Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

PA arrests and beats shoe-throwing teen

A Palestinian boy who threw a shoe at the car of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad has been arrested by the PA security forces.

The boy was identified as Saher Ahmed Muhaisen, 15, from the Dehaishe refugee camp near Bethlehem.

The incident occurred last Thursday while Fayad was in Bethlehem to attend a conference of Christian community leaders.

Sources in the city told The Jerusalem Post that Muhaisen hurled his shoe and an orange at Fayad's car as his convoy passed through one of the main thoroughfares. No one was hurt.

They said that PA policemen and security officers accompanying the convoy arrested the boy after chasing him through the alleyways of the camp.

The sources quoted eyewitnesses as reporting that the boy was severely beaten before being taken into custody. The boy remains in prison, and the motive for his attack on Fayad remains unclear.

A Palestinian journalist living in Bethlehem told the Post that he and his colleagues have been warned by the PA security commanders not to report on the incident.

The journalist, who asked not to be identified out of fear for his safety, said that Fayad's convoy was attacked on two other occasions.

"Each time the convoy passed through the main streets, young men would throw different objects, especially vegetables, at the cars," he said.

The journalist added that the PA police have so far arrested eight suspects, including Muhaisen, in connection with the assaults. He said the families of two other teenagers have refused to hand their sons over to the security forces for questioning about the attacks.

According to the sources, all the suspects are minors.

A senior PA official in Bethlehem said the suspects were detained for throwing vegetables at vehicles belonging to the security forces in the city. He refused to say whether the attacks were directed against Fayad's heavily-guarded convoy.

Asked why the PA has refrained from informing the public about the alleged incidents, the official replied, "This is not an important issue and we don't think there's a need to publish it. It's just a trivial matter concerning thugs."

I found this mentioned in the Arabic press - only after the Jerusalem Post report, and only quoting from it.

The anti-Fatah Palestine Today mentions the JPost story, as does the independent Al-Quds newspaper. Ma'an, Firas Press and Palestine Press Agency do not.

Freedom of the press is still dead in the "moderate" PA.

PA accuses UNRWA of illegally selling aid

From Ma'an:

UNRWA has begun investigating PA Ministry of National Economy accusations that the agency has been importing private-sector goods under its name behind the back of the ministry, Undersecretary of the Ramallah-based government office Nasser As-Sarraj said on Monday night.

As-Sarraj, part of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry in Gaza not to be confused with the separate Ministry of National economy of the de facto Hamas government in the same area, said UNRWA has been caught selling rice and sugar to local merchants without coordinating with the ministry first.

When contacted, UNRWA spokespeople said they had not heard of any such accusations and were unaware of any ongoing investigations of Gaza staff.

As-Sarraj said UNRWA employees were involved in bringing truckloads of goods into the Gaza Strip under title of the agency and selling them to the private sector, and called the act “illegal.” He said he brought the accusations to UNRWA’s attention Monday night.

“We seized three truckloads of rice and sugar [being sold to] merchants of the private sector through UNRWA, and the [PA] coordination committee had no idea. UNRWA does not have the right to use its special position [in the Strip] to engage with the private sector.”

Whether or not these accusations are true, the very fact that they exist is evidence that UNRWA in Gaza is firmly on Hamas' side.

How Will Nassur Die? [new EoZ video]

Terrorists recycling unexploded Israeli munitions?

According to an article in the Islamic Jihad-oriented Palestine Today, the percentage of unexploded IDF ordnance in Gaza is considered a "gift from the sky:"

Abu Maaz of the resistance in the zz el-Deen al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades of the military wing of Hamas made clear that dozens of missiles and rockets by Israeli aircraft over the Gaza Strip in the recent war did not explode, and Hamas was quick to dismantle them and use the material that is inside.

He said: "After the war of aggression was stopped, we discovered dozens of rocket-propelled grenades which did not explode ... a gift from the sky. We in the resistance, we found the treasure trove".

"Abu Anas", an expert in explosives engineering al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed that the resistance is in the process of dismantling the missiles that did not explode, and making use of inside and outside.

Abu Anas noted that 5% of the rockets shot by Israel did not explode...

They go on to say that since there is a scarcity of raw materials in Gaza to manufacture missiles, these will come in very handy.

They also quote a YNet article about this phenomenon, which I could not find in English.

Does Hezbollah have anti-aircraft weapons?

The LA Times blog says:

Hezbollah said it has a right to acquire and use antiaircraft weaponry against Israeli warplanes, in a ceremony commemorating assassinated leaders of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group.
"We have the right to possess any weapons including air defense arms, and we have all the right to use these arms if we wished to," Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah said to crowds in the southern suburb of Beirut, which is the group's stronghold.

Nasrallah did not confirm or deny whether the group had acquired antiaircraft missiles but said that Hezbollah has built its successes on the "basis of surprises."

Israeli warplanes have launched regular flights over Lebanon since the 2006 war between the Jewish state and Hezbollah.

Nasrallah said that Israel's superiority in its wars is only due to its air force, adding that Israeli ground troops have proved their weaknesses during the 2006 war and the latest offensive on Gaza.
"If the air equation changes, the equation for the whole struggle changes," he said.

Al Quds - Arabic seems to have understood Nasrallah a little differently, assuming that the autotranslation is correct:

Secretary-General suggested the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, on Monday evening that "the resistance in Lebanon has anti-aircraft missiles," saying that "resistance to the full right to possess such a weapon."

It is interesting that the Lebanese government doesn't seem to have any reaction to an extra-governmental militia gaining such capabilities.

It will also be interesting to see if UNIFIL - which is supposed to guard against such things - has any reaction.

Latest on UNRWA school casualties

Following up on the IDF report that the Arab-sourced casualty numbers from Gaza are completely wrong....

From JPost:

Amid controversy over the number of Palestinian civilians killed and wounded during Operation Cast Lead against Hamas last month, the United Nations is working on compiling its own report to determine the exact figure.

Work on the UN figures is being led by the office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO).

UN officials said Monday that researchers were scouring data on the number of casualties provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry, the IDF and Gaza-based human rights organizations. The work is complicated and will last several weeks, if not months, one official said.

Isn't it amazing that uncritical belief in bogus statistics takes no time at all, while doing actual research takes months?

Even so, the UNRWA has already told me that they stand by their figures of 30 killed initially at the UN school, without being able to tell me how they came up with that number.

"It [the IDF report] prompts inquiries," a UN official said. "The UN is researching from various sources the number of casualties to gain clarity on the number of people who were killed in the conflict."

Yet if the IDF hadn't done some research, the chances that the UN would have cared to check is somewhere between zero and none.

Defense sources also reiterated their earlier claim that three civilians and some nine terror operatives were killed in an IDF shelling near a UN school in Jabalya in early January, and not 40 or more people as was widely reported at the time based on Palestinian claims.

A New York Times report from the Gaza funeral after the incident stated that "the row of bodies [were] uncountable in the press of the mourning crowd" and cited reports that as many as 40 people were killed in the shelling outside the school. It said Palestinian hospital sources reported that 10 of the dead were children and five were women, and quoted one mourner who said she had lost nine members of her extended family, age three to 25.

The defense sources Monday said that the IDF had studied the incident and was adamant that its figures were correct.

It would take guts for the IDF to make such a claim if there were really 30-40 dead, and their credibility would take a huge hit if they were found to be wrong. Unfortunately, one cannot say the same for the Palestinian Arab side - although their credibility for casualties has been nil for years, the press is always eager to report their accusations as facts.

Jews in Arab lands fearful

From AP:

CAIRO (AP) — Outrage at the Israel war in the Gaza Strip has turned to intimidation and even violence against Jews living in some Muslim lands, raising questions about the stability of these often tiny communities.
In Turkey, Yemen and Indonesia, Muslims have shut down a synagogue, stoned homes and used anti-Semitic slurs. Although the incidents have been isolated, the Jewish minorities in these lands are concerned.
"Before the conflict broke out in Gaza, we were very involved in the community," said Yusron Samba, whose family for years had operated a synagogue in Indonesia that shut down in fear over the war. "Of course we're afraid following strong reaction recently from some Islamic groups questioning our presence here."
The fury over Gaza has centered around the hundreds of Palestinian civilians killed in the war, in which 13 Israelis also died. Israel says it could not avoid killing civilians because Gaza militants operate from residential areas, but critics accuse it of using disproportionate force in its war to halt rocket attacks on its territory.
The steep Palestinian death toll sparked protests across the Muslim world, Europe and in Venezuela, and in some cases, the rage turned to violence. ...
In Yemen, where Islamic militancy is on the rise, anti-Israel protesters pelted several Jewish homes with rocks and smashed windows, injuring at least one person, security officials said.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has offered to give plots of land in the capital, San'a, free of charge to Jews who want to relocate from the provinces, officials said. No one has taken him up on the offer, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the offer was made privately in a meeting between the president and Jewish leaders.
In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim state, Islamic hard-liners marched to the gates of the country's only synagogue, chanting, "Go to hell, Israel."
"If Israel refuses to stop its attacks and oppression of the Palestinian people, we don't need to defend (the synagogue's) presence here," said Abdusshomad Buchori, who led the protest in the town of Surabaya and has threatened to drive out its Jews. The synagogue has been shuttered since.
In the past, Jews in Surabaya have experienced no hostility, Samba said. But increasingly — probably because of events like the Gaza war — a smattering of swastikas has appeared on the backs of buses, he said.
Because of the hostile reaction, "we're not exposing ourselves to the media right now," he said. "We also report all protests to the police."
Several dozen Jews are thought to be living in Indonesia, descendants of traders from Europe and Iraq.
The Iranian Jewish community went out of its way to distance itself from Israel during the Gaza fighting, issuing a statement expressing solidarity with the Palestinians and condemning the Israeli offensive. "The inhuman behavior of the Zionist regime contradicts the religious teachings" of the Jewish faith, the statement said.
A group of Iranian Jews, including Jewish lawmaker Siamak Mara-Sedq, protested against the war in front of the U.N. office in Tehran in late December.
Turkey is Israel's best friend in the Muslim world, but the greatest turbulence over the Gaza war has taken place there. ...
Some of Turkey's 23,000 Jews were alarmed by a government-ordered minute of silence in schools for Gaza's dead, which they fear is a sign that the Islamic-leaning government's declared intolerance of anti-Semitism might waver. Erdogan's recent observation that the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jews also rankled many who took it to mean that Turkey considered them guests, not citizens.
Although Turkish fury was mostly directed at Israel, a few Turkish protesters held placards with anti-Semitic messages. Turkish media showed a photograph of three men in front of the office of a cultural association, holding a dog and a sign saying, "Dogs are allowed, but Jews and Armenians aren't."
Jewish community leaders say hundreds of anti-Semitic writings have appeared in Turkish media, and that prosecutors have failed to take legal action.
"Everyone can criticize the policies of Israel, we respect that," Silvyo Ovadya, head of the Jewish community in Turkey, told the Milliyet newspaper. "However, every speech criticizing Israel has a tendency to turn into cries of 'Damn Jews.' I don't recall such an atmosphere previously."
Erdogan has tried to reassure Turkey's Jews, who live in a country of more than 70 million Muslims, that criticism of Israel does not amount to an attack on Jews and their faith.
"There has been no anti-Semitism in the history of this country," Erdogan told ruling party lawmakers last week. "As a minority, they're our citizens. Both their security and the right to observe their faith are under our guarantee."

UNRWA stands by its story

In the wake of the IDF report that only 12 were killed outside the Jabalya UNRWA school in Gaza, I asked UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness:

As I am sure you have seen by now, the IDF is claiming that there were 12 killed by shells outside the Jabalya UNRWA school on January 6, not the 30-40 that have been claimed by others. (See http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304788684&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull.) The IDF is also saying that only three of the victims were civilians.

I seem to recall the UN or UNRWA saying that some 30 were killed immediately and another 10-15 died overnight from their injuries.

Does UNRWA have a list of the dead from that incident, along with their ages? If not, where did UNRWA get their numbers from - was it from local doctors, or the media, or some other source? (The PCHR mentioned 27 killed initially but did not list the names, as they usually do.)

In other words, can UNRWA show that the IDF is wrong in its account of the incident, and if so, how?

He replied, in his usual terse manner:

Let it all come out in an independent investigation. C

I persisted:

John Ging said at the time that there were 30 dead and 55 injured.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKN06430746

Does UNRWA still stand behind that statement or are you saying now that it is unclear? And are you saying that UNRWA does not have a list of victims from the incident? Where exactly did Ging get his numbers from?

And Chris replied:

We stand by the figures and our call for an impartial investigation to see if there have been violations of int humanitarian law. C

Meanwhile, I found John Ging's email address and asked him similar questions; we'll see if he replies.

Ben-Yehuda in the comments noticed that the Kadima website was been hacked.

It does appear to have been done by hackers in Gaza, as the domain name (gaza-hacker.com) is registered in Gaza itself.

Registrant:
Mr. Mohammed AbuYousef
Palestine - Gaza
Gaza, PS 00972
IL

Registrar: DOTREGISTRAR
Domain Name: GAZA-HACKER.COM
Created on: 08-MAR-07
Expires on: 08-MAR-12
Last Updated on: 06-FEB-09

Administrative, Technical Contact:
AbuYousef, Mr. Mohammed Master@Mohammed.ps
Palestine - Gaza
Gaza, PS 00972
IL
00972599901972

Mohammed.ps is a malformed page dedicated to the "prophet" Mohammed himself.

The hacked page itself has some stupid pictures of burning Israeli flags and the like; it is playing what sounds like a PalArab national anthem; pretty boring stuff.

The gaza-hacker.com site itself is hosted by a US site called liquidweb.com. If you are so inclined you might want to complain to them:

OrgName: Liquid Web, Inc.
OrgID: LQWB
Address: 4210 Creyts Rd.
City: Lansing
StateProv: MI
PostalCode: 48917
Country: US

ReferralServer: rwhois://rwhois.liquidweb.com:4321/

NetRange: 72.52.128.0 - 72.52.255.255
CIDR: 72.52.128.0/17
NetName: LIQUIDWEB-6
NetHandle: NET-72-52-128-0-1
Parent: NET-72-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS.LIQUIDWEB.COM
NameServer: NS1.LIQUIDWEB.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 2006-08-03
Updated: 2007-03-26

OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE551-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Abuse
OrgAbusePhone: +1-800-580-4985
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@liquidweb.com

OrgTechHandle: IPADM47-ARIN
OrgTechName: IP Administrator
OrgTechPhone: +1-800-580-4985
OrgTechEmail: ipadmin@liquidweb.com

The most effective way to get rid of the cyber-arsonists is to complain to their hosts, and from their web page it appears that they have been kicked off of previous hosts as well. A polite email to abuse@liquidnet.com or webmaster@liquidnet.com should be enough.

UPDATE: That was not the official Kadima site. The real site is here. (h/t lol)

Priceless Holzberg photos, videos restored

In Judaism there is a concept of "chesed shel emet," of a true kindness that can never be repaid. It is usually said with regard to taking care of the needs of the departed, as the recipients of the kindness can never return the favor.

Here is a beautiful example.

During the massacre in the Mumbai Chabad House, the murderers not only shot the Holzbergs multiple times, but they also shot their computer.

An Israeli company has spent many hours recovering the contents of the damaged hard disk, and have now restored thousands of photos and videos of the Holzberg family - priceless memories that can now be seen by the grandparents as well as little Moishe.

Here is an Israeli TV report about this huge mitzvah. It's in Hebrew, but easy to understand even if you don't know the language, and you can also see clips of the Holzbergs that would have been lost forever, as well as the reaction of the grandparents upon seeing these photos for the first time:

Holtzberg's Computer Restored from COLlive.com on Vimeo.

(h/t Atlas)

Work accident! (correction)

From Ma'an:

A Palestinian was killed on Monday morning and four others were injured in a mysterious explosion in the northern Gaza Strip, medical sources reported. One Palestinian, identified as Rajab Usama Subuh, 25, was killed in the blast, while two of four others injured in Beit Lahiya were in critical condition just before noon on Monday.

Earlier, Gazans had claimed this came from an Israeli artillery shell, but the IDF denied any activities in the area. The PalArab self-death count in 2009 is now at 29. UPDATE: This was not a work accident, just an apparent case of stupidity:

Palestinian hospital officials say a 25-year-old Gaza man has been killed and five people have been wounded in a blast along the border with Israel.
Palestinian security officials say the explosion in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya was caused when people who were melting down scrap metal for recycling inadvertently threw an explosive device into the fire.

This no longer falls into my definition of self-death (although, as Richard from Augean Stables points out in the comments, it is a Darwin Award candidate,) so we are back down to 28, unless more information comes out.

(h/t PTWatch)

Two degrees of separation, carnival edition

I was linked to in Soccer Dad's weekly Shiny Happy Dhimmi #13. Soccer Dad and I are two degrees separated from each other by both of us knowing Elie.

I am also included in the two hundred somethingth edition of Haveil Havalim, this week hosted by Leora of Here in Highland Park. There is very little doubt that she and I know at least a few people in common, making us also two degrees separated.

And I recently found out that I am also two degrees separated from Jameel at The Muqata, through his brother. Whether I can parlay that into waffles remains to be seen.

PalArab news roundup 2-15-09

A 46 year old Palestinian Arab woman was shot and killed in Gaza, as terrorists were training in the former Jewish settlement of Nitzarim and a stray bullet hit her in the chest.

A man who was abducted by Hamas in early January died from his injuries last week.

Hamas claims that they have body parts of an Israeli soldier. Interestingly, this sounds like the same fake soldier that Hamas claimed to have abducted and kept for two days, yet they cannot produce his name or any identifiable information about him.

What do the settlements and Gilad Shalit have in common? They are both considered "obstacles to peace!" According to the DFLP, Israel's insistence on the release of Shalit is making a truce so much harder, and of course (as with the settlements) it is Israel's fault that there is no peace.

The rumors of an imminent agreement, including the release of Gilad Shalit and Marwan Barghouti, have been going on for weeks now; they seem to be accelerating. I haven't been talking about it much because it is still pure rumor, but just letting you know that the stories have been coming out every day about breakthroughs in negotiations. Similarly, there are also stories about negotiations on the verge of collapse.

Muslim leaders continue their daily accusations of Israeli attempts to destroy Al Aqsa. Today they claim to have seen cracks in the ceiling, and they are blaming Israeli excavations that they are convinced are going on beneath the Temple Mount.

A programming glitch seems to have caused a number of SMS messages to be sent to Jordanian cell phone users saying, in English and Arabic, "Welcome to Israel. We wish you a pleasant stay. We hope you enjoy the roaming services we provide." I'm sure that someone will use this as proof that Israel is planning to attack Jordan.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count rises to 28.

The UNRWA school story was a lie

The Jerusalem Post has seen the (still incomplete) IDF list of people killed in Gaza, and the story that Hamas (as well as the Palestinian Health Ministry, UNRWA and PCHR) have been telling the media are absolute lies:

While the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, whose death toll figures have been widely cited, reports that 895 Gaza civilians were killed in the fighting, amounting to more than two-thirds of all fatalities, the IDF figures shown to the Post on Sunday put the civilian death toll at no higher than a third of the total.

The international community had been given a vastly distorted impression of the death toll because of "false reporting" by Hamas, said Col. Moshe Levi, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), which compiled the IDF figures.

As an example of such distortion, he cited the incident near a UN school in Jabalya on January 6, in which initial Palestinian reports falsely claimed IDF shells had hit the school and killed 40 or more people, many of them civilians.

In fact, he said, 12 Palestinians were killed in the incident - nine Hamas operatives and three noncombatants. Furthermore, as had since been acknowledged by the UN, the IDF was returning fire after coming under attack, and its shells did not hit the school compound.

"From the beginning, Hamas claimed that 42 people were killed, but we could see from our surveillance that only a few stretchers were brought in to evacuate people," said Levi, adding that the CLA contacted the PA Health Ministry and asked for the names of the dead. "We were told that Hamas was hiding the number of dead."

This is so amazing that I decided to go back to the PCHR website and see exactly what they reported that day from the UNRWA school, since they typically give the names of the dead:

At approximately 15:35, IOF tanks fired 4 shells at Jabalya refugee camp. On the shells hit a house belonging to Samir Shafeeq Deeb, 43, Killing him and his mother, Shamma Salem Deeb, 70; three of his children: 'Essam, 12, Mohammad, 23, and Fatima, 20; five of his brother's children: Nour, 2, Mustafa, 12, Mohammad, 17, Aseel, 7, and Alaa', 19; and his brother's wife, Amal Matar Deeb, 34. The other three shells hit al-Fakhoura School which was sheltering approximately dozens of families who fled their homes in Beit Lahia, Killing 27 civilians instantly, including 8 children, 2 brothers ans a man and his son, and wounding at least 50 civilians. IOF claimed that the school was used by Hamas to launch attacks on Israel. UNRWA sources and eyewitnesses completely refuted this claim. However, the justification used by IOF implies they deliberately targeted the civilians inside the school, which constitutes a war crime under international law.

While PCHR is most willing to list the names of the Deeb family - which did appear (as far as I know) to have been a tragic accident - notice that they simply say that 27 were killed at the school, without listing names, and that the shells hit the school (which we know is not true.)

The entire episode as originally reported was a lie: Israel didn't hit the school, 40+ civilians didn't die (as I mentioned that the time, that is a huge death count for tank shells), and most of the death were in fact terrorists.

The JPost article continues:

Basing its work on the official Palestinian death toll of 1,338, Levi said the CLA had now identified more than 1,200 of the Palestinian fatalities. Its 200-page report lists their names, their official Palestinian Authority identity numbers, the circumstances in which they were killed and, where appropriate, the terrorist group with which they were affiliated.

The CLA said 580 of these 1,200 had been conclusively "incriminated" as members of Hamas and other terrorist groups.

Another 300 of the 1,200 - women, children aged 15 and younger and men over the age of 65 - had been categorized as noncombatants, the CLA said.

Counted among the women, however, were female terrorists, including at least two women who tried to blow themselves up next to forces from the Givati and Paratroopers' Brigades. Also classed as noncombatants were the wives and children of Nizar Rayyan, a Hamas military commander who refused to allow his family to leave his home even after he was warned by Israel that it would be bombed.

The 320 names yet to be classified are all men; the IDF has yet complete its identification work in these cases, but estimates that two-thirds of them were terror operatives.

The CLA gave the Post the names of several fatalities who it said had been classified by the Palestinians as "medics," but who it stated were Hamas fighters, including Anas Naim, the nephew of Hamas Health Minister Bassem Naim, who was killed during clashes with the IDF on January 4 in the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood of Gaza City.

Following the clashes, the Palestinian press reported that Naim was killed and that he was a medic with the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Gaza CLA, however, produced photographs of Naim posing holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a Kalashnikov assault rifle that had been posted on a Hamas Web site.

...As a consequence of the false information, the IDF was considering setting up a "response team" for future conflicts whose job would be to collect information, analyze it and issue reports as rapidly as possible that refuted Hamas fabrications.

CLA head Col. Moshe Levi acknowledged on Sunday that all this information - on both such specific incidents as the UN school and the overall classifications of the dead - would probably be largely ignored today, since it was being made available so long after the fighting ended. But Levi explained that the IDF was not prepared to issue information unless and until it was confident of its accuracy, no matter how grievous the damage to Israel's image, and the consequent political pressures caused by the delays in contesting inaccurate facts and figures.

Unbelievable. This report is coming out four weeks too late but at least it is coming out. Reporters should have been skeptical from the start about the Gaza "atrocity" stories given the Palestinian Arab penchant for lying.

I hope that the IDF starts showing this report to other journalists.

Iranian companies call rivals "Zionist"

From The National (UAE):

Allegations in Iran against Nestlé, the international food company, of having affiliations with Israel may have been spread by rivals of the company, a conservative Iranian news portal has reported.

The report titled “Iran’s Nestlé in Rivals’ Trap” appeared on Tabnak, which is affiliated with an influential conservative politician, Mohsen Rezaiee, secretary of the Expediency Council and a former chief commander of the Revolutionary Guards.
The report by Tabnak said the allegations against Nestlé were made and spread by rival companies and importers of infant food.

The report also found a Nestlé factory in Qazvin, 200km west of Tehran, had to halt its operations after demonstrators demanded its closing following the military offensive in Gaza, but begun operating again after intervention from the state inspection organisation.
The General Inspection Organisation has cleared the company of charges of Zionism for the time being. In Iran, any person or organization charged with Zionist affiliations or sympathies is considered a possible threat to national security.

And demonstrations against western companies with alleged affiliations to Israel, such as Nestlé, Benetton and Coca-Cola, are frequent in Iran whenever anti-Israeli feelings run high. A Benetton shop in an affluent northern Tehran neighbourhood was set on fire by radicals in the early days of the offensive in Gaza. Other Benetton outlets had to close for a few days until the situation cooled down; they are now all operating normally.

A while back I coined the term "misoziony" to describe the utterly irrational hatred of all things Zionist, and Iran is Exhibit A.

A few well-placed rumors can affect the Iranian economy, thanks to the gullibility of its people and the unreal hatred they have towards "Zionism."

So in order to stop Iran's march to create nuclear weapons, I think it is time to publicize all of the Zionists (really, Jews, but close enough) who worked on The Manhattan Project, and whose innovations must be strictly haram for the misozionistic mullahs:

Robert Oppenheimer
Richard P. Feynman
Wolfgang Pauli
Leo Szilard
Albert Einstein
John von Neumann
Isidor I. Rabi
Edward Teller
Eugene Wigner
Otto Frisch
Samuel Goudsmit
Jerome Karle
Stanisław Ulam
Robert Serber
Louis Slotin
Walter Zinn
Robert Marshak
Felix Bloch
Emilio G. Segrè
James Franck
Joseph Joffe
Eugene Rabinowitch
Hy Goldsmith
Samuel Cohen
Victor F. Weisskopf
David Bohm
Hans Bethe
Niels Bohr

It appears to me that the atom bomb is really a Zionist invention, and Iran would be hypocritical to want to use that technology, rather than developing its own Islamically pure alternative.

AP wakes up about Hamas murder spree

AP mentions:

International and Palestinian human rights organizations say there was a rash of shootings and beatings across Gaza during Israel's offensive, voicing suspicions the Islamic militants of Hamas used wartime chaos to target enemies, including activists from the rival Fatah.
Two Gaza-based groups, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the Independent Commission on Human Rights, interviewed survivors and witnesses who said some attacks were carried out by members of Hamas' internal security service.

Amnesty International went further, saying Hamas militiamen engaged in a "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."

This is all very nice, but a bit outdated. The ICHR report came out January 26, PCHR report came out February 3, and Amnesty's on February 10. Not only that, but AP quotes the PCHR report of 32 killed, without mentioning that others have been murdered by Hamas afterwards.

This might have been a decent report had it been printed a couple of weeks ago. Now that the world has lost interest in Gaza is not the time to start to notice Hamas crimes that were ignored - but reported on - during the operation.

(h/t Soccer Dad for the link - I never get to see MSM stuff anymore as I spend my time scouring the Arab media; it drives me nuts that a part time blogger consistently finds and reports on things weeks before the thousands of members of the MSM, if they even report it at all.)

Another intransigent, extremist Arab country

Similar to the example I gave today from Yemen, Bahrain is another country whose attitudes towards Israel would be considered "extremist" and "intransigent" if Israel applied the same attitudes towards any Arab country. But instead, it is regarded as "moderate" and "friendly."

From NewsBlaze:

The Bahrain government has denied accusations by non-governmental organisations that it was moving towards normalising ties with Israel.
The government has faced sharp criticism from NGOs and human rights group since the Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip this year. The word on the street is since the tiny island is a close US ally; the authorities would not consider opening the Israeli boycott office which was shut down in 2006.

But the government maintained its stance and said there was no need for the office to be reopened as it said laws and regulations forbid public organisations from violating ban on Israeli goods. This was stated in a letter responding to a bill in parliament which called for Anti Normalisation with the Zionists and reopening the office.

Bahrain has no ties with Israeli and has always reacted sharply from calling off Israeli goods in supermarkets to launching a petition calling for reopening the Israeli boycott office.

The Bahrain Society against Normalisation with the Zionist Enemy has collected over 200 hundred signatures to re-open the office.

Abdulla Malik, general secretary of the society said, "The office was set up in 1963 in Bahrain. It was closed after Bahrain signed the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US in 2004. We want the office to be re-opened to ban Israeli goods, as by closing it we are sending signs of diplomatic ties with killers."

The Bahrain Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa told Pan- Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat in an interview that US never asked them to normalise relations with Israel.

Perhaps, but the US did say that the Bahrain boycott of Israel was illegal under the US-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement:

Separate from the FTA obligations, Bahrain confirmed in a letter that it did not apply the “secondary” and “tertiary” boycotts against Israel and stated that it recognized the need to terminate the “primary” boycott of Israel imposed by the Arab League states in 1963. The “primary” boycott prohibits direct trade between Israel and the Arab nations. It is not clear whether this statement is legally binding, though the USTR has claimed that it is binding. The commitment is not enforceable under the Agreement. The “secondary” boycott blacklists companies that do business in Israel, while the “tertiary” boycott applies to companies that have relationships with companies that operate in Israel. Bahrain theoretically has not enforced the “secondary” and “tertiary” boycotts on Israel since 1994, though periodically, Bahraini government documents contain language related to these boycotts.

The boycott decision has been controversial in Bahrain and has led to a strong backlash against the Bahrain FTA – the lower chamber of Bahrain’s Parliament (the House of Deputies) voted overwhelmingly to oppose lifting the boycott. However, this vote was largely symbolic as the Government of Bahrain stands by its statement that it intends to lift the boycott.

The Administration agreed in the Statement of Administrative Action for the Bahrain Act to report on Bahrain’s progress in dismantling its boycott of Israel.

Since the US and Bahrain concluded the agreement, trade between the two countries has increased by over 50% . Perhaps it is time for the US to revisit how well Bahrain is sticking to its side of the bargain?

Arab lie of the day

From the Tripoli Post:

Isaac Herzog, a member of the ‘Israeli’ cabinet was interviewed last week on ‘Hardtalk’, ‎a BBC World Service programme. ‎
‎ ‎
Without a hint of shame, Herzog tried to defend Israel’s war crimes claiming that ‘Israel’ ‎suffered 5000 ‘rockets’ over the years of the blockade of Gaza from Hamas. What a lie!‎
‎ ‎
The ‘anger missiles’ sent by Gazans remind me of the ‘missiles’ launched at times by ‎demonstrators against riot police in democratic Europe. I laugh when I see the ‎destruction those so called ‘rockets’ cause. ‎
‎ ‎
These rockets mostly fall on empty spaces creating a ‘ditch’ five inches wide and two ‎inches deep obviously caused by impact rather than the explosives charge in them. ‎
‎ ‎
The collective and total explosive power of all those 5000 so-called ‘rockets’ is less than ‎the explosive power of the smallest bomb Israel launched on Gaza in the last seven years. ‎

According to Wikipedia, the payload of the Qassam-1 is a half kilogram, for the Qassam 2 it is 5-7 kg and for the Qassam 3 it is 10kg.

Assuming an conservative average of 5 kg per rocket, multiplied by the 5000 Qassams that the editorialist admits about (the actual number os higher, plus mortars), we get 25,000 kg of explosives in Israel, or 25 metric tons.

If that is the smallest bomb in Israel's arsenal, that would be some arsenal!

Another ton of explosives found by Egypt

From Ma'an:

Egyptian security seized one ton of explosives from a hidden weapons cache in the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, the Israeli intelligence services reported.

An Egyptian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that security forces discovered 13 packages of explosives buried in the desert that are suspected to be bound for the Gaza Strip.

Before the war, Egypt found these caches fairly regularly. Judging from what Israel found in Gaza, clearly Egypt only has found a fraction of the weapons and explosives that were going to Hamas.

As far as the documented finds go, this one is on the larger side.

It is also noteworthy that nearly every article about the Rafah tunnels written by the MSM in 2008 focused on consumer goods being smuggled and ignored the weapons and munitions, as the reporters fell into the Hamas propaganda trick of misdirection.

A case of proportionality (for international law junkies)

The JCPA has a report and video about war crimes in Gaza, and it mentions an interesting incident from the NATO war in Kosovo:

International law determines that when one attacks legitimate military targets one can inflict collateral damage as long as this damage is proportional in terms of military necessity. Following the war in Kosovo, complaints were directed against NATO regarding the indiscriminate use of force. For example, one accusation was that NATO forces struck a television broadcasting station. All sides admitted that the station was deliberately bombed. Some 10 to 17 civilians were killed in the attack. The question that was asked at a special tribunal that examined the issue was whether this was a legitimate target, because the result was the suspension of broadcasts for only a few hours. The verdict was that the attack was proportional to the objective of silencing the station's activity for a few brief hours. The question of proportionality is something that is difficult to quantify; nonetheless, the aforementioned precedent illustrates what is acceptable under international law. In Gaza, no attacks took place that even approached these ratios.

This seemed interesting, so I found the actual report. JCPA is oversimplifying NATO's stated objectives and justifications a bit, but the incident is still very relevant:

71. On 23 April 1999, at 0220, NATO intentionally bombed the central studio of the RTS (state-owned) broadcasting corporation at 1 Aberdareva Street in the centre of Belgrade. The missiles hit the entrance area, which caved in at the place where the Aberdareva Street building was connected to the Takovska Street building. While there is some doubt over exact casualty figures, between 10 and 17 people are estimated to have been killed.

72. The bombing of the TV studio was part of a planned attack aimed at disrupting and degrading the C3 (Command, Control and Communications) network. In co-ordinated attacks, on the same night, radio relay buildings and towers were hit along with electrical power transformer stations. At a press conference on 27 April 1999, NATO officials justified this attack in terms of the dual military and civilian use to which the FRY communication system was routinely put, describing this as a

"very hardened and redundant command and control communications system [which …] uses commercial telephone, […] military cable, […] fibre optic cable, […] high frequency radio communication, […] microwave communication and everything can be interconnected. There are literally dozens, more than 100 radio relay sites around the country, and […] everything is wired in through dual use. Most of the commercial system serves the military and the military system can be put to use for the commercial system […]."

Accordingly, NATO stressed the dual-use to which such communications systems were put, describing civilian television as "heavily dependent on the military command and control system and military traffic is also routed through the civilian system" (press conference of 27 April, ibid).

73. At an earlier press conference on 23 April 1999, NATO officials reported that the TV building also housed a large multi-purpose communications satellite antenna dish, and that "radio relay control buildings and towers were targeted in the ongoing campaign to degrade the FRY’s command, control and communications network". In a communication of 17 April 1999 to Amnesty International, NATO claimed that the RTS facilities were being used "as radio relay stations and transmitters to support the activities of the FRY military and special police forces, and therefore they represent legitimate military targets" (Amnesty International Report, NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force, June 2000, p. 42).
75. NATO intentionally bombed the Radio and TV station and the persons killed or injured were civilians. The questions are: was the station a legitimate military objective and; if it was, were the civilian casualties disproportionate to the military advantage gained by the attack? .... Insofar as the attack actually was aimed at disrupting the communications network, it was legally acceptable.
77. Assuming the station was a legitimate objective, the civilian casualties were unfortunately high but do not appear to be clearly disproportionate....
78. Assuming the RTS building to be a legitimate military target, it appeared that NATO realised that attacking the RTS building would only interrupt broadcasting for a brief period. Indeed, broadcasting allegedly recommenced within hours of the strike, thus raising the issue of the importance of the military advantage gained by the attack vis-à-vis the civilian casualties incurred. The FRY command and control network was alleged by NATO to comprise a complex web and that could thus not be disabled in one strike. As noted by General Wesley Clark, NATO "knew when we struck that there would be alternate means of getting the Serb Television. There’s no single switch to turn off everything but we thought it was a good move to strike it and the political leadership agreed with us" (ibid, citing "Moral combat, NATO at War," broadcast on BBC2 on 12 March 2000). At a press conference on 27 April 1999, another NATO spokesperson similarly described the dual-use Yugoslav command and control network as "incapable of being dealt with in "a single knock-out blow (ibid)." The proportionality or otherwise of an attack should not necessarily focus exclusively on a specific incident. (See in this regard para. 52, above, referring to the need for an overall assessment of the totality of civilian victims as against the goals of the military campaign). With regard to these goals, the strategic target of these attacks was the Yugoslav command and control network. The attack on the RTS building must therefore be seen as forming part of an integrated attack against numerous objects, including transmission towers and control buildings of the Yugoslav radio relay network which were "essential to Milosevic’s ability to direct and control the repressive activities of his army and special police forces in Kosovo" (NATO press release, 1 May 1999) and which comprised "a key element in theYugoslav air-defence network" (ibid, 1 May 1999). Attacks were also aimed at electricity grids that fed the command and control structures of the Yugoslav Army (ibid, 3 May 1999). ... Not only were these targets central to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s governing apparatus, but formed, from a military point of view, an integral part of the strategic communications network which enabled both the military and national command authorities to direct the repression and atrocities taking place in Kosovo (ibid, 21 April 1999).

79. On the basis of the above analysis and on the information currently available to it, the committee recommends that the OTP not commence an investigation related to the bombing of the Serbian TV and Radio Station.

Amnesty International disagreed.

An interesting analysis of the entire question of disproportionality in international law can be seen in this paper. Although this was written under the auspices of the IDF, the paper appears to be as objective as possible; it is quite critical of the vagueness of the current "disproportionality" rules by saying that they give free rein to military commanders. The point of the paper was to begin to find an effective way to objectively calculate proportionality. Here is her synopsis of the RTS incident:

NATO aircraft attacked the RTS television and radio studios in Central Belgrade, killing sixteen civilians.184 The discussions of this incident revolved mainly around questions of targeting and distinction, as the military nature of the studios was controversial.185 However, the question of proportionality was raised as well, as the result of the attack was only (it appears) a brief interruption in the studios’ broadcasting, whereas the collateral damage amounted to sixteen civilians killed, and a further sixteen wounded.186 According to Laursen, one ought not to make too much of this, as it is difficult to tell what effect this disruption had on the military communications of RTS.187 This, of course, is the perennial problem: we never know exactly what the military advantage was, so we are always in effect missing half of the equation.

Amnesty argues that the attack was disproportionate.188 The prosecutor’s report, in contrast, concludes that the civilian casualties were high, but not disproportionate.189 In its discussion of the law regarding target selection, the report states that proportionality must be assessed on a “case by case basis.” In discussing the attack on RTS, however, the committee reaches its decision on the basis of a cumulative assessment of the collateral damage in relation to the military objective, of which the RTS studios were an integrated part: the prosecutor defines this objective as the entire “Yugoslav command and control network.”190

It is unfortunate that the prosecutor’s report uses a cumulative assessment, as this is arguably inappropriate,191 and moreover, precludes any real debate about the proportionality of this specific attack. Still, this is one case where the question is addressed directly: Amnesty argues that sixteen civilians are too many, and the prosecutor argues that they are not. This attack falls into the simpler, type I category of proportionality decisions, as explained above (section II): Whether or not the destruction of a TV studio is worth the lives of sixteen civilians. With a real debate on proportionality, a consensual, customary law answer to this question might in time become possible. Under the present circumstances, however, too little has been written on the subject: NATO states that the death of sixteen civilians is not disproportionate; Amnesty disagrees. At this point, there is no external and independent discourse to provide a framework within which the question can be decided.

By any measure, however, the IDF seems to have gone way beyond NATO in 1999 (as well as the US in the first Gulf war, which was also touched on in the paper) in attempting to avoid civilian casualties. And almost certainly no purposeful IDF actions in Gaza approached the ratio of casualties to military gain that NATO's bombing of RTS did. (There is information in the three reports about accidental casualties, which would be an interesting topic on its own.)

Yemen drafts law to criminalize peace with Israel

Imagine, if you will, the world reaction that would ensue if a group of Knesset members pushed to criminalize - forever - the idea of peace with some Arab nation.

Now think about the silence that greets this obscure news story:

Around 71 Yemeni members of Parliament (MPs) on Sunday signed a draft law criminalizing relations with Israel as a small gesture of solidarity to the Palestinians.

The draft was signed by 105 out of the 301MPs, said MP Mohammed Al-Hazmi. The MPs who signed were from different political currents.

"The draft law includes 10 articles that criminalize and prohibit any connection with the Zionist entity. The MPs voted to remit the law to the constitutional committee," Al-Hazmi added.

"This law will ensure that the Yemeni political leadership never normalizes relations with Israel nor forget the Palestinians' rights," Al-Hazmi commented.

“A copy of the draft law will be sent to the Arab and Islamic Parliaments Union to follow the Yemeni step in issuing and legitimizing such laws that prohibit any connection with the Zionist entity,” Al-Hazmi said.

They aren't saying "no peace with Israel until Israel withdraws from the territories." They are saying "no peace with Israel - ever."

Which shows that their pretense of saying they are doing this to show solidarity with Palestinian Arabs is a joke. After all, the PA does officially seek a peace agreement with Israel.

Another Palestinian Arab against peace

A somewhat strange story came across the Palestinian Arabic media today, talking about a prominent Palestinian Arab feminist writer who refused to share a prestigious French award with an Israeli. The only place I could find an English version was published weeks ago, though, at an Arab site called Women Gateway:

Palestinian novelist Dr Sahar Khalifa has refused to share 2009 French Simon de Beauvoir award with an Israeli author. The award was given to mark the 100-year birth anniversary of French philosopher Simon de Beauvoir.

Sahar justified her refusal to Al Jazeeera.net as rejection to all forms of normalisation of ties with Israel. She said that sharing the award with an Israeli comes as accepting Israel. She asked for reasons to nominate an Israeli author with her. “The award was nominated to create peace between the two countries and that couldn’t be justified as prizes couldn’t reduce the aggressions of Israel. The Nobel prize given to Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres failed to promote peace.”

Sahar doesn’t regret turning down the award, despite her love to Simon de Beauvoir. The novelist has won the reader prize in France for her novel “Hot Spring” by winning 70% of votes of French readers.

Sahar asked also for reasons to choose the Israel writer who only wrote one article about religious Jewish women.

From PalToday's version of the story, it appears that the Israeli who was to share the award was Tzvia Greenfield, a left-wing Orthodox MK in the Meretz party. The Firas Press version says that she rejected the award because it would imply a "kind of normalization with Israel."

Isn't it odd that when any Zionist rejects the idea of a Palestinian Arab state they are labeled as extremists and hardliners, but when prominent Palestinian Arabs reject the idea of Israel - a state that has existed for decades - they typically represent the intellectual elite? (I'm including people like Rashid Khalidi, Columbia professor and Obama friend, who felt that Yasir Arafat was not terrorist enough for him.)

Why would people consider giving a prize to someone who explicitly rejects any peace that includes Israel's continued existence as the only Jewish state on the planet?

The prize is awarded every year to a remarkable personality whose courage and thoughts are examples for everybody, in the spirit of Simone de Beauvoir who wrote: "The ultimate end, for which human beings should aim, is liberty, the only capable [thing], to establish every end on.

Does Khalifa sound like she fits that description?

The other odd part about this story is that the 2009 Simone de Beauvoir Prize was already given, to a women's rights group in Iran. it is unclear when Khalifa had the opportunity to reject the award - if it is true, it must have happened months ago. If so, why is she mentioning it now?

I could also not find any mention of her novel "Hot Spring" (in transliterated Arabic "Rabee’ Har") being popular in France or anywhere else. The 70% number seems exaggerated or fictional. I think it means this book, "The End of Spring," with a pro-terrorist bent:

In The End of Spring, Sahar Khalifeh chronicles the struggle of the Palestinian people with a humane depiction of Palestinian resistance fighters during the 2002 siege of Yasir Arafat’s official headquarters. Khalifeh’s tender and moving portrayal of her protagonists delves into the inner consciences of the men and women and children who were involved in the actual resistance—or were simply caught in the middle.

Of course, the Muqata was where Arafat was protecting terrorists from Israel - people he had agreed to keep in prison. Her "tender and moving protrayal" of terrorists seems to be a strange background for a prize given by people who want to promite peace.

If one would measure Sahar Khalifa by the same yardstick that the world measures Zionists, she would be considered an intransigent, ultra-right wing warmonger. By any objective measure, her feelings towards Israelis are more extreme than Avigdor Lieberman's feelings towards Arabs. But since she is a Palestinian Arab and a woman to boot, she is not considered a terrorist supporter - instead she is an admired fighter for human rights.

13 prisoners escape PA prison in Jericho

From Ma'an:

Thirteen Palestinian prisoners afternoon escaped from a Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho Friday afternoon, Palestinian security source told Ma’an.

According to the security source, nine of the detainees who escaped are officers in the PA’s security services accused of petty crimes. Four others are “wanted by Israeli intelligence.”

“Those who escaped are now fugitives,” source said.

Palestinian security is currently on a wide-scale manhunt in an attempt to re-arrest the men, Majid Faraj, head of the Palestinian military intelligence service in the West Bank.

Another 13 reasons not to trust the PA with Israel's security.

And were those four men being held in prison to keep them away from Israeli interrogations?

I'm sort of quoted

I just received the Think Israel newsletter, and as I skimmed through the articles I saw something written by "The Elders of Ziyon." The title didn't sound familiar, so I checked out who it was.

Well, it was me, sort of.

Back in 2004, this site was pretty much just quoting articles I found interesting, and this one was actually taken from Israpundit. The original Israpundit article is gone so I get the credit.

It is an interesting article, about how EU funding for Palestinian Arabs had no oversight. I'm not quite sure how it got picked up four and a half years later, though!

I wonder how much I get paid for inclusion in this journal?

NIEws

I didn't get a chance to comment on the Obama administration explicitly discarding the infamous and incorrect NIE report that claimed that Iran had stopped working to build nuclear weapons, but plenty of other people did:

Soccer Dad: A high degree of confidence
Hot Air: Just a reminder: Obama doesn’t believe the sham NIE on Iran either
Israel Matzav: But is it too late?
Mere Rhetoric: US Spy Agencies: Actually, It Turns Out That Iran Is Developing Nukes
Jules Crittenden: It’s Not What You Know
Commentary:Iran’s Bomb Is Real

"Two-thirds of dead Gazans were terrorists"

From Ha'aretz:

Israel says that about two-thirds of the Palestinians who were killed in the Gaza fighting were members of terror organizations who took part in the fighting, Channel 2 News reported Thursday.

These include the Hamas police cadets who were killed in an Israeli air strike at the beginning of the operation.

Channel 2 cited a report issued by Military Intelligence and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, listing 1,134 Palestinian fatalities, 673 of which belonged to Hamas and other groups.

Only 288 were innocent civilians, the report says.

If Israel is going to make these claims, with very precise numbers, they have to back them up with names and specifics.

PCHR, although it is quite biased and clearly calls terrorists "civilians," counted 1285 fatalities, including 280 children and 111 women, and almost always has names of the victims (although they didn't during the first, most bloody week of the war.) For the numbers to jive, we would have to assume that over a hundred of the women and children were fighting, that there were zero innocent adult males killed, or that many Gazans listed by PCHR - over 150 - were killed directly by Hamas actions, through executions, work accidents, Hamas cross-fire or the like.

(PCHR is more credible than the Gaza "medical officials" who kept a running count during the war that was slavishly repeated by the media.)

I would be quite happy to accept Israel's numbers, but they have to name names and dispute the PCHR figures line by line. It is possible that both sets of numbers can be reconciled, but it wouldn't be easy. For better or for worse, PCHR does not appear to be lying about the raw statistics, so it is up to Israel to explain not only their count but the differences.

Jimmy Carter was against Egypt/Israel peace!

A very interesting article by Arthur Herman in the WSJ:

The myth of Camp David hangs heavy over American foreign policy, and it's easy to see why. Of all the attempts to forge a Middle East peace, the 1978 treaty between Egypt and Israel has proved the most durable. Mr. Carter's admirers extol Camp David as an example of how one man's vision and negotiating skill brought former enemies together at the peace table, and as proof that a president can guide America toward a kinder, humbler foreign policy. Camp David was indeed Mr. Carter's one major foreign policy accomplishment amid a string of disasters including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the rise of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and Ayatollah Khomeini's ascent in Iran.

But the truth about Camp David belies this myth. The truth is that Mr. Carter never wanted an Egyptian-Israeli agreement, fought hard against it, and only agreed to go along with the process when it became clear that the rest of his foreign policy was in a shambles and he desperately needed to log a success.

As presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter was sharply critical of the kind of step-by-step personal diplomacy which had been practiced by his predecessors Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. President Carter's preferred Middle East policy was to insist on a comprehensive settlement among all concerned parties -- including the Arab states' leading patron, the Soviet Union -- and to disparage Nixonian incrementalism.

Mr. Carter and his advisers all assumed that the key to peace in the region was to make Israel pull back to its pre-1967 borders and accept the principle of Palestinian self-determination in exchange for a guarantee of Israel's security. Nothing less than a comprehensive settlement, it was argued, could ward off future wars -- and there could be no agreement without the Soviets at the bargaining table. This was a policy that, if implemented, would have thrust the Cold War directly into the heart of Middle East politics. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger had strained to achieve the opposite.
...For the better part of 1977, as Israel and Egypt negotiated, the White House persisted in acting as if nothing had happened. Even after Sadat's trip to Jerusalem, Mr. Carter announced that "a separate peace agreement between Egypt and Israel is not desirable."
...But by the autumn of 1978, the rest of Mr. Carter's foreign policy had crumbled. He had pushed through an unpopular giveaway of the Panama Canal, allowed the Sandinistas to take power in Nicaragua as proxies of Cuba, and stood by while chaos grew in the Shah's Iran. Desperate for some kind of foreign policy success in order to bolster his chances for re-election in 1980, Mr. Carter finally decided to elbow his way into the game by setting up a meeting between Sadat and Begin at Camp David.
...
Camp David worked because it avoided all of Mr. Carter's usual foreign policy mistakes, particularly his insistence on a comprehensive solution. Instead, Sadat and Begin pursued limited goals. The agreement stressed a step-by-step process instead of insisting on immediate dramatic results. It excluded noncooperative entities like Syria and the PLO, rather than trying to accommodate their demands. And for once, Mr. Carter chose to operate behind the scenes à la Mr. Kissinger, instead of waging a media war through public statements and gestures. (The press were barred from the Camp David proceedings).

Above all and most significantly, Camp David sought peace instead of "justice." Liberals say there can be no peace without justice. But to many justice means the end of Israel or the creation of a separate Palestinian state. Sadat and Begin, in the teeth of Mr.Carter's own instincts both then and now, established at Camp David a sounder principle for negotiating peace. The chaos and violence in today's Gaza proves just how fatal trying to advance other formulations can be.

Now, of course, Carter uses Camp David as his major credential for "peacemaking" even as he continues to advocate his failed policies of a comprehensive peace based on Israeli concessions and empty promises by Arabs. His recollection of Camp David includes his usual amnesia about Palestinian Arab commitments:

I was really disappointed when President Reagan dropped the ball completely. He showed no interest in the Mideast peace process after I left office and we were right on the verge of a complete success back then. We had two facets of the agreement that I negotiated with (Israeli Prime Minister Menachem) Begin and (Egyptian President Anwar) Sadat. One was the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, not a word of which has ever been violated in the last 30 years. The other one was a commitment of Israelis to withdraw their political and military forces from the West Bank and to let the Palestinians have full autonomy. On that part of the process, Israel did not carry out their promise and President Reagan didn’t try to enforce the agreement that they had signed and that their parliament had approved. So yes, I was disappointed.

The text of Camp David shows Carter's bias:

Egypt and Israel agree that, in order to ensure a peaceful and orderly transfer of authority, and taking into account the security concerns of all the parties, there should be transitional arrangements for the West Bank and Gaza for a period not exceeding five years. In order to provide full autonomy to the inhabitants, under these arrangements the Israeli military government and its civilian administration will be withdrawn as soon as a self-governing authority has been freely elected by the inhabitants of these areas to replace the existing military government.
When the self-governing authority (administrative council) in the West Bank and Gaza is established and inaugurated, the transitional period of five years will begin.

The autonomy that Camp David talks about is predicated on free elections in the territories, something that didn't happen until decades later.

So not only does Carter take credit for Israel/Egyptian peace that he opposed, he continues to lie about the very agreements that he brokered - always to vilify Israel.

(Also see My Right Word on the same Arthur Herman article.)

Clan clash, and other PalArab news

Three Qassams were shot from Gaza this morning, and a group called the "Hezbollah Brigades" claimed responsibility for two of them. These small groups give Hamas plausible deniability although the chances that Hamas had no knowledge of the rockets is slim to none. (Despite what unnamed "Israeli security officials" supposedly said to The Telegraph.)

A clan clash near Hebron killed one and injured three.

This weekend, for the first time in five years, Israel will allow Arab citizens to visit Nablus without getting permission ahead of time. A similar program for Jenin started a couple of months ago. Gee, you think that there might be something to the "peace for peace" idea?

Maybe not. A five kilogram bomb was discovered by the IDF near Jenin.

Hamas is making noises that both an agreement for a temporary "calm" with Israel and an agreement with the PA (where the PA would re-assert control over the Rafah border) are imminent.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 26.

Morning briefs

York University saw a crowd of pro-Palestinian Arab students siege the Hillel, which caused the police to get rid of - the Jewish students barricaded in the Hillel. One Jewish student was explicitly threatened.

Palestine Today headlines York University incidents this way: "The curse of the blood of the martyrs of Gaza haunt the Jewish and Israeli students in Canada."

Meanwhile, at UCLA, even the biggest Jewish critics of Israel are noticing that their anti-Zionist allies are stepping over the line, and that the university has abandoned all pretense of objectivity.

The "Seven Jewish Children" play gets more press. The assistant director's justifications prove incredible ignorance:

Natalie Ibu, the play’s assistant director, sent an email to the Board of Deputies while the play was in rehearsal.
She wrote: “The play examines the history of the state of Israel and depicts strong pro-Israeli views. We think it is important we understand this point of view in order to represent it correctly and authentically.

Of course, it doesn't depict pro-Israeli views; it depicts an Israel-basher fantasy of Jewish glee at killing innocents.

A review of the play concludes "For the first time in my career as a critic, I am moved to say about a work at a major production house that this is an antisemitic play."

On the other hand, most superheroes (and even some super villains) have some Jewish - and Zionist - blood:

Then of course there is Magneto, a Holocaust survivor. Perhaps no villain in all of Comicdom has more tangled motives than he. One fanboy during the Q&A following the discussion made an excellent point that Magneto may in fact be the ultimate Zionist. His dream of Avalon, a haven for mutants to live their lives free of persecution is eerily similar to the story of Israel. Only Theodor Herzl didn't have the power to manipulate metal. Though we might've seen a Jewish homeland a lot earlier if he did.

Another Hamas innovation: Molotov medicines

The Jerusalem Post unveils yet another Hamas innovation in using humanitarian aid:

Medicine bottles, transferred to the Gaza Strip as humanitarian aid by Israel, were used by Hamas as grenades against IDF troops during Operation Cast Lead. Pictures of the grenades were obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post.

The medicine bottles were filled with explosives, holes were drilled in the caps, and fuses were installed. Once Hamas fighters lit the fuses, they had several seconds to throw the grenades at soldiers. The IDF also found small explosive devices that used medical syringes to hold their fuses.

The medical grenades were discovered in northern Gaza by troops during last month's three-week battle against Hamas. The grenades were taken to military explosives experts, and then disassembled and studied.

One bottle turned into a grenade originally contained a drug called Equetro, which is used by people who suffer from episodes associated with bipolar disorder. Another bottle had contained a vitamin supplement called Super-Vit.

"This is another example of Hamas's cynical use of humanitarian supplies to attack Israel," a Defense Ministry official said Thursday. "Israel facilitates the transfer of the supplies to the Gaza Strip, and Hamas uses the supplies to create weapons."

Yes, the medicines sent by the evil Zionists to help innocent Palestinian Arabs are being used by Palestinian Arabs to try to kill the evil Zionists.

No amount of psychiatric medicine can cure this disease.

UPDATE: Omri talks about this in his trademarked, snarky way. It's a cycle of medical supplies!

Abraham Lincoln and the Jews

Since today is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, it is time to revisit a little known episode of the Civil War, which is recounted in this fairly obscure book published in 1909.

As summarized by the Federation of American Scientists website:

In a remarkable episode from the Civil War that is not as widely known as it might be, General Ulysses S. Grant issued Order No. 11 on December 17, 1862 expelling all Jews from those portions of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi where his forces had taken the field.

The book gives details:

General Grant's Order No. Eleven.
The edict of General Grant, known as Order No. 11, excluding the Jews, as a class, from within the lines of his army, naturally aroused a storm of indignation. Grant's first manifesto appeared at Lagrange, Tenn., on November 9, 1862, in the form of instructions to Gen. Hurlbut to refuse all permits to come south of Jackson, Tenn., adding " the Israelites especially should be kept out." He next issued orders to Gen. Webster, referring to the Jews as " an intolerable nuisance." He also reported to the War Department that " the Jews roam through the country contrary to the government regulations." Finally on December 17 he issued a general order expelling all Jews as a class " from his Department within 24 hours."

Back to the summary:

Equally remarkable, President Lincoln did not say he would “stand by” his generals or that “we must give the military the tools it needs” to accomplish its mission. Instead, he rescinded the Order.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln repeatedly suspended habeas corpus and authorized other serious infringements on civil liberties. But there are some things that are not done in America, it appears, even when the survival of the nation is at stake. This was one of them.

General Grant’s action was not entirely irrational and prejudice-driven. An estimated 25,000 of the nation’s 150,000 Jews lived in the South and were loyal to the Confederacy, according to a 2005 Library of Congress exhibition. And some Jewish merchants would “roam through the country contrary to government regulations,” Grant complained.

“The President has no objection to your expelling traitors and Jew peddlers which I suppose was the object of your order,” wrote Gen. Henry Halleck to Gen. Grant, somewhat inelegantly. “But as it in terms proscribed an entire religious class, some of whom are fighting in our ranks, the President deems it necessary to revoke it.”

The story received only cursory, two-sentence treatment in the preeminent Lincoln biography (“Lincoln”) by David Herbert Donald, which mistakenly attributed Halleck’s “Jew peddler” phrase to Grant (p. 409).

And Grant himself did not mention Order No. 11 in his Memoirs. He deliberately omitted it, his son explained in a 1907 letter, because “that was a matter long past and best not referred to.”

To the contrary, however, this principled exercise of restraint by the President in time of war seems well worth remembering and pondering today.

That is what makes a great President.

The book, called Abraham Lincoln and the Jews, also details Lincoln's relationship with his Jewish friends.

Administrivia - Replacing Blogroll

I am not very good at keeping my blogroll nice and tidy, and hadn't even noticed that the Blogroll.com site has been down for months, barely serving old blogrolls but without being able to update them.

So I just replaced my venerable old blogroll with a Blogger gadget that shows recent post titles from all blogs on my blogroll, along with a snippet of the post. That way any blogs that retire will just scroll off the list without cluttering it.

Well, that's the theory anyway.

Feel free to scroll down the right sidebar and peruse the blogs I like to read when I can.