Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Flemish quiz show: Jews are "most disgusting nation on Earth"

President of the Flemish parliament in Belgium Jan Peter Peumans has said he did not mean to offend Turks with remarks he made during a live quiz show on a local TV channel, the Turkish Embassy in Brussels said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Peumans said he is sorry because the situation has caused consequences beyond his intention,” read the embassy's statement.

When asked which nation was the most disgusting on the face of earth in famous French philosopher Voltaire's opinion during the “De Pappenheimers” quiz show on the VRT channel on Sunday, Peumans -- who is also a member of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) -- said that among the choices presented to him -- “Flemish, Jews or Turks” -- he knew the answer was Jews, but because he “did not have the courage to say anything against them” he would say Turks instead. “I really knew it [correctly] but I do not have any courage to say something new about Jews. They are very sensitive people. I once said something about their liberalism and it really caused me a lot of trouble,” Peumans had said. Following his words, film director Jan Eelen, another contestant, told Peumans that “it appears saying something against Turks is not a problem, then.”

While it is true the the question was quoting the anti-semite Voltaire, not saying that it is a fact that the Jewish people are disgusting, it is still an inflammatory question for a popular broadcast quiz show.

On the positive side, it shows that even Voltaire recognized that Jews are a nation, unlike today's anti-semites. It is amazing how Jew-haters throughout the centuries will change their elastic list of reasons why Jews are to be loathed (too separate/too integrated, too religious/too liberal...) but the fact that they are hated remains amazingly constant.

(h/t Joel)

Wikileaks: Hezbollah's presence in Brazil

It's generally known that Hezbollah is active in Latin-America. Basically it's not new what Wikileaks reveals, but still it's worth it to mention.

This is what Wikileaks has released so far:

"While the majority of Brazil’s Muslims are moderate in orientation and the overwhelming majority is moderate in deed and action, genuine radical elements do exist here, some in the Tri-Border area of Foz de Iguacu and others among Sao Paulo’s estimated 20,000-strong, Hezbollah-oriented Shia population. Muslims at the moderate, Sunni-oriented Future Institute charge that Shia immigrants sometimes come to Brazil with Hezbollah support (allegedly USD 50,000 is a typical sum) to found businesses to support Hezbollah in Lebanon." [Nov 2009]

and:

"Sao Paulo's Muslim moderates worry about the rise of fundamentalism and Hezbollah influence among more recent waves of largely Shia Lebanese immigrants, as they promote a broadly tolerant vision of "modern Islam". Their own community remains quite traditional, with women's and youth organizations limited. Even so, the traditional leadership's eagerness to engage, acute awareness of the dangers of radicalism, and their solid achievements in integrating Muslim and Brazilian identities make them an excellent example of how a unique MMC (Muslim Minority Community) has, by and large, carved out a positive space within a diverse Latin American country. ...
As [XXXX], a Lebanese Brazilian banker and Maronite Christian, told SMRC Pandith, "Hezbollah is gaining [adherents]," particularly with more recent Shia Lebanese immigrants. Consequently, the moderates want to "push back against the radicals" by promoting popular interfaith activities. " [December 2009]

Paranoia is funny:"Wikileaks is Israeli plot against Turkey"

The depths of crazy, courtesy of Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News:

Israel could have engineered the release of hundreds of thousands of confidential documents on WikiLeaks as a plot to corner Turkey on both domestic and foreign policy, according to a senior ruling party official.

“One has to look at which countries are pleased with these. Israel is very pleased. Israel has been making statements for days, even before the release of these documents,” Hüseyin Çelik, deputy leader of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and the party’s spokesperson, told reporters at a press conference Wednesday.

Following initial reaction to the leaked U.S. Embassy cables, which have revealed diplomatic secrets about Turkey, Azerbaijan, its Middle Eastern neighbors, Turkish officials have started to suspect that “the main cause of these leaks was to weaken the Turkish government.”

WikiLeaks has released approximately 250,000 documents of confidential U.S. diplomatic correspondence to newspapers around the world. Around 8,000 of those documents are from the U.S. Embassy to Ankara.

That a whopping 3%.

Yasin Doğan, a columnist for the pro-government Yeni Şafak newspaper, also named the Israeli lobby in the U.S. as the source of the cable leaks.

According to observers, government officials believe the cables leaked through WikiLeaks were selected as part of a comprehensive plan to corner Turkey both in terms of domestic and international politics.

On foreign policy, the release of cables indicating that many Arab countries were in fact in favor of a military attack on Iran to scuttle Tehran’s ambitions to develop nuclear weapons were seen as moves to show that Turkey was alone in defending Iran in the region.

“This situation posits Turkey as the only advocate of Iran not only in Europe but also in the Middle East,” Murat Yetkin, Ankara representative of the daily Radikal, wrote in his column Wednesday.

Yetkin added his observation that Ankara has evaluated the cables as a psychological campaign to push Turkey to take a cooler stance on Iran.

Furthermore, the release of remarks by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev on Turkey and other remarks that Balkan countries were extremely uncomfortable with Davutoğlu’s frequently heard rhetoric on neo-Ottonamism were also evaluated as moves to weaken Turkish influence in its near abroad.

One problem with megalomaniacs is that they think that everything revolves around them.

(h/t Vandoren)

Fatah keeps saying "NO!" No one is listening (Toameh)

Another winner from Khaled Abu Toameh in Hudson-NY:

The Western-backed ruling Fatah faction in the West Bank has just concluded its fifth convention in Ramallah with a series of statements that will make it virtually impossible for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to reach a deal with Israel that includes any compromises.

A statement issued by the Fatah Revolutionary Council, which consists of more than 100 Fatah officials, said no to almost every proposal or idea that could have paved the way for some kind of a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

No to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state; no to any solution that calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders; no to the idea of a land swap between Israel and the Palestinians; no to any resuming peace talks with Israel unless construction in settlements and east Jerusalem is halted; no to understandings between Israel and the US regarding the future of the peace process; no to supplying Israel with US weapons; no to recognizing the Western Wall's significance to Jews and not to a new Israeli law that requires a referendum before any withdrawal from Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

With a position like this, it is hard to see how any progress could be achieved when and if the peace talks ever resume. What Fatah is actually saying is that Israel must accept 100% of our demands if it wants peace. This is the only "yes" that Fatah had to offer.

The Fatah statement should not come as a surprise to anyone: this has in fact always been the faction's position, especially since the beginning of the peace process with Israel. Fatah has actually been consistent in its policy and its positions have not changed over the past two decades.

The problem is not Fatah as much as it is the Western governments that continue to ignore what Fatah is -- and always has been -- saying. The international media is also to be blamed for ignoring or downplaying such statements made by the "moderate" Fatah in the West Bank.

Abbas could not make any concessions to Israel in light of the Fatah declaration even if he wanted to.

The message that Fatah has once again sent to all Palestinians is that no one has a mandate to reach a deal with Israel that does not meet all their demands. This is why the Fatah communiqué was published in Arabic in Fatah-controlled media outlets – to make sure that Palestinians read every word and understand the message.

Of course Abbas, who attended the Fatah gathering, has endorsed the statement, vowing that he would not make any compromises on any of the Palestinians' rights.

...In this part of the world, it is important to listen to what people say in their own language -- not only what they say in English to US and European governments and journalists.

Abbas bragged about his intransigence at a rally two weeks ago, in a story that was only reported in Arabic.

Happy Chanukah!

The first night of Chanukah is tonight.
Have an illuminating holiday!

Fayyad's propaganda road

A press release that is apparently from the Palestine Prime Minister's office although I couldn't find it on its website:

We build roads of peace, the Israeli government destroys them. We plant trees to protect our environment, they uproot them. We send our young children to school and their soldiers bully them and beat them up. Our state-building efforts meet with state-destruction by Israel.

We note with alarm that Israel continues with its persistent policy of destroying infrastructure that we build for our people on our land, economic projects and private homes. Prime Minster Netanyahu is vociferously fighting for the rights of Israeli settlers to illegally build on Palestinian land while Israeli soldiers and settlers relentlessly attack, destroy, and violate Palestinian children, women, and the elderly within their own neighborhoods and homes. The unwarranted destruction of the “Freedom Road” in the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan by the Israeli authorities is an affront to all countries that contributed to building this road for Palestinian families to access their homes, schools, agricultural land, and health clinics. We request donors to report back to their capitals on the unjustifiable destruction of this road that was paid for through the generous support of their tax payers.

Here's the photo that accompanied the release:

So why are the evil Israelis destroying Palestinian Arab roads that are only meant to help little old Arab ladies get to their health clinics?

The answer is that the road was not built to help Palestinian Arabs, but rather for the purpose of forcing Israel to destroy it so that the above press release could be written and heartbreaking photos can be distributed.

Because what Salam Fayyad's office is not saying is that this road was built in Area C, the part of the West Bank that remains under full Israeli control under the Oslo Accords. Fayyad is simply not allowed to build there according to the existing agreements.

As the LA Times Babylon and Beyond blog states:

According to the Oslo breakdown of the West Bank, Area C, which makes up more than 60% of the West Bank land, remains under full Israeli military control. But Area C is also an important segment in Fayyad’s state building program, crucial to his dream of setting up the necessary infrastructure for a viable Palestinian state by August 2011.

Israeli officials had informed Fayyad and the village residents that they would not allow the road because it was located in an area under its full control.

According to the village mayor, the Israeli army tried to stop construction on the $335,000 road, paid for by the Palestinian Authority, several times. But they continued with the project, and when the road was completed, Israeli officials informed the mayor two days before the inauguration that he had one week to destroy the road or the army would be sent in to do so.

But Fayyad snubbed the Israeli threat and proceeded with the official inauguration ceremonies.

Israel did not act until about three months later, when Fayyad was abroad, and bulldozers were sent in.

In other words, Fayyad took $335,000 from money donated to the PA from mostly American and European state donors to build a road that he knew - and was warned explicitly - would be destroyed.

Now, he is saying that he will tell his donors that their money was wasted by Israel destroying a road, without telling them that he is using possibly millions of dollars of Western aid not to build a state but to score cheap propaganda points against Israel.

And Fayyad has planned to do this and similar projects for well over a year. As a JCPA analysis from October 2009 said,

Fayyad's "blueprint" calls for massive Palestinian development in Area "C" of the disputed West Bank, which is under Israeli civil and security control, and which directly challenges the delicate, agreed-upon framework of the 1993 Oslo accords.35 Palestinian plans include building an airport in the Jordan Valley, taking control of Atarot airport near Jerusalem, establishing new rail links to neighboring states, and water installation projects near Tulkarem and Kalkilya close to the pre-1967 "green line."36 Israeli security echelons firmly oppose Palestinian airport development plans near Jerusalem and in the Jordan Valley. Furthermore, Fayyad's agenda has broader designs on Area "C." Fayyad told the Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat in a September 1, 2009, interview: "Many think that zone "C" areas have become disputed territories rather than occupied territories in the public consciousness. We assert that these are PNA territories where the state will be established."

This was no mistake. This was Fayyad cynically using donor money to make a political point, in a a plan that he published.

And JCPA's footnote 36 reveals more:

Fayyad, Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State, p. 35. Fayyad's aggressive plans to build in Area "C" of the West Bank is the most far-reaching attempt by the Palestinian Authority to establish de facto control outside of Palestinian Areas "A" and "B" as defined at Oslo. See also Alan Baker, "De Facto Deliberations." Baker, former legal advisor to Israel's Foreign Ministry and a legal architect of the Oslo accords, notes: "The concept of a one-sided establishment of a de facto state outside the agreed-upon process would appear to ignore a central component of the framework in which Fayyad himself is permitted to function, and from which he derives his own authority." The 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip "still remains the valid source of authority for the Palestinian administration in the territories, as well as for the entire functioning of Palestinian governance. This agreement sets out and enables the establishment and functioning of the Palestinian Council (which serves as the parliament of the Palestinian Authority), details the mode of election of its members and appointment of its ministers, and defines its jurisdiction, its legislative and other powers, structure and prerogatives."

If Fayyad is throwing out Oslo, he is also throwing out the entire political structure of the Palestinian Authority. He obviously feels confident enough that he can make unilateral moves like these without any repercussions.

But shouldn't nations know that they are paying money for him to build infrastructure specifically for it to be torn down?

UN Watch scores major victory

Received via email from UN Watch (the website does not seem to be updated yet):

I just learned great news: German law professor Christian Tomuschat, the anti-Israel and anti-American official heading the U.N. committee to enforce the Goldstone Report, has resigned. The biased U.N. probe now has no leader, and is in disarray.

This unprecedented resignation follows a global campaign by UN Watch that exposed Professor Tomuschat's egregious bias and breach of his obligation under international law to be objective and impartial:

•   UN Watch's team of researchers tracked down and translated Professor Tomuschat's German academic writings. We published a 30-page report revealing how he had frequently compared Israeli actions with the "barbarism" and "inferno" of World War II; how he performed legal work for PLO leader Yasser Arafat; and how he repeatedly accused Israel of “state terrorism.” This was reported worldwide.

•   When Tomuschat delivered his report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in September -- calling for the investigation of Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni for alleged war crimes in Gaza -- UN Watch was the only group to take the floor and directly challenge Tomuschat for his bias, stirring reactions from Tomuschat as well as the council president himself.

•   When Tomuschat then appeared at a U.N. press conference, journalists followed up on UN Watch's campaign and challenged Tomuschat to defend himself.

Finally, thousands of UN Watch supporters worldwide have been taking action on our website every day to demand from the U.N. that Tomuschat resign. In the end, he gave in.

Stellar job by Hillel Neuer and UN Watch!

The Schwartzenegger Chanukah Hora

The anti-semites always said that Jews control the government - and here's proof that we can make them dance to our tune whenever we want to:

(h/t O)

Wikileaks: Egypt recruiting spies in Iraq and Syria against Iran

An interesting cable about a meeting between Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and Egyptian General Intelligence Service Chief Omar Soliman, April 2009. In it, we learn that Egypt is recruiting spies in Syria and Iraq to infiltrate Iran, that Egypt is just as upset at Iran as any other Arab state - and not just because of the nuclear issue; that Iran was smuggling arms and $25 million of cash into Gaza a month; that Gaza puts moderate Arab regimes in a corner (presumably because they don't support Hamas radicalism but their people do), that Soliman does not distinguish between Hezbollah and Iran at all. Excerpts:

Soliman said radicalism was the "backbone" of regional security threats, adding that radicalism in Gaza posed a particularly serious threat to Egyptian national security. Soliman said Egypt must "confront" Iranian attempts to smuggle arms to Gaza and stop arms smuggling through Egyptian territory.

We do not want incidents like Gaza to inflame public anger," Soliman said, adding that the Gaza conflict put "moderate (Arab) regimes" in a corner. To prevent another outbreak of violence, Egypt is focusing on Palestinian reconciliation and a durable cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. On reconciliation, Soliman explained, the ultimate goal was to return the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, as "Gaza in the hands of radicals will never be calm."

Iran is "very active in Egypt," Soliman said. Iranian financial support to Hamas amounted to $25 million a month, but he said Egypt was "succeeding" in preventing financial support from entering Gaza through Egypt. Iran has tried several times to pay the salaries for the al-Qassam Battalions, but Egypt had succeeded in preventing the money from reaching Gaza. Soliman said the Egyptian government had arrested a "big Hezbollah cell," which was Hezbollah's first attempt to stand up a cell within Egypt. Iran was also trying to recruit support from the Sinai Bedouins, he claimed, in order to facilitate arms smuggling to Gaza.

Egypt has "started a confrontation with Hezbollah and Iran," Soliman stressed, and "we will not allow Iran to operate in Egypt." Soliman said Egypt had sent a clear message to Iran that if they interfere in Egypt, Egypt will interfere in Iran, adding that EGIS had already begun recruiting agents in Iraq and Syria. Soliman hoped the U.S. would "not walk the same track as the Europeans" in regards to negotiating with Iran and warned against only focusing on one issue at time, like Iran's nuclear weapons program. Iran must "pay the price" for its actions and not be allowed to interfere in regional affairs. "If you want Egypt to cooperate with you on Iran, we will," Soliman added, "it would take a big burden off our shoulders."

The video bears of truth

Xtranormal lets anyone create videos with pre-defined characters...and people are doing that.

Here's a cartoon representation of a conversation between Netanyahu and Obama:

And here's an excellent cartoon made by Mere Rhetoric describing how the State Department has its priorities a bit skewed:

PA Ministry of Information removes study denying Kotel is Jewish

As I mentioned earlier today, the US condemned the PA's position that the Western Wall is not Jewish, as shown in a study published on an official PA Ministry of Information website.

The pressure seems to have had an effect, as the study is no longer available on that website, as reported by Hamas' PalTimes.

Hamas takes over major documentation facility

In Gaza one can find the National Center for Studies and Documentation, which contains many historic books and manuscripts. It was founded and run by Abdallah al-Hourani.

Hourani died yesterday in Amman.

Today, Hamas took over the facility.

Because, of course, Hamas can be trusted to ensure that the documents remain accessible, even the ones that might embarrass Hamas or that make Fatah look good.

Iranian missiles in South America

Germany's Die Welt had a major story that was overlooked last week:

Iran plans to build a missile base in Venezuela

Iran plans to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil and to deepen the strategic cooperation with the regime of Hugo Chávez. "Welt Online" learned from Western security sources that an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit of the Venezuelan president to Tehran on October 19. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela and the joint development of ground-to-ground missiles.

The agreement follows a recommendation of the Supreme Security Council of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and religious leader Ali Khamenei a few months ago. According to information of this newspaper, the Security Council had proposed a joint military facility on Venezuelan soil to increase the deterrent power of Iran against the West. The cooperation would be a way for Iran to establish a strategic base in the South American continent - in the United States' backyard.

"Welt Online" learned that Venezuela has agreed to allow Iran to establish a military base, which would be manned by Iranian missile officers, soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Venezuelan missile officers. The base is mainly as a storage location for a strategic Iranian weapons reserve. In addition, Iran has given permission for the missiles to be used in case of an emergency. In return, it says in the agreement that Venezuela can use the basis for "national needs". This would increase the threat to neighbors like Colombia. Iran also pledged to help Venezuela in rocket technology expertise, such as intensive training of officers.

Also planned is the joint development of a ground-to-surface missile, based on the extensive experience of the Iranians. The agreement also provides for Iranian Shahab 3 (range 1300-1500 km), Scud-B missile (285-330 kilometers) and Scud-C missiles (300, 500 and 700 km) on the new base to relocate, and four mobile launchers.

(h/t Joel via Israel Army Radio Online)

Morning links

Lots of stuff going on...

A Wikileaks memo says that Germany asked the US to threaten to withhold its veto of Goldstone unless Israel adhered to a building freeze.

Another has surprisingly pro-Israel statements from Qatari's leader towards Israel.

Yet another shows surprisingly close ties between Israel and the UAE.

In other diplomatic news, the US condemned PA statements that there are no Jewish ties to the Kotel. Here's how Al Arabiya illustrated the story:

(h/t Joel for most of these)

"Human rights" groups' double standards on white phosphorus (Zvi)

From Zvi, commenting on this story about Gaza terror groups using white phosphorus in rockets towards Israel:

Clearly, it is a "war crime" for Israel to use white phosphorus in such a way that its use is legal - as a smoke screen to protect maneuvering troops - but it's okay for Gazan terrorists to use it in such a way that it cannot possibly be legal; there are no maneuvering Gazan troops in the vicinity who could use these particular weapons as a smoke screen.

Amnesty's last mention of white phosphorus was in August. They have been completely silent on this matter.

HRW is even worse. Only a few days ago, they made a statement at a weapons conferenceabout the use of incendiary weapons in Gaza, showing that they are continuing to focus on the use of such weapons. Despite the conference giving them a perfect opportunity to speak out about the use of white phosphorus as a weapon of terror against Israelis, and despite their clear intent to continue to focus on WP devices, HRW has chosen not to make any statement at all about the blatantly [war] criminal use of white phosphorus munitions by Hamas terrorists and their allies in Gaza.

The failure to make such a statement indicates to the perpetrators and other terrorist groups, from Hezbollah to Hamas, that the international human rights community condones the use of white phosphorus as a weapon of terror against Israeli civilians.

A forceful, direct and unequivocal condemnation of this blatantly criminal behavior might not have any effect, but then again, it might convince Hamas and other terror groups that adopting its wholesale use would be a costly PR disaster for them. These groups are clearly building WP weapons now. The condemnation must come NOW, before these weapons are stockpiled and entrenched in the minds of Hamas planners, and before it becomes too late to save numerous civilian lives.

Once again, there are circumstances in which the use of white phosphorus is legal, even if some groups do not approve of the use of WP smoke devices. The IDF used white phosphorus to screen troop movements, which is a legal use of white phosphorus. The most that can be argued is that in Gaza, the use of these smoke devices fell into a gray area. But it is also true that as the human rights groups attacked the (legal) use of WP during the war, the IDF even made good-faith efforts to stop the use of WP, even though this endangered the lives of its soldiers. The IDF clearly acted in good faith, trying to minimize the danger to civilians.

The manner in which Hamas and its allies are using white phosphorus today is diametrically opposite. The Gazan regime and its allies are using WP as a weapon of terror. This cannot possibly fit into any category that could be remotely described as legal.

It is clear that these attacks are only the beginning. It is clear that this behavior - if not immediately and severely condemned by the global community - will spread within Gaza and become entrenched there, and from there it will spread to other parts of the world.

It is clear, also, that Gazan Arabs as well as Israelis will die from these WP terror weapons, because many of the flying bombs fired by Gazan terrorists fall short and kill their own people. It is clear that any decent human rights advocate should be absolutely appalled by the blatant and deliberate perpetration of war crimes by Hamas and its allies.

I call upon the international human rights community to speak out loudly, clearly and forcefully on this point, now.

The official Hasbara 2.0 poster, and some Technorati news

I can now reveal the official poster for the Elder's off-Broadway extravaganza, at Yeshiva University, scheduled for next Tuesday:

I am still working on the slides - I am pushing a hundred Powerpoint slides, so the talk will likely last some 90 minutes or so (I speak fast.) There is a lot of information there, though.

The organizers wanted some stats about my blog, so I looked once again at my latest Technorati rankings.

Readers may recall how surprised I was last August when Technorati ranked this blog #56 in Politics and #15 in World Politics among all the thousands of political blogs they follow.

And then how blown away I was when in the beginning of November my rankings rose to #50 in Politics and #7 in World Politics.

Today.....drumroll, please....my rank is

Politics: #41

World Politics: #4 !!!

Yes, I'm blowing away Juan Cole, and Marc Lynch, Stephen Walt, the LA Times Babylon and Beyond blog - even The White House Blog!

And my blog is one of the very few in the top tier that is primarily run by one person.

Very, very cool.

By the way, this was my second biggest month (after Flotilla June); according to Statcounter I am hitting almost exactly 100,000 pageviews (Google says about 150,000.) I also hadn't checked my Feedburner lately, it says that I have over 1100 RSS subscribers. (RSS readers are now set up to link to the comments, by the way.)

UPDATE: Back down to 7 in World Politics, but up to 38 in Politics. Fame is fleeting.

Yodeler fined for upsetting Muslims in Austria

From The Austrian Independent:

An Austrian has been fined for yodelling while mowing his lawn, according to a report.

The Kronen Zeitung newspaper claims Helmut G. was told by a court in Graz, Styria, that his yodelling offended his next-door Muslim neighbours.

The men reportedly accused the 63-year-old of having tried to mock and imitate the call of the Muezzin. The daily paper writes the Austrian was fined 800 Euros after judges ruled he could have tried to offend them and ridicule their belief. The Muslims, whose nationalities were not revealed by the report, were right in the middle of a prayer when the Austrian started to yodel.

"It was not my intention to imitate or insult them. I simply started to yodel a few tunes because I was in such a good mood" the man told the newspaper today.

It gets better:

The Muslim worshippers, meeting in a private house, use loudspeakers in their backyard during their prayers!

Helmut G. is being invited to talk shows and the incident is causing a stir in Graz.

(h/t Silke)

Chanukah menorah upsets Palestinian Arabs

From the PA's WAFA news agency (Arabic):

Settlers have just erected a huge brass candlestick on the outskirts of the city of Nablus in the West Bank.

Witnesses said that the menorah was set by a crane near the Za'tara triangle a few kilometers south of Nablus, and pointed out that this area is at the center of a number of extremist Jewish settlements.

The menorah is often used in Jewish religious rituals, and the settlers seek to impose their ideology onto the West Bank through actions such as these.

(h/t Dovid Haivri, director of the Shomron Liaison Office, who will happily accept donations to allow more public Chanukah displays to be set up in Judea and Samaria.)

Amnesty doesn't think the intifada ever happened

Reading the latest Amnesty UK report slamming Israel on not doing enough for Gaza is an unreal experience. Sprinkled throughout the report are comparisons and statistics that simply ignore the second intifada and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, all for the singular purpose of making Israel look as bad as possible.

Here are some examples:

Gaza’s economic output per capita is today 40% lower than it was in 1994, at the start of the Oslo peace process.

Why are they comparing Gaza's economy today with its 1994 economy? The implication is that Israel's commitment to Oslo is a sham, as the economy of Gaza has gone down - due to Israeli actions - since that agreement was signed.

However, the economy in the territories was doign extraordinarily well in the years 1994-1999. Real GDP growth in 1997 was 12.2%, in 1998 it was 11.8% and in 1999 it was 8.9%. And then in 2000, with the intifada, it plummeted: -5.4% in 2000, -15.4% in 2001 and -9.4% in 2002. I don't have the Gaza figures separately, but the closing of the Erez industrial zone and the border closure because of the constant terror attacks threw tens of thousands of Gazans out of work. The withdrawal from Gaza cost many more jobs as well. The reason that Gaza's economy is in shambles is because of a policy of terror that was created by the Palestinian Arabs, not because of Israel's reaction to save its citizen's lives. But to Amnesty, the intifada never happened, and Israel is still "occupying" a territory in which is has no people.

Overall ban on exit and entry still in place. No expansion of the few exceptional categories of Palestinians allowed to travel through Israeli controlled crossings. Number of exits below 1% of 2000 levels.

Again, Amnesty ignored the terror spree and rockets from Gaza as a reason why Israel doesn't want Gazans to have the free access to Israel that they had before 2000.

But beyond that, even though the paper is entitled "Dashed Hopes - Continuation of the Gaza Blockade," it doesn't mention Egypt's role in the blockade - or Egypt's opening of the Rafah border. In this case, Amnesty says that the number of exits through Israeli crossings is down - but they ignore Egypt's crossings which has increased Gazans' mobility. Why do they only speak about Israeli crossings in this statistic, and why do they ignore Egypt's role in blockading Gaza? The only possible answer is because the report is not meant to help Gazans but to castigate Israel.

Even in cases where the real statistics can make Israel look bad, Amnesty specifically bends the numbers to make Israel look worse:

In fact, the UN reports that Gaza requires 670,000 truckloads of construction material, while only an average of 715 of these truckloads have been received per month since the ‘easing’ was announced.

Even if we accept that the UN statistic is accurate, Amnesty is comparing the numbers of the total amount needed with what Israel allowed in an average month. Amnesty could have said that Israel allowed 3600 truckloads of construction material since the easing - but that makes Israel sound better than saying "715 truckloads per month."

Amnesty also says that "Access to around 35% of Gaza’s farmland...remains restricted by the Israeli ‘buffer zone’," a nebulous claim that seems to confuse "arable land" with "farmland."

Amnesty's recommendations also ignore the human rights of Israelis to live in safety:

The international community must do its part to ensure that its repeated
appeals to end the blockade are finally heeded.

1) Launch a new, concerted diplomatic initiative for an immediate,unconditional and complete lifting of the blockade, including:
• allowing movement of people including humanitarian staff into and out of Gaza;
• allowing exports from Gaza;
• allowing entry of construction materials including those for the private sector;
• allowing entry of raw materials;
• expanding operations of the crossings;
• lifting restrictions on fuel imports;
• ensuring access to Gaza’s agricultural land and fishing grounds and the protection of civilians in these areas.

And, if Amnesty's recommendations were to be implemented, unrestricted imports of weapons and long-range missiles would be allowed into Gaza as well.

Not to mention that the only way to have unrestricted movement of goods to and from Gaza would mean no crossings at all - simply tear down the fence and let terrorists have all the access they want to export their human bombs to Israel.

The entire report does not use the word "intifada" or "terror" or "rockets" once. The context of Israel's relationship with Gaza in light of the actions of Hamas and its allies is almost completely missing. And, as we have seen, Amnesty's recommendations would directly translate into a new reign of terror for residents of southern Israel - and beyond.

Apparently, Amnesty and the other "human rights" organizations that prepared this biased report are not the least bit interested in the human rights of Israelis.

Nablus TV and Firas Press report on how Palestinian Arabs are desperately trying to become citizens of Arab countries.

Gazans are trying to prove that they have Egyptian roots to become Egyptian citizens, but Egypt forces them to go through a very difficult legal process that forces most to give up in frustration amid steep legal fees. Even people who have one Egyptian parent are being confronted with roadblocks when they try to exercise their rights as citizens.

The major incentive to gain Arab citizenship is for freedom of movement. Palestinian passports are of very limited use, and many countries will not recognize them as valid travel documents.

Other benefits of citizenship include ease of setting up a business in the host country, and going to college. Some Palestinian Arabs also complain about discrimination they suffer in the Arab world simply because they are Palestinian. One person interviewed said that his brothers work in the UAE, and Egyptian citizens receive higher salaries than Palestinian passport holders doing the same jobs.

One expert is quoted as saying that this is not a new phenomenon, and Palestinian Arabs have been seeking to become naturalized citizens of Arab countries since 1948. He says explicitly the entire reason that Palestinian Arabs are treated with such contempt by Egyptians: "The Egyptian government believes that the failure to give the Palestinians Egyptian nationality will push them to hold on to their land."

This is, of course, a human rights issue. Palestinian Arabs are being discriminated against in every Arab country compared to other Arabs. The Convention of the Rights of the Child states that every child has the right to a nationality.

But good luck finding any human rights groups willing to take on this issue.

Ahmadinejad hangs out with the Hidden Imam

Interesting stuff from Amir Taheri in WSJ:

Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a closet Persian nationalist trying to de-Islamize Iran? Is he part of a plot to send the mullahs back to the mosques to make way for an Islamist military regime?

These are some of the questions raised in the Majlis, Iran's ersatz parliament, by members who are trying to impeach the president. As astonishing as this might be for Western observers, Ahmadinejad is challenged by people who claim that he is not Muslim enough and that he harbors a hidden anti-clerical agenda to promote a mixture of messianism and chauvinism. His closest friend and aide, Esfandiar Rahim Masha'i, has even suggested that "within one year Ahmadinejad's enemies would declare him to be an infidel."

The charge that Ahmadinejad is trying to push the mullahs out of power is based on his own claim that he has a direct line of communication with the Hidden Imam, a Messiah-like figure in Shiite Islam who is supposed to emerge at the end of time to install eternal justice.

Ahmadinejad constantly talks of the Hidden Imam but almost never mentions Ruhollah Khomeini, the mullah who created the present regime. Nor is Ahmadinejad keen to pay tribute to Khamenei. A man who talks to God wouldn't bother with mere saints.

Several times a year, Ahmadinejad takes his entire cabinet to Jamkaran, a suburb of the "holy" city of Qom south of Tehran, to report to the Hidden Imam. In Jamkaran there is a well that is supposed to lead to the place where the Hidden Imam is in hiding. In a solemn ceremony, Ahmadinejad throws copies of his government's budget and other edicts into the well for consideration by the Hidden Imam.

The message is clear: A government that is preparing for the end of times, under the command of the Hidden Imam, does not need the mullahs.

Isn't it reassuring to know that the people who are most likely to topple Ahmadinejad are even more fundamentalist?

Gazans shooting white phosphorus shells into Israel. UN silent.

We all know that white phosphorus is the most hideous substance known to man, and represents the depths of immorality and scandal - but only when it is used by Israel.

Otherwise, no biggie.

From Israel's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

1. On November 19, a phosphorus-containing mortar shell was fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip. It was part of an unusual attack consisting of four rockets and seven mortar shells, which may have been fired in response to the killing of Islam Yassin, an Army of Islam operative who was planning to abduct Israelis in the Sinai Peninsula. The Israeli Foreign Minister instructed the Israeli ambassador to the UN to submit a complaint to the UN Secretary General and to the Security Council chairman (Israel's Foreign Ministry website, November 19, 2010).

2. In a previous incident which took place on the morning of September 15, 2010, one day after the Sharm el-Sheikh summit,1 terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip fired an exceptional number of rockets and mortar shells at Israel (about 10 rockets). The mortar shells landed in the Eshkol Regional Council territory. At least two of them were 120-mm mortar shells which contained white phosphorus.2 No casualties or damage were reported.

3. Terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip have used phosphorus-containing mortar shells before. In Operation Cast Lead, a number of such mortar shells were fired on IDF forces, probably by Hamas. Prior to these two incidents, however, terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip avoided making routine use of such mortar shells.

In the two incidents, Hamas denied using phosphorus-containing mortar shells:

- Hamas administration spokesman Taher al-Nunu claimed that Foreign Minister Lieberman’s remarks on the use of phosphorus shells were untrue. He said they were designed to cast the “resistance” (i.e., the terrorist organizations) in a negative light and provide an excuse for Israel’s own use of such ammunition (Al-Quds TV, November 20, 2010).

- Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri claimed that no “phosphorus bombs” had been fired at Israel and that Israel was making an attempt to justify its intensifying military operations against the Gaza Strip and divert public opinion on the international scene (Palestine-info, September 15, 2010).

- On the other hand, an Al-Jazeera reporter said that the use of phosphorus was hardly a surprise. Al-Jazeera crew doing a research piece on the activity of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the Hamas military wing) had discovered that they recycled white phosphorus from Israeli shells found in the Gaza Strip and stored it in the Gaza Strip, apparently for future use (Al-Jazeera, September 16, 2010).

(h/t Joel)

Erdogan accepts "human rights" award, criticizes freedom of expression

Palestine Today reports that Turkey's Prime Minister received Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights in Tripoli, Libya, on Monday.

In his speech, he said that Turkey would not allow any attack on Islam or Islamic values under the pretext of freedom of expression.

He mentioned that the lives of Gaza's children are sacred.

He also said that Turkey would not remain silent and indifferent to violence in the world.

For some reason, he did not use the Armenian genocide as an historic example of the world's silence and indifference to violence.

Jordanian kicks Israelis out of her restaurant. Jordanians cheer.

From Al Arabiya:

A Jordanian woman gained tremendous fame after refusing to receive a group of Israeli tourists at her restaurant in protest of the crimes of the Jewish state against the Palestinian people.

Several professional associations and rights organizations praised the action taken by Salwa al-Barghouti when she decided to kick Israeli tourists out of her restaurant in the coastal city of al-Aqaba, 370 kilometers off the capital Amman.

Barghouti represents all the Jordanian people in their rejection of the Zionist state, said Maysara Malas, head of the Higher Executive Committee for Anti-Normalization.

“Many Jordanians take similar actions, yet nobody knows about them because the media doesn’t know what they do,” he added.

News of Barghouti’s stance spread all over Jordan and shortly after, she made headlines and several media outlets vied for posting her statements.

“I heard customers entering the restaurants speak Hebrew,” she told the press. “I felt extremely angry and remembered all the crimes Israel is committing against Palestinians, so I asked them to leave.”

Barghouti said she does not approve of the strong attention that was given to her action by the media.

“I am against dealing with Zionists in any possible way and I see this as very normal.”

The Israeli tourists who were kicked out, Barghouti added, filed a complaint against her and she was summoned by state security.

“They asked me to sign a document pledging not to mistreat tourists or kick them out of my restaurant again, but I refused.”

Barghouti insisted on her stance and stressed that she will act in the same way if a similar situation takes places.

“My position will never change and I will never allow Israelis into my restaurant,” she concluded.

She told one newspaper that the way to identify Israeli tourists is if they have jewelry with a Star of David, or if they are wearing some type of head covering (translated as "hood.")

She was praised by a Jordanian committee against normalization with the Zionist enemy.

Latest nefarious Zionist plot to "storm" the Temple Mount

Palestine Today quotes Arutz-7 about the latest insidious Zionist plan to "storm the Al Aqsa Mosque."

On Chanukah, Jews plan to peacefully go to the Temple Mount and study where the various parts of the Second Temple were.

They quote an organizer of this plot as saying that the Islamic Movement in Israel brings hundreds of people there to teach them about the history of Al Aqsa Mosque, so this would be roughly the same thing, since both of those activities are educational.

Horrors!

Maldives Islamic Foundation: "Israelis coming to steal our organs"

From Minivan News (Maldives):

The Islamic Foundation of the Maldives has reiterated calls to the Maldives government to “shun all medical aid from the Zionist regime” with a team of seven Israeli eye surgeons due to arrive in the country next month, claiming that Isreali doctors and surgeons “have become notorious for illegally harvesting organs from non-Jews around the world.”

An article on the Foundation’s website titled “Beware of Israeli eye surgeons” claims Israeli medical teams have harvested organs from dead Haitians after the devastating earthquake that struck country as well as from Palestinians killed in fighting in the longstanding Arab-Isreali conflict.

“The health authorities in Maldives have to take utmost caution in allowing Israeli medical surgeons into this country and Maldivians who apply for treatment from these doctors have to take precautionary measures to avoid any foul play,” it reads.

A day after the government-run Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) announced the imminent arrival of the Israeli doctors, the Islamic Foundation called on the government not to normalise relations with the Jewish state or “accept any sort of assistance from Israel as long as they are in the lands of Palestine.”

President of Islamic Foundation Ibrahim Fauzy told Minivan News last week that the Foundation does not recognise Israel as a state, asserting that “it is also against our religion to have relationships with Jews.”

The Islamic Foundation website says:

Not long after the news of the horrible earthquake that struck Haiti, Israeli medical teams jumped on the scene to harvest organs from dead or injured Haitians. There have been various reports of allegations on the news media about Israeli medical teams working in disaster zones secretly stealing organs from fresh corpses.

Organ harvesting is a long standing practice by Israeli medical establishment who profit from the criminal act or are rewarded in many ways.

Israel has secretly been removing body parts (including skin and bones) of Palestinians to be used on its injured soldiers and Jews who require surgical transplanting of organs.

While the Maldives has zero freedom of religion - one may not practice any religion besides Islam openly, and non-Muslims may not become citizens - the readers of the Minivan article were overwhelmingly dismissive - and even hostile - towards the Islamic Foundation.

Blog update

Still trying to recover the blog to a reasonable style, and not happy with spending this much time on it.

On some browsers/machines, it seems to look reasonable; on others, the background is a sickly green. I cannot figure out why. Somehow there is a CSS or something that is overriding the template settings I chose, but for some reason they do not override when you view an individual post, just the home page.

I do not think I will even try to put it back the way it was.

As for comments, they were supposed to have migrated over to the correct posts...and that doesn't seem to have happened. I don't know enough about the comment system yet to know whether you can search for your old posts; I honestly haven't had time to play with it as I try to fix the template.

The one bit of good news is that Ruthie will not need to add the titles of the post to the comment threads anymore!

Que sera sera...

To counter a planned boycott action, a number of organizations have designated Tuesday as Buy Israeli Goods day.

If you live in a major metropolitan area in North America, this site has a list of local stores that carry Israeli goods. Ask the store manager specifically what he sells from Israel - and buy the goods you need!

Otherwise, you can go to one of the many sites that sell Israeli goods online, like Israeli Products, Shop in Israel or The Zionist Mall (run by the excellent The Vicious Babushka blog.)

Chanukah starts on Wednesday night, so get shopping and join the Buycott!

OK, I screwed up the blog

I made some mistake as I was trying to upgrade the comments...and I made a very bad newbie mistake: I didn't back up my template.

Now I am not sure I can recover. Working on it, but things will be screwy for the foreseeable future.
Sorry!

Ahmadinejad admits Stuxnet damaged centrifuges

From the NYT:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that “undoubtedly the hand of the Zionist regime and Western governments is involved. ” He also publicly acknowledged, apparently for the first time, that the country’s nuclear program had been disrupted recently by a malicious computer software that attacked its centrifuges.

Speaking at a news conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad vowed the nuclear program would continue, but acknowledged damage from the computer worm. “They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts,” he said.

Iranian officials had previously acknowledged unspecified problems with Iran’s centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium that can be used for peaceful energy generation or atomic weapons. But the Iranians had always denied the problems were caused by malicious computer code.

A worm known as Stuxnet is believed to have struck Iran over the summer. Experts said that the program, which is precisely calibrated to send nuclear centrifuges wildly out of control, was likely developed by a state government.

Mr. Ahmadinejad did not specify the type of malware or its perpetrators but said that “fortunately our experts discovered that and today they are not able anymore.”

If they are admitting a little, that means that they got damaged a lot.

See also Fox News' Stuxnet article.

(h/t Zach)

Which 2010 Elder post was the best example of hasbara?

It didn't seem becoming to nominate anything I did this year for the Hasby Awards, since there is a little conflict of interest there, but a number of people did place nominations for postings and videos of mine.

Here they are, with some of my favorites added.

So here you can vote on what you think was the best/most effective EoZ activity this year:

1. Happy Nakba! What really happened in Jaffa, 1948

2. Kfar Hashiloach ("Silwan"), 1891 and 1932

3. Gaza Mall - the video!

4. The camera angle that the Dubai police withheld

5. "Civilians"

6. The Mamilla Cemetery: Arab hypocrisy at its worst and Mamilla Update

7. Muslims freak over WJC meeting

8. The horror of the refugee camps:

9. Stomach-turning deprivation at Gaza museum

10. Saeb Erekat - I am a liar

11. The If/Then Fallacy

12. The Death Owl (Zvi)

13. Invest in Gaza!

14: Gaza: The "staggering quality of the very ordinary"

15. Tisha B'Av - a reason to cry

16. The Abbas/Apartheid Poster Series

Vote!

Afternoon links

Iran's war against the West on social media sites by Israeligirl

Palestinian revisionism is the only obstacle to peace by Danny Ayalon (sorry, forgot who to h/t)

Israel vs. the International Criminal Court by Anne Herzberg

On Thanksgiving, Turkey is eating up US interests by Barry Simon

Jeffrey Goldberg (and many others, including a major Farsi-language site) noticed my post on Iran sending weapons to Lebanon hidden as medical aid. But how can he make two spelling mistakes on my name?

Norman Finkelstein goes completely off the rails (h/t Silke)

National Geographic on Israel's biblical archaeology wars (h/t O)

Finally, some hard metal for Chanukah. The only thing that would make this more awesome would be if they sang it in the original Yiddish: (h/t YK)

Wikileaks: How to negotiate with Iranians (1979)

Here's a notable cable, from 1979 - in the wake of the Islamic revolution in Iran - on how Iranians think, and what precautions diplomats need to take in negotiating with Iranians.

INTRODUCTION: RECENT NEGOTIATIONS IN WHICH THE EMBASSY HAS BEEN INVOLVED HERE, RANGING FROM COMPOUND SECURITY TO VISA OPERATIONS TO GTE TO THE SHERRY CASE, HIGHLIGHT SEVERAL SPECIAL FEATURES OF CONDUCTING BUSINESS IN THE PERSIAN ENVIRONMENT. IN SOME INSTANCES THE DIFFICULTIES WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED ARE A PARTIAL REFLECTION ON THE EFFECTS OF THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION, BUT WE BELIEVE THE UNDERLYING CULTURAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL QUALITIES THAT ACCOUNT FOR THE NATURE OF THESE DIFFICULTIES ARE AND WILL REMAIN RELATIVELY CONSTANT. THEREFORE, WE SUGGEST THAT THE FOLLOWING ANALYSIS BE USED TO BRIEF BOTH USG PERSONNEL AND PRIVATE SECTOR REPRESENTATIVES WHO ARE REQUIRED TO DO BUSINESS WITH AND IN THIS COUNTRY. END INTRODUCTION.

¶3. PERHAPS THE SINGLE DOMINANT ASPECT OF THE PERSIAN PSYCHE IS AN OVERRIDING EGOISM. ITS ANTECEDENTS LIE IN THE LONG IRANIAN HISTORY OF INSTABILITY AND INSECURITY WHICH PUT A PREMIUM ON SELF-PRESERVATION. THE PRACTICAL EFFECT OF IT IS AN ALMOST TOTAL PERSIAN PREOCCUPATION WITH SELF AND LEAVES LITTLE ROOM FOR UNDERSTANDING POINTS OF VIEW OTHER THAN ONE'S OWN. ...

¶4. THE REVERSE OF THIS PARTICULAR PSYCHOLOGICAL COIN, AND HAVING THE SAME HISTORICAL ROOTS AS PERSIAN EGOISM, IS A PERVASIVE UNEASE ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE WORLD IN WHICH ONE LIVES. THE PERSIAN EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN THAT NOTHING IS PERMANENT AND IT IS COMMONLY PERCEIVED THAT HOSTILE FORCES ABOUND. IN SUCH AN ENVIRONMENT EACH INDIVIDUAL MUST BE CONSTANTLY ALERT FOR OPPORTUNITIES TO PROTECT HIMSELF AGAINST THE MALEVOLENT FORCES THAT WOULD OTHERWISE BE HIS UNDOING. HE IS OBVIOUSLY JUSTIFIED IN USING ALMOST ANY MEANS AVAILABLE TO EXPLOIT SUCH OPPORTUNITIES. THIS APPROACH UNDERLIES THE SOCALLED "BAZAAR MENTALITY" SO COMMON AMONG PERSIANS, A MIND-SET THAT OFTEN IGNORES LONGER TERM INTERESTS IN FAVOR OF IMMEDIATELY OBTAINABLE ADVANTAGES AND COUNTENANCES PRACTICES THAT ARE REGARDED AS UNETHICAL BY OTHER NORMS.

¶5. COUPLED WITH THESE PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS IS A GENERAL INCOMPREHENSION OF CASUALITY. ISLAM, WITH ITS EMPHASIS ON THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD, APPEARS TO ACCOUNT AT LEAST IN MAJOR PART FOR THIS PHENOMENON. SOMEWHAT SURPRISINGLY, EVEN THOSE IRANIANS EDUCATED IN THE WESTERN STYLE AND PERHAPS WITH LONG EXPERIENCE OUTSIDE IRAN ITSELF FREQUENTLY HAVE DIFFICULTY GRASPING THE INTER-RELATIONSHIP OF EVENTS. WITNESS A YAZDI RESISTING THE IDEA THAT IRANIAN BEHAVIOR HAS CONSEQUENCES ON THE PERCEPTION OF IRAN IN THE U.S. OR THAT THIS PERCEPTION IS SOMEHOW RELATED TO AMERICAN POLICIES REGARDING IRAN. THIS SAME QUALITY ALSO HELPS EXPLAIN PERSIAN AVERSION TO ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONE'S OWN ACTIONS. THE DEUS EX MACHINA IS ALWAYS AT WORK.

¶6. THE PERSIAN PROCLIVITY FOR ASSUMING THAT TO SAY SOMETHING IS TO DO IT FURTHER COMPLICATES MATTERS. ...

¶6. FINALLY, THERE ARE THE PERSIAN CONCEPTS OF INFLUENCE AND OBLIGATION. EVERYONE PAYS OBEISANCE TO THE FORMER AND THE LATTER IS USUALLY HONORED IN THE BREACH. PERSIANS ARE CONSUMED WITH DEVELOPING PARTI BAZI--THE INFLUENCE THAT WILL HELP GET THINGS DONE--WHILE FAVORS ARE ONLY GRUDGINGLY BESTOWED AND THEN JUST TO THE EXTENT THAT A TANGIBLE QUID PRO QUO IS IMMEDIATELY PRECEPTIBLE. FORGET ABOUT ASSISTANCE PROFERRED LAST YEAR OR EVEN LAST WEEK; WHAT CAN BE OFFERED TODAY?

¶7. THERE ARE SEVERAL LESSONS FOR THOSE WHO WOULD NEGOTIATE WITH PERSIANS IN ALL THIS:

- --FIRST, ONE SHOULD NEVER ASSUME THAT HIS SIDE OF THE ISSUE WILL BE RECOGNIZED, LET ALONE THAT IT WILL BE CONCEDED TO HAVE MERITS. PERSIAN PREOCCUPATION WITH SELF PRECLUDES THIS. A NEGOTIATOR MUST FORCE RECOGNITION OF HIS POSITION UPON HIS PERSIAN OPPOSITE NUMBER.

- --SECOND, ONE SHOULD NOT EXPECT AN IRANIAN READILY TO PERCEIVE THE ADVANTAGES OF A LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP BASED ON TRUST. HE WILL ASSUME THAT HIS OPPOSITE NUMBER IS ESSENTIALLY AN ADVERSARY. IN DEALING WITH HIM HE WILL ATTEMPT TO MAXIMIZE THE BENEFITS TO HIMSELF THAT ARE IMMEDIATELY OBTAINABLE. HE WILL BE PREPARED TO GO TO GREAT LENGTHS TO ACHIEVE THIS GOAL, INCLUDING RUNNING THE RISK OF SO ALIENATING WHOEVER HE IS DEALING WITH THAT FUTURE BUSINESS WOULD BE UNTHINKABLE, AT LEAST TO THE LATTER.

- --THIRD, INTERLOCKING RELATIONSHIPS OF ALL ASPECTS OF AN ISSUE MUST BE PAINSTAKINGLY, FORECEFULLY AND REPEATEDLY DEVELOPED. LINKAGES WILL BE NEITHER READILY COMPREHENDED NOR ACCEPTED BY PERSIAN NEGOTIATORS.

- --FOURTH, ONE SHOULD INSIST ON PERFORMANCE AS THE SINE QUA NON AT ESH STAGE OF NEGOTIATIONS. STATEMENTS OF INTENTION COUNT FOR ALMOST NOTHING.

- --FIFTH, CULTIVATION OF GOODWILL FOR GOODWILL'S SAKE IS A WASTE OF EFFORT. THE OVERRIDING OBJECTIVE AT ALL TIMES SHOULD BE IMPRESSING UPON THE PERSIAN ACROSS THE TABLE THE MUTUALITY OF THE PROPOSED UNDERTAKINGS, HE MUST BE MADE TO KNOW THAT A QUID PRO QUO IS INVOLVED ON BOTH SIDES.

- --FINALLY, ONE SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR THE THREAT OF BREAKDOWN IN NEGOTIATIONS AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT AND NOT BE COWED BY THE POSSIBLITY. GIVEN THE PERSIAN NEGOTIATOR'S CULTURAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS, HE IS GOING TO RESIST THE VERY CONCEPT OF A RATIONAL (FROM THE WESTERN POINT OF VIEW) NEGOTIATING PROCESS.

I would guess that things are a little different now, only because the Iranian leadership is committed to a policy of lying about and hiding its nuclear program as a state-level function, not merely on the personal plane that this cable is speaking about. But it is still illuminating, and probably not far off from the truth.

"We're tapping phone lines - I know that that ain't allowed"

From Ha'aretz:

The United States broke an Israeli code and tapped the secure phone line in the Israeli Embassy in Washington without Jerusalem's knowledge.

That revelation about Israeli-American relations did not come from WikiLeaks, but rather from former ambassador to Washington Itamar Rabinovich, in a radio interview yesterday.

Rabinovich did not say exactly when the code was broken and when Israel found out about it, but it was understood from his remarks that the tap started after his 1993-1996 tenure in the U.S. capital and was discovered only years later.

The former envoy said that every staffer at the Israeli Embassy in Washington is warned about possible leaks of conversations held in the building and on ordinary phone lines, but also on the secure phone line.

After the Americans broke the code, Israel's deepest policy secrets were apparently exposed.

"Every 'juicy' telegram was in danger of being leaked," Rabinovich told Army Radio's Razi Barkai. "We sent very few of them. Sometimes I came to Israel to deliver reports orally. The Americans were certainly tapping the regular phone lines, and it became clear that in later years they were also listening to the secure line."

Imagine the outcry that would be sweeping the world now if it was Israel caught tapping US diplomatic phone lines.

It is no secret that allies spy on each other, and when such activities are caught, they are usually handled discreetly. But shouldn't Israel make a stink, just once, in order to get Jonathan Pollard finally released?

Wikileaks: Netanyahu's critique of the Lebanon war, and more

An interesting memo from a meeting between Representative Gary Ackerman and Binyomin Netanyahu while he was opposition leader in April, 2007:

Netanyahu commented that Shimon Peres had admitted to
him that the Oslo process had been based on a mistaken
economic premise, and as a result European and U.S.
assistance to the Palestinians had gone to create a bloated
bureaucracy, with PA employees looking to the international
community to meet their payroll. Netanyahu predicted that
Palestinians would vote for Abbas if they believe that he can
deliver the money. He suggested putting in place an
"economic squeeze with an address," so that Hamas would
receive the popular blame. Asked if Fatah knew how to
conduct an election campaign, Netanyahu said the Palestinian
patronage system should be forced to collapse, which would
have an immediate impact since the entire Palestinian economy
was based on graft and patronage. Instead, he asserted, the
opposite was happening. Hamas was also handling the prisoner
release issue well since they had created the impression that
Hamas was in control of the process and "sticking it to the
Israelis."

Turning to the Second Lebanon War, Netanyahu said the
problem was not the war's goals but rather the disconnect
between goals and methods. If the IDF had used a flanking
move by a superior ground force, it could have won easily.
Instead, Israel "dripped troops into their gunsights," an
approach he termed "stupid." The top leadership had lacked a
sense of military maneuver. In addition, they had been
afraid to take military casualties, but instead got many
civilian casualties. If Olmert had mobilized the reserves in
ten days, seized ground, destroyed Hizballah in southern
Lebanon, and then withdrawn, he would be a hero today.

Netanyahu asserted there was a growing sense in the
public that he had been right in the last election.
Unilateral "retreats" (i.e. such as the withdrawals from Gaza
and southern Lebanon) were the wrong way to go. Israel had
allowed an Iranian enclave to establish itself in Gaza.
Syria was arming itself for the first time in 20 years,
Hizballah had rearmed since the war, and Gaza was being
turned into a bunker. Egypt was not doing on a twelve mile
front along the Gaza border what Jordan was doing on a
150-mile front. The way out was to stop Iran, thereby
dealing with the octopus, not just its tentacles.

Netanyahu stated that a return to the 1967 borders
and dividing Jerusalem was not a solution since further
withdrawals would only whet the appetite of radical Islam.
Ackerman asked if the Palestinians would accept peace based
on the 1967 lines. Netanyahu said he would not agree to such
a withdrawal since the 1967 lines were indefensible, but he
added that the "right of return" was the real acid test of
Arab intentions. Instead of Israel making more step-by-step
concessions, Israel should insist that further concessions be
linked to reciprocal steps toward peace. The Palestinians
must drop the right of return and accept Israel's right to
exist. The Arab initiative did not meet this standard since
it keeps the right of return open. Israel will only have a
peace partner when the Palestinians drop the right of return.
Asked whether Israel could accept case by case exceptions,
Netanyahu insisted not one refugee could ever return. Israel,
after all, was not asking for the right of Jews to return to
Baghdad or Cairo.

Netanyahu said UNSCR 242 was not a bad formula since
it did not specify precisely from which territories Israel
would withdraw. After the withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon,
there was deep disillusionment among Israelis about the
principle of land for peace. Even the noted Israeli leftist
writer AB Yehoshua had said in a recent interview that he
despaired about peace because the Arabs wanted all of Israel.
From 1948 to 1967, the conflict had not been about occupied
territories, but that point had been obscured by "effective
propaganda." The root of the conflict was an Arab desire to
destroy Israel, which had now become part of the larger
ambitions of radical Islam.

The 1967 borders were not the solution since Israel
was the only force blocking radical Islam's agenda of
overrunning Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu proposed that
Israel offer to work with the Saudis against Iran. If Iran
was not stopped, there would be no agreement with the
Palestinians, and the peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt
would come under tremendous pressure. There could be no
deterrence against "crazies" such as Ahmadinejad.

Building boom in Gaza

From YNet:

Gaza's residents are no longer complaining about a coriander shortage. Israeli snacks are flowing into the Strip as well, through the Kerem Shalom crossing – at the approval and under the full supervision of the Hamas government.

The lifting of the siege in June gave the Gazans room to breathe. With the money in the Strip – and there is quite a lot of it in dollars, dinars, and even shekels – they can buy whatever they want.

Food and other products flow into Gaza with hardly any restrictions. What doesn't come from Israel, because the price is too high, continues to flow in through the Rafah tunnels.

"There are a slew of products here, and beautiful restaurants. Is this the Gaza we have been hearing about?" A Sudanese official, who arrived in the Strip about a month ago with hundreds of visitors from Arab countries on the "Viva Palestina" aid convoy, was quoted by Palestinian news agency Maan as saying.

"Where is the siege? I don't see it in Gaza. I wish Sudan's residents could live under the conditions of the Gazan siege," he reportedly added.[I could not find the original quote - EoZ]

One of the main characteristics of the economic change in the Strip is the renovation and construction drive. Buildings are being built in every corner. Hamas is renovating the public buildings destroyed in Israeli air raids during Operation Cast Lead, including the bombed Legislative Council building on Omar al-Mukhtar Boulevard and the police headquarters.

But the renovation of public buildings is nothing compared to Hamas' flagship project: The building of 25,000 new housing units in the city, some on lands of the former Gush Katif settlements.

The goal is not only to overcome the huge apartment shortage – which stems mainly from the natural growth, the damages of the war, and the halt in construction in the past three years – but mainly to benefit the people, whose support Hamas seeks in order to establish its rule.

The plan is to construct multi-story buildings ("we have no land to spare," explains a Gaza housing ministry official) and neighborhoods built as independent residential areas. A mosque will be set up at the center of each neighborhood, alongside shopping centers, schools and kindergartens. Access roads will be paved and even playgrounds for children.

Hamas has allotted tens of millions of dollars to the building project. There is apparently no shortage of money. Generous donations are flowing in from Iran, Islamic associations across the Arab worlds, and governmental elements in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Western elements.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been mercilessly pursuing Hamas in the West Bank, is aiding Gaza with millions of dollars, boasting that 57% of the Palestinian Authority budget is directed at the Strip.

Abbas pays the salaries of 70,000 government workers from the post-Hamas era, maintains the health and education systems, and even funds some of Gaza's electricity production expenses.

International organizations are also operating in Gaza in full force. Since the Turkish flotilla, Israel has approved – through the Civil Administration – 70 projects of building infrastructure for the health, education and sanitation systems by international elements.

At the request of the United Nations secretary-general, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the transfer of building materials – including gravel – for the construction of a large residential neighborhood for refugees in Khan Younis.

In addition, Hamas has been implementing a new tax system: 14% value added tax, 8% income tax. For each liter of gas flowing into the Strip from Gaza and sold for about NIS 2 (50 cents), the government charges 60 agorot (16 cents). A fee is imposed on all goods arriving from Israel. Each new motorcycle smuggled through the tunnels carries an NIS 300 ($82) tax.

In order to settle the contradiction between the new taxes and the laws of Islam, which state that the only taxes which can be collected are 10% of the Muslim's income which must go to charity, Hamas says it is working to create a social justice system.

And so, in measured steps, without a siege and with a lot of foreign aid, Gaza's economy is starting to recover, as is the agriculture and some of the industries. The Hamas government has recovered from Operation Cast Lead, emerged from the financial distress and is now focused not only on improving its military capabilities, but also on strengthening its hold of the government and imposing an Islamic rule in Gaza.

Israel's "peace partner" wants to turn the clock back to 1947

Today, the anniversary of the 1947 UN Partition Plan which recommended the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state in Palestine, is now described by the UN as a "Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People."

Israel's moderate, pragmatic peace partner has yet again expressed its wish for Israel to disappear.

From Ma'an:

The PA also said that 1947 UN partition plan "a dangerous turning point which led to our catastrophe and loss of our land and historic heritage."

"We are still paying a heavy toll day and night," for this decision, the statement added.

The PA Ministry of Information statement - not available on its English site - is here. They go on to demand the "right to return" to destroy Israel, and an end to Israeli "colonialism" - which, by their definition, includes all of Israel.

The Ministry also favorably quotes from the 1968 Palestine National Covenant:

Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the right to self-determination.

It does mention the 1988 "Declaration of Independence" which tempered that stand somewhat:

Despite the historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian Arab people resulting in their dispersion and depriving them of their right to self-determination, following upon U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), which partitioned Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, yet it is this Resolution that still provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty.

But, pointedly, they do not recognize the identical rights conferred on the Jewish people.

The world will once again ignore the near-explicit desire by the Palestinian Authority for Israel to be wiped out and replaced with a wholly Arab state, and expect Israel to keep negotiating with those hell-bent to destroy it.

Draft law in Turkey: Foreigners can buy land - but not Israelis

From Hurriyet (Turkey):

A draft prepared by Turkey’s Ministry of Public Works and Housing would ease rules for property sales to foreign nationals, but some will not be able to enjoy the relaxed conditions. According to the draft, citizens of Israel and Greece will not be able to purchase land in Turkey, while such sales to citizens of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab nations will be relaxed considerably.

The Turkish government has pressed the button on a new policy to ease regulations regarding foreign nationals’ purchasing land in Turkey, but a clause restricting Israeli and Greek nationals from buying Turkish land is causing controversy.

Daily Milliyet’s real estate expert Tebernüş Kireççi wrote Wednesday that if approved by Parliament, a draft prepared by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing may render Turkey “one of the top countries for foreigners in real estate ease-of-purchase.”

“All foreign nationals will be able to buy real estate, provided they have a passport and mug shots,” Milliyet reported. “While selling property and land, there will be no need to check if the foreign national’s country has a reciprocity agreement with Turkey.” The term refers to two countries that recognize their respective citizens as having the same rights.

However, a controversial restriction in the draft involves the sale of construction parcels and farmland to citizens of Israel and Greece, Milliyet reported. While all other foreign nationals may be able to buy as much as 99,000 square meters of land, Israeli and Greek citizens will not be able to purchase parcels and land in Turkey. Another controversial clause in the draft says citizens of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Arab Gulf states will be able to purchase land even without any restriction on size.

A previous proposal to limit the usage rights of foreigners regarding property they purchased in Turkey to 99 years has been shelved, Milliyet said. According to the new policy, foreign nationals owning property in Turkey would have usage rights without any time limitation.

Sounds like Turkey would be a great addition to the EU!

(corrected)