Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

"No humanitarian crisis in Gaza - it's much worse!"

I've mentioned previously how, in the wake of blogs and (belatedly) news organizations finally covering the phenomena of malls and water parks and fancy restaurants and luxury hotels in Gaza, the fake "humanitarian crisis" meme has morphed into something else - a crisis of hopelessness, or despair, or some other non-specific formulation that is a reframing of the entire situation.

Those who pushed the convenient but lying meme of starvation and genocide - people like Jimmy Carter - are now forced to figure out how to keep the pressure on Israel but without the lazy shorthand of "humanitarian crisis."

The latest people who are scrambling to redefine Gaza are "The Elders," the "four confused geriatrics who are wandering the Middle East trying to help terrorists" as Noah Pollak writes.

Mary Robinson, one of these busybodies who just met with terrorists in Gaza (unfortunately, not in front of the cameras this time,) said "This is not a humanitarian crisis - it is a political crisis and it can be solved politically."

The Elders' blog gave space to John Ging, whose job at UNRWA gives him more than a passing interest in prolonging Palestinian Arab suffering for the next few generations. He was more expansive in his attempts to tap-dance around the topic:

Instead of dealing with the obvious facts on the ground, the truth is either denied or ignored and instead a debate rages around whether there is a humanitarian crisis or not and whether adjusting or easing an illegality is the appropriate response. Let me say unequivocally that there is a crisis that is far larger than a “humanitarian crisis”; there is a crisis that affects every aspect of public and private life in Gaza.

As the Elders will see, the water and sanitation infrastructure is a state of collapse with 80 million cubic litres of untreated sewage pumped into the Mediterranean every day; 90% of the water unsafe to drink by World Health Organization standards. They will also see the poverty and staggering levels of aid dependency, where 80% of the population are dependent on handouts of food from the United Nations. Yes the shops are full of consumer goods, now from Israel rather than the tunnels, but very few can afford to buy them. Unemployment is at record levels with 95% of the private sector businesses closed and the ban on commercial imports and exports still firmly in place.

The result of this and much more is that 100% of the innocent civilians despair at the mismatch between the political rhetoric of the international community and their refusal to take effective action to uphold international law,

See? 100% of Gazans are suffering from acute despair! This is worse than starvation!

These old fogies, who fully support spending hundreds of millions to maintain Hamas' hold on power, know that Hamas is a better investment than merely buying food for millions of kids who have flies buzzing around their distended stomachs.

Religious Jewish girl on "America's Next Top Model"

Esther Petrack, an 18 year old girl who was born in Jerusalem and attended a modern Orthodox school in Brookline, MA, is apparently competing in the TV show America's Next Top Model.

She elicited some controversy when she told host Tyra Banks that she was Sabbath-observant, and then seemed to throw it all away when Banks told her this was a seven-day-a-week competition:

Clearly there was editing in that segment. (Just as clearly, there was more interest in her breast size than in her religious practices.)

Now her mom is defending her, saying that she did not say what the TV show tried to make it seem like.

The fateful words “I will do it” in an answer to the question about working on shabbat were the result of editing. Esther never meant or said that she would give up shabbat for the show, neither did she do it. These words were taken from a long conversation about the principles and laws of shabbat and how Esther was planning to observe them. The producers cut out these 4 words to create a more scandalous storyline; judging from the amount of reaction, they were quite successful!

I'm not quite sure how all of this will affect her chances for a shidduch...

Lotsa links

CiF Watch and Melanie Philips on the dis-invitation of a pro-Israel speaker at a panel discussion in Belfast. Not only is Israel delegitimized, but also her defenders.

Yesterday, I quoted the European Jewish Congress warning on the dangers to Jewish communities in Europe, and one example was a "throw the [Israeli] soldiers into the sea" event for children. The Philosemitisme blog has more details on that event as well as one before it. (h/t Ora)

A new study methodically monitored Palestinian Arab posts on websites and found that - surprise! - they aren't nearly as moderate as the West insists they are! (h/t Daily Alert)

The Dead Sea Scrolls are coming - to Google!

Naomi Campbell is the latest celebrity to join the Kabbalah bandwagon.

Here is a video of a diamond that shows a Star of David in its internal pattern from all angles:

At this site you can see a video of a girl singing Old MacDonald - in Yiddish!

An interesting video summing up Turkey's crimes over the past century:

Erdogan posturing for his Arab friends

From Ma'an:

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said he would not attend a climate change conference in Athens on Friday if his Israeli counterpart is present, he told Greece's Skai TV on Monday.

Erdogan is due to attend a Mediterranean conference on climate change in Athens on Friday. "If the prime minister [of Israel] takes part in this event, I will not be there," Erdogan said.

The funny part is that there is zero indication that Netanyahu planned to attend this conference. Israelis have presented at similar conferences, but there are no Israelis stated to speak here. The only other leaders mentioned in the program are the prime ministers of host Greece and Malta, as well Salam Fayyad of the PA.

In other words, Erdogan made a statement to look tough when he knew very well that he would not be forced to follow through. It was simple posturing for the media, and it worked, as his statement was picked up by a number of news services.

"Settlers storm Tomb of Joseph"

Once again, a group of Jews went late at night to pray at the Tomb of Joseph near Shechem (Nablus,) and the Arabic media freaks.

This time it is Palestine Today saying they are "settlers" who "stormed the shrine" and "raided" the area, which is supposed to be accessible to Jews under existing agreements.

The IDF needs to go to with them to protect the worshippers from being lynched.

Islamic Jihad distances itself from "rogue elements"

On Sunday, Israel killed two people who were about to shoot rockets towards Israel.

No terror group claimed them as members. And therein lies a tale.

There are reports that Islamic Jihad is separating themselves from members who act "impulsively" or who also claim membership in other groups, especially Salafist groups.

This appears to be an attempt to rein in their members. It is considered a "fateful decision," as in the past they would take responsibility for anything done by their members.

At least one of the would-be rocket terrorists were members of Islamic Jihad. Apparently, these rogue operations have been embarrassing for Islamic Jihad, especially the numbers of people killed.

Abbas "willing to renounce future claims"? No, he isn't.

From Bloomberg:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he is willing to renounce all future claims on Israel after a Palestinian state is established, though he stopped short of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

“We are ready to put an end to historic demands” once a Palestinian state is established on land outside Israel’s 1967 borders, Abbas said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 1 television late yesterday.

Although he didn't spell those claims out, he almost certainly meant the "right to return" as well as claims on land within the 1949 armistice lines.

He is almost certainly lying. His promises are like his mentor Arafat's promises - things that are meant for Western consumption that have no basis in reality. His actions have not been consistent with these words.

But even if we take his words at face value, they are still meaningless. If a model Palestinian Arab state is established and some sort of peace treaty signed, we still have the problem that the majority of the Arab world will not accept it in their hearts. The decades of incitement, of demands for all of Israel - that won't evaporate.

For a small example, look how Islamic Jihad reacted to Abbas' statement:

[His words] affect the national principles, strength and strategic vision for our people, and do not represent the Palestinian people.

Another leading Islamic Jihad figure was even more explicit, saying that the conflict will not be over until the last Zionist departs from the soil of Palestine.

Hamas has stated similar opinions as well in the past. More importantly, they are consistent with English-language op-eds that Palestinian Arab intellectuals and academics at major Western universities write all the time.

Abbas represents only a tiny percentage of Palestinian Arabs worldwide, and probably not even a majority in the borders of 1947 Palestine either. His assurances are worthless.

The descendants of refugees whom he has not lifted a finger to help or even represent will vigorously disagree with any tampering of their sacred Right to Return - the only bone that their Arab hosts have ever thrown them.

As soon as a state is established, Arab countries will begin the process of expelling their guests to a state that does not want them and cannot absorb them, and these stateless Arabs will insist that they don't want to go to Ramallah anyway - but to Jaffa.

The number of terror groups will multiply out of frustration, and as we have seen, the West will cave to pressure by Palestinian Arab terror groups and start demanding more concessions from Israel - no matter what assurances they gave Israel in the past. It might take a decade or two, but it will happen, and no agreement drafted today can stop that from happening*. They'll hang those demands on some excuse - perhaps saying that lands outside the 1947 partition lines are also illegally occupied, or that some future fake massacre by Israel justifies how Palestinian Arabs must be returned to their historic nation, or that Israel does not allow free enough travel between Gaza and the West Bank.

Whatever the excuse, the maximal demands that we see today will not evaporate in the wake of a new Arab state on the West Bank. Like the "peace process" itself, it is a diplomatic fantasy that is far removed from reality.

And no one on the Palestinian Arab side is working to change that reality. No one - not Abbas, not Fayyad, nobody - is fighting against the daily incitement, no one is making statements to reassure people in refugee camps that they are fighting for their rights, no one is laying the groundwork for Day One of independence. On the contrary, they are (by their actions or inactions) doing everything they can to ensure a Palestinian Arab state is merely the first of two (or three) such states that will eventually encompass all of Palestine.

* If the agreement includes Arab countries agreeing to naturalize their Palestinian Arab guests, then there might be a slight chance. Of course, no one is even discussing that today.

Classic misoziony in the art world

(Misoziony is my term for rabid, pathological hatred of Israel and Zionism. It is my opinion that it is just as irrational and dangerous as anti-semitism.)

From AFP:

Two paintings by Norway's Haakon Gullvaag that show an Israeli flag have been withdrawn from an exhibition at the French Cultural Centre in the Syrian capital, the artist said on Monday.
His "Terra Sancta" exhibition contains works about the Israeli offensive against the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009.

Two of the works in which the Israeli flag features were removed from the show on Saturday, an angry Gullvaag told AFP by phone from Oslo, adding the French embassy in Damascus "explained to us that it was their decision.

"This was done without contacting the artist, the curator or the Norwegian embassy. I have never experienced something similar in my entire life."

The artist said the French embassy said it had concerns about a hotel near the cultural centre which normally has many Iranian guests.

"They were afraid that the Iranians would misunderstand the motifs as being Israel-friendly. Then the cultural centre claimed that some students have complained about showing the Israeli flag at all," Gullvaag said.

And what were the pictures that had the Israeli flag that were pulled out of fear that people would think they were too pro-Israel?

One is simply called "The Flag". It shows an Israeli flag, splattered with blood, standing in a pile of human skulls.

The other one, a detail in a 3-part series called "Invasion Triptych," shows an IDF tank with a dead Gaza child on top where an Israeli flag is partially visible.

And the French embassy didn't withdraw the paintings because they are incitement to hate, or because they represent baldfaced lies, or because they are slanderous, or because they are simply disgusting. They withdrew them because of the fear of offending people who might think they were somehow supportive of Israel!

Try to wrap your head around that one.

We have a Norwegian artist, a French cultural center and the Syrian/Iranian art lovers, all vying to see who can outdo the others in their public, visceral hatred and demonization of the Jewish state.

The exhibition was already shown in Beirut and it travels next to Israel's peace partners in Amman, Jordan.

UPDATE: One other angle: notice that the wire services don't bother to describe the paintings themselves, because their narrative is of the poor artist being censored by a French embassy, not the fact that the artist is filled with bile - that would just distract from the story.

Cuban pilots rescued 150,000 Jews 1951-3

From JPost via OlehGirl:

In the first years of the state, Cuban planes and pilots brought nearly 150,000 Jews to Israel from Iraq, Iran, Yemen and India, the official Cuban newspaper Juventude Rebelde (Rebel Youth) reported on Saturday. Unreported for 60 years, the airlift was one of the largest in history.

In the years after Israel declared independence, Jews in Arab countries began emigrating to Israel as their lives became more difficult. However, due to the lack of cooperation by the Arab governments, traveling by land was very difficult. Since there were no diplomatic relations between Israel and the Arab countries, it was necessary for the aircraft to be from a neutral country, according to the Juvente Rebelde report.

The Cuban connection stemmed from someone in the Israeli trade mission in New York's close friendship with Cuban businessman Narciso Otero-Roselló, a licensed pilot, according to the report. The businessman became president of new air company, Aerea de Cuba, which took ownership of the aircraft to be used in the years-long airlift and established offices in Havana and Nicosia in Cyprus.

The Cuban pilots who flew the planes on the historic mission recalled several close calls to Juvente Rebelde. They told of dust storms suffocating their engines in Iraq, making stops on desolate airstrips in Oman when making the long flights from India to Israel, emergency landings, and crashes while transporting Jews to Israel.

In early 1953, when their special mission was completed, the pilots returned to Cuba, Juvente Rebelde reported. This newly discovered chapter in Jewish and Israeli history shows how far-off countries assisted the Jewish people in the building of the state of Israel.

I found the original article in the Cuban magazine, although it is possibly the slowest Internet connection I've been on since 1994. And the end of the article goes on to talk about Israel's "genocide" of Palestinian Arabs. But it looks very interesting!

FP on the 10th anniversary of the intifada

Glenn E. Robinson writes in Foreign Policy about the tenth anniversary of the second intifada. While the article is not terrible, it makes some mistakes, and in at least one case it appears that Robinson is purposefully misrepresenting a quote. (see update below*)

This year's 10th anniversary of the start of the second Palestinian uprising passed with barely a mention in the Israeli, Palestinian and American media. This is not surprising, considering the uprising is widely seen as a disaster for most Palestinians and Israelis, putting the Middle East peace process into a deep and perhaps permanent freeze.

As I noted at the time, the Arabic media did not ignore the anniversary at all. Palestine Today published Islamic Jihad's gleeful tally of "martyrs" as well as the number of Israelis they had killed; Hamas followed with its own stats. Al Jazeera published a ridiculously biased history of the intifada. To these Arabs, the terror spree was a point of pride; they do not see it as a disaster at all. The fact that this contradicts all common sense is not relevant - the anniversary was celebrated.

The dominant Israeli narrative, shared by many in the United States, can be summarized as follows: Israel offered a generous deal at Camp David, which Yasir Arafat rejected -- and then went home to make war against the Jewish state. In this narrative, the second intifada was a planned event, led and directed by Arafat himself, demonstrating that the Palestinians will never accept Israel.

The problem with this narrative is that it is factually wrong on all counts. Former peace negotiators Robert Malley and Hussein Agha have done more than anyone else to destroy the myths that were propagated about Camp David. Their work is now supported by a slew of memoirs and other accounts. As they noted recently, their "revisionism" of 2001 has now become orthodoxy that "barely elicits a raised eyebrow."

First of all, while there may be some doubt as to exactly when Arafat took over the running of the second intifada, there is no doubt that he controlled it fairly early on and that he was planning for an uprising. David Samuels goes into detail on these points, with interviews with major Palestinian Arab colleagues of Arafat. Hamas recently announced that Arafat had instructed them to strike at internal Israeli targets at the very start of the fighting.

More troubling, the Malley/Agha article that Robinson links to and quotes was not talking about this narrative at all, but rather about the competing narratives about the Syrian peace initiative at the time. It is a bit dishonest to misquote them so brazenly.*

...The intifada was a strategic disaster for the Palestinians. As a stateless people, Palestinians lack many basic political and human rights and statehood presents the only viable path toward securing these rights. The uprising put off statehood by at least a decade (and perhaps permanently), and at high levels of human suffering and economic devastation.

If you assume that the goal of the Palestinian Arab leadership is to create an independent state and end the scourge of statelessness that their people suffer under, no doubt it was a disaster. That assumption does not account for many other actions of that leadership, however.

And, seriously, what political and human rights do Palestinian Arabs in Area A - some 95% of those living in the West Bank - lack? Certainly the ones in Lebanon and Syria and elsewhere are lacking in rights, but a Palestinian Arab state would not solve their problems, because there is precious little indication that a new "Palestine" would welcome millions of new immigrants or even provide them with citizenship. (Why are we not seeing them give Lebanese Palestinians any passports?) But the PA has representation in the UN that arguably has more real political power than Israel's, PA citizens are living the same lives they would if there was a state.

Secondly, the intifada created a cult of martyrdom among Palestinians. Suicide bombings were unknown in the Middle East until Hezbollah in Lebanon learned of their effectiveness from Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers in the 1980s. After 400 Palestinian Islamists were exiled to southern Lebanon for a year in 1992, they brought the technique home with them. A smattering of suicide bombings in the 1990s gave way to an average of one every two weeks during the first four years of the uprising. The tactic of suicide bombing was accompanied by a cultural motif to support, justify and venerate the "martyrs."

There were 21 suicide attacks between 1993 and 2000 before September. A little more than a "smattering," I would say, though of course they increased dramatically afterwards.

Third, the intifada killed the Zionist and post-Zionist Left in Israel. Israel's center-left staked its political future on a peace deal with the Palestinians, which itself was based on the presence of a Palestinian partner for peace. The dominant Israeli narrative of the intifada holds that there is no reliable Palestinian peace partner; this has led to the virtual extinction of the Zionist Left in Israel. Since the start of the intifada, Israelis have elected only prime ministers who cut their political teeth in the right wing Likud party: Ariel Sharon (three times), Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is true, to a point. However, others have noted that the mainstream Likud-led government now holds an official position that is very close to what the Israeli Left's was in 1993. Likud officially supports a two-state solution - something that no American president said publicly before 2001! In a larger sense, the Left has won, and they then marginalized themselves by moving further and further from the center.

Fourth, the intifada empowered the forces of Greater Israel. The biggest political winner over the past decade has been the Israeli settler community. About 500,000 Israelis now live on the Palestinian side of the 1967 Green Line, and they and their political allies are now arguably the single most powerful political force inside Israel.

This is absurd. The residents of the territories were powerless to stop the abandonment of Gaza. West Bank communities have been dismantled. This is an Arab talking point, but it does not represent the consensus within Israel. (Far more recently, President Obama's amateurish handling of the "peace process" has made many Israelis more intransigent towards giving up any land, but that is for different reasons and that doesn't reflect inherent political power of the Jews of Judea and Samaria.)

And lastly, the information revolution has arrived in the Middle East. During the first intifada, uncensored events were only occasionally caught on video by private citizens and the videos were only disseminated if a friendly television station was willing to broadcast them. The second intifada was seen in real time, through videos and cell photos that were posted on the Internet within minutes of being taken.

Yet the vast majority of these pictures are still going through layers of left-leaning media, meaning that the events that end up being seen are still the ones that the media wants you to see. The recent staged Silwan stone-throwing event illustrates that nicely.

If there is any takeaway from the tenth anniversary of the intifada, it is that Israel cannot trust mere words coming from the Palestinian Arabs. Remember that the letter that Arafat sent Rabin to kick off the Oslo process claimed that the PLO has renounced violence, and yet more Jews were killed during the first five years of the Oslo "peace" process than during the last five years of the abrogation of Oslo that the intifada represents.

(h/t Zach)

UPDATE: Zach emailed my post to Robinson, and he replied, "Having read that blog posting, I cannot take it very seriously. As to Malley’s quote, it is not a misquote in the least."

Well, there you have it.

*UPDATE 2: Re-reading the Malley/Agha article, I see that their quote was indeed directed at the entire narrative of Camp David, not only about the Syrian track that was being mentioned immediately previous to that quote. So I was wrong in saying that Robinson misrepresented their article, and I apologize.

A 1949 vignette

From the Bridgeport, Connecticut Sunday Herald, April 17, 1949:

Qaradawi refuses to participate in interfaith conference with Jews

The 8th Annual Doha Conference on Interfaith Dialogue is to start tomorrow, but prominent Islamic Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi is boycotting the conference, according to Palestine Today.

The reason? Because there will be Jews there!

He participated in the first, second and third conferences because they were centered on Muslim/Christian dialogue. But he refuses to participate when Jews attend, quoting the Koran 29:46 ["The Spider"], "Do not argue with People of the Book...." [the verse goes on to make an exception of certain types of arguments, and then an exception to the exception, against those Jews who "oppress," if I am parsing the verse correctly.]

Qaradawi said, "So why should we dialogue with the Jews, who... shed blood, and violated the sanctities, and burned farms, and destroyed homes... .. to sit with them on a single platform?"

The article does not say "Zionist Jews" but merely "Jews." He has met with the Neturei Karta in the past, though.

The rest of the Koranic verse makes clear that Islamic "dialogue" with other "divine" religions is limited to telling them about Islam. Which makes it more like a monologue.

Even so, credulous non-Muslims keep thinking that there is value in these fake one-way "dialogues."

A new Hamas newspaper called Rafah News has pictures of Gazans smuggling thousands of eggs - out of Gaza to Egypt.

An article in a different Hamas newspaper gives details. A package of eggs in Gaza are 7 shekels/10 Egyptian pounds each, while they sell in Egypt by wholesalers for 15-17 pounds.

The smuggler claims that they manage to package the eggs so that less than 1% get smashed during the journey through the tunnels.

He also sells chickens to Egypt, while other tunnel operators are selling juice, candies and soap.

Hamas minister: "Zionists use drugs, pornography to destroy our youth"

Hams interior minister Fathi Hammad spoke to the Student Council at Islamic University in Gaza yesterday.

He told them that "the Zionist occupation practices a hidden, invisible war against our young people, using drugs and pornography to destroy them."

He also told them to keep on learning science and engineering to close the gap with the West and go on the path of jihad, in order for there to be a "rebirth of the nation."

It is unclear exactly what nation he is referring to. Hamas wants to see a pan-Islamic nation, with "Palestine" a mere tactical step to get there.

Did Israel sell out spy wannabe?

From the Washington Post SpyTalk column:

The government isn’t saying for which country Elliot Doxer allegedly volunteered to spy, but clues in court papers filed in Boston last week barely disguise that it was Israel.
Other hints in the government’s indictment suggest something even more intriguing: that Doxer got caught up in one of the oldest games in the espionage trade -- the dangle.
Israel is not named in the Oct. 6 indictment of Doxer, 42, an employee of Akamai Technologies Inc., a Web content delivery company in Cambridge, Mass. whose clients include the departments of defense and homeland security, Airbus and “some Arab companies from Dubai,” according to an e-mail Doxer wrote that was presented as evidence in the case.
But it does say that Boxer identified himself as "a Jewish American who lives in Boston" when he wrote to the local consulate of "Country X," and that he told an FBI undercover agent that his chief desire “was to help our homeland and our war against our enemies.”
Doxer’s alleged dalliance with espionage began in June 2006, when he e-mailed the consulate saying “I know you are always looking for information and I am offering the little I may have.”
A year later, according to the indictment, an undercover FBI agent posing as an intelligence operative contacted Doxer and asked him if he was still interested in spying.

The answer was yes, according to the feds, whereupon, over an 18-month period, Doxer unwittingly supplied documents to the FBI undercover agent and visited a pre-arranged dead drop -- a hiding place for documents and cash -- 62 times.
All he asked for, according to his e-mails, was "a few thousand dollars" and information about his son and the child's mother, "a terrible human being" who lived in "a foreign country."
"Not enough bad things can happen to her if you know what I mean," he added.
But how did Doxer’s alleged offer to spy for “Country X” get into the hands of the FBI?
According to Reuters, "Prosecutors said the foreign government cooperated with the investigation and the complaint against Doxer did not accuse that government of seeking or obtaining the sensitive information."
Indeed, veteran counterintelligence agents strongly suspect that Israeli intelligence officials smelled something fishy and ratted out Doxer to the FBI.
“There are two possibilities, of course” said a longtime CIA counterintelligence veteran, who discusses such sensitive matters only on terms of anonymity.
One, he said with sarcasm, is that “the GOI [government of Israel] forwarded the volunteer e-mail to the Bureau because they want to play by the rules.”
He laughed. As everyone in the spy trade knows, Israel and the United States spy on each other as much as they cooperate against targets like Iran, despite their rock-hard alliance.
As for Doxer, the counterintelligence veteran said, it’s more likely the Israelis “suspected the volunteer letter was sent by a double agent set up by the FBI. “
“One thing that any intel service reading a volunteer letter or e-mail would ask themselves is whether the volunteer is crazy and must be avoided…or whether the lack of common sense by the sender is an indicator that the ploy is a [counterintelligence] initiative.”
In short, they thought he might be a dangle, defined in the espionage lexicon as “a spy who poses as a walk-in to penetrate the other side.”
Or just “a dope,” as the counterintelligence veteran put it, a James Bond wannabe dimwitted enough to e-mail an espionage offer to a diplomatic outpost that is surely monitored by U.S. intelligence.
In any event, if this scenario is correct -- and three counterintelligence veterans aver that it is -- the Israelis got a two-fer from dropping a dime on Doxer: the solution to a headache and a thank you, no matter how surly, from the FBI.

I'm still not quite sure why they don't assume that emails to the Israel consulate are routinely monitored by the FBI, as I suggested when the story came out - especially if it is an open secret that the US and Israel spy on each other regularly. The court papers do not indicate that the message from Doxer was encrypted, and I would be surprised if those emails aren't monitored.

If the counterintelligence veterans that were contacted are correct, however, it means that Israel chose to sell out a Jew (albeit a stupid one) to the Feds in fear that he was a dangle.

(h/t Joel)

European Jewish Congress warns of communities on the brink

From the EJC: (October 14):

The European Jewish Congress (EJC) is claiming that certain Jewish communities in Europe are in grave danger after a recent wave of anti-Semitism, some of it officially sanctioned.

Recently, a respected and government-funded Catholic school, the College of the Sacred Heart, in Antwerp, hosted a ‘Palestine Day’, which was replete with anti-Semitic references and activities for youngsters. One stall at the event was titled “Throw the soldiers into the sea” where children were invited to throw replicas of Jewish and Israeli soldiers into two large tanks.

Last weekend, an event organized for Jewish children in Malmo was reportedly attacked by a gang of thugs who shouted “Heil Hitler” and “Jewish pigs”. The gang even entered the area hosting the children’s event and damaged property. This event occurred only a few weeks after Malmo mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, was reelected in the Swedish city.

Earlier in this year after a surge of anti-Semitism hit the Malmo Jewish community, Reepalu considered this an understandable consequence of the Israel-Palestine conflict and claimed “we accept neither Zionism nor anti-Semitism,” equating Jewish national self-determination with hate and racism.

In recent months, German former Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin, Karel De Gucht, European Commissioner for Trade and Emilio Menendez del Valle, Spanish MEP, have all made anti-Semitic comments.

“These events arriving soon after the anti-Semitic comments from Sarrazin, De Gucht and Menendez del Valle demonstrate that anti-Semitism is at best actively promoted and at worst ignored by some officials in Europe,” Dr. Moshe Kantor, President of the EJC said. “Due to this intolerable situation, small Jewish communities, like Malmo, are teetering on the brink of extinction.”

“Small Jewish communities are facing a situation where they are being physically, verbally and psychologically threatened by fundamentalist elements and their extreme left-wing cohorts on one side and the far-right neo-Nazis on the other,” Kantor continued. “If they can’t receive protection or respite from mainstream officials then we are entering a very dark period for the Jews in Europe.”

See also Zvi's post from last week.

(h/t Joel)

Egypt finds more weapons, explosives en route to Gaza

Palestine Press Agency reports that Egyptian officials have again found a cache of weapons and explosives in Rafah, on their way to Gaza.

This cache included 150 kilograms TNT, and body armor, grenades, land mines machine guns and ammunition.

Egyptian authorities have found dozens of such caches over the past couple of years.

People who complain about Israel's limits on goods to Gaza - like the "Elders" who visited Gaza yesterday - never note these events as they castigate Israel.

Some of the weapons do get through, of course. A hand grenade was found in a Rafah school playground yesterday. Sounds like there are enough weapons in Gaza that people can just accidentally misplace them. (Gaza officials, predictably, say that the grenade was left over from "a previous Israeli invasion.")

Lebanese army thwarted assassination attempt on Ahmadinejad?

From JPost:

Lebanese intelligence prevented an assassination attempt on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit to Lebanon last week, reported Kuwaiti newspaper al-Siyasa as cited by Channel 10 News.

Sources told the newspaper that as Ahmadinejad was making his way to Bint J'beil, an order was received from Lebanese intelligence to stop the Iranian president's convoy and return to Beirut.

The paper reported that Hizbullah was not convinced by the information and insisted on taking responsibility for the safety of Ahmadinejad, but Lebanese President Michel Suleiman intervened, saying Ahmadinejad's safety was the responsibility of the state.

Arabic media add that the Lebanese army saw suspicious activity on the road en route to Bint Jbeil and (I believe) convinced him to take a helicopter to the town instead.

Jews buying up the Sinai?

Palestine Press Agency quotes a Kuwaiti newspaper as saying that Israelis are acquiring large tracts of land in the Sinai.

According to the report, Egyptian intelligence is warning that the Israeli Jews are using Egyptian middlemen to lease land for 25 years, circumventing Egyptian laws against selling or renting land to Israelis.

The lands are in Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada, Ras Mohamed and Taba.

The report indicates that they are meant mostly for building hotel and other tourist facilities.

Fake "Elders" condemned Israel without knowing the facts

To give an idea of how fair-minded the "Elders" who are now visiting Gaza are, I just found their press release about the Mavi Marmara raid, drafted within a few hours of the first sketchy news reports. I annotated it by pointing out just a few of their outright lies and false assumptions.

31 May 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Elders have condemned the reported killing by Israeli forces of more than a dozen people [nine people] who were attempting to deliver relief supplies [Mavi Marmara had no aid; they refused offers to deliver the aid via Israel; their goal was political and not to deliver aid] to the Gaza strip by sea.

Meeting in Johannesburg, the independent group of eminent global leaders repeated their call for an end to the blockade on Gaza. They called for a full investigation of last night’s incident and urged the UN Security Council to debate the situation with a view to mandating action to end the closure of the Gaza Strip.[So the Elders weren't upset at the deaths, they wanted to leverage them to pressure Israel to lessen its security.]

Overnight, Israeli troops stormed at least one ship in a flotilla of vessels carrying 10,000 tonnes of relief supplies to Gaza. [Closer to 1500 tons of mostly useless supplies] Around 600 people are on board the six cargo and passenger boats.

The Elders described Israel’s attack on the aid shipment and the resulting killings and injuries as completely inexcusable. [This was written with zero knowledge of what happened on the ship, so the Elders assumed Israel was at fault without bothering to ascertain any real facts.] They said this tragic incident should draw the world’s attention to the terrible suffering of Gaza’s 1.5 million people, half of whom are children under the age of 18.[Again, they are almost applauding the deaths because of the greater good they perceive from them.]

The Elders reminded the world that under international law, the three-year blockade of Gaza by Israel is illegal collective punishment of its inhabitants. [No, it isn't, neither if you condider Gaza "occupied" and not if you consider it a separate hostile entity. - EoZ] They said that the treatment of the people of Gaza is one of the world’s greatest human rights violations [This is one of the biggest lies ever stated, and the "Elders" know this better than most. Congo, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Yemen, China, Iran and other countries do far worse.] and that the blockade is not only illegal, it is counterproductive. This is because it creates unacceptable suffering, in the process empowering extremists and undermining moderate forces in Gaza.[Name the "moderates" in Gaza who have lost power because of the limits on items shipped there. Just one! - EoZ]

So we have a group of self-proclaimed "eminent global leaders" who immediately fire off anti-Israel press releases without even a modicum of fact-checking or waiting to find out the truth of what happened. But that's OK, because one of their strengths is "they are free to speak boldly and with whomever they choose on any issue, and to take any action that they believe is right." Truth is obviously not one of their criteria for speaking "boldly."

PA TV to broadcast to North, South America

Soon, the entire world will be able to see anti-Israel incitement in the comfort of their own homes!

According to Palestine Press Agency, Yasser Abed Rabbo (who is both responsible for the PA's media and also is the PLO secretary-general) said that PA TV will be available on the Galaxy 19 and HispaSat1C satellites this coming week, with satellites for the rest of the world coming soon.

PA TV regularly broadcasts incitement against Israel and Jews.

Ahmadinejad: Israel going to hell soon

ISNA reports:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that Zionist regime is going to hell.

Firas Press, quoting Sahafa, adds that he said that "the groundwork is laid for for the Zionist regime (Israel) to go to hell in the near future and any state that helps them will be ensnared in that journey to hell as well."

It is certainly considerate of him to warn everyone.

Arab Israeli officer profiled

From the IDF website:

Lt. Hesham Aborea is a Muslim Arab officer in the IDF. His journey began in 2006 when he joined the army and it has not stopped since. He is currently serving in the IDF as the Community Relations Officer to the Arab Sector, speaking to the Arab community in times of emergency....

At a young age, Hesham Aborea began thinking about what he wanted to do in life, and how to get out of his village in Northern Israel. He graduated from Ben Gurion University with an Bachelor’s degree in Hebrew and began working, but observing the lifestyle of young men in his community made him want to join the army to better the Arab world. "It's very hard to grow up for a young man where I am from. You finish high school, some continue studying, and others work manual labor jobs. For example, if I had a degree in social work, at an interview they'll ask me if I served in the army. If not, my chances would plummet, and then I would have to go back to my village and do manual labor. It's a cycle that a lot of young Arab men are stuck in so they turn to alcohol, drugs and violence. I saw this cycle and I decided to join the army."

Lt. Hesham Aborea is very happy to be serving his community and is happy to belong to an organization like the IDF. He concludes, “I want to emphasize that the IDF helps any soldier, and it will gladly accept Arab soldiers as long as they are skilled in their task. The IDF is a strong, challenging, non-discriminatory army, and is a great supporter of human rights. This is the first step to bringing both the Jewish and Muslim nations together. I hope that we may live in peace and equality for both nations."

YNet adds:

"The army is the entry pass into the Israeli society," Hisham explains. "The Arab sector thinks it's second rate here, but to get privileges one has to give and not just receive. The state protects its citizens even if they don’t serve – my parents live off income support. You must contribute to the country you live off. What other country would have an Arab Knesset member, who is being paid by the state, promoting the interests of the Islamic movement and screwing the promotion of the sector it is supposed to represent?

"The Arab sector is like a herd. It doesn't think by itself and is affected by various radical movements. Most youngsters don't have anything to do with themselves. They run around the streets, wasting their time and that's only if they finished school. Service in the army is educating, it gives you structure, order – that's what young people are missing here."

Recently Hisham returned from a visit to Poland, where he toured the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps. He became the first Arab-Israeli to visit Poland as part of an IDF program.

"I knew the word Holocaust, I knew that the Nazis murdered Jews but nothing more than that," he admits. "In Majdanek there was a moment I thought that all those involved in the Jewish-Arab conflict should come here to see what was done to the Jewish people and leave them alone."

In Birkenau, he says, he asked to pray in Arabic. "I had chills all over my body. I asked God to have mercy on all the victims. I didn’t expect what I saw there. An oven which was loaded with two men and a woman, because the woman had more fat, making it burn better.

"I kept asking myself where was everyone? Where was the United States, the Arab countries? If the Germans had won the Arabs would have been murdered as well. I saw the photos of the victims and felt part of them. There was a Holocaust survivor with us who showed us where she was raped, where all her family had been murdered before her very eyes. She cried and we cried with her. It was a life altering visit."

(h/t Joel and EBoZ)

Completely off topic

From YNet:

In an odds-defying incident, Saturday night's state lottery numbers were an almost identical repeat of the lottery numbers from September 21. Ninety-five people picked the lucky combination and won.

The numbers that rolled out during a live studio broadcast this past Saturday, in lottery number 2194 of Miphal HaPayis, Israel's state lottery, were 36, 33, 32, 26, 14, 13, and an additional 'strong' number 2. Moments after the celebration in the studio, curious web surfers were amazed to notice that these same numbers happened to roll out less than a month ago; on September 21, in lottery number 2187, the winning numbers were 13, 14, 26, 32, 33, 36, and a 'strong' number of 1. The order in which the numbers were picked was reversed.

According to Zvi Gilula, a professor of statistics at the Hebrew University, getting all seven lottery numbers exactly correct, under normal circumstances, is one in 18 million. Guessing six numbers correctly, excluding the 'strong' number, is one to 2,250,000.

Gilula, an expert on gambling, estimated the probability of the same set of numbers being randomly picked twice a few weeks apart is no higher than one in 4 trillion, or 0.00000000000025.

"Usually, this is the type of numbers they use to describe the probability of life on Mars," Gilula said.

I highly doubt that the reporter accurately quoted the statistician.

If the chances of picking 6 numbers correctly is 1:2250000, then the chances that any random week's numbers would be exactly the same as the previous week is also 1:2250000. In fact, the chances that a picked set of six numbers would be identical to those of any of the previous four weeks would be roughly quadruple that chance, or 1:562,000.

The chances that a specific set of six numbers would be chosen a few weeks apart is probably closer to one in a trillion (if I did my math right), or perhaps he was saying the chances that the two sets of numbers would appear in exact opposite order a few weeks apart was one in 4 trillion.

Did Milan police ban the Israeli flag from a soccer game?

Ha'aretz reports:

Fans of the English soccer club Tottenham Hotspur FC are being told not to bring any flags with the Jewish Star of David on it if they plan to cheer their team on in its European championship game on Thursday in Milan, Italy.

The soccer club, which has a large Jewish following, posted on its website about the upcoming game in Italy: "police authorities have advised that those flags showing the Star of David will not be allowed access and may be confiscated. Please respect this request."

Indeed, the Tottenham Hotspurs website does say that in its list of advice for fans planning to attend the game.

However, Milan police deny banning the flags:

Italian authorities on Friday denied reports that Milanese police had told Tottenham fans coming to watch their side in Champions League action at Inter Milan on Wednesday not to bring Star of David banners.

The star is a traditional club symbol extending beyond religious connotations - though the London side do have a solid base of Jewish fans.

...Via Milanese local politician Emanuele Fiano, the police denied issuing such a specific instruction.

"The Milan prefect, Gian Valerio Lombardi, with whom I have spoken, has denied that any Italian police authority has made any stipulation against banners bearing the Star of David," Fiano said.

"I note as much with satisfaction, as otherwise I would have gone to the stadium myself with a Star of David flag," he added.

The Star of David flags have an association with Spurs going back to the club's early days in the 1880s.

Nasrallah a liar? Who would've thought?

Last week, Hassan Nasrallah gave a gift to Mahmoud Ahmaidinejad of a rifle that he claimed came from an IDF soldier who left it behind in a panic in Lebanon in the 2006 war:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ended a two-day visit to Lebanon by meeting with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The overnight meeting took place at the Iranian embassy in Beirut's Bir Hasan neighborhood.

Nasrallah proudly presented to Ahmadinejad an Israeli rifle seized during the 2006 Israel-Hizbullah war.

Turns out, no:

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah deceived Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by giving him a gun he claimed was taken from an Israeli soldier in the 2006 war, an Israeli newspaper said Sunday.

The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot said the gun, which Nasrallah presented to Ahmadinejad in person on his controversial two-day visit to Lebanon, was a type of weapon not been used by the Israeli military since the early 1970s.

The paper quoted a military spokesperson as saying the weapon was "most likely" a FNFAL 7.62 rifle that went out of use in 1974, meaning it could not have been taken from soldiers during Israel's more recent invasion of Lebanon.

I'm shocked that such a principled man, who has not deviated from his genocidal goals one iota, would actually lie!

(h/t Israel Matzav, who predicted this.)

Latest nutty rumor: Ancient Torah with Mohammed's name discovered!

A new rumor weeping the Arab world says that a second-century Torah was discovered by Israeli archaeologists digging under the Temple Mount, and it contained the name "Mohammed" within it.

The Torah was said to have shaken the Jewish establishment in Israel because it proved that the Torah used today is not accurate - just as Muslims claim!

This is all over the Arabic websites; but it seems to have originated in an Algerian newspaper a week ago, where it specified that the Mohammed verse was in the Song of Solomon.

Indeed, the Song of Solomon (as well as other verses throughout the Hebrew Bible) uses a variant of the word "Mahmad" (5:16) which means "lovely." Muslims have for years tried to "prove" the authenticity of the Koran by pointing to various Hebrew Bible uses of words with the same roots as his name.

(I shouldn't have to say that this story is complete fiction.)

UNRWA workers in West Bank on strike

From Ma'an:

UNRWA's West Bank director met Friday with representatives of donor countries in East Jerusalem to discuss the latest employee strike action over pay.

Barbara Shenstone told US, Danish, Swiss, Dutch, Irish, Belgian, Canadian and Austrian officials that the strike would deprive 56,000 school children of their rights to education as well as more than 5,000 patients of daily medical care.

As is usual when UNRWA wokers strike (something that happens at least once a year), the UNRWA web page is silent on the matter.

But it brings the perennial question: why are there still "refugee" camps in the PA-administered territories at all? As far as I can tell, all or perhaps practically all of the UNRWA camps in the West Bank are in "Area A," fully under PA administrative control, in an area that everyone assumes will be part of a Palestinian Arab state. These people are no longer "refugees" even by the UN's definition, as they are in "Palestine."

Has the PA made any moves to dismantle these camps? Has it requested help from donor nations to get money in order to reduce the number of residents in these camps and get them self-sufficient?

If the PA intends to be a state, shouldn't mainstreaming some 200,000 of their own people into full, equal citizens be a high priority?

Shouldn't the donor nations that bankroll UNRWA be pressuring the PA to create a plan to eliminate all of these camps within five years or so? This would reduce the UNRWA budget, reduce the number of people counted as "refugees" worldwide, and stem the perpetual welfare machine that UNRWA has become.

Unfortunately, the reality is that UNRWA wants to keep the camps, the PA wants to keep the camps, and the Arab world wants to keep the camps - all paid for almost entirely with Western dollars. It is past time that UNRWA donor countries start demanding a plan from UNRWA as to how it will reduce the number of people dependent on it, and a plan from the PA on how to mainstream these so-called "refugees" into the statelet that the PA already has.

Of course, the fact that the PA hasn't shown the least interest in helping grant equal rights to its citizens within its own borders indicates that the PA is not really interested in building a state for Palestinian Arabs to live in, but rather to build a state that Jews cannot live in.

All of the obsession about "settlements" cannot be understood in any other way - they are not the least bit interested in mountaintop land that no Arab have ever lived on except in the sense that they want to make sure that Jews are not there. If they simply wanted a state where they could grant Palestinian Arabs full citizenship and representation as a nation that is equal to other nations, they could have done that numerous times already. But they haven't, and they show no interest in doing so.

The "refugees" still exist within the PA borders because they are not meant to be integrated into a Palestinian Arab state. Their entire existence is maintained to pressure Israel into accepting them as citizens one day and, they hope, turn Israel into another Arab state by demographic means.

So the continued existence of these UNRWA camps exposes the twin goals of the PA: a state without Jews and a second state that will marginalize and eventually push out the Jews.

The world, in its quest for an illusory "peace," refuses to notice these little details. Yet there is no other logical explanation for Palestinian Arab behavior that is consistent with their actions throughout the decades.

Quick news hits

The Viva Palestina convoy has been delayed again, this time because of bad weather. It is supposed to sail from the Syrian port of Latakia to Egypt's El Arish on Monday. (Iranian media says that it expects that Israel would go into Egyptian territory to stop the aid from getting to Gaza. Really.)

Jimmy Carter and the other "Elders" - present company excluded - have entered Gaza for a day of hobnobbing with Hamas terrorist leaders in the interests of "fact finding."

Three people came up to Ayman Hamdan's home near Nablus in a village called Qusra overnight. He owns several agricultural projects. Two cars belonging to his business were torched, with the words "Death to you" scrawled on his steps. He caught it on videotape. While this sounds like the work of disgruntled employees, Hamdan is certain that they were Jewish settlers. This way he gets into the headlines and might even get compensation!

A large weapons and explosives cache were discovered in Southern Lebanon. By UNIFIL? Of course not - how often do they find any weapons or explosives that are buried under their feet by the ton? No, a bulldozer accidentally uncovered the cache.

Finally, a chimpanzee escaped from a Gaza zoo and entered a lecture hall at Al Quds University, where he sat and listened. Just more proof that those Jews, who excel at academics, are really the sons of apes.

Jewish flexibility and Arab intransigence, 1947

Moshe Sharett (Shertok), the head of the Jewish Agency, spoke to the Special Committee on Palestine on July 17, 1947. He described an anecdote that he felt was illustrative of the difference between how Arabs and Jews think of co-existence.

The problem of mutual adjustment in this country is an extremely difficult one. Its solution entails a sense of realities, a capacity to accept facts. And it is essential in the interest of peace, in the long run, that certain facts should be very firmly fixed and that any idea that they can be disregarded or changed by threats, or by force, should be disregarded. I will illustrate by an example what I am trying to convey to you. I will take the case of the Municipality of Jerusalem.

There is a Jewish majority in the City of Jerusalem. Yet there has always been an Arab mayor at the head of the Jerusalem Municipal Council. As time passed this became anomalous. The city kept growing, so did its population, and its services developed. The Jews came to play a very important part in the administration of the city's affairs, and they felt that it was to their detriment, and they also presumed to think that it was to the detriment of the city as a whole, that they should be denied their fair share of the city's Government. They felt that they should all have a chance of being at the head of the Municipal Council.

Now, this problem engaged the attention of the Government and of both Arabs and Jews for a long time. Eventually the Government reached a certain decision and announced that decision officially. They worked out a scheme for the rotation of the Jerusalem mayoralty — a triple rotation — a Moslem mayor, a Christian mayor, and a Jewish mayor should serve in turn. The idea was not quite palatable to the Jews. It was particularly unpalatable because if you appoint as a Christian mayor a Christian Arab, then it means that the proportion is established of one Jew to two Arabs and the Jews are then in a way, in terms of time, if not in terms of space, relegated to the position or a minority. But the Jews realized, at least they tried to realize, the wider aspect of problem, the unique character of the city of Jerusalem, the associations which it carried, and they decided to acquiesce and accept that proposal. They informed the Government accordingly. Though they were and are a majority and felt entitled to having the post of the mayor permanently, in view of the past tradition, in view of the present associations, they declared themselves willing to cooperate in the implementation of that scheme. ...Mind you, that was not in the process of preliminary soundings or informal negotiations; that was after the Government had definitely committed itself by announcing officially that that was their decision.

The Arabs refused to cooperate. They rejected the scheme. They insisted on the office of Mayor remaining their exclusive possession — the exclusive possession of the Moslem community for all future.

The result was that the Government backed out — the Government retreated from the scheme — they dropped it. In retreating from the scheme they blamed their failure on both parties in equal measure. Un-qualified rejection and complete acceptance with certain additional desiderata, were represented by them in an official announcement as ranking equal — as if both parties refused to cooperate. They proceeded to disband the Municipal Council.

The Jewish councillors were ready to carry on. A Jewish gentleman was at the time acting Mayor and had been acting Mayor for years. There was no complaint whatsoever on the merits of the way he conducted municipal affairs. Yet, all the municipal councillors, including the Jewish councilors, were sent packing and a direct British rule was instituted in the City Hall of Jerusalem. For two years now Jerusalem has not enjoyed elementary municipal self-government. Municipal affairs are being ruled by appointed British officials.

Now what does it mean?

It means a premium on intransigence — a definite discouragement to face realities and to develop a spirit of accommodation to those realities. It is a victory for boycotting tactics. We all felt that the Arabs took that uncompromising attitude only because they knew that by so doing they would wreck the scheme — that they would force the Government to retreat. If they had the conviction that the Government would stick to its decision and that what they would then be facing would be that the conduct of municipal affairs would be exclusively in the hands of the Jews, and they would be left completely out, they would think twice before deciding on the attitude which they adopted. They would give in, and it would not mean in any sense sacrificing any legitimate rights. Although the Jews are a majority, the composition of the Council is fifty-fifty, between Jews and Arabs, .and they would have had their share of rotation of office of mayoralty. It would not mean any unwarranted concession — any undue concession on their part.

Well, to us that was a lesson. We are setting it as, an example not to follow.

Do these mindsets sound familiar? The Jews were willing to accept a compromise that was overwhelmingly skewed towards the Arabs, and the Arabs rejected it completely - because it would mean that the Jews gained something.

By any sensible measure, one would think that 2/3 Arab control of Jerusalem's mayoralty is better than zero. Yet the Arabs preferred that Jerusalem be under the full control of the British than two-thirds control by Arabs - because of that one third that would be Jewish!

This was not a logical decision. This is hate-based politics, where hurting your enemy is more important than helping your own people.

The question that needs to be answered is - has this attitude changed? Have Arab leaders matured to the point that they care more about helping their own than hurting their enemy?

Look at how the Palestinian Arab leadership are unwilling to lobby for equal rights of their people in Arab lands, instead wanting to use them as seething cauldrons of hate to pressure Israel for an eventual and illusory "right of return". Think about that: every Arab leader would prefer that millions of Palestinian Arabs remain stateless, and hundreds of thousands remain in "refugee" camps, rather than help them, because of the minute possibility that their very misery hurts the Jewish state.

The entire political philosophy of Palestinian Arabs is based on hatred of the other. In fact, their entire concept of "peoplehood" is defined in opposition to the other. After all, what are "Palestinians" if not "non-Jews whose ancestors lived in Palestine in the 1940s"? As long as their entire existence and history is defined in terms of countering Jewish political gains and not in terms of their own independent existence, there is zero chance for real, permanent compromise, and zero chance for real peace.

Today's irony

Moroccans are upset over a music festival to be held tomorrow in Agadir.

It is a major festival, boasting many international artists. Last year some 200,000 people attended and this year it will be broadcast to some 30 million viewers.

The problem? One of the singers is Yael Naim, who is Israeli (her song "New Soul" was used in an Apple commercial and was a top-ten hit in the US.) She served in the IDF - not in combat, but in the Israel Air Force Orchestra.

For these reasons, Al Quds al Arabi reports, a Moroccan anti-Israel group is upset. The "Moroccan National Working Group in Support of Palestine and Iraq" announced "that the participation of Yael Naim coincides with the escalation of Zionist crimes, with its racial terrorism and its determination to defy the international community, as well as its occupation of the remainder of the land in the West Bank and Jerusalem...[who are on their way to becoming] to the most racist state ever, an exclusive Jewish state."

The name of the music festival? "The Concert for Tolerance."

Latest Latma is a good one

Enjoy!

Al Azhar University admits Denmark did not apologize for cartoons

My skepticism about the Al Arabiya article claiming that Denmark Foreign Minister Lene Espersen had apologized to the Muslim world on behalf of her nation for the Mohammed cartoons seems to have been well-founded.

Not only has Denmark denied any such apology, but Al Azhar University admits that they made a "translation error" where the word "regret" was mistranslated as "apology."

Al Arabiya corrected the atory.

Egypt bans Hamas leaders from going on Hajj

The Egyptian authorities decided to prevent a number of Hamas leaders from entering its territory to perform Hajj.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said he was one of the people on the list. He said, disingenuously, that Hajj was a purely religious ritual that should not be affected by political considerations.

But as Palestine Press Agency points out, Hamas leaders have used Hajj as a way to meet with Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt, to publicly speak out against Egypt, and to smuggle money back into Gaza. Also, Hajj pilgrims have in the past traveled to Iran for advanced terrorism training.

Others on the list are reported to include Dr. Salah Bardawil and Fawzi Barhoum.

Selling off daughters for $700

We've discussed before how rich Saudis take vacations in other countries, notably Egypt, and "marry" women for the summer.

The Arab News adds more detail to this disgusting practice - and it is not only the Saudis who are guilty:

About 900 children born to Egyptian women and Saudi men in what is commonly known as “misfar” or “tourist” marriages are abandoned by their fathers, said an Egyptian activist at a recent forum on human trafficking.

Speaking at the conference in Egypt, Aiman Abu Akeel, chairman of the board of trustees of the Maat Foundation for Peace and Development, said that the majority of men who visit Egypt looking for misfar marriages tend to be Saudi, followed by Iraqis, and that the women they marry are predominantly younger than them.

“Misfar” marriage refers to a union contracted so that a woman may join her “husband” for the period of time he travels in a foreign country.

The women in such unions are divorced after a short time ranging from a week to a month, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Yaum Al-Sabi reported.

Speaking at the same forum, Azza Al-Jazaar, the general organizer of the Anti-Trafficking of Egyptian Girls program, said that these young women do not know they are being treated like commodities.

Their fathers receive up to 4,000 Egyptian pounds from these men for trading off their girls, she said, adding that most of these girls are below 16 years of age. [That's about $700 - EoZ]

Statistics show that some SR100 million are spent on misfar marriages, which last for not more than a month, with 90 percent of Saudi fathers leaving behind children born out of such relationships.

However, Najeeb Al-Zamil, founder of the Back to the Roots Foundation, a nongovernmental organization that helps Saudi children abroad, said that although there are many such children in Arab countries, their suffering is less than that experienced by children born in non-Arab countries.

He added that these men abandon their families and children, as they fear what their relatives in the Kingdom will think.

(h/t Arthur)

Study claims scientific proof for "cycle of violence"

From The Boston Globe, an op-ed by Nancy Kanwisher and Anat Biletzki:

As the Israeli-Palestinian peace process once again crashes on the hard rocks of Middle East reality, it is worth stepping back to reconsider the conventional wisdom on this apparently intractable situation. In a paper we recently published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,’’ we found that, in contrast to the perception on each side of the conflict that the other side is the aggressor while it only retaliates, in fact, both sides act in response to the other’s aggression.

Although anecdote and speculation are popular in discussions of the Middle East conflict, we used data and quantitative analysis to determine whether these perceptions are true. One data set was the timeline of Qassam rocket firings, compiled by the Israeli Defense Forces. Another was the day-by-day timeline of killings of Israelis by Palestinians and of killings of Palestinians by Israelis, compiled by the Israeli Human Rights organization B’Tselem. We tested whether the violent behavior of each side occurs in response to violence committed by the other side — or whether it is simply arbitrary.

We found that the violence on each side is not arbitrary. Instead, a few days after Palestinians kill Israelis, Israel retaliates by killing Palestinians, and in the few days after Israel kills Palestinians, the number of rockets fired into Israel increases. Thus, both Palestinians and Israelis are more likely to attack after they themselves have been attacked.

These findings refute the common view that because the conflict results from the immutably hostile character of the foe, there is nothing either side can do to stop it. Our data suggest that the conflict is not the inevitable result of the fundamentally violent character of either Israelis or Palestinians. Instead, the violence of each side is at least in part contingent on the behavior of the other side. So there is, in fact, something each side can do to reduce the violence directed against it.Our result may seem obvious: if both sides retaliate, then the Middle East is yet another part of the world where retaliatory “tit for tat’’ dynamics perpetuate conflict.

The authors of the study are a professor of neuroscience at MIT. Anat Biletzki is a professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University.

Looking further at their methodology they use something called Vector Autoregression, the math of which I cannot hope to understand.

But read carefully what they say again in the parts I put in bold. They are saying that Israel retaliates to killings with killings - incursions, targeted attacks, whatever - and the Palestinian militants respond to Israeli killings with rockets.

There is a very important unstated fact that supports both these findings and the opposite conclusion:

When Palestinian Arabs mount a terror attack meant to have a high probability of killing Israelis - meaning, remote controlled bombs, or suicide bombings, or ambushes - it takes time for them to plan it. Usually one can expect a number of weeks between conceiving of an attack and the actual operation.

Clearly, fatal terror attacks are not responses to specific events where the IDF killed people, because it simply takes too much time for the PalArabs to mount such an operation. Therefore, their retaliations have been chiefly rocket attacks, something that takes little time to plan and implement.

Which means that, contrary to what the authors are implying, Palestinian Arab terrorists by definition instigate every non-rocket terror attack against Israeli civilians, and Israel indeed does retaliate. Yes, the terrorists fire rockets back for further retaliation, but the cycle dies down because most of them do not kill or injure anyone. If they are "lucky" and a rocket hits someone then the cycle can go another round or two.

Yet the clear piece of information that the authors miss is that the major terror attacks are not retaliatory, unless you expand the definition of "retaliation" to include the entire existence of Israel or of "occupation." Bombings are certainly not planned and implemented in the "few days" that the authors used to feed their mathematical models. Their methodology is fatally flawed because they do not take the time it takes to plan terror attacks into account.

Their airy conclusions, that if only Israel would stop retaliating then the terrorists would stop as well, are unfounded.

And a significant number of Hamas rocket attacks, at any rate, were not retaliatory for specific events. This can be seen from their own press releases. I don't know the percentages, but while many rocket attacks are stated as to be in response to specific events, others are more general.

For example, here is how they announce rocket attacks that are in response to specific events, from June 14th 2006:

Occupation forces continue to perpetrate war crimes against Palestinians. Last Friday, they killed 7 members of the same family and injured dozens of civilians on the Beit Lahya beach in the north of the Gaza Strip. And on Tuesday, nine civilians, including 2 children and 4 paramedics, were intentionally killed by occupation planes.

In response to these crimes, Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades continues the response to these crimes. At 04:00 today, Al-Qassam Brigades fired one Qassam rocket at the Sofa checkpoint, east of Rafah.

But for a different set of rockets a couple of weeks later, the press releases were far more general. From July 4, 2006:

Izzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades fired one Qassam Rocket at the occupied city of Asqalan north of the border of the Gaza Strip. The bombardment took place at 19:00 on Tuesday, July 4, 2006. The operation is a new development of the ongoing "Faithfulness of the Free" resistance campaign against the occupation assault on the Gaza Strip, in which occupation forces continue to attack civilian targets.

Even the rocket attacks cannot be said to be generally retaliatory for specific events, because Hamas is nice enough to tell us the reasons for the attacks!

For these two reasons, it appears that this study is fatally flawed in its approach, its methodology and in its conclusions.

Al Qaeda Magazine Wordle

I just downloaded a copy of the second edition of Inspire, the fairly slick English-language Al Qaeda magazine II got my copy here.)

But to save you time, here is a Wordle showing graphically how often various words are used in the magazine. It can save you a lot of time.

(h/t Zach for the idea)

Who knew that Ahmadinejad was such a Zionist?

Lebanon's Naharnet has been putting up short snippets of Ahmadinejad's speech in Bint Jbeil as it was happening, and here is their entry for 6:02 PM:

Today, the occupier Zionists have no choice but to return to their original homelands.

Well, there's only one original homeland for Jews, and the Zionists in Israel are already there. He must be talking about the Zionist Jews who occupy space in the US, Europe and elsewhere, and calling on them to make aliyah and return to their original homelands.

Maybe the next Nefesh b'Nefesh trip should name its plane of incoming Israeli immigrants after Ahmadinejad in honor of his inspiring words!