Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 06, 2010

Telegraph(UK) says Mossad behind Iranian scientist hit

Inside a secret bomb-proof building in a Tel Aviv suburb, which Google Earth does not include on its website, some of the occupants last week exchanged high-fives at their work stations. According to insiders, several sent each other the same message: The Chief’s Last Hit.

That “chief” was Meir Dagan, the outgoing head of Mossad. On his first day in office eight years ago, Mr Dagan had stood on a table in the organisation’s canteen and promised to support any operation against any of Israel’s enemies, with every means he had — legal or illegal.

He could allow his field agents to use prescribed nerve toxins, dumdum bullets and methods of killing that even the Russian or Chinese secret services would not use.

“We are like the hangman, or the doctor on Death Row who administers the lethal injection,” he said, as – by his own account – his agents listened, enthralled.

“Our actions are all endorsed by the state of Israel. When we kill we are not breaking the law. We are fulfilling a sentence sanctioned by the prime minister of the day.”

Earlier this month, “the chief” and a small team of specialists — analysts, weapons experts and psychologists – met in a conference room adjoining his office. With them was a brigadier-general, the head of the kidon. Named after the Hebrew word for bayonet, the kidon is a unit with 38 elite assassins at its disposal, including five women.

Operating out of a military base in the Negev Desert, all are in their twenties, and trained both as expert killers and as expert linguists: a number are fluent in Persian.

Last Monday, a thousand miles further east in the Iranian capital, Tehran, it appears that the kidon put both of those skills into practice, killing a top nuclear scientist and critically injuring a second as they drove through the rush-hour traffic.

Both were key figures in the Iranian nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is for civilian use only, but which Mossad has long perceived as the ultimate expression of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map”.

In one car was 45-year-old Majid Shahriyari, Iran’s leading expert in designing nuclear switches, a key part in the construction of nuclear weapons. Ali Alker Saler, an Iranian nuclear official, has described Shahriyari’s work as “only handling the big projects”.

The week before he was assassinated, the nuclear scientist had returned from North Korea. Intelligence sources in Seoul have suggested that Mr Shahriyari had gone to Pyongyang to discuss a co-production deal over nuclear centrifuges.

Claims have also emerged that on his flight home via Syria, a Mossad deep cover agent had spotted Mr Shahriyari at Damascus International Airport as he waited for a connecting flight to Tehran.

In another quarter of Tehran, another top nuclear scientist, Fareydoun Abbasi-Davani, was also on his way to work at his laboratory at Shahid Beheshti University.

A world expert on isotope separation, he was routinely driven around by a member of the Revolutionary Guards and, like Mr Shahriyari, had a phone link on his car to Tehran’s security headquarters. That, however, was the only protection the car had.

To assist in the attack, Persian-speaking Mossad deep cover agents have been steadily infiltrating Iran for years. How exactly they helped the hitmen flit in and out of the country remains a secret.

But clues to their methods have been provided by Hossein Sajedina, Tehran’s police chief. He confirmed last week how Shahriyari was killed and Abbasi-Davani seriously injured. “Two motorcyclists had approached their cars and attached bombs on the vehicle which exploded at once,” he said.

There have been unconfirmed reports that the bombs had suction pads fitted to them which had enabled them to be attached to the windscreen of each car.

Within hours Mr Sajedina had accused Mossad of the crimes. In Tel Aviv a government spokesman said Israel had not been involved.

When the news reached Mossad headquarters, the high-fives started, I am told. Yet the day the attack was carried out had also been chosen by “the chief” to formally announce his resignation.

Video of Mike Huckabee, 12/5/2010, part 2

He talks about Wikileaks, Israel and his visits to Yad Vashem.

Part 1 here.

Wikileaks: Hezbollah's fiber optics network, courtesy of Iran

From JPost:

In yet another WikiLeaks release of leaked US State Department cables on Sunday, it was revealed that Hizbullah established a complete fiber optic communications network throughout Lebanon, independent of the country's communications system, which he said Iran fully financed.

Lebanese Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh decried the establishment of the separate communications network, calling it "a strategic victory for Iran." Hamdeh said that setting up the fiber optics network was "the final step in creating a nation-state, and that "Hizbullah now has an army and weapons; a television station; an education system; hospitals; a financial system; and a telecommunications system."

Discussing the options of the Lebanese government in countering the independent communications network, Hamadeh said that the Hariri government had two choices: to seek a UN Security Council resolution, or to cut the fiber optic lines. However, the telecommunications minister said he was told by a Hizbullah official that "any move against the FiOS [fiber optics system] would be taken as 'an Israeli attack' and dealt with accordingly."

In statements to US Charge d'Affaires Michele Sison in Beirut, Hamadeh expressed fear for his and other government officials' physical safety for exposing and challenging the Hizbullah communications network. He said that the anti-Syrian, anti-Hizbullah March 14 movement, led by now-Lebanese President Sa'ad Hariri was relaying details of the network to a handful of friendly countries, both in the West and throughout the Arab world.

Hamadeh accused the "Iranian Fund for the Reconstruction of Lebanon" of funding the fiber optics project. He said the same group has been building roads and bridges since the 2006 Second Lebanon War and was using the roads projects as a cover to install the communications lines. Describing the wide reach of the newly installed network, he said the lines run "from Beirut, around both sides of the airport, into the south below the Litani [River] and back up through the Bekaa Valley to the far north." He said it goes through Palestinian refugee camps, Hizbullah training camps, and through Christian areas.

This is not exactly news, but the Western media has been all but ignoring the ugly fact that Iran, through Hezbollah, has already destroyed Lebanon from within. All that is left is a shell of a country that cannot act independently - and that gets threatened if it acts as if it is sovereign.

November: PalArabs kill more PalArab than Israel does, 12-3

I hadn't looked at the statistics in a while, but I just saw that the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights came out with a report listing 12 people killed in November by other PalArabs - 7 in the West Bank and 5 in Gaza.

In that same time period, the IDF killed three Palestinian Arabs - all of whom happened to be terrorists.

I guess that the Palestinian Arabs must be engaging in a genocide against each other, killing each other at a 300% higher rate than Israel is.

Video of Mike Huckabee, 12/5/2010, part 1

The dinner I mentioned earlier had as a guest speaker Mike Huckabee, who is a tremendous friend of Israel. Here's part 1 of his talk (after five minutes of jokes...)

"Secret Zionist chemical weapon responsible for Carmel fire"

Palestine Today continues to uphold its already stellar journalistic standards:

Researcher and Palestinian historian Dr. Nasser Al-Jarbou Aliafawi refuted Israel's claims that the Haifa fire was due to negligence, saying Israel was falsifying the facts. The researcher Jarbou said that the fire resulted from a test chemical in the mountainous areas, adjacent to Carmel,because the fire was close to chemical refineries.

Jarbou in a press statement that if it was a normal fire due to negligence it would not be on this catastrophic scale, but Israel could have contained it quickly.

Well, there you have it.

Extremist right wing dinner open thread

Mrs. Elder and I are on our way to a fundraising dinner for Jewish extremists where they will raise hundreds of thousands of Zionist dollars for their evil plot to live where they want to live.

So while we enjoy the copious amounts of food, here's yet another open thread.

Former Turkish PM: Erdoğan is a stooge of the Jews

From Today's Zaman (Turkey):

The soured relationship with Israel and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's tough line with the Jewish state are all part of a façade to deceive the Turkish public, former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan has claimed.

In an exclusive interview with Today's Zaman at his house in Balgat, Ankara, the 84-year-old leader of the Felicity Party (SP) criticized the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), saying it is in the hands of the worldwide Zionist movement. He implied that the rise of the AK Party was helped by the international Jewish conspiracy and vowed that he will fight back to stem the Zionist grip on the neck of Turkey.

“Why on earth did the AK Party give a ‘go ahead' to the membership of Israel in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] and not block membership? Why did the government consent to multi-billion dollars worth of defense contracts with Israeli firms? He [Erdoğan] says ‘one-minute' to [Israeli president Shimon] Peres during Davos but conducts business as usual with the Jewish state. This is hypocrisy,” Erbakan said.

Erbakan, who was ousted from the government on Feb. 28, 1997, under military pressure, was later banned from politics, and his Welfare Party (RP) was shut down by the Constitutional Court. He was later pardoned and took the helm of the new SP during an extraordinary party congress on Oct. 18. The SP was shaken by an intra-party conflict when the party's former leader, Numan Kurtulmuş, emerged victorious in a dispute with Erbakan over the party administration list during the party's fourth grand party congress in July. Kurtulmuş, who was placed under pressure to resign after July's congress, parted ways with the SP to establish his own party.

Both Prime Minister Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül served in Erbakan's old RP before they, too, parted ways in 2000 and established the AK Party. During the interview Erbakan described both leaders as proxies in the hands of the Jewish conspiracy, though he said, “They [Erdoğan and Gül] do not know they have been serving Israeli interests.” Erbakan offered no proof of his allegations but touted Jewish conspiracy books written by Harun Yahya and Garry Allen located at the table on his left. Books were marked on many pages, and some sections were underlined and highlighted.

...Erbakan also reiterated his fierce opposition to the European Union membership process, saying the EU has been trying to enslave the Turkish people. “We will break the chains of the EU when we come to power and reverse the process,” he vowed. The former prime minister refused to label his party policies as part of politics, but instead offered an explanation of religious tenets that drive his ambitions. “This is like a jihad for us, and it is incumbent upon every Muslim to order ‘the good' and avoid ‘the evil',” he said.

See? Erdoğan is a moderate!

Benny Morris on the insurmountable obstacles to peace

A very worthwhile read at Tablet Magazine by Benny Morris.

I am speaking of a basic, strategic impasse which, unfortunately, is far more cogent and telling than the ongoing “negotiations,” which are unlikely to lead to a peace treaty or even a “framework” agreement for a future peace accord. This unlikelihood stems from a set of obstacles that I see as insurmountable, given current political-ideological mindsets.

The first, the one that American and European officials never express and—if impolitely mentioned in their presence—turn away from in distaste, is that Palestinian political elites, of both the so-called “secular” and Islamist varieties, are dead set against partitioning the Land of Israel/Palestine with the Jews. They regard all of Palestine as their patrimony and believe that it will eventually be theirs. History, because of demography and the steady empowerment of the Arab and Islamic worlds and the West’s growing alienation from Israel, and because of Allah’s wishes, is, they believe, on their side. They do not want a permanent two-state solution, with a Palestinian Arab state co-existing alongside a (larger) Jewish state; they will not compromise on this core belief and do not believe, on moral or practical grounds, that they should.

This basic Palestinian rejectionism, amounting to a Weltanschauung, is routinely ignored or denied by most Western commentators and officials. To grant it means to admit that the Israeli-Arab conflict has no resolution apart from the complete victory of one side or the other (with the corollary of expulsion, or annihilation, by one side of the other)—which leaves leaders like President Barack Obama with nowhere realistic to go with regard to the conflict. Philosophically, acceptance of the rock-like unpliability of this reality is extremely problematic, given the ongoing military and philosophical clash between the West and various forces in the Islamic world. Perhaps the fight between America and its allies and its enemies in the Middle East and South Asia and North Africa and the banlieues of Western Europe will go on and on, until one side is vanquished?

In this connection, our age, it may turn out, resembles the classic age of appeasement, the 1930s, when the Western democracies (and the Soviet Union) were ranged against, but preferred not to confront, Nazi Germany and its allies, Fascist Italy, and expansionist Japan. During that decade, Hitler’s inexorable martial, racist, and uncompromising mindset was misread by Western leaders, officials, and intellectuals—and for much the same reasons. Living in unideological societies, they could not fathom the minds and politics of their ideologically driven antagonists. The leaders and intellectuals of the Western democracies, educated and suffused with liberal and relativist values, by and large were unable to comprehend the essential “otherness” of Hitler and ended up fighting him, to the finish, after negotiation and compromise had proved useless.

Another problem for Westerners is that the Palestinians, by design or no, speak to them in several voices. Hamas, which may represent the majority of the Palestinian people and certainly has the unflinching support of some 40 percent of them, speaks clearly. It openly repudiates a two-state solution. Hamas leaders, to bamboozle naïve (or wicked) Westerners like Henry Siegman [4], occasionally express a tactical readiness for a long-term truce under terms that they know are unacceptable to any Jewish Israelis (complete Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and acceptance of the refugees’ “Right of Return”), but their strategic message is clear, echoing the Roman statesman Cato the Elder: “Israel must be destroyed.”

The secular Palestinian leadership looks to a similar historical denouement but is more flexible on the tactics and pacing. They express a readiness for a two-state solution but envision such an outcome as intermediate and temporary. They speak of two states, a Palestinian Arab West Bank-Gaza-East Jerusalem state and another state whose population is Jewish and Arab and which they believe will eventually become majority-Arab within a generation or two through Arab procreation (Palestinian Arab birth-rates are roughly twice those of Israeli Jews) and the “return” of Palestinians with refugee status. This is why Fatah’s leaders, led by Palestine National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, flatly reject the Clintonian formula of “two states for two peoples” and refuse [5] to recognize the “other” state, Israel, as a “Jewish state.” They hope that this “other” state will also, in time, be “Arabized,” thus setting the stage for the eventual merger of the two temporary states into one Palestinian Arab-majority state between the River and the Sea.

...The key to understanding Fatah objectives today lies in its leaders’ stance on resolving the refugee problem. Contrary to what many Western commentators and analysts have chosen to believe, the Palestinian stress on the importance of the refugees is not a tactical matter—a way to gain further leverage in negotiations. The Palestinian leadership is unanimous and resolute in insisting that the problem’s solution lies in the “Right of Return”: Israel, and the world, must accept the principle of repatriation and eventually facilitate repatriation. The idea that the refugees must return to their homes has been the ethos, the be-all and end-all of Palestinian politics and policy, since 1948. No Palestinian leader can or will ever abandon this principle, on pain of assassination, and none has. (For Western journalistic consumption, Yasser Arafat once vaguely wrote that the Palestinians would take account of Israeli demographic sensibilities when it came to implementing refugee repatriation; and more recently, Abbas was reportedly willing, in his secret 2008 negotiations with then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, to countenance less than full refugee repatriation in the initial phases of a deal. But in their public utterances during the past two years, Abbas and his colleagues have been rock-solid in their advocacy of an unrestricted “Right of Return”—and why not take them at their word?)

And this represents the second insurmountable obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace. The United Nations has on its rolls 4.7 million Palestinian refugees [10]; the PLO claims that there are 7.5 million [11], only a small number of whom belong to the 700,000-odd Palestinians originally displaced from their homes in what became the state of Israel. Some two-thirds of the 700,000 moved or were removed to the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip; one-third ended up in Transjordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Abbas himself is a refugee from Safad, the Arab-majority eastern Galilean town that the U.N. General Assembly partition plan of November 1947 (Resolution 181 [12]) earmarked for Jewish sovereignty.

The vast majority of the current 4.7 to 7.5 million “refugees”—say nine-tenths of them—are the children, grand-children, and great-grandchildren of the originally displaced 700,000. And more than half of them live in Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinian demand that Israel accept a mass refugee return means that, if implemented, Israel, with its 6 million Jewish and 1.5 million Arab citizens, would instantly or over a short time, become an Arab-majority state.

...To these formidable obstacles to peace-making—the unchanging Arab desire for what amounts to Israel’s disappearance and consistent advocacy of the demographic means by which this can be achieved—one may add the hardly routine challenges of differences over future Israeli-Palestinian borders, with sovereignty over Jerusalem’s Old City and, in particular, its Temple Mount complex, and the fate of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The demilitarization of a future Palestinian West Bank-Gaza state is a further bone of contention.

It is hard to envision any circumstances under which the current Obama-initiated direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks can succeed. Politically, the two contending leaders have little room for maneuver and, at least on the Arab side, little will to concede anything. And even if, by some miracle, Abbas and Netanyahu were to reach a framework agreement or even a detailed peace treaty (a departure into the realm of total fantasy) with Abbas accepting the Jewishness of the “other” state and waiving the “Right of Return,” and Netanyahu conceding Arab sovereignty over the bulk of Jerusalem’s Old City, including the Temple Mount, such an agreement would fail to stick and would never be implemented. Abbas might sign off on “an end to the conflict” and “no more demands”—and most likely be assassinated by Arab extremists in consequence—but a majority of Palestinians, and certainly a large minority of them, would continue the struggle, rendering the agreement no more than a wind-blown piece of paper. Hamas, which won the 2006 Palestinian general elections, would denounce the signers as traitors and continue the fight for all of Palestine, as would many in Abbas’ own Fatah party. The agreement would not end the conflict. Nor would it deter or obstruct future, continuing Palestinian claims.

I don't agree with everything he says, but he at least is publicly airing the issues that people who have been following the situation have known about for years, and usually willfully ignore. Peace will not come about through willful ignorance.

(h/t EBoZ and Joel)

The myth of "Jewish-only" roads (Michael Totten)

From Michael Totten at Commentary:

“I can call a president of the United States anything in the book,” she said at an anti-Arab-bias workshop in Detroit, “but I can’t touch Israel, which has Jewish-only roads in the West Bank. No American would tolerate that — white-only roads.”

She’s right that no American would tolerate white-only roads. Israelis, likewise, would never tolerate roads for Jews only. That’s why such roads don’t exist.

The roads she’s referring to in the West Bank are Israeli, and they’re not just for Jews. Israeli Arabs can drive on them, and so can non-Jewish foreigners, including Arab and Muslim foreigners. Palestinians were once able to drive on them but have not been allowed to do so since the second intifada, when suicide bombers used them to penetrate Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in order to massacre people.

There are also, by the way, Palestinian roads in the West Bank that Israelis can’t use.

I don’t know if Helen Thomas knows this and is lying or if she’s just an ignoramus. What I’ll bet she doesn't know is that Arab residents of Jerusalem can use both the Israeli roads and the Palestinian roads. They’re the only people who live in the area who can do this. (Foreigners also are allowed to use both.)

This doesn’t remotely line up with her narrative of perfidious Zion. But it’s true.

By the way, Yid with Lid has the actual video of Thomas' speech.

Al Qaeda poison perfume plot?

From Al Arabiya:

Saudi security sources uncovered Saturday that in a constant attempt to come up with lethal tactics, al-Qaeda was planning to resort to an untraditional weapon that delivers the desired result without explosions or gunfire: perfume.

Al-Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia plotted to put poison in perfumes, especially Arabian fragrances like agarwood, also called “oud,” to then send the bottles to homes and offices of government officials and religious scholars as gifts, local newspaper Okaz reported Saturday.

There are no real details on who was caught and what kinds of poison, so this story almost sounds like something that the Saudi authorities made up to give the impression that they are in the forefront of fighting terrorism.

After all, only last week US state department memos leaked by Wikileaks implicated Saudi Arabia as not doing enough to stop the cash flow from Saudis to terrorist groups.

Brazil's recognition of "Palestine" is self-contradictory

The announcement on the Brazilian foreign ministry website recognizing "Palestine" is self-contradictory:

In a letter sent by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, on 1 December 2010, the Brazilian Government has recognized the Palestinian State based on the existing borders in 1967.

The recognition has taken place following negotiations by the Palestinian side and a letter sent by President Abbas to President Lula, last 24 November, in which he requested the recognition.

The initiative is in accordance with Brazil’s historical willingness to contribute to the peace process between Israel and Palestine, whose direct negotiations are currently on hold, and it is in line with UN resolutions, which have demanded an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories and the construction of an independent State within the borders of 4 June 1967.

The conviction that negotiations between Israel and Palestine are vital for the achievement of mutual concessions on the main issues of the conflict has not been abandoned with this decision.

Brazil reaffirms its traditional position toward a democratic Palestinian State, geographically contiguous and economically viable, co-existing in peace with the State of Israel. Only a democratic, free and sovereign Palestine will meet the legitimate Israeli aspirations for peace with its neighbors, border security and political stability in the region.

How can they recognize the borders while at the same time admit that the two sides still need to negotiate "mutual concessions on the main issues of the conflict"? Isn't the border the main issue?

Not to mention that there was no state of "Palestine" within any borders in 1967, or 1947 for that matter. Moreover - the "borders" they speak of were never recognized as borders, they were armistice lines that were not recognized by any Arab nation nor, as far as I know, by any nation on Earth.

And there is also a major contradiction between the concept of a "geographically contiguous" Palestinian Arab state and Israel's sovereignty over even the 1949 armistice lines, as there is no way for both to be contiguous without Israel giving up some land - even if that land is used to hold up a bridge between the West Bank and Gaza.

Many people are seeing through the sham. From AFP:

US lawmakers condemned Brazil's "severely misguided" and "regrettable" decision Friday to recognize a Palestinian state on borders pre-dating Israel's seizure of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

Brazil's decision "is regrettable and will only serve to undermine peace and security in the Middle East," charged Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ros-Lehtinen, set to chair the panel come January, said "responsible nations" would wait to take such a step until Palestinians return to direct talks with Israel and recognize its "right to exist as a Jewish state."

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced the decision Friday in a public letter addressed to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and published on the website of Brazil's foreign ministry.

Brazil's decision also drew fire from Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, who said it "is severely misguided and represents a last gasp by a Lula-led foreign policy which was already substantially off track."

Engel tied the move to Lula's "coddling" of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and warned that Brazil "wants to establish itself as a voice in the world, but is making the wrong choices as it tries to do so."

"One can only hope that the new leadership coming into Brazil will change course and understand that this is not the way to gain favor as an emerging power or to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council."

Lula will be stepping down in four weeks' time and handing power over to Dilma Roussef, his protegee and former cabinet chief.

"Brazil is sending a message to the Palestinians that they need not make peace to gain recognition as a sovereign state," said Engel, a co-chair of the US Congress's Brazil Caucus.

University drops "Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award"

From NPR:

Wayne State University won't be bestowing any more diversity awards named for Helen Thomas following more controversial remarks by the former dean of the White House press corps.

The university pulled the honor, the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award, after the 90-year-old said this week that "Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by Zionists. No question, in my opinion."

Thomas made those incendiary comments, according to a Detroit News report, before a diversity conference Thursday.

In an earlier report, the newspaper quotes a Wayne State official explaining the obvious, that the university had to put distance between itself and its famous alumna.

"The controversy has brought a negative light to the award, which was never the intent of the award," said Matthew Seeger, interim dean of the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts.

Even the very liberal NPR recognizes that Helen Thomas is a nasty old bigot with its (unprofessional but accurate) side comment of "explaining the obvious."

Wonder if Ray Hanania will figure that out for himself?

"Forest Jihad"

A very interesting article by Jonathan Fighel written two years ago for the International Institute of Counter-Terrorism:

From the beginning of September 2008, a renewed concern emanated from Western intelligence agencies to the effect that Al Qaeda terrorists were planning a “global fireball”, in a departure from its war on the West.[1] Deliberately lighting forest fires in Europe, the US and Australia, would not only stretch emergency services, but would also leave insurance companies facing multi-billion dollar claims, as the credit crunch bites.[2] The fires would also create a pollution disaster, with billions of tons of climate-change gases escaping into the atmosphere. The so-called “forest jihad” is being championed by Islamic scholars and Osama Bin Laden’s terror strategists who believe setting fire to dry woodlands will produce maximum damage at minimum risk.

Already back in November 2007, radical Islamic forums spelled out the terrorists’ mindset in graphic terms. One of the Arabic web sites affiliated with Al Qaeda’s ideas, called “Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network”, posted a long and detailed message, in which it was argued that lighting fires is an effective form of action, justified in Islamic law under the "eye for an eye" doctrine. The posting instructs remembering the "Forest Jihad" during the summer months, noting that "fires cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and can take months to extinguish.” Imagine, if after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organization were to claim responsibility for the forest fires," the website says, "you can hardly begin to imagine the level of fear that would take hold of people in the United States, Europe, Russia and Australia."… [3]

Another Al Qaeda affiliated website,”Al-Jazeeratalk.net” posted a similar message on 27 December 2007, where supporters were reminded, “not to forget the summer forest jihad”. It added: “This is an invitation to the Muslims of Europe and America, Australia and Russia to burn forests.” [5] The message claims that the burning of trees, as a warfare method, is permitted in Islam and it quotes from the Qur’an to back it up. The “benefits” of the fires, are to cause casualties, hit tourist income, create timber shortages for domestic, industrial use and pharmaceuticals, and stretch emergency services.[6]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, arson comprised about one-third of all forest fires in Israel, which is a very large proportion. Some of the sources of this arson were identified as the work of criminals, whose sole aim was to collect the insurance money. However, many instances of arson in the late 1980s were directly related to the Palestinian uprising (the first Intifada). Palestinians have used arson in the past as an insurgency method, as early as the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, but in the 1980s it was adopted as a highly visible action against Israel. Arson was found to be easy to execute: all one had to do was cross the old border between the West Bank and Israel, which was unguarded and open to all, start a fire in one of the many forests in the hilly areas near the border, and then disappear. According to the International Forest Fire News (IFFN), between 1988 and 1991 the number of fires attributed to arson rose to over 30%, which was explained by an increase in politically motivated arson associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[7]

There were frequent occurrences of forest fires in areas adjacent to the old "Green Line" border between Israel and the West Bank, during the years 1988-1990. Between 288 and 388 forest fires were caused by arson, which occurred in areas near the old pre-1967 border.[8] In some of the fires, which occurred in northern Israel, Israeli Arab Palestinians were found to be responsible. These fires were extraordinary, given the fact that in 1988, there was a great deal of rain and, as a result, the vegetation was highly combustible.

Read the whole thing.

While it looks like the Carmel fires started more from negligence than arson, Al Qaeda is taking credit for them, which is consistent with the information above.

Forest fires are potentially potent weapons that need to be defended against.

(h/t Serious Black and O)

PalArab "euphoria" over fires

From Palestine Today:

Untold euphoria prevailed among Palestinians after the fires that broke out in several places in northern Israel, which led to the deaths of more than 40 Zionists, although grief was felt by some [because of] the large amounts of Arab and European aid to assist in fire suppression at the time when the Palestinian people are groaning from violations of the occupation.

Palestine Today met many people whose faces reflected a great joy about what happened in Israel, where they stressed that this was the least that can happen to the entity...

Citizen Bassam Hamdan expressed her delight at the fall of more than 40 people in the ranks of the Zionists, calling it revenge of God Almighty for the children of the martyrs who fell from the Zionist occupation fire, forcing the enemy to know that there are forces greater than all.

The citizen Sami Al Masri described how the Palestinian people always rejoice when there are casualties among the Israelis and this stems from the nature of the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, but feels unfortunate for the participation of Arabs in fire suppression.

Now, when have Israelis ever rejoiced over the deaths of civilians living in enemy states? Let alone unapologetic and public euphoria over the deaths of innocents.

Abbas Resignation Theatre, 2010 edition

From JPost:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to resign as PA president if Israel continued construction of settlements in the West Bank, in a TV interview on Friday, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported Saturday.

In an interview with Palestine TV on Friday, Abbas said he would not "afford to remain the president of a nonexistent Palestinian Authority" if construction continued, according to the report.

Time to brush off the ever growing list, compiled by Daled Amos, of times that Abbas has threatened to resign:

November 11, 2009:
President Mahmoud Abbas is considering resigning from his roles on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee, Palestinian officials said on Tuesday.

March 18, 2008
Exclusive: Abbas threatens to quit peace talks, revive Fatah terror
(OK, Abbas is not threatening to resign--but we're just getting warmed up...)

Jan 17, 2008
Abbas threatens to quit if 'escalation' continues

June 12, 2007
Fatah movement threatens to quit Hamas-led unity gov't

February 26, 2006
Abbas threatens to quit over Hamas
(Feb 28, 2006 Abbas: I did not threaten to quit)

30 January 2006
Abbas to resign if Hamas fails to work with foreign powers

January 25, 2006
Palestinians Vote in First Legislative Elections in a Decade
Abbas is "a touchy man of dark moods, who often threatens to quit, as he quit as prime minister after four months in 2003 when Mr. Arafat did not allow him enough power."

Jan 17, 2006
PA head Abbas threatens to quit

December 16, 2005
Palestinian Chief Threatens to Quit Over Rival Fatah Slate

March 30, 2005
Palestinian Abbas threatens to quit unless Fatah groups cooperate.

Wed 09 Sep 2003
Abbas threatens to quit unless he gets more authority

Thursday, September 4, 2003
Abbas threatens to quit over leadership

Aug. 21, 2003
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas threatens to resign unless Yasser Arafat approves a crackdown on Hamas

July 9, 2003
U.S. Supports Abbas After Palestinian Leader Threatens to Quit

April 08, 2003
Moderate Palestinian PM threatens to quit as Arafat hinders change.

Of course, he never has; it is an empty threat. But it invariably scares Westerners who false consider him to be "moderate."

Keeping the open thread going....

Sorry, but I don't have time tonight to blog, so ....keep up the discussion.

Administrivia open thread

Thanks to all who wished me a Mazel Tov!

In the Watcher'sCouncil this week, I was nominated twice, for Iran used Red Crescent to send agents and weapons to Hezbollah and UN “threatened” CBC reporter; Hezbollah uses hospital for comm HQ. Unfortunately, both entries tied for fifth place, but it is still nice to be doubly nominated by the Council in a single week! (The winners are pretty good, too :) )

I don't know how many people will attend next week's EoZ Z-Vent Off Broadway Extravaganza Hasbara 2.0 Live One-Person Show Featuring the First Annual Hasby Awards, but in the Facebook invitation there are 34 people who say they will attend and 71 "maybes." And others will show up who didn't receive the FB invite. So it will not be a bad crowd for such an event; from the similar events I've attended held on college campuses and the videos I've seen this is quite respectable. Especially considering that no one knows if I even know how to speak to begin with. Of course, I want more people to attend....Yeshiva University, Tuesday night, 8 PM. Free food to attract the fence-sitters!

I noted earlier that Elecronic Intifada gets donations to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to run their website, even though it gets fewer readers than mine. Commenter anarchofascist notes that Mondoweiss just was offered a $20,000 matching grant. I guess it pays to bash Israel - literally. None of that Zionist money that Helen Thomas is whining about has managed to filter down to me.

Statcounter says I've averaged about 4500 pageviews a day this past week. That is about 1000 higher than usual.

Here's an open thread for me to catch my breath.

Have a great weekend. Not sure how I'm going to manage to shoe-horn blogging into it...

A Mazel Tov at EoZ HQ

The beautiful and talented Daughter of Ziyon is engaged to be married.

So things will be even more hectic around here than usual.

And to think, it seems so recent that she a typical but quite articulate teenage blogger, with insightful and thoughtful posts (and a tiny amount of teenage angst.)

You may also want to check out her unforgettable guest post here a couple of years later.

And, a bit after that, my readers actually saw her wearing a beach-towel burqa.

Life hurtles on....

EI vs. EoZ

The anti-Israel, anti-semitic Electronic Intifada website, which has been seen this week to have received funds from the Dutch government, says it had a budget of $149,208 in 2008 and $183,760 in 2009.

It's Alexa ranking is currently at 237,143.

Elder of Ziyon's Alexa ranking is higher at 219,966, a bit better than this well-funded site run by at least four people. The EoZ budget for this past year has been approximately $19.

Maybe I should start asking European governments to fund me.

Sarah Palin's Chanukah message

From Sarah Palin's Facebook page:

As Jewish families all over the country and the world come together to celebrate the festival of lights – the miracle of one day’s worth of oil lasting for eight – we are reminded that this holiday is also about the miracle of taking a stand against impossible odds, surviving existential threats, and staying true to one’s values and beliefs through it all.

More than two thousand years after the Maccabees rebelled against their oppressors and reconsecrated their Holy Temple, the Jewish people continue to face threats to their existence, and they continue to persevere and overcome great odds. Today we should all recommit ourselves to ensuring that the miracle of a Jewish state endures forever. The dreidel is one of the most familiar symbols of Hanukkah, with Hebrew letters on it representing the phrase Nes Gadol Haya Sham – “a great miracle happened there.” Indeed a great miracle is still happening there. Todd and I wish the Jewish community a very Happy Hanukkah.

Whether or not you think she is qualified to run the country, there is no doubt that Palin is a deep friend of Israel. These words do not ring hollow as some politicians' messages do.

More evidence at least some of the Carmel fires are arson

From JPost:

Coastal District Police Commander Roni Attia said Friday that two arson suspects were apprehended in the North, near Kiryat Bialik.

The suspects were allegedly attempting to rekindle a fire in the forest with the use of Molotov cocktails. Police are not connecting the arsonists at this stage to the massive fires in the Carmel and Atlit but rather to the fire which broke out earlier at the Tzur Shalom area of Kiryat Bialik.

Attia added that arson is suspected in a number of separate fires, including Kiryat Bialik and Kiryat Tivon.

Earlier on Friday, police found a bike, a bag, and a wig inside near a fire center in Tzur Shalom, leading them to believe that the fire was caused by an arsonist or arsonists.

Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told the Post that there are 3 fire centers - Tzur Shalom, the Atlit - Tirat Hacarmel area, and the Carmel hillsides. In one, Tzur Shalom, north of Haifa, "we located suspicious items pointing to arson. As for the other two major fires, it is too early and the incidents are to large in scale to know their causes at this stage." The death toll in the fires rose to 42 on Friday, according to Army Radio.

Now, who would want to do something like that?

Could it be the types of people who celebrate it?

(h/t Israel Matzav)

UPDATE: Commenter Jed says

Update from Israeli TV:
Fire investigator says fire source was from burning garbage.
Suspicion that more fires set up by gang, 2 suspects from Daliat el Carmel arrested by police.

Erekat creates "The Zionist Grinch Who Stole Palestinian Arab Christmas"

From Ma'an:

"The Israel Ministry of Tourism has hijacked Christmas for political purposes," Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erakat said Thursday, denouncing the occupying nation for hosting a pre-Christmas reception in East Jerusalem.

The reception, set for 6 December, will see diplomats, heads of churches and other community members gather in the city to mark the start of the holiday season.

"This is yet another display of the lengths that Israel is willing to go to distract the world from its policies of dispossession against the Palestinian people," the official said in a statement, on the one hand hosting events to celebrate the Christian holiday, while on the other continuing to "sever the ancient link between Jerusalem and Bethlehem through the construction of the Wall and the expansion of settlements surrounding Bethlehem, including Har Homa and Gilo."

The isolation of Jerusalem from its West Bank neighbors, separating holy sites, families and religious networks was condemned by Erekat, who said "we seek an open Jerusalem as the capital of two states, where free access to all holy sites is guaranteed."

In contrast, he added, "Israel continues its plan to make Jerusalem an exclusive Jewish city."

Yes, those wily Israelis are making Jerusalem exclusively Jewish by holding Christmas events there.

And look how much Erekat is decrying the supposed severing "the ancient link between Jerusalem and Bethlehem" when his entire political career is based on severing the ancient Jewish link between Hebron, Shechem, Bet El, Shiloh, and even the Western Wall from the rest of the Jewish state.

Turks, others send help to Israel. Some PalArabs upset.

From YNet:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, along with other world leaders for sending planes and firefighting equipment to Israel in order to assist the battle against the blaze consuming its northern region.

Netanyahu spoke at a special Cabinet meeting called in the wake of flailing efforts to extinguish the flames. Netanyahu also thanked other world leaders, including Bulgaria's prime minister and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who sent "a very large Russian plane, perhaps the largest of its kind in the world"

"The plane is on its way here, and will arrive in the afternoon," Netanyahu said, also thanking Egypt, Azerbaijan, Spain, Croatia, France, and Jordan for their offers. "I think this constitutes an unprecedented response to our appeal for international aid," he added.

Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey) adds:

Putting aside recent tensions to lend a hand, 10 Turkish rescue personnel and two airplanes carrying firefighting equipment arrived at the Ramat David airbase in Haifa at 10.30 a.m. Friday, Anatolia news agency reported. The planes are aiding firefighting efforts in coordination with Israeli authorities.

Israeli officials said some 100 firefighters from Bulgaria have arrived as well as forces from Jordan and Greece. Fire extinguishing planes were on their way from Britain and Cyprus as well as aid from the United States, Russia, Egypt, Spain, Azerbaijan and Romania.

Commenter Yerushalimey muses:

I wonder, if Israel was not known for sending aid to crises all over the world, if less foreign assistance would be forthcoming. Honestly, I am surprised and grateful we are receiving ANY assistance.

It is indeed one of the small slivers of good news from this disaster.

And while Palestine Press Agency says that Palestinian Authority civil defense personnel are also being sent to help, and there are reports that Jordan as sent aid as well, other Palestinian Arabs are not so thrilled at the idea of Arabs helping Israel.

Palestine Today, which is aligned with Islamic Jihad, has an op-ed slamming any Arab governments who offer to help Israel deal with this crisis.

Our advice to the kind-hearted Arab countries is to think carefully before venturing to help [the Zionist] entity, which flows into lava for day and night on our unarmed people, whether in the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip. Here we have to tell you how happy our Palestinian people are at the killing 40 Zionist wardens burned to death.

The assistance to the entity is not a crime but treason to the blood of all the martyrs, and therefore assure them, that many lessons will be learned from this "divine fire", and the lesson that the most prominent in the demise of this entity is no more a matter of time.

Helen Thomas gets memo, changes "Jew" to "Zionist"

Helen Thomas, speaking in front of a group in Dearborn, kept up and expanded her anti-semitic diatribes - but this time she was careful to substitute the keyword "Zionist" to shield herself from truthful accusations that she is anti-semitic.

From the Detroit Free Press:

Striking a defiant tone, journalist Helen Thomas, 90, said today she absolutely stands by her controversial comments about Israel made earlier this year that led to her resignation. But she stoked additional controversy with new remarks, claiming that "Zionists" control U.S. foreign policy and other American institutions. The local Jewish community strongly condemned her remarks.

Thomas, who grew up in Detroit the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, was in Dearborn today for an Arab Detroit workshop on anti-Arab bias. The Free Press asked her about her comments, which critics have said were anti-Israel.

"I paid the price for that," said Thomas, a longtime White House correspondent. "But it was worth it, to speak the truth."

"The Zionists have to understand that's their country, too. Palestinians were there long before any European Zionists."

Thomas claimed that "You can not say anything (critical) about Israel in this country."
In a speech that drew a standing ovation, Thomas talked about "the whole question of money involved in politics."

"We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where there mouth is…We're being pushed into a wrong direction in every way."

Asked by the Free Press how she would respond to those who say she's anti-Semitic, Thomas said:
"I'd say I'm a Semite, What are you talking about? Who are you?"

Ah, the last refuge for Jew-haters - false semantics.

(h/t Yid With Lid)

"Moderate" Jordanians love terrorists more than anyone else does

A new Pew Global Attitudes poll asks Muslim citizens in various countries what their opinion of different terror groups were.

The results show that Jordanian Muslims love them more than anyone else.

The questions were about Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaeda:

The highest favorable ratings for Hezbollah and Hamas came from Jordanians - 55% and 60%, respectively - and Jordan also scored the second highest ratings for al-Qaeda. This is in contrast with how the government feels and acts.

On the flip side, Turkish Muslims are not happy with Muslim terrorists at all - while their government supports, at least tacitly, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Jordan's numbers spell real trouble. At worst, it means that Jordan could be a bullet away from becoming another Muslim Brotherhood-style theocracy, one which would not honor any existing peace treaties with the despised Jews.

(h/t Zach)

Muslim.Net forum cheering burnt Israelis

The mujahid-loving members of Muslim.Net message forums are happily celebrating some forty Israelis being burned to death.

They are publishing explicit photographs of burned bodies (warning: very graphic) and sprinkling in liberal doses of "Allahu Akbar." They are also implying that this was a case of arson: one page says "The Mujahideen said the brother to sneak into the land."

Their happiness is palpable. It is beyond disgusting.

(h/t O)

The other Syrian nuclear facilities

From ISIS:

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung has reported the names of three cities in Syria which are near sites suspected of being functionally related to a destroyed covert reactor construction project. These suspect sites are located near Masyaf, the village of Marj as-Sultan near Damascus, and Iskandariyah (see figure 1).

ISIS has learned that the site seen in Figure 2 is the suspect site located near Masyaf. This site is located approximately six kilometers northeast of Masyaf city center ¹ in Syria (see figures 3 and 4), and appears to be comprised of storage buildings. Aside from what could be a line of berms or trenches (see figure 5), the site does not appear to have many security measures visible in commercial satellite imagery. The entire site, however, is situated in a ravine between two hills and buildings at the site are located along the base of the hills—a common method for providing general protection and isolation. This could indicate that the site is a military depot/storage facility. Hundreds of items can also be seen stored in rows out in the open (see figures 6 and 7). It is unclear what these items are.

Syria was secretly building a reactor in the Dair Alzour region along the Euphrates River with assistance from North Korean trading companies. After acquiring incriminating ground photographs taken inside the reactor building, Israeli jets bombed the facility in a pre-dawn raid in September of 2007. In April of 2008, member states provided information on the reactor project to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as well as the locations of three other sites in Syria suspected of being functionally related to the reactor. ISIS has learned that there is an additional site that the IAEA is interested in visiting, bringing the total to four sites. The IAEA has repeatedly asked Syria for access to these sites, but Syria has so far refused.

ISIS learned during the April 2008 briefings by US government officials that some U.S. intelligence information indicated that one of the suspect sites might be related to uranium processing. These sites could also have served as storage facilities for equipment or materials, such as graphite, en route to the Al Kibar reactor construction site. A senior official close to the IAEA said in an interview on November 16, 2009 that the IAEA had received information that showed that equipment was seen coming and going between the reactor and these three sites. Furthermore, one of these sites could have been used as a means to store uranium intended for the reactor. It is unclear if these sites also include ones where Syria is suspected of storing portions of the bombed reactor building resulting from the Israeli airstrike.

The village of Marj as-Sultan is located on the eastern outskirts of Damascus. ² ISIS learned that the suspect site near the village of Marj as-Sultan has security elements visible in satellite imagery. ISIS assesses that Iskandariyah refers to a small town north of Hamah, Syria. ³

The IAEA has for over two years requested from Syria access to these sites suspected of being related the Al Kibar site. Syria has refused to cooperate with the IAEA, and it continues to dodge the IAEA’s questions. It Syria continues not to cooperate beyond the upcoming Board of Governors meeting, the Director General should call for a special inspection in Syria.

All the photos are at the ISIS site.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung story, in German, is here.

Deadly Carmel fire: Arson? (updated)

UPDATE: The Muqata is liveblogging the fire.

The fire that raced through the Carmel forest this morning, killing at least 40 people, is an unbelievable tragedy.

But was it arson?

From the Montreal Gazette quoting the Daily Telegraph:

Initial reports suggested that the fire had started in four different areas, but police said it was too soon to presume that arson was the cause of the blaze.

One thing is almost certain: Arab terrorist supporters are keenly interested in something that could so easily kill dozens of Jews. And during this drought that Israel is going through, it is way too easy to imagine what might happen next.

UPDATE 2: Guess who the Palestinian Arab blame for the fire? Their eternal bogeymen, the "settlers!"

They don't quite explain the logic, but I'm sure it goes something like "the settlers set the fire hoping to kill scores of people just so they could blame it on us."

The fact that a PalArab official even sees a reason to blame Israelis for something that could have started naturally is already an indication that he is trying to misdirect. Wonder why.
(h/t Zach)

UPDATE 3: From Jed in the comments:

According to photos by a pilot the fire started at one place, Osafia. Fire trucks were very late. Possibly they were burning garbage.

Honest Reporting looks at wire service photo bias -Flotilla edition

An excellent report, and the first of a series.

A couple of new Wikileaks

From Ha'aretz:

The Irish government has acted to limit transfers of American weapons to Israel and Iraq through Shannon Airport in the wake of public outrage after the Second Lebanon War, an American diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks reveals.

After the Second Lebanon War, the Israel Defense Forces needed to restore its depleted ammunition stocks, but the ambassador's cable indicates that the Irish government has been making it increasingly difficult for American weapons shipments to Israel to pass through its airport.

The cable, sent from the Dublin embassy in September 2006, says that "although supportive of continued U.S. military transits at Shannon Airport, the Irish Government has informally begun to place constraints on U.S. operations at the facility, mainly in response to public sensitivities over U.S. actions in the Middle East."

According to the ambassador, "Segments of the Irish public ... see the airport as a symbol of Irish complicity in perceived U.S. wrongdoing in the Gulf/Middle East." He said the Irish government "has recently introduced more cumbersome notification requirements for equipment-related transits in the wake of the Lebanon conflict."

And from WSJ:

Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables provide new details on the U.S. assessment of how Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps has promoted Tehran's influence in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The demise of archenemy Saddam Hussein, with whom Tehran fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, presented the Iranians with an unprecedented opportunity, and they appear to have exploited it from Day One.

The leadership of the Qods Force—the Guards' paramilitary and espionage arm—"took advantage of the vacuum" in the aftermath of the fall of Mr. Hussein's regime to begin sending operatives into Iraq when "little attention was focused on Iran," according to an April 2009 dispatch from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The cable was part of a trove of classified U.S. diplomatic communications made public this week by WikiLeaks.

(h/t Joel)

Dutch government funding anti-Israel, anti-semitic website

From JPost, a story I meant to post a couple of days ago:

The Dutch government has been funding the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation, a Dutch aid organization that finances the Electronic Intifada website that, NGO Monitor told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, is anti-Semitic and frequently compares Israeli policies with those of the Nazi regime.

NGO Monitor’s exposure of Dutch government funding for the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) prompted Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal to say on Thursday to the Post, "I will look into the matter personally. If it appears that the government subsidized NGO ICCO does fund Electronic Intifada, it will have a serious problem with me.”

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, said, “This type of poisonous activity is precisely why European government funding of NGOs requires close oversight and full transparency."

“Based on our experience, we assume that the top Dutch government officials are completely unaware of the link between money given to ICCO for aid, and Electronic Intifada, a group whose rhetoric and activities undermine hopes for mutual understanding.”

The ICCO website devotes a page to Electronic Intifada, praising its work as “an internationally recognized daily news source” that provides a counterweight to “positive reporting” about Israel. ICCO’s website notes its three-year funding pledge for Electronic Intifada.

NGO Monitor told the Post that “EI executive director Ali Abunimah is a leader in delegitimization and demonization campaigns against Israel. In his travels and speaking engagements, facilitated by Electronic Intifada’s budget, he calls for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and routinely uses false apartheid rhetoric."

“Abunimah also equates Israel to Nazi Germany, comparing the Israeli press to Der Stürmer, referring to Gaza as a ‘ghetto for surplus non-Jews,’ and claiming that ‘Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.’” NGO Monitor criticized ICCO’s employment of Mieke Zagt, who is “the ICCO official directing the funding to EI,” a “former employee of Amnesty International’s Middle East division, and a vocal proponent of BDS herself.” BDS is the abbreviation for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

NGO Monitor has been doing a great job in discovering links like these.

I'm already getting a little sick of the animated bears, but if you want to see a humorous video about the story, you can find it here.

Why Palestinian Arabs will never negotiate on "return" (HaLevi)

I've been arguing for a while that the "right of return" is the means by which the Arab world is seeking to destroy Israel, and that this can be seen by the lack of any hint of flexibility on the Arab side about the matter even though Western diplomats always assume that it can be taken care of in a peace agreement.

A very important article by Jonathan Dahoah HaLevi for JCPA that explains how the PLO plans to keep the "right of return" alive even after a state would be established, no matter what is agreed. His summary:

The gap between Israel and the Palestinians on the refugee question cannot be reconciled. The Palestinians demand a "just peace," which implies recognition of the right of return according to their interpretation, and rejects any compromise on the issue.

The Palestinian position, which receives support from Palestinian and even some Israeli human rights organizations, looks to UN resolutions that uphold the right of return as a "private right" of every refugee. This means that the representatives of the Palestinian people (as well as the Arab League and the United Nations) have no authority to waive this right in the name of the refugees.

According to the Palestinian consensus, non-implementation of the right of return will leave open the gates of the conflict with Israel. This implies justification for the continued armed struggle against Israel even following the establishment of a Palestinian state.

By rejecting "patriation" or the resettlement of the refugees in any Arab state, the Arab Peace Initiative essentially leaves each refugee with no choice but to go to Israel itself. The Arab states rejected any solution that involves "resettling [of the Palestinians] outside of their homes."The Arab Peace Initiative does not envision the Palestinian refugees being resettled in a West Bank and Gaza Palestinian state.

The transfer of border crossings to Palestinian control and/or the establishment of a Palestinian state is likely to bring about a wave of immigration, combined with a mass expulsion of Palestinians (primarily from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan) toward the Palestinian territory even without a political agreement on the refugee issue. This could lead to the infiltration by Palestinians into Israeli territory, as well as legal claims by refugees at the International Court in The Hague for the right of return, restitution of property, and compensation.

Since the Israeli consensus holds that the mass return of Palestinian refugees to Israel means national suicide, Israel will require robust international support in negotiations on a final status agreement to reach an accord on the basis of defensible borders, and to find a permanent solution to the refugee problem based primarily on the Palestinian refugees receiving citizenship in their host countries or their absorption in a Palestinian state.

HaLevi shows exhaustively that even the most "pragmatic" and "moderate" of Palestinian Arab leaders insist on the "right of return" - and the destruction of the Jewish state:

The positions of prominent Palestinian personalities, considered by the West as belonging to the moderate political current, do not deviate from the consensus with regards to the right of return. Marwan Barghouti, head of Fatah in the West Bank who is serving a life prison sentence for the murder of Israeli civilians, said in an interview with the newspaper Al Hayat on September 28, 2007, that negotiations with the Israeli government prior to its commitment to principles [including the right of return] is "useless." Barghouti added that it would be erroneous to conduct negotiations with Israel "without it [Israel] obligating itself to the legitimate international decisions, the principle of concluding the occupation, withdrawal to the ‘67 boundaries including from east Jerusalem, the right of return of the refugees in accordance with Resolution 194, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty, and the release of all the prisoners." According to Barghouti, the Palestinians were striving for an agreement in the framework of which "refugees would realize their right to return in accordance with Resolution 194."37 Hussam Khader, a Fatah leader in Nablus, clarified, "Any [Palestinian] president who will sign in the name of the refugees on a waiver of the right of return...we will be obligated to kill him or rebel against him."38

Hanan Ashrawi, another prominent representative of what is depicted as the "pragmatic" stream, presents positions similar to the Palestinian consensus and emphasizes that the right of return is a private right of every refugee. In other words, representatives of the Palestinian people have no authority to waive it. In an interview with the Hebrew paper Zman Yerushalayim on September 25, 2007, Ashrawi - currently the head of the nonprofit Miftah organization for promoting democracy and human rights in the Palestinian Authority, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, and a member of the Palestinian Parliament - says: "One must recognize rights according to international law and Resolution 194 of the United Nations. There is not a single Palestinian who will forgo the rights of the refugees. A leader who will tell you he will do this in order to propitiate you will lose credibility among his own people." Referring to a way to solve the refugee problem, Ashrawi said: "The options will be diverse and will provide various solutions, according to law. The most important aspect is the right to choose. They will choose like any human being who wants the best for his children....The moment that you thaw out and recognize the iniquity, they will be free to make decisions. One should try this, but the moment that they can choose - and many choices exist according to law - then we will see what option they will select."39

Dr. Samir Abdallah signed the Geneva Initiative in 2003 that aroused criticism in the Palestinian arena over passages that were implicitly interpreted as a compromise on the right of return. When he served as Minister of Labor and Planning in the Palestinian Authority, Abdallah addressed the issue in a newspaper interview on April 12, 2008. In response to a question: "Do you still stick to the right of return?" he said: "Of course, we will never forgo it. This is a collective and private right and the return of the refugees is the most important card from this standpoint in the negotiations, and its value pertaining to the Palestinian people is higher from a diplomatic and material standpoint than all the other topics."40 Additional Palestinian personages (including Iyad Sarraj, Nabil Kasis and Fayha Abd-el Hadi) who signed the Geneva Initiative were parties to the dispatch of a public letter to Abbas in 2010 in which they expressed their vigorous opposition to renewing negotiations with Israel without a prior agreement on the source of authority for the discussions that were to have included, according to them, the guarantee of the right of return.41

This should be read by everybody interested in peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. It is, I would say, the major issue and one that cannot be left over as something to discuss after Israel gives up more concessions and land, but something that needs to be brought into the forefront of negotiations immediately, with Israel making it very clear that this is a red line that will halt every other peace track while it remains a Palestinian Arab demand.

Fayyad says he will no longer abide by Oslo Accords

Al Quds al Arabi reports that Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad has announced, on the radio, that the PA no longer abides by the Oslo Accords, which have governed the fragile relations between Israel and the PA since 1993.

Fayyad said during his weekly radio show on local Palestinian radio stations Wednesday that the Palestinian National Authority 'will not be a prisoner to the restrictions of Oslo'.

Fayyad added 'The National Authority recognizes the magnitude of the challenges and difficulties our people are living under on a daily basis, and it works to assume its full responsibilities. All the possibilities are available to it to strengthen the resilience of its citizens, and adhere and stay on their land, in the various regions, particularly the Jordan Valley area, all areas classified Area C, which constitute about 60 percent of the West Bank, including the areas behind the wall', he said,' These areas are not disputed areas, it is part and parcel of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the responsibility of the Palestinian National Authority is essential that work to the maximum of their capacities to provide services for all its citizens, it will not be a prisoner to the restrictions of Oslo."

As I pointed out yesterday, the Palestinian Authority derives all of its powers from the Oslo Accords, so if Oslo is not operative, he should be out of a job.

Does this mean that Israel no longer has to adhere to Oslo any more either, or is this just a one-way decision?

5 incidents of anti-semitic vandalism at Indiana U in a week

From WTHR, Indiananpolis:

Hanukkah takes on added significance for the Jewish community in Bloomington.

Police there are investigating five acts of what they call anti-semitic vandalism in the past week.

The Hillel House is one of the centers targeted by vandals. It is a meeting place on the campus of Indiana University. Tonight, many are gathering at Hillel House to celebrate the first of eight nights of Hanukkah.

On the first day of a festival that marks the triumph of good over evil, members of the Jewish community in Bloomington are struggling to overcome the malicious attack.

"There was a rock thrown in the kitchen," asked puzzled IU student Shelli Goldzband.

Goldzband just learned about the five acts of vandalism targeting Jewish facilities in the past week.

Police say someone threw rocks into windows --and damaged Hebrew books at the library in the Hillel House, where Goldzband volunteers each week.

"I'm really sad, just really sad," said Goldzband.

"Why would anyone raise a hand to someone who's done no harm to you," asked Yehohsua Chincholker of the Chabad House.

The Chabad house was twice targeted, most recently Tuesday morning, when someone threw a rock into an upstairs window shared by three women, none of them Jewish.

"They didn't know we weren't Jewish but knew someone was here and the light was on," said one of the girls.

The rash of attacks has the entire Bloomington campus on alert. Wednesday, the Indiana University family received an email from the school saying, " the university condemns the criminal acts of vandalism in our community."

"We take this very seriously," said Provost Karen Hanson.

Police are also taking these cases seriously, stepping up patrols and aggressively searching for a suspect.

"If it means federal charges, we'll certainly pursue it that way," said IUPD Chief Keith Cash.

During this season of lights, there is hope that the person responsible will come to light and good will once again triumph over evil.

Police say they have a person of interest in mind. Witnesses described a white man in his 40s. However, detectives have not identified anyone as a suspect.

At the Hillel house, they will continue to go about their business, which includes lighting the first candle of the season to celebrate Hanukkah.

From WISH News 8 (Indiana):

Hebrew-related books were reported vandalized Saturday at the Wells Library. The books were removed from shelves and taken to restrooms on different floors, where the vandals urinated on them.

We have to brace ourselves for Jewish extremists, who seem to mostly live in the West Bank, to start rampaging, rioting and issuing Jewish legal rulings calling for Americans worldwide to be killed because of the possible desecration of holy books by someone in America.

Because, from what I've read in the media, that's what extremists do, and extremists from all religions are equally immoral.

(h/t Israeligirl)