Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 16, 2010

ElderToons: Nasrallah's speech to Lebanon

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave another of his lengthy televised speeches to Lebanon on Wednesday. Here's the gist of it:

World strangely silent on Iran missiles in Venezuela

Two weeks ago I posted about a report that Iran was staging medium range missiles in Venezuela - missiles that could reach parts of the US.

The story was broken by Die Welt on November 25th, but for some reason we haven't heard any outcry. Last week, Hudson-NY wrote about it and adds more details:

Venezuela has also become the country through which Iran intends to bypass UN sanctions. Following a new round of UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic, for example, Russia decided not to sell five battalions of S-300PMU-1 air defence systems to Iran. These weapons, along with a number of other weapons, were part of a deal, signed in 2007, worth $800 million. Now that these weapons cannot be delivered to Iran, Russia is looking for new customers; according to the Russian press agency Novosti[2], it found one: Venezuela.

If Iran, therefore, cannot get the S-300 missiles directly from Russia, it can still have them through its proxy, Venezuela, and deploy them against its staunchest enemy, the U.S..

Why isn't this story on the front page of every major US newspaper?

A short history of Iran's predictions of Israel's demise

Oct 29, 2005: "the Zionist regime will eventually rot from within and collapse"

October 20, 2006: "This regime (Israel) will be gone, definitely... this regime internally, and regionally from the outside, is cracking and is falling apart."

June 3, 2007: "The countdown for the Zionist regime's (Israel's) collapse has started - inshallah (God willing), we will soon witness the collapse of this regime."

February 21, 2008: "Countdown has begun for collapse of the Zionist regime, Haddad Adel said."

June 3, 2008: "The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime (Israel) which has a record of 60 years of killing and violation has reached its final phase and will soon be wiped out from the geographic scene."

December 29, 2008: "The final count down has started for the collapse of the Zionist regime."

So when is the Zionist regime going to collapse already? I mean, it's been five years since these predictions started.

Today, we receive the answer: it has already happened!

December 14, 2010: "Today we witness that the predictions made by the leaders of the fake Israeli regime have materialized and the failure of the regime has, in fact, led to its collapse."

See? Israel has collapsed, Iran's nuclear program is peaceful, and up is down.

Afternoon links

Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri is being protected by a high-tech Israeli device that can somehow detect weapons in his vicinity, Palestine Today quotes Israel Radio as saying. Arabs aren't thrilled. (UPDATE: English-language version.)

A very cool story about how a pro-Israel activist managed to turn around a hostile college crowd at the University of London's School for Oriental and African Studies - using this movie.

Israel's Channel 10 (sorry, Hebrew only) shows recently discovered film of Jews vacationing on a beach on Yom Kippur, 1973 - where they see an Egyptian MiG get shot down and fall into the Red Sea.

Tablet's Lee Smith talks with Israeli peacenik generals.

Here's someone who really is dealing in organ trafficking!

How not to do BDS - and an idea how to combat it

Brian of London, over at Israellycool, shows us a video from MPAC-UK where the Muslim group seems strangely happy that they came up with a "boycott Israel" protest that seems designed to piss off store employees and customers. As he writes:

The poisonous organisation, Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK) had the wonderful idea to find every Israeli product they can in the UK supermarket Tesco, put them all in their trolley and take them to the check out. Once there they allow the Tesco checkout person to scan everything and then, in such a witty and ironic statement of defiance, they refuse to pay and start lecturing all around on the evils of buying Jewish and Israeli products.

Wait for the fireworks when the rightly annoyed lady behind them in the queue realise what they’re up to!

I particularly like when the Muslim activists say that a Palestinian Arab child dies every minute. That means that over 1400 died just yesterday, and a half a million kids were killed by the evil Israelis this year alone! That Zionist media is really doing a great job of suppressing this information!

Anyway, just imagine if outside this same store, a few smiling Zionists would be at a table, politely asking incoming shoppers to buy Israeli goods in the store (showing the goods and the aisles in which they can be found.) Then, when they leave the store, those people can show the Israeli products to the volunteers, and they then receive a small toy labeled "Israel means quality" or "Israel: progressiveness in the Middle East" or something like that. An effective demonstration can be done for $500 to hand out a thousand toys to customers.

Which side would the customers want to support next time they go shopping?

BDSers base their entire lives on hate. Take advantage of that and people will see the contrast between Israel haters and Israel lovers.

Latest Israeli high-tech to detect terrorists

From the Daily Mail:

Airport security checks are not only intrusive, demeaning and a mind-numbing drain on our precious time. They don't actually work. But as David Rose reports from Israel, a new generation of scanning systems are so good they can pick out a terrorist by asking a terribly simple question: Are you or are you not a terrorist?

...'The system you have in Europe and America is bull****. Unless you adopt an approach that actually works, whatever technology you care to use will make little difference. The terrorists will always be one step ahead,' says Rafi Sela, a top Israeli security consultant. Through his firm, AR Challenges, he is in charge of marketing the automated Israeli method to Europe and America as a complete package - what he calls Trust Based Security, or TBS.

'How many times in the history of aviation have the scanners and security procedures that currently cause such huge anger and inconvenience actually found explosives in baggage or on a passenger?' Sela asks.

The answer, shockingly, is zero. It's true that a bomb packed by the Jordanian Nizar Hindawi in the hand luggage of his pregnant girlfriend Anne Murphy was discovered at Heathrow in 1986. But she was trying to board a flight on the Israeli airline El Al - which uses the same selector method abroad as at Ben Gurion: it was a selector's questioning that revealed Hindawi's plot.

The bombers who killed 270 when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie in 1988; the 2001 shoe bomber Richard Reid; Umar Abdulmutallab, the former London University student who tried to detonate a bomb in his underpants above Detroit last Christmas; all smuggled their explosives on to aircraft undetected.

...But the point where it starts to get truly futuristic is inside the terminal building. The automated equivalent of Ben Gurion's selectors has been developed in the business park at the ancient Roman town of Caesarea by WeCU (pronounced 'we see you') Technologies.

'The beauty of this is that you can do it without interrupting the normal flow at the airport, without interrogation and without infringing human rights,' says CEO Ehud Givon.

'And tests have shown it's extremely accurate - close to 100 per cent.'

Working with Shlomo Breznits, a world-renowned psychology professor from Haifa, Givon and his colleagues derived their machine from the science that shows that anyone who comes across a familiar stimulus - for example, a branch of the bank he or she uses, or a favoured chain restaurant - will show a small but completely involuntary physical response.

'If you expose the subject to something that he knows, he will react, and this produces a detectable physiological change,' Givon says. 'And it's even better if he knows this test is going to happen. This isn't a trick. Nobody is going to be deceived.'

WeCU's technology can easily be incorporated into existing airport processes, such as the stand-up computers found at fast bag drop and check-in stations. Built into the screen is a cheap but highly sensitive thermal imaging sensor, which can measure data including the temperature of the subject's skin, heart rate, perspiration, blood pressure and changes in breathing, as well as other variables - 14 in all - most of which, says Givon, are classified. When the passenger begins to use the station, all these readings are taken almost instantly in order to establish a 'biological baseline'.

Then, over the course of the next 30 seconds, the machine will expose the subject to a stimulus that would cause a response in someone involved with terrorism, but not anyone else.

'I'm not going to give you details here, but it could be a sentence threaded into the instructions about getting a boarding pass or an image on the screen,' says Givon, 'or something as simple as a statement that says, "Thank you for keeping this flight safe". And whatever it is can be changed every day.

'The point is, the person who knows about terrorism will react, and the sensor will measure that reaction. It won't pick out the person who's stressed about flying, or the guy who's worried about a tax bill. But it will pick out the traveller who seems to know about terror - in about 35 seconds flat. You don't have to arrest that person, merely move on to further checks. And by the way, the more you try to train yourself not to react to the stimulus, the more clearly you will stand out.'

Tests show WeCU's system has a low 'false positive' rate, and will typically identify just one or two per cent of travellers as possible suspects. But even they need only move to the next automated layer - another hi-tech method devised by SDS, Suspect Detection Systems, a small company near Tel Aviv. Its board includes Amiram Levin, a former deputy head of Mossad.

Already installed at one of Israel's land border crossings, SDS's airport machine is essentially an automatic polygraph. It consists of a booth in which the passenger sits, wearing headphones and responds to questions that are both spoken and appear on a screen. Sensors record data ranging from the skin's electrical conductivity to movement, both from the eyes and from the subject's left hand, which rests in a special cradle.

'Take the case of the Detroit bomber, Abdulmutallab,' says SDS's CEO, Eran Drukman. 'The security officers where he boarded, Schipol in Amsterdam, could see he stood out: he had a one-way ticket and no luggage. But his underpants bomb didn't show up on their scanners, and they had no way of knowing whether he had hostile intent - hence no legal means to stop him getting on the plane. This system gives you that capability.'

The subject facing automatic interrogation doesn't even have to answer the machine's yes/no questions in order to record a response, and some of those questions will be very basic: 'Are you involved in terrorist activity?' or, 'Are you carrying explosives?' 'Suicide terrorists aren't scared of dying,' says Drukman, 'but they are scared of being caught. That gives us the hook.'

As with the WeCU system, SDS's detector depends on the fact that physical responses to such questions, aggregated and analysed by a computerised algorithm, are involuntary. Most subjects will be cleared after just one minute.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t Zach via Facebook)

Applause for a stoning on film

From TNR:

Last week, I attended the Marrakech Film Festival. I had never been to a film festival before, but the experience was in some ways no different from what I had imagined about Cannes or Sundance, albeit with a somewhat lower glamour quotient.

... While other festival guests, together with the stars on the jury, were watching competition films in a vast auditorium, I attended a screening of Tazi’s 1989 film Badis in a smaller hall downstairs, sparsely filled with a mainly Arab audience. This remarkable film takes place in the year 1974 in the fishing village of its title, located on Morocco’s northern coast.

When the film begins, a schoolteacher and his wife have just arrived in the town from Casablanca. Their big-city sophistication immediately contrasts with the villagers: Both are dressed in Western-style clothing, and the wife has an aura of particular cultivation. The teacher, we soon learn, suspects his wife of infidelity and has brought her to this remote location as punishment. (Whether she was actually unfaithful or not is never clarified.) Here she won’t be able to deceive him, he tells her, because the entire village will be keeping an eye on her. No tenderness is evident between these two: He speaks to her gruffly and forbids her even to go out for lunch in the local café, while she sulks in response to his orders.

Solace for the teacher’s wife comes in the form of a local girl named Moira, whose father, a fisherman, rules her with a similarly draconian hand. The two have lived alone ever since Moira’s mother, who was Spanish, escaped back to her native country, an act for which the father continues to punish their daughter. Moira, who dresses up in her mother’s old gowns and sings Spanish songs to herself to escape the drudgery of life as her father’s housemaid, soon begins a flirtation with the Spanish soldier at the well. Meanwhile, she catches the eye of the schoolteacher, who suggests that his wife teach her how to read and write as a stratagem for getting her under his roof. It soon becomes clear that the two women are more interested in pouring out their miserable hearts to each other than in studying the Koran. Together, they come up with a plan to escape the village, which they finally become desperate enough to put into action.

When the men awaken to discover the women missing, the entire village is mobilized to hunt them down. Their escape route, which runs along the beach, is entirely exposed, and they are brought back in a fishing boat. Watching the men of the village gather around the two women in a circle on the beach, I ought to have realized what was about to happen, but somehow it did not process. Not until the first stone was raised did I understand. The stoning of the women was staged tastefully, without excessive gore, but it was among the most shocking things I have ever seen on a movie screen. As the scene ended and I sat back in my seat, shaken, something even more astonishing occurred. From the audience around me there came a smattering of applause.

Until that moment, really, I had forgotten where I was. Seduced by the glitz of the film festival, by the charm and warmth of the Moroccans I had met, by my vision of Morocco as one of the most free and open countries in the Arab world, I had forgotten that there is also a different reality here. Engrossed in a beautiful, sensitively made film about the sufferings of two women under the constraints imposed by male society—a kind of Moroccan Madame Bovary—I had somehow failed to realize that the rest of the audience might not interpret the movie with the same sympathy for the women involved as I did.

(h/t Silke)

Lebanon, the apartheid state

From The Daily Star (Lebanon):

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are two times more likely to live in poverty than other Lebanese people, preliminary report findings released Tuesday have shown.

The “Socio-Economic Survey of Palestine Refugees in Lebanon” is the first comprehensive evaluation of its kind. It assesses the demographics of the Palestinian population as well as their access to the labor market and various health, education and housing needs.

The full findings of the European Union (EU)-funded survey are not expected until the end of the month, but the initial results paint a rather bleak picture for the 260,000 – 280,000 Palestinian refugees the report found to be living in the country.

This is a significantly smaller figure than the 425,000 UN registered refugees, many of whom are thought to have emigrated in search of work.

“Anyone who has visited one of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon knows that poverty is widespread there and the living conditions are simply unacceptable for a middle-income country,” said EU operation section head Diege Escalona Paturel. “Until today no reliable data on the socio-economic situation and poverty levels in the camps existed and thus all programs and campaigns have been based on estimates and guesses in the best case, propaganda in the worst.”

The survey, conducted by researchers at the American University Beirut (AUB) in coordination with United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) statisticians, found jobless rates among Palestinians to be 56 percent, with only 38 percent of the working population – 53,000 out of 120,000 refugees – considered to be in stable employment.

A mere 6 percent of Palestinians go on to attend university, in contrast to 20 percent of Lebanese, the report said. [In Gaza the number is closer to 46.2% - EoZ, h/t Zach]

A large amount of blame is being placed on the perceived lack of opportunities, limited by state restrictions requiring Palestinians to obtain work permits and which, in spite of recent relaxations, still exclude Palestinians from certain professions, such as medicine.

To put these numbers in context, it means that the unemployment rate of Palestinian Arabs in a sovereign Arab country is far higher than they are in "besieged" Gaza, where the rate is about 35%. The poverty rate in Lebanon for Palestinian Arabs is also higher than in Gaza.

So where are the convoys and flotillas by "pro-Palestinian activists" to help the Arabs of Palestinian descent who live in Lebanon?

Oh, sorry, no one cares about them, because "pro-Palestinian" activists only care when they can blame Palestinian Arab misery on Israel. When Arabs deliberately discriminate against their Palestinian brethren, it gets hushed up so as not to dilute the message that Israel is uniquely evil and that somehow Israel is to blame for the past six decades of Arabs treating Palestinian Arabs like dirt.

In this case, their fellow Arabs are simply following Lebanese laws specifically written to discriminate against Palestinian Arabs.

You know....the textbook definition of apartheid.

(h/t Backspin)

Storm reveals ancient Roman statue in Ashkelon

From the BBC:

A Roman statue buried for centuries has been unearthed after a massive storm battered Israel's coast, officials say.

The white marble statue of a woman was found after a cliff collapsed in the city of Ashkelon.

The statue - which lacks a head and arms - dates back about 1,800-2,000 years, officials at the Israel Antiquities Authorities (IAA) believe.

However, the storm also caused some damage to the Roman-era port of Caesarea.

Israel's officials are due to visit the area to assess the damage.

(h/t Mostly Kosher)

MTV romanticizes Arabs stealing Israeli cars

MTV, in a show called "The Vice Guide to Everything," goes to Ramallah to watch Palestinian Arabs steal an Israeli car and go drag racing.

The show is set up for the viewers to identify with the thieves.

From Israel Today via Israel Unity Coalition:

The episode, titled “Ramallah Racing,” opens with the host’s narration stating that “since legally importing car parts is such a hassle, some enterprising young Palestinians came up with a clever alternative – sneak into Israel, steal a nice car, then drive it back into the West Bank and chop it up for parts.”

Viewers are then introduced to “Adam,” a Palestinian man who claims he no longer actively steals cars, but has volunteered to demonstrate how it’s done.

Adam asks the understanding host, “Someone who steals our land, why shouldn’t we steal his car?”

Adam is then shown smashing the window of an Israeli vehicle and struggling to break into the steering column. The show’s host helps Adam to break the column’s covering and start the car. The two then race away while giving approving nods to one another.

Nearly 50,000 Israeli vehicles are stolen every year. It is one of the worst criminal plagues the nation deals with. Prior to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, car theft in Israel was at normal levels. But it has more than doubled thanks to Palestinian thieves being able to quickly reach a safe haven in PA-controlled areas.

Israeli authorities do not dare to enter the Palestinian areas to reclaim the vehicles, since repeatedly doing so would cause an international uproar against Israel. The Palestinians know this, and use it to their advantage.

In turn, the rampant theft is a major factor in creating distrust of the Palestinian Arabs among Israeli Jews. Promoting and romanticizing that theft can only serve to further drive a wedge between the two sides.

The Ramallah part starts around the 7:00 mark.

The Vice Guide to Everything - MTV Shows

Here is a still showing a graveyard of stolen Israeli cars:

The MTV host says there is nothing political about this; it is just Palestinian Arabs rebelling against authority like any other teenagers.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

Stuxnet still causing havoc in Iran

Some great new details in the JPost about Stuxnet:

The Stuxnet virus, which has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities and which Israel is suspected of creating, has set back the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by two years, a top German computer consultant who was one of the first experts to analyze the program’s code told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

“It will take two years for Iran to get back on track,” Langer said in a telephone interview from his office in Hamburg, Germany. “This was nearly as effective as a military strike, but even better since there are no fatalities and no full-blown war. From a military perspective, this was a huge success.”

...Eric Byres, a computer security expert who runs a website called Tofino Security, which provides solutions for industrial companies with Stuxnet-related problems, told the Post on Tuesday that the number of Iranians visiting his site had jumped tremendously in recent weeks – a likely indication that the virus is still causing great disarray at Iranian nuclear facilities.

“What caught our attention was that last year we maybe had one or two people from Iran trying to access the secure areas on our site,” Byres said. “Iran was never on the map for us, and all of a sudden we are now getting massive numbers of people going to our website, and people who we can identify as being from Iran.”

“There are a large number of people trying to access the secure areas directly from Iran and other people who are putting together fake identities,” he said. “We are talking about hundreds. It could be people who are curious about what is going on, but we are such a specialized site that it would only make sense that these are people who are involved in control systems.”

I think it is time to release a specialized patch, custom made just for these Iranians who are trying to clean up the virus....

Stunning 1930s Jerusalem photos - I need a 3D wizard

One commenter named "lol", in the comments of my posting about old photos of Israel, mentioned a huge collection of old photos that can be found here.

Some of the most stunning photographs were taken from an airplane, apparently in 1936. The photographic quality is absolutely superb. You can download high resolution TIF images from the site, hosted by the Library of Congress.

It is easier to show you a video indicating how high quality the photos are as I zoom and pan across the Old City, concentrating on the beautiful Hurva and Tiferes Yisroel synagogues that were destroyed by Jordan in 1948, from multiple angles:

Now, I know that there is software out there to convert 2D images to 3D models. Can someone out there take these photos, and others on the site, and turn it into a complete model of what the Old City, specifically the Jewish Quarter, looked like before it was destroyed in 1948? I'm sure we can find documentation and experts who can identify buildings, streets and other landmarks so in the end we can have an accurate 3D atlas of how Jerusalem was, especially identifying all the destroyed synagogues that used to be found throughout the Old City.

Who's up for the challenge?

China disagrees with Arab world over Jerusalem?

From Victor Shikhman:

It went unnoticed by me, and apparently by much of the international English language media, that China, a traditionally loyal diplomatic backer and arms supplier of the Arab states and their terrorist proxies, is carving out an increasingly nuanced position on the Israeli-Arab conflict, one more balanced to the interest of the State of Israel and more likely to result in a just and lasting peace agreement. Here's the report, from May 14th, 2010, on Al Jazeera (Google Translation):

A dispute on Jerusalem between the Chinese and the Arab delegation, attending the fourth session of the Ministerial Meeting of China-Arab Cooperation Forum in the port city of Tianjin. The dispute erupted after Chinese officials refused to sign a joint document with the delegation, which includes the Arab Foreign Ministers, East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. According to Al Jazeera's correspondent in China, Ezzat Shahrour that the Arab delegation was surprised at the last minute when Chinese officials refused to sign the document, despite all the efforts that have been made at the last minute in order to contain the situation.

The Al Jazeera article does seem to say that - the Chinese refused to sign a paper calling Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian state.

The position is not quite as pro-Israel as Shikhamn thinks, though. I managed to dig up the Chinese-language communique from the conference, hosted on the Chinese embassy site in Syria, autotranslated:

China's emphasis on supporting the Arab countries under the relevant United Nations resolutions, "land for peace" principle, "the Arab Peace Initiative" and the Middle East peace "road map" peace and stability in the Middle East a strategic choice; call for early resumption of the line of peace talks. The two sides reached a consensus in the international community to support the "two-state solution" under the framework of relevant UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative, based on the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian State; restore legitimate Arab rights, an end to Israel beyond 1967 (lines) including East Jerusalem, the [end of] occupation of Arab territories in the Middle East to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace; called on Israel to respond to the peaceful aspirations of the Arab countries, in the "Arab Peace Initiative" with the Arab countries on the basis of negotiations, the full implementation of Security Council resolution; called upon the international community to continue to provide political and economic support of Palestine, to improve the humanitarian situation in Palestine; to lift the Israeli blockade on Gaza, open ports, and promote reconstruction in Gaza; demand that Israel cease, including East Jerusalem, the occupied Arab territories, including settlement building point of such actions; under the relevant resolutions of the United Nations to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem; demanded that Israel cease all actions exacerbate tensions in order to maintain regional stability in the Middle East peace process forward and create favorable conditions.

So while it does indeed appear that China is not officially supportive of Jerusalem being the capital of a Palestinian Arab state, they still want Jerusalem to be divided.

It is an interesting piece of political intrigue, though.

(h/t Firouz)

Ray Hanania says that "Zionism" is a New York City organization

Yet another article by the "moderate" Ray Hanania shows that his grip on reality is getting more tenuous by the day.

Yes, he still denies that Helen Thomas was demanding, in an unguarded moment, that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine." And he insists that her comments about "Zionists" owning Congress, the White House, Hollywood and Wall Street" - classic anti-semitic tropes - were about Zionists. (No doubt, hook-nosed "Zionists" at that.)

But now Hanania is going off on his own bizarre theory - that Zionism is an organization!

Thomas has criticized and denounced Zionism, a political movement with headquarters in new York City. The purpose of the organization is to champion the interests of a foreign country, Israel.

...Zionism is a political organization with headquarters in New York. Its agenda is to defend a foreign nation.

...Ms. Thomas criticized Zionism, a recognized political organization that champions the interests of a foreign country.

That's three times he claims that there is an organization, based out of Jew (sorry, New) York City, that is called "Zionism."

Is he referring to the Zionist Organization of America? Or the ADL? Or, more likely, has he just lost his mind?

Even funnier is how he tries to imply that supporting a foreign country is somehow inherently anti-American. Yet on one of his many websites, he headlines it "Can we save Palestine"? Isn't he then advocating for a foreign entity whose policies might be against American interests? Not only that, on that page he announces his candidacy to run for the Palestinian National Council and for the PA Parliament - indicating that Ray Hanania is more loyal to "Palestine" than to his own country of birth! Why, Ray, is being a Zionist somehow inherently anti-American but wanting to join a foreign government is not?

Just more hypocrisy from good ol' Ray. Keep it coming; it is really funny to see you fall apart like this, over a bitter old bigot no less. Since you claim to be a comedian, surely you can see the humor in this.

The real problem is that, by any objective measure, Hanania really is much more moderate than 99% of Palestinian Arabs. And even he cannot find a way to condemn the explicit bigotry of a fellow Arab. Which does not bode well for the chances of peace.

Great video of Israel

This video, which I had never seen before, was apparently made for Israel's 60th birthday.

It's very well done and a lot of fun to watch:

From the Israel YouTube channel.

(h/t Joel)

Some history found, some history recovered

Joel emails me two related items.

One is the Flickr photo album from the Palestine Exploration Fund, which has been studying the area of historic Palestine (including parts of what are now Lebanon and Jordan) since 1865. Over 150 photos are visible, some quite fascinating:

View of the Temple Mount, 1864

Panorama of the Dome of the Rock, 1917 (notice the weeds)

Rachel's Tomb

Also, a recent re-discovery of artifacts from Jerusalem in the first century CE.

HRW, UN actually chide Hamas

Hamas has closed a lot of NGOs and charities over the past couple of years. But one organization they closed on November 30th has some powerful friends.

From Palestine Monitor, December 2:

The Sharek Youth Forum in Gaza City was forcibly closed by police on Tuesday. The forum’s liberal agenda had resulted in frequent clashes with the Hamas government prior to its closure. Sharek staff protest the action is illegal and unjust.

In the past seven months the group’s headquarters have been repeatedly raided and members of staff have been subjected to physical intimidation, harassment and threats. During this time, Executive manager Muheib Shaath has been summoned to 15 separate interrogations from internal security. A summer camp run by Sharek in partnership with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was destroyed in May.

Sharek co-founder Sufian Mshasha told us the harassment and ultimate closure was “prompted by our agenda of democracy, social development, and our insistence on holding activities for both genders.” He claimed that “80-90%” of questioning of Sharek staff focused on their practise of mixing genders in their programmes.

The webpage of Sharek includes a large list of donors, including George Soros, the Carter Center, UNRWA, UNESCO, and Save the Children-Sweden.

So in this case, there is actually an outcry.

From UNSCO:

The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian Territory, Maxwell Gaylard, today voiced his concern about the forced closure on 30 November by the local authorities in Gaza of all Gaza-based offices of the non-governmental organization Sharek Youth Forum.

“I am very concerned about the recent forced closing of Sharek Youth Forum in Gaza. Sharek is an important NGO partner of the United Nations in its work on behalf of children and the youth in Gaza”, Mr. Gaylard said.

From HRW:

Hamas authorities in Gaza should allow an organization that helps children and youth to reopen and penalize officials who have harassed its workers, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 30, 2010, Hamas authorities arbitrarily closed all of the Gaza offices of the group Sharek Youth Forum, which provides psychosocial and vocational support and operates summer camps and other programs for 60,000 Gaza children and youth.

Will Hamas cave now that one of their many anti-democratic actions bubbled to the surface?

Stuxnet written by...the Chinese?

A Forbes blogger has a fascinating theory:

I uncovered a connection between two of the key players in the Stuxnet drama: Vacon, the Finnish manufacturer of one of two frequency converter drives targeted by this malware; and RealTek, who’s digital certificate was stolen and used to smooth the way for the worm to be loaded onto a Windows host without raising any alarms. A third important piece of the puzzle, which I’ll discuss later in this article, directly connects a Chinese antivirus company which writes their own viruses with the Stuxnet worm.

...China has an intimate knowledge of Iran’s centerfuges since, according to one source quoted above, they’re of Chinese design.

China has better access than any other country to manufacturing plans for the Vacon frequency converter drive made by Vacon’s Suzhou facility and specifically targeted by the Stuxnet worm (along with an Iranian company’s drive).

China has better access than any other country to RealTek’s digital certificates through it’s Realsil office in Suzhou and, secondarily, to JMicron’s office in Taiwan.

China has direct access to Windows source code, which would explain how a malware team could create 4 key zero day vulnerabilities for Windows when most hackers find it challenging to develop even one.

...As far as China goes, I’ve identified 5 distinct ties to Stuxnet that are unique to China as well as provided a rationale for the attack which fits China’s unique role as Iran’s ally and customer, while opposing Iran’s fuel enrichment plans. There’s still a distinct lack of information on any other facilities that suffered damage, and no good explanations for why there was such massive collateral damage across dozens of countries if only one or two facilities in one nation state were the targets however based solely on the known facts, I consider China to be the most likely candidate for Stuxnet’s origin.

I don't think this is altogether convincing, but it is certainly worth consideration. If you are into Stuxnet, read the whole thing.

(h/t Clark)

Wikileaks: Egypt reiterates that Iran is region's greatest threat

A recent Wikileaks cable, from February 2010, shows that Egypt continues to view Iran and its proxies as the major threat to the entire region, and it even looks at the Palestinian Arab issue through the lens of Iran.

This memo is a scene-setter for Admiral Mullen:

President Mubarak sees Iran as Egypt's -- and the region's -- primary strategic threat. Egypt's already dangerous neighborhood, he believes, has only become more so since the fall of Saddam, who, as nasty as he was, nevertheless stood as a wall against Iran. He now sees Tehran's hand moving with ease throughout the region, "from the Gulf to Morocco." The immediate threat to Egypt comes from Iranian conspiracies with Hamas (which he sees as the "brother" of his own most dangerous internal political threat, the Muslim Brotherhood) to stir up unrest in Gaza, but he is also concerned about Iranian machinations in Sudan and their efforts to create havoc elsewhere in the region, including in Yemen, Lebanon, and even the Sinai, via Hezbollah. While Tehran's nuclear threat is also a cause for concern, Mubarak is more urgently seized with what he sees as the rise of Iranian surrogates (Hamas and Hezbollah) and Iranian attempts to dominate the Middle East.

...Egypt continues to support our efforts to resume negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians and maintains a regular dialogue with all sides. Egyptian sponsored negotiations on Palestinian reconciliation are ongoing. Egypt's objectives are to avoid another Gaza crisis while eroding Hamas' power and ultimately returning the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.

This part is interesting as well:

President Mubarak and military leaders view our military assistance program as a cornerstone of our mil-mil relationship and consider the USD 1.3 billion in annual FMF as untouchable compensation for making peace with Israel. Decision-making within MOD rests almost solely with Defense Minister Tantawi. In office since 1991, he consistently resists change to the level and direction of FMF funding and is therefore one of our chief impediments to transforming our security relationship. Nevertheless, he retains President Mubarak's support. You should encourage Tantawi to place greater emphasis on countering asymmetric threats rather than focusing almost exclusively on conventional force.

Which sounds like Egypt, despite over thirty years of peace with Israel, still thinks of its army as primarily concerned with a future war with Israel.

Wikileaks: The Suha Arafat Affair

A pair of interesting cables from Wikileaks concerning Suha Arafat, Yasir Arafat's widow.

From 2006:

The Government of Tunisia's Official Journal of September 26 published a notice that Suha Arafat, wife of the late Palestinian Authority president, and her 11-year old daughter Zahwa had acquired Tunisian nationality. Mrs. Arafat and her daughter have been living in Tunisia since the 2004 death of Yasser Arafat, and Zahwa Arafat attends the American Cooperative School of Tunisia. Suha Arafat's presence in Tunisia long predates that, however. She had been a resident of Tunisia prior to her marriage, and, after residing in the Palestinian Territories from 1996-98, she returned in 1998, alternating between residences in France and Tunisia.

...We remain puzzled as to why Mrs. Arafat would want Tunisian citizenship...One possible motivation is that under Tunisian law, foreign participation in a totally non-exporting service industry cannot exceed 50 percent. Several months ago, Mrs. Arafat set up one such company -- to
build an international school in Tunis. Tunisian citizenship will allow her to control this company.

And then things went downhill. From 2007:

The GOT's decision last summer to revoke Suha Arafat's Tunisian citizenship, which had only been granted less than a year earlier, made international headlines. Since the appearance of the official register notice on August 7, the chattering class in Tunisia has not ceased to speculate about the reasons behind the decision. In a mid-October telcon with Ambassador Godec, Mrs. Arafat attributed her ouster to the personal animus of First Lady Leila Ben Ali, following a dispute over the forced closure of the Bouebdelli School, a well-respected private school. Had
it remained open, the Bouebdelli School would have represented serious competition to the new Carthage International School, a joint venture between the two First Ladies. It is doubtful that we will ever know all of the facts in this affair, but the stories of corruption swirling around the Carthage International School have a ring of truth to them.

...In a mid-October telcon with the Ambassador, Ms. Arafat blamed her ouster on the personal animus of First Lady Leila Ben Ali. "I can't believe what she's has done to me," Arafat exclaimed, "I've lost everything!" She charged that all of her properties in Tunisia had been confiscated, even by falsifying documents transferring ownership. (Note: It is rumored that Mrs. Arafat had invested -- and lost -- some 2.5 million euros in the Carthage International School. End Note.) In addition, she said, her friends and colleagues in Tunisia, including her banker, had also come under pressure. "Anyone who supports me is punished."

...Plenty of other theories have stoked the rumor mill in the Suha Arafat affair. One well-connected Palestinian resident in Tunisia told EmbOff that what sealed Mrs. Arafat's fate was that on a recent visit to Tripoli, she had asked Libyan Leader Qaddafi for money. Qaddafi had readily provided a hand-out, but he reportedly subsequently called President Ben Ali to chastise him for failing to provide adequately for the widow of the late Palestinian President. Ben Ali's acute embarrassment, so the story goes, quickly turned to wrath. It was not long before Mrs. Arafat's citizenship was revoked. Another theory holds that Suha Arafat was ousted because she had absconded with a significant amount of the first family's assets. Finally, in the face of persistent rumors that Mrs. Arafat had secretly married Belhassen Trabelsi, brother of the Tunisian First Lady, some commentators chalked up the whole ordeal to the failure of that relationship.

Some other juicy parts of that latter cable, including Suha's accusations of corruption towards the ruling family and the fact that the for-profit school had enjoyed great governmental largesse.

It seems that her Suha learned a bit about corruption during her marriage.

Wikileaks: British anger at UK Muslim open letter

From the latest batch of Wikileaks, a 2006 cable:

Prominent British Muslim leaders sent an open letter to PM Tony Blair August 12 stating that his policy on Iraq and the Middle East offers “ammunition to extremists” and puts British lives “at increased risk.” Appearing as a full page advertisement in newspapers August 13, the letter was signed by three of the four Muslim MPs, three of the five Muslim members of the House of Lords, and 38 Muslim organizations (for full text and list of signatories see para 10). Although the letter states specifically that “attacking civilians is never justified,” its signatories have used this sentence as a double-edged sword in defending the letter publicly, in effect equating civilian deaths in Lebanon with potential civilian deaths from terrorism. As MCB Secretary General Dr. Mohammed Abdul Bari told the press, “As Muslims, we condemn attacks on civilians wherever they happen. Civilians in the UK, the Middle East, and the rest of the world should all enjoy protection.”

HMG reacted sharply to the letter. A spokesman for PM Blair (currently on holiday in Barbados), noting that al-Qaida terrorist attacks began well before Iraq, said, “To imply al-Qaida is driven by an honest disagreement over foreign policy is a mistake.” Home Secretary John Reid told the BBC, “I’m not going to question the motives of anyone who has signed this letter, but I think it is a dreadful misjudgment if we believe the foreign policy of this country should be shaped in part, or in whole, under the threat of terrorist activity if we do not have a foreign policy with which the terrorists happen to agree.” Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander echoed these sentiments, saying “No government worth its salt should allow its foreign policy to be dictated to under the threat of terrorism.” Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said it would be “the gravest SIPDIS possible error” to blame foreign policy for the threat of terrorism. “This is part of a distorted view of the world, a distorted view of life,” she said. “Let’s put the blame where it belongs: with people who wantonly want to take innocent lives.” Other ministers called the letter “facile,” “dangerous,” and “foolish.”

It is too bad that, perhaps subconsciously, world diplomats do exactly what they say they won't do: allowing their foreign policy to be dictated by fears of terrorism. But they do it a bit more indirectly, by blaming Israel for Palestinian Arab intransigence and not fulfilling impossible demands.

Israeli eye doctors start work in Maldives amid protests

From Minivan News:

Visiting Israeli doctors from the ‘Eye from Zion’ NGO have begun treating patients at Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) after producing attested documentation, Haveeru has reported.

State Housing Minister Abdulla Shahid, in charge of the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), said there was “high demand” for the team’s services, despite protests in Male’ on Thursday.

Earlier, over the weekend:

Protests erupted across Male’ over the weekend that saw the burning of Israeli flags and calls to “ban all Israeli medical teams” from practicing in the Maldives...

Protesters burned several Israeli flags in Republican Square and demanded the deportation of seven visiting Israeli eye surgeons, who are holding free eye camps in Male’ and the island hospitals.

Protesters gathered near the tsunami monument on International Human Rights Day, claiming that “Jews would not provide any form of assistance, unless there is a hidden agenda”, according to the website of the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives.

The religious NGO has previously called on the government to “shun all medical aid from the Zionist regime”, alleging the Israeli surgeons “have become notorious for illegally harvesting organs from non-Jews around the world.”

Religious NGO Jamiyyathusalaf has also called on the government to provide citizens with military training “before Jews take over the country”.

President Mohamed Nasheed today met with the doctors the Israeli ‘Eye from Zion’ NGO and said “a vast majority of Maldivians” appreciated the humanitarian work of the doctors.

As when I first mentioned this in late November before, the comments section of this newspaper is overwhelmingly supportive of the Israeli effort.

Why do the losers get to define the terms of victory?

A New York Times op-ed by Robert Wright shows how the world has swallowed a Palestinian Arab lie -hook, line and sinker:

If there is no two-state solution, Israel can either (a) give Palestinians in the occupied territories the vote and watch as the Arab birth rate turns Israeli Jews into a minority; or (b) keep denying the vote to Arabs it has ruled for decades, thus incurring charges of apartheid, moving toward pariah status among nations, continuing to give propaganda fuel to regional troublemakers and raising the chances of disastrous war.

...Every day, settlement construction — especially in East Jerusalem — makes it harder to imagine two-state borders that would leave Palestinians with the minimal dignity necessary for lasting peace.

That word, "dignity," is the linchpin.

When Germany and Japan were defeated in World War II, no one said that the resulting, greatly reduced powers they had were too few to maintain the "dignity" of the vanquished and that they should be given more - or else there would be a threat of no "lasting peace." Peace was dependent on limiting their powers.

How did this concept of "dignity" for the losing side become a sine qua non for peace? In larger terms, why do a people and their leaders who have consistently worked towards the destruction of Israel deserve the dignity that they demand as a minimal starting point towards a reward of a state?

Palestinian Arabs did not accept any partition plan before 1948; they did not agitate for a "dignified" state when Jordan and Egypt controlled the territories, they universally supported Saddam Hussein against the allies, even recent polls show that they support terror attacks against Jews in Israel and argue that there is a legal obligation for "resistance" - so why, exactly, is their definition of "dignity" being accepted as a legitimate demand?

Beyond that, why does the party that has lost every single war get to define the terms of victory?

If there is to be a two-state solution, it must be a viable state - not a "dignified" state. Dignity is an elastic concept, with no objective definition, and the arbitrary definitions being bandied about by Palestinian Arabs have zero basis in reality. Not one person has ever yet explained why Jerusalem must be a part of a Palestinian state. Not only that, but the Palestinian Arabs discount the very real rights of the Jews who live in Judea and Samaria: while Arabs in Jerusalem can easily accept Israeli citizenship, Jews across the Green Line cannot be expected live in safety in a Palestinian Arab state - yet the demand that hundreds of thousands of Jews can be forced out of their homes is considered acceptable but a Jewish Jerusalem is not. This is not logical nor is there any real basis for such a demand.

The only reason people like Wright insist that Jerusalem must be divided and that Jews cannot live in the historic heartland of Israel is because Palestinian Arabs demand it. What is not explained by anybody is why they have the right to demand such a thing.

If the goal is a state, they can have one and they could have had one for decades. If the goal is a "dignified" state, then they are being given the unilateral right to define Israel to be a state without defensible borders and without real access to religious and historic sites that are unquestionably Jewish.

Which means that the world has accepted that Palestinian Arabs, consistent supporters of the wrong side in every single war and whose "moderate" leaders demand to this very day the demographic destruction of Israel, have more of a right to dignity than the Jewish nation does to dignity and security.

People have to start realizing that Palestinian Arab demands do not equal rights, and that a Palestinian Arab state cannot and should not be defined in a way that deprives the Jewish state and people of their own competing rights. Insistence is not the same as reality, but the world has confused the two for way too long.

One cheer for AFP

AFP, alone among major news wire services, noticed that Hamas' supposed new moderation was illusory:

The Islamist Hamas group in the Gaza Strip on Monday reiterated its aim to recover all of historic Palestine from the Mediterranean to Jordan, as it prepared to mark its 23rd anniversary.

Ismail Haniya, the senior Hamas leader in Gaza, had said on December 1 that the organisation would accept a peace deal with Israel if the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum.

"We say that Palestine from the sea to the (Jordan) river is fully the land of the Palestinians. We will cede none of it, and we will not recognise the so-called state of Israel," Hamas said in a statement.

It added that its intention was to make Jerusalem the "capital of the state of Palestine," and pledged "the failure of all methods of Judaisation" of the holy city by Israel.

On December 1, Haniya said: "We accept a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the land occupied in 1967 with Jerusalem as its capital and a solution to the issue of refugees."

His statement had appeared to signal a shift in the group's long-standing policy of refusing to accept either Israel's legitimacy or any peace treaty negotiated by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

All of this information is easily available to anyone who bothers reading the Arabic press (here's an example from today.) It is really sad that what should be a simple piece of reporting - one that should have accompanied Haniyeh's reported comments, not followed them by nearly two weeks - is only available in one major English-language wire service.

They don't get three cheers because they didn't notice it earlier and for their gratuitous use of "Historic Palestine" as being from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, which is a myth.

Meanwhile, in Iran....

The Asian Gaza convoy folks met Ahmadinejad today, where he taught them who the truly evil people are:

Ahmadinejad said the Islamic Republic, along with other countries, will always make efforts to help Palestinians, including the besieged Gazans, attain their freedom and rid themselves of the Zionist regime.

He stated that the most important problem of the modern world is the existence of the Zionist regime.

The Zionist regime was established in order to help the hegemonistic powers’ efforts to dominate the entire world, he observed.

Crimes like humiliating people, conducting terrorist acts, selling people into slavery, and depriving people of their basic rights, which have been committed in the world throughout history, are now committed almost every day in Palestine, he stated.

He went on to say that the Zionists are neither Jewish, nor Christian, nor Muslim, but rather, they are unbelievers who also do not care about basic human values.

The Zionists are pursuing only one mission and that is to destroy the culture of other nations, Ahmadinejad noted.

Today, everybody knows that Palestine is not a conflict between Arabs and Jews or between Muslims and Jews, but rather, it is a global issue that should be solved globally, he said.

Glad he cleared that up.

And just to make sure that he is not accused of lying, I must do something to humiliate him:

After all, if anti-semitic Muslim clerics are all Mossad agents who are out to make Islam look bad, then isn't it logical that crazed Iranian leaders are at least as sympathetic to Israel as the imams?

Deaths in football riots between Palestinian Arabs and Jordanians

From Al Jazeera:

A football game in Amman between Jordan's Al-Wahdat and Al-Faisaly clubs has ended in violence.

As anti-riot police tried to control crowds as they left the football field on Friday, a metal fence collapsed under the weight of the crowd, injuring some 250 people.

Eyewitnesses said that several people were beaten to death by police trying to prevent an escalation of clashes between the two teams' supporters.

Supporters of Al-Wahdat are generally of Palestinian origin, while Al-Faisaly fans are of Jordanian origin, our correspondent said.

During the past few years, tensions between the teams' supporters have marred their matches. The number of injuries in Friday's game is exceptionally high, however.

According to witness accounts, the violence broke out outside the stadium, with some people smashing cars.

"Let's see whether [the government] is going to have a credible investigation, with people who made mistakes held accountable," Salameh Nematt, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera.

"Today's incident may have political implications, but the government is trying not to highlight this Palestinian-Jordanian divide within Jordan," El-Shamayleh reported.

A Wikileaks document released last week spoke about this very phenomenon of Jordanians and Palestinian Arabs - supporters of these same two teams - using games as a means to insult and riot against the other side.

A challenge to Khaled Amayreh

Khaled Amayreh, a prolific Arab writer and hater who we've already seen is an explicit anti-semite, has a new and unintentionally funny article:

A few weeks ago, a supposedly religious activist, probably from one of the Gulf States, suggested to me that Muslims shouldn't confine our attacks to Zionists; we ought, he said, to attack Jews as Jews, on the grounds that the vast majority of Jews support Israel.

I treated this "advice" with great caution, suspecting that he might be one of those overzealous fanatics who are duped by Zionist circles to malign Jews so that Israeli hasbara (propaganda) operatives such as MEMRI and Honest Reporting [sic] would be able to use his extremist rhetoric to their best advantage. They highlight "Muslim anti-Semitism" and con the world into thinking that the conflict in the Middle East is not really over the Israeli occupation of Palestine and oppression of its Christian and Muslim people, but is rooted in deeply-held Arab racism against the Jews.

After some investigation, I found out that the website used by that extremist was actually a Mossad front used to attract religious radicals in order to serve Israeli propaganda purposes. Needless to say, Zionist groups just love Muslims like this and they usually have no shortage of such imbeciles to use; when there is, the Mossad hasbara department simply creates or recruits a few more.

Besides the great irony of someone who makes no bones about his hatred of Jews worrying about a Muslim extremist spouting anti-semitism, there is another thing that doesn't quite add up:

Khaled - why aren't you identifying this "Mossad site" publicly?

Don't your first-class investigation skills deserve a wide audience? Shouldn't you be warning your readers not to be taken in by this bogus Mossad site where their presence would play into the hands of the evil Zionists? How can you be so irresponsible so as not to work assiduously to expose this site to the world and embarrass the manipulative and evil Jews who are trying to pull the wool over innocent Muslim eyes and turn them, unwillingly, into anti-semites?

I'm sure there is some logical explanation for your seemingly inexplicable ommission. So, come one: where is this site?

After all, you wouldn't want people to think you are lying, would you?

Christians fleeing Iraq - and every other Arab country. NYT not sure why.

From the NYT:

A new wave of Iraqi Christians has fled to northern Iraq or abroad amid a campaign of violence against them and growing fear that the country’s security forces are unable or, more ominously, unwilling to protect them.

The flight — involving thousands of residents from Baghdad and Mosul, in particular — followed an Oct. 31 siege at a church in Baghdad that killed 51 worshipers and 2 priests and a subsequent series of bombings and assassinations singling out Christians. This new exodus, which is not the first, highlights the continuing displacement of Iraqis despite improved security over all and the near-resolution of the political impasse that gripped the country after elections in March.

It threatens to reduce further what Archdeacon Emanuel Youkhana of the Assyrian Church of the East called “a community whose roots were in Iraq even before Christ.”

Those who fled the latest violence — many of them in a panicked rush, with only the possessions they could pack in cars — warned that the new violence presages the demise of the faith in Iraq. Several evoked the mass departure of Iraq’s Jews after the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

“It’s exactly what happened to the Jews,” said Nassir Sharhoom, 47, who fled last month to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, with his family from Dora, a once mixed neighborhood in Baghdad. “They want us all to go.

And who is driving the Christians out? Somehow, the New York Times cannot find a way to pronounce the word. The entire article on religious persecution in Iraq uses the word "Muslim" once, referring to Iraq as "an overwhelmingly Muslim country" but without quite drawing the line between that and the persecutors. It talks about "daily threats" without identifying those making them.

Of course, this is hardly limited to Iraq. The NYT's Ethan Bronner noted last year that

[A] dwindling and threatened Christian population [is] driven to emigration by political violence, lack of economic opportunity and the rise of radical Islam. A region that a century ago was 20 percent Christian is about 5 percent today and dropping.

Even though he mentions "radical Islam" he is also reluctant to explicitly state that Muslim threats against Christians are driving them out, instead primarily blaming the economy and other factors.

But wouldn't the economy be equally bad for Muslims as well?

In fact, the only Middle Eastern country whose Christian population is increasing is Israel. This CAMERA report last year goes into detail on this phenomenon.

So why is the New York Times so reluctant to identify the persecutors of Christians? Why is it silent on the threats, verbal and sexual assaults, and land confiscation by Muslims against Christians?

(h/t MW)

Is the ultimate goal a Palestinian Arab state - or a pan-Arab state?

One of the revelations in the National Archives report I posted about yesterday was this one:

Husseini, however, was a believer in a Pan-Arab state.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who became a supposed convert to Palestinian Arab nationalism from pan-Arab nationalism in 1920 in the wake of the 1920 San Remo Conference, really remained a pan-Arab nationalist but used the idea of "Palestinian" nationalism - something virtually nonexistent before San Remo - as a way to expel the Jews from Palestine.

And he is not the only one.

The original PLO charter written in 1964 does not explicitly call for a Palestinian Arab state! It is filled with phrases like

The Palestinian people firmly believe in Arab unity, and in order to play its role in realizing this goal, it must, at this stage of its struggle, preserve its Palestinian personality and all its constituents. It must strengthen the consciousness of its existence and stance and stand against any attempt or plan that may weaken or disintegrate its personality.

In other words, Palestinian national identity is essentially a fiction that was created and maintained by Arab leaders as a means to destroy Zionism. Before the 1960s, most Palestinian Arabs identified far more with the Arab nation - and their own clans - than with "Palestine," and indeed practically none of them fought in 1948 for anything outside their own villages.

But we can go further, as the Hamas charter says this rather explicitly as well, although in terms of pan-Islamism rather than pan-Arabism:A

s for the objectives: They are the fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail, homelands be retrieved and from its mosques would the voice of the mu'azen emerge declaring the establishment of the state of Islam, so that people and things would return each to their right places and Allah is our helper

. Only as a strategy is Palestinian Arab nationalism mentioned, not as a goal:

Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."...

The question of the liberation of Palestine is bound to three circles: the Palestinian circle, the Arab circle and the Islamic circle. Each of these circles has its role in the struggle against Zionism.

The very first article in the 2003 Palestinian Constitution says:

Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation. Arab Unity is an objective which the Palestinian People shall work to achieve.

Given this, it becomes even clearer that the antipathy towards Israel is from an Arab perspective as an encroacher of eternally Arab or Islamic land, not primarily for the purpose of establishing a independent state of "Palestine." On the contrary, a state of Arab Palestine is simply a tactic towards the goal of a huge, united Arab nation. Even though that goal is illusory, it shows that Palestinian Arab nationalism is an artificially created paradigm and not a natural national group.

In other words, Palestinian Arab nationalism is a fiction created for Western consumption, where people are sympathetic to arguments for self-determination. Today, of course, due to oppressive Arab discrimination specifically against Palestinian Arabs, they have coalesced into a people united by their misery - misery that is a policy-level decision made by their brethren, calculated to inculcate hate against the people who really do have a legitimate national historic ties to the area of Palestine.

HaShomer HaChadash - defending Jewish-owned land in Israel

Jewish-owned farms and other lands are under attack by Israeli Bedouin and others. A new group has been set up to defend this land.

This is a scary and sobering, but ultimately uplifting, video:

The war isn't over even within the Green Line. It is a touchy subject because Israel is under such a microscope that even Israeli politicians and police apparently don't want to antagonize Israeli Arabs who break the law.

It is wonderful to see young Israelis who care enough to do something about it.

(h/t Yerushalimey and CiFWatch)

ElderToons: Erekat speaks out for Palestinian Arab rights

In honor of the Comment is Free column I posted on...

Saeb Erekat's lies in CiF

Saeb Erekat, that Palestinian Arab negotiator who the West feels is so moderate because he wears suits and not army fatigues, has once again called for the destruction of Israel - this time in the pages of the Guardian's Comment is Free column.

He couches his demand to the end of the Jewish state in terms of the specious arguments that descendants of Palestinian Arabs who fled in 1948 have a "right to return" to the homes of their ancestors.

Here are some of his lies:

Israel's own admission as a member to the United Nations was contingent on its adherence to the principles of UNGA 194, something it proceeded to disregard once membership was granted.

While the resolution granting Israel's membership in the UN mentions UNGA 194, in no way does it say that it is contingent on it:

Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 and 11 December 1948 and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions,

The General Assembly,

Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure,

1. Decides that Israel is a peace loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;

2. Decides to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations.

While I cannot find the specific "declarations and explanations" noted at the moment, Israel's interpretation of 194 at the time was clear - no "return" of Arab refugees could be contemplated until there was a comprehensive peace and until the Arabs who return were willing to "live at peace with their neighbours", a UNGA 194 condition that was never met. The idea that Israel's admittance was somehow conditional is clearly a blatant lie.

The lies continue. Erekat says that "Palestinian refugees [are] the oldest and largest refugee community in the world today." The fact is that the vast majority are not refugees, but descendants of refugees, and that designation was created for them by UNRWA for practical reasons as a working definition but not as a legal definition. If they are legal refugees, then so are hundreds of millions of other people.

The lies continue:

The fact that Israel bears responsibility for the creation of the refugees is beyond argument. Even if the state still claims amnesia for its deeds, Israeli historians have debunked the traditional Zionist mythology and shown how Zionist leaders prior to 1948 formulated plans to displace the indigenous Palestinian population in order to create a Jewish majority state.

While there is a tiny amount of truth to this - plans are created for a lot of situations - there was no actual implementation of any such plans. The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs fled out of fear, not from force; their leaders fled early quite voluntarily leaving the masses without any anchor in the land. They fled because they thought that their Arab neighbors would allow them to resettle or stay until the Jews would be destroyed, but their fleeing showed that their attachment to the land was far more tenuous than the Jews who had no choice but to stay and fight, or die.

The lies continue:

Resolution 194 must provide the basis for a settlement to the refugee issue.

Resolution 194 was a General Assembly resolution, not legally binding. It also required that the Jerusalem area be under UN control - something ignored by Arabs. It does not specify only Arab refugees - in its language, Jews should have been allowed to return to their homes in the Old City and Gush Etzion and elsewhere - a provision rejected by Arabs even today. The entire resolution has no legal validity whatsoever in any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, as Israel argued in 1999:

The letters of invitation to the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and the Oslo Agreements signed between Israel and the PLO expressly provide that permanent status negotiations are to be based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). No other United Nations resolution is cited. The Palestinians have thus affirmed that a permanent solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be achieved by a negotiated settlement in West Bank and Gaza Strip territory that is the subject of those Security Council resolutions.

Other provisions of UNGA 194 were roundly ignored by the Arabs as well, such as free access to holy places. It is the Arab actions no less than anyone else that made 194 irrelevant.

Erekat's final lie is that masses of so-called refugees flooding Israel "will lead to a lasting peace." On the contrary, it would lead to the kind of internal terrorism that Palestine suffered before Israel was established, where thousands of people were slaughtered while Jews were a minority.

The entire issue is a ruse meant to destroy the Jewish state, and when the most "moderate" Palestinian Arab leaders are still publicly calling to dismantle Israel by demographic means, it shows that their stated desire for a two-state solution with both states living side by side in peace is an utter sham.

This article also proves that Palestinian Arab rejectionism is not merely a tactical move to improve their negotiating position, but an absolute rejection of Israel as anything other than yet another Arab state. This is the mainstream position of so-called "moderate" Palestinian Arabs, not a fringe extremist position. If the West is serious about a real peace - something that seems literally impossible given such intransigence - it needs to insist that Palestinian Arab leaders admit, publicly, that Israel is not where descendants of Palestinian Arabs who fled in 1948 will live and that they need to be absorbed in Arab countries instead of being the victims of institutional discrimination in every single Arab country as they are today.

That is the issue that Erekat and his ilk studiously avoid mentioning, and it proves beyond all doubt that they do not give a damn about their people but rather want to continue using them as pawns in their six-decade old, single-minded goal of destroying Israel.

New Asian convoy: India to Iran to Turkey to Syria to Gaza (updated)

A potentially dangerous new convoy, whose ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel, is currently in Iran where they are being encouraged by Ayatollahs and government officials.

The planned route looks like this (via Israeligirl):

The final leg seems to be intended to be a ship from Syria to Gaza.

The group behind it is called Asian People's Solidarity for Palestine, and they claim that some of the members of the journey were injured on the Mavi Marmara, making it clear that these are not "peace activists." (Their manifesto also calls for the"right of return," showing that they are anti-Israel activists as well.)

They plan to arrive in Gaza in time for the second anniversary of Cast Lead.

I believe that Israel would regard a ship sailing from an enemy state to be an act of war, and that threat (as I recall) was what scuttled the Lebanese "women's flotilla" last summer, as they could not find a country willing to host the final part of the journey. I think it is doubtful that Syria would risk this, but it is a story that needs to be followed.

(h/t Israeligirl)

UPDATE: Commenters have noticed what I didn't - that the last sea leg of the journey is in fact to El Arish in Egypt and then an overland convoy to Gaza, similar to other convoys and something that Israel does not object to. Egypt has just as little interest in Hamas acquiring weapons as Israel does.

Is Hezbollah threatening STL members?

Maybe a non-story - but maybe something significant:

Fatima al-Issawi on Sunday announced her resignation from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, citing "professional reasons."

"I announce my resignation as a spokesperson for the STL for professional reasons," Issawi said in a statement delivered to the state-run National News Agency.

She said she will not go into details of her resignation "out of respect for the position I had represented."

She does seem to come from Lebanon, so could Hezbollah be making some discreet threats against her family members in an attempt to delay or influence the STL indictments?

A possible hint from Iloubnan:

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is an “international conspiracy concocted against Lebanon in the service of Zionist entity”, Development and Liberation bloc MP Ali Khreiss said on Sunday, according to the National News Agency (NNA).

The MP stressed Amal and Hezbollah determination to thwart the STL conspiracy targeting Lebanon.