Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Pawns of the Middle East - the music video

Last week for the sheer hell of it I wrote a folk song about the true history of Palestinian Arabs, rather than the romanticized version that too many on the Left hold. It was mostly a reaction to a sickening, slanderous video I saw of another folk singer praising the IHH attackers on the Mavi Marmara, after going through a bunch of historical lies.

Well, after asking for volunteers, someone who wants to remain forever anonymous sent me some audio of my lyrics. (As bad as his or her version is, anything I could have sung would have been worse.)

I made a music video out of it, incorporating video of that same air-head singer who ticked me off, plus some historical photos and headlines. And, I must say, it is much better than the video that inspired me.

So, here is the world premiere of Pawns of the Middle East, with the lyrics as well:

The pawns of the Middle East

In 1948 their leaders abandoned them

The rich Arabs packed up and went to Lebanon
Their confident leaders told them to get out of the way
So the Jews could be slaughtered and then they'll be back to stay

But that's not what happened. Their fighters didn't fight.
Wild rumors scared them, and most then joined the flight
They ended up in Egypt, Syria, Jordan
The Palestinian Arabs thought they'd start over again

They thought that they'd be welcomed by the Arabs who said that they loved them
But they were placed in giant camps, and had to stay in tents
They thought that they were all Arabs, but they were only that in name
The other Arabs didn't want them to remind them of their shame

Chorus:
Decade after decade, the Arabs let them down
They treated them like animals, and just used them as pawns
They thought that their problem was that they didn't have a state
But the real problem was that they were taught only to hate.

They wanted jobs, they wanted land, they wanted to fit in
Their hosts only wanted the millions given by the UN
They kept them stuck in camps, in disgusting misery
They did everything possible to ensure they'd never be free.

The Arab states passed laws to let them know where they stand
They couldn't work in certain jobs, couldn't own any land
They had no choice, no rights, no control over their fate
And they raised a generation who was taught nothing but hate.

Chorus

Jordan never gave them an inch of "historic Palestine"
The entire world had no problem. They thought that this was fine.
The only land that Arabs would allow them to receive
Was the land that would be left over when they forced the Jews to leave.

Their new leaders taught terror, for them not to be so meek
Jordan slaughtered thousands of them in a matter of just weeks
And so it went, year after year, kept in dire straits
400,000 of them got kicked out of Kuwait

Decade after decade, the Arabs let them down
They treated them like animals, and just used them as pawns
They thought that their problem was that they didn't have a state
But the real problem was that they were taught only to hate.

UPDATE: The author of the song I was originally spoofing, David Rovics, also has a song extolling "Resistance," a song about the Israeli separation barrier whose video and lyrics compares it to the Holocaust, and a song that praises Somali pirates.

Sorry, I didn't realize when I called him an airhead that I was being complimentary. He is evil and he actively supports evil. And there are thousand of people who love his songs.

UN gives Hamas more legitimacy

From the Hamas al-Qassam website:

The UN commission of independent experts appointed to monitor Israeli and Palestinian probes into allegations of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead arrived in Gaza on Saturday.

Gaza's Foreign Affairs Ministry under-secretary Ahmad Yousef said the delegation arrived through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt to follow up on recommendations made in justice Richard Goldstone's report.

"The commission will come to monitor and evaluate the legal procedures on both the Israeli and Palestinian side on the Goldstone report, to ensure credibility and transparency during these investigations," he told Ma'an.

The committee, which includes jurists Christian Tomuschat, Mary McGowan and Davis Param Cumaraswamy, will meet with civil society representatives and UN organizations and groups as well as victims and witnesses who testified before the UN's independent fact-finding committee shortly after the winter 2008-09 war.

Members will also meet with the Hamas-run government's commission established to follow up with the recommendations of the report, Yousef added.

The committee was created in June 2010, specifically tasked with monitoring Israeli and Palestinian investigations into the deadly conflict in Gaza that left more than 1,400 people dead and injured 5,000 others.

As far as I can tell, the UN had received preliminary reports from both Hamas and the PA on Cast Lead - and they had ignored Hamas' report completely.

Now, this new committee is apparently giving Hamas' report - and Hamas' "investigation" - legitimacy that the UN itself had denied the terror group. (That is, if we believe the Hamas website. Time will tell.)

The lead committee member is also problematic.

Micro blogcation

I am away from a computer until Sunday afternoon.

Arab News likes its anti-semitism to have an American flavor

The Arab News doesn't like Jews.

That this Saudi newspaper is not thrilled with the Jewish people is hardly news, of course. But, as with most English-language Arab newspapers, they are loath to have their Arab writers mention it, because they do not want to be called anti-semitic.

Instead, what the Arab News does is it scours far-left sites and blogs for articles that fit its agenda, and then it publishes that nonsense as an op-ed.

Here's today's example:

“Israel and the US realize that the next war will burn much of the Middle East and may well spell the end of Israel.”

Now, Israel certainly believes that about the Middle East, and in fact hopes it happens, because that just makes its position stronger. But neither Israel nor the US — at least at a governmental level — accept the second part of the proposition, just the opposite, that in fact it will be the saving of Israel — because (as I’ve noted elsewhere) if the regional chaos is great enough, Israel will take the opportunity to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians (and probably Israeli Arabs as well) from “Greater Israel” by shoving them over its borders, into Jordan and the Sinai (and some into the Lebanon as well).

That will leave it intact and Jewish, its neighbors overwhelmed by a few million destitute Palestinians — a 2nd and even worse Nakba — and everyone else in ruins or teetering on the edge. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Affair Minister Avigdor Lieberman and their merry thugs won’t shed a tear or lose a second’s sleep over any of it, much less over the many Americans who will die in yet another of America’s Jewish wars.

...Putting lots of discrete pieces together, including published information on Israeli penetration of the telecommunications security and cybernetic systems in the US since the 1970s and 1980s, the movement of Israelis (with or without dual nationality) or American Jews serving Israel across the US and Israeli governments and lobbies like AIPAC, and the presence of Israelis (again with or without dual nationality) and American Jews serving Israel throughout the US national security apparatus for decades (remember the far-from-unique stories of Lani Kass or David Wurmser, much less the likes of “Scooter” Libby or Rahm Emanuel?), one thing seems painfully clear to me.

This is that Israel has had ongoing access for decades to US nuclear codes and systems, and may well be able to override safeguards here to obtain command and control (and therefore targeting and launch capabilities) over at least US land-based strategic nuclear systems.

Think about it. With those technical means, oversight of security and especially in-place human assets, Israel would have had to make a deliberate decision not to acquire that access and obtain those capabilities in order not to have them now, and that flies in the face of everything else Israel has done in its national security and espionage fields.

That may be the club Israel holds over US presidents, and it would certainly explain a host of otherwise inexplicable actions by them. Understanding the actual dynamics of this phenomenon and how to counter them must have the highest priority.

What the hell did we need Jonathan Pollard for - we can launch and remotely control US nuclear weapons whenever we want! And the stupid American goyim haven't changed the codes since the 1970s! You Americans are PWNED! Bwahahaha!

The Arab News knows that if an Arab would spew this idiocy in English, he would be laughed out of the room. But, luckily, there is no shortage of Americans who can identify and expose the most subtle Jewish conspiracies - and spray them all over the Internet! (This article had been reproduced at least 62 times in the past couple of days, according to Google.)

Time for a truthful Palestinian Arab folksong

Last week, I saw a video (sent out to the Free Gaza mailing list) of an earnest, self-righteous folksinger, singing his heart out about how those evil Zionists have been oppressing innocent Palestinian Arabs, up to and including the Mavi Marmara. If you want to barf, you can see the video here.

The lyrics are filled with what can only be called outright lies, but lies that are accepted as truth by a huge percentage of the world. Here is how it starts:

In 1948 they were driven out at the point of a machine gun
Families fled in fear to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon
They fled around the globe, firmly held in terror's grip
And about a million refugees ended up in the tiny Gaza Strip
In 1967 the IDF moved in
And the refugees in Gaza became refugees again
Settlers took their farmland, soldiers took the ports
And the people were surrounded by military forts

In 2007 they cut it off completely
No access to the borders, no access to the sea
The world began to see this unavoidable stamp
The most crowded place on Earth was now a concentration camp
Israeli jet fighters bombed Gaza from the air
And they kept out the supplies needed to rebuild and repair
They kept out the convoys of humanitarian aid
Anemic children going hungry, crushed and burned in bombing raids

Now, people listening to this in a concert have next to zero ability to think critically about these sincere-sounding libels. They get caught up in the moment - a purely emotional moment that has no bearing on logic or reality - and the hate that underlies these lyrics become, subconsciously, a part of them.

So yesterday I decided that it is time to write a folk song that actually tells the truth about Palestinian Arabs. Unfortunately, I cannot play guitar nor can I sing very well, so I cannot upload it to YouTube and cause countless clueless leftist heads to explode at the confluence of folk singing about an oppressed people and the truth about who is oppressing them.

But maybe one of my readers can.

So, without further ado, here is my song:

The pawns of the Middle East

In 1948 their leaders abandoned them

The rich Arabs packed up and went to Lebanon
Their confident leaders told them to get out of the way
So the Jews could be slaughtered and then they'll be back to stay

But that's not what happened. Their fighters didn't fight.
Wild rumors scared them, and most then joined the flight
They ended up in Egypt, Syria, Jordan
The Palestinian Arabs thought they'd start over again

They thought that they'd be welcomed by the Arabs who said that they loved them
But they were placed in giant camps, and had to stay in tents
They thought that they were all Arabs, but they were only that in name
The other Arabs didn't want them to remind them of their shame

Chorus:
Decade after decade, the Arabs let them down
They treated them like animals, and just used them as pawns
They thought that their problem was that they didn't have a state
But the real problem was that they were taught only to hate.

They wanted jobs, they wanted land, they wanted to fit in
Their hosts only wanted the millions given by the UN
They kept them stuck in camps, in disgusting misery
They did everything possible to ensure they'd never be free.

The Arab states passed laws to let them know where they stand
They couldn't work in certain jobs, couldn't own any land
They had no choice, no rights, no control over their fate
And they raised a generation who was taught nothing but hate.

Chorus

Jordan never gave them an inch of "historic Palestine"
The entire world had no problem. They thought that this was fine.
The only land that Arabs would allow them to receive
Was the land that would be left over when they forced the Jews to leave.

Their new leaders taught terror, for them not to be so meek
Jordan slaughtered thousands of them in a matter of just weeks
And so it went, year after year, kept in dire straits
400,000 of them got kicked out of Kuwait

Decade after decade, the Arabs let them down
They treated them like animals, and just used them as pawns
They thought that their problem was that they didn't have a state
But the real problem was that they were taught only to hate.

It didn't take long to write - maybe 45 minutes. I could write an entire album in a couple of days. Political folk-singers are overrated.

Libya proud of violating international humanitarian law

From Ya Libnan:

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Libya’s leader said Thursday that part of a deal to free a jailed Israeli photographer involved the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Gadhafi told reporters that the Israeli-Tunisian Rafael Rafram Chaddad was not a spy and accepted his story that he was in the country to photograph heritage sites connected with Libya’s vanished Jewish community.

“This person was naive … he is not a spy and I made use of this issue in favor of our Palestinian brothers in Gaza,” he said. “Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for releasing the Israeli photographer.”

Gadhafi would not say how many Palestinians were released in exchange for Chaddad, who was freed Sunday after five months in jail.

Once again we quote from the 1979 Hostages Convention:

Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as the "hostage") in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage commits the offence of taking of hostages ("hostage-taking") within the meaning of this Convention.

Any person who attempts to commit an act of hostage-taking, or participates as an accomplice of anyone who commits or attempts to commit an act of hostage-taking likewise commits an offence for the purposes of this Convention.

Libya has accepted this Convention.

Furthermore, hostage taking is considered a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions (Convention IV, Article 147) in international conflicts. Libya is still in an official state of war with Israel.

Libya has admitted - and is proud of - this grave breach of international law.

Don't expect the UN Human Rights Council to take up this issue. After all, Libya is a member in good standing of that august body.

(h/t Jed)

The Other Side, part 5

A resident of Shiloh describes how he and his 3 year old son survived a terror attack - and, perhaps more importantly, how he reacted.

The entire series of interviews of so-called "settlers" can be viewed on the project's webpage.

Will Southern Sudan establish relations with Israel?

In January, Sudan plans to hold a referendum on the secession of Southern Sudan from the country.

A representative of the Southern Sudanese stated in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that he saw no reason that the new country should not to establish relations with Israel, saying that other Arab states have done so and that Southern Sudan does not want to antagonize any other country.

It is not clear whether Southern Sudan would be considered an Arab country. Arab states seem to be ambivalent about supporting the secession.

Media ignores Turkey's use of chemical weapons (updated)

Yesterday, Der Spiegel published a report indicating that Turkey used chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels.

German experts have confirmed the authenticity of photographs that purport to show PKK fighters killed by chemical weapons. The evidence puts increasing pressure on the Turkish government, which has long been suspected of using such weapons against Kurdish rebels. German politicians are demanding an investigation.

It would be difficult to exceed the horror shown in the photos, which feature burned, maimed and scorched body parts. The victims are scarcely even recognizable as human beings. Turkish-Kurdish human rights activists believe the people in the photos are eight members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) underground movement, who are thought to have been killed in September 2009.

In March, the activists gave the photos to a German human rights delegation comprised of Turkey experts, journalists and politicians from the far-left Left Party, as SPIEGEL reported at the end of July. Now Hans Baumann, a German expert on photo forgeries has confirmed the authenticity of the photos, and a forensics report released by the Hamburg University Hospital has backed the initial suspicion, saying that it is highly probable that the eight Kurds died "due to the use of chemical substances."

German politicians and human rights experts are now demanding an investigation into the incident. "The latest findings are so spectacular that the Turkish side urgently needs to explain things," said Claudia Roth, the co-chair of Germany's Green Party. "It is impossible to understand why an autopsy of the PKK fighters was ordered but the results kept under seal."

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has rejected the accusations, according to the Berlin daily newspaper Die Tageszeitung, which reported on the case Thursday. Turkey is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and its armed forces do not possess any biological or chemical weapons, the ministry reportedly said.

The newspaper also reports that it has obtained additional, shocking pictures in the meantime, supposedly autopsy photographs of six other killed Kurds. These images, too, have now been submitted to the Hamburg-based experts.

So far, outside of Armenian, Kurdish and Israeli websites, the rest of the English-language media has ignored the story. It has been a full day since the initial report was published in English and German.

But I guess that if the mainstream media doesn't report it, it cannot be very important. Sorry for wasting your time.

(h/t jarh)

UPDATE: Islamic Jihad mouthpiece Palestine Today mentions the story, saying it is a "smear campaign" by Israel similar to what they did to Saddam Hussein, in order to pressure the world to invade Turkey and to deflect Israel from criticism for the Mavi Marmara.

Those wily Jews, submitting the photos months before the flotilla!

Gazans forced to stay in their "open air prison" - by their leaders

The idea that Gaza is an "open air prison," which was ridiculous all along, has become farcical ever since Egypt opened the Rafah border in July.

Gazans can freely visit Egypt, as long as they follow Egyptian rules. And those rules include having a valid passport from the PA.

There is only one problem: Hamas refuses to create passports for Fatah members, and the PA is refusing to give out blank passports to Hamas.

Ma'an tells us more about the PA's forcing Gazans to stay in Gaza:

The Palestinian Authority is depriving citizens in Gaza from obtaining passports, a rights group said Thursday.

The Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights wrote to Ramallah-based Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in June urging him to comply with Palestinian Basic Law and issue passports to all citizens without discrimination.

Since June, the center has issued further complaints on behalf of citizens denied passports, none of which have received responses from the PA, a statement said.

The complainants included cancer patient Ahmed Abu Fou'ad, Mohammed Subeh who needs an eye-transplant, and paramedic, Alaa' Sarhan, who needs surgery to remove shrapnel from his body as well as urinary surgery, Al Mezan said.

The Palestinian Human Rights NGOs Council has also written to Fayyad requesting he address these cases, but has not received any response, the report added.

Al Mezan called on the PA, and particularly the Interior Ministry, to respect citizens’ rights, noting that discriminating between citizens on the basis of their political affiliation or opinion constituted “flagrant violations to human rights and to the principle of the rule of law.”

I can't wait for all those "human rights" activists to start rallying in European capitals against this inhumane policy of the PA that forces Gazans to be stuck in Gaza.

Odds and ends

Some links people have sent me, via email or the comments:

Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) has quoted this blog as a straight news source, and linked back to me. (Even so, they slightly mis-characterize a clan clash as if it was a Hamas activity.) Hey; it's better than being ripped off!

Juan Cole wrote on his blog the interesting "fact" that "despite being Shiite fundamentalists, Hizbullah has consistently supported a strong, united Lebanon and is among the foremost purely Lebanese nationalist forces in the country." Sure - as long as they are in charge. (h/t Dan)

The German Foreign Minister traveled to Saudi Arabia without his boyfriend. Since Saudi Arabia has a death penalty for homosexuality, this might have been a good move. (h/t Silke)

Sky News reports that researchers in Israel have invented an "electronic nose" that can sniff the existence of cancer from people's breath. In fact, the lead researcher is an Israeli Arab. (h/t Jacob)

There is evidence that Turkey used chemical weapons against the PKK Kurdish group. No word on whether there will be a UN inquiry on this war crime, or whether the story will even last a week. (h/t Jacob)

AFP catches the fake Muslim grave story

I blogged last week about how the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation, an organization that is pretty much dedicated to lies, claimed that the Jerusalem authorities were destroying ancient Muslim graves - when they were, in fact, fake.

AFP has picked up on the story:

Around 300 Muslim gravestones destroyed by Israeli bulldozers in a Jerusalem cemetery earlier this week were "fake" and set up in a bid to snatch government land, the city charged on Thursday.

The allegation was flatly denied by the Islamic Movement which earlier this week accused the municipality of razing recently renovated Muslim graves in a centuries-old cemetery in a large park in mostly Jewish west Jerusalem.

In its first official response to the claims, the Jerusalem city council on Thursday acknowledged it had removed some 300 tombstones, but said they were not erected over any human remains.
"The municipality and the (Israel Lands) Authority destroyed around 300 dummy gravestones which were set up illegally in Independence Park on public land.

"The court approved the removal of all the dummy gravestones which were laid in the last seven months," the municipality said in a written statement sent to AFP.

"This is a fraudulent set up, one of the biggest in recent years, whose aim is to illegally take over state land."

Underneath the tombstones excavators found only "plastic bottles, cigarette packets and parts of a sprinkler system," the statement said. It accused "Islamic elements" of trying to pull off a huge scam.

It is remarkable, for AFP, to give coverage to the Israeli side first and then have the other side dispute it. Usually you have to wait for paragraph 8 to read the Israeli side of the story, by which time most readers have already moved on to the sports page.

By the way, this is the same cemetery that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had moved bodies from when building his hotel on top of it, the same cemetery that the same mufti had redirected sewage towards, and the same cemetery that the Supreme Muslim Council had explicitly allowed building an Arab business park on top of.

In other words, Arab lies about this cemetery have a long pedigree.

Arabs consider the western part of Jerusalem to be "occupied" as well

Many Arab media outlets reflexively put the word "Occupied" in front of "Jerusalem," even if the news story takes place entirely within the part of Jerusalem that was inside those supposedly "internationally recognized borders" before 1967.

Examples:

The Lebanon Daily Star changed the location of an Reuters story about a new exhibit at the Israel Museum. They also put the words "Holy Land" is scare quotes, which is not in the AFP original.

The Yemen News Agency, Middle East Monitor, and Gulf News follow the same standard.

Lebanon Daily Star ridicules Nasrallah's "evidence"

From the Daily Star:

Marvel at the contempt Hizbullah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, must feel for us all, that he would expect us to believe his presentation last Monday telling us that Israel was behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister. But that contempt may also in some ways be justified, because far too many Lebanese actually believed him, even as they observe the rapid erosion of their slender sovereignty with lethargy.

Do we Lebanese deserve independence? You have to wonder. Israel has killed many people in Lebanon, and will doubtless kill many more, but we would only be abasing ourselves by abruptly reinterpreting the Hariri assassination in the light that Nasrallah chose to shine on the crime. We would have to believe that Syria did not threaten Hariri in 2004, was untroubled by Resolution 1559, for which it held Hariri partly responsible, did not control Lebanese security in 2005, and did not appoint or approve all senior officials in the security and intelligence agencies. We would have to disregard that these agencies tried to cover up the scene of the assassination, that Hizbullah sought to stifle the emancipation movement by organizing an intimidating demonstration on March 8, 2005, to defend Syria’s presence in Lebanon, and that virtually all of those assassinated after Hariri (not to mention Marwan Hamadeh, who barely escaped assassination before) were critical of Syria.

And, of course, we would have to forget that Hizbullah and its Amal allies twice left the government because it was preparing measures to establish the tribunal – the second time kicking off an 18-month Downtown sit-in to bring down Fouad Siniora’s government.

Nasrallah now offers an explanation for this: the tribunal was politicized. Yet that was not the excuse Hizbullah and Amal used in 2006 when they withdrew their ministers. At the time, their beef was that Siniora and March 14 had undermined governmental procedure by not consulting properly with them. But we can conveniently forget that, too, as well as Syrian President Bashar Assad’s warning issued to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at a meeting in Damascus on April 24, 2007. According to a detailed account leaked to the French daily Le Monde, Assad told Ban that approval of the tribunal under Chapter VII authority “might easily cause a conflict that would degenerate into civil war, provoking divisions between Sunnis and Shiites from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea.”

Perhaps Nasrallah had not yet shared his information about Israel with the Syrian president, who, with amazing prescience, found himself echoing revelations about a Shiite connection in the Hariri assassination more than two years before Der Spiegel made a similar reference – one that Nasrallah now sees as proof of an Israeli plot.

It would take an awful lot of forgetting to buy into Nasrallah’s theory, but that is precisely what the secretary general is demanding. He wants Lebanon, above all its prime minister, to forget the overwhelming evidence from the past and bury the Hariri tribunal for good. Let’s just blame Israel, Nasrallah is telling us, so that we can all live in amnesic harmony.

MEMRI also has a rundown on Lebanese reaction, which predictably follows party lines.

Iran again met with terrorist leaders yesterday

Not that this is newsworthy any more, but yesterday the Iranian Foreign Minister met with the Damascus-based leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the leaders of eight other Palestinian Arab terrorist groups.

Even if you subscribe to the loony left characterization of Hamas as a legitimate political leader of Palestinian Arabs, there is no way that you can consider Islamic Jihad and the other groups as anything other than pure terrorist organizations.

The world really doesn't seem to have a major problem with a UN member state openly collaborating with and funding terror groups. Admittedly, next to Iran's nuclear ambitions this is small potatoes, but nevertheless every such meeting needs to be publicized and condemned, over and over again, at all levels of diplomatic channels - including the UN.

IDF Chief of Staff: IHH shot first

From the New York Times:

Israel’s top military chief said Wednesday that activists on a Turkish ship were the first to open fire as Israeli naval commandos raided the vessel, part of a six-boat flotilla bound for Gaza, fomenting a bloody confrontation on board that left nine activists dead.

Testifying before an Israeli commission of inquiry, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli Army chief of staff, gave the most detailed description yet of the military’s version of the events in late May.

General Ashkenazi said that mistakes had been made. The main one, he said, was that the soldiers, who rappelled onto the ship from a helicopter one by one, lacked the manpower to create a sterile area quickly enough. They were immediately set upon by the activists, some wielding axes, knives, iron bars and clubs, he said.

Though stun grenades were fired first, from the air, they failed to disperse the dozen or so activists on the roof of the boat. What was lacking, according to the army chief, was preparation for the use of “precise fire,” by which he appeared to mean snipers, “to neutralize those preventing the soldiers from boarding the boat.”

The army chief staunchly defended the actions of his soldiers. He said that they had displayed “cool-headedness, courage and morality,” opening fire only when necessary, and that the Israeli use of force was proportionate.

According to the general, the second soldier who fast-roped onto the roof of the boat, the Mavi Marmara, was shot in the abdomen and fired back. Activists who were on board have given very different accounts, saying the soldiers opened fire as soon as they came on board, or even before.

An Israeli military investigation of the episode concluded a month ago that Israeli soldiers most likely fired only after having been fired upon. A video in two separate parts, produced by the army and shown to the commission, stated that the shot fired at the second soldier was “probably” the first shot fired on the ship.

But General Ashkenazi said it was “clear and established” that flotilla participants opened fire first.

The weapon used may have been snatched from the first soldier who landed on the ship.

A gun belonging to one of the soldiers was later found on board, empty of bullets. In addition, the military said it found ammunition, cartridges and bullets that were not from the Israeli Army, suggesting that there might have been at least one other gun on the ship. According to the general, the boat’s captain told the Israelis that it might have been thrown overboard.

General Ashkenazi stated that the army had prepared for the possibility that the activists could open fire, though the military “did not assess correctly the strength of the resistance” the commandos would meet when they came down the rope. According to the video, soldiers trying to approach the Mavi Marmara on rubber lifeboats said they were fired on from both sides of the ship. As clashes broke out on the boat, commandos fired at the feet of their “attackers.”

When the commandos met resistance as they tried to rush the bridge, they responded with fire. And at one point, at least 15 minutes into the struggle for control of the ship, the force commander allowed the soldiers to use accurate and precise live fire against violent activists, to permit more soldiers to climb aboard from the lifeboats.

The stun grenades from the helicopter, which I hadn't heard of before, would explain why the passengers thought that the IDF was shooting at them from the air.

Of course, the "activists" have no problem telling their lies to the world. Here's their graphic of the events, from the Free Gaza page:

Somehow, they must have forgotten to draw their prepared axes, knives, clubs, chains and slingshots. Must have been an oversight.

Abbas claims US contacts with Hamas

Mahmoud Abbas gave a wide-ranging interview to the Arab press yesterday.

Abbas said that Washington is putting him under "unprecedented" pressure to resume direct negotiations. He stated that he was still insisting on a precondition of acceptance of the 1949 armistice lines (usually referred to as the 1967 borders) as the basis of the borders of another Arab state, but he may be willing to accept a statement by the Quartet - rather than Israel - that this is the aim of the negotiations. He says that the March 19th Quartet statement affirmed that goal (I couldn't see an explicit reference to the borders in that statement, although it refers to UNSC 242.)

He again spoke about the PA's financial woes, warning that it will collapse if it doesn't get the usual amounts of money from the West. he also complained about how Arab nations are not fulfilling their pledges, without naming names.

He criticized the fatwa by Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi prohibiting Arabs from visiting Jerusalem. He said that he was politicizing religion, and that such visits are meant to show solidarity with the "prisoner," not the "warden."

Abbas said he had information from "reliable sources" about contacts between the U.S. administration and Hamas. He added: "I understand it, this is politics, and countries change their positions according to their interests." Smiling, he added: "If we refuse to go to the negotiating table tomorrow, perhaps [the US] is looking for others [to negotiate.]"

That sarcastic statement indicates that Abbas knows that he is considered the "moderate" no matter what, and that in that position he can call the shots because no one wants the alternative. And since the word "moderate" is used in relative rather than absolute terms, he knows his intransigence will never get criticized.

Freedom of the press, Hamas-style

Yesterday, when Hamas broke up a demonstration by the PFLP against power outages in Gaza, two reporters were beaten and their equipment confiscated.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the attack, which came on the heels of another attack by Hamas on an Al Jazeera reporter a few days earlier.

The syndicate is inviting a delegation from the International Federation of Journalists to Gaza to discuss the erosion of press freedoms in Gaza.

After the arrest of the Al Jazeera reporter, Reporters Without Borders finally wrote a report on the lack of press freedoms in both Gaza and the West Bank. (I had mentioned the absence of such a report in late July.)

Incidentally, IFJ has a condemnation of the death of the Lebanese journalist who was covering the ambush of the IDF last week. It mentions that three Lebanese soldiers were killed in the exchange of fire - but was silent on the Israeli officer killed by a sniper.

Poor Arabs forced to sell their children

The poverty is overwhelming.

Parents cannot afford to feed their children. Basic supplies are too expensive. Proper healthcare is not accessible.

So they are selling the children to Europeans, especially Italians, hoping that they would have a better life there. Hundreds of children have been sold this year alone.

Is this in Gaza?

No, of course not. Gazans have easy access to food and healthcare.

It is across the border, in poor Egyptian villages.

The government is concerned and views these sales of children as simply human trafficking and is working to stop it, after an expose of the phenomenon by Al Masry al Youm where they discovered that the court systems regularly approved the adoption of these children by Europeans.

This episode highlights what real poverty is like. And it also shows how the thousands of "human rights activists" who pretend to care so much about Gaza children are indifferent to real poverty, real suffering and real deprivation.

There are no flotillas for the poverty-stricken in Egypt or Yemen. There are no campaigns to raise money or awareness. Their troubles are ignored, lost in the glare of GAZA GAZA GAZA. And as millions of dollars are poured into a place that is better off than much of the planet, the Arabs who are really deprived would kill to be incarcerated in that "open air prison" of Gaza.

UNRWA upset at Israeli TV (updated x3)

From Ha'aretz:

The United Nations' relief agency for Palestinian refugees, lashed out Tuesday at the Israel Broadcasting Authority for airing what it called a a dishonest portrayal of the organization on Saturday in "Ro'im Olam" on Channel 1 television.

Right-wing journalist David Bedein's "For the Nakba", UNRWA said, contains numerous inaccuracies about its operations in Palestinian refugee camps and educational institutions. It depicts large graffiti that lionize Palestinian suicide bombers and includes an interview with Palestinian children who profess a desire to become "martyrs."

"Ro'im Olam" presenter Yaakov Ahimeir sought comment from UNRWA's Christopher Gunness, who watched the segment before it aired. Gunness said he warned of numerous inaccuracies, which were never corrected.

In a letter written prior to the airing, Gunness said UNRWA schools do not contain murals of suicide bombers, and that the textbooks shown are for use by 12th graders, while UNRWA schools do not go beyond ninth grade.

Gunness said students making derogatory statements about Israel are not enrolled at UNRWA schools, whose pupils are identifiable by their school uniforms. The spokesperson added that UNRWA does not sanction events that officially mark the Nakba, as the segment suggested. Gunness denied the film's assertion that a student in an agency-run school was an 18-year-old suicide bomber.

Gunness accused Channel 1 of airing "a stack of lies," and said editing the errors was "a matter of integrity."

In response, Ahimeir said: "Chris Gunness viewed the film before the broadcast, and his response was broadcast in full." After he sent me additional material, Ahimeir said, "This was also read on the air by me as UNRWA's response."

Bedein denied Gunness' claims. Palestinian kids, he said, study the materials from the textbooks at a young age, and the mural of the suicide bomber was seen at the entrance of the UNRWA school at the Deheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem.

I am not in a position to determine who is telling the truth for most of these issues, but I did find out one fact.

Gunness claims that UNRWA "does not sanction events that officially mark the Nakba," according to the article. I was surprised to see no evidence of UNRWA activities on Nakba day in the territories. However, UNRWA in Lebanon definitely commemorated "Nakba Day". This is from a UNRWA newsletter:

In remembrance of the 1948 Nakba and what the community describes as the “Second Nakba” caused by the conflict in Nahr el Bared in 2007, the Factions and Popular Committee will be running a series of activities including marches, sit-ins and distribution of black flags to commemorate the plight of the Palestinians.

Nazareth School in cooperation with Palestinian Arab Cultural Club held on May 13 an exhibit day to commemorate AL-Nakba anniversary.

To Set a New Guinness World Record in Commemoration of Al Nakba

On May 15, a group of Palestinian youth will draw the UN resolution 194 that endorses the Palestinian right to return with 6000 scarves. By that they will attempt to beat the current Guinness world record for the longest chain of scarves. The attempt is designed to commemorate the anniversary of Nakba day. A Guinness World Records Adjudicator will be present to officially verify the record attempt, which will involve a drawing of six thousand scarves connected in the shape of the UN Resolution 194, in an effort to break the current record of 2,932 m 5 cm (9,619 ft 6.81 in) made of 5,000 scarves and set in Spain on 29 August 2009. Art bands presenting folkloric dances, songs, and heritage sketches will entertain participants at the festivities, while organizers connect the scarves to achieve a total length of 6,000 m. All are invited to go commemorate Al Nakba in Beirut.

When: Saturday May 15
What Time: 3:00pm
Where: Sportive city of Beirut- Bir Hassan

The Nazareth school in Beddawi is a UNRWA school.

UPDATE: Here is the video (h/t Jed)

UPDATE 2: Adam at CiFWatch just happened to have a snapshot of a heroic Palestinian Arab throwing an incendiary device at the entrance to a UNRWA community center in Deheisheh:

UPDATE 3: The Arabic phrase has these peaceful words: (h/t Ali)

"My enemy, enemy of the sun, I will not compromise and I will resist till the last pulse in my veins"

Apparently, UNRWA has some 'splaining to do.

Arab League asks its members to pay their pledges to the PA

Al Masry al-Youm reports that Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa is urging League members to pay up on their pledges to help out the Palestinian Authority.

For years now, Arab nations have been quick to promise financial aid to the PA, but very slow to deliver. Similarly, they make great promises to fund UNRWA, but by and large fail to pay up.

The PA claims to be suffering from a financial crisis, as they always are. However, they continue to fund infrastructure and pay salaries in Gaza - which sucks up 60% of the PA's budget. This frees up Hamas to buy more weapons and not to worry about an uprising that would dislodge them from power, and there is of course zero oversight on the sources or outlays of the Hamas budget.

Meanwhile, in Ramallah....

There is money here, plenty of it, and those who have it are not hesitant to flaunt it.

New cars, beautiful residences, fancy stores and restaurants will startle any outsider arriving here with his head filled by the mainstream media in the West about the misery of the West Bank occupation by Israelis.

There is also poverty, Israeli checkpoints, the fence or wall separating Palestinian territories from Israel and the Israeli settlements.

And there’s the politics of resentment that spill over any conversation with ordinary Palestinians fed on a diet of half-truths and endless lies by their leaders.

But visiting with Palestinians is also an invitation to hear their bitterness about Arab leaders, and of their experience with discrimination and violence in places such as Lebanon and Kuwait.

They speak of how the Palestinian leadership resembles Ali Baba and his 40 thieves robbing the people of the money that has poured in as aid from the West.

The term limit of the president and the legislative assembly has expired, and no new elections are scheduled to provide Palestinians with any say on how they are being governed.

In effect those in authority have no mandate, and their fear that Hamas will likely win an election whenever held underscores the contempt of ordinary Palestinians for Mahmoud Abbas — the president of the Palestinian Authority – and the men around him.

This explains why the Arabs don't want to fund the PA - because it is money that will go right down the drain, whether into the pockets of the politicians or indirectly to Hamas.

Plus, the ever-hopeful Westerners are more than happy to take up the slack.

Administrivia/open thread

Happy Ramadan!

I just wanted to thank the people who have been emailing and messaging tips to me. I've been really busy and every time I can save research time by getting a tip, I really appreciate it!

Similarly, I would like to apologize if I do not acknowledge (or use) every tip.

I just put a toolbar on the bottom from an Israeli company called Wibiya. I had tried it once before and took it off, but they seem to have made some improvements so I'll test it again. Let me know if it is a problem. It looks like it has some nifty features.

Meanwhile, this is as good a time as any for an open thread....

Giant Saudi clock set to herald "Mecca Time."

As I reported two weeks ago, the new giant clock atop the Saudi Abraj al-Bait Tower is meant to symbolize Islamic attempts to make Mecca the source for the world's time, supplanting Greenwich.

From the Arab News:

Quiz: What's wrong with this picture?

The giant clock of Makkah is all set to tick home a new time standard, as some scholars believe that it will be an ideal alternative to the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Many scholars are of the opinion that Makkah Time can provide the world an alternative to the GMT. These people have scientific arguments to back their contention, as Makkah is situated in the center of the world.

At a conference in Doha in 2008, Muslim clerics and scholars presented “scientific” arguments that Makkah time is the true global meridian. They said that Makkah is the center of the world.

“Putting Makkah time in the face of Greenwich Mean Time, this is the goal,” said Mohammed Al-Arkubi, general manager of Royal Makkah Tower Hotel.

The Royal Clock is sitting atop the central tower in the Abraj Al-Bait Project, 50 meters opposite the Grand Mosque in Makkah. The clock will be visible from 17 km away at night and 11 to 12 km away during the day. A German-owned company, Premiere Composite Technologies, has designed the clock.

Sources said that the world’s largest clock — six times larger than London’s Big Ben — will be launched in the first week of Ramadan but no date has yet been fixed. The trial run would be conducted on the clock facing Jeddah that is to be inaugurated first.

The tower featuring the world’s largest clock also includes a Lunar Observation Center and an Islamic Museum. While the Royal Clock will announce daily prayers, the Lunar Observation Center and Islamic Museum will serve to protect the heritage for future generations. The observatory will also be used to sight the moon during the holy months. On special occasions, 16 bands of vertical lights will shoot some 10 km up into the sky.

AP mentions that the giant clock was designed by Swiss and German engineers.

The chances of the world adopting Mecca Time is roughly the same as the chances of it adopting Jerusalem Solar Time and the (pretty complicated) Jewish lunar/solar calendar.

PA versus Hamas at An Najah University

From PCHR:

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the continued arbitrary arrests and illegal detentions of members of Hamas by Palestinian security services in the West Bank, as these arrests and detentions are in violation of law. The latest arrest campaign was carried out by the Preventive Security Service (PSS) in Nablus against six academics working at an-Najah National University, one member of a municipal council of Nablus, two engineers and one university student. In addition, the PSS summonsed and questioned nine women in Nablus, confiscating their IDs.

According to the testimony given to PCHR by Mona Mansour a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from the Change and Reform Bloc, late on the night of Monday, 02 August 2010, the PSS carried out an arrest campaign against six academics working at an-Najah National University, one member of a municipal council, two engineers, one university student and another two persons. Additionally, the PSS confiscated three cars and summonsed and confiscated the IDs of nine women, requiring them to appear to the PSS headquarters in order to force them to resign from Al-Tadamon Charitable Society.

These were Hamas members.

Today, the lecturers were released, and a hundred other political prisoners (again from Hamas) will be released for Ramadan by the PA.

Both Hamas and the PA regularly arrest and intimidate members of the other group.

Did Barak tell Kouchner he wanted to invade Lebanon?

From YNet:

France dissuaded Israel from opening a large-scale military operation against Lebanon in response to the border incident which killed Ltc. Dov Harari, the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper reported Wednesday.

French sources told the paper that Defense Minister Ehud Barak had informed French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that "Israel intends on opening a large-scale military operation to educate the Lebanese Army and avenge the death of the senior Israeli officer."

This allegedly led to high-rank contacts involving French President Nicolas Sarkozy, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as Egyptian, Jordanian and other Arab state officials.

According to the report, the pressure managed to defuse tensions and prevent another northern campaign.

The Al Asharq article is here.

I don't think that Israel was going to invade - but I think it is entirely possible that Barak threatened to do so, in order to get France and the US to take a second look at exactly who they are supporting when they send weapons to the LAF and to encourage them to curtail such arms transfers in a deal to avoid having the trigger-happy, reckless IDF overreact.

Hey, if the world is convinced that the IDF starts wars at the drop of a hat, then why not use that to diplomatic advantage? The Arabs use the same tactic to pressure the West all the time (saying that if they don't get their way, the unpredictable and dangerous "Arab street" will rise up and cause big problems.) The threat of acting irrationally is a very effective tool when applied correctly.

(h/t Islamo-nazism blog)

Lebanon not impressed with Nasrallah's speech

From Ya Libnan:

Last night and during a televised press conference Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah tried to present evidence to prove that Israel was behind the assassination of Lebanon’s former PM Rafik Hariri .

Lebanese Media has reported that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) will indict Hezbollah members for the 2005 assassination of Hariri.

As was expected , only those who support Hezbollah bought the evidence. Many were disappointed because they were expecting convincing solid evidence and specific details on the the van that contained the 2000 kg bomb that killed Hariri. Nasrallah never mentioned the van. According to der Spiegel the van belonged to a Hezbollah official and was loaded with the bombs in the Dhahiyeh, a southern Beirut suburb and a Hezbollah strongold . The footage on Israeli monitoring activities was dismissed as nothing new and “routine.”

YNet has more on Lebanon's lukewarm reaction to this highly-touted speech.

What real co-existence looks like (UPDATED)

The "Other Side" video that I posted earlier included an incredible description of real, honest-to-goodness Jewish-Arab co-existence - a narrative of how, before the first intifada, Jews who lived nearby would go to Ramallah to get various errands and shopping done, with Arab shops sticking items like challah for their Jewish customers. How these "extremist, right-wing, intolerant Jews" would forge real relationships and friendships with their Arab neighbors. In other words, how the stereotype that the mainstream media uses to portray the "settlers" is utterly false.

Similarly, in an earlier video, another resident of Yesha describes how, every Friday, IDF soldiers and Jewish residents and Arabs all go shopping and drink coffee together in an Arab-owned shop (5:40 in the video.) As she says, "a marvelous picture."

Here is a new example:

The Rami Levy supermarket is located a few hundred yards from the Gush Etzyon junction in the West Bank, 10 miles south of Jerusalem on the road to Hebron.

The store opened in June and has been packed with Arabs and Israelis every day except on the Jewish Sabbath or holidays.

Rami Levy is a savvy businessman who over the years expanded his stall in the Jerusalem shuk into a very successful national Israeli chain. He would not have opened his new store in the middle of Judea — the southern half of the West Bank — if he wasn’t certain it was financially, politically, and militarily secure. Says my wife Shellie (the real shopper in our family):

My Rami Levy shopping is still a wonder to me: if I need a few items, I don’t have to shlep into Jerusalem, but can just hop in my car and in five minutes be at the supermarket. Today, as I was whizzing down an aisle in my jeans skirt, Lands End shirt, and crocs, I noticed five or six very well-dressed Arab ladies in their caftans and hijabs, probably in their late 20s to early 30s, checking out the store. They were speaking among themselves as they gazed and pointed at items. At one point a worker in his Rami Levy uniform came over to speak to them in Arabic. Later, I saw that they had finally settled in the shampoo aisle, comparing different brands. Women will be women.

Every customer — Jew, Christian, Muslim — gets “wanded” with a metal detector by a security guard on the way into the store. Once through the door, though, I’ve experienced an occasional “traffic jam” of grocery carts. Some Arab families — often a whole family on a sightseeing trip in their holiday finery — just freeze while they take in the sight. And, of course, one of Levy’s marketing specialists chose the entrance to stack a kind of cookies that the Bethlehem, Hebron, or village residents are attracted to. I predict that as Ramadan approaches, the store will packed to capacity with Palestinian delicacies and customers.

Press accounts, political pundits, and pontificating politicians portray the situation in the West Bank as bleak and insoluble. Perhaps that’s why I was in awe on my first visit, when I saw Palestinian families and Israeli “settlers” mingling in the aisles, thumping the watermelons and squeezing the plums. My checkout cashier was a Jewish woman from Kiryat Arba of Moroccan descent, on the cash register next to her was a blue-eyed Muslim woman from Halul, and working the register behind me was a member of the Bnei Menashe tribe from India who had formalized her conversion to Judaism.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised, however, since out here in the Etzyon bloc region we “settlers” had good relations with many Palestinian craftsmen and workers who live in the area. The intifada in 2000 quashed almost all relations and ties, but in recent months they’ve been reestablished. I’m back in touch with Khalil, who taught me how to prune my grapevines, and Mahmoud, who was the subcontractor on a construction project in my home 14 years ago.

Knives and boxcutters are tools of the trade in supermarkets, just as knives were once the weapon of terrorists during the early stages of the intifada. One sign of newfound trust can be seen behind the butcher counter where almost all the men are Arabs, working in the Etzyon store as well as Levy’s Jerusalem stores with the largest and sharpest knives.

Incredibly, none of the major Western newspapers have visited and reported on the Rami Levy phenomenon in Gush Etzyon.... Can it be that the coexistence in aisle 2 and cooperation behind the meat counter run against the media narrative that Israeli “settlers” and Palestinians can never live together?

Maybe we’ll finally meet up with the press when Rami Levy opens his pizza shop and the catering hall on the second floor.

This is the ultimate irony: The leftists who shout about "co-existence" are the ones who want separation and who encourage by their actions the minority of Arabs who want to sabotage peaceful relations with Jews.

The people who have the best relationships with Arabs are the supposedly right-wing, militant, extremist, intolerant, religious, nationalist, racist, bigoted, land-grabbing, and illegal settlers.

UPDATE: This article was from May: (h/t Emet M'Tziyon)

Palestinian Authority Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh warned Palestinians on Thursday against shopping at Rami Levy supermarkets in the West Bank.

Thousands of Palestinians converge every day on the Rami Levy supermarkets at Sha’ar Binyamin and Mishor Adumim, the only two branches in the West Bank. The two stores also employ dozens of Palestinians.

This was the first threat of its kind issued by the PA against Palestinians who visited the Israeli supermarkets, which are named after their founder.

Abu Libdeh said in an interview with the local Al-Watan TV station that the PA knew the names of individuals and families who shop in the Rami Levy stores.

He condemned the phenomenon of Palestinians buying goods at the Israeli supermarkets in the West Bank as a “big disgrace.”

So which side is intransigent and against co-existence again?

Now, go and send these two articles to self-proclaimed activists for Palestinian Arab rights and see whose side they are on.

New Mavi Marmara video, and the fifth column in Israel's Knesset (UPDATED)

A new video of the Mavi Marmara has surfaced, centering around Arab Knesset member Hanin Zouabi. She was on the ship, and this video proves that she lied in her interviews after the incident.

As Arutz-7 reports:

The clip, released on Army Radio’s website Wednesday morning – although currently not viewable, apparently because of the heavy demand – shows Zouabi standing next to a group of Turks who are armed with clubs and metal bars.

It is likely that they were among the mob that attacked the sparsely-armed IDF soldiers who rappelled down onto the ship after it refused to adhere to IDF orders to change course. Though the mob proceeded to beat and injure several soldiers, including one very seriously, the small IDF force was able to recover and kill nine attackers.

MK Zouabi said repeatedly after the incident, and again today, that though she was on the ship, she had no knowledge of any preparations for a violent attack on IDF soldiers. Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin said he plans to submit the tapes to the Attorney General and to the Knesset Ethics Committee.

Filmed in the stairwell of one of the ship's below-board floors, the clip first shows Zouabi with an orange life-jacket, standing and talking with mob members. One Israel Navy soldier testified that it was at this point that three of his comrades were being dragged below in an attempt to kidnap them; according to his testimony, it is unlikely that Zouabi did not see this.

Here's the video: (updated, with captions by IsraelMuse)

While is may be possible that she wasn't present when the soldiers were dragged down the stairs, we see clearly that she was aware of the pre-cut clubs and the "activists" waiting to ambush IDF soldiers at the entrance to the stairwell.

The second half of the video is no less important. As pointed out in the Balfour Street blog, Zouabi is actually arguing with the IDF soldiers who want to evacuate the wounded to Israeli hospitals! Both she and another terror-supporting "activist" say that the injured do not want to be treated in Israeli hospitals. Apparently, they were hoping for more deaths. (She continues to deny knowing that the MM passengers had weapons.)

This is a member of Knesset actively seeking to destroy Israel, and willing to support those who want to attack her country's soldiers. It is beyond belief that even the most open-minded, democratic country could tolerate this kind of behavior from their own representatives in government.

(h/t Joel B., Jed, and the two blog-links above.)

The Other Side, part 4

I thought that this installment was very powerful, but I imagine that different people have different tastes.

This video project now has a website.

Internal unrest in Gaza

For a while it looked like Hamas had a pretty strong grip on security in Gaza, but recent reports indicate that things might be fraying at the edges.

PCHR (Arabic only as of this writing) reports on three separate bomb attacks since Friday. On Tuesday, a lawyer's car was damaged by a bomb after he received a threat on his phone; a bomb targeted a pickup truck outside someone's home on early Monday morning, and on Friday a bomb damaged the house of a 63 year old woman who happens to be the sister of a senior Fatah official in the West Bank.

Palestine Press Agency reports that a peaceful PFLP protest against the power shortages in Gaza were violently broken up by Hamas police with batons. Many were arrested and beaten.

Last week an Al Jazeera reporter was attacked and insulted by Hamas police, in front of his children.

There was also a major clan clash earlier this week in Gaza City, where one was killed and seven injured.

A couple of years ago, this would have been a typical week in Gaza, but things had certainly seemed to be calming down internally. More troubling is that some of these attacks were not mentioned in the daily Palestinian Arab press I monitor, so it is possible that the Arabic media is missing some of them.

A solution to the "Made in Israel" problem

Things are really bad in England.

In just the past few weeks, we saw:

A judge instruct a jury to acquit vandals who damaged a factory because they said it was manufacturing weapons to be used by Israel;

An appeal to the British Advertising Standards Authority to overturn a ban on Israeli tourist posters showing the Western Wall was defeated;

and, today,

Four anti-Israel activists were today cleared of all charges after they locked themselves onto concrete-filled oil drums inside the Israeli-owned Ahava shop on Monmouth Street in Covent Garden forcing it to close down for one day in September 2009 and another day in December 2009.

Taherali Gulamhussein, Bruce Levy, Tom Ellis and Ms Crouch were found not guilty of failing to comply with a police officer’s orders to leave the shop.

The activists insisted that they were legally justified in their actions as they claim the shop’s activities are illegal because the products on sale in the shop originate from Mitzpe Shalem, an Israeli settlement on the West Bank and are deliberately mislabeled as “made in Israel”.

At this moment, the word "Israel" is essentially purged from the Ahava (US) website. They are clearly worried and the effects of the BDS movement is affecting them. This is a problem.

However, I think there is an easy solution.

Stop using the phrase "Made in Israel."

Instead, replace it with "Made in the Land of Israel."

The phrase "Land of Israel" is not political at all. It comprises most of the State of Israel, all of Judea and Samaria and even parts of Jordan and Lebanon. (OK, so Eilat would have to continue advertising itself as being part of "Israel." ) It refers to historic boundaries, not current political boundaries.

No one can dispute that the Dead Sea or all of Jerusalem are within the boundaries of the Land of Israel.

Even better, the phrase is evocative of the entire reason why Jews want to live on that land to begin with - because of their strong historical and emotional connection to the Land.

Imagine how well Ahava would do if they proudly advertised that all of their products were made in the Land of Israel!

Similarly, Israel's Tourism Board should advertise "Come to the Land of Israel." The statement is completely accurate and it is more effective than "Come to Israel" would be. The Advertising Standards Authority should have no problem with the accuracy of that statement.

If the corrupt British court system has a problem with that phrase as well, then they might have no choice but to dust off the old Jewish Agency tourism posters.

Hatikva at a Jethro Tull concert in Israel

From JPost:

Ask Ian Anderson a seemingly innocent “what’s new?” or “have you acquired any favorite sites or restaurants on your many trips to Israel?” and you’re likely to get a 10- minute multi-faceted treatise on global warming, the finite resources of the Earth and the noisy, disgusting habits of infants.

Just shy of his 63rd birthday, the gregarious front man of veteran British rockers Jethro Tull showed no signs of slowing down or mellowing as he prepared to leave home in England on Wednesday for two weekend Tull shows in Caesarea and Binyamina, and one more on Monday night in Jerusalem. In a phone conversation with The Jerusalem Post, he especially minced no words about efforts to convince him to join the loosely-knit artistic boycott of Israel – efforts which prompted him to write a note on the band’s official Web site defending his decision to perform here.

“I didn’t feel the need to make any statement until I started receiving some very hateful communication from people representing different sides of this ongoing issue – from supposed human rights supporters to individuals, bodies and groups… there was some pretty nasty stuff,” said Anderson.

“Basically what I wrote was, ‘don’t f***ing tell me what to do.’ And I have to say that since I posted the letter on my site, over the last two or three weeks, nobody has uttered a peep.”

What Anderson actually wrote was his commitment, ala Leonard Cohen’s initiative in 2009, to donate his proceeds from the three shows to “bodies representing the development of peaceful co-existence between Muslims, Jews and Christians, and the fostering of better Palestinian/Israeli relations.” The letter added that he didn’t “feel pressured by human rights groups, national interests or any individuals to perform or not to perform in Israel or anywhere else.

“I make up my own mind in light of available facts, with my own experience and a sense of personal ethics.”

Wow, an artist who actually thinks for himself! The fact that this is refreshing is scary.

Anyway, here he is performing last night with the band, with special guest keyboardist Shlomo Gronich. Gronich plays riffs from Israel's national anthem Hatikvah at about the 4:00 mark and then at about 5:10, bookending one of his own popular jazz pieces:

Send it to all your friends who support boycotting the only state with a decent human rights record in the Middle East. With luck, it will make their heads explode.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

The Gazans who are in an open-air prison - in Jordan

Did you know that there were well over 100,000 Gazans in Jordan with limited rights - and no easy way to get out?

An Arab researcher named Oroub El Abed has been documenting the plight of two little-known groups of Palestinian Arabs - the Gazans who live in Jordan and the PalArabs who live in Egypt.

Here is an excerpt from an article she wrote in Forced Migration Review about the Gazans in Jordan:

Gazans in Jordan are doubly displaced refugees. Forced to move to Gaza as a result of the 1948 war, they fled once more when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967. Guesstimates of the number of Gazans in Jordan range between 118,000 and 150,000. A small number have entered the Jordanian citizenship scheme via naturalisation or have had the financial resources to acquire citizenship.

On arrival in Jordan, the ex-residents of Gaza were granted temporary Jordanian passports valid for two years but were not granted citizenship rights. The so-called ‘passport’ serves two purposes: it indicates to the Jordanian authorities that the Gazans and their dependents are temporary residents in Jordan and provides them with an international travel document (‘laissez-passer’) potentially enabling access to countries other than Jordan.

The ‘passport’ – which is expensive – has value as an international travel document only if receiving states permit the entry of temporary passport holders. Few countries admit them, because they have no official proof of citizenship. Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and some Gulf States are among those who refuse to honour the document. Any delay in renewing the temporary passport or in applying for one puts an individual at risk of becoming undocumented.

Since 1986 it has been harder for Gazans to compete for places in Jordanian universities as they must secure places within the 5% quota reserved for Arab foreigners. Entry to professions is blocked as Gazans are not allowed to register with professional societies/unions or to establish their own offices, firms or clinics. Only those with security clearance can gain private sector employment. Those who work in the informal sector are vulnerable to being exploited. Many Gazans are keen to leave Jordan to seek employment elsewhere but are constrained from doing so. Some have attempted to leave clandestinely.

Rami was brought up in Jordan, studied law and worked for over two years for a law firm in the West Bank city of Hebron. Lacking a West Bank Israeli-issued ID, he was forced to return to Jordan every three months to renew his visitor’s visa. Due to the high cost of living he returned to Jordan in 1999 only to find himself stripped of his Jordanian temporary passport. Now without any form of identity, he notes that “being Gazan in Jordan is like being guilty.”

In Jordan, as in most other Middle-Eastern countries, women cannot pass on their citizenship to their children. Neither is citizenship granted to a child born on the territory of a state from a foreign father. Married women are forced to depend on their fathers or husbands to process documents related to their children. Because of this patriarchal conception of citizenship, children of Jordanian women married to Gazans are at risk of being left without a legal existence.

Heba, a Jordanian national, married Ahmad, a Gazan with an Egyptian travel document. A year after their marriage, Ahmad was arrested for being in Jordan without a residence permit. Deported from Jordan, he was refused re-entry to Egypt and ended up in Sudan. Heba had a child but has been unable to register the birth due to the absence of her husband. She cannot afford to go to Sudan to be with him.

So there is a significant population of up to 150,000 Palestinian Arabs, living in the one Arab country that has granted other Palestinian Arabs full citizenship, who are left in legal limbo and danger of being deported. They are discriminated against and cannot leave. Even worse, most major Arab countries do not recognize their "travel documents" and effectively discriminate against them, forcing them to stay in Jordan or get deported forever.

How many times have you read about this "open-air prison?" How many human rights groups have championed the cause of Jordanian Gazans? What op-eds have ever been written, shaming the Hashemite Kingdom on how poorly they treat their Arab brethren? How many flotillas and convoys are being organized to help out the women and children? How many people are working to divest from Jordanian products because of this shameful discrimination?

Zero, zero, zero, zero and zero.

The obligatory Ashton Kutcher post

OK, so talking about celebrity airheads is not obligatory, but Jameel at The Muqata tracks Kutcher's visit to Efrat and Hebron where he is no doubt single-handedly ticking off thousands of BDSers.

Under the initiative of project "Mashiv HaRuach" which deals with strengthening the values of Zionism, Kutcher visited the community of Efrat, listened with great interest to a historical review of the community and the Gush Etzion area, dined at a Glatt Kosher restaurant, and even dipped in a local natural spring "Mikva" no less than 151 times! (151 is the numerical equivalent "gematriya" of "Mikva")

The project's director, Rafi Even D'aan briefed Kutcher and the history of settlement in Gush Etzion and spoke to him at length about the region's Jewish history. Rafi told Kutcher about the establishment of the new Jewish settlements after the Six Day War and explained the spiritual and historical significance of Gush Etzion.

Jameel also has photos and Ashton's tweets.