iran's nuclear program. Mr. Bergman reports that Israel first learned of the nuclear facility in Natanz in 1996, a full six years before the facility was first disclosed to the public, but several years after the Iranians began their initial work there. Two Israeli operatives, posing as tourists, arrived at the site and took soil samples, which they brought back to Israel in their shoes and which showed some radiation.

Mr. Bergman also details a success for the CIA in the shadow war against Iran, when General Ali Reza Askari defected to the American side in February 2007. Mr. Bergman reports that General Askari was closer to the reformist President Khatami and felt threatened by his old rival in intelligence when President Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005.

General Askari, for example, warned Mr. Khatami after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that Iran's Revolutionary Guards had given shelter to key Al Qaeda operatives fleeing American troops in Afghanistan. He said in his debriefings, according to Mr. Bergman, that Iran had entered into joint nuclear projects with both Syria and North Korea.

The defector also claimed that Iran erected a secret enrichment facility near the known centrifuge area in Natanz.

Mr. Bergman finally comes close to saying outright that Israel was responsible for the assassination in February of a master Hezbollah terrorist, Imad Mugniyah. He writes: "Although Israel has denied responsibility for the assassination, the Mugniyah hit was exactly the kind of thing needed to restore the country's faith in, and more importantly the enemy's fear of, Israel's intelligence services."

Mr. Bergman then quotes an Israeli intelligence official, who recalls the exact model of the vehicle Mugniyah was driving when he was attacked. "Pity about that new Pajero," he said.

The Pajero part might sound good but the initial reports of the blast did indicate what kind of car he was in.

(If the New York Sun is really going away at the end of this month, we will lose a very valuable source of news.)

Follow-up on Bibi's speech

One of the most commented postings I've had recently was from my article on Binyomin Netanyahu's speech at the Jewish bloggers' conference in Jerusalem. I had paraphrased Netanyahu as saying "The fact is that there are Jewish rights on the land as well, that history is also on the side of the Jewish narrative. Bibi quickly outlined the fact that Jews remained the majority in Palestine for many centuries after the Roman conquest, and that the first time they were physically dispossessed from the land itself was by the Arab conquest in the eighth [sic, really, seventh - EoZ] century."

I missed the historian he quoted but was informed in the comments by Ruth that it was Ben-Zion Dinur, either from "Israel in Its Land" or from his five-volume "Israel in Exile."

Unfortunately, very few of Dinur's works are in English. I found a copy of "Israel and the Diaspora" and have read the first section, much of which is excerpted here. While it is clearly true that Dinur felt that the Diaspora didn't start until the Arab conquest, this piece was not a historical work nearly as much as a work about historiography - his critique of different views of Jewish history and his own point of view. Any of his historical ideas can only be gleaned by implication from this work. I am not conversant enough in Hebrew to even consider tackling his Hebrew works, but it sounds like they are important enough that they certainly should be translated and made available to the world at large. (If anyone knows of an English-language treatment of Dinur, please let me know.)

I just started reading Netanyahu's "A Place Among Nations" which he said covers this material. So far I have not found it, as it (at least the 1993 edition) seems to concentrate on the history of Zionism and does not seem to have much on the historic Jewish connection to the Land.

As far as the Jews being the majority in Palestine before 636 CE, I still do not know if Dinur really says that. Clearly, the majority of Jews lived outside Palestine for centuries before the Arab conquest but that doesn't mean they weren't the majority in sparsely-populated Palestine.

Today's peaceful PalArab news

A Hamas member was killed and another wounded in Gaza City as they tried to arrest another man.

Six more Hamas bombs have been reported to have been found at al-Azhar University. There were a couple that exploded in empty rooms two weeks ago.

The Al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the Qassam rocket that was shot at Sderot yesterday. Yet at the same time Islamic Jihad released a statement saying that Israel's response of closing the crossings had only a "flimsy justification" and asks the Palestinian Arabs to consider ending the "calm."

A video was released that is supposed to show how Hamas had Mohammed Helles of the Helles clan was alive and in custody of Hamas before he was shot dead in cold blood.

Today is the fifteenth anniversary, in the Islamic calendar, of the incident with Baruch Goldstein in Hebron. This is the first time I've ever seen Palestinian Arabs celebrate an anniversary using the Islamic calendar rather than the secular one. This way they can act as victims twice as often.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now 165.

Gaza lies: "Shalit gets birthday cake every year"

The Sunday Times had some real reporting over the weekend, as Christine Tooney goes to Gaza to find out what she can about Gilad Shalit.

Her main finding is that terrorists are liars:

“Nobody from the political or military wing of Hamas knows where Shalit is,” [Mahmoud Zahhar] says, disingenuously, sitting by my side in a starched safari suit. “Only the small group who kidnapped him know. They are very secretive.”
He says he has no idea of the conditions in which Shalit is being held, only that they must be better than those of the more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners whose release Hamas is demanding for his safe return.
...
While Zahar and Yousef are reluctant to discuss Shalit, members of the Doghmush clan are happy to brag about how well he is being treated. I meet them in a garage of one of the many buildings the clan owns in the Sabra district. Abu Khatab Doghmush, a 51-year-old clan elder, is sitting with family on a sofa pushed against a wall.
Abu Khatab insists that the Army of Islam is not holding Shalit. “The only faction that controls his life now is the Qassam Brigades,” he says, his heavy gold watch flapping against his wrist. “But I can tell you that Shalit is living in a paradise. Our religion of Islam demands that we look after prisoners even more than we do our own people.” He rejects speculation that Shalit is locked deep in an underground cell booby-trapped with explosives: “He’s not being kept in a closed room all the time – this would not be healthy. He can go out and take fresh air.”
Abu Khatab then makes an extraordinary claim: “Every year a party is held to celebrate his birthday. Yes, there is a cake and candles, music, everything.” Shalit, born on August 28, 1986, has now spent three birthdays in captivity.
The claim that Shalit is being well treated is repeated by everyone I meet. His plea that he needs hospitalisation is dismissed by Abu Khatab. “No, it is I who require hospitalisation,” he says, kicking off his plastic sandal to reveal a foot eaten away by gangrene.

...Over the days that follow, repeated attempts to talk to the al-Qassam Brigades are rejected. Again and again I am referred back to Hamas political leaders such as Zahar as the only ones able to speak about Shalit. With Zahar and others claiming only al-Qassam knows anything, the circle of professed ignorance and denial is closed.

...
When Abu Mujahed arrives, I am taken aback. We have spent time watching young PRC recruits training – all wear black balaclavas and carry AK-47s. But 24-year-old Abu Mujahed wears a beige suit and brown shirt, a look that would not be out of place in a cheesy video on an Arabic music channel. He has come straight from his brother’s wedding, he says, before explaining in clear English (he is studying multimedia technology at university) precisely how a prisoner exchange should work.
“After the Israelis free the first 100 Palestinian prisoners, Shalit would be moved to Egypt. Once he’s in Egypt, the Israelis would have to free 1,000 more of our brothers and sisters before he is released. We were very close to agreeing a deal a year ago, then the Israelis stopped negotiations. We were amazed that they were prepared to go back to zero. It is the Israelis who are putting obstacles in the way of an agreement.
“If we do not see some results soon, we will be forced to close the file,” he concludes ominously.
When I ask how much he knows about Shalit’s whereabouts and the conditions he is kept in, Abu Mujahed repeats the mantra that he is being treated well, “according to our religion”. Only a small group know where Shalit is held, he claims, and they communicate by means of dead letter drops, mobile phones being too easy to track.

In the end, the people who claim to know how Shalit is being treated profess ignorance as to his whereabouts and those who know his whereabouts don't say how he is being treated, meaning that everyone is lying.

It is rare to see real reporting nowadays; this is an excellent article.