Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Preliminary results of PCHR Gaza casualty analysis (updated)

In March, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights widely released a report detailing the people who were killed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. This report was a seemingly comprehensive list of the details about every death: the name, gender, age, location, and job of each person is detailed. Most importantly, the PCHR classified all the victims as being either "militants" or "civilians," and their counts indicated that 1180 of 1414 victims were civilians.

Meanwhile, the IDF has claimed that there were 1166 killed in Gaza, of whom 709 were known Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants.

The IDF did not release their list of casualties, so its claims cannot be independently verified at this time. On the other hand, I and other bloggers have been researching the PCHR's claims and have found serious inconsistencies with that organization's methodologies and classifications.

Our team cross-checked the names listed by PCHR with lists of "resisters" compiled by the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, lists of "martyrs" published by Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and other militant groups in Gaza, as well as from the Ma'an News Agency, Palestinian Arabic discussion groups and other sources.

Our preliminary results show that at least 342 of the people killed, that PCHR classifies as "civilians," were, in fact, militants.

PCHR's criteria to determine exactly who is a "militant" is unclear. They seem to claim that they are only counting those whom they had direct evidence were engaging in hostilities at the moment of their deaths, but this is far from clear. At any rate, the term "militant" is not a legal term, and in common usage it refers to anyone who belongs to a military or paramilitary group. The PCHR's statistics are deceptive and slanted towards creating a false impression of IDF brutality.

So far, we have identified members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, the PFLP and the DFLP who are all considered "civilians" by the PCHR. The full list can be seen at http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-of-those-civilians-killed-in-gaza.html. These include the links to the original sources where the victims are associated with these various militant groups.

This is far from a comprehensive list. This is only based on the names that we have found. We are not trying to create a full count of civilians and militants; rather we are showing that the statistics given by the PCHR and publicized in the media are knowingly false.

The IDF has categorized most or all of the Hamas police force as "Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives" and therefore as legal targets. The PCHR takes strong exception to this categorization, and reveals its own definition of "combatants":

PCHR consider the IOF’s classification of police officers as combatants illegal: this classification constitutes a wilful violation of the principle of distinction, a key component of customary international law. Hamas is a multi-faceted organisation, exercising de facto governmental control of the Gaza Strip. As an organisation, it cannot be considered an armed group. Rather, a distinction must be made between Hamas’ armed and political/civil components. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades are the military wing of the Hamas organisation, they are an armed group, and are considered as combatants according to IHL. However, Hamas’ political and civil wings are comprised of civilians, who are legally entitled to the protections associated with this status, provided they do not take an active part in hostilities. Civil police, and governmental officials cannot be considered combatants. Attacks intentionally directed against these individuals constitute wilful killing, a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, and a violation of customary international law.

If we fully accept the PCHR's definitions and interpretations of international humanitarian law (IHL) here, then they are saying that members of armed militias like the Al Qassam Brigades are legal combatants and therefore legitimate targets. By extension, it is clear that the Hamas policemen who were also members of the Al Qassam Brigades were, in fact, legitimate targets from the IDF.

Our research has detailed proof that at least 205 of the policemen listed to have been killed in Operation Cast Lead and classified as "civilian" by the PCHR were, in fact, militants. In addition, the PCHR itself classified 10 policemen as "militants."

(The PCHR has been inconsistent in its own press releases. While they claim that 255 non-combatant policemen were killed in Cast Lead, or that 255 police officers were killed in total, their English list includes some 282 people identified as "policemen," of whom 272 were considered "civilian." Their Arabic list counts some 280 policemen in total.)

By any count, over two thirds of the policemen killed in Operation Cast Lead were members of militant groups, predominantly the al-Qassam Brigades.

Certainly, the PCHR is aware of the affiliations of many of not all of the victims in Gaza. To give one example, the Popular Resistance Committees al-Nasser Salah Addin Brigades published a list of its 18 "martyrs" on January 22, 2009. Yet nine of them - including a "commander" and a "field commander" - were classified as "civilian" by the PCHR nearly two months later. It strains credulity to think that with all the effort the PCHR made in compiling the names and classifying the victims that they were unaware of their affiliations with armed groups.

Why, then, did they classify so many known militants as civilians? One can only conclude that the PCHR is not being consistent with even its own description of who is considered a "militant" - and that the reason is to deceive the readers of its reports and the media who would uncritically report the PCHR's conclusions.

Such a high number of Al Qassam members among the police that were killed indicates that Hamas itself does not distinguish between its so-called civilian and military wings. Effectively, Hamas considers its police force to be the same as its military force. If Hamas does not respect the principle of distinction in its own civilian organization, it forfeits the demand for its opponents to adhere to the principle of distinction, and the entire police force would be considered a legitimate target.

The IDF indeed defined the entire Hamas police force as a legitimate target. If we accept that definition, the total number of militants that we can identify by name using the IDF's criteria would be:

282 total police officers
226 "PCHR militants" (not counting the ten police militants according to PCHR)
148 militants identified as "civilian" by PCHR
---
656 total police and militant victims

This is not far from the 709 militants the IDF has said it is aware of.

The evidence that Hamas doesn't distinguish between its civilian and military wings is overwhelming; for more on that topic see this excerpt from Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad by Matthew Levitt:

Because of the notion that Hamas has independent "wings," its political and charitable fronts are allowed to operate openly in many Western and Middle Eastern capitals. In these cities, Islamic social welfare groups tied to Hamas are often tolerated when their logistical and financial support for Hamas is conducted under the rubric ofcharitable or humanitarian assistance.
While convenient for Hamas and its supporters, this distinction is contradicted by the consistent if scattered findings of investigators, journalists, and analysts. A review ofthe evidence regarding the integration of Hamas' political activism, social services, and terrorism demonstrates the centrality of the group's overt activities to the organization's ability to recruit, indoctrinate, train, fund, and dispatch suicide bombers to attack civilian targets.
The social welfare organizations of Hamas answer to the same political leaders who play hands-on roles in Hamas terrorist attacks. In some cases, the mere existence of these institutions is invoked to classify Hamas as a social welfare rather than a terrorist organization. To debunk these specious assumptions, it is necessary to fully expose what Hamas calls the dawa (its social welfare and proselytization network). This is sometimes difficult because, as one U.S. official explained, "Hamas is loosely structured, with some elements working clandestinely and others working openly through mosques and social service institutions to recruit members, raise money, organize activities, and distribute propaganda."

Yet even without this knowledge, the PCHR is inconsistent in its definitions. Its only consistency, as evidenced by its use of the term "IOF" ("Israel Occupation Forces") instead of IDF, is a desire to make Israel look as bad as possible. This is not the function of a "human rights" organization - it betrays a political agenda rather than a humanitarian one.

The al-Fakhoura UNRWA School

An interesting finding from the PCHR report regards the al-Fakhoura UNRWA school in Jabalya. On January 6th, 2009, the IDF returned fire from nearby the school, and the initial reports from various Gaza organizations charged that between 30 and 50 people were killed there. The PCHR wrote then that the IDF killed "27 civilians instantly" (not counting the Deeb family which was not near the school and indeed appears to have been killed by an errant shell.) The IDF, on the other hand, has claimed that 12 were killed outside the school.

The PCHR report lists exactly 12 victims from near the al-Fakhoura school, although they do not line up with the names and descriptions given by the IDF. Even so, the PCHR does not seem to be interested in publicizing the discrepancy between its initial reports of a massacre and what it later admits.

Child Militants

The PCHR press releases emphasize child victims of the conflict, but they do not mention another fact of which they are aware: that children are being drafted for use by militant groups.

The PCHR list includes 7 militants who were under 18:

#580 ‘Ateya Rushdi Khalil Aal-Khuli (16)
#830 Ahmed Fawzi Hassan Lubbad (17)
#942 Ibrahim Mustafa Sa’id (17)
#1070 Mahmoud Ahmed Fares Juha (16)
#1094 Mohammed Nader Khalil Abu Sha’aban (17)
#1256 Tamer Reyad Ibrahim Faza'a (17)
#1397 Tamer ‘Umar Isma’il al-Louh (17)

We have identified another 8 children who were members of militant groups that PCHR named as civilian:

#280 Ahmed Rasmi Mohammed Abu Jazar "Mujahid" 16 years old
#405 Tareq Yaser Mohammed ‘Afana 16 years old Al Qassam Brigades member
#409 Mahmoud Majed Mahmoud Abu Nahla 16 years old "Shahid Fighter" in ICT list
#415 Ghassan Nizar Abdul Kader Rayan 16 years old (Nizar Rayyan's son) "Al Qassam shahid" (his siblings are not mentioned)
#992 Mohammed Jaber Mohammed ‘Eleyan 16 years old member of PRC/Nasser Brigades
#1156 Hammam Mohammed Hassan al-Khudary 16 years old Islamic Jihad member
#1162 Belal Jamal Isma’il Abu ‘Awwad 17 years old Al Qassam member
#1229 ‘Imad Maher Saleh Ferwana (Ammar Maher Farwana) 17 years old listed as "resister" on Al Mezan list
#1275 Samer Mohammed al-Abed Abu Aser, 17 years old, Islamic Jihad member http://www.saraya.ps/view.php?id=11327 (Saraya site down now, data from ICT)

We have yet to see the PCHR condemn Hamas or Islamic Jihad for their recruitment and use of children as fighters.

Discrepancies in total number killed

The IDF has stated that 1166 people were killed during Cast Lead, and has suggested that the difference in total killed between their count and the counts from PCHR, Palestinian Ministry of Health and Al-Mezan could possibly be because the Gazan organizations counted people who died naturally as being "martyred" by the IDF.

While we have no way to verify that claim, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has a list of all "martyrs" who died, they say, as a result of the "siege" of Gaza (typically cancer and heart disease patients, presumably because of a lack of medical care and the ability to travel to Israel for treatment.). Their monthly totals of such deaths before and after Cast Lead look like this:

November - 10
December - 14
January - 3
February - 13
March - 23

None of the December deaths occured during Cast Lead.

It is curious that the number of deaths from cancer and similar diseases would have plummeted so much during the fighting. While this is hardly proof, it does indicate that the statistics that come out of official institutions in Gaza and the PA are suspect and that there is a possibility that the total number of Cast Lead victims has been exaggerated.

Conclusion

While the results are not complete, there is overwhelming evidence that the PCHR knowingly and maliciously lied in its statistics regarding the numbers of civilians and militants killed during Operation Cast Lead. Knowing its clear biases, the most reasonable conclusion is that the PCHR was not nearly as interested in the truth as it was in demonizing the IDF. The report itself cannot be considered reliable.

Given this information, it is difficult to know whether to believe that organization in other areas.

NK "rabbi" speaks at Oxford

A Muslim group at Wolfson College at Oxford tried to book a Neturei Karta "rabbi" to speak, using underhanded means, and the college was accused of "censorship" by not going along:

A University of Oxford college has been accused of stifling free speech after it cancelled a lecture by a controversial anti-Zionist rabbi.
Rabbi Ahron Cohen was to present a paper entitled “Zionism is not Judaism, Anti-Israelism is not Anti-Semitism” at Wolfson College, a postgraduate college, on 30 April.
The lecture was part of a monthly forum organised by the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford (MECO), which booked the venue.
Taj Hargey, chairman of MECO, said the college cancelled the event on 29 April and that Wolfson’s president, Hermione Lee, told him that she had been inundated with complaints from students about the speaker.
He told Times Higher Education: “They are saying there is a booking anomaly, but that is not the real reason for the cancellation. The real reason was student pressure. We have offered to pit a Zionist in a debate against Rabbi Cohen, but that has not been accepted. Free speech has lost, and censorship has won.”
A spokeswoman for Wolfson College said the lecture booking was cancelled because it was not “made transparently”.
“Wolfson supports free speech and is happy to host speakers of all opinions,” she said. “However, where a speaker is likely to be controversial or provocative, or has the potential to cause offence to college members, it is the college’s policy to discuss among the governing body whether and how to hold the event, including whether opposing voices should be included in the event.
“As this speaker was booked under the identity of a college member who knew nothing about the booking and the real identity of the speaker became apparent only yesterday, there was no opportunity to hold these discussions. This left Wolfson with no option but to tell the organisers that the venue was no longer available.”

What is interesting is that this article didn't mention that the "rabbi" spoke anyway:

The talk had to be moved at the last minute after the management of Wolfson College, where the talk was to be held, cancelled the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford’s booking.

Its new location, St Edward’s School in Woodstock Road, was only revealed an hour before the talk took place.

MECO chairman Dr Taj Hargey said: “It went very well in the end."

Isn't it interesting that MECO chairman Taj Hargey tells the international Times Higher Education that they were "censored" without mentioning that the lecture ended up taking place?

Speaking of NK, a commenter wrote that he didn't believe that NK had been condemned by virtually every Chassidic and charedi group, as Arutz-7 had reported in 2002. I didn't find any independent confirmation of the 2002 letter that A7 mentioned, but their are many condemnations from other groups including Satmar - and even including the main Neturei Karta from which the tiny radical branch split, as this statement from the anti-Zionist larger group shows:

To clarify and to enlighten
It is now close to 60 years since the Zionists established their rule over Eretz Yisroel (the Land of Israel) by founding the impure Zionist state, which brazenly stole the name "Israel" and has waged a full and open war against God through its mere existence... And this new path, which has never been the path of our forefathers and our rabbis, to replace the study of the Jewish viewpoint regarding the exile with matters of state and political affairs, and to mingle with the peoples, and to try to bring about the dismantlement of the Zionist state by force... And because of this we have found it to be our duty to clarify:

That these actions go straight against the views of the leadership of Neturei Karta,
And it is the total opposite of the ways of Neturei Karta
We must clarify how much we have been hurt by the huge desecration of God's Name caused by these actions and it is impossible to remain silent on this issue.

And we must also mention that the tiny NK's "foreign minister" received tens of thousands of dollars from Yasir Arafat:

The first letter is a receipt in Arafat's handwriting for a payment to Moshe Hirsch for $25,000; there is a similar letter authorizing $30,000. The second letter is from Hirsch to Arafat that mentions a "misunderstanding with a messenger," presumably one that was to deliver one of his payments.

"Apart from wanting to kill all Jews, Meshal is AOK"

The New York Times shills again for a terrorist, this time Hamas' Khaled Meshal in an interview where they even admit that he is using them:

He explained why he was giving the interview, his first to an American news organization in a year, by saying: “To understand Hamas is to listen to its vision directly. Hamas is delighted when people want to hear from its leaders directly, not about the movement through others.”

That also seemed aimed at the Obama administration, which has decided to open a dialogue with Iran and Syria, but not with Hamas until it renounces violence, recognizes Israel and accepts previous Palestinian-Israeli accords.

But that is nothing compared to the Times' interpretation of Meshal's political position vis a vis Israel:

On the two-state solution sought by the Americans, he said: “We are with a state on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.” Asked what “long-term” meant, he said 10 years.

Apart from the time restriction and the refusal to accept Israel’s existence, Mr. Meshal’s terms approximate the Arab League peace plan and what the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas says it is seeking. Israel rejects a full return to the 1967 borders, as well as a Palestinian right of return to Israel itself.

Oh, and he refuses to revoke the Hamas charter which calls on killing all Jews. But he said it is 20 years old, so the Times reporters interpret that as meaning "it doesn't apply anymore" - something he didn't say or even imply.

After all, the Quran is a bit older than that.

So Meshal wants to see Israel destroyed, he wants all Jews in the Middle East murdered, and he might be willing to offer a ten year pause for Israel to get destroyed demographically. The prestigious NYT, however, characterizes this as being virtually indistinguishable with the most moderate Arabs, and casts Israel as the intransigent party for not wanting to joyfully accept suicide.

Altogether, this was a true low for the New York Times.

(h/t EBoZ and Soccer Dad)

Anatomy of a fake Ben Gurion quote

The Pakistan Daily today "quotes" David Ben-Gurion:

“It is essential that we strike and crush Pakistanis, enemies of Jews and Zionism by all disguised and secret plans,” - David Ben Gurion, first prime minister of the Zionist entity.

Since this quote sounds absurd, I did a little research.

The full "quote" seems to have originated in an article from the anti-semitic Rense.com from April 1, 2001 (sorry, I will not link there):

If there is still any doubt as to the real intentions of Israel, then please see this statement issued by David Ben Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister. His words, as printed in the Jewish Chronicle, 9 August 1967, leave nothing to imagination:

"The world Zionist movement should not be neglectful of the dangers of Pakistan to it. And Pakistan now should be its first target, for this ideological State is a threat to our existence. And Pakistan, the whole of it, hates the Jews and loves the Arabs.

"This lover of the Arabs is more dangerous to us than the Arabs themselves. For that matter, it is most essential for the world Zionism that it should now take immediate steps against Pakistan.

"Whereas the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula are Hindus whose hearts have been full of hatred towards Muslims, therefore, India is the most important base for us to work therefrom against Pakistan.

"It is essential that we exploit this base and strike and crush Pakistanis, enemies of Jews and Zionism, by all disguised and secret plans. ____

Wow, a real date and source for this supposed quote! Now we just have to find The Jewish Chronicle.

While there are lots of small Jewish newspapers called The Jewish Chronicle, it seems unlikely that Ben Gurion granted an interview to the newspaper in Pittsburgh or Wisconsin. The only reasonable candidate would be the London Jewish Chronicle, which has been published since 1841.

Well, it has been published every Friday since 1841. Unfortunately, August 9, 1967 was a Wednesday.

The fake quote itself is all over the Internet - in literally hundreds of websites. Intrepid blogger Solomon's House noticed it last December and proceeded to demolish it, even going through the JC archives looking at every mention of Pakistan. He then went on to confront the Islamists who believe the quote, to predictable results.

One unassailable fact is that it takes seconds to make up a fake quote and it takes much effort to disprove one. Even after it is shown to be false, it will be believed by the people who want to believe it.

Fake "civilian" update

Thanks to the volunteers who are poring through various lists of Gaza victims, here are the current stats of people whom the Palestinian Center for Human Rights called "civilian" that are actually terrorists.

265 militants that the PCHR called "civilian"
139 policemen/members of terror organizations that the PCHR called "civilian"
13 terrorists under 18 years old

Known terrorists killed in Gaza so far by name
265+236 PCHR "militants" = 501

Percentage of policemen who were also known terrorists:
135/239 = 58%

Suzanne is still going through the names on the PCHR list to find references to any terror activities..and doing an amazing job.

I believe that since a preponderance of policemen were also al-Qassam Brigades members, together with the fact that Hamas' military wing is indistinguishable from its "civilian" leadership, justify Israel's bombing of the policemen - something that some human rights organizations have called illegal under international law.

The updated list, as always, is at http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-of-those-civilians-killed-in-gaza.html Our preliminary report on our findings (when the numbers were lower) available here.

I'm adding the "shahids" to the list

I've been struggling with how to categorize people who are merely called "shahids" in Hamas al-Qassam Brigades message boards and websites; whether they are likely to be militants or not.

At this time, I am going to assume they are. Here are my reasons:

1) There are no women or young children being referred to in those websites as "shahids", even though they are routinely referred to as such in Arabic newspaper reports. This indicates that the word, in the context of these sites, refers exclusively to adult males, and given that these sites celebrate "resistance," it indicates strongly that the term is referring to those who are worthy of emulation.

2) We have identified 9 plain "shahids" who we had already shown to be members of terror groups.

The main counterargument is that these names were often posted by regular readers of the site who could not be expected to use consistent labels. It is possible that some of them would assume that every policeman was an al-Qassam member (not an unreasonable assumption, given our findings.)

So I will add the five new names of plain shahids we have identified so far, and keep a record of my thinking on the blog so my decisions are as transparent as possible if anyone wants to verify these findings.

Hamas turned Abbas home into Gaza prison?

From Xinhua:

Islamic Hamas movement Monday denied an Israeli report that the movement's security apparatuses turned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' house in Gaza into a place for holding Fatah activists.
A senior Hamas security source refuted the Israeli report, saying "The Israeli media always publish untrue reports to damage Hamas image and its government in Gaza. Our prisons are opened for rights groups who are always briefed on what goes on in these prisons."
"The places where the prisoners are held are well-known to Gaza human rights organizations, where their representatives had visited," said the source who declined to give his name.
Earlier in the day, Israeli Maariv daily quoted a senior Palestinian official in Ramallah as saying that Hamas security apparatuses turned the villa of the president in Remal neighborhood into a place for holding and questioning Fatah leaders.
The official told the Israeli daily on condition of anonymity that Hamas "arrested Fatah movement activists and leaders, and took them to President Abbas house in the city to interrogate them."
Hamas holds 20 Fatah leaders and activists in Abbas' house in Gaza, and Hamas hides this fact, he added.

As is usual, it is difficult to tell which set of liars is lying.

But here is a picture of Hamas militants making themselves at home in the house:

"Free Gaza" loses its Dignity

An "urgent email" to the Free Gaza mailing list:

It's with heavy hearts that we have to inform you that the Free Gaza ship, the DIGNITY, has been lost outside Larnaca port in Cyprus. Fortunately, no one was injured in the accident.

On 30 December 2008 the DIGNITY was rammed by the Israeli navy while on a mission of mercy to deliver critically needed medical supplies and doctors to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. Thanks to the heroic efforts of its captain and crew, the DIGNITY was able to find safe harbor in Lebanon, later making its way to Cyprus for repairs. Early this morning we received a call from the Harbor Master in Larnaca, informing us that the ship was taking on water. While attempting to tow her to safety, the ship went down. An inquiry has begun into the circumstances surrounding her demise, possibly due to storm damage suffered during the night.

Maybe we should send this fake "humanitarian" organization some toothpicks to help rebuild the boat.

Their last boat had essentially no aid whatsoever.

PalArabs again protesting those who help them

From Ma'an:

Popular committees in West Bank refugee camps will close down the offices of UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, in protest of alleged reductions in aid.

Ibrahim Saqr, the director of Nablus refugee camps’ committees, said that that the decision to strike came after the UN once again rejected the committees’ demands.

He also said that the shutdown was a “first step” in a program of protest. On Thursday the committees will shut down the offices of UNRWA’s regional directors as well as warehouses.

Yes, yet again, the Palestinian Arabs addicted to handouts are protesting that the free food and medical services and schooling that they receive isn't enough for them - so they will shut down the aid to "protest."

This isn't the first time this has happened. A similar action occurred last August, and last April the protests turned so violent that the UNRWA workers were forced to go on strike to protest their very safety as they attempt to provide services for the people that were threatening them! Not surprisingly, the UNRWA hushed up that incident.

This is what happens when entire generations of people are brought up with two basic ideas:

1. They are entitled to everything they demand, forever, without having to work for it.
2. Violence is the most effective way to get things done.

Fatwas of the day

From the Daily Times (Pakistan):

LAHORE: It is un-Islamic for anyone to be photographed, Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) chief Sufi Muhammad has said.

Talking to a private TV channel, he said any duplicated image of a person, whether a “still picture or video” was un-Islamic. Referring to the various systems of governance, he said democracy, communism, socialism and fascism were all un-Islamic. He also said there was no need for a constitution in the country in the presence of the Quran and Sunnah, adding these were the “biggest laws” available to humanity. Focusing on democracy, he said it was un-Islamic, as infidels invented it.

Sufi Muhammad said the sharia system of governance not currently in force anywhere in the world, not even Saudi Arabia or Iran. “Only the Taliban had enforced sharia when they were in power in Afghanistan,” he added.
On the status of women in a Taliban-run society, he said women were not allowed to come out of their house for any reason other than to perform Haj. However, he added, a female patient was allowed to visit a male doctor to seek a cure for her ailments.

Glad he cleared that up!

Still finding new Gaza "civilian" terrorists

Thanks to the efforts of Suzanne, PTWatch, and t34zakat we are still finding more and more Gazan terrorists killed by the IDF that were called "civilians" by the PCHR.

Right now we are concentrating on the ones listed by ICT as being called "shahid fighters" or "Qassami shahids" or "hero shahids" in Hamas websites; I am not sure whether we should characterize plain "shahids" or plain "policemen" as automatically being terrorists at this time. Even so, we are on the verge of identifying more than half of the policemen killed as being members of terrorist groups! (119 out of 239)

Evil Zionist pigs feared to spread swine flu

We've seen many times Palestinian Arabs blame "settlers" for releasing wild pigs that are magically bred to attack only Arabs and Arab crops.

So this story was not only inevitable, but frankly overdue:

Boars set free by Israeli settlers on Sunday damaged sheep barns and beehives in the northern West Bank village of Salem, east of Nablus.

According to Ja’far Ishtayya, deputy mayor of Salem, “Boars attacked three homes and sheep barns, owned by Theib and Ziad Hasan, as well as 32 beehives owned by Taha Hamdan. The boars also attacked a car owned by Baha’ Hussein on his way out of the village.”

Ishtayya appealed to the Palestinian Authority to work out a solution for the boar attacks, highlighting swine flu fears, as well as physical damage caused by the animals.

Not yet as direct as I expected, but the accusation that Zionists are sending the pigs deliberately to spread swine flu among PalArabs is only a matter of time.

Allah doesn't like Medinah either

I mentioned a few days ago how many earthquakes occur in Iran.

Well, the second holiest city in Islam, Medinah, has reported some 1200 minor tremors in the past few days.

MADINAH: More than 1,200 tremors, most of which were very weak, have occurred in and around Madinah over the past several days, the National Center for Earthquakes and Volcanoes at the Saudi Geological Survey Authority said yesterday.
According to the center, the tremors had magnitudes of between 0.78 and 3.7 on the Richter scale. Some residents, especially in the village of Al-Ais, felt tremors on Thursday and Friday.
Hani bin Mahmoud Zahran, director of the center, said Bahrat Al-Shaqqah was the epicenter of the earthquakes, which began on April 18 and are still continuing.
He said the strongest tremors measured 3.7 degrees on the Richter scale.
He added that villagers in Hadmah, Al-Qarrasa, Al-Ameed, Al-Faraa and Al-Sahla felt six tremors. Zahran said the Civil Defense immediately dispatched specialized technicians to carry out thermostatic measurements at Bahrat Al-Shaqqah and install a monitoring station there.
He said the authority was monitoring the situation around the clock and was currently collecting data to understand the nature of the tremors and if they were connected to volcanic activity.

May 1921: Arabs kill Jews, Jews blamed

An article in the Jerusalem Post about the 1921 Arab riots in Jaffa gave me some incentive to research it myself, and I found a full copy of the British Commission Report on the incidents.

Here are some parts of the 64-page report.

The disturbances dealt with in this report began with a riot in
Jaffa on Sunday, the 1st May, 1921, followed by serious acts of violence
in the same town on the two succeeding days, and local attacks on
Jewish agricultural colonies on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
of that week. To the same group of events belong sporadic anti-
Jewish manifestations which occurred in Jaffa during June and as
late as July.

[The report details the antipathy between two Jewish socialist parties on May Day.]

The Arabs of Menshieh, who had resented the Bolshevik demon-
stration from the first, became aware that a disturbance was taking
place on the Tel Aviv side of the sandy space, and came out of their
houses to the western edge of the sandy space, where they could
observe what was happening on the Tel Aviv side. Many of them were
armed with sticks. At the same time Jews began to collect on the
eastern edge of Tel Aviv. It then became the duty of the police to
come between the two parties and prevent a collision if possible.
They occupied the sandy space, Mr. Cohen and his men keeping back
the Jews, and Tewfik Bey with his men keeping back the Arabs.

The dispute between the Jewish Labour Party and the M.P.S.
was now at an end, and demonstrators were beginning to disperse
towards Menshieh. Had it not been for outstanding grievances felt
by the Arabs against the Jews, the police would have had little difficulty
in keeping the peace. The Arab population is ordinarily very obedient
to authority, and it is only when some religious or racial emotion is
aroused that it becomes difficult to manage. The Jews are less obedient
to authority and more difficult to control : on the other hand, they are
less prone to that sudden access of violence which characterises the
Arab when aroused to anger by some actual or supposed wrong or
provocation.

It became evident that the situation was growing critical, and
shortly after noon Abdin Bey joined Mr. Cohen, and Reserve Inspector
Atkins joined Tewfik Bey. Neither party was willing to return into
its own quarter until the other had done so first. Some police in the
sandy place fired their rifles into the air by order of Mr. Atkins. This
was the first firing that was heard. It appears that most of the people
who heard it were ignorant as to where the shots came from or who
had fired them. It must have been almost immediately afterwards
that somethuig occurred in the Moslem quarter to draw the poHce
and the Arabs back into the streets of Menshieh. Mr. Cohen says that
reports were brought by Jews of their shops having been broken open
and of shooting. That shooting was probably the firing by the police
in the air by order of Mr. Atkins, as no persons appear to have been
killed or severely wounded up to that moment. Mr. Cohen goes on to
say that later he heard a noise in the Menshieh quarter, left his place
at the sandy space, rode to the spot, and found Arabs breaking windows.
It seems clear that at that moment police and Arabs left the sandy
space, and poured into the Menshieh quarter, where a general hunting
of the Jews began. We are of opinion that both Mr. Cohen and
Tewfik Bey did their best to keep the peace, but the police lost control
of the situation altogether.

At this time Mr. Miller was sent by the Governor to Tel Aviv on a
report that the quarter was being attacked by Arabs. On arriving
he found that firing was coming from the Menshieh quarter towards
Tel Aviv, and being replied to from houses on the edge of the latter
quarter, but that Tel Aviv was not being attacked. He proceeded to
Menshieh and found that the police had lost all authority, and that there
was a great deal of fighting going on.

On reaching Menshieh main street they found the Jewish
market there entirely looted, and looting was going on elsewhere.
The presence of Mr. Miller and the notables, especially that of the
Mayor, had the effect of stilling tumult at any spot where they appeared,
but so exasperated had the two parties become by that time that this
effect was only momentary, and fighting began again as soon as their
backs were turned. At that time all the men in the streets were armed
with sticks, iron bars, knives, anything that came to hand.

The [Arab] civil police in general were now wholly
inefficient, either because they felt themselves unable to cope with the
tumult, or because racial passion had become infectious and they were
unwilling to make an effort to stem the rage of their own peoples.
It is difficult to rely on the evidence of individuals engaged in the
melee, but we liave formed the view that from this time the police
became partisan, a view that is confirmed by subsequent proceedings.

..The door [of the Jewish Immigrant House] had been broken open by an angry crowd, a bomb had been thrown with fatal results, blood was flowing and the Inspector of Police, the only officer then present, went home to lunch.

We are satisfied from the evidence of the Reverend A. C. Martin,
of the London Jews' Society, who saw much of what happened from a
window on the opposite side of the main street, that the police in the
street broke through the door and led a part of the mob into the yard.
They broke into the ground floor of the main building and into the
other buildings. Men who sought refuge by running into the street
were beaten to death by the crowd. Others were killed inside the
courtyard. The invaders came in from all the entrances when the
defence had broken down. Only one woman was killed, namely by a
shot fired through a window. Those women who escaped into the street
were roughly handled by the crowd, but not killed. They were wounded,
but not dangerously, and were sheltered from further harm by an
Arab neighbour. Perhaps the most revolting incident was the conduct
of one of the Arab policemen. He was at first regarded by the women
as a protector, but he took advantage of the prevailing terror to rob
them of their small possessions, and to two he made indecent advances,
telHng them that he was a Jew, with threats of violence if they refused
to comply with his demands. They appear to have avoided this
crowning act of brutality by escape. This man was convicted by a
special Court for the trial of offences committed during the riots, and
was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment. It must not be supposed
that no resistance was made by the Jews. The toll of dead and
wounded in the gruesome episode of the Immigration House was as
follows :

13 Jews killed or mortally wounded and 24 wounded ; one Arab killed and four wounded.

[May 2]

A horrible murder was disclosed during the afternoon. Mr.
Brenner, a Jewish author of some repute, was living with five other
Jews in an isolated house off the Kamleh Road. The women of the
house were absent. A motor lorry was sent to bring them away,
and the house was found to be closed and empty. Some distance away
five bodies, those of Brenner and four others, were found lying in a
footpath, beaten or stabbed to death. The sixth body was found about
100 metres away with the hands tied behind the back. When the
searchers returned to remove the bodies the sixth was not discovered,
and has not been seen since.

A group of Jewish houses near the German Colony was entirely
looted on Monday. The inhabitants had fled and there was no loss of fife.

[May 4]

The general situation had improved, but the state of feeling was
obviously still acute. Popular unrest had spread to the surrounding
country, and by Friday night there had been* attacks by Arabs on five
Jewish agricultural communities. All parties were looking to the
Government for some distinct declaration of policy. Colonel Byron
says : "As far as the Moslem population were concerned, they were
very anxious to receive some declaration on the question of immigra-
tion. I gathered such information from both parties, i.e., the notables
here, and Mr. Dizengoff, the Mayor of Tel Aviv." He had already
issued an order under his general authority that no immigrants should
be landed at Jaffa for the present. On the morning of Saturday, the
14th May, a telegram was received from Government House confirming
the temporary prohibition of immigration, and, when made known by
the town crier in the square, was received with acclamation.

[May 6, Hadera]

During the night of the 5th and the early morning of the 6th,
people were coming in from neighbouring villages, and a considerable
number must have collected in Tulkeram. They were rudely armed,
and not a serious force if encountered by a small number of experienced
troops ; but a formidable mob for the police to deal with..../

When the airman returned at 12.35 p.m. the attackers had already
entered the village from the south-east under the cover of a grove of
eucalyptus trees. They had burned, ransacked, destroyed and looted
at will in that quarter of the village. They had encountered for a
moment three mounted scouts, who retired on their approach, but no
collision had occurred as yet between them and the inhabitants of the
colony. Mr. Flynn circled round the village at a low altitude, and
ascertained the condition of affairs. On the occasion of his former
flight he had been unable to turn the Arabs from their attack by a
demonstration of force without actual violence. On the second occa-
sion his return created a panic among the invaders, which caused them
to hurry from the village, carrying in their flight what loot they could.
As they fled, the Arabs were hurried in their retreat by bombs and
machine-gun fire. Their casualties were not so great as might have
been expected. Three Arabs are known to have been killed and three
wounded. Among the retiring Arabs, whom Mr. Flynn estimates as
a crowd of between 400 to 500 persons, were the 10 mounted policemen.
The Sergeant-Major asserts that he arranged his men in military forma-
tion so that the airman might observe that they were not a part of the
mob, and avoid bombing them. Mr. Flynn observed that these were
police, but from the fact of their retreatment with the raiders, regarded
them as participating in the raid, and took no pains to discriminate
between them and the rest of the crowd. Four of these were wounded,
the Sergeant-Major severely, and three police horses were killed.

The lives of the colonists were saved. They had been in great peril,
and we have no doubt that had the raid not been interrupted, the
colony would have been destroyed.

In this case it is clear that the colonists had done nothing whatso-
ever to provoke an attack. The armed crowd that proceeded to raid
them intended to kill and loot, and it is a pity that they were not firmly
handled before they had the opportunity of doing damage.

It was evident from the tone
and substance of what the Mayor of Tulkeram said to us, that he con-
sidered the raid as an act of war against the Jews, if not justifiable,
at any rate excusable. He had done his best to keep his people quiet,
but after the raid was over he was clear in his determination not to
allow any person or village to suffer for it through his instrumentality.
So unanimously is public opinion on one side of this controversy that
evidence to ^x responsibility is practically unobtainable, the more so
as the colonists saw little or nothing of the raid.

[The report also details attacks on Jews in Kfar Saba, Petach Tikva, and Rehovot.]

...This was no ordinary riot. The disturbance raged for several
days with intensity wherever Arabs came into contact with Jews, and
spread into the surrounding country, where Jewish colonies, having
nothing whatever to do with Bolshevism, were attacked with ferocity.
The Bolshevik demonstration was the spark that set alight the explosive
discontent of the Arabs, and precipitated an outbreak which developed
into an Arab-Jewish feud.

....We are persuaded that it is due partly to the Government policy with
regard to a Jewish National Home in Palestine, partly to Arab mis-
understandings of that policy, and partly to the manner in which that
policy is interpreted and sought to be applied by some of its advocates
outside the Government. It culminates in a suspicion that the Govern-
ment is under Zionist influence, and is therefore led to favour a minority
to the prejudice of the vast majority of the population. We have been
assured, and we believe, that had there been no Jewish question, the
Government would have had no political difficulty of any importance
to deal with so far as its domestic affairs are concerned.

...We have no doubt that the Arabs were the
first to turn this quarrel into a race conflict, and, when once this issue
was joined, they behaved with a savagery which cannot be condoned.

Dr. Beadles, the Principal Medical Officer, Jaffa, thus speaks of his
examination of the dead bodies on the 1st May :

" I was struck most with the number of wounds on each body,
and the ferocity of the wounds. I am speaking particu-
larly of broken skulls. Some of the victims had dozens
of wounds."

The last expression may be an unconscious exaggeration, but it shows
the impression produced on the mind of a man who had practised his
profession during the war, and was not unaccustomed to the sight of
wounds. The killing was accompanied and followed by an orgy of
pillage which was a disgrace to a civilised community.

When we come to consider the raids on the agricultural colonies
we find the immediate cause to be the reports of Jews having killed
Arabs in the Jaffa riots. They were all the outcome of the general
rage against the Jews aroused by these reports. In some cases there
were local causes which stimulated this feehng. The Khedera raid
was immediately prompted by a false report of the imprisonment of
Arab labourers. The raid on Rehoboth was the immediate result of a
story about the Jews of that colony having attacked a neighbouring
Arab village. There is no evidence to show the responsibility of any
particular village for the raid on Rehoboth, but Mr. Miller and Mr.
Wainwright think that the false report was concocted on that day
by persons at Ramleh who wished to promote an attack on the Jews.
It is, however, only fair to add that two notables, who were tried in
this connection, w^ere acquitted. In the Petach Tikvah case only the
Abu Kishk tribe can clearly be saddled with responsibility. The
Yahoudieh men never actually raided the colony. They would have
done so had they not been caught in time by the military, but they were
stopped and soundly punished. There is no evidence to show by whom
Kefr Saba and Ain Hai were raided. The raiders found no one to kill,
but looted and destroyed. In none of these five cases can the conduct
of the Arabs be excused or condoned. Most of the colonists had lived
for years on quite friendly terms with their Arab neighbours, and had
in many cases given them regular employment on a large scale. The
bloodthirsty attacks on these peaceful settlements, which had been
guilty of no provocation whatever, are among the worst features of the
disturbances.

Although the report does mention retaliatory attacks by Jews, it makes it very clear that every incident was initiated by the Arab side, with uncommon savagery.

Yet the conclusion has the same kind of disgusting "even-handedness" that we see daily at the present time:

...It has been impossible to avoid the conclusion
that practically the whole of the non-Jewish population was united in
hostility to the Jews. During the riots all discrimination on the part
of the Arabs between different categories of Jews was obliterated.
Old-established colonists and newly arrived immigrants, Chalukah
Jews and Bolshevik Jews, Algerian Jews and Russian Jews, became
merged in a single identity, and former friendships gave way before the
enmity now felt towards all. On the 27th June, nearly two months
after the first outbreak, two members of the Commission of Inquiry
chanced to meet a band of decently dressed Arab children, whose
average age could not have exceeded six or seven, marching in proces-
sion along the Ajami quarter, brandishing sticks and branches, and
shouting the words, " We want to fight the Jews." The incident was
small, perhaps, but not without significance, and it was noted by the
members of the Commission who saw it that no attempt was made by
several policemen present to interfere with it in any way. So long as
the popular feeling described above continues it will not be possible
to maintain law and justice effectively, because the mass of the people
cannot be trusted to do justice where a Jew is concerned.

[Many other examples are given of anti-Jewish feeling by the Arabs of Palestine, and yet...]

...But for the considerations set forth above we feel convinced that
there would be no animosity towards the Jews as such ; that there is
no inherent anti-Semitism in the country, racial or religious. We are
credibly assured by educated Arabs that they would welcome the
arrival of well-to-do and able Jews who could help to develop the country
to the advantage of all sections cjf the community. Zionists, for their part,
dwell freely on the theme that the realisation of the policy of the
" National Home " will benefit Arabs as well as Jews ; but we feel
bound to express the opinion, arrived at in the course of the inquiry,
that the Zionist Commission, which is the representative of the Zionist
Organisation in Palestine, has failed to carry conviction to the Arabs
on this point. So far as we can judge, the only sentiment it has
inspired in them is one of profound distrust.

...
Much, we feel, might be done to allay the existing hostility between
the races if responsible persons on both sides could agree to discuss
the questions arising between them in a reasonable spirit, on the basis
that the Arabs should accept implicitly the declared policy of the
Government on the subject of the Jewish National Home, and that the
Zionist leaders should abandon and repudiate all pretensions that go
beyond it. The immigrants should be made to understand that,
whatever their historical and religious claim, they are after all seeking
a home in a country at present overwhelmingly Arab, and that it
behooves them to adopt a considerate attitude towards the people
among whom they must wish to live in peace and friendship. The
Arab notables, on the other hand, should make it clear to the Arabs
that in no case can they expect murder, violence and pillage to be
condoned.

See how even handed it is? Tell the Jews to be more considerate and friendly towards Arabs so as not to anger them - and ask Arabs nicely not to murder Jews.

Weekend open thread

Sorry I haven't been able to post today.

L. King suggested in the comments an open thread about the challenges to Zionism in academia, a theme for my last two posts. He brings up some good points.

I started looking at the list of Hamas members from ICT. I am uncomfortable right now counting anyone who is simply called a "shahid" in the Hamas lists they looked at; even though there is strong evidence that when they call someone a "shahid" they are a terrorist (for example, they didn't list any women,) I can still imagine Hamas using that same word to describe a theoretical policeman who was not affiliated with the Qassam Brigades. I just added a "heroic shahid" to my list, making it 227.

Even so, the ICT list is difficult because it lists a lot of people by their terror names only ("Abu JIhad") that don't correspond to anyone in the PCHR list. Anyone who wants to tackle that process, feel free to volunteer!

Anyway, let this be an open thread so you can all discuss things and find cool links to share....

Professor's "Israel=Nazi" comparison worse than reported

A university professor in Santa Barbara sent out an email message to his students equating Israel with Nazi Germany and Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto.

The way it is being reported, it sounds like perhaps the professor was simply sending out some source material for his course:

Two students at the University of California-Santa Barbara say they were shocked when a professor compared Israeli actions to those of German Nazis.
University of California-Santa Barbara senior Rebecca Joseph said sociology Professor William I. Robinson acted inappropriately when he sent students a message comparing Israel's Gaza offensive to the Holocaust, the Los Angeles Times said Thursday.

And Robinson characterizes it the same way:

“My right in accordance with the Code ‘to present controversial material relevant to a course of instruction’ is being flagrantly violated and I am under harassment,” Robinson said in a makeshift press release. “The essence of the students’ complaint, as they themselves state it, is that my introduction of material into my course critical of Israeli state policy constitutes anti-Semitism, and this is the only argument made by the complainants to substantiate their charge of anti-Semitism.”

But when you look at the details, it is much, much worse:

The contents of that e-mail, which Robinson reportedly sent to students on Martin Luther King Day and ran under the heading “Parallel images of Nazis and Israelis,“ included 42 side-by-side photos (like the one at left) that have made Robinson the focus of an academic investigation.
Here’s a portion of what he wrote:

I am forwarding some horrific, parallel images of Nazi atrocities against the Jews and Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. Perhaps the most frightening are not those providing a graphic depiction of the carnage but that which shows Israeli children writing “with love” on a bomb that will tear apart Palestinian children.

Gaza is Israel’s Warsaw - a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians, subjecting them to the slow death of malnutrition, disease and despair, nearly two years before their subjection to the quick death of Israeli bombs. We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide (Websters: “the systematic killing of, or a program of action intended to destroy, a whole national or ethnic group”), a process whose objective is not so much to physically eliminate each and every Palestinian than to eliminate the Palestinians as a people in any meaningful sense of the notion of people-hood.

Do professors normally send out 42 pictures of something to prove a point? Robinson didn't find these pictures himself; he was clearly copying things from anti-Israel websites on the Internet - probably from here.

If extreme and sickening opinions are acceptable under the name of "academic freedom," how about lies?

Robinson refers to this picture as "Israeli children writing “with love” on a bomb that will tear apart Palestinian children."

What the picture actually depicts is Israeli children, who had been stuck in underground shelters for weeks because of bombardment from Hezbollah, writing a message to Hassan Nasrallah (you can see it spelled it as "Nazrala") and his army. It had nothing to do with "Palestine" nor "Palestinian children."

It is the type of mistake or willful lie that one would expect from a blogger - but when it comes from a professor, whose standards for truth should be at least that of a newspaper reporter, this indicates a much bigger problem.

I would argue that the opinions that Robinson expressed indeed are anti-semitic. Objectively, the comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany is absurd (and the photos show that he wasn't only comparing Gaza to Warsaw, odious enough as that is.) The only reason it resonates with Israel bashers is because of the perceived irony that Jews could act like their tormenters. I could take photos from Robinson's family album and juxtapose them with pictures of smiling and laughing Nazis at home with their kids; it would be about as accurate a comparison.

A university doesn't necessarily have to be concerned merely if a professor has controversial opinions. The problem here are much deeper:

1) Robinson is writing lies as facts and not distinguishing them from opinion. He's not saying "I believe Gaza is like Warsaw" - he is asserting it is.

2) Robinson is copying and pasting from websites without even knowing the details about the pictures. There are other picture comparisons there that are even more disgusting, especially when you know the context of the "Palestinian" picture.

3) The opinions themselves are, effectively, anti-semitic for the reasons I gave above.

4) Robinson is also directly lying when he refers to Israel as "a state founded on the negation of a people" - a neat projection of what the mythical Palestinian state is. This is besides the lie I mentioned above about "a bomb that will tear apart Palestinian children."

5) The entire email is intellectually lazy and betrays more that Robinson was looking for an excuse to promulgate his views among his captive student audience rather than inform them about anything relevant to the course. It is beyond a controversial opinion: it is advocacy, which is a questionable pursuit in academia.

Campuses continue their anti-Israel activities

A couple of stories from US universities:

Seattle Pacific University hosted an Anglican pastor who railed against Christian Zionism.

The United States' support of Israel is built on faulty principles and is hurting the country's foreign policy, evangelical Anglican pastor and London author Stephen Sizer said.
Yesterday afternoon, Sizer spoke in Demaray Hall 150 at an event called "Christian Zionism: What is it? Its history, theology and political impact on the world today."

Throughout the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the United States has offered unwavering support to Israel, Sizer said. Much of this is due to the prevalence of Christian Zionism, or Christians who support the modern political state of Israel, established in 1948, he said.

There is an antipathy toward the Arabs and Palestinians within Christian Zionism, Sizer said. He countered that the Bible calls us to reconciliation and tells us to love our enemies, he said.

"This theology is impacting attitudes and opinions in the Middle East," he said. There is a view that God is blessing America because the nation is helping Israel, he said, resulting in the demonizing of Islam and the characterization of Arabs as dogs and liars.

Giving Israel a geographic homeland in Palestine may not be the correct fulfillment of God's Old Testament promise to Israel, he said.

And here is a neat bit of cause-and-effect reversal:

"So much of our taxpayer money does go to the state of Israel," said Professor of English Doug Thorpe. This makes U.S. Christians deeply invested in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, he said, and people are suffering because of how American foreign policy supports Israel.

So it isn't that Americans support Israel and therefore give it money; it is that taxpayers are forced to give Israel money and therefore support it! This is the state of academic insight today.

At the University of Illinois:

Students join together to promote peace in Palestine
A group at the University hosted a series of events this week to draw awareness to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as part of Palestine Awareness Week.

The events, which included a talk, documentary, coffee hour and graffiti wall, were sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, a registered student organization.

On Thursday, students stopped by the Quad side of the Illini Union to write on the graffiti wall to show their support for peace in Palestine.

Of course, to the "Students for Justice in Palestine," the definition of "peace" is the destruction of Israel (in their case, via demographic means.) Some chapters are also associated with the ISM/PSM.

Sure sounds like the Zionists are supressing freedom of speech, doesn't it?

Saudi king upset over scandalous rumors

From the Saudi Gazette:

An official source has categorically denied some news agency reports quoting US Foreign Ministry Undersecretary William Burns that King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, had greeted Israeli President Shimon Peres on the sidelines of the UN Cultures for Peace Conference in New York last November.

The statement made by Burns was false, baseless and untrue, emphasized the source.

The source also demanded the US Foreign Ministry to deny the news and issue an explanation and clarification to this misleading news report which will not serve the good relations between the two friendly countries.

From the vehemence of the denials, one would think that he was denying rumors that Abdullah raped a small boy.

Apparently, to the Arabs, greeting an 85-year old ceremonial leader of the Jewish state is just as bad.

And, yes, the name of the conference was indeed the Cultures for Peace Conference.

By the way,

Peres and King Abdullah did not shake hands or speak privately at the conference, though much ado was made in the press about the fact that they sat in the same room. This was the first time Abdullah remained in his seat while an Israeli leader spoke.

Mother of all work accidents watch

Iran has an earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale today.

As we've noted before, Iran is one of the most seismologically active areas on the planet. Over 7000 earthquakes have been recorded there. Here is a map showing where some of them have occurred, and when:

Is this the smartest place to build nuclear reactors, even for peaceful purposes?

Britain calls Richard Falk's UN report "biased"

A rare moment of diplomatic candor and truth:

Britain criticised Wednesday a report by a UN human rights investigator on Israel's Gaza offensive as "unbalanced", but insisted it was extremely concerned by the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
Last month, the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, said in a report that there was "reason" to conclude that Israel's massive military offensive on Gaza in December and January was a war crime, but the Jewish state slammed the report as "one-sided".
"The report of the UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur is unbalanced and contributes little," junior foreign minister Bill Rammell said in a written reply to a parliamentary question published Wednesday.

Of course we already knew that. Nevertheless, this is a very good step towards discrediting the UN's serial liar and inveterate Israel hater Richard Falk.

More self-deaths

Two Palestinian Arabs were killed in another collapse of a smuggling tunnel today. Three others are missing.

There was also a stabbing death in Jenin on Tuesday night.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 72.

"Cast Lead" casualties report by ICT

The International Institute of Counter-Terrorism has released a comprehensive report of the discrepancies between the PCHR report on "civilians" killed in Gaza and the number of them that were militants.

It is a very nice report and the goals are identical with what Suzanne, PTWatch, Leon, Marc El and I have been trying to do here. And there is some fantastic information there in identifying Hamas and other "civilian" Gazans killed who were in fact terrorists.

However, at this time we've identified more militants than they have:

ICT’s research—based both on Hamas websites and on investigation into the circumstances under which people were killed—has so far individually identified at least 314 combatants; as this effort is ongoing, the number will almost certainly increase. 18 of these identified combatants were younger than 18, and thus counted as ―children‖ by PCHR. (Detail: 1 14-year-old, 4 16-year-olds, and 13 17-year-olds.)

We have identified 461 (226 that we found plus the 235 PCHR identified) of whom 12 were children.

Read the report, plus an adjunct report by Dr. Tal Pavel that lists every casualty mentioned in a Hamas website and the specific terminology given to describe the "martyr."

I will try to contact the team responsible for that report so we can swap information.

Black market body-part ring ignored by media

Q. When is a news story about an international ring that removes kidneys from children and selling them on the black market not newsworthy?

A. When the ring is run by Arabs!

From the Yemen Observer:

The Egyptian authorities arrested members of an international gang accused of trading human body parts. The gang was captured by Egyptian authorities in collaboration with the Yemeni community in Egypt. The gang is accused of seducing ten Yemeni children to Cairo where their kidneys were removed in a hospital to be transplanted to patients in the hospital or be exported to other countries.

The gang is composed of 5 members headed by a Jordanian citizen named Fawaz Yosuf. The other four members of the gang are 3 Palestinians and a Yemeni national.

The gang was discovered when a Yemeni family living in Egypt informed the head of the Yemeni community there that their son was seduced by some people who took him to a private hospital and removed his kidney in return for US $5000.

However al-Gahmi affirmed that the arrested gang had links with an international criminal network that works in trading human body parts in Arab countries and in other foreign countries.

Bernama.com adds:

The ring had already kidnapped ten Yemeni children and brought them to Cairo, he noted, but did not say whether the children had their organs removed.

And those are pretty much the only news stories about this crime to be found.

Arabs use Hebrew calendar

YNet mentions:

Thousands attended a Palestinian rally on Israel's Independence Day in the abandoned village of Kafrin, now a part of the northern town of Ramot Menashe.

The rally was in honor of the Nakba, a holiday marking the expulsion of Palestinian refugees from their land during the War of Independence.

Palestinian Arabs could have chosen to celebrate their Nakba Day on any day of the year. They could have chosen the day of the Deir Yassin massacre, or the day that Jordan annexed the West Bank. They specifically chose the day that Israel gained its independence - in order to detract from Zionist celebrations.

So we have the ironic situation where the major day to commemorate Palestinian Arab nationalism is timed to be staged to coincide with Yom Ha'atzmaut - a holiday based on the Jewish calendar!

To be sure, they will also "celebrate" their utter incompetence and track record of missed opportunities on May 15th, on November 29th, and on every other day they can find to gain photo-ops.

As we've seen before, the very essence of Palestinian Arab national identity is based not on anything positive about their own pseudo-history, but entirely on the negation of Zionist history. PalArab nationalism is by definition a negative movement.

(I expanded on this theme last year.)

8-year old pays off "husband" to divorce him

From the Saudi Gazette:

The arranged marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a 50-year-old man, who has two other wives, has been annulled in an out-of-court settlement, court sources said Wednesday.

The settlement, mediated by a new judge at the court, was not without lengthy negotiations between the girl’s lawyer and the husband who clung on to the legality of the marriage until the end of the working day, when he finally agreed to divorce the child wife.

The parties involved were tight-lipped about the settlement. The lawyer, who was hired by the girl’s mother, was not allowed to talk about the settlement to the media until an official announcement of the divorce.

The previous judge in the case, Sheikh Habib Al-Habib, had first refused to annul the marriage last year. But he later said he would reconsider the case upon the girl’s appeal on reaching the age of puberty or upon her mother’s appeal.

Earlier this month, Sheikh Al-Habib ruled for the second time that the girl’s marriage to a friend of her father’s was legal and binding. The father is said to have married off his girl to his close friend to pay off a debt.

The divorce settlement will hence annul Sheikh Al-Habib’s verdict on the case that is being reviewed by the Court of Cassations.

The word "settlement" means that the new judge wouldn't annul the "marriage" until the "husband" was paid off and agreed to it...meaning that if the pedophile didn't agree, she would still be his.

Exactly like slavery.

Pro-Hamas hackers?

Today, both the Firas Press and AlQuds Arabic websites are unavailable.

Given that both of those news sites are pro-Fatah, this seems to be a bit more than a coincidence.

The pro-Fatah Palestinian Press Agency was hacked a while back, and I know Firas had been hit previously as well.

Lying as natural as breathing, part 2

A couple of people decided to look up Nael Barghouti, the person I mentioned in my last post as supposedly the record-breaking prisoner. The only place we see that name mentioned is as the architect of the Park Hotel bombing that killed 20 in 2002.

If he is in fact that same guy, then the article quoted was even more of a lie than I thought. Barghouti would have only been in prison a maximum of 7 consecutive years and calling him a "political prisoner" would also be an outright lie.

Par for the course.

(h/t Soccer Dad and Henrik)

Lying comes as natural as breathing to PalArabs

Ma'an writes:

On Friday, 1 May, Palestinian prisoner Nael Barghouthi will become the world’s record-holder for serving the longest running prison sentence in the world.

Barghouthi will have completed more than 31 years in Israeli custody by May, said Abd An-Nasser Farawna, a Palestinian specialist in prisoners affairs. On Friday, Barghouthi will break the Guinness World Record, which is currently held by Sa'id Al-Ataba, a Palestinian who was also in Israeli custody.

According to Farawna, Barghouthi was detained on 4 April 1978. He became the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner after his fellow prisoner, Sa’id Al-Ataba, was released on 25 August 2008 after efforts made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Al-Ataba spent 31 years and 26 days in Israeli custody.

The world record for longest time served in prison is only 31 years? And this is in the Guiness Book of World Records?

That might be news to this guy who served 64 years in an American prison. And that's just the American record.

Sorry, Nael, you'll have to work a lot harder to get into Guinness.

(It would be nice if Ma'an let us know the terror attack Barghouthi did, but, alas, that detail must not be relevant to the story. )

Teaching children to hate Jews - on TV

MEMRI has another horrific clip of pure anti-semitism - from our friends the Egyptians:

Egyptian Cleric Teaches a Child to Memorize Antisemitic Messages on Al-Rahma TV and Explains: The Understanding of What He Said Will Come

Following are excerpts from an Islamist children's program, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on March 6, 2009:

Child: Oh Allah, completely, destroy and shatter the Jews. Oh Allah, torment them with a disease that has no cure or remedy. Send a thunderbolt down upon them from Heaven. Oh Allah, torment them with every kind of torment. Oh Allah, send upon them flocks of ababil birds1 that will pelt them with stones of baked clay, and turn them into straw that has been eaten. Oh Allah, turn their women into widows – just like Muslim women were widowed. Allah, turn their children into orphans – just like Muslim children were orphaned. Oh Allah, bless the efforts of the mujahideen. Oh Allah, bring victory upon us soon. Amen, amen. Peace and blessings upon you.

TV host: Well done. Well done. I let him end the program on purpose. Of course, he memorized this, and the understanding will come, Allah willing. But this is one stage in becoming a future preacher.

1 Ababil birds are described in the Koran as dropping red clay bricks on the army of elephants sent by the king of Yemen to attack Mecca in 571 CE

Proud to be a Zionist - 5769 edition

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been adding to it since then. Here is this year's edition:

In prayers every morning Jews say a phrase praising G-d, describing Him as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית - He who continually renews the act of Creation. In other words, the Jewish concept of G-d has him in an active role keeping the universe running, and as such it is appropriate to praise Him.

It is a little hard to conceptualize this idea, that the very laws of physics, of the world turning and revolving around the sun is not automatic, but only occurs due to the constant will of G-d. But perhaps it is easier to understand this phrase if we apply it to the modern state of Israel.

Every single day that the Jewish state continues to exist cannot be explained adequately with historical or social or military reasons. Which means that we are witnessing a miracle every day.

The most recent years have been very hard for Zionists, as well as for religious Zionists. Yet when we step back and look at the big picture, Israel remains something to be very proud of.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.
I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like - and possibly more than - any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF is conducting itself during the current war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am proud of how the IDF performs while doing the most difficult type of battle, urban warfare, while maintaining amazing professionalism under fire and minimizing its own casualties. I defy anyone to find any other nation who has performed as well -- and as ethically -- under similar circumstances as Israel has done during the current conflict. I challenge anyone to find an example of a country that was as restrained under these circumstances as Israel has been.

I am also proud that Israel will investigate any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keep trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the Palestinian people. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains an incredibly high moral standards.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war situation. Any other nation, again besides the US, would have imposed martial law to maintain peace.

I am proud of how the IDF responded to the terror attacks of the early days fo the intifada, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to a single attack in 2007 and one in 2008. The enemy has not stopped trying, and if Israel hadn't acted decisively things would look like Iraq today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous.

I am also proud of how ordinary Israelis responded to the dark days of 2002-2004. People who lost loved one created charities in their honor; responding to horror with amazing strength and selflessness.

And, of course, I am proud of Israel's many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, world class universities and culture. A tiny nation, under constant siege, with almost no natural resources besides breathtaking beauty, has used its brains - and strength - to build a modern success story. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming.

I am proud that the vast majority of Americans support Israel as I do, and that the rabid terror-lovers we see on the Internet are the aberration.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Right after the Jewish prayer phrase I quoted above is this one: מה רבו מעשיך ה , "How great are Your works, O G-d." It is easy to find faults but in the big picture, the accomplishments are remarkable and need to be highlighted.

The word "Zionist" is not an epithet - it is a compliment.

Massad getting tenure at Columbia?

The New York Daily News writes why Joseph Massad should not get tenure at Columbia, and they choose an interesting angle:

To the board of trustees of Columbia University we recommend reading a book titled "Desiring Arabs," written by a faculty member who aspires to a tenured, lifetime appointment.

The volume should also be of interest to gay and lesbian activists because author Joseph Massad accuses them of being anti-Arab conspirators.

Massad is associate professor of Arab culture and politics. His abhorrent views about Jews are well known. Now, his book reveals a man whose professed scholarly expertise amounts to crackpot racialist paranoia.

In a central thesis, Massad targets a movement he calls the "Gay International," made up of "white male European or American gay scholars" and advocates. He accuses this Gay International of, in effect, creating homosexuality in the Arab world.

He writes: "It is the very discourse of the Gay International, which both produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist, and represses same-sex desires that refuse to be assimilated into its sexual epistemology."

Echoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's infamous claim on a visit to Columbia that Iran has no homosexuals, Massad attacks the Gay International for assuming that "homosexuals, gays and lesbians are a universal category that exists everywhere in the world."

Massad also asserts that the "white Western women's movement" had similarly tried to force gender equality onto "non-Western countries."

Columbia stands for respect regardless of race, gender and sexual orientation. Believing that the military's don't-ask-don't-tell policy discriminates against gays, the school bars ROTC from campus.

It is preposterous then that the university would consider tenure for a man who espouses that homosexuality may not be a global human phenomenon and argues based on race. Massad's scholarship is lunacy.

That he is personally unfit for tenure at Columbia has been clear. He has likened Jews to Nazis and written that they suffer from a kind of psychosis that makes Jews persecute Palestinians. His idea of academic freedom is throwing a student out of class for questioning his picture of Israel as the great Satan of the Middle East.

When last we wrote about Massad, it appeared Columbia President Lee Bollinger and the trustees had granted tenure. But that may not be so.

While the university refuses comment, it may not be too late for the board, composed of leaders like Chairman William Campbell, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit and real estate magnate Philip Milstein, to do the right thing: Deny Massad tenure.

We took apart articles written by Massad here and here.

Sentenced to death for selling land to Jews

Just an everyday capital crime in the quasi-Palestinian Arab government.

You know, the one that accuses Israel of "racism."

A special Palestinian Authority (PA) military court in Hebron in the sentenced a Palestinian man to death by hanging after he was found guilty of selling land to Israeli settlers on Tuesday.

This is the first time a Palestinian court has handed down a conviction for treason in a case relating to land sales. The suspect is from the Hebron area.

PA courts have convicted Palestinians for collaborating with Israel in the past, usually for providing information about resistance fighters to the Israeli intelligence services. These convictions are based on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Revolutionary Code.

"Settler" is the latest code-word for "Jew" in the Palestinian Arab media. It is better than "Zionist" because everyone hates settlers. So,for example, stories about how Jews "desecrate" the Al Aqsa mosque by visiting it invariably refer to them as "settlers."

Since saying that it is a capital crime to sell land to Jews sounds suspiciously anti-semitic, it is easier to just call them "settlers" - as if a Jew from Los Angeles or Moscow would have any more right to buy land from Arabs who happen to live in the West Bank.

Gifts of violence

Nothing says friendship like giving gifts.

And nothing says more about the gift-giver than his choice of gifts.

For example, Barack Obama's gifts to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Queen pretty much screamed "clueless."

But that is trivial compared to the symbolism of other recent gifts given by prominent Arabs.

Jordan's King Hussein presented President Obama with a gift of a "royal weaponry set," including four daggers and an axe.

Because nothing says "peace" like instruments of war!

Last year, Abdullah gifted Defense Secretary Robert Gates with a steel dagger, and Bahrain gave him a $3200 Arab knife.

In 2006 and 2007, Prince Charles received a number of gold swords from Gulf states.

And last week, a group of Palestinian Arab Christians presented the Pope with a keffiyeh:

At the end of the service, two youths from the group were brought to the pope and draped the checkered black-and-white scarf on his shoulders. Benedict chatted briefly with them while wearing the scarf, which an aide later removed.

Now, what could a keffiyeh symbolize? According to Palestinian Arabs themselves, it represents nothing less than support for terrorism (a.k.a., "resistance"), something that the Left admits candidly among themselves - as this description from a socialist website shows:

In the 1960s, the kaffiyeh was renewed as a symbol of resistance as Palestinians escalated armed resistance in response to Israel’s 1967 invasion and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The resistance captured the world’s attention when Leila Khaled and other members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—a Marxist group —wore kaffiyehs while hijacking five international airliners. These operations drew attention to the Palestinian struggle.

The kaffiyeh was made most popular by the late Yassir Arafat. He wore it draped around his head in the shape of historic Palestine throughout his years of participation in the resistance movement, then as president of the Palestinian National Authority.

...Thousands of women and men, young and old, now wear the kaffiyeh proudly as a symbol of resistance and solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

What a great gift for a pope!

Abbas posters take over Ramallah

Firas Press reports that suddenly, Ramallah and other West Bank towns are being covered in posters depicting Mahmoud Abbas/Abu Mazen. No one is taking credit for this proliferation, but it is irritating residents and prompting uncomplimentary graffiti.

Message boards are trying to guess at the reasons for this, some suggesting that since he spends so much time traveling, it is to remind people what he looks like.

Abbas' people deny being behind this.

One analyst is quoted as saying that this is an attempt to solidify Abbas' (perceived) leadership, not only of the PA but also of the PLO, which Hamas had recently threatened to subvert by creating an alternative.

Either way, some towns in Fatah-ruled territory are starting to look like Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Hamas' plan to marry off martyr's wives hits snags

About a month ago, Hamas offered $3000 for men in Gaza to marry widows of "martyrs" as additional wives.

According to an article in today's Al Quds, they even had a date set for the group wedding in June.

For some reason, though, the grieving widows aren't rushing to become secondary or tertiary wives for strangers. The article interviews a number of the women, most of whom have no interest in this brilliant plan that is meant to "contribute to the reduction of social, psychological and economic problems in the Palestinian society," as one of the advocates of the idea says.

It sure is a mystery why women wouldn't be receptive to being pressured into marrying men who would get a few thousand dollars.

Perhaps more interesting is a sarcastic comment written in response to the article, by someone who clearly is not a fan of Hamas:

I have the solution!

I don't think we need an organization to solve this problem. All what you need is to find TEN men like EL RAYAN [I am assuming that he is referring to Nizar Rayyan, Hamas leader who forced his wives and childrens to die for his own entry into Paradise - EOZ], and there are plenty of them in Hamas, and have EACH marry nine like what EL RAYAN DID, and you will solve the problem. 100%10=10. you see, easy. and they will be happy to do it, because this is the only way to paradise. fast and easy way. and then, if he decides to get rid of them, he goes and sits in the house and wait for the enemy to blow the house up with every body in there, including children. then he goes to janah, and get another sixty to make seventy for his VIRGIN QUOTA. and that is it. la hawal wala quata ela belah. ["there is no power or strength except through Allâh ] they widowed those women, in conspiracy with the enemy and others in the region and now they want to help them by doing so.

Fatah moderates fight - each other

From Ma'an:

Fatah leaders Hakam Bal’awi and Nasser Yousef brawled on Monday in Jordan as the two attended a planning meeting ahead of the Sixth Fatah conference, sources inside the movement said.

A heated argument nearly came to blows during a late afternoon session of the planning committee, which has been preparing for a party conference set to re-think the structure and purpose of Fatah. As a result of the argument meetings for the conference were postponed.

According to insiders the fight broke out when Bal’awi suggested younger generations of Fatah members join the conference to ensure fresh ideas at the conference. Yousef categorically rejected the idea saying the meeting, which could have participants in the hundreds of thousands, in favor of keeping the meeting to the central leaders of the party.

When the barest suggestion of change causes old time Fatah members to freak out, what does that say about the possibility that they could ever compromise with their enemy?

Keep in mind that when Fatah says "younger generations" they are referring to the leaders of the intifada - of 1988.