Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Yet more Iranian paranoia

Here's an interesting episode from a couple of weeks ago. From the BBC:

An Iranian-made television series about the life of Christ being shown on two Lebanese channels has been taken off air after complaints from Christians.

The series was being shown during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on the Hezbollah-linked TV channel, al-Manar, and another station, NBN.

Lebanon's Christian community has condemned the show as a distortion of their beliefs.

Christians have complained that it is based on an apocryphal gospel, rejected by the Church.

The Gospel of Barnabas has a very different version of Christ's life from that found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The key variation is that it says Jesus was not crucified and was not resurrected -- the two fundamental Christian beliefs.

In this, it is actually very close to the story of Christ as told in the Koran.

It turns out that the cancellation of the series really ticked off Iran. From Iran's PressTV:

The complaints lodged by the Lebanese Catholic Church that forced two networks to stop airing an Iranian-made series on the life of the Prophet Jesus (PBUH) is all part of a rampant Iranophobia spreading across the Arab world.

Political factions and US-linked seditionists with the final aim of forcing the Lebanese Resistance Movement (Hezbollah) into political isolation hatched this plot.

After several episodes of The Messiah were broadcast on NBN and Al-Manar television channels, the country's Catholic Church issued a statement requesting a ban on the broadcast of the series.

...Some Islamic countries fear the growing demand for Iranian series in the Arab world and are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to cut the flow of Iranian art and culture into their countries.

These regimes are seeking to promote obscenity in the Arab world through a set of shallow television dramas that lack any moral message and which they widely endorse in their satellite channels.

For example Arab networks broadcast a number of lengthy, romantic series with obscene plots made by a certain Muslim country.

The main objective of this move is the cultural and artistic isolation of Iran in Islamic countries as well as boosting a culture void of all ethics or moral values. This policy can be best described as Iranophobia.

The two concepts of "Shiaphobia" and "Iranophobia" have long been on the US agenda, and Washington has been working with several Arab regimes toward this end.

Extensive propaganda against the dangers of the spread of the Shia faith in the world and the supposed threat of Iran's bids for nuclear technology was persistently broadcast in Arab channels to isolate Hezbollah and Iran.

This is hardly the only time that Iran is charging the world with "Iranophobia." I first noted this in May, and since then it has become a recurring theme on Iranian news sites.

Google News records about a dozen examples of Iranian media using that word in the past month.

Here's a recent one:

Iranian Justice Minister Morteza Bakhtiari warned that the US and the other arrogant powers have hatched plots to promote Iranophobia in the world.

"The world arrogance has once again resorted to its old agenda and is seeking to spread Iranophobia after its plot failed to spread seditions following the tenth presidential election in Iran," Bakhtiari told FNA on the sidelines of massive International Quds Day rallies in Tehran on Friday.

Apparently, Iran has taken to heart the successful promotion of the false idea that the world is Islamophobic - a stunningly successful campaign that is almost complete nonsense - and want to adapt that to the new claim of "Iranophobia," perhaps to gain sympathy.

Yet they are already using that as an excuse for everything that doesn't go their way, including the ludicrous idea that a TV series about Jesus is being criticized not for its content but because of its origins.

Iran thinks peace talks designed to interfere with Quds Day

We already saw how disappointed Iran's supreme leader was that Quds Day was a bust outside Iran.

He had his own theories. Here's another:

A senior Iranian lawmaker said on Saturday that the talks in Washington between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) had been designed to decrease the effects of the International Quds Day rallies throughout the world.

Paranoia can be really funny.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - the videogame!

From Iran's Mehr News:

Iran released two anti-Israeli computer games on the eve of the Quds Day.

“Devil Den 2” and “Freedom Convoy”, which have been produced by the School Students Basij Organization, were unveiled during a ceremony on Thursday.

“Devil Den 2” is about the Israeli protocols, Brigadier Mohammad-Saleh Jokar, the director of the organization, which is affiliated to the Education Ministry, said in the ceremony.

“The illegitimate regime has said in its protocols that they will abolish all beliefs,” he stated.

“We have witnessed that the foundations of the illegitimate Zionist regime have been weakened and our younger generation must be familiarized with the protocols and the antihuman ideology of the regime,” he added.

Iran plans to produce six sequels to “Devil Den”. “Devil Den 1” was released in 2009.

In “Devil Den 1”, a number of top Iranian students are abducted by U.S. troops during their pilgrimage to Karbala in Iraq. They are handed over to the Zionist regime to convert them into Israeli soldiers. One of the students manages to escape and tries to help liberate the other students.

Well, it's about time they turned my work into a videogame. But there's one big problem:

A large number of the games were distributed free of charge among the demonstrators participating in the Quds Day rally on Friday in Tehran.

They're cheating me out of my royalties!

I'll have to capture the distributors, convert them into Israeli soldiers, brainwash them to hate all religion, confiscate all their money, humiliate them, kill them, and sell their organs.

After all, I have a reputation to maintain.

Twit Khameini tweets

Iran's Supreme Leader, Honcho and Big Cheese now tweets!

Today, in honor of Al Quds Day, he tweeted:

Israel Is A Hideous Entity In the Middle East Which Will Undoubtedly Be Annihilated

A half hour later, perhaps thinking that he didn't properly make the point, he added:

Israel Is Rushing Towards Its Decline And Is Doomed To Annihilation.

He also posted this picture:

If "Allah has ordained that Palestine will be liberated" then why is he doing such a poor job of it? Wouldn't things have been easier in 1948?

Anyway, to make his point crystal clear, he tweeted in Farsi:

Israel will be destroyed

Even more amusing was his article in honor of Al Quds day. You see, the day was made up in 1979, and pretty much only Shiites and terrorists who rely on Iran for money (like Hamas and Islamic Jihad) are celebrating this annual hatefest. Other Arab governments have other days of the year to bash Israel - Naqba Day, Balfour Day, Partition Day, the anniversary of the Christian dude who set a fire in Al Aqsa, and pretty much any day that has a "d" in it.

But their failure to embrace Iran's special day really ticks off Khameini. Obviously, they are Zionist!

So he writes on his English website:

The battle against Quds Day by Israel’s official supporters and their allies – which are the unofficial supporters of Israel – is an interesting fight. They created a rival for Quds Day and tried to erase it from people’s minds. In no part of the world of Islam have global powers allowed local governments to encourage people to take part in Quds Day rallies. Unfortunately, the policies of the bullying global powers are influential in many Muslim countries. This is one of the misfortunes of Muslims and the world of Islam. Is there any reason why Muslim governments should not encourage their people to take to the streets on Quds Day? What harm would this do to them? If they support the ideals of Palestine, why do they not allow their people to take part in Quds Day demonstrations?

Does this sound like the supreme leader of a great nation, or a five year old child who didn't get his way? What a tool!

(h/t Foreign Policy blog)

IDF video of Hezbollah arms cache explosion

I mentioned this earlier today, and the IDF took video:

As the IDF said,

Today’s incident is only one of many that clearly show that Hezbollah systematically violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which stipulates that Hezbollah should be disarmed and that no paramilitary groups will be active south of the Litani river.

Rabbis so open-minded their brains fall out

From JTA:

A group of Jewish interfaith educators is asking rabbis to talk about Islam next Shabbat.

A letter signed by six prominent rabbis and scholars points out that Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, falls on Sept. 11, the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In light of the controversy over the Islamic center planned near the New York site, the letter asks rabbis and rabbinical students to “speak out against the bigotry that has erupted,” and promote the ideals of religious freedoms for Muslims as well as Jews.

Rabbis in leading positions at the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative seminaries, as well as the rabbinical school at Hebrew College, signed the appeal.

It reads, in part: “The proposal for the ‘Mosque at Ground Zero’ that turns out not to be a mosque and not at Ground Zero has brought to light this simple fact: We Americans need to know a whole lot more about Muslims and their religion.”

I have no problem with people learning more about Muslims and their religion. It is important.Bigotry is certainly something to be fought against and real education - not relying on sanitized, second hand materials - is the best tool to fight it.

But the major problem in the Jewish community is not ignorance of Islam - it is ignorance of Judaism. Shabbat Shuvah is part of the "Days of Awe" when Jews should be improving themselves and discarding bad habits, something that requires serious contemplation and time if it is to be done correctly. Rabbis on Shabbat Shuva transitionally talk about repentance and getting closer to God, about strengthening their own communities and striving to do better.

This is not the time of year for rabbis to prioritize teaching Jews about Islam. It is the time to teach Jews about their own religion.

If they want to make a "get to know Islam day" in their temples on some weeknight in November, fine. Choosing specifically this date indicates that they put a higher priority on the secular calendar than on their own Jewish calendar. One would hope that rabbis would have their priorities a little straighter than that.

Unless they really do have more respect for the nebulous concept of multiculturalism than for their own beliefs and traditions.

Fairies, unicorns and a peaceful bi-national state

George Bisharat, writing in the Washington Post, paints a lovely picture of how well a bi-national state in Palestine would work:

The answer is for Israelis and Palestinians to formalize their de facto one-state reality but on principles of equal rights rather than ethnic privilege. A carefully crafted multiyear transition including mechanisms for reconciliation would be mandatory. Israel/Palestine should have a secular, bilingual government elected on the basis of one person, one vote as well as strong constitutional guarantees of equality and protection of minorities, bolstered by international guarantees. Immigration should follow nondiscriminatory criteria. Civil marriage between members of different ethnic or religious groups should be permitted. Citizens should be free to reside in any part of the country, and public symbols, education and holidays should reflect the population's diversity.

Although the one-state option is sometimes dismissed as utopian, it overcomes major obstacles bedeviling the two-state solution. Borders need not be drawn, Jerusalem would remain undivided and Jewish settlers could stay in the West Bank. Moreover, a single state could better accommodate the return of Palestinian refugees. A state based on principles of equality and inclusion would be more morally compelling than two states based on narrow ethnic nationalism. Furthermore, it would be more consistent with antidiscrimination provisions of international law. Israelis would enjoy the international acceptance that has long eluded them and the associated benefits of friendship, commerce and travel in the Arab world.

It sounds so lovely! Palestinian Arabs from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan can move into this new binational Palestine by the millions, but don't worry: they won't do anything to hurt their treasured Jewish minority.

Once upon a time, not too terribly long ago, there was an Arab majority in Palestine. How well did they treat the minority population? Here are the news briefs for a single day, September 4, 1938, in the Palestine Post:

Wasn't life just grand then? Didn't everyone live together in peace and harmony? No need for a state for Jews - that would be racist. No, they can live in peace among the Arabs, in full safety and security, knowing that they are protected as dhimmis by force of Koranic law.

Bisharat couches his dream in multicultural terms:

The main obstacle to a single-state solution is the belief that Israel must be a Jewish state. Jim Crow laws and South African apartheid were similarly entrenched virtually until the eves of their demise. History suggests that no version of ethnic privilege can ultimately persist in a multiethnic society.

The idea that there are 22 or so states that define themselves as "Arab" - and discriminate against non-Arabs - is not a problem at all for Bisharat. The fact that the constitutions of many of those states proclaim that their state religion is Islam, and that the Koran is the source for their laws, is also just peachy for oh-so-cultured Bisharat. No, the only evil is a Jewish national home - that is racist! Jewish self-determination is inherently evil, while the addition of another de-facto Arab state is supremely moral.

His plan recalls another Arab plan.

In 1947, on the eve of the partition, Arabs put forth another single-state plan in a desperate effort to avert the possibility of a Jewish state, however tiny, in Palestine.

Notice how they stressed so much that the state would have equal rights, free access to holy places, and they would even deign to let Hebrew be spoken in certain ghettos where Jews would be the majority.

This plan was just as utopian-sounding as Bisharat's plan today, and its purpose was exactly the same: to destroy Israel.

Yet one only has to look at what happened a mere ten days after this transparent Arab plan couched in liberal terms of equality and tolerance and co-existence was offered. Jews were attacked mercilessly by the very people who were supposedly ready to display tolerance towards them.

And what happened when the relatively liberal kingdom of Transjordan took over the Jewish areas? Jews were forbidden to visit their holy places. Every Jew in the country was expelled. The Jewish Quarter was destroyed; the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives gutted, dozens of synagogues burned down in the course of a few weeks.

This is the reason why a Jewish state is needed. To have a tiny area in the world where Jews can live as Jews, without fear. The morality of a Jewish state where Jews can live safely and securely far outweighs the pseudo-morality of Bisharat's vision where the clock would go back to the days of Jews being bombed in markets because of a never-ending series of perceived injustices and affronts.

When the Arab world shows that it can treat its minorities with the sensitivity that Israel treats hers, then maybe Bisharat can make a valid point. When Jews can buy land in Jordan and Lebanon and Syria and Saudi Arabia and move there without fear, then maybe we can talk about how Israel discriminates against parts of its population. When that day occurs, and Jews can live anywhere in the world with as little fear as Muslims can today, then the raison d'etre of a Jewish state would melt away.

However, today, it is Arabs themselves who show by their actions exactly why a Jewish state, in the Jewish homeland, is not only necessary but moral.

(H/t bc. I have linked to the two articles previously, here and here.)

Some comedy from Ken O'Keefe

A few weeks ago, when the BBC aired their Panorama show about the Mavi Marmara, anti-Israel activist Ken O'Keefe was furious.

O'Keefe is the former Marine who had been a prominent passenger on board the ship.

He wrote about how the BBC lied to him, how they twisted his words, how the entire program was a lie...well, just read it yourself:

The BBC, absent of integrity, contemptuous of humanity, attempts in this program to turn disarmed, helpless Israeli commandos into heroic self-rescuing commandos who managed to Superman their way out of a circle of well over 100 very motivated men whose brothers lay murdered with multiple gunshot wounds. That is what we call a bald-faced lie. Big time lie, in your face lie, you in the audience are a bunch of drooling idiots lie.

He claims that his jihadist comrades let the Israeli soldiers go - which is, of course, a lie.

Anyway, this paragon of honesty was on Iran's PressTV a couple of weeks ago, showing the world his idea of truth.

I'm sure that this TV appearance boosted his credibility - in that Bizarro world of "truthers," wackos, psychopaths, anti-semites, America-bashers, and Israel haters.

New terror coalition to kill Israelis

13 terrorist groups are establishing a "joint operations room" to coordinate attacks on Jewish civilians in Israel.

Since this is the 21st century, they called a press conference to announce themselves.

Since they are terrorists, here's how they looked:

Look at all those microphones!

They promise to come up with new and novel ways of killing Jews, with "iron and fire," and they stressed their intention to stop the PA from any compromise in negotiations.

Lebanese residents change name of "Jewish" neighborhood

From The Daily Star:

A Sidon neighborhood referencing the Jewish people was renamed by locals in honor of the besieged Palestinian Gaza Strip on Thursday.

Residents of the southern city of Sidon raised a metal sign that read “Haret Gaza,” Arabic for Gaza neighborhood, in an area known as “Haret al-Yahoud,” Arabic for neighborhood of the Jews.

The redubbing of the street was organized by a number of locals who wished to show solidarity with the International Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day, which falls on Friday.

“The move to rename the neighborhood is concurrent with the launching of negotiations between the Zionist entity and Palestinian authorities … It also expresses our refusal of the unjust siege that has been imposed on Gaza for more than four years,” said Sheikh Khoder al-Qabsh. Qabsh called on Sidon authorities and all officials to fully adopt the new name.

The original name of the neighborhood dates back to when most of its residents were Lebanese of Jewish religion. They started leaving the country in the 1950s and were absent by the time the Civil War erupted.

The new name given to the neighborhood stirred the interest of young people and many children carried plastic weapons and acted out battle scenes between the Resistance and Israel. “The Resistance won of course,” said the child leader of the make-believe Resistance Mahmoud al-Rifaii.

Nah, no anti-semitism here.

Don't tell Fareed Zakaria!

Meanwhile, in Lebanon... (updated)

Three breaking news ticker items from Naharnet:

1:00pm Security sources to VDL: Sounds of explosions were heard in one of Hizbullah’s bases in the southern town of Shehabiyyah

1:07pm Future News: A fire erupted in Shehabiyyah and sounds of blasts were heard.

1:15pm Al-Jazeera TV: The Shehabiyyah explosion went off at a house that is believed to be an arms depot.

Work accident!

I'm sure UNIFIL will get right there and condemn Hezbollah for violating the terms of UNSCR 1701 by openly bringing arms into southern Lebanon.

UPDATE:

1:30pm Future News: Ambulances and firefighters rushed to the scene where the blast went off.
2:00pm MTV: Sounds of blasts continue to be heard in Shehabiyyeh.

2:15pm VDL: The 3-storey building in Shehabiyyeh is owned by a man from the Salloum family.

It wasn't too hard to find a connection between people named Salloum and Hezbollah.

Spanish Muslims upset over "Mecca" nightclub

From Al Arabiya:

The inauguration of a discotheque called Mecca in Spain infuriated Muslims in the country and raised questions about the position of Muslim workers offered jobs in the controversial place.

After 10 years of renovations, an old discotheque in the city of Aguilas in the southwestern province of Murcia opened its doors on June 18 under the name La Meca amid protests from Muslim individuals and organizations, the Arab Spanish newspaper Andalus Press reported Wednesday.

Mohamed Ali, head of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities (Federación Española de Entidades Religosas Islámicas- FEERI), said Mecca is the most venerated place for Muslims all over the world.

“Muslims pray towards Mecca and it is there that the prophet received the holy Quran,” he said in a statement. “Calling a place for dancing and drinking by that name shows disregard to the feelings of Muslims.”

A little research shows that there have been at least three nightclubs called "Vatican" in the world. I couldn't find anyone protesting. (Although a poster for a British nightclub called Berzerk, which featured a Photoshop of Pope John Paul II dancing with a young blonde and holding a beer, did receive complaints and it was withdrawn.)

Interestingly, there is a bar called "Jerusalem" in London. As far as I can tell, Muslims have never protested that. Perhaps they don't venerate Jerusalem as much as they claim?

Mother of 4 terrorists honored by "moderate" PA (PMW)

Palestinian Media Watch has been finding new examples of PA incitement and honoring terror just about every day. Here's the latest:

"The Palestinian mother is a central partner in the struggle...
It is she who gave birth to the fighters, and she deserves
that we bow to her in salute and in honor."

Those were the words of the Palestinian Authority's Minister for Prisoners' Affairs, Issa Karake, when he honored a Palestinian woman by awarding her "the Shield of Resoluteness and Giving."

The Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, Karake, honors mother of 4 terrorists with PA Shield. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 28, 2010]

She received this honor because she is the mother of four sons who are serving a total of 18 life sentences in Israeli prisons. They all killed Israeli civilians in terror attacks.

The Minister also "praised the Abu Hamid family as a model of willpower and of the struggle for the independence of Palestine" when he visited the family with a ministry delegation, human rights organizations and released prisoners, the official PA daily newspaper reported.

The four sons are serving life sentences for the following crimes:

Nasser Abu Hamid - 7 life sentences + 50 years - commander in Fatah's military wing the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Ramallah. Convicted of killing seven Israeli civilians and 12 attempted murders.
Nasr Abu Hamid - 5 life sentences - Member of terror faction of Fatah, Tanzim, and convicted of involvement in two terror attacks and arms dealing.
Sharif Abu Hamid- 4 life sentences - a member in one of the brothers' units carrying out terror attacks against civilians and soldiers. Accompanied a suicide bomber to his attack in March 2002.
Muhammad Abu Hamid - 2 life sentences + 30 years - involvement in terror attacks.

Minister Karake also chose this week to visit the home of the suicide terrorist Ayyat Al-Akhras who in 2002 entered a Jerusalem supermarket and detonated a bomb murdering two Israelis and killing herself. The minister's visit took place on the occasion of the Palestinian "National Day for Returning the Bodies of Palestinian and Arab Shahids and MIA's."

The mother who received the award for having four terrorist sons was described as "Khansa of Palestine," which is a reference to Al-Khansa, a woman from the earliest period of Islam who sent her four sons to battle and rejoiced when they all died as Martyrs. Calling the Palestinian mother by this name reinforces the message that seeking death as a Martyr is a worthy and honorable goal and that parents should proudly sacrifice their children.

Today's heroic terror attack - against a 12-year old girl

This one might not make the news, because it wasn't a gun. And this sort of thing happened often before the current round of negotiations.

From JPost:

A 12-year- old girl was injured in moderate to serious condition after being hit in the head by a rock thrown at her vehicle near Tapuach junction in Samaria Thursday night.

Magen David Adom Yarkon crews evacuated the girl to Belinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.

IDF soldiers are scouring the area for the perpetrators.

Aren't terrorists so macho? They try as hard as they can to kill women and children - and then they celebrate, hand out candy, create heroic posters, and give military-style names to these operations when they succeed.

I guess they are frustrated since they had so little luck in battling against "Zionist boars."

EU commissioner warns of the dangers of the "Jewish lobby"

From Philosemitism blog:

Karel De Gucht, the European Commissioner for Trade, one of the highest ranking officials at the EU, warned this morning on Belgian (Flemish) radio that the Jewish lobby (not pro-Israel lobby) had a grip on US politics. Belgium holds at the present the presidency of the EU. The belief that the US is controlled by Jews is widespread in Europe ...

Source: Luc Van Braekel (Karel De Gucht over de Joden)

"One should not underestimate, for instance, the [power] of the Jewish lobby, at Capitol Hill, the American parliament. It is the best organised pressure group there. In other words, one should not underestimate the grip the Jewish lobby has on US politics. Be it with the Democrats or the Republicans, there is little difference.

"One should not underestimate the opinion - outside the lobby - of the average Jew who does not live in Israel. There is indeed among most Jews a faith [geloof] - I cannot think of a better way to put it - that they are right. And faith is something difficult to disprove with rational argumentation. It doesn't depend on them being religious or not. Even secular Jews [vrijzinnige] share the same faith of being right. It is therefore not easy, even for a moderate Jew, to talk about what's happening in the Middle East. It's a very emotional issue [for them]."

Christian anti-semitism in Palestine, 1864

We have noted that Arab Christians in Palestine are often more anti-semitic than the Muslims, and in fact traditional Palestinian Christian anti-semitism seems to have influenced the more general anti-Semitism of Palestinian Muslims in the 20th century.

This book shows that this hatred goes way back.

From "Customs and traditions of Palestine: illustrating the manners of the ancient Hebrews", by Ermete Pierotti.

In Palestine, as in the whole of Syria, especially among the ignorant Christian population, a most unfortunate prejudice is current, that the Jews, just before their Passover, try to get hold of Christians, especially of children, in order to mix their blood with unleavened bread; since, without this condiment, it would not be prepared according to the directions in the law of Moses. Unhappily this absurd fancy is not scouted as it ought to be by too many of the priests and monks of the Eastern Churches; so that sometimes the Jews are exposed to insults which give rise to serious disturbances, without having afforded by their conduct the slightest ground for such an imputation. If the Eastern clergy studied their Bibles, they would soon discredit these fables; but, as few of them know anything about that book, they are not the persons to abolish prejudices, which they foster by their preaching to the faithful from morning to night; certainly they cannot know that it was the blood of a lamb, not of a man, which was to be sprinkled on the door-posts and lintel1, and they even seem to believe that heathen leeches prescribed baths of children's blood as a cure for leprosyz; perhaps too they have heard of some Rabbinical books' in which it is said that Pharaoh bathed in the blood of children to cure his leprosy, and that his magicians ordered the same remedy for another disease, and have transformed Pharaoh into a Jew, and the children into Christians.

This is no exaggerated accusation, for I have heard greater absurdities from the lips of the Greek and Armenian monks in Jerusalem: for example, they have shewn me the place where Melchizedek planted the first olive after the Deluge, and where he first made bread, and a thousand similar absurdities.

However I will give an instance of the popular belief in this falsehood, which fell under my own notice. One day in 1858, on going out of my house in Jerusalem, I saw a very respectable Jew running at full speed, pursued by some Arabs, who as soon as he reached me claimed my protection against his assailants. These tried to drag him away from me; I asked what was the matter; but had only yells and incoherent exclamations in reply; so I determined to place the Jew inside my own doors for security. The Arabs, however, resisted, and though I was close to home I should not have been able to defend him had not my European servants arrived upon the scene; this reinforcement turned the tide of battle, and the enemy quickly fled, not without torn beards and conspicuous bruises from our cudgels, as a warning for the future.

When I got the Jew safe within, he told me the reason of the disturbance. As he was walking through the town he found a little boy crying, and stopped to ask what was the matter. He found that the child had lost his way, so he took him by the hand and went to help him to find his home. Some men, however, came up, and rudely snatched the child from him, saying, " You have taken him to kill him, and you shall smart for it!" Thereupon he took to flight, and happily met me.

After hearing this I returned to the street and found that the vanquished enemy had returned with reinforcements, and were waiting to demand the Jew from me. I shewed them very plainly, more by actions than words, that they were not going to have him; and to pacify them suggested that I would take him to the governor to be imprisoned. This proposal was joyfully accepted. I took the frightened man, and, accompanied by the Arabs, went to the governor's house; where I placed them all in the custody of the police, and then went to see Surraya pasha. I informed him what had happened, and after a short examination the Jew was released and the Arabs sent to prison.

On Good Friday the Jews cannot quit their own quarters, as the Latins, Greeks, and Armenians would insult and otherwise illtreat them. On some occasions the pasha has been obliged to guard the entrances of their streets with bodies of soldiers and police to protect them from the fanatical Christians, who would have made an attack upon them. No Jew, who lives at Jerusalem, dares to pass in front of the court of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for he well knows how great a risk he runs of suffering for his curiosity. If, on an occasion like this, he were murdered, the malefactors would not be severely punished; for all the native population unfortunately hold the opinion that to injure a Jew is a work well pleasing in the sight of God. This is due to the fact that the Jews, although numerous, do not know how to make themselves respected; and to the sermons constantly delivered by the Latins, Greeks, and Armenians, in which the most opprobrious and unseemly epithets are heaped upon them, even in the churches themselves, and of course still more in less sacred places. These are all believed by the faithful, who are thus excited by their priests to insult all whom they meet. Again, the poorer Jews when going or returning from pilgrimages between Jerusalem and Hebron, avoid passing through Bethlehem to escape the insults which the "good Christians" of that place, excited by their monks, always inflict upon them. The rich, however, are free from all these inconveniences, for the bakhshish which they liberally distribute soothes down all party spirit; so that they are not only tolerated, but even honourably entertained in the convents of these Christians, their liberality making them welcome guests to both monks and people. They can visit the Tomb of Christ, the mosques and churches in Jerusalem itself, and be received everywhere with respect, paid not to their personal excellencies, but to their gold. Some of the wealthier members of the Jews now in England know full well that this is true.

"I am a refugee" (Danny Ayalon)

From JPost, somewhat shortened:

As a sitting member of a democratic government, it might appear strange to declare that I am a refugee. However, my father, his parents and family were just a few of the almost one million Jews who were expelled or forced out of Arab lands. My father and his family were Algerian, from a Jewish community thousands of years old that predated the Arab conquest of North Africa and even Islam. Upon receiving independence, Algeria allowed only Muslims to become citizens and drove the indigenous Jewish community and the rest of my family out.

While those Arabs who fled or left Mandatory Palestine and Israel numbered roughly 750,000, there were roughly 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands. ...

An important distinction between the two groups is the fact that many Palestinian Arabs were actively involved in the conflict initiated by the surrounding Arab nations, while Jews from Arab lands were living peacefully, even in a subservient dhimmi status, in their countries of origin for many centuries if not millennia.

Financial economists have estimated that, in today’s figures, the total amount of assets lost by the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, including communal property such as schools, synagogues and hospitals, is almost twice that of the assets lost by the Palestinian refugees. Furthermore, one must remember that Israel returned over 90 percent of blocked bank accounts, safe deposit boxes and other items belonging to Palestinian refugees during the 1950s.

EVEN THOUGH the number of Jewish refugees and their assets are larger than that of the Palestinians, the international community only appears to be aware of the latter’s plight.

There are numerous major international organizations devoted to the Palestinian refugees. There is an annual conference held at the United Nations and a refugee agency was created just for the Palestinian refugees. While all the world’s refugees have one agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Palestinians fall under the auspices of another agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

UNWRA’s budget for 2010 is almost half of UNHCR’s budget.

Equally impressive is the fact that UNHCR prides itself on having found “durable solutions” for “tens of millions” of refugees since 1951, the year of its establishment. However, UNRWA does not even claim to have found “durable solutions” for anyone.

If that is not distorted enough, let’s look at the definitions and how they are applied: normally the definition of a refugee only applies to the person that fled and sought refuge, while a Palestinian refugee is the person that fled and all of their descendants for all time.
WITH DIRECT negotiations about to resume between Israel and the Palestinians, the spotlight will be returned to this issue. The so-called Palestinian ‘right of return’ is legal fiction. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, the supposed source for this ‘right’ does not mention this term, is not legally binding and, like all other relevant United Nations resolutions uses the intentionally ambiguous term ‘refugees’ with no appellation.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, still seen as the primary legal framework for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict asserts that a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement should necessarily include “a just settlement of the refugee problem.”

No distinction is made between Arab refugees and Jewish refugees.

In fact, one of the leading drafters of the resolution, Justice Arthur Goldberg, the United States’ Chief Delegate to the United Nations, said: “The resolution addresses the objective of ‘achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.’ This language presumably refers both to Arab and Jewish refugees.”

In addition, every peace conference and accord attended or signed between Israel and its Arab neighbors uses the term “refugees” without qualification.

During the famous Camp David discussions in 2000, president Clinton, the facilitator and host of the negotiations said: “There will have to be some sort of international fund set up for the refugees. There is, I think, some interest, interestingly enough, on both sides, in also having a fund which compensates the Israelis who were made refugees by the war, which occurred after the birth of the State of Israel. Israel is full of people, Jewish people, who lived in predominantly Arab countries who came to Israel because they were made refugees in their own land”.

In 2008, the US Congress passed House Resolution 185 granting, for the first time, equal recognition to Jewish refugees, while affirming that the US government will now recognize that all victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict must be treated equally.

Before 1948 there were nearly 900,000 Jews in Arab lands while only a few thousand remain. Where is the international outrage, the conferences, the proclamations for redress and compensation? While the Palestinian refugee issue has become a political weapon to beat Israel, the Arab League has ordered its member states not to provide their Palestinian population with citizenship; Israel absorbed all of its refugees, whether fleeing the Holocaust or persecution and expulsion from Arab lands.

People like my father, the hundreds of thousands who came to Israel and the millions of Israelis descended from these refugees are entitled to redress. It is vital that this issue return to the international agenda, so we don’t once again see an asymmetrical and distorted treatment of Arabs and Jews in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

PA threatens Arabs who want real peace

Ami Isseroff has, pretty much single-handedly, written an encyclopedia of everything related to Israel and the Middle East conflict and put it on-line, along with news, a blog, and who knows what else. Although the sites are difficult to navigate, there is an enormous trove of information an reference material there.

Isseroff is a centrist. He wants a two-state solution. He desperately wants peace. He is in contact with the Palestinian Arab "peace camp."

Which is why his latest post is worth reading:

It hurts me to admit this. As a Zionist, I really wish that the much hoped-for peace was really just around the corner. I wish that Israel could give up a few square meters of real estate and obtain peace. I know it will not happen. I am compelled to admit that by every indication, the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that begin this week will be a farcical charade. They cannot be saved by any amount of Israeli concessions. ...

One certain indication that the peace talks must fail is the flood of mail that I have gotten of late from Palestinian peace and dialog groups, and from every Palestinian or other Arab who ever spoke out for peace or sanity. They beg me to remove this or that article or section from a Web site where they are quoted as advocating peace with Israel or coexistence. They say - not for publication - that they are subject to a reign of terror: Emails; Hints; Phone calls in the night; Officials of the '"clean-as-a-whistle" "moderate" "not-like-Arafat" Palestinian National Authority telling them they had better toe the line - or it will be bad for their organization or their personal health.

My Palestinian and Arab friends and others who have asked me to remove their Web pages and demanded that I be silent about it, can be thankful that I do not follow their wishes: Speaking out is the only way to expose state terror. My advice to all those who are threatened is to speak out, loud and clear. But it is their decision. I will not name names. I can only decide what is right for myself.

Everyone who is in any way active in peace and dialog has to have heard echoes of the whisper campaign. The Palestinian youth orchestra that was dismantled because it played for Israeli Holocaust survivors, the One Voice event that was canceled because of death threats, are public manifestations of the same terror. All this happened not in Hamas - ruled Gaza, but, embarrassingly, in the West Bank, ruled by the "moderate" Fatah and the Palestinian National Authority, Israel's "peace partners." The people who are terrorized into begging me to remove their names, their articles and their organizations from any Web site that has the remotest connection with Israel, all are from the West Bank, the land of the Palestinian National Authority, not Gaza. Think about what this means.

This is one of the most under-reported stories out there. The PA is not close to moderate by any objective measure - in fact, they are far more intransigent than any Israeli government in history. Yet the media chooses to highlight how "moderate" they are in order to fulfill what they believe is a greater good of promoting a mythical "peace." The result is that stories like these are ignored or minimized, and the PA is presented as a moderate government in opposition to the right-wing, hard-line Likud.

Centrist Zionists know the facts, and they yearn for a two-state solution anyway. Yet they are not willing to give up anything close to what the PA is demanding, knowing that on the ground, such concessions would lead to disaster. These simple facts are not reported at all.

Peace - real peace - cannot be built on lies and obfuscation. The ugly reality of the so-called "moderates" of Fatah and the PA needs to be exposed. When the media doesn't do its job, it is not serving the cause of peace - it is instead endangering many, many lives.

Islamists in Jordan call for teaching schoolkids to hate Jews

Al Quds al Arabi reports that the Islamic Action Front in Jordan, which is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, has called on Jordanian schools to add more incitement in their textbooks against Jews and Israel.

In 2006/2007, Jordanian schools started teaching a little bit about Jewish history, and this is regarded as unacceptable.

The announcement calls for a return to the curriculum that Jordanian textbooks have had until then (and that were used in Palestinian Arab schools as well) where the Jews were regarded as dishonest and corrupt. The IAF also calls for schools to teach about Israeli threats to Jordan, the true face of "world Zionism" (which means world Jewry) and alleged Jewish destruction of Muslim holy places.

Correction: Algerian ship arrived in El Arish Thursday

Last Sunday I noted that the "blockade busting ship" that the media said was headed for Gaza - and that I said was headed for El Arish - never seemed to make it. I had assumed that it had arrived without any fanfare.

Well, it turns out it was just delayed. The ship arrived yesterday afternoon - in El Arish, naturally.

al-Zahar says terrorism unrelated to negotiations

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, trying to publicly distance the Hamas Gaza leadership and the al-Qassam Brigades, bizarrely claimed that the two terror attacks this week in the West Bank were not related to the resumption of negotiations in Washington this week.

This despite the fact that the al Qassam Brigades made that exact link.

Zahar said that Hamas has no interest in stopping the negotiations, although it is skeptical about the results and will not accept any compromise with Israel.

He stopped short of saying that the attacks were a coincidence; just that the Al Qassam Brigades happened to take the opportunity to kill Jews when it presented itself. He also claimed that it was a reflection of the "pressure" that Palestinian Arabs suffer in the West Bank, as if things have not been improving steadily there for the past few years.

The article seems to imply that Zahar is trying to forestall any Israeli retaliation in Gaza itself. Or maybe he's just trying to make sure that he is not personally targeted by a drone missile.

Arab leaders have proven time and time again their ability to lie effortlessly. The question is, why does the media still take anything they say at face value?

Tomorrow is al-Quds Day!

Tomorrow is the last Friday of Ramadan, and therefore it is time for the annual al Quds Day, a holiday declared by the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in 1979.

Officially, the holiday is meant to strengthen Islamic ties to Jerusalem and show solidarity with Palestinian Arabs.

In reality, it is just an excuse to bash Israel and the Western world.

There are lots of Iranian news articles about the day, and some of them reveal the festival's real theme.

The Head of Iran's Parliamentary Commission on Foreign Policy and National Security, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said "the key issue for Palestine is to revive the memories of the Zionists' atrocities." Not a state, not Jerusalem, but the key issue is to talk about "Zionists' atrocities." How's that for incitement?

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, realizing that inter-Muslim unity is a myth, blames their discord on the West and "called for an epic turn-out on al-Quds day to foil world power's plot to sow discord among Muslims."

Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri said that Quds Day "appears to pave the way for the collapse of Israel and its allies, namely the US and Britain."

The Iranian foreign ministry said that they "hoped for high demo turnout in the demonstrations in a bid to disappoint the Zionist enemy."

Sorry, but nothing that they can do can disappoint us. One cannot be disappointed in people who are already beneath contempt.

But since the topic has come up, here is my annual Quds Day video:

Fareed Zakaria a bit inconsistent on religious tolerance

Recently, Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria publicly returned an award that he had received five years ago from the Anti-Defamation League called the Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. He was upset that the ADL had publicly urged the Muslim community in New York to consider moving the proposed mosque/Islamic community center near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center to another location where the sensitivity of families of the victims would be respected.

Zakaria's argument is that the people behind the proposed building are moderate Muslims whose views should be supported. He was unclear on how their views cannot be supported from a few blocks further away, or even how the entire controversy had already made it impossible for most Americans to be able to listen objectively to these supposedly moderate Muslims - something that would have been accomplished very well had they publicly acknowledged the pain that the chosen site was causing.

Zakaria's viewpoint, as flawed as it is, is legitimate. He is taking an absolutist position on freedom of religion and that can be considered an admirable position in the abstract.

Recently he said something interesting on CNN. At the end of a segment where he discussed the restoration of a synagogue in Beirut, Zakaria said (from Big Journalism:)

So why did this nation, often teetering on the brink of religious hostilities and hostilities with Israel, restore a Jewish house of worship? To show that Lebanon is an open and tolerant country.

And indeed, the project is said to have found support in many parts of the community, not just from the few remaining Jews there, but also Christians and Muslims and Hezbollah. Yes, Hezbollah — the one that the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization.

Hezbollah’s view on the renovation goes like this. “We respect divine religions, including the Jewish religion. The problem is with Israel’s occupation of Arab lands … not with the Jews.” Food for thought.

To the uninitiated, this might sound consistent with his position on the Islamic center - freedom of religion for all.

Others have pointed out the incongruity of Hezbollah's calls to destroy the Jewish state with its supposed respect for Judaism as a "divine religion." Others have also pointed out the small fact that there is a reason why the Jewish community in Lebanon has almost disappeared, and that this reason is rather contradictory to the soothing words being said in English by a Hezbollah spokesman. One can also mention that the very idea that the Jewish people, alone among all nations, have no rights of self-determination is an inherently anti-semitic position.

Yet if Zakaria had done a tiny amount of homework he would have seen that Hezbollah and its leader really are pure anti-semites completely out of the context of Israel.

Remember the Buenos Aries bombing of a Jewish community center? 86 people were killed, and Hezbollah together with its Iranian allies was behind it.

Moreover, Nasrallah said "If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide". (Lebanon Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)

Also in 2002 he said

If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli.

And MEMRI quotes him as calling Jews "grandsons of apes and pigs" and "Allah's most cowardly and greedy creatures."

(Quotes are from CAMERA.)

Is Zakaria so naive as to think that Hezbollah's public support for a synagogue that will have no worshippers to serve a community that fled religious persecution is an example of religious tolerance? Doesn't all evidence seem to support the idea rather that Hezbollah holds Jews must remain, at best, second-class citizens, dhimmis under Islamic rule?

For Zakaria to quote this Hezbollah official and ignore the massive amounts of evidence of clear anti-semitism on the part of Hezbollah's leadership indicates that Zakaria's position on religious intolerance is not quite as clear cut as his denunciation of the ADL would indicate.

(h/t Joel for the original Big Journalism link)

Hamas Gaza "refugee" group denounces UNRWA

Hamas paper Palestine Times has an article about "The Committee on the Affairs of Palestinian Refugees" and its problems with UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip.

Among their problems:

- The creation of a UNRWA Women's Committee meant to foster equal rights between men and women is really meant to end chastity and purity.

- UNRWA sometimes sponsors trips for students where they are in danger of meeting Jews and Zionists.

- UNRWA schools were rumored to have taught about the Holocaust which teaches students to sympathize with Jews

- Some schools have more females than males, causing them to have more female teachers than male teachers

- UNRWA salaries are too high

- UNRWA's services have decreased as their budget gets stretched.

It seems that the more that Arabs complain about UNRWA, the more that UNRWA defends them.

(h/t Ali)

Saeb Erekat: "I am a liar" (video)

Over the past few days, Israelis have been inundated with a slick advertising campaign, financed by the US and created by the left wing "Geneva Initiative," to convince them that the current government does not want peace and that Palestinian Arabs do.

Here is my take on one of the commercials, starring everyone's favorite liar, Saeb Erekat.

Hamas takes credit for Ramallah shooting, promises more

The front page of the Al Qassam Brigades website shows this new picture:

The words say "No running away from the 'Flood of Fire' " - which is what they named yesterday's attack near Hebron. The road sign shows the sign for "Bani Naim" which is the Arab village near that attack, and the question mark indicates that more such attacks are to come.

In the article where they take credit for the Ramallah attack today, they say explicitly that "Flood of Fire" is meant to be a series of attacks, not a single operation.They also say that "this operation will not be the last." Moreover, they have choice words about the "wimps" of the PA and their attempts to capture them.

(h/t Ali for translation)

New shooting attack; 2 injured (updated)

From YNet:

The Magen David Adom emergency services' spokesman said Wednesday that two people were injured, apparently after being shot, at the Rimonim junction in Binyamin.

MDA teams are on their way to the scene. No further details are currently available.

My Right Word:

New Shooting Incident Reported; 2 Injured

On the road between Kochav HaShachar and Rimonim.

UPDATE 23:42

One critical; one light.

The car went off the road into a deep ditch.

Helicopter transport to hospital.

23:49

The car was traveling between Rimonim Junction and Kochav Yaakov (which would be close to Route 60. The critical wounded is having emergency respiration applied.

Maariv also says one in critical condition.

See the usual Israeli blogs (Israellycool, My Right Word, The Muqata) for updates - I will not be near a computer.

UPDATE: One was moderately injured, the other lightly:

IDF Central Command Spokesman Peter Lerner, who arrived at the site of Wednesday's attack, said the shooting victims managed to get out of the vehicle and flee the scene.

"The wounded came out of the vehicle and ran away to the wadi, where they waited for fear that they would be killed," he said. "Later they climbed back and called for help…the army, Shin Bet, and police have launched an investigation into the incident, yet at this moment there are no leads."

The attackers apparently fired at the Israeli car from a passing vehicle, he said.

Miracle (Allah) ear, 2010 edition

Back in 2007, I had a story about a Palestinian arab baby born with an ear that resembled the Arabic word Allah:

For reference:

At the time there was a spate of similar sightings - in fish, in British ice-cream cone logos, honeycombs, tsunami wave patterns, and clouds.

Well, according to PalTimes,we now have another PalArab kid with the Miracle-Ear:

Libya releasing jihadists from prison

This little story seems to have slipped under the wire....

Libya freed 37 prisoners late on Tuesday, including at least one former detainee at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, who had been jailed for links to radical Islamist groups but have since renounced violence.

The prisoners were kissed and hugged by waiting relatives when they walked out of the Abu Salim prison near Tripoli, in the latest in a series of releases designed to draw a line under radical Islamist violence in Libya.

"These releases come in the context of national reconciliation and social peace," said Mohamed al Allagi, chairman of the human rights committee of the Gaddafi Foundation, the charity which helped organise the release.

The charity is headed by Saif al-Islam, a reform-minded son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who some analysts say could eventually succeed his father.

Saif al-Islam has campaigned for reconciliation with Islamists who promise to lay down their arms.

More than 700 prisoners accused of having ties to Islamist militant groups have now been released under the reconciliation programme, but over 300 are still behind bars, according to figures given by Libyan officials.

Fayyad: Two-thirds of pledges for 2010 not paid

Palestine Press Agency quotes the Wafa PA agency interview with Salam Fayyad.

It the interview, he says that paying PA salaries should not be affected by their budget crisis, but he reveals that out of the $1.8 billion pledged by the international community to prop up the PA this year, only $605 million have been paid so far.

He reiterated that he intends to make the PA self-sufficient, and of course blames Israel for their financial problems.

Anti-semitic, anti-Christian Iranian Ramadan TV series

From Terrorism-Info:

1. The series "The Christ" (Al-sayid al-masih in Arabic) was broadcast at the beginning of August 2010 in Lebanon both by Al-Manar TV, Hezbollah's satellite channel, and the Shi’ite Lebanese channel NBN-TV, affiliated with the Amal movement and Nabih Berri. It was broadcast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a time when the rate of television viewing is particularly high in the Muslim world. It was also broadcast by the Iranian Arabic-language channel Al-Kawthar TV.

2. The Christian community in Lebanon strongly protested the program, and after broadcasting the first few episodes Al-Manar TV and NBN TV were forced to announce they were taking the series off the air. Despite the storm raised by the broadcasts in Lebanon, the Iranian channel Al-Kawthar TV continued airing it.

...5. Produced in Iran in 2008, the series tells the story of the life of Jesus. The plot of the story shows the Muslim point of view that he was a prophet, but not the most important one (that distinction is reserved for Muhammad). In addition, according to Islam, there is no foundation for the Holy Trinity.

...7. In addition to the offensive treatment of Jesus, in the first two episodes there are clear examples of anti-Semitism. The Jews are depicted as conspirators, liars, traitors, cowards, evil, ugly greedy and Satanic. The Jewish residents of Jerusalem are represented as crooked merchants.

Jews in the series: A Jew informs on plotters againt the Roman authorities

Jews in the series: Jews counterfeit coins to build the next Temple.

Jesus calls the Jewish priests "sons of snakes" several times (the snake is a familiar anti-Semitic motif).

A priest says the Israelites have sunk to the depths.

The Jews are worried by Jesus' success, and one says, "This may destroy our profits."

Jesus again calls the Jews "sons of snakes."

Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee

Jesus to his disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee:
"Among the Israelites are many devils who stir up terrible civil wars."

Read the whole thing.

(h/t Joel)

Monday's NYT bias

This is the reason I don't read the Western media - because when I do, I can't stop myself from fisking it, and that takes time.

Boker Tov Boulder pointed to an NYT article on Monday:

As preparations intensify for a Palestinian-Israeli summit meeting in Washington on Thursday, the crude outlines of a Palestinian state are emerging in the West Bank, with increasingly reliable security forces, a more disciplined government and a growing sense among ordinary citizens that they can count on basic services.

Personal checks, long shunned as being unredeemable, are now widely accepted. Traffic tickets are issued and paid, movie theaters are opening and public parks are packed with families late into the summer nights. Economic growth in the first quarter of this year was 11 percent over the same period in 2009, the International Monetary Fund says.

“I’ve never seen Nablus so alive,” Caesar Darwazeh, who owns a photography studio, said on Sunday night as throngs of people enjoyed balloons and popcorn, a four-wagon train taking merrymakers through the streets.

Sounds pretty good, right? Netanyahu's plan to create an "economic peace" is paying dividends and Palestinian Arabs are doing well.

Then comes the "but...."

Of course, the West Bank remains occupied by Israel. It is filled with scores of Israeli settlements, some 10,000 Israeli troops and numerous roadblocks and checkpoints that render true ordinary life impossible for the area’s 2.5 million Palestinians.

Hold on - weren't we just reading about "true ordinary life"? Isn't "true ordinary life" the ability to go to the park, to the movies, write checks, have businesses, raise families?

Some 96% of Palestinian Arabs were living in Areas A and B, under PA administrative control. Most are under PA security control as well. How exactly is Israel making their lives impossible?

Is it because of checkpoints, of which many have been dismantled? Does this mean that the thousands of commuters who are stuck for 45 minute delays every day at the bridges and tunnels of New York are not living "true ordinary lives?"

The Times does not say. It is simply a fact: even though their lives are pretty darn good, they are not good enough. They are not indistinguishable from people living in Long Island, which appears to be the reference point.

(Even though a large number of Arab towns visible from the highway actually do look pretty good. Some of their mansions would put those Long Island towns to shame.)

And if they are going to mention the 10,000 Israeli troops stationed in the West bank, why don't they mention how many PA security forces are there? The number was about 15,000 in 2004, far more than what was agreed upon during Oslo. No, context is not exactly what the NYT is going for.

Here we see the NYT describe in detail why things are good, then declare that things are really bad without giving any examples of how this "occupation" is hurting them - especially for the majority living in Area A, which by any real definition cannot be considered "occupied."

Seems a wee bit biased.

Blaming the victims: The New York Times' sick coverage

I had not realized how truly sick the New York Times' coverage of the terror attack was. In the very first paragraph:

The killing of four Israeli settlers, including a pregnant woman, in the West Bank on Tuesday evening rattled Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the eve of peace talks in Washington and underscored the disruptive role that the issue of Jewish settlements could play in the already fragile negotiations.

The New York Times is agreeing with Hamas - Jews living on their historic homeland are the main evil in the Middle East, and this terror attack highlights the "disruptive role" of their communities.

The terror attack itself is not disruptive. Hell, that's expected. If only those uppity Jews would give in to Hamas' reasonable demands to leave or get slaughtered, then peace would reign.

Also, the New York Times highlights the victims as 'settlers' in the first sentence - not Israelis, not civilians, not travelers. No, the NYT defines them in terms of their pejorative term for proud Jews who exercise their free will and choose to live in a place that has the most spiritual meaning for them.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the “atrocious murder,” which Israeli officials said seemed calculated by Hamas to upset the negotiations, which it virulently opposes. ...

The Palestinian Authority also condemned the attacks.... A Palestinian spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said the attack by Hamas, the authority’s rival, underlined “the need to proceed quickly toward a just and lasting peace agreement,” which he said would “put an end to these acts.”

The article equates Netanyahu's clear and unequivocal condemnation of an utterly immoral act with the PA's formulaic and passionless statement that is entirely meant to soothe Western sensibilities and get useful idiots New York Times reporters to believe them without the least bit of skepticism.

It also quotes, without irony, the completely inane idea that a peace agreement - that Hamas and practically every other Palestinian Arab political and militant group adamantly opposes - would stop terror attacks.

Even before the attack, settlements were looming as a potential deal-breaker in the peace process.

The NYT underscores its sickening point from the first paragraph that this terror attack was a reasonable response to evil settlements. Nowhere does the Times characterize terrorism as an obstacle topeace, only the settlements. In this way, the paper has completely co-opted the false Arab narrative as its own.

Mr. Netanyahu has steadfastly refused to commit to extending a partial moratorium on construction in the West Bank, which expires Sept. 26, while Mr. Abbas has said it will be very hard to keep talking if construction resumes.

Yet the New York Times doesn't bother mentioning that the freeze started last December, and for all that time Abbas refused to negotiate. Instead, it ignores Palestinian Arab intransigence and takes for granted that the temporary freeze must become permanent, forcing tens of thousands of people to not be able to add a bathroom to their houses. Because that's the real obstacle to peace, not execution-style shootings of pregnant women.

A senior Israeli official said that the West Bank attack, the deadliest on Israeli citizens in more than two years, would inevitably heighten the emphasis on Israel’s security in the negotiations. But Palestinian officials noted that the attack took place in an area of the West Bank that is under full Israeli security control, and where the Palestinian security forces have no responsibility and are not allowed to operate.

OK, thought experiment. Let's say that Israel kept up the roadblocks and checkpoints that were there a couple of years ago, and this had prevented the terror attack. Would the Times have praised Israel for its effective defense, or blamed Israel for its stifling checkpoints?

In this case, the "But" indicates that the reporters are more inclined to say that Israel's lack of checkpoints means that Israel is to blame. No matter that the terrorists are, right now, safe inside Palestinian Arab territory.

The victims came from Beit Hagai, a small settlement in the hills south of Hebron, an area known for particularly militant settlers.

Meaning? That Talya Imas deserved to die? Does Hamas distinguish between the "particularly militant" Jews who live in the area and the ones who aren't? This is a very, very sick attempt to justify the attack.

Finally, in a gratuitous paragraph that seems to have no reason to exist except to vilify Israel's right wing, the Times report end with:

The stop-and-go Israeli-Palestinian peace process has often taken place in the shadow of bloody attacks. Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who led the Oslo peace process in the early and mid-1990s, said his philosophy was “to fight terror as if there were no negotiations and conduct the negotiations as if there was no terror.” Mr. Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right-wing extremist in 1995.

The New York Times is saying, pretty clearly, that the only people who must be stopped are Israeli right-wingers. Hamas terror isn't even an issue or an impediment to peace - it's a mere symptom of the awful conditions placed on Palestinian Arabs by Israel's right wing.

This article is, frankly, Palestinian Arab propaganda. It exactly mirrors Palestinian Arab talking points and does not even imply that terrorism (or Israel's concomitant desire for security) is an issue at all. On the heels of the NYT giving a platform to a person who glorifies the "intifada," it shows how the Newspaper of Record has become a simple mouthpiece for Palestinian Arabs whose only problem with terror attacks is that they cause bad PR.

UPDATE: More NYT bias

What Israel should do

The victims of the terror attack last night were residents of Beit Haggai. Beit Haggai gets its name from the initials of three victims of a previous terror attack (Hanan Krauthammer, Gershon Klein, and Yaakov Zimmerman.)

This history points to what would undoubtedly be the best reaction to any terror attack.

Israel should immediately announce a new town in the West Bank to be built in the memory of Yitzchak and Talya Imas, Kokhava Even-Chaim and Avishai Shindler.

It can be built in an area that "everyone knows" would be part of Israel in the event of an agreement. It can even be a new neighborhood in an existing settlement, within the existing boundaries that had been "frozen." But the important thing is that it should be done automatically and irrevocably in reaction to every terror attack.

If the terrorists know that their attacks have the direct effect of strengthening Israel's hold on the disputed land, there would be a backlash against the attacks that is much greater than the lukewarm "condemnations" that most Palestinian Arabs do not subscribe to.

The "settlement freeze" did not make the PA the least bit more flexible - on the contrary, it caused them to become far more intransigent. For nearly ten months during the freeze itself, Abbas dug in his heels and stubbornly refused to even talk. The "goodwill gesture" made Abbas even less interested in peace than he was before. Only serious pressure by the US managed to get him to the negotiating table.

Israeli concessions do not make the Palestinian Arabs more flexible. It makes them demand more. Only pressure makes them act towards peace.

And nothing would pressure them more than the knowledge that their intransigence is counterproductive to their purported cause.

Things are not too bad for Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank. Abbas said so himself. "[I]n the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life." It sure doesn't sound like a state is his highest priority, rather it is to kick Jews out of their homes.

Peace will never occur unless the Arabs feel they have something to lose by its absence. The freeze has taken that incentive away. Time to unfreeze the building, and the place to begin is with a new settlement in the name of the terror victims.