Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Valentine's Day: A tale of two cultures

A couple of days ago, an Egyptian Islamic cleric went on a bizarre, wild rant against Valentine's Day.

In a few days time, a very dangerous virus will attack the body of the nation. What virus? Is it AIDS? No, something more dangerous. Something more dangerous than Ebola, which dissolves the human body, more dangerous than cholera, which killed half of Europe a few centuries ago. I am talking about the Valentine virus, people. I have come tonight to warn all boys and girls about an extremely dangerous virus, which is about to attack the hearts of the nation’s youth, and to destroy our relations with God. We must confront this Valentine virus?

Extremism is not solely the province of Muslims. At about the same time as this broadcast, an extremist Hindu group was also freaking out over Valentine's Day, threatening violence:

Militants belonging to a group called Sri Ram Sena, who claim to be custodians of Indian culture, said Valentine's Day is un-Indian.

The threat comes days after the group's activists stormed a bar in the south western city of Mangalore, dragging out and beating women they accused of acting obscenely and "going astray".

The attack led to fears an extremist "Hindu Taliban" was on the rise in India.

Gangadhar Kulkarni, an activist in the group, which is a radical wing of the Hindu nationalist movement, said: "If people celebrate the day despite our warning, then we will definitely attack them."

"Valentine's Day is definitely not Indian culture. We will not allow celebration of that day in any form," added Pramod Mutalik, the group's founder.

We have seen how the Muslim world generally responds to fatwas from crazed Islamic lunatics - they cower. They might have no respect for the imam of the day, but they will not confront him, for fear of losing their honor or their lives.

Luckily, Hindu women have different ideas:

Threats of violence from a group of right-wing Hindus have not deterred some Indian women from celebrating Valentine’s Day.

Nisha Susan, a 29-year-old female journalist from Karnatka, India, started a Facebook group last Saturday called the Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women in reaction to Sri Rama Sena’s vowed crackdown on Valentine’s Day. The group has garnered support across the country and around the world, and has even spawned an underwear-based protest to let the hardliners know what its members think of the anti-Valentine’s Day decrees.

The SRS has said that it plans to force unmarried couples seen in public to either marry or put on “rakhis”—string bracelets that signal that a male-female duo are siblings.

So in reaction, the Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women urges its followers to join them “on February 14, Valentine’s Day, the day in which Indian women’s virginity and honour will self-destruct unless they marry or tie a rakhi,” as the group’s sarcastic tagline reads. “Walk to the nearest pub and buy a drink. Raise a toast to the Sri Ram Sena.”

As of 11:00 am EST, the Facebook group had almost 30,000 members. Rallying support from around the world, the group has since launched another protest that some would call even more “cheeky.”

The Pink Chaddi Campaign, urges all its supporters to mail pink underwear to Pramod Muthalik, the leader of the SRS. Chaddi is the Hindi nickname for underwear.

Indian Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury has also come out in support of the protest.

If Muslim reformers could think as creatively as these Indian women, the extremist clerics would transform from objects of fear into laughingstocks.

Poor, motorcycle-deprived Gazans

Egypt just raided a farm used for smuggling in Rafah. From Al Quds:

A security official said Egyptian police on Thursday raided a farm near the Egyptian border with Gaza that used for dissassembling items as perparation for smuggling into the Gaza Strip. The official said that among the contraband were refrigerators and mobile phones, canned food and even motorcycles that were loaded in more than a hundred trucks and placed in a warehouse for storage. He said that these articles "have been prepared for the Gaza Strip."

The official in charge of the raid which took place Wednesday said, "It seems that the farm is a distribution point," adding that some of the goods carried posters with the names of wholesalers in Gaza.

Egypt is under pressure from Israel to stop smuggling across the Egyptian border with Gaza. Israel says the smugglers were using the network of tunnels linking the Gaza Strip and Egypt to smuggle weapons.

Last Wednesday, Egyptian police seized 30 trucks loaded with goods smuggled into the Gaza Strip and arrested the driver, a security official said. The smugglers of Gaza, the Egyptian authorities started to slow down their trade.

The poor, motorcycle-deprived Gazans!

It looks like the bribes that have lubricated the smugglers in Egypt are not quite as effective as they used to be.

The entire text of "Seven Jewish Children - A Play for Gaza"

As I posted earlier, Seven Jewish Children is a short play by Caryl Churchill that was written as an effectively anti-semitic "response" to Israel's Operation Cast Lead.

Churchill is freely licensing the play, under these conditions:

The play can be read or performed anywhere, by any number
of people. Anyone who wishes to do it should contact the
author’s agent (details below), who will license performances
free of charge provided that no admission fee is charged and
that a collection is taken at each performance for Medical Aid
for Palestinians (MAP)

The play shows a truly despicable Jew-hatred. Its underlying theme is that Jews who feel an attachment to Israel are inveterate liars who consciously feed their children myths, and these children can grow up and lie to their own children, all the while knowing that they are the evil ones and Palestinian Arabs are righteous.

For most of the play, increasingly so as it goes on, nearly all the "Tell her..." lines are what the playwright considers lies and the "Don't tell her...." lines are what she considers the truth. The climax of this sick thinking comes at the penultimate line, "Tell her we love her" - Churchill believes that Jews who live in Israel cannot possibly love their children.

Of course, no modern liberal anti-semitic play can be complete without comparing Gaza with the Holocaust, so it starts semi-sympathetically (but even then, Jews lie to their children) and goes on to the inevitable and grotesque ideas that Jews today revel in the deaths of innocents, just like the Nazis who they must have learned this from.

No children appear in the play. The speakers are adults, the parents and if you
like other relations of the children. The lines can be shared out in any way you
like among those characters. The characters are different in each small scene as
the time and child are different. They may be played by any number of actors.
1
Tell her it’s a game
Tell her it’s serious
But don’t frighten her
Don’t tell her they’ll kill her
Tell her it’s important to be quiet
Tell her she’ll have cake if she’s good
Tell her to curl up as if she’s in bed
But not to sing.
Tell her not to come out
Tell her not to come out even if she hears shouting
Don’t frighten her
Tell her not to come out even if she hears nothing for a long time
Tell her we’ll come and find her
Tell her we’ll be here all the time.
Tell her something about the men
Tell her they’re bad in the game
Tell her it’s a story
Tell her they’ll go away
Tell her she can make them go away if she keeps still
By magic
But not to sing.
2
Tell her this is a photograph of her grandmother, her uncles and me
Tell her her uncles died
Don’t tell her they were killed
Tell her they were killed
Don’t frighten her.
Tell her her grandmother was clever
Don’t tell her what they did
Tell her she was brave
Tell her she taught me how to make cakes
Don’t tell her what they did
Tell her something
Tell her more when she’s older.
Tell her there were people who hated Jews
Don’t tell her
Tell her it’s over now
Tell her there are still people who hate Jews
Tell her there are people who love Jews
Don’t tell her to think Jews or not Jews
Tell her more when she’s older
Tell her how many when she’s older
Tell her it was before she was born and she’s not in danger
Don’t tell her there’s any question of danger.
Tell her we love her
Tell her dead or alive her family all love her
Tell her her grandmother would be proud of her.
3
Don’t tell her we’re going for ever
Tell her she can write to her friends, tell her her friends can maybe
come and visit
Tell her it’s sunny there
Tell her we’re going home
Tell her it’s the land God gave us
Don’t tell her religion
Tell her her great great great great lots of greats grandad lived there
Don’t tell her he was driven out
Tell her, of course tell her, tell her everyone was driven out and
the country is waiting for us to come home
Don’t tell her she doesn’t belong here
Tell her of course she likes it here but she’ll like it there even more.
Tell her it’s an adventure
Tell her no one will tease her
Tell her she’ll have new friends
Tell her she can take her toys
Don’t tell her she can take all her toys
Tell her she’s a special girl
Tell her about Jerusalem.
4
Don’t tell her who they are
Tell her something
Tell her they’re Bedouin, they travel about
Tell her about camels in the desert and dates
Tell her they live in tents
Tell her this wasn’t their home
Don’t tell her home, not home, tell her they’re going away
Don’t tell her they don’t like her
Tell her to be careful.
Don’t tell her who used to live in this house
No but don’t tell her her great great grandfather used to live in
this house
No but don’t tell her Arabs used to sleep in her bedroom.
Tell her not to be rude to them
Tell her not to be frightened
Don’t tell her she can’t play with the children
Don’t tell her she can have them in the house.
Tell her they have plenty of friends and family
Tell her for miles and miles all round they have lands of their own
Tell her again this is our promised land.
Don’t tell her they said it was a land without people
Don’t tell her I wouldn’t have come if I’d known.
Tell her maybe we can share.
Don’t tell her that.
5
Tell her we won
Tell her her brother’s a hero
Tell her how big their armies are
Tell her we turned them back
Tell her we’re fighters
Tell her we’ve got new land.
6
Don’t tell her
Don’t tell her the trouble about the swimming pool
Tell her it’s our water, we have the right
Tell her it’s not the water for their fields
Don’t tell her anything about water.
Don’t tell her about the bulldozer
Don’t tell her not to look at the bulldozer
Don’t tell her it was knocking the house down
Tell her it’s a building site
Don’t tell her anything about bulldozers.
Don’t tell her about the queues at the checkpoint
Tell her we’ll be there in no time
Don’t tell her anything she doesn’t ask
Don’t tell her the boy was shot
Don’t tell her anything.
Tell her we’re making new farms in the desert
Don’t tell her about the olive trees
Tell her we’re building new towns in the wilderness.
Don’t tell her they throw stones
Tell her they’re not much good against tanks
Don’t tell her that.
Don’t tell her they set off bombs in cafés
Tell her, tell her they set off bombs in cafés
Tell her to be careful
Don’t frighten her.
Tell her we need the wall to keep us safe
Tell her they want to drive us into the sea
Tell her they don’t
Tell her they want to drive us into the sea.
Tell her we kill far more of them
Don’t tell her that
Tell her that
Tell her we’re stronger
Tell her we’re entitled
Tell her they don’t understand anything except violence
Tell her we want peace
Tell her we’re going swimming.
7
Tell her she can’t watch the news
Tell her she can watch cartoons
Tell her she can stay up late and watch Friends.
Tell her they’re attacking with rockets
Don’t frighten her
Tell her only a few of us have been killed
Tell her the army has come to our defence
Don’t tell her her cousin refused to serve in the army.
Don’t tell her how many of them have been killed
Tell her the Hamas fighters have been killed
Tell her they’re terrorists
Tell her they’re filth
Don’t
Don’t tell her about the family of dead girls
Tell her you can’t believe what you see on television
Tell her we killed the babies by mistake
Don’t tell her anything about the army
Tell her, tell her about the army, tell her to be proud of the army.
Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her their names why
not, tell her the whole world knows why shouldn’t she know? tell
her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? tell her she’s got
nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell
her they want their children killed to make people sorry for them,
tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her not to be sorry for them,
tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk
suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog
of war, tell her we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I
laughed when I saw the dead policemen, tell her they’re animals
living in rubble now, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out,
the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if
the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re
chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in
blood and what do I feel? tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.
Don’t tell her that.
Tell her we love her.
Don’t frighten her.

Rockets and bombs towards Zionists - in Sweden

Must read and view.

James Bennet and Nizar Rayyan: Timing is everything

James Bennet, former NYT correspondent in Israel who has a fairly pro-Palestinian Arab bias, writes for The Atlantic:

Once, as the second intifada was nearing its height, I met with a Hamas man in a Gaza City hotel to talk about suicidal killing. He had written his master’s thesis on martyrdom, before turning to the future of Islam for his doctorate, and he brought his Toshiba laptop along to call up verses from the Koran to bolster his end of the conversation. He had unusual, chilling credibility on the subject: unlike other Hamas leaders, he had actually sent one of his own children to his death, in an attack on an Israeli settlement. He was a mountain of a man, with a sly sense of humor, and I always suspected he was one of Hamas’s deadlier manipulators of the young.
When I mentioned that my wife had come with me to Gaza, where I was reporting for The New York Times, he insisted I call her down from our room. She was then almost eight months pregnant with our first child. To demonstrate how cosmopolitan he was, he made a point of shaking her hand, though in theory, Islam prohibits a man from touching a woman to whom he isn’t related.

I kept thinking of this surreal encounter—my very pregnant wife, the courtly Hamas leader, the talk of deadly, suicidal children—when news came in January that Israel had killed the Hamas man, Nizar Rayyan, by dropping a bomb on his house in the Jabaliya refugee camp. With an intrepid Times colleague, Taghreed El-Khodary, I had met with him a few times in that house. Though we would ask about religion, he used to insist that he believed in fighting Israel purely for reasons to do with this world, not the next. His family had become refugees in the Israeli-Arab war of 1948, and though he had never lived there himself, he wanted to reclaim his ancestral home in what is now Ashkelon, in Israel.

... To him, suicide bombings were valuable, not just because they could kill Israelis but because they confounded the unbelieving world, signaling “that we no longer love this life.”

“It’s normal that a human being will be scared of something mysterious,” he said.

That day at the hotel, he wore a dark-green suit, white shirt, and blue-and-gold tie held in place by a silver clip. We drank juice, I think—he had an affectation of delicately sticking out one pinkie when he held a glass in his big hand—as he patiently tried to explain the Koranic basis for suicide killing. “I’m worried you don’t understand,” he said.

Rayyan said that he missed the son who had died attacking the settlement (he was 16), but that he planned to push another son to conduct an attack of his own. “It’s our home,” he said. “It’s more dear to me than my kids.” He was then looking to add a fourth wife—“I love women,” he told me with a smile—with a goal of eventually having 50 children. His bigoted worldview, and his rich historical imagination, gave him a kind of serenity. “When Muslims ruled the world, we treated everyone as we treat ourselves,” he said. To him, Israel was a hammer the Americans used to fragment Muslim society. Matter-of-factly, he told me once that the Palestinians might have to sacrifice half the rising generation to drive the Israelis out and rule all Palestine again.

He wound up sacrificing most of his own family. His four wives and nine of his children died in the January bombing, buried in the rubble of the house he insisted wasn’t their real home. Several of his neighbors died, too. Outside of a prison, you are unlikely ever to meet someone more trapped than a Gazan refugee—by leaders like Rayyan, by Israel, by a fatal obsession with the past.

Notice how Bennet has to throw in a dig at Israel even though it's actions have nothing to do with the article.

And while the article is a pretty good description of the pathology behind Hamas terror, there is one thing that bothers me.

As far as I can tell, Bennet never published anything about Nizar Rayyan before now, a month after he was killed.

One would think that any reporter would find such a subject to be irresistible - a charismatic Hamas leader who is anxious to share his thoughts about martyrdom, justified by the Koran, and who wants to send his own kids and half of his people to their deaths.

This would have been far more newsworthy at the time of the interviews, not now.

But I suspect that Bennet had an agenda. He wanted to see Hamas soften its positions and meet with Israel halfway. Printing such an interview would have been counterproductive to the moribund "peace process" that people like Bennet worship.

It is easy to publish an article now about Rayyan, exposing his twisted thought process, weeks after he is no longer relevant. One can pretend that he was an anomaly in Hamas, and that other "militants" are more pragmatic.

Printing the details of this man's thoughts beforehand just wouldn't have jived with the Peace Process agenda. And publishing it immediately after Rayyan was killed, while Israel was still fighting, would have looked too much like it was justifying Israel's Gaza operation.

Writing the article now, though, makes Bennet look wise, worldly and knowledgable.

How many other Rayyans are in Gaza now that Bennet and other reporters aren't writing about?

PalArab press roundup 2-12-09

Smugglers in Rafah are having a significantly harder time, as Egyptian security forces seem to have increased their patrols a great deal and are confiscating goods and shutting down tunnels.

Israel started issuing the first of two thousand "VIP cards" to senior Palestinian Arab security officials to ease their travel through the West Bank.

For the first time in three years, Israel will allow the export of carnations from Gaza to Europe for Valentine's Day. This was at the request of the Dutch government.

An Israeli soldier was jailed for shooting into the air while out of uniform close to some Palestinian Arabs near Kiryat Arba last November. B'Tselem had videotaped the incident. (In Gaza, when someone shoots into the air it is called a "wedding.")

The PalArab media is warning about attempts of Jews in Kfar Saba to take over an (apparently abandoned) mosque and convert it into a synagogue. I cannot find any story on this in the Israeli press so I don't know if this originally was a synagogue. The name translates to "Chapel of Simeon/Shimon" and has a suspiciously similar Arabic name, "Sa'aman." Right now, Jews are apparently placing pictures and Hebrew signs on the structure and the Arabs are removing them.

I'm in Indymedia!

Indymedia describes itself as "a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth." It is generally dominated by the far left, sometimes to the point of explicit anti-semitism.

In theory at least, anyone can write for Indymedia. However, in fact, some Indymedia sites will practice heavy-handed censorship of viewpoints that don't fit their agendas.

So I am surprised to see that articles I have written made it to two separate Indymedia sites!

The Cleveland Indymedia Center published my posting about how the world ignores Egypt closing the border with Gaza while it vilifies Israel for limiting goods that go there. This point actually fits pretty well with a pure liberal viewpoint, but it still surprised me that it was allowed to be published.

And the Rochester Indymedia site published my report about the Rochester pro-Hamas student protest that wasn't quite as civilly disobedient as they pretended.

This fits in well with what I suggested on Sunday to spread my articles to various social networking and "citizen journalism" sites which are so often dominated by Israel bashers.

I don't know who posted these articles at the Indymedia sites, but thanks!

Just Like Us! (video) (updated)

Just a typical street scene as you would expect to see in any city in the world. People passing by, talking, and watching the local masked policemen breaking someone's knees.

Because Gazans are just like us!

UPDATE: YouTube has taken this down, and I am suspended from the service for two weeks. Someone else put up a copy, I am linking to it while I try to get LiveLeak working, but it might have to wait until tonight.

The original YouTube video that I got this from is still up and can be seen here. But without my captions.

Someone also made a copy here.

"Secret meeting" in Gaza to consolidate terrorist groups

From IslamOnline.net (Arabic only; they try to look moderate in English):

Abu Mujahid, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, spoke about an initiative of the leaders of the military wings of the Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip towards the formation of a united resistance front wing on the ground as one of the lessons learned from the recent Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian sources reported that a secret meeting of the leaders of the military wings of the resistance factions was held on Monday night at an undisclosed location in Gaza.

The spokesperson of the PRC, in an exclusive statement to IslamOnline.net, said that "the idea of forming a united front occurred during the calm, and was the idea of Dr. Mahmoud Zahar - senior leader of Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) - where he discussed it with Dr. Mohammed al-Hindi - an official of Islamic Jihad in Gaza - and Abu Awad Neirab - Secretary-General of the Popular Resistance Committees. "

Even though that initiative was never completed during the six month calm that ended last December, Abu Mujahid said the "coordination in the field during the aggression on Gaza has been excellent, which showed that the resistance in an honorable way to the world strengthens the trend towards the formation of a united front of a greater and more painful resistance in the face of the Zionist enemy."

He added, "We have conducted our investigations since the first day of the Zionist declaration of the cease-fire (18-1-2009), and we have begun research and refinement in the methods of the occupation, and assessment of failures in some things, and we have statements of combatants in the field that shows us the strengths and weaknesses of resistance, and we have put in place mechanisms to overcome these failures and training programs to overcome the weaknesses, and we will not go into details. "

"What happened are the ideas .. We have come a long way in this, but the consolidation of the arms of the resistance in a unified structure could be the future .. and while there is considerable collaboration between the basic wing military, there is a need for unity, both at the field level or the political situation. "

There is nothing tremendously new here, but it proves again that those who try to absolve Hamas for rockets fired by other terror groups have no idea what they are talking about - all the Gaza terror groups, with the possible exception of the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, are in full cooperation.

Hamas not happy with Amnesty International

Amnesty International yesterday came out with a brief document about Hamas' campaign against "collaborators" in Gaza during December and January (and also a somewhat more detailed document.)

Since the end of December 2008, during and after the three-week Israeli military offensive which killed some 1,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, Hamas forces and militias in the Gaza Strip have carried out a deadly campaign of abductions, deliberate and unlawful killings, torture and death threats against those they accuse of “collaborating” with Israel, as well as opponents and critics, Amnesty International revealed in a new document today.
At least two dozen men have been shot dead by Hamas gunmen and scores of others have been shot in the legs, kneecapped or inflicted with other injuries intended to cause permanent disability, subjected to severe beatings which have caused multiple fractures and other injuries, or otherwise tortured or ill-treated.

Most were abducted from their homes and later dumped – dead or injured – in isolated areas, or found in the morgue of one of Gaza’s hospitals. Some were shot dead in hospitals where they were receiving treatment for injuries.

An Amnesty International fact-finding team which visited Gaza during and after the Israeli offensive recorded testimonies from a number of victims, as well as medical sources and eyewitnesses who were able to corroborate their stories. Scores of others are too afraid to speak publicly for fear of retribution by Hamas forces and militias.

Amnesty International is calling on the Hamas de-facto administration to immediately end the campaign of abuses and to agree to the establishment of an independent, impartial and non-partisan national commission of experts to investigate them.

The more detailed report concludes:

There is incontrovertible evidence that Hamas security forces and armed militias have been responsible for grave human rights abuses and that the victims of such abuses and many others are being intimidated and discouraged from testifying about their ordeal. The Hamas de-facto administration has displayed a flagrant disregard for the most fundamental human rights norms, not only allowing such abuses to be perpetrated, but actually facilitating and encouraging the abuses by justifying them and by granting absolute impunity to the perpetrators.

Hamas isn't happy. Al Quds reports:

Hamas on Wednesday criticized an Amnesty International report, which accuses the group of waging a campaign against Fatah militants,as "unfair."
A spokesman for Hamas, Fawzi Barhoum, said in a press statement that "the Amnesty International report, accusing the Hamas movement of abuses in Gaza, is unfair." He said the organization's position is based on "imaginary stories fabricated by the well [?] and to hear some of the accusers of Hamas without hearing the other side's point of view is incompatible with the basic foundations professionalism and impartiality." Barhoum said, "This report directly affects the reputation of the Hamas movement and detracts from attention to the massacres and war crimes committed against our people."

It's funny that Hamas is worried about its reputation. Throwing people off of buildings is OK, but publicizing it just looks bad.

It should be noted that while Amnesty has no shortage of similar documents accusing Israel of various abuses, in the context of the Gaza operation this has been the only negative thing I could find that they have mentioned about Hamas.

In other words, nothing about Qassam rockets, nothing about Hamas terrorists attacking while dressed as civilians, nothing about Hamas hijacking ambulances to transport terrorists, or shooting from mosques and schools, or stockpiling weapons in public institutions, or recruiting minors as fighters. All things for which there is far more evidence - photographic, video, Hamas admissions and eyewitness testimony - than for what they accuse Israel of.

It is interesting that Amnesty cannot find as of yet anything bad that Hamas did against Israel, but only what they did to "collaborators."

But Amnesty will take this criticism by Hamas as proof that it is being "even-handed."

Nah, no media bias here

The Vicious Babushka noticed an interesting headline at This Is London, since changed:

Commenter jhrhv writes:

Esti Ginzburg, 18, is a native of Tel Aviv, Israel this years SI swimsuit cover girl.

Since this would be a major news story that I am duty-bound to cover, I checked it out thoroughly, and, unfortunately, he is wrong.

Ginzburg, pictured here with what must be her Shabbos candles, is indeed featured in the annual SI issue that has been banned in yeshivas and madrassas alike, but she is not the cover model.

That honor goes to Bar Refaeli, who is also of course an Israeli. As the New York Post puts it, she gives new meaning to Mideast "piece."

Their puns don't end there, as they also headline their article "Land of Milk & What a Honey!" along with titling a picture of her "Tasty Kosher."

This does not mean that Palestinian Arab women are not newsworthy as well. Nadya Suleman, the celebrated unmarried mother of octuplets, is of Palestinian Arab descent.

Even more election statistics

This site shows how every community in Israel voted. It was made by the same people that did the Ha'aretz election app (and looks like it is on the Ha'aretz Hebrew site as well) but is far more comprehensive. It is in Hebrew only. Here it is, but click on the link to see it larger and more readable.(h/t Shiloh Musings)

PalArab media roundup 2-11-09

A deranged man in the West Bank savagely beat his three daughters and wife. His 15-year old and 3-year old daughters were killed, a third is critically injured.

Last month, a 13-year old Syrian boy, worried about his parents finding out his grades were low, killed them and three other members of his family.

The “Imad Mughniyya Brigades" have taken credit for a shooting attack on an Israeli car in the West Bank near Beit El last night. No one was hurt.

The Arab world (as well as the far-left) have decided that the word "fascist" is the best term to describe Avigdor Lieberman. One wonders why "moderate" Arabs who espouse a Judenrein Palestine are never given the same appellation.

Meanwhile, Hamas describes the three major winners in the elections as "terrorists" and accuses Lieberman specifically of planning to dynamite an Egyptian dam in order to drown the Palestinian Arabs. The dam in Egypt is very far from Gaza, but perhaps Hamas members didn't learn geography in the UNRWA schools they attended.

Ma'an publishes a nonsensical op-ed saying that Palestinian Arabs hate democracy because of how the Israeli elections went.

Firas Press' regular publishing of pictures of cute Palestinian Arab kids continues with this smiling future jihadi.

The millions of dollars that Hamas was caught trying to smuggle into Gaza has been deposited in an Egyptian bank in Hamas' name, but it cannot be withdrawn without Egyptian approval.

Jordanian "human rights" organizations started an initiative to bring Israel before a world court for prosecution for war crimes.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 25.

Muslims riot over Quran ski equipment

Yes, really.

From the Daily Rising Kashmir:

Srinagar, Feb 08: The protests over the inscription of Quranic verses on the skiing gear of a Swedish national reached the city on Sunday with clashes between police and the protesters taking place at several places.

In Nowhatta, Maisuma, Zaldagar and Nawabazar localities of the city, scores of angry youth pelted stones at police.

The controversy started on Saturday when some employees of Gulmarg Cable Car Corporation noticed Quranic verses inscribed on the skiing gear of N Patrick.

The people caught hold of the foreigner and handed him over to police. They demanded stern action against the skier.

Shouting anti-America, anti-Israel and anti-Sweden slogans, the protesters in Srinagar termed it as a deliberate attempt on part of the European tourist.

"Entire Europe and Israel is against Muslims. You can see what Israel is doing in Gaza and Lebanon so such things are very much expected from a Sweden tourist. They should be banned from visiting Kashmir," said a protester in Maisuma Chowk.

In the clashes on Sunday at least five persons received minor injuries. Police resorted to use of teargas shells and cane charging to contain the protests.

Meanwhile, police has shifted the Swedish national from Gulmarg to Srinagar for investigation. Two tourist guides have also been arrested by police for questioning.

Meanwhile, Kashmir's Grand Mufti, Mufti Bashir-ud-din said that the foreign skier met him and sought apology for his act.

"The skier said that he was not aware about the sensitivity of the matter and maintained that it was his Muslim wife who had suggested him to use such Quranic verses on the skiing gears. He has sought public apology for his act," Bashir-ud-din said.

The Grand Mufti has appealed the government to issue instructions to all foreign tourists about such matters at the time of their arrival in Kashmir.

In Gulmarg on Sunday shopkeepers, hoteliers, horsemen and sledge drivers observed complete shutdown.

Shouting anti-America, anti-Sweden and anti-Israel slogans, the protesters blocked Gulmarg-Srinagar road.

Tangmarg also witnessed protests over the issue as people blocked the road and did not allow vehicles to proceed towards Gulmarg.

Meanwhile, some people here maintain that it is a tradition in many Islamic countries to take things inscribed with Holy verses along during a journey for warding off evil and danger.

Something new to add to the ever-growing List of Things that Offend Muslims.

UN allows anti-semitism, not anti-Zionism (satire)

A satirical article from The Spoof (UK):

After many months of debate the UN has finally announced that it is acceptable to be openly anti-Semitic, but at the cost of being openly anti-Zionist.

A poll showed the majority of voters were in favour of sacrificing the ability to insult Israel for the sake of being to say what they really feel with regards to Jews.

"It was really tiring venting all my Jew-hate on Israel" one voter said. "Always having to say some sh** about Israel putting 10 million Palestinians in phosphorous chambers and causing a holocaust."

The ruling means that it is permissible, upon seeing a Jew, to shout insults such as "big nose", "greedy f***er", and in some cases violence may also be acceptable, for example when the nose is extra large or the Jew is dressed very religiously.

However none of that applies to Israeli Jews, and the UN has warned of harsh consequences for those who say anything negative and untruthful about Israel, such as that Israel made up that it is fighting terrorists, Israelis are ugly, or that Israelis didn't invent falafel and hummus.

A UN spokesman said "for too long people have been holding the urge to express their disgust at the Jews' ugly conks and the fact that they're the ones who caused the recession, and that they control the media. We feel this is a positive move in giving people the freedom to express themselves in a healthy, honest way instead of always hiding behind the 'I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm anti-Zionist' defence."

Haaretz' election map

For those who like to slice and dice numbers while the Israeli election returns come in, Ha'aretz' graph is lots of fun.

Open election thread plus some innumerancy

Can't find anything good to post, so I will fall back on the old Open Thread trick.

One pet peeve: At the moment, 60% of Israel's eligible voters have voted, versus 57% at this same point last elections. This does not mean, as all the Israeli papers are saying, that "voter turnout is 3% higher than in 2006," it might be 3 percentage points higher but voter turnout is (in this example) 5.2% higher (since 60 is 5.2% higher than 57.)

Just remember - conventional wisdom is usually wrong

From Time magazine, May 30, 1977:

TRIUMPH OF A SUPERHAWK

In a stunning upset victory, Begin's Likud (Unity) coalition last week became the dominant bloc in Israel's parliament, replacing a shattered, scandal-ridden Labor alignment that had governed the Jewish state since its founding in 1948. Likud's superhawkish campaign slogan had been "Israeli sovereignty between the Mediterranean and the Jordan," meaning no surrender of biblical land that Israel has occupied since the heady triumphs of the Six-Day War in 1967.

Begin's unexpected rise to power not only changed the internal politics of Israel but suddenly raised serious questions about hopes for any new moves toward a peace settlement in the Middle East....""The platform of the Likud does not permit the necessary opening for negotiations," said Peres. "The Likud offers no alternative for peace."

The Carter Administration's "worst case" scenario is that a Begin government would mean not just a postponement of Geneva but a substantially escalated possibility of renewed war in the Middle East. If Washington is unable to exert pressure on the new Israeli government for a settlement, one Syrian official said, "any kind of peace conference would be quite useless. The only other way would appear to be to resort to military action."

Pondering a host of seemingly unpromising policy alternatives last week, some U.S. diplomats raised the prospect of an ominous Middle East chain of events: 1) a Begin government would announce the annexation to Israel of occupied territory, thereby triggering an Arab mobilization, or 2) the Arabs would desperately mount a pre-emptive strike to prevent Begin from carrying out annexation.

Although another Middle East war is far from inevitable, it cannot be ruled out if Begin sticks to his uncompromising stance on negotiations (particularly over the future of the West Bank and Gaza) and if the Arabs give up hope that the U.S. can maneuver the next Israeli government into meaningful concessions.

Anew war, in this most dangerous of the world's potential trouble spots, would be far more deadly than all the previous ones combined. About 2,600 Israelis were killed in the three-week October War of 1973. Next time around, according to Washington military estimates, Israel would lose 8,000 and suffer about 24,000 wounded in a war of the same duration; the Arab loss could be 40,000 killed.

Before that can be achieved, all parties need to know how much negotiation can and will be done by a seemingly unrepentant former underground fighter who believes deeply that Israel should not surrender any part of the Jewish people's ancient landed heritage. ''The new government is going to be composed of a group of people who are religious nationalists imbued with mysticism and a belief in force," said one Jerusalem official. "I worry as much about their theocratic tendencies at home as I do about their getting us into a war."

The biggest worry of the voters was whether or not the Likud state of mind might provoke another war with the Arabs. Said one woman, who lost a brother in the Six-Day War and her husband in the October War: "All I can see is a long line of husbands whose wives will become widows." Warned an alarmed trade-union leader: "The Likud will force us into another war. Begin relies on God, but we will have to rely on our divisions. The workers will suffer, and a new left will rise from the ruins."

Yes, Begin was considered a warmonger, an inflexible, intransigent "superhawk" who would lead Israel to disaster and force an inevitable war.

The idea that Begin would be the architect of Israel's most important and longest-lasting peace agreement would have been dismissed as absurd by every single one of the "experts" quoted in this article.

Here we have a classic example of how the media tries, and often fails, to analyze facts and predict outcomes.

Just something to keep in mind during this current Israeli election.

New anti-semitic play in London

Harry's Place covers a new ten-minute play called "Seven Jewish Children" where Jewish parents and grandparents teach their unseen charges to hate Arabs. (Melanie Philips also talks about it.)

The climax of the play is where unfeeling Jewish parents literally cheer the deaths of Gaza children:

Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her their names why not, tell her the whole world knows, why shouldn’t she know? tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? Tell her she’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell her they want their children killed to make people sorry for them, tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog of war, tell her we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead policeman, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? Tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her.

It is pointless to argue that Jews and Israelis don't feel anything like the words spoken here. It is a waste of time to explain that, Jews are not happy to see dead Palestinian Arab civilians. And it is beyond the comprehension of the playwright to mention that the only population that unabashedly and joyously celebrates the deaths of innocents are the Arabs that the author of the play is so sympathetic to.

But it is important to point out that the playwright, who pretends to be a liberal, is displaying the worst kind of bigotry possible.

Israellycool livechatting the elections

With Professor Barry Rubin.

Much more fun than watching CNN during American elections.

Check it out!

The elections 75 years ago

Here were the preliminary results for the elections of the 18th Zionist Congress in Prague, August 1933:

These were the first Zionist elections where Labor outpolled the General Zionism list.

After this Congress the Revisionists (precursors to Likud) established their own alternative organization; they rejoined in 1946.

Guess what UNRWA blames Israel for now?

UNRWA is upset at blaming Israel for its teachers not telling their young charges that firing rockets at civilians is wrong:

[UNRWA chief John Ging] voiced particular exasperation at the ban on importing paper which UNRWA needs for printing school text books and a new curriculum on human rights, calling it shameful, appealing for common sense to prevail, and stressing that the new rights programme would instil in the young how wrong it is to fire rockets.

In the previous paragraph, Ging is quoted as saying

“We have 900,000 people queuing up for food at UNRWA, and we’re only getting through them at 30,000 a day because that’s all the food we can get in,” he added. “The plight of the people is extremely bad, as we should all know by now. We’re struggling to get in the quantities that are needed, and failing I might add.”

I cannot say for certain why Israel might think that food is a higher priority than paper, even if you don't believe the claims that somehow Gazans are only getting 3% of their food needs.

However, how absurd is it to hear, after sixty years of being the major educator of Palestinian Arab children, that UNRWA now has decided to teach that cold blooded targeting of civilians is somewhat less than ideal?

And that it is Israel that is somehow stopping this lesson from being taught?

PA threatens to scuttle "peace process"

From WAFA:

PA presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina stated that the PA "will not deal with any Israeli government that is not fully committed to the peace process."

Abu Rudeina said in a statement, on the eve of the Israeli general elections, "We will not deal with any Israeli government that were not fully committed to the peace process and the two-state solution and the roadmap and the Arab peace initiative, to stop the settlements."

Sounds like as good a reason to vote for the hawks as any.

Latest Zionist plot against "Al Aqsa"

Just about every day the PalArabic press mentions another Jewish plot against the Al Aqsa Mosque. Either the Jews are planning to build a synagogue there, or they are building a tunnel underneath, or they are installing cameras nearby, but either way they know that the goal is the same - to destroy the mosque one way or another.

Today, we have a novel method of undermining the holy site: by deliberately introducing immodestly dressed women to the area. From Palestine Today:

The "Noble Sanctuary Heritage Institution" charges that Israel is violating the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque by allowing the Jews and foreigners to enter the area with scandalous clothing.

The institution stressed that the occupation authorities deliberately introduced thousands of Jews and foreign tourists to Al Aqsa clothing does not respect the sanctity of the place, especially women.

They said that "the Israeli authorities that accompany tourist groups prevent any of the guards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Muslim faithful patrons from approaching the tourists to object to their semi-naked and provocative behavior."

Another brilliant Zionist plot against Islam!

It has been over a week since my last Open Thread, so I have been remiss in my duties to provide my readers with a spot to place their flotsam and jetsam.

(Actually, only jetsam; flotsam cannot be placed anywhere voluntarily, from what I understand.)

Anyway, here's the place to put stuff that I haven't spoken about or to add links to interesting finds on this vast World Wide Web.

Arab pride again trumps people

From the NYT (h/t EBoZ):

Scores of Palestinian patients being treated in Israeli hospitals, a rare bright spot of coexistence here, are being sent home because the Palestinian Authority has stopped paying for their treatment, partly in anger over the war in Gaza.

Hadassah Hospital says that for the past week no payments have come in and Palestinians whose children are being treated there have been instructed by Palestinian health officials to place them in facilities in the West Bank, Jordan or Egypt.

“Suddenly we have had 57 patients dropped from our rolls,” lamented Michael Weintraub, director of pediatric hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplantation at Hadassah. “We have been bombarded by frantic parents. This is a political decision taken on the backs of patients.”

The Palestinian health minister, Fathi Abu Moghli, said he was examining the entire referral procedure because he was tired of adding to what he called Israel’s “oil well,” meaning the payments for Palestinian patient care. In particular, he said, he had no desire to see the injured from the Gaza war get Israeli care.

“We already pay $7 million a month to Israeli hospitals,” he said in a telephone interview. “Since the first day of the Gaza aggression I said that I will not send to my occupier my injured people in order for him to make propaganda at my expense and then pay him for it.”

An Israeli clinic set up with great fanfare on the Israeli-Gaza border the day the war ended on January 18th has already been closed since both Hamas, the rulers of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority essentially boycotted it. The Palestinian Authority pays for the care in Israel of its citizens — or much of it — out of its budget.

As the article goes on the show, there are many patients - cancer patients especially - who simply cannot get comparable care in Palestinian Arab hospitals. And Israel's hospital costs are one quarter that for comparable care in the West.

Once again, the so-called "leaders" of the Palestinian Arabs are not only willing, but eager, to sacrifice the life and health of their own people in order to score rhetorical points. Projecting their own hatred onto Israelis, they feel that the Zionists only care for Arabs for propaganda purposes and they would rather remove that perceived, imaginary gain by Israel - and let their own children die.

This is no different than how Palestinian Arab leaders have made most of their decisions in their short history - looking at everything as a zero-sum game and assuming that what is good for Israel is bad for their people, and vice versa. And then they make decisions that are the exact opposite of what their own people would prefer.

After all, no one is forcing Palestinian Arabs to choose Israeli hospitals to treat their people. They obviously want to - but their wise health minister can't stand it and would rather have some of them die.

Even the most obvious win-win cannot be stomached, because one of the sides that wins is the hated Jewish side. This kind of hatred is pathological.

Did UNRWA engineer the Hamas "hijacking?"

YNet reports:

The United Nations said on Monday that Hamas has returned all of the aid supplies that it seized from the agency in the Gaza Strip last week.

But one of the sentences at the end of the article is more interesting:

The UN is under pressure to show international donors that it is independent of Hamas as it seeks funding to rebuild the territory after Israel's crushing three-week military offensive.

Indeed it is. There have been prominent calls for Congress to withhold funding UNRWA until it proves it can audit UNRWA more effectively, and a bill has been introduced to increase oversight over UNRWA and investigate its ties to terror.

There is increasing evidence that UNRWA and Hamas have worked together, not officially but as de facto partners. If we take UNRWA's statements at face value, Hamas has avoided stealing UNRWA goods while it has taken supplies from other NGOs over the years; if we are more skeptical, then UNRWA has been covering up Hamas crimes against the agency. Either way, it looks more like collusion than an adversarial relationship.

Additionally, Hamas has admitted to diverting Palestinian Red Crescent aid to UNRWA.

Much has been written about known Hamas terrorists in UNRWA, and perhaps those accusations aren't entirely fair, as UNRWA has argued. However, instead of looking at the relatively low percentage of verified terrorists among the thousands of UNRWA employees in Gaza, we can get a more complete picture by looking at the UNRWA union. In 2003, more than 90% of the vote for the UNRWA workers' union was won by Hamas - and this is way before Hamas' Gaza coup. Hamas won every UNRWA union election since 1990.

After years of what can only be considered a symbiotic relationship between UNRWA and Hamas, where a Hamas-dominated UNRWA controlled the majority of aid in Gaza allowing Hamas to import weapons, it seems strange that Hamas should suddenly openly steal aid from UNRWA.

In the context of the new spotlight on UNRWA ties to Hamas, between the aforementioned congressional pressure and the recent report by James Lindsay on UNRWA's many shortcomings, is it possible that UNRWA engineered this "hijacking" of aid? UNRWA now appears to be upset at Hamas (and the UN genuinely is,) it gets Hamas to back down and admit its "mistake" - something Hamas never does - and the Hamas now shamefully returns the aid, also something Hamas has never done before. The idea that Hamas and UNRWA work together seems much less likely and this could be enough to allow that relationship to survive another couple of years without serious oversight.

I'm generally not big on conspiracy theories, but UNRWA seems to have benefitted greatly over this while Hamas has lost little.

Lunch links

Michael J. Totten files a dispatch from the Gaza border

Meryl Yourish goes much further than I did in taking apart Jimmy Carter's latest screed

Soccer Dad presents his 12th edition of Shiny Happy Dhimmi

Yaakov ben Moshe covers some amazing ground in The Biggest Honor Killing of All (h/t Augean Stables)

And some more garden-variety British anti-semitism

The Egyptian Madoff

The Daily News Egypt reports:

Broker Mahmoud El Boushi of Optima Securities Brokerage, who allegedly pilfered around $68,422 million and €200,000 from his clients, was arrested earlier this week in Dubai, but was granted bail after he reached a settlement with an Egyptian businessman in an AED 5 million dud check case.
However the same businessman filed another complaint involving AED 21.9 million [$2.5m -EoZ], according to Khaleej Times, a UAE-based newspaper.
Over 48 Egyptians, including high-profile public figures, had also filed complaints to Egypt’s Commercial and Financial Affairs Prosecution office against Mahmoud El Boushi, accusing him of fraud.
Last Tuesday, the Interpol requested from the Emirati government to hand over El Boushi to the Egyptian authorities, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, Major-General Khamis Matter Al Mazeina, said.

Last week there were some articles about this Boushi, who swindled millions from Arab celebrities, but only now do we see that the amount he stole might be significantly worse than Bernie Madoff's alleged $50 billion.

The comparisons are eerie. Like Madoff, Boushi promised high returns to his clients (actually much higher than Madoff - 40%) and he targeted high-profile clients:

The list includes famous actress Laila Olwi, said to have lost more than $500,000 dollars, Mervat Amin, another cinema star, losing almost the same amount, and her ex-husband, actor Hussein Fahmi, who lost $2 million.

Mahmoud al-Khatib, former footballer and the current vice chairman of Egypt's Al-Ahly Club (lost $6 million) and Hassan al-Gabali, the brother of Egypt's Minister of Health Hatem al-Gabali (lost $12 million) are also among those named as victims, according to the list published by Rose al-Youssef Egyptian daily.

I can only find the huge $68 billion figure from the Khaleej Times, but it if is true, this could have a huge impact in Arab financial circles.

And of course we can expect plenty of articles about Arabs agonizing over how Boushi could besmirch all Arabs by doing this, how embarrassed they are that he shares their culture and religion and how it will increase Islamophobia. Right?

UPDATE: Almost certainly I was reading the decimal point wrong, and it is $68 million, not billion.

Another two Gazans killed by Hamas

Hot on the heels of Hamas accusations that Fatah tortured a Hamas member to death, Fatah announced that Hamas abducted a 48-year old father of ten in Gaza named Nehad Saadi Aldbaki three days ago and tortured him to death.

Palestine Press Agency also mentions another person killed by Hamas a few days ago I had not counted, a member of the PFLP named Shaqqura.

My "self-death" count of Arabs violently killed by other Palestinian Arabs in 2009 rises to 22.

Natan Sharansky has a blog

My favorite thinker, Natan Sharansky, has a blog.

Spend five minutes now to read his section on human rights.

Throughout the site one finds true gems, such as this:

Hamas is not the only Palestinian group at fault. In 2005, shortly after the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, I met with the chief of staff to the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. My question to him: Now that we have uprooted thousands of Jews and empowered Gazans to be masters of their own fate, can we hope that within a year’s time there will be fewer refugees in the camps? “Absolutely not,” he said. “The refugees will be relocated only in the context of the final status [agreement]. How can we move them if we do not know where they will live? Maybe they will live in Israel.”
In withdrawing from Gaza, Israel made painful concessions for peace by forcibly removing Jews from their homes. And yet even the Palestinian Authority, the most moderate among Palestinian political groups, would not consider easing their own people’s plight in the wake of Israel’s compromise. This is because the suffering of the refugees is essential to their broader political struggle.

How does the West respond to the obvious exploitation of Palestinian refugees? Soon after my meeting with Mr. Abbas’s chief of staff, I met with the ambassador of one of the West’s most enlightened countries. I asked: Why are the Palestinians not willing to help their own refugees? “I can understand them,” he answered. “After all, they don’t want the refugee problem to be taken off the agenda.”

The world needs such clarity as Sharansky's.

Freedom of religion, Saudi-style

From the Saudi Gazette:

Establishing houses of worship for non-Muslims is a sensitive issue but the Kingdom does not restrict non-Muslims to practice their religion in private, a senior human rights official said here Saturday.

Zeid Al-Hussein, Vice President of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, said the Kingdom is not only an Islamic state, but it is also the cradle of Islam and of Islamic civilization. It is the land of the Two Holy Mosques and the destination of Muslims from around the world.

Therefore, he said, the Kingdom is charged with the responsibility of preserving Islam, its rituals and its sanctities.

Regarding not allowing the establishment of places of worship for non-Muslims in the Kingdom, Al-Hussein said, we believe that Islam is the seal of religions and that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the cradle of Islam, the land of the Two Holy Mosques, and the destination of 1.5 billion Muslims.

Therefore, the religious peculiarities make it difficult to establish worship places in the holy land.

However, non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia are completely enjoy the freedom of worship and can practice the rituals of their religions in their own places.

Imagine the outcry if an Israeli "human rights" official said that "Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people and the object of their prayers and devotions. As a result, there can be no churches or mosques, but everyone is free to practice their religion in private." Or a similar statement from Rome disallowing synagogues and mosques there.

The Saudi article has some humorous sections about Islam and human rights, like this:

Islam supplements, rather than undermines, international human rights standards and Saudi Arabia derives its values from all sources provided that they are compatible with the objectives called for by the Islamic Shariah, Al-Hussein said.

The Shariah pays special attention to the rights of vulnerable groups, such as, minorities and non-Muslims, and, in fact, the Shariah grants women extensive rights.

We all know that Saudi Arabia is hardly a mecca (pun intended) for freedom of religion, but for the "Human Rights Commission" official to justify it in the name of human rights is more than a little hypocritical.

Update on UNRWA West Bank "strike"

A Ma'an report last week said that UNRWA workers in the West Bank went on strike, so I emailed UNRWA:

Is there any comment about the UNRWA workers' strike reported in Ma'an? http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=35542

Which workers are striking? How is it affecting UNRWA services? How many are on strike? What is the minimum and average salaries for UNRWA workers in the West Bank?

Chris Gunness replied that he was much too busy to reply, but this morning I received an answer from Sami Mshasha, denying any strike:

1- Who are striking? No one.

The UNRWA West Bank Staff Union issued a circular last week calling for ‘protest activities’ to protest:

a-UNRWA not wanting to move its field operations work week from a six-days into a five-days work week. The Union believes that this is possible and would not affect services. UNRWA—and large segments of the population benefiting from UNRWA services—thing otherwise.

B- Increase in salary to correspond to cost of living increases and

c- compensating losses in the staff’s provident fund (retirement fund).

2- So far direct assistance to the refugees are not being affected. If and when the Union decides to go on strike, education, health and social services stand to be affected.

3- UNRWA employs some 5,000 staff members. Almost all of them are union members.

4- UNRWA’s salary scale is set on a scale of 1 to 20— Grade one being the lowest and grade 20 the highest (for nationally recruited staff).

Salary for grade one (average): Jordanian Dinar (JD): 370

Grade 20: JD1200.

Average salary: JD530.

I'm not sure if the 5000 workers are for all of UNRWA or just the West Bank.

A Jordanian dinar is worth about $1.41, so this means that the union employees average $9000 a year. Management, however, seems to make over ten times that amount.

PalArab media roundup 2-9-09

A Hamas member, who was arrested on Friday, died in a PA prison. The PA claimed that he committed suicide but Hamas and his family are saying that he was tortured to death. His brother says that his body showed bruises around his waist. He had not been charged officially with any crimes. (I am going to count this as a 2009 PalArab self-death, the 20th this year. The suicide story seems farfetched, and the PA tortures people as regularly as Hamas does.)

Hamas' expulsion of Al Arabiya correspondent Wael Essam is making ripples, as many Arabs are criticizing the move. MEMRI has two of his recent reports on arms smuggling and rocket production. Essam, who has Palestinian Arab ancestry, is interviewed here, where he says that he has been kicked out of war zones before (he reported from Iraq and Lebanon) but never by his own people.

Gunmen opened fire at the PA Minister of the Interior in Nablus. Attacks on PA members and institutions seem to be increasing in the West Bank, possibly as a result of the increased prestige Hamas enjoys there for managing to hide most of its fighters for a few weeks.

Hamas is now reacting to the withering criticism it received when it floated the idea of a replacement fo rthe PLO. Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar now says that Hamas doesn't want to replace the PLO but it does want to have a much greater role in it, including the reversal of the PLO's supposed revocation of the articles in its charter that call for the destruction of Israel. Khaled Meshal says that the PLO should not only be represented by Fatah.

UNRWA is still waiting for Hamas to return the goods that it stole. Commenters at Palestine Press Agency are skeptical.

$2.2 billion of PA cash went to Gaza

From Ma'an:

The Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah has channeled 2.2 billion dollars to the Gaza Strip since Hamas took full control of the coastal territory in June 2007, said Ramallah-based Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Sunday.

At the very moment that the West decided not to fund Hamas, the PA gave twice as much money per capita to Gaza than it did to the West Bank - indirectly funding Hamas by allowing it to use its own cash from Iran and elsewhere to buy weapons and build bunkers instead of take care of the day-to-day duties of governing Gaza.

And the PA gets virtually all its money from the West.

U. of Rochester moonbats pretend to act tough

Ma'an reports:

University of Rochester students and community members began an occupation of campus buildings Friday afternoon.

It then goes on to detail their demand - divesting from companies who sell weapons to Israel, twinning with a Gaza university, and so on.

But it turns out that the moonbats didn't act quite as disobediently as they are pretending.

The UR chapter of Students for a Democratic Society issued a news release tonight saying it was occupying Goergen Hall — the biomedical engineering and optics building — “to show the university we are serious about supporting our brothers and sisters in Gaza.”

The group characterized its actions as occupying the campus building, but a university spokeswoman said the group had reserved the space in advance.

And when the time for the reservation was up?

UR Dean of Students Matthew Burns negotiated with the students Friday night and the two sides apparently reached an agreement to continue talking about the students’ demands. That agreement avoided a possible confrontation that loomed at midnight, when the university said it was planning to close the building.

So essentially the students reserved a space, made some noisy "demands," lied about their actions, lied about their victory in gaining concessions, and left the building before even a hint of confrontation could occur.

This wasn't even civil disobedience - it was civil obedience.

Wow, what bravery!

Links!

The 203rd edition of Haveil Havalim is up at Esser Agoroth, and two of my postings are included.

Soccer Dad links to a number of stories about the parties vying to lead Israel in this week's elections.

Backspin notices the MSM waking up about Hamas war crimes.

Someone shot at the Al Hayat al Jadida PA newspaper building, and Ma'an hints that they think it was the Jooooz - even though Al Hayat itself blames Arabs (by calling on the PA police to investigate, not asking for IDF help.)

Taking the Ziyonist conspiracy to the next level

If you like the stories I find and want to help spread them, here are some things you can do:

The easiest is to use the social-networking bookmarks using the tool I place after every story that looks like this:

When you mouse over that you can then submit stories you like to various sites, some of which generate lots of traffic. You of course need to join Digg or Reddit or any of the other sites to be able to submit the story to begin with.

Twitter also has tools to easily grab a webpage you are on and tweet it.

If you are more ambitious, you can join one of the increasing number of "citizen journalism" websites, where you can write your own stories, or sometimes link to them. Just for fun I joined NowPublic and posted an article, although I didn't link back here. It was very easy.

Even easier are sites like Newsvine where you can add a button to your browser to submit a story. A couple of my readers have done this, often generating more comments there than here. See this page for a pro-Israel Newsviner.

Wikinews is completely generated by users, although it goes through a review process to keep its quality up. It is also indexed by Google News.

Keep in mind that many of these sites are already infested with Israel bashers and it is easy to get sucked in to their conversations. I think it is better to post, let others do the commenting.

Carter: "The Israel lobby doesn't want peace"

Jimmy shows his hatred for Israel again, in the middle of an interview with The Houston Chronicle:

You have to remember that the major Israeli lobbies, they’re not in favor of peace. They never have professed to be. What they are in favor of is protecting the policies of whatever government is in charge in Israel. If you look at their Web sites, they make that quite clear. So they’re for Israel, they’re not for peace between Israel and its neighbors.

There you have it - according to Jimmy, it is impossible to be pro-Israel and pro-"peace."

Of course, if you define "peace" the way he does, where Israel surrenders everything in exchange for worthless promises, I guess that is true.

But if you define peace correctly, this is pretty slanderous.

(In case you are interested, the word "peace" is mentioned over 6000 times at the AIPAC website, about 200 times at the ZOA website, and as far as I can tell none of them are against "peace," although I'm sure they have qualms about the "peace process," which is hardly the same thing.)

PalArab news roundup 2-7-09

My bad: Hamas claims that they cleared up all their misunderstandings about stealing 300 tons of aid from UNRWA. UNRWA replies, um, first return what you have stolen before you announce that things are copacetic.

Extremism is fine, in moderation: Mahmoud Abbas says that the PA doesn't ask Hamas to recognize Israel, but he does want it to be part of a unity PA government. Which means that the PA won't really recognize Israel any more, but no one is really mentioning that part. "He also asserted, in line with his statements since mid-Gaza war, that the Palestinian people have the right to resist occupation as long as they live under it." - the exact opposite of the Oslo agreement.

Remember, he's the "moderate."

The brave little wimp: Mahmoud Zahar emerged from hiding and plans to lead a Hamas delegation to Cairo. Haniyeh is still underground.

Freedom of the press, Hamas-style: Hamas is expelling Al Arabiya reporter Wael Essam because they didn't like his coverage of Gaza.

Cash is king: There are reports that the millions of dollars that Egypt found in Hamas' members' bags last week are a small percentage of the money that Iran gave Hamas' Damascus leaders recently.

Hamas turning hospitals into torture chambers

Ma'an reports on the latest wacky antics of those terrorists that the moonbats love so much:

The Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry accused the Hamas-run de facto government’s security services of turning medical centers into virtual prisons on Saturday.

According to a statement from the Health Ministry, Hamas has used hospitals and clinics in Gaza as interrogation and detention centers, where medical staffers have been expelled.

“After Israel ended its aggression in the Gaza Strip, the Health Ministry was surprised that Hamas militants returned to their old behavior, expelling medical staff and using medical centers as detention centers, and for torture and interrogation,” the statement said.

Hospitals affiliated with the PA that were taken over include Al-Quds

Hospital in Tal Al-Hawa, a Red Crescent initiative, parts of the Ash-Shifa

Hospital in Gaza City, the upper and lower floors of the An-Nasser

Hospital, as well as the Psychiatric Hospital, according to the statement.

I mean, seriously, can you blame Hamas? After all, Israel bombed all their old torture centers and didn't bomb their hospitals, so where else can they do their torture?

Besides mosques and kindergartens, of course.

Temple Mount webcam freaks out Arabs

The Al Quds newspaper is alarmed by a proposed new webcam that will be aimed at the Temple Mount:

Militant Jewish groups planned to set up a camera to control the Temple Mount

The weekly "Kol Ha'ir" newspaper on Friday reports that Israel set up be a surveillance camera near the Al-Haram Al-Sharif to be controlled 24 hours a day by a Jewish extremist group.

Standing behind this initiative is the "Temple Institute" in the Jewish quarter, who is seeking to establish the theme of "Holy Temple" in the minds of the Jews and sought to push the Jews to deal with this issue daily.

The site will allow users to request tours of the campus. It should be noted that the camera and web site are the focal point of the Institute and meant to strengthen the link between young Jews and Jerusalem, with an emphasis on what is important about the structure.

It appears that the camera might be able to see more of the Mount itself than any existing Kotel webcams.

Hamas Chutzpah

Al Quds reports on a couple of funny Hamas stories.

In the first, Hamas admits that it took 300 tons of aid from UNRWA - but says it was all a big mistake.

In a comment on the incident, a Hamas spokesman said the "UNRWA" aid was loaded by mistake into trucks belonging to the Ministry of Social Affairs and it will be returned to the UNRWA.
The Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum ,said, "The goods were loaded incorrectly in the absence of a representative of the Government of the crossing in Gaza, where the drivers did not distinguish between goods [for UNRWA] and goods for the governmental agency."

In the second story, where Egypt detained Hamas leaders at the Rafah crossing yesterday where they found them trying to smuggle some $10 million into Gaza, Hamas is complaining that the Egyptians didn't treat them well:

The leader of the Movement "Hamas" and a member of the negotiating delegation, Salah Bardawil on Friday strongly the treatment of the Egyptian authorities to the delegation of the movement by returning to the Gaza Strip yesterday evening. Bardaweel said in remarks published in an website of "Hamas": "We were badly treated by the Egyptian security during our return to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing .. Egyptian officials closed the phone in our faces."
Bardawil said: "Unfortunately every time we enter the official delegation and the easy way, but this time there was the intransigence and insistence on inspection of our bags," he said, "that the delegation had contacts with Egyptian officials, especially intelligence, but they locked the phone."

How dare they inspect us and find us doing something we aren't allowed to do!

Hamas steals from UNRWA again

This time, hundreds of tons of aid:

UNRWA informed the IDF on Friday that it is suspending its humanitarian aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip after Hamas stole supplies the United Nations organization had transferred to the Palestinian territory.

The seizure of the 200 tons of supplies took place Thursday night and in response, UNRWA officials informed the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration that it was suspending its deliveries to the Gaza Strip until further notice. The supplies confiscated included flour and other basic commodities.

The transfer of 40 truckloads of humanitarian supplies - some 800 tons - planned for Sunday has already been canceled.

This is a lot more than the couple of thousand blankets and few hundred food parcels stolen on Tuesday. In fact, the UNRWA press release details 300 metric tons being hijacked:

During the night of 05 Feb 10 truckloads of flour and rice were taken from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Gaza. They had been imported from Egypt for collection by UNRWA today. The food was taken away by trucks contracted by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Two hundred metric tons of rice and one hundred metric tons of flour were taken.

UNRWA’s suspension of imports will remain in effect until the aid is returned and the Agency is given credible assurances from the Hamas government in Gaza that there will be no repeat of these thefts.

Remember that UNRWA castigated Israel for closing crossings when mortars were being shot at the crossings themselves, sarcastically wondering whether Israel's security concerns were more important than feeding the supposedly starving Gaznas. Now, the UNRWA unilaterally stops the delivery of 800 tons of aid even though not one of their workers has yet been hurt by Hamas' aid pirates.