Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 23, 2009

Richard Falk lies again

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Richard Falk, who has repeatedly compared Israeli actions in Gaza to Nazi Germany, has been saying that Hamas has repeatedly offered a truce extension to Israel that Israel spurned. His latest claim was made at a symposium at UCLA on "Human Rights and Gaza" (that curiously completely ignored Hamas' own violations of Gazan's human rights:)

Hamas, he pointed out, consistently urged the continuation of its July 2008 Egypt-sponsored ceasefire with Israel and even its extension for up to 10 years. According to the respected British newsweekly, The Economist, Falk noted, Hamas proposed an extension of up to 20 years. “What is so revealing is the Israeli refusal to even acknowledge that this was a diplomatic initiative that would have probably ended any violence.”

I already showed that Falk is, quite simply, a liar. At that time, I wasn't aware of any specific Hamas truce offer that he was referring to, so I couldn't prove that he was lying on that specific point, but this repetition over here spurred me to research this supposed truce extension.

I could not find any mention of this in The Economist (although I did find an article that called Falk's obscene comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany "absurd.") But I did find some articles about Hamas' offer of a twenty year truce, and as I thought, it was not an "extension" of the existing six month calm period that Falk claims. It was a fake offer that Hamas had made years ago whose terms were that after Israel withdraws completely from all lands captured in 1967, then Hamas would offer a ten or twenty year truce without recognizing Israel's existence.

Falk explicitly calls this a "continuation of its July 2008 Egypt-sponsored ceasefire" and he knows very well that it was nothing of the sort. And when Hamas was given the chance to continue the truce, it rejected it.

Falk knows this - and he lies anyway.

Normally, if a moonbat professor wants to lie like this, it is no big deal, because there is no shortage of people with letters after their names willing to lie for their pet political causes. Falk, however, has the gravitas of being a UN representative and as a result his speeches get coverage. And his speeches are consistently oriented towards demonizing Israel for doing things that are often, as we see, fiction.

Falk has no credibility and it is way past time for him to be called to the carpet for his consistent, sickening and verifiable lies.

PalToday "finds" the missing "IDF fatalities"

Hamas and the other terror gangs have been claiming that they killed scores of IDF soldiers; the latest number I saw was 48 although I have seen higher claims as well.

The problem, of course, is how can an open society cover up so many deaths? How could Israel cover up the funerals and the publicity that would come with all those dead soldiers?

The Islamic Jihad-oriented Palestine Today figured it out!

An intrepid PalToday journalist saw a news story that 13 Israelis have been killed in traffic accidents this month, and many others critically injured. Obviously, these deaths were really soldiers who were killed by the brave mujahadeen, and Israel only pretended that they were killed in traffic accidents in order to boost the morale of their soldiers.

Because we all know that Israeli drivers are incredibly careful and never get into accidents.

This only explains less than half of the supposed IDF losses, so we can be sure that more equally compelling theories will be forthcoming. I mean, if Hamas said they killed so many soldiers, it must be true.

Egypt claims that Hamas weapons come from Israel

From Firas Press:

Ambassador Mukhlis Qutb, the Secretary-General of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights, says that Egypt has documents and evidence and confessions that the arms of the Palestinians within the occupied territories come mostly from individuals who hold Israeli citizenship, and that all sales, procurement and trade occurs in secret places inside Israel, in addition to the sale and smuggling of weapons stores by some of the members of the occupying forces.

He said that Egypt had not allowed under any circumstance to use its border for arms smuggling, and rejected U.S. and Israeli attempts to sign security agreements for electronic or human surveillance close to its borders, because that does not conform with the requirements of Arab national security and Egypt.

Obviously, Chinese and Iranian Grad rockets must come from Israeli weapons collectors who bring them back on their commercial flights from their vacations in the Far East.

How could we even consider that the hundreds of Rafah tunnels would be used for anything besides candy and cows?

Has the UN ever accused Hamas of "war crimes"?

The UN has been busy accusing Israel of "war crimes."

Yesterday, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, said "I believe that there is the prima facie case" that Israel committed "systematic war crimes" in Gaza, and defined every one of Gaza's 1.5 million residents as casualties because of their "psychological trauma. " He made this determination from his home in California.

Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for a probe into alleged Israeli "war crimes," and the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza has also said he was "concerned" about possible war crimes. Today, the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs is expected to give a press conference about his concerns as well. Earlier, the UN Human Rights Council voted to investigate "grave human rights violations" done by Israel.

This is a lot of energy and time that the UN is using to accuse one side of war crimes and human rights obligations. By any objective measure, however, Hamas' war crimes are much more obvious, widespread and numerous than the worst that UN officials incessantly accuse Israel of.

Here is a list of war crimes and grave violations of humanitarian law that are not only well known but many of which Hamas openly admits to and brags about:

Deliberately targeting civilians
Attacking from within civilian areas and civilian structures, including hospitals and mosques
Using humanitarian symbols for attacks, such as by transporting terrorists in ambulances
Direct and public incitement to genocide
The systematic attacks against civilians upgrades that war crime into a crime against humanity
The recruitment of children into the conflict
Firing at the enemy while wearing civilian clothes
Wearing the uniforms of the enemy
Shooting rockets with phosphorus payloads deliberately at civilians
Not adhering to international standards on the treatment of prisoners of war
Immediate execution of alleged "collaborators" without a trial
Deliberately placing military targets, such as weapons caches and rocket launchers, among civilians

The worst I could find that the UN has said about Hamas was that rocket attacks against civilian targets are "unlawful." Usually the word "Hamas" is barely mentioned in these statements. No, the rocket attacks against civilians are "unlawful," sort of like jaywalking, and they happen by themselves being mentioned in a passive voice.

When will we be seeing the UN accusing Hamas of the obvious war crimes they have committed? When will we see UN officials call numerous press conferences that accuse Palestinian Arab groups of war crimes without mentioning Israel? When will we see committees set up for the purpose of investigating exposing Arab terror alone?

Only when the UN does so can we possibly entertain the idea that the UN is an honest, evenhanded organization that is truly concerned with violations of war crimes. Not by them mentioning as an aside that Hamas also does some not-so-nice things which do not justify Israel's actions, but when they focus on the many Arab terrorist war crimes exclusively as they have focused on Israel.

As it is, the UN in this context is simply a hate organization with a single-minded goal on vilifying the Jewish state alone.

"No Hamas tunnels here!" "What about that one?"

From Newsweek:

Najah Abd Rabo shook her head and said Israeli actions were beyond comprehension. "They were claiming there are tunnels under here," she said. "There aren't any tunnels around here, we are not resistance," she said. Yet not more than 20 feet away from Najah, there was just such a tunnel, which Israeli troops had unearthed. Right in the middle of the road, it had a convincingly camouflaged roof that matched the rest of the road. Inside it was shored up with timbers and concrete.

A case of "eyewitness" lying, or a case of Hamas knowingly putting civilians at risk?

Probably both. It is hard to be completely ignorant of "civilians" popping up out of the street in front of your home.

How many dead in Gaza? Hard to say.

An Italian reporter is claiming that there were no more than 500-600 deaths, total, in Gaza: (h/t Backspin)

The number of Palestinians killed in Operation Cast Lead did not exceed five or six hundred, Lorenzo Cremonesi, a correspondent for Italy's Corriere della sera reported on Thursday.
Cremonesi based his report on tours of hospitals in the Gaza Strip and on interviews with families of casualties. He also assessed the number of wounded to be far lower than 5,000, the number quoted by Hamas and repeated by the UN and the Red Cross in Gaza.
"It is sufficient to visit several hospitals [in the Gaza Strip] to understand that the numbers don't add up," he wrote.
In the European hospital in Rafah, one of the facilities which would presumably be filled with wounded from the "war of the tunnels," many beds were empty, according to Cremonesi. A similar situation was noted in the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, and in the privately-run Amal Hospital Cremonesi reported that only five out 150 beds were occupied.
Cremonesi interviewed Gazans who echoed Israel's insistence of how Hamas gunmen used civilians as human shields. One Gazan recalled civilians in Gaza shouting at Hamas and Islamic Jihad men, "Go away, go away from here! Do you want the Israelis to kill us all? Do you want our children to die under their bombs? Take your guns and missiles with you."
"Traitors, collaborators with Israel, spies of Fatah, cowards! The soldiers of the holy war will punish you. And in any case you will all die, like us. Fighting the Zionist Jews we are all destined for paradise. Do you not wish to die with us?" the religious fanatics of Hamas reportedly responded.
Other Palestinians told Cremonesi of Hamas operatives donning paramedic uniforms and commandeering ambulances. A woman identified as Um Abdullah, 48, spoke of Hamas using UN buildings as launch pads for rockets.
Cremonesi reported that he had difficultly gathering evidence as the local population was terrified of Hamas.

YNet reports this a bit more cautiously:

Despite the claims, the IDF stood behind its estimate that between 1,100 to 1,200 people were killed in the Strip during the fighting, more than two-thirds of them Hamas members.

The army initially believed that the number of civilian casualties was higher, as many Hamas men walked outside their houses dressed in civilian clothes, leaving their weapons at home.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, who is in change of the emergency department at the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, denied the figures presented by the Italian paper.

Hassanain told Ynet that the Palestinian figures were issued cautiously, without any political considerations, and that several casualties may not have been reported as their bodies are still under the rubble or have not been handed over to the rescue forces and authorized medical officials.

A Tal al-Hawa resident told the newspaper's reporter, "Armed Hamas men sought out a good position for provoking the Israelis. There were mostly teenagers, aged 16 or 17, and armed. They couldn't do a thing against a tank or a jet. They knew they are much weaker, but they fired at our houses so that they could blame Israel for war crimes."

The reporter for the Italian newspaper also quoted reporters in the Strip who told of Hamas' exaggerated figures, "We have already said to Hamas commanders – why do you insist on inflating the number of victims?"

These same reporters mentioned that the truth that will come out is likely to be similar to what occurred in Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin. "Then, there was first talk of 1,500 deaths. But then it turned out that there were only 54, 45 of which were armed men," the Palestinian reporters told the Italian newspaper.

These new figures must be treated with caution especially in light of the fact that various official sources in the Gaza Strip, including United Nations and Red Cross officials, have reported that more than 1,300 people were killed and some 5,000 wounded during the three weeks of fighting in the coastal strip. Palestinian sources claim that three-quarters of the dead were unarmed civilians.

I have no doubts about the anecdotes, but it is very hard to know how many were killed, and Cremonesi's methods of counting do not seem too rigorous.

The PCHR makes a point of listing the names of the dead when it can, and they count 1284 dead. (The site is unavailable at the moment.) I don't think that they are lying about the total, but they do count civilians in ways that I would not agree with. For example, they count Hamas leaders Said Siam and Nizar Rayan as civilians.

They also count the Hamas police as civilians.

Here are some raw numbers of claims from the Gaza side of militants/terrorists killed during the operation:

Hamas - 48 (an absurdly low number)

Gaza "civil defense" - 11

Islamic Jihad - 39

Gaza "police force" - 230

Fatah's Al-Mujahideen Brigades - 5

Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades -3

PRC - unknown, at least 3 I know of

DFLP - 13

PFLP - unknown, at least 1 I know of

Fatah members killed by Hamas - at least 16

All terror groups according to PCHR: 223 (not including the Gaza police, civil defense, infighting, public Hamas figures)

The PCHR certainly doe not distinguish between Gaza civilians killed by Israel and those killed by Hamas, in "friendly fire" or misfires.

I don't have a solid idea of the real numbers, so this is just to throw some data out there.

News briefs

A liberal Arab wrote an op-ed describing how Hamas' ideology results in their disregard of the value of human life. He sarcastically stated "This is a wonderful ideal to say that the steadfastness of the resistance or simply the survival of their leaders underground or in exile, or simply the survival of the ideology, is in itself a victory or a defeat for the enemy!"

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about a joint Jewish-Muslim women's group in France, where they get together once a month to make and eat baklava. The secret to their success? They don't allow political discussions.

The Arab Times of Kuwait has a truly nonsensical op-ed, where the author pretty much calls all Arabs collaborators with Israel, including the late Yasir Arafat and the later Saddam Hussein. He ends up by saying:

The bitter fact which Israel - the entity which has stolen our land – is aware of is that a day will come when the stones and the trees will begin to speak: ‘There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’ Only then the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be liberated just like it was liberated by Salah-ud-Din, whose origin was Kurdish not Arab, because the Arabs of today are conspirators hiding behind the logo of a ‘Comprehensive and Just Peace.’

I personally can't wait for that day when the stones and trees speak; I'll take a video and make a fortune!

Fatah is calling for mass demonstrations in Gaza today. Hamas is saying that the rally is illegal and that Fatah is trying to cause political problems. Things might get interesting in Gaza.

Palestine Today is quoting a UNRWA spokesman (not the one that I have been corresponding with) as denying that any aid trucks were hijacked. He admits there was one "incident" but seems to say it was all a misunderstanding. Meanwhile, Arutz-7 has more details.

Why the West cannot stop smuggling tunnels

The UAE National newspaper has an illuminating article about the Rafah tunnels, and it is pretty clear that no amount of "memoranda" will be able to stop them from being built.

And the reason is because Egypt will not crack down on them.

After weeks of bombing and despite high-level meetings and diplomatic speeches pledging to end the smuggling of goods and weapons from Egypt to this Palestinian enclave, reconstruction of what the workers here estimate are 1,000 tunnels has continued unabated for the three days since Israel and Hamas ceased firing.

“Israel will never succeed. I will make it 25 metres deep” to avoid the Israeli bombs that destroyed this narrow corridor during the three-week assault, said Abu Haysem, one of the Rafah tunnel owners. Abu Haysem said he built his tunnel out of the basement of his home, which lays, speckled with shrapnel, about 320 metres from, and 14 metres under, the Egypt-Gaza border.

“If Egypt decides to stop the tunnels from working, they can. They can block the roads to Rafah and arrest the tunnel owners,” said Abu Haysem. “Egypt says they will stop the tunnels but they don’t because they want the money.”

That money – 50 per cent of Abu Haysem’s lucrative trade – is used to pay his partners across the border and funds their graft scheme with Egyptian officials.

The sentiment on the ground remains one of scepticism that serious steps would be taken to halt the smuggling. Indeed, most of the tunnelling along the border is done in the open, within sight of Egyptian border posts.

Other than by bribing officials, some tunnel owners claim their tunnels will remain open thanks to Egyptian solidarity with the Palestinians, after Egypt faced the opprobrium of several Arab countries for keeping their part of the Gaza border sealed. That sympathy, said Akram Hamad, a tunnel worker, is partly derived from a common understanding between Egyptians and Gazans: that the Rafah tunnels no longer traffic in weapons. “The Egyptian side has sympathy with us when it comes to food, but when it comes to weapons they are very strict,” said Mr Hamad.

The Egyptians tied to the tunnels apparently do very little actual work building them, but assume the bulk of the legal risk and responsibility for bribing Egyptian authorities to get materials through them.

I tend to believe that most Rafah tunnel diggers are reluctant to smuggle arms nowadays, but the author doesn't consider that Hamas has its own tunnels exclusively for weapons and explosives whose owners are much less likely to grant interviews. Indeed, Hamas has more money for bribes from taxing the goods from the "consumer tunnels," and Egypt regularly finds caches of explosives and arms in the Sinai meant for Gaza. (It is entirely possible that Hamas has built tunnels south of Rafah, as well.)

At any rate, the idea that the tunnels could be closed without full Egyptian cooperation is a non-starter. Money tends to make people a bit less interested in adhering to agreements.

Qaddafi's single state solution in the NYT

Libya's nutty leader Muammar Qaddafi writes an op-ed in the New York Times pushing for a single-state solution, "Isratine." It is certainly ghostwritten by someone who understands the Western mindset - it pushes all the right buttons for well-meaning but uninformed people to warm to the idea of a painless way to destroy Israel. It appears, in fact, to be written with a liberal Jewish audience in mind.

To that end, he adds an interesting paragraph:

It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never “un-welcomed.”

Will their be a furious Arab reaction that Qaddafi challenges the entire Palestinian Arab narrative? Or will they stay quiet, knowing that the "Israetine" that Qaddafi is pushing would very quickly turn into Palestine?

Great moments in autotranslation

This is tasteless, but I'm a weak person.

The autotranslation of an article in the Islamic Jihad mouthpiece Palestine Today talks about the alleged ruthless destruction of an entire village by the heartless Zionist army.

It is called the village of Dik Hole:

Destroyed most of their homes and farms and other land
The Israeli army removed the village, "Dik hole" on the map of the Gaza Strip

Words can not describe what you can watch the destruction and devastation and disaster in the Gaza Strip has been the result of the Israeli aggression which targeted over 23 days. But the case of the village, "Dik hole", which is located south-east of Gaza City, completely different, because there is no longer in the village of origin to talk about.

The article continues, including fantastic details like the IDF executing cows of the doomed village of Dik Hole.

There are too many jokes I can make, all of them really inappropriate. I don't doubt that my readers will come up with some, though.

Why is Israel's Gaza medical clinic empty?

JPost reports:

Medics at Israel's newly inaugurated border clinic expressed their frustration Tuesday at the lack of patients from Gaza coming to the facility, which is situated on the Strip's northern border, and was officially opened Sunday.

"I spent the whole day there [Monday] and not one person came to us for help," said one doctor, who preferred to remain anonymous. "The people there are scared, scared of us and scared of Hamas."

A spokesman for Magen David Adom (MDA), which is operating the clinic in cooperation with the Welfare and Social Services Ministry and the Health Ministry said that so far only seven Palestinian children with cancer had arrived at the center for treatment. All had been released, he said.

Situated at the Erez terminal, the clinic is a humanitarian gesture by Israel following the 22-day operation in Gaza. Speaking at its inauguration on Sunday, government officials said that the clinic would accept all patients and that the more serious cases would be referred to Israeli hospitals.

Set up to treat about 50 patients, the clinic is designed to help Palestinians who are either wounded or ill, said Levy.

A mobile intensive care unit and four regular ambulances have been stationed at the Erez clinic by MDA.

The facility is staffed with emergency specialists, pediatricians, family physicians, gynecologists/obstetricians, trauma experts, surgeons, orthopedists, ophthalmologists, otolaryngologists and other experts.

Tony Laurance, acting head of the World Health Organization's office in Gaza and the West Bank, told The Jerusalem Post earlier this week that he doubted that Palestinians would be allowed by their leaders to access the clinic.

Why are Gazans not coming to the clinic? One would think that with thousands of injured civilians, including women and children, people would want to have the best care possible. No one would have any doubt that the Israeli doctors would do an excellent job and would have higher medical standards than those in Gaza. So why is it a failure so far?

The major reason is clearly Hamas. As the WHO official said, Hamas leaders would simply not allow Gazans to be treated there. A little thought would show why.

First of all, Hamas engineered the entire battle to maximize the number of Gazans who would die or be injured. Every day there are new deaths from injuries suffered during the fighting, and each time the number of dead tick up, Hamas has a new propaganda victory. It is not cynical to notice that Hamas values PR more than human lives; it is merely recognizing the cynicism of the terrorists.

The second reason is the flip-side of the first: Hamas does not want any news media to report that Israelis are selflessly treating Gazans. The contrast with the selfishness of Hamas, where they confiscated medical aid to treat terrorists at the expense of Gaza civilians, would not be flattering. Hamas needs to be looked upon as caring more about civilians than Israel is, and will go to any lengths to ensure that Israel does not appear humane.

Thirdly, there are more terrorists injured than Hamas is willing to admit, and they cannot go to Israel to risk capture.

The fourth reason is more insidious. Hamas has now enlisted an army of doctors who are willing to testify - really lie - about alleged Israeli use of white phosphorus, depleted uranium and DIME weapons. These doctors are happy to do so in order to be part of Hamas' jihad against Israel (or, in the case of the European doctors, to simply demonize Israel.)

Israeli doctors treating the same patients would see that these doctors are lying, and would have the physical proof.

A related thought is behind the fifth reason Hamas would never allow Israeli doctors to treat Gazans: because a percentage of Gazan civilian injuries are the direct result of Hamas and its allies' rockets, mortars and guns, as well as secondary explosions. We will never know how many of the innocent civilians who died or were injured were hurt from Hamas fire, but it is reasonable to assume that the numbers are significant.

There were reports from Israel that the tragic death of three daughters and a niece of a Palestinian doctor came not from Israel but from a Grad rocket, as determined by shrapnel removed by Israeli doctors who treated them.

We know that a percentage of mortars and Grad rockets fall short, and we know that these have sometimes fatal results. Shooting rockets hurriedly would increase the number of misfires. There was also at least one IDF video of the bombing of a weapons depot where a rocket shot out of the targeted area and flew a few hundred feet before landing.

In addition, there were some firefights in Gaza between the IDF and various groups, and one would not expect the terror groups to be as careful as the IDF in where they were firing.

How many civilians were killed by Hamas, or by secondary explosions of Hamas ordnance? We will never know. Most of the evidence is buried. But we can be sure that the number is higher than zero, and that Hamas will do everything necessary - including forcing Gazans to forego quality medical care - to ensure that this information never sees the light of day.

(Photo taken today.)

Saudi clerics forbid peace with Israel, Jews

From Firas Press: (autotranslated, cleaned up)

A number of senior clerics in Saudi Arabia have forbidden any collective peace initiative that includes the right of Jews to immigrate to the land of Palestine, and the normalization of relations with them.

The prohibition was a clearly targeting the 'Arab Peace Initiative' launched by Saudi Arabia at the Arab Summit in Beirut in 1982, which until now has been the cornerstone of many of the deliberations on the prospects for peace in the Middle East.

A number of clergymen, judges and university professors in Makkah made this statement after a discussion on the 'injustice and Jewish aggression' in the Gaza Strip. 'The quest for the Liberation of Palestine is a legitimate duty on the peoples and governments, and that what the jihadist factions intended to achieve; this is one of the greatest legitimate duties'.

They called for all governments and peoples to activate the economic weapon at all levels against the Jews...

The groups called on all Muslims to extend a helping hand to their brothers in Gaza, giving them all kinds of support, and seek to ensure the families of the victims of aggression, and to work to rebuild what has been demolished and vandalized by the Jews.

Sheikh Suleiman Al-Tuwaijri declared in a speech at the beginning of the meeting that the 'war on Gaza is not a war against Hamas, but rather is an extension of the conflict between infidelity and Islam', and drew attention to the urgent need these days to close ranks and come together to repel the enemies of the Islamic nation.

He asked everyone to strive for money and to pray, and pointed with shame at the Jews.

[Sheikh] Bin Jibreen said this is payment to the Jews for their cooperation with the Crusaders, calling them an enemy to Islam and our religion...

And the Saudi "peace" initiative sounded so promising, too! Oh well.

Australian Islamic cleric: Raping your wife is A-OK!

From The Daily Telegraph (Australia):

AN AUSTRALIAN Islamic cleric has told his male followers it is permissable that they force their wives to have sex and hit them if they are disobedient.

Melbourne's self-styled cleric Samir Abu Hamza said despite Australian rape laws it was impossible for a man to rape his wife even if she refused to have sex with him.

In a recorded lecture entitled "The Keys to a Successful Marriage'', delivered to his male worshippers but now broadcast on the internet and viewed by several thousand people, Hamza said Islamic law allowed men to hit their wives as a last resort but they were not to make them bleed or become bruised.

He said under Islamic law, as described in a Koranic verse, it was a man's right to demand sex from his wife whenever he felt like it.

"If the husband was to ask her for a sexual relationship and she is preparing the bread on the stove she must leave it and come and respond to her husband, she must respond,'' Hamza told his male followers on the video sermon.

He then mocked Australia's criminal laws which required consent for sex to be lawful.

"In this country if the husband wants to sleep with his wife and she does not want to and she hasn't got a sickness or whatever, there is nothing wrong with her she just does not feel like it, and he ends up sleeping with her by force ... it is known to be as rape.

"Amazing, how can a person rape his wife?'' Hamza asked.

Despite concerns about his preachings being raised by female members of the Islamic community, Hamza yesterday stood by his comments and blamed controversy caused by them on a hidden zionist agenda run by the media.

Questioned about his teachings, Hamza said a wife was allowed to be hit on the hand or leg, but "of course, not on the head''.

He said if a Muslim wife disobeyed her husband, such as continuing to go out when requested not to, she was able to be subjected to moderate physical punishment.

"It's like sometimes when a person smacks a child, it's like `shape up','' he said yesterday.

I just love that lecture title, "Keys to a Successful Marriage."

Do you think that women who talk about how empowering the hijab is will now defend Hamza?

Gaza religious affairs ministry: "No weapons in mosques"

Just in case you has the slightest thought that you could trust anything that Arabs are saying when they are accusing Israel of crimes...

Palestine Today quotes the Religious Affairs Ministry (not sure if it is from the PA or Hamas) saying that there were no weapons stored in mosques in Gaza, along with some good old fashioned anti-semitism:

Dr. Abdullah Abu Djerboue, Undersecretary of the ministry said in a press statement: "The ministry is in the process of inventory of mosques that were destroyed, we are still gathering information..."
He said that the destruction of mosques is "a Talmudic religious hatred and a distorted look at Islam and Muslims with the hatred as described in the Torah and the distorted, false Talmud."

He said that "these people (the Jews) killed the prophets and the messengers of the Lord of Glory as stated in the Koran," adding that "these attacks on the mosques would not only increase the hate against Jews and every conspiracy against Gaza will not go unpunished. "

He refuted Israeli claims that the mosques were being used as stores of explosives and weapons, saying that all the mosques that were destroyed and blew up do not prove the existence of the explosives and none of the explosions demonstrate the presence of weapons or explosives. "

He asked, "Is the resistance [Hamas] that stupid to store their weapons in mosques after they were targeted?"

Can't argue with that logic.

This anti-aircraft cannon and other weapons found in a mosque were clearly planted there by the Zionists:

Because what possible reason would Hamas have for storing weapons in mosques, or schools, or private houses, where Israel would be reluctant to fire and where the very act of firing at them would cause much hate among world Muslims? Really, does that make sense that Hamas would want that to happen?

Gaza not exactly carpet bombed

From the Daily Telegraph (h/t Backspin):

I knew Gaza well before the attacks, so when Israel ended its ban on foreign journalists reaching Gaza on the day the ceasefire was announced, I was able to see for myself.
One thing was clear. Gaza City 2009 is not Stalingrad 1944. There had been no carpet bombing of large areas, no firebombing of complete suburbs. Targets had been selected and then hit, often several times, but almost always with precision munitions. Buildings nearby had been damaged and there had been some clear mistakes, like the firebombing of the UN aid headquarters. But, in most the cases, I saw the primary target had borne the brunt.
...For the most part, I was struck by how cosmetically unchanged Gaza appeared to be. It has been a tatty, poorly-maintained mess for decades and the presence of fresh bombsites on streets already lined with broken kerbstones and jerry-built buildings did not make any great difference. And the same can be said for the mindset of many of Gaza's 1.5 million residents. Outsiders might have expected some sort of collective anger at the loss of life, or mass outrage at the Hamas authorities whose policy of firing rockets against Israel had brought down the wrath of the Israeli armed forces.

This next paragraph needs to be emphasized:

But I found that, so steeped is the Gazan mindset in the narrative of victimhood, there was no internally-focused groundswell of anger at what had happened. Palestinians in Gaza have felt victims since 1948, when a small number of locals were suddenly swamped by a larger number of refugees, forced to flee land taken by Israel at the creation of the Jewish State. For 60 years they have dwelled on victimhood, a supplicant people grown dependent on foreign aid and reliant on the role Israel plays as the scapegoat for all ills.

This is the relevant fact that needs to be addressed for any real peace to ever happen. When one side always blames the other for every problem and loses the ability for introspection, there is no chance that they can change for the better.

The aid battle continues

The picture on what exactly is happening with aid trucks into Gaza is getting a little clearer, no thanks to the UNRWA which is keeping mum on the ugly details.

As commenter Suzanne uncovered, last year Hamas admitted it confiscated 16 trucks of aid from Jordan, meant for the Palestinian Red Crescent, and Jordan was not happy about it:

Minister of State for Information Affairs Nasser Joudeh said Hamas government on Thursday seized 16 trucks carrying emergency supplies into Gaza.

"We are surprised it should be confiscated and distributed in a manner based on political considerations...this only penalizes those who really deserve this aid," Joudeh said. Hamas claimed that the Red Crescent was not distributing the aid properly, since it is more oriented towards Fatah.

Hamas claimed that it would give that aid, which presumably was paid for by the ICRC... to UNRWA.

The denial that Chris Gunness gave me saying that he was unaware of any such incidents with any NGOs, and casting doubt on their having happened, seems less and less tenable.

Today, the JPost adds more details to the more recent incident: (also h/t Suzanne)

Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip claimed that dozens of trucks loaded with food and medicine were being held on the Egyptian side of the border at the request of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The officials said that the humanitarian aid came from several Arab and Islamic countries about two weeks ago. They said that the Egyptian authorities initially tried to deliver the aid to the Palestinians, but were stopped by Abbas.

"Abbas and Fatah are afraid that the aid would be used to strengthen the Hamas government," said a Hamas official. "That's why they are doing their best to prevent much of the aid from entering the Gaza Strip."

Another Hamas official claimed that the aid had been diverted to the West Bank, where Fatah representatives have confiscated the medicine and food. He did not rule out the possibility that some Fatah leaders were planning to sell the food and medicine in the black market.

The Hamas government said Tuesday that it has established a special fund to help the victims of the IDF operation and urged the international community not to give Abbas's authority any money.

Hamas also said that it would not allow the PA to play any role in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. It said that the money should be channeled directly to the victims and not to Abbas's aides in Ramallah.

Fatah strongly denied the allegations and claimed that Hamas militiamen have been stealing the aid since the beginning of Israel's military operation.

Fatah also warned donors against dealing with Hamas directly.

A Fatah official said that on Monday night alone, Hamas gunmen intercepted 12 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid that had been donated by the Jordanian government to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

He said that the trucks were on their way to the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) when the gunmen belonging to the movement's armed wing, Izaddin al-Kassam, stopped them and confiscated their contents.

The Jordanian authorities confirmed on Tuesday that Hamas gunmen had seized the trucks shortly after they entered the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

Last week Fatah activists and eyewitnesses in the Gaza Strip claimed that Hamas had confiscated fuel and food that was en route to hospitals and schools housing thousands of Palestinian families.

We have here a classic turf war, where both sides are accomplished liars. If we discount everything that any Gazan says, we still have Jordanians saying that on at least two occasions their aid convoys have been confiscated by Hamas.

The intriguing part is that Hamas considers UNRWA to be on its side. Given my correspondence with UNRWA's spokesman, and UNRWA's adamant refusal to say anything negative about Hamas even as it put untold thousands of civilians at risk, they may have good reason to consider UNRWA as their own.

UPDATE: Palpress, which is Fatah-oriented, blames Israel for not letting ten aid trucks in from Egypt, not Fatah.

UNRWA tries to sweep incidents under the rug

I again asked the UN Spokesperson whether he could confirm or deny that a humanitarian aid convoy was hijacked by (presumably Hamas) gunmen, as reported by the official Jordanian news agency. (My initial posting on the event is here, my earlier correspondence with him is here.)

My question was:

Have you yet been able to confirm whether any trucks meant for UNRWA were attacked as Petra reported?

The reply this time is:

No which suggests it may not be true as our gaza office r normally quick to get back to me. pls send link to your site so I can see who you are. Thanks. C

When dealing with official spokespersons, one must parse their words carefully. For example, Mr. Gunness can be seen here on TV saying that he is "99.9% certain" that no terrorists were in the UNRWA school that was damaged from IDF bombs in an incident that killed 40 people, but the interviewer doesn't ask whether any fighters were immediately outside the school nor whether there were any explosives in the school itself, that could have detonated from secondary explosions set off by IDF shrapnel in shooting back at mortar fire. This explanation is consistent with both what the IDF and UNRWA spokespersons said but most reporters would not think to ask about it.

In this case, Chris is saying that he did not receive any answer from Gaza yet (he is based in Jerusalem,) which "suggests" that the incident never happened. It may also "suggest" that it did happen and that the Gaza UNRWA employees are not anxious to blame anything on Hamas, ever.

Finally, a newspaper has tried to get more information. From the Jordan Times:

Anonymous armed men captured a 13-truck convoy laden with foodstuff donated by Jordanians after entering the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official told The Jordan Times Tuesday.

Now we have two sources.

Neither the convoy’s drivers nor the trucks, which entered Gaza at the Karm Abu Salem crossing, are Jordanian, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The drivers were released; the hijackers drove the trucks.

The shipment was unloaded from a Jordanian convoy after it crossed into the Palestinian territories and then carried by non-Jordanian trucks rented by UNRWA into Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority official said: “This is not the first incident of this kind. We have learned that the food items, which were supposed to be given to Gazans for free, were being sold in the marketplace in Gaza City.”

On Monday, an 11-truck convoy carrying food items from Kuwait was also seized at gunpoint, he added.

The Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation spokesperson denied he was informed of any hijacked aid convoys.

Government officials in Amman did not know about the case or were not available for comment.

UNRWA spokesperson Sami Mshasha told The Jordan Times on the phone from Jerusalem that he was not aware of any hijacked aid convoy, being busy with arrangements for the visit of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to Gaza.

Mshasha said he would follow up on the report, but remained unavailable despite repeated attempts by The Jordan Times to contact him.

There were details here that were not in the original: the number of trucks hijacked, the thought that a Kuwaiti convoy was similarly hijacked, and a couple of details at odds with the original report (such as that the truck drivers were released.) UNRWA's reluctance to get back to the Jordan Times reporter is also very interesting.

I don't think that I will get any more information from UNRWA. My guess is that the reports are essentially true; it is very consistent with reports on how Hamas acts for the past year and, as we have seen, there has not been a denial about this one nor any of the four previous instances that I enumerated, only spin. The UNRWA in Gaza, just like the reporters there, live in a constant fear of Hamas (and are generally sympathetic with Hamas' political aims as well) and as a result one will have a hard time finding the truth from named sources who are afraid that they will be shot in the legs, or worse, for making Hamas look bad.

Parenthetically, after Chris realized I had sent the link, he asked me:

where do u fit in politically? C

I answered:

I'm not sure why that is relevant, but you can see from my site that I would be considered a fairly hawkish Zionist. I spend a great deal of time trying to understand the Palestinian Arab psyche, and I am much harsher on their leadership than on the people.

Also parenthetically, I had a correspondence with this same UN spokesman last April, where he tried to diminish a fairly ugly incident where the UNRWA on the West Bank was attacked by Palestinian Arabs and shut down for three days, an incident that UNRWA never put on its website:

HI there,

There had been problems but these have now been avoided for the time being.

Chris

As I posted then:

To the UNRWA, violent attacks by the people they are meant to help are embarrassing events that should never be mentioned to the public because the UNRWA is emotionally invested in making sure that the Palestinian Arabs appear purely as victims and never - never - as being partially responsible for their own problems.

This is the fundamental reason why Israel is regularly castigated by the UNRWA, but Hamas gets a free pass.

UPDATE: More correspondence:

Is there condemnation on your site (which your link didn't get me into) of the white phosphorous attacks on neutral UN compounds? Does it carry the Secretary General statement calling for those responsible to be punished? Chris

And my response:

My site is a blog and it clearly has biases. While I do not attempt to be a comprehensive news source and my choices of stories reflect my bias, I do attempt to be as accurate as possible. (Which is not altogether different from the mainstream media, although they are not willing to admit their biases from either the right or the left.) The blog is a part-time hobby and there is no way for me to cover everything, so I tend to try to find stories that others do not cover. (And, yes, I am quite critical of UNRWA on the site.)

I touched on the white phosphorus issue, and one of my commenters wrote a comprehensive essay on the topic. My understanding is that its use is legal for illumination and for smoke screens, and that there is no evidence that the IDF used it in an illegal manner. In my opinion, it makes no sense for the IDF, as well armed as it is, to use that tool as an offensive weapon since there are plenty of legal weapons at its disposal, and it makes even less sense for the IDF to target civilians nor UNRWA facilities deliberately. The Red Cross said that they had no evidence of illegal use of white phosphorus as well. (My guess is that some of the phosphorus shells may have been exploded closer to the ground than was intended and some people may have been hurt as a result, but I am no military expert.)

My latest posting on our correspondence is here:http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2009/01/unrwa-tries-to-sweep-incidents-under.html with links to earlier posts. You are welcome to comment, of course.

Thanks again,

Update on hijacked Jordanian aid convoy (UPDATE 2)

Ma'an finally cover the story I broke this morning, although I still have not found any non-Arab media mentioning it:

The Jordanian news agency Petra reported on Tuesday that armed men held up an aid convoy after it crossed into the Gaza Strip.

The agency reported that armed men fired at the trucks and diverted them to private warehouses after they passed through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, an Israeli-controlled crossing used primarily for shipments of humanitarian aid.

The supplies had been donated by the Hashemite Jordanian charity organization. The trucks earlier crossed into the West Bank using the Allenby Bridge and then proceed to Gaza.

According to the report, the charity had coordinated in advance with UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, to receive the shipment in its warehouses after it entered Gaza.

Also according to the report, UNRWA has suspended other aid shipments as the trucks and drivers are still being held in Gaza. Negotiations are reportedly being held for their release.

Ma'an pointedly doesn't mention that it was Hamas that did this act, as Petra reported. (correction: PalPress reported it was Hamas, not Petra.)

I emailed to the UNRWA:

Mr. Gunness:

This morning the Petra news agency of Jordan reported that one or more
aid trucks from Jordan, meant for UNRWA,were hijacked at gunpoint by
Hamas. Does UNRWA have any comment?

How many times has this happened, to any NGO aid?

Has UNRWA ever condemned Hamas for such actions?

Thanks

His answer ignored the last two questions and pushed off the first:

We are looking into this and I hope to have a reply for you soon. Chris

Keep in mind that Ban Ki Moon is in Gaza as this is happening, and he is silent on a direct attack on aid for the UN!

UPDATE: I replied back:

Chris:

A appreciate any timely updates you can provide. Ma'an 's English version of the Petra report adds that negotiations are now underway with the apparent kidnappers and that UNRWA has suspended other aid shipments. Can you confirm that?

Meanwhile, could you answer the other questions I asked about any previous similar incidents you are aware of, and if the UNRWA has ever publicly condemned Hamas for these sorts of activities?

Thanks again

And Chris' reply was:

Not aware of any similar incidents -- indeed the Israelis in our regular co-ord meetings have praised our record on this -- so am slighly surprised by this alleged report. we have certainly not suspended any aid shipments. Not aware of any similar incidents in the past so no need to condemn anyone. C

I just replied back:

Chris:

Thanks again for your reply.

The similar incidents that I have seen include:

January 6, 2009:
Reports say Hamas takes a cut out of all aid that arrives, including flour and medicine. Supplies intended to be distributed without gain among the population is seized by the group and sold to the residents, at a profit to the Hamas government.

One such incident was recorded Monday, when a convoy of trucks carrying supplies through the Kerem Shalom crossing was opened fire upon and seized by Hamas gunmen. Similar incidents occurred with trucks carrying fuel.

April 7, 2008:
Hamas militiamen in the Gaza Strip on Sunday attacked fuel trucks headed toward the Nahal Oz border crossing, forcing them to turn back, sources in the Palestinian Petroleum Authority said.

The fuel was supposed to go to the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the sources said.
"Dozens of Hamas militiamen hurled stones and opened fire at the trucks," the sources added. "The trucks were on their way to receive fuel supplied by Israel. The drivers were forced to turn back. Some of them had their windshields smashed."
February 7, 2008: Hamas policemen seized a convoy of humanitarian aid bound for the Palestinian Red Crescent on Thursday evening, the second convoy it has taken from the aid agency, aid employees said.
Policemen from Hamas halted 14 trucks filled with food and medicine at a checkpoint after it crossed an Israeli checkpoint into Gaza on Thursday, said employees of the Palestinian Red Crescent, who declined to be named, fearing reprisals from ruling group Hamas. A Hamas official said the aid was seized because the organization was distributing aid to former Fatah fighters and not to impoverished Palestinians.
Employees from the Red Crescent said they were meant to distribute the aid to some 8,000 needy Gaza residents from lists of people the organization keeps. The aid came from the organization's regional headquarters in Jordan, an employee said.
Are you saying that you were not aware of any of these incidents, or that each report was found to be false after investigation?
Thanks again,

UPDATE 2: Chris replied:

If u read the reports carefully (and I am not sure any of them r true) they don't include reports of unrwa aid being stolen. Can u send me a link to your site?

Which I did.

He is technically right; the only report that mentioned UNRWA mentioned an attack towards trucks going to Nahal Oz to pick up fuel for UNRWA, not stealing fuel meant for UNRWA. The other stories talked about aid meant for Red Crescent and unspecified aid, until today's story (which the UNRWA has not confirmed or denied yet and that Petra has not followed up on.)

It seems strange to doubt five stories of five separate incidents (including this one) from different sources all saying that Hamas interferes with aid, but since eyewitnesses who would out their words on the record would likely be killed by Hamas pretty quickly, the UNRWA can maintain plausible deniability about these reports.

Whose lives are worth more, two rams or a woman?

From the Saudi Arabia-based Arab News:

We have an entrenched judicial system that is based on Divine Law and not personal whims. This is the reason why I could not understand two recent court verdicts handed out on the same day.
In the first ruling, two thieves who stole two rams were sentenced to three years imprisonment and 1,000 lashes each.
The second ruling of two years imprisonment and 200 whiplashes was for a husband who beat his wife until she swallowed her tongue and died.

Apparently, two rams is are worth over 50% more than a woman under Saudi Arabia's sharia-based laws.

Here's an open thread, illustrated with a photo I took today.

Also, check out Shrinkwrapped's followup on my post yesterday about psychobabble.

Links!

My posting will be spotty again today, but there is some great stuff out there:

Wistful Wishful Thinking by Yaacov Lazowick

IDF Spokesperson Hamas Exploitation Maps:

These maps are very high-resolution, so you can see exactly how close Hamas' rocket and mortar launches were to civilian structures.

Judeopundit on the Guardian's doublespeak.

Simply Jews on the amazing and ageless Mohammed Badwan, Human Shield.

Something I was not aware of: Iran's Occupied Territory.

An Iranian.com writer on supporting Israel.

EXCLUSIVE: Hamas hijacks Jordanian aid truck for UNRWA

Jordan's Petra News Agency reports that Hamas hijacked Jordanian aid trucks after they crossed into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday.

The aid was to go to UNRWA. As the truck drivers started unloading the aid, Hamas gunmen opened fire on them and forced them to go to Hamas-run stores.

The Palestine Press Agency has many angry comments from readers about the episode.

(The first news flash about this occurred about 6 hours ago. Even so, this has not yet been reported in any English language media - not even Petra's English service. Here's Petra's Arabic original story.)_)

Psychobabblers for Peace

The Huffington Post has an article from a representative of a group called "Conflict Analysis Professionals for Enduring Security" who attempt to place the Israel/PalArab conflict in terms of modern psychobabble.

It is a fairly good example of how people whose only tool is a hammer think that every problem is a nail. In other words, it shows how even experts in psychology can be easy prey for muddled thinking.

Dear President Obama,
Congratulations on your election. We look forward to working with you to heal our country in every way we can.

We are interdisciplinary conflict analysis professionals including psychologists and other social scientists devoted to the study and practice of violence prevention, tension reduction, conflict transformation and reconciliation. Like you, we are deeply concerned for our friends, colleagues, relatives and all citizens of Israel and Gaza. We fear the consequences of this cyclical violence and failure to respond appropriately to the devastating damage. It will require expert intervention to heal wounds and reverse cycles of violence.

Right off the bat, we see the first problematic premise: that there is a "cycle of violence," similar to perhaps a married couple having a bad feud.

One of the problems of psychology as often practiced today is the aversion to blame. There is no right or wrong; there is only different ways of looking at things. Teach each party how to empathize and then the problem is halfway solved.

The problem is that in real life, there is right and wrong. I daresay that there is evil.

You recently said, "If my daughters were living in a house that was being threatened by rocket attacks, I would do whatever it takes to end that situation."

In conflict, it can be difficult to remember that "whatever it takes" includes caring for basic human needs -- food, water, warmth and protection, allaying fears, and providing safety, as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What if "whatever it takes" requires supporting legitimate political goals, addressing just grievances, and allowing life with dignity, self-determination, prosperity and freedom? People prefer to get their needs met by decent means, and resort to violence when thwarted.

Barry Rubin recently wrote that Israel's situation is similar to living next to a serial killer. The CAPES people are insisting that the solution to that situation is to send him a box of candies.

Someone should remind the kind authors that when Hamas' spiritual forebears attacked and killed scores of Jews in 1929, nearly all of them from families who have lived in Palestine for generations, they were not "resorting" to violence as a reaction to anything the victims had done to them. There was no state, there was no "land theft," there was none of the factors that these self-defining experts are so sure are part of Arab grievances against Jews (and the victims were generally not Zionists.) Perhaps a wonderful social worker could have defused the situation then?

Our children would be safer if we could empathically bear equal witness to each historical narrative and rise above both sides to gain a true perspective of cause and effect, and the dynamics of asymmetrical power.

Uh-oh. Here's comes the psychobabble with both barrels:

We have two traumatized peoples, gripped by fear and moral outrage, who have spiraled into escalating reverberating reactions of mutually provoked traumatic reenactment, endlessly ricocheting back and forth. In this malignant process, each side draws people into believing the need to destroy the other. However, many on both sides work for peaceful coexistence.

Severe trauma on both sides, fear, envy and humiliation, and anger (towards ingroup and outgroup), make it critical to provide a massive infusion of healing interventions demonstrated effective. Please lead us in healing wounds, compensating losses, and using principles of restorative justice rather than punitive approaches which only fuel instability, as history has repeatedly shown. Time doesn't heal wounds, people do.

Actually, time does heal wounds if they are not continually re-opened by people who would not be the best candidates for the "massive infusion of healing interventions." And the analogy is exact: the Palestinian Arab refugee problem, which is seen to be the core of the conflict in the limited context that these authors are looking at history, is only existing today because of the active decisions made both by Palestinian Arab leaders and the leaders of every Arab country since 1948; decisions that are aimed at only one thing: perpetuating the pain to create a weapon against Jews controlling land in the Middle East.

We are aware of political pressures to take positions falsely framed as so-called "pro" or "anti" Israel or Palestinian. This zero sum thinking has no endgame. The only way to be more secure is to make your enemy more secure.

If the enemy has a reasonably functioning psychological makeup, perhaps the bolded words might make sense. However...

We must rethink what it actually means to support Israel and be pro-coexistence, and establish a policy of "Mutually Assured Survival," and mutually supported flourishing.

Since the times of early Zionism, this has been exactly what the Jews have been trying to do! It hasn't exactly worked. Only one side has consistently tried, decade after decade, to empower the enemy - often with disastrous results.

A rich body of knowledge, not well known outside academia, describes methods demonstrated to reverse cycles of violence. We are beginning to understand how terrorism ends and how extremist groups become nonviolent and productive through participation in legitimate political processes -- and also what causes radicalization and drives people to extremes (as, in this connection, when Hamas won in a fair election, they were prepared to form a coalition with Fatah, until they were punished and threatened).

According to these would-be brain surgeons, Hamas - which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel as well as pure anti-semitism, as its charter states clearly - should be rewarded because it won an election.

(Notice also the neat sleight-of-hand used by the author - earlier, she states accurately that "many on both sides work for peaceful coexistence," however, now she is discussing Hamas, which [by definition] does not have a single member who shares that goal. But one needs to read this article very skeptically to notice this deception.)

Would the CAPES people be as sanguine if the Ku Klux Klan won fair elections?

We offer any assistance in analyzing conflict dynamics, working with you to design strategies for healing and detraumatization, and guiding the delicate work of reconciliation needed to rebuild viable social and political institutions and reach equitable solutions to this historic tragedy. There are many creative strategies of conflict transformation, beyond diplomacy and negotiation, beyond carrots and sticks, and even beyond Smart Power. Wise Power can address complex ecology of interacting forces and events within the depths of human experience. Understanding principles of conflict studies, psychology, and other social sciences will go along way to help produce conditions for viability and enduring security and a lasting, just peace.

I would guess that other psychology professionals might disagree with this assessment.

Rockets launched from Al Arabiya studios in Gaza

This video is going around the 'sphere. You may have to go to the YouTube original to see the subtitles, but this Al Arabiya reporter, off the air, is laughing upon finding out that missiles are being launched from beneath her Gaza office.

She didn't seem too concerned that Israel might strike back.

A British philo-semite speaks

One of my commenters, Chas Newkey-Burden, has recently written an article for the British newspaper Totally Jewish:

As a vocal, non-Jewish supporter of Israel I've heard some strange remarks in my time.

One of the most memorable came from a former work colleague - also a gentile - who, during a heated water-cooler debate we were having about the Jewish state, gave me a knowing stare and told me: "You should know better, Chas." I asked him to elaborate and he explained that he meant that as a gentile, I shouldn't be "in any way" pro-Israel.

I found this most peculiar, but he isn't alone in thinking this way. I've become only too accustomed to that look: the one that other gentiles give me when they discover I support Israel. It's a probing study of my face that says: 'But he doesn't look Jewish.' To my eternal disappointment I don't - but so what? If non-Jews should not support Israel does that mean all Jews should? If so, you want to have a word with your internal communications department because I think the ghastly Alexei Sayle might have missed out on a memo.

It's not just gentiles that are surprised by my love of Israel. I will always remember a hilarious woman I met in Jerusalem who, on discovering I was not Jewish asked me why on earth I was so in love with the Jewish state. "You don't hate us?!" she asked, exasperated. "What happened, did your Mum drop you on your head as a child or something?" She didn't, but if that's what it takes then maybe more mothers should start doing it, particularly in the light of the current situation and the challenges to come.

I'm proud to love Israel but ashamed by the hatred that spews out across this country whenever its name is mentioned. As the inevitable Operation Cast Lead proceeds, the atmosphere in Britain really does turn uglier by the day. As this newspaper has reported, anti-semitism is once again on the rise as people line up to slam not just Israel, but - increasingly - Jews in general. I hang my head in despair when I hear these bigots, but what depresses me just as much is that us British gentiles who support you have not done more to drown out the ugly voices of the anti-Israel bandwagon.

There are more British 'goys for Israel' than you might think. True, in my case I am a card-carrying philosemite, so loving the Jewish state is kind of part of my job description. But I also know numerous non-Jews who don't know their Masada from their matzoh yet will cheer Israel every step of way as it defends itself against Hamas terror. I recently started a group on Facebook called 'I'm British and I love Israel'. I am amazed by how many messages I receive via the group from gentiles saying how grateful they are to find a way to show the world that they back the Jewish state.

And why would they not back it? There countless humanitarian reasons to support the Jewish state but there is also a walloping great selfish one. It doesn't take a genius to work out that Israel is in the defensive frontline against a tyranny that wants to envelop us all. If Israel were to fall, the rest of us would not be far behind. Last week's Israel rallies in London were truly inspiring events. May our cities host many more shows of support. I just hope in the future that more and more non-Jews will attend these events and show the world that you don't need to be Jewish to support the state of Israel.

Yasher koach, Chas!

The British police are protecting some Jews

Explicit anti-semitism has ballooned throughout Britain, with 150 known attacks on identifiable Jews, Jewish organizations, and synagogues. So it is nice to know that at least certain Jews can count on protection from the police:

The Jews that hate Israel.

British Jews have been attacked for expressing support for Palestinians suffering under Israeli military strikes in Gaza. Police confirmed yesterday that they have provided protection to a number of people believed to be victims of UK-based Zionist extremists angered by expressions of solidarity with Palestinians.
Rabbi Elchenon Beck, 39, was among six rabbis expressing support for Gaza's Palestinians who were set upon by a gang of what they allege were Zionists while walking back from opposing rallies outside the Israeli Embassy on 6 January. "They were shouting and pushed someone to the floor, so we called the police," Rabbi Beck said. "All the time they are trying to intimidate us, but we get used to it."
Rabbi Aharon Cohen, a Palestinian sympathiser and member of the anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta, had his letter box destroyed by a powerful firework after attending the peace march in Manchester this month.

It is interesting that the British police can find manpower to protect this tiny subgroup who probably exaggerated a couple of incidences of people yelling at them, yet ignore Jews who are listed on a "hit list" on Muslim websites.

The torrent of lies from Gaza

The Arab fabrications and spinning is now in overdrive, as the terrorist-associated media has article after article each with more ridiculous claims than the one before.

Paltoday describes scenes of dead women and children, of course killed with "phosphorus bombs," being eaten by dogs in the streets of Gaza camps. Many terror-supporting doctors are throwing in their expertise in these claims, such as one who said that "white phosphorus kills brain cells" which explains why otherwise lightly injured children are dying.

Another "eyewitness" describes how the IDF poured gasoline on his body and threatened to light him up. Of course, he miraculously escaped. And then we have the story of hundreds of houses in a single town destroyed by phosphorus bombs!

But the lies are not only about how Gazans are hurting but also about how much damage Hamas supposedly inflicted on Israel. Hamas claims that they killed 80 Israeli soldiers ("49 that they confirmed first-hand,") which is twice the number of "martyrs" they admit to have lost. In addition, they are repeating an embellishing their accusation about abducting Israeli soldiers, now saying that they held a soldier for two days in a house before Israel bombed it and killed the soldier, whose name they still cannot seem to have discovered.

Fatah, which was almost silent recently, is also now claiming to have shot 85 projectiles during the three weeks, as well as sniper and other attacks against the IDF, apparently to establish that they are just as macho as Hamas is.

Expect these lies to start finding their way into anti-semitic websites within a couple of days.

I must be much dumber than Olmert

When Ehud Olmert says that Israel was going to have a unilateral cease fire because "all of its objectives have been met," I must admit that I am mystified.

If I was Israel's leader, I would have thought that the major objective was to stop rocket fire so residents of Sderot could live without fear. It would not have occurred to me that the increase of the rocket radius to cover nearly a million Israelis would be one of the objectives of the operation.

If I was Israel's leader, I would have thought that getting Gilad Shalit back would be one of the objectives of such an operation. It would not have crossed my mind that he would be ignored - "unilaterally."

If I was Israel's leader, I would have thought that one of the lessons of Lebanon's war was to ignore world opinion and press on when you have the advantage, not to stop at a time that the enemy could call it a victory for themselves. I never would have thought that a good end-game would be one where Hamas is poised to regain all it has lost in a short period of time; where it still has the capacity to violently suppress Fatah (as PalPress is reporting) and where it has solidified itself as the de facto leader of Gaza that the world now gives more legitimacy to.

If I was Israel's leader, I would have thought that one major point of the operation was to restore Israel's psychological deterrence, and that Hamas firing of rockets in the immediate hours after the "cease fire" was proof positive that this did not happen as of yet.

If I was Israel's leader, I would have thought that one goal of the operation was to show the world that Israel will not rely on third-parties for its security and will step in when necessary. I would never have thought that a piece of paper could stop tunnel digging and weapons smuggling, when we know from bitter experience that even Israel had a hard time keeping the tunnels from being dug when it still controlled the Philadelphi corridor.

In my ignorance, I am not aware of a single objective that has been met.

I guess that's why it is lucky that Israel still has a prime minister who is so wise that he can understand things that are way beyond my limited mental abilities.

Open thread, flight delay edition

I will be traveling today and there will inevitably be some flight delays, so while I am out of touch, feel free to add interesting links and discussions...

Meanwhile, for the link starved, this should hold you over for a few hours:

Soccer Dad's Shiny Happy Dhimmi #9
Haveil Havalim #201 has many good links on Gaza
Jack's twice-daily roundup

Why diplomats don't get it

The Israeli government, for the usual inscrutable reasons, declared a "unilateral" cease fire at 2 AM Israel time today.

This move was met with praise from the people who have been upset at Israel for the Gaza operation. The UN's Ban Ki-Moon said he was "relieved," the EU welcomed the announcement as did Condoleeza Rice.

It was not hard to predict what would happen next: Hamas and its associated terror groups ignored this confidence-building beginning of a "cycle of peace," and so far today 10 rockets have been fired from Gaza along with mortars.

So far, Israel has held its fire, with a couple of minor exceptions.

Will these "relieved" people now start to condemn Hamas for firing rockets? Or will they start pressuring Israel to withdraw from Gaza and go back to the good ol' days of being a sitting duck for Qassams?

The fact is that even those who "understand" Israel's right to defend itself cannot wrap their heads around the simple fact that civilian casualties cannot be avoided, especially when Hamas has made civilian casualties a centerpiece of its fighting strategy. They believe, whether they say it explicitly or not, that it is better for Israel to passively take Qassam rockets forever than for it to respond in an effective way.

And the last thing that they can possibly accept is that if Israel hadn't waited so long to respond there would have been fewer casualties. Likewise, the longer Israel waits to completely dismantle Hamas - which is inevitable - the worse it will be for Gazan civilians next time.

An entire generation of diplomats have grown up with the thought that military solutions can be postponed forever, or at least until they are out of office and it is someone else's problem. They have not grasped a fundamental truth - that delayed solutions are always much more expensive than timely ones.

Hamas cannot and will not moderate. No amount of wishful thinking and doublespeak can change that fact. Since its stated goal is the destruction of Israel, that means that there can only be two possible solutions: Hamas' destruction or Israel's.

Every time that an official from Kadima, the EU, US State Department or the UN says they want to avoid or cut short this war, they are really saying that they do not understand this basic truth. The longer it is avoided, the worse it will be - for everybody. Hamas will import bigger rockets with longer range; Iran will learn lessons from this operation and improve Hamas' fighting capabilities next time, and perhaps their own army will have effectively annexed Gaza if the world convinces Israel to "open its borders."

None of the people who are upset over the hundreds of civilian deaths have any plan, outside military, to avoid the inevitable "next time." And next time, there won't be only a thousand dead Gazans.

The only way to peace is to allow the IDF to destroy Hamas and its allies completely and thoroughly. Hamstringing Israel is the surest way to ensure many more deaths in the coming years. The very existence of these groups is the real threat to peace, and no amount of diplomacy can erase their implacable hate and obstinacy.

Even smart people have blind spots, and unless these diplomats are enlightened, they are partly responsible for the bloodbath that will inevitably follow their diplomatic "success."

Iran not exactly welcoming Obama

The Iranian FARS news agency publishes some photos of Iranians throwing shoes at pictures of Barack Obama (here reproduced from an Iranian message board):