Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Jeffrey Goldberg's mistake

Here is the crux of a column by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic:

Peace will not come without the birth of a Palestinian state on the West Bank which has its capital in East Jerusalem. I'm as sure of that as I am of anything in the Middle East. Of course, peace may not come even with the birth of this state -- I'm no longer quite so sure in the possiblity, or at least in the availability, of peace -- but it will surely never happen without it.

What is peace?

If peace means the settlement of all conflict with everyone living happily side by side and the lion lying down with the lamb, then perhaps Goldberg has a point - Palestinian Arabs will not be happy or satisfied without Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian Arab state, and, by definition, there will never be peace.

From a purely logical perspective, there is no reason Jerusalem must be the capital of "Palestine." Ramallah is fulfilling the role nicely. The only reason it supposedly must be their capital is because they assert it, repeatedly. Together with that demand is their implicit threat that peace will never happen without dividing Jerusalem. Goldberg, for good reason, believes them.

There is a major flaw with this thought process, though.

There are a number of other demands that the Palestinian Arabs have that are equally critical if you believe their statements. First and foremost is the "right to return" - to destroy Israel demographically by forcing Israel to accept millions of so-called "refugees" within its borders. They have been just as adamant and intransigent concerning that demand as they have been towards Jerusalem. If you take their statements at face value, the two are equally important.

And if you are taking their demands at face value, there will never be peace without the "right to return" just as there will never be peace without their control over what Goldberg mistakenly capitalizes as "East Jerusalem."

So why is the demand for Israel to capitulate on Jerusalem considered by Goldberg a pre-requisite for peace, while their demand for the right to return is not?

The reason is obvious. Goldberg doesn't believe that Israel would ever accept the right to return, and therefore it is, to his mind, off the table. He is making an assumption that in any final peace agreement, the Palestinian Arabs will drop their demand for "return."

(The correlary to this is that if Israel had been adamant about a united Jerusalem, and if Barak had never put it on the table, Goldberg would not be writing this column today. It is Israel's lack of fortitude on the Jerusalem issue that makes Goldberg believe that Jerusalem is negotiable while "return" is not.)

So we have seen that the only reason to believe that Jerusalem is a non-negotiable demand is because Palestinian Arabs say it is. But they say that the "right to return" is just as non-negotiable. Goldberg's assumption that the latter demand will somehow not be an impediment to peace while the former would be is based on nothing more than wishful thinking and a belief system wedded to the idea of "everyone knows what a final agreement will look like."

But has Goldberg heard a single word from any Palestinian Arab leader, ever, that they would be more flexible on "return" than on Jerusalem? If they are equally important to the Palestinian Arab mind - and they are, undoubtedly - then Goldberg must admit that his vision of "peace" is impossible. While he uneasily admits that peace may not be possible even with splitting Jerusalem, the fact is that his own logic shows that it is impossible without "return" - which means that a real permanent peace is, literally, impossible.

This is not the only unstated assumption that Goldberg makes about what Palestinian Arabs will compromise on. It was only a couple of months ago that the Palestinian Ministry of Information posted a paper on their website asserting that there was no Jewish connection to the Western Wall. Even though that paper was removed under pressure from the US, it has been repeated in the official Palestinian Arabic media since then. This was Arafat's position and it is, today, the position of the "moderate" PA. Goldberg assumes what "everyone knows" - that the PLO would allow Jewish holy places would remain under Israeli rule. But that assumption is also belied by the facts, facts that Goldberg is unwilling to consider.

It is very distasteful for most people to contemplate that "peace is impossible." Americans especially are brought up to believe that all problems are solvable, and we have a blind spot to accepting that some problems cannot be solved. It is this blind spot that Goldberg is falling victim to. He believes, passionately, that peace is required, and that the only way to peace is with Israel compromising on the spiritual soul of its nation. And while he admits that it may not be enough, the very chance for peace is worth the sacrifice in his mind.

What is that sacrifice? At the very least, it means the forcible removal of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. As Yaacov Lozowick points out (follow the links as well,) it also means some very bizarre choices must be made in dividing Jerusalem. We are in a strange world where dividing a city that has always been unified with the exception of 19 anomalous years is considered a sine qua non for peace.

But what if peace, in the sense that Goldberg uses the term, is impossible? What if the "right to return" is non-negotiable as well? What if significant swaths of Palestinian Arab society do not accept any negotiated agreement? What if the Kotel once again becomes a battleground as it was in 1929?

Now, let's consider what kind of peace Jerusalemites would have under a divided city. It would be dangerous for Jews to visit their holy places. It is easily conceivable that instead of rocks, the Arabs who are a bit more extreme would be able to bring in RPGs and small rockets into their areas. (Only last week was the plot to shoot a missile to an Israeli sports stadium foiled - what would stop that from having been successful if Jerusalem was divided?) Today's sense of security would be instantly replaced with fear and uncertainty for all of Jerusalem's residents, and the city would suffer greatly as people are forced to leave.

The new "peace" would be worse than what we have today.

If we change our definition of "peace" from the fantasy idea of everyone in the Middle East living happily together to a more pragmatic "absence of conflict"," then we are suddenly given far more options than what "everyone knows."

Even with the tensions in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood now referred to as Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem today is largely peaceful. It is certainly far more peaceful than it was seven years ago during the height of the intifada - a war that was the result of a "peace process" failing, it will be recalled. It is certainly more peaceful than it was in 1948 or 1936 or 1929. Only since Israel reunified the city has it been possible for Jews to walk to their holiest places without fear of being beaten or killed.

If this sort of peace is the goal - if we accept that the comprehensive peace that would make everyone happy is literally impossible, and we decide we want to manage conflict rather than eliminate it - then Jerusalem must remain undivided. It must remain under Jewish control. Only under Jewish rule has there been truly free access to the holy places (with the ironic exception of Jews being able to visit their own holiest spot on the Temple Mount.) Only under Jewish rule has Jerusalem grown and thrived.

It is not a huge surprise to find that under Jewish rule there is a museum of Islamic art in a unified Jerusalem. Can one imagine a similar museum of Jewish art under an Arab-controlled portion of Jerusalem?

Only under Jewish rule can there be a reasonable peace for the residents of Jerusalem, Arab and Jew alike.

Too many people are ready to sacrifice the lives and safety of thousands of people for the tiny chance for a "peace" that will never be. Set your sights a little lower and try for a realistic alternative, and peace is not only possible - it is here, today.

It would be the height of folly to create a city that would inevitably be at war with itself in the name of "peace."

Egyptian academic blames US, Israel for church attack

From Al Masry al-Youm:

An Alexandria University professor has accused Israel and the US of being behind the New Year's church bombing in Alexandria that killed 23 and injured around 100.

Ismail Saad, professor of political sociology at Alexandria University, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Israel, the US and Europe all seek to provoke unrest in Egypt so that its attention will be focused on internal issues.

Saad pointed to attempts to limit Egypt's political role in the region and said that his country was besieged by several powers. "First, they bombed a church, but then they will do it to a mosque," he said.

The professor said he believed that restoring ties with Turkey and Iran is the best way to confront external pressures.

Saad maintained that the Alexandria blast demonstrates plots against Egypt, ruling out the possibility of the culprit being Egyptian.

So I guess this guy was really a Mossad agent:

CAIRO (AFP) - A policeman shot dead a Christian on a train in Egypt Tuesday and wounded five other people, including the man's wife, as tensions remain high after a New Year's church bombing killed 21 people, the interior ministry said.

The shooter's motives were not immediately clear, but the ministry said at least four of the five people hurt were Coptic Christians.

And a Coptic bishop told AFP that the gunman, named by the ministry as Amer Ashur Abdel Zaher, had sought out Christians on board the train and shouted a Muslim slogan -- Allahu Akbar -- as he opened fire.

The policeman, who was said to be on his way to work, boarded a stationary Cairo-bound train at Samalut, in the southern Minya province, and began shooting with his service weapon, the ministry said.

He killed Fathi Said Ebeid, aged 71, and wounded his 61-year-old wife.

Two of the others wounded were said to be in critical condition.

And a detail:

Sources said the assailant had checked passengers for the green cross traditionally tattooed on the wrists of Coptic Christians in Egypt. After identifying several Copts, the culprit killed one of them and injured five others.

When is "offensive Jihad" Islamically approved?

Translating Jihad notices a recent fatwa on IslamOnline.net, one of the most influential Muslim websites worldwide:

Fighting Against Non-Muslims -- Legitimacy and Rulings

islamonline.net, 8 Jan 2011

Q: When is it permissible to fight against non-Muslims, and when is it not permissible? Please elaborate.

Mufti: Dr. 'Imad Mustafa, Professor of Fiqh and Its Origins, at the Universities of al-Azhar and Umm al-Qary

In the name of God, praise be to God, and prayers and peace be upon the prophet of God, etc.:

Fighting against non-Muslims is what is known in Islamic jurisprudence as Jihad in the path of God. Jihad is a prescribed duty in cases of aggression from the infidels against Muslims, for we must resist them, make jihad against them, and defend against them. This is according to the text of the Qur'an, for Almighty God has said: "Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors" (Qur'an 2:190). This type of jihad is known as defensive jihad, and it is a duty agreed to by all Islamic scholars and all who are wise, and is endorsed in our day by recognized international charters. However, the occupier and his associates have come to label this "terrorism."

Then there is another type of fighting against the non-Muslims known as offensive jihad. Islamic scholars have differed on the issue of offensive jihad, which is to pursue the infidels into their own land without any aggression or assistance to him. Some scholars have gone as far to say that this jihad is illegitimate, while others have gone as far as to say that it is legitimate and even required.

However there can be no disagreement that offensive jihad is not totally prohibited, for two schools [of Islamic jurisprudence] have ruled that offensive jihad is permissible in order to secure Islam's border, to extend God's religion to people in cases where the governments do not allow it, such as the Pharaoh did with the children of Israel, and to remove every religion but Islam from the Arabian peninsula, and to save the captive and weak. [...]

Ny the way, Translating Jihad is a very worthwhile site to follow. Here is another good post from today.

Arabs saying that Jerusalem is not...Jerusalem

MEMRI reports:

At a conference convened in Damascus by the Palestinian Culture Institute and the Palestinian Center for Documents and Manuscripts, participants claimed that the Zionists have forged archeological artifacts and inscriptions to back up their claims about Jerusalem. The general coordinator of the Arab Archeologists Union, Muhammad Bahjat Qubaisi, said that there are historical proofs that Al-Quds is not Biblical Jerusalem, adding that none of the Zionist claims are supported by ancient texts from the region.

Well, except for the ones are are.

The original article is here.

Meanwhile, Palestine Today quotes Secretary-General of the Arab League for Palestine Affairs Mohamed Sabih as warning against Israel's "Judaizing" of Jerusalem.

Sabih charged that the Jews were falsifying history by saying that Jerusalem is Jewish - and then he stated that "Egyptians built 90% of the city of Jerusalem."

BBC just can't resist taking a dig at Israel

The BBC has a welcome story about the plight of Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon. But it cannot even consider writing a story about Palestinian Arab suffering without taking a shot at Israel. The story starts with:

It is sometimes controversially said that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in worse conditions than those during the Israeli occupation in Gaza.

Is that idea "controversial"? Let's see.

	Gaza	Lebanon
Are there restrictions on the jobs they can have?	No	Yes
Are there any restrictions on where they can live?	No	Yes
Are they systematically discriminated against by their government?	No	Yes
Are they forced to live in camps?	No	Yes
So where exactly is the "controversy"? More from Just Journalism.

Time magazine cements its anti-Israel reputation

Time's Karl Vick does another hatchet job on Israel. He spends most of his time saying that Israel's government is racist and paranoid, but even his asides drip with bias:

Last week, after a Palestinian woman died after inhaling tear gas that was fired by Israeli troops, army spokesmen mounted a whisper campaign suggesting that she had died of natural causes. The unlikely, anonymous explanation was played prominently by Israeli newspapers. Those who said otherwise stood accused of trying to delegitimize the Israel Defense Forces.

I commented:

While the entire article is laughably biased, let's just look at one small part:

"The unlikely, anonymous explanation..."

I have been poring over scientific journals for the past week, and I have yet to find a single case of a healthy person who was killed outdoors by CS tear gas, let alone from over a hundred meters away. By assuming a one-in-a-billion chance that the woman was the single exception to that rule, we see that Karl Vick's interest in the truth is far lower than his interest in demonizing Israel.

If you want to see much more substantive criticisms of Vick's screed, check out Jennifer Rubin, Alana Goodman and CAMERA.

Arafat poison story hits English-language media

The supposedly new evidence about Arafat's death that I posted on Sunday has hit the English-language Arab media. From Al Arabiya:

Bassam Abu Sharif, former senior advisor to Yasser Arafat announced Monday the results of the tests conducted to identify the kind of poison that killed the late Palestinian president.

According to Abu Sharif, the tests were conducted by “the most prominent forensic toxicology expert in the UK” yet he neither revealed his identity nor mentioned the name of the institution that carried out the research.

The tests, Abu Sharif explained, revealed that the poison used to kill Arafat is called “thallium,” a rare chemical substance whose effects are very hard to detect.

“This fatal substance is extracted from sea weed and comes in the form of a liquid that is colorless, tasteless, and odorless,” Abu Sharif said Monday in a statement of which Quds Press obtained a copy.

One of the characteristics of that chemical compound, Abu Sharif added, is that when it is added to any food or drink, it doesn't make any difference in taste, color, or smell. It can also be injected into the veins.

“Yet the report explained that the most effective way is when the poison reaches the body through the tongue, so it could be added to water, tea, and coffee or to fruits and vegetables and even medicine.”

Abu Sharif said that British and European toxicology experts are not familiar with this poison and that only the forensic toxicology expert was able to identify it.

“According to the expert, this poison is highly effective and no antidote can stop its effect if five hours pass after injection or addition to food or drink.”

Amazing that in five minutes on Wikipedia I am a bigger expert on thallium than the "the most prominent forensic toxicology expert in the UK." And I even found a cure!

He also added that he had warned current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the possibility of facing the same fate.

“I told Abbas he has to be very cautious because there might be similar Israeli plans to get rid of him and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Israel wants Palestinian leadership positions vacant.”

Abu Sharif said that he also warned Arafat a few months before he was poisoned.

“I specifically told him that poison is Israel’s main weapon.”

What a hero he is!

I cannot resist repeating a comment made when I first broke the story. When one commenter asked, as a perfect straight man, if "thallium poisoning" is another name for AIDS, Empress Trudy answered, "No, that would be called Phallium poisoning."

Zionist Attack Dogs return!

The Zionist Attack Zoo has added a number of new members recently, like vultures, sharks and jellyfish. But the old standbys are still out there too, prepared to harass and terrorize Arabs where ever they find them.

The Attack Dogs of Zion have returned!

We last saw them in 2009, when Palestinian Arabs in Jericho said that retired IDF dogs were being re-trained to attack Arabs and then come back home to their Jewish hosts.

Now, according to Palestine Today, they are near Bethlehem, attacking shepherds and livestock, deliberately being released by the surrounding Jewish towns.

Smarter than an F-15! More deadly than tear gas! Able to easily distinguish between Arab and Jew! The Attack Dogs of Zion are Israel's newest, most secret weapon yet!

Now you can be a subscriber to EoZ! And other administrivia.

A few weeks ago, I quietly added an option to subscribe to Elder of Ziyon via email on the left-hand sidebar. Subscribers get a daily digest of all my posts. About 30 people have done it so far, which isn't bad considering I never mentioned it.

I also added a widget to keep track of how many people read the blog via RSS - in other words, readers that do not read it through the website, but using tools like Google Reader or My Yahoo. That number is over 1300 at the moment, which means that close to half of my daily readers are using RSS.

Speaking of subscriptions, for those who want to support the blog financially (and help justify my many hours of work on the blog to Mrs. Elder), I added a PayPal method where you can be automatically be charged a dollar or two (or five or ten) a month. If you think that this blog is worth that much to you, please consider donating or subscribing via the PayPal buttons on the upper right side. I thank those who already did!

So far today I have either posted or queued 16 articles, which is high even for me. Some of them are what would be considered scoops by any newspaper.

The blog does take a lot of time and effort, but I hope that I provide you with information - and entertainment -that is worthwhile and valuable.

If your life has been enriched by the articles you've read here, please donate what you think it is worth or set up an automatic monthly payment.

Thanks again!

Taglit Birthright holds mega event with thousands of visiting Jews

From the IDF website:

It's hard to describe Taglit-Birthright Israel's Mega Event to those who haven’t been there. It’s almost a phenomenon. People-sized balloons and balloon-sized excitement. Music blaring, disco balls and night club lighting. Most remarkable are the 3,000 bodies jumping in ecstatic thrill, full of motivation and bursting with joy. And most surprising is that even in the midst of this, the words said don’t get lost.

"My friend Yossi Beilin had an idea," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the opening of his speech. "We have to bring young Jews from all over the world to Israel. It's not simple, you know, because someone has to pay for it. And then the crazy idea met Michael and Judy Steinhardt, crazy, yet very good Jews from the United States, who shared the same feelings."

"The outcome of all this is you," he continued. "From Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Poland, Russia, Great Britain, the US (“and Canada!” shouted the audience). Nowadays, you need not know each other's languages. You all speak Facebook. You all speak Youtube. You are all able to say what you want to say in 140 characters or less. Use these tools. Tell the world the truth."

There ‘s really nothing else to say. It is contagious. Even people wearing suits and people in their seventies danced here this evening. Where does all this happiness come from? "It's just too big to explain in words," answers Rosa from Venezuela. "This idea is too great to express. Hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world, different but exactly the same, who meet each other in the homeland that belongs to all of us."

Behind the scenes, Taglit-Birthright Israel CEO, Gidi Mark, wanders around, finalizing last details yet still grinning from ear to ear. He says to IDF Website, "There is a reason why we are here in these first days of January. It's an event opening the new year, announcing what is to follow. This event opens the door to the 50,000 people who will come to Israel by next January." When asked how exciting it has been to take part in the Mega Event for 11 years, he answers, "It’s as exciting as the first time every time. This place, here, is the strongest young Jewish energy in the world."

The 300,000 people from 54 countries, who visited Israel since the establishment of the Taglit-Birthright Israel program, got to meet, among others, many Israeli soldiers. Eight join every delegation that comes. One of the thousands who did so is Corp. Sivan Peleg, a military writer. Sivan does not lack stories in her bevy military experiences. Despite this, she says, "It’s unbelievable. You see things here that Israelis never get to see. Like that they discover that there are others Jews in the world, that they are not alone – ‘they are just like me’. There are people here who’ve never met another Jew, and suddenly they are in a bus full of Jews in the State of the Jews. You are told about Taglit-Birthright, but nothing can really prepare you for the experience. As a soldier, it's an opportunity to take days off from the army and still be Israeli."

"For many years, the State of Israel has received money from the Jewish community," recalls Netanyahu. "Today, we are giving back. In the near future, the State of Israel will invest over 100 million dollars in the Taglit-Birthright program. If it's up to me, it will not stop. Every Jew wishing to come to Israel can come to Israel. I believe that a strong international Jewish identity is essential for ensuring our future. We must remember that Israel is not only a 63-year miracle. It is a miracle at the top of a history of 4,000 years."

Do you think that the so-called "pro-Israel, pro-peace" crowd reads this and feels happiness, or dread?

Abbas consolidates his power even more

While Mahmoud Abbas likes to give the impression to the West that he is politically weak and does not have the power to make concessions to Israel, in fact he has been quietly building his political power base within the PLO and Fatah.

Today, he appointed one of his own, Sa'id Abu Amara, to be head of a new PLO political department headquartered in Ramallah.

The reason this is significant? Because his last major critic from within the PLO, Farouk Kaddoumi, who has been the official head of the PLO's political department in Tunisia, was not even consulted. Observers believe that whatever vestiges of power that remained in Tunisia under Kaddoumi will now be effectively transferred to Ramallah, under Abbas' watchful eye.

Almost exactly a year ago, Abbas had begun to marginalize Kaddoumi.

In August 2009, Abbas managed to strengthen his hold of Fatah, meaning that he is now the unquestioned leader of Fatah, the PLO and the PA.

So when Abbas says he cannot negotiate, or he is unwilling to compromise, it is his decision alone.

Spanish government sponsors ad to boycott all Israeli goods (updated)

From Palestinian Media Watch:

A boy enters a store and overhears a conversation.
Customer to shopkeeper: “Do you see them? They’re plastering the city with advertisements about boycotting Israeli goods.”
Shopkeeper: “I can’t not bring in [Israeli products], because people ask for them.”
Customer: “Israeli products are better than the local products.”
Shopkeeper to the boy: “What do you want?”
Boy, after looking at Israeli products: “I want Israeli chips.”
He takes the chips, walks to the door, and hears gunfire. He looks around, drops the chips on the floor, returns to the shopkeeper and says: “I don’t want the Israeli product, I want the Palestinian product.”

The advertisement ends by displaying the text: “Don’t prolong the occupation’s life upon our land,” with the logo of the Palestinian NGO Health Work Committees, followed by the logos of the ad’s sponsors:
The Spanish government,
the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
AECID (Spanish governmental humanitarian aid development),
ACSUR (a Spanish non-profit organization),
Canaan Joint Development Project for Jerusalem (Palestinian).

UPDATE: The Spanish government denies being behind the ads.

But I thought Israel stole all the water!

The Murad Resort, in the Palestinian Arab territories:

And it features an indoor pool for women, too:

Iran's new university dress code

From Reuters:

Iran has enforced a stricter Islamic dress code at a number of universities including a ban on female students wearing long nails, bright clothes and tattoos, a local news agency reported on Monday.

The semi-official Fars news agency published a list of universities around Iran that were given a note outlining the code but did not say on what basis they were selected.

The new rules ban women from "wearing caps or hats without scarves, tight and short jeans, and body piercing", except earrings, Fars said.

It said tattoos, long nails, tooth gems, tight overcoats, and bright clothes were also banned.

The new code also bans male students from dying their hair, plucking eyebrows, wearing tight clothes, shirts with "very short sleeves" and jewellery, Fars said.

I couldn't find the link in the Fars website, but last month the news agency was clearly telegraphing that these rules were coming. It published a series of articles about the dress codes at Western universities in its Persian edition, and used that as proof that there was nothing extremist about enforcing Islamic dress codes in Iran.

For example, it published the dress code at St. Louis University, claiming that it was for students - but it was for employees.

Missouri State University's code says "brief shorts, trank tops, tube tops, torn jeans, bare feet are not acceptable. Wearing of pierced jewelry should be confined to ears only. Tattoos should be covered."

They also are happy to see that Brigham Young University has a strict dress code, without mentioning that it is a Mormon school.

Yemeni Al Qaeda infiltrating Gaza?

Last week, the IDF shot and killed two men who were trying to climb the Gaza border fence.

Palestine Press Agency notes that these men have still not been identified.

Initially, Hamas has claimed that they were Egyptians who independently went into Gaza in order to "join the resistance" but that story has fallen apart, because Hamas did not hand any bodies over to the Egyptian authorities.

Similarly, the usual terror groups in Gaza did not claim these men as their "martyrs."

The rumors are that a number of Yemenis associated with Al Qaeda are going to Gaza, and that these were two of them. When Hamas attacked the Jund an Ansar Salafist group in August 2009, three of the dead were never identified but it was considered general knowledge that there are Al Qaeda Yemenis in Gaza and those men were assumed to be members.

Visit Gaza 2011!

I don't know who made this, but it is fun to watch:

(h/t Israeligirl)

A rare protest against Hamas in Gaza (UPDATE - um, no.)

A group of Gaza journalists protested Hamas' imprisonment of one of their colleagues yesterday.

Public protests against the Hamas government are very rare in Gaza. Usually, Hamas shuts down any protests under the pretext of the organizers not having the proper permits.

I cannot find the name of the journalist. Reporters Without Borders has not seemed to update its "Palestine" section in over a year.

UPDATE: An email correspondent who knows Arabic looked at the photos are figured out that these are Hamas "journalists" who are protesting the PA imprisoning their colleagues in the West Bank!

One of the signs they were holding was the Hamas Al Aqsa TV logo:

So this is not an anti-Hamas protest - it is a pro-Hamas protest.

Never mind!

SPJ Helen Thomas award about to be scrapped

From the Society of Professional Journalists:

The Executive Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists voted Saturday to recommend that the organization retire the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement. The recommendation, which will be sent to the full board of directors within the next 10 days for a vote, states that the award will be retired with Thomas’ name attached.

The recommendation by the executive committee is to retire the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement, meaning no lifetime achievement award will be given. The recommendation is not to rename it or to remove Thomas’ name.

The retirement will not take effect unless the board votes to accept the recommendation.

“This is a complex issue, and the executive committee considered comments and letters from both sides. Because of the importance of this decision, it is appropriate to put this before the full board,” SPJ President Hagit Limor said.

The executive committee said the following in making its recommendation: “While we support Helen Thomas’ right to speak her opinion, we condemn her statements in December as offensive and inappropriate.”

They published this absurd argument against rescinding the award from a self-proclaimed Jew and Zionist, Lloyd Weston, condemning Wayne State University from pulling their Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award:

The reasoning behind WSU’s decision to no longer offer the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media award sends a mixed message to its students – especially journalism students – that the values instilled in them over four years of education are both flexible and expendable; that freedom of speech and of the press is not a foundation, set in stone, upon which life in America is based, but rather merely a suggestion to be taken if it suits you, or left behind when it becomes inconvenient or embarrassing.

I have urged officials of WSU to reconsider what they have done, and to apologize to Helen Thomas, of course, but, more importantly, to the Wayne State University students and alumni who expected better of them.

Weston of course does not explain how getting rid of an award whose very name has turned into an embarrassment is a threat to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is important, but it does not run roughshod over other freedoms - such as the freedom of Wayne State University and the SPJ from not wanting their names associated with a bigot.

(h/t Backspin)

It's all Israel's fault!

It is well known that Israel is the cause of all strife in the Arab world (not to mention the world at large.)

Here are some recent examples:

In Egypt, some video of peaceful Egyptian police beating Coptic rioters with billy-clubs, January 3, 2011.

In Sudan, January 10.

Arab tribesmen accompanied by a Khartoum-backed militia killed 20 policemen in Sudan's disputed region of Abyei, a southern military spokesman said Monday, raising concerns of violence as the south carries out a weeklong independence referendum.

In Jordan, January 5:

Jordanian security authorities detained at least 20 on Wednesday in connection with two days of tribal riots that left three persons dead in the southern town of Maan, a senior official said.

In Tunisia this week:

Nineteen demonstrators protesting high unemployment and poor living conditions have been killed during the past two days in riots that broke out in two Tunisian cities near its border with Algeria, a government official said Monday.

The incidents occurred in the cities of Thala and Kasserine, said Minister of Information Samir Abidi. All of the dead were demonstrators; more than 30 police were injured, he said.
Amnesty International said at least 23 people died in protests over the weekend, and it had received reports of more deaths on Monday.

Citing "information gathered by Amnesty International," it said security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse demonstrators in the cities of Thala, Kasserine and Regueb in central Tunisia.

In Algeria this week:

At least three people have been killed and 300 others injured in riots that erupted across Algeria amid rising food prices and a housing crisis, according to state-run media.

If only Israel wasn't there, none of these incidents would have happened and the Arab world would be peaceful and unified.

Obviously.

Ten million Loughners (Barry Rubin)

A must read from Barry Rubin:

When one crazed or ideologically obsessed gunman starts shooting in Arizona, people condemn him and start bemoaning their society. How about a place with ten million people like that who are treated as heroes?

America this week is awash in a huge and passionate debate over whether angry political disagreements and harsh criticisms of certain views or groups inspired the attack on an American congresswoman (Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, by the way). I’m not going to enter into that argument right now but I want to point out the Middle Eastern ramifications of what's going on here.

Every day for more than a half century, Arabs and Muslims have been inundated every day with hatred for Israel, America, the West, Jews, and often Christians. You can read transcripts of Syrian broadcasts or Palestinian speeches from 50 years ago that sound just like what was said in the same places yesterday by powerful and/or respectable figures and institutions.

Let’s say that the proportion of lies, slanders, and incitement in the American discourse is one-tenth of one percent of all the words spoken on controversial issues. The equivalent figure for the Middle East is well over 95 percent.

In addition to that tone, there is not only a total lack of balance but an absence of the other side altogether.

And in addition to those two points, the level of factual accuracy has a huge gap separating it from reality. (Though, admittedly, that gap has been narrowing in recent years as Western standards decline).

And in addition to those three points, while extremists tend to be marginal in the United States, they are in control--either politically or at least rhetorically--throughout most of the Arabic-speaking and Muslim-majority worlds.

Read the whole thing.

The Israeli Way of War (Totten)

His writings might meander, but they never fail to inform. A small sample:

God only knows how Hezbollah trains its fighters, but I have a pretty good idea what the Israelis are up to because Abe Lapson, an IDF director of combat engineering, hosted me at the urban warfare training center in the northern Negev near the border with Gaza.

They built a scale model city out there in the desert where Israeli soldiers engage in sophisticated combat exercises. They fight each other in these exercises, so it’s always a challenge. Trained Israeli soldiers are far more dangerous than any army—even Hezbollah—the modern Arab world has yet produced.

I saw the skyline of the “city” as we approached on a road through desert, and from a distance it almost looks real. Up close it’s different.

“It almost looks like a set for a video game,” I said.

Lapson chuckled and said, “But it’s real.”

I could see everything from the control tower. The buildings are smaller and farther apart on the outskirts than they are in the center, just like a real village or town in the West Bank, Gaza, or Lebanon. And I have to say they did a pretty good job with the realism. Pyrotechnic teams set off explosions. Vehicles emit different colors of smoke depending on what kind of damage they’ve supposedly taken. Walls have simulated blast holes because doors and windows are often booby-trapped, forcing soldiers to create alternate entrances.

I’ve never been to a Hezbollah training camp, although I did ask Hezbollah officials if I could see one before they blacklisted me for “writing against the party.” They refused. Still, I’m certain they don’t have dummies representing civilians who aren’t to be touched.

The Israelis do, though. They place mannequins on the grounds dressed in the clothes of civilians and peacekeepers as well as enemy soldiers and terrorists.

“The other side includes both hostiles and civilians,” Lapson said, “and the hostiles will often embed themselves among the civilians. We go over a large number of what-if scenarios. We imbue an ethical and moral backbone in all our soldiers from the very beginning, and we have humanitarian officers with our infantry troops. We take extra precautions, even when it puts our own troops in danger.”

Read the whole thing.

And while he mentions that it looks like a video game, that is one great idea that someone could do - a video-game that shows the difficulty of fighting the IDF way, trying to avoid civilians while hitting terrorists pretending to be civilian. While, at the same time, worried that the rockets you are targeting don't end up hitting your own family.

Ramallah naming more streets after terrorists

From RT.com:

The West Bank city of Ramallah is naming its streets to mark its 100th anniversary, but some of the choices are causing controversy as they honor people involved in planning terrorist acts.
This naming is part of a regeneration scheme started two years ago, but it is already being seen by some as a sign of growing extremism.

Before the scheme was launched, there were no street names, street signs or house numbers that could help people navigate around the city.

Janet Mikhail, Mayor of Ramallah, says it is “a human right for citizens to know where they are.”

Thus Yasser Arafat gets a square. And a street is called after the neighbourhood Al-Nuzha that used to exist in Arab Jaffa in the 1930s. Another street called Al-Awdeh, meaning ‘return’, is a call for Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.

The criteria for choosing a name are simple: heroes, places, and ideas supported by the Palestinian people.

“We don’t differentiate between Hamas or Fatah,” explains Janet Mikhail.

If anything, the opposite, as members of both organizations fighting for liberation are glorified. Which might surprise those who think the modern city of Ramallah would shy away from praising stalwarts of Hamas, an organization considered by many world powers as terrorist.

One of the thoroughfares is named after chief Hamas bomb maker – Yahya Ayyash, dubbed “the engineer”. For three years he was Israel’s most wanted man for masterminding suicide bombings that killed 90 Israelis, until he himself was killed.

As political analyst Khalil Shaheen explains, “anyone who was killed by the Israelis, even in a car accident, is considered a martyr”.

Yahya Ayyash was killed by the Israeli internal security service after they tricked a friend of his into giving him a cell phone that was booby trapped. Fourteen years on his family is as proud as ever.

“I’m very pleased they’ve named roads and streets after him,” says Yahya Ayyash’s mother, Aisha. “My son is in my heart and I miss him. He’s the hero of Palestine.”

Surprisingly, not all the streets names are Palestinian. One street is called after Rachel Corrie, an American activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer during a demonstration in Gaza in 2003. Rachel was part of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that, as Israelis charge, aids Hamas and other Palestinian extremist groups.

The decision to name a busy street in Ramallah after her was anonymous.

Such attention, even to extremist groups, may be explained by the growing desire among Palestinians to change the current course of events.

”People in the West Bank are fed up with the way they have been ruled during the past 15 years and they’re eager to try something else,” believes Khalil Shaheen.

Polls show Hamas growing in popularity in the West Bank, while talks between rival Palestinian faction Fatah and Israel deadlock.

“Hamas is changing, Hamas is trying to speak in the language the West understands,” argues Shaheen.

And as the new street signs go up in the city, it is becoming more and more clear that Hamas is also speaking in a language Ramallah Palestinians understand.

Gaza town to create "Mavi Marmara" park

Palestine Today reports that the mayor of Jabalia met with a Turkish man, Hanafy Osama Sinan, who had been on the Mavi Marmara.

Sinan traveled to Gaza with an aid convoy.

The mayor said that he would establish a park on 6 dunums west of the city in memory of the terrorists who were killed on the ship, as well as naming streets after them.

Amazing how they find land when they want to!

Newspaper accidentally becomes Wayback Machine

I saw a number of Arabic newspapers report breathlessly that the US is using 250,000 bullets for every insurgent they kill in Iraq, and they are forced to import more from Israel because of a bullet shortage.

I traced the story back to this article, printed today, in the Belfast Telegraph.

Interestingly, that same article was published in The Independent - in September 2005.

Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh. Instead, I should just recycle some of my own blog posts from September 2005 that could have been written today:

More words of peace from the PA

Media reports Hamas lies; ignores facts

Get ready for "Moderate Hamas"

Victimology

And, completely off topic:

Leonard Nimoy on drugs

Latest Arab rumor: "Alexandria church bomb had Israeli explosives"

Egyptian newspaper Al-Mesryoon has an exclusive report that tries to implicate Israel in the deadly Coptic church bombing.

According to the story, the explosive used in the church was ten times more powerful than TNT and it is used by some of the countries in the region, particularly including Israel. They claim that this is the same explosive used by Israel to blow up some cars that had Hamas members.

They deny that it was a suicide bomber, saying instead that it was a remotely controlled device, either through a timer or a mobile phone.

This report is spreading pretty quickly through the Arabic media.

The stupidity of the EU

I just saw the actual document that Ha'aretz was referring to in my previous post.

It proves beyond any doubt that EU diplomats are clueless about Arab goals. They are so caught up in their diplomatic bubble that they are willfully ignorant of how Arabs really feel, and they can therefore publish complete rubbish.

For example:

Developments at the Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, are significant in several respects - they are a cause of tension locally between the various communities, but also receive attention globally,such as the large demonstrations by Muslims whenever they perceive the Muslim position in Jerusalem to be undercut. For this reason, this site is one of the most sensitive in Jerusalem and therefore, any event happening on it or around it is likely to have serious repercussions.

In 2010, the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount area continued to see heightened tension and inflammatory actions which led to riots and demonstrations in Palestinian neighbourhoods. Repeated provocative visits of the Haram area by Jewish radical political and religious groups, which continue to occur during 2010, are highly problematic. On several occasions Israeli forces entered Al Aqsa Mosque and confronted stone-throwing Muslims. The perceived threat to religious places promotes rumours which in turn can lead to violent encounters between the various groups.

This is a great example of subconscious liberal racism towards Arabs. Every Israeli action is "provocative" and every Arab riot is an understandable result of Israeli actions. As is always the case, Arab violence is justified and even inevitable, while Israeli and Jewish actions are designed purely to anger Arabs. Only the Jews have the ability to be responsible for their actions - terrible, awful actions like wanting to peacefully visit their own holiest place, or to support archaeological digs that show the Jewish history in the holiest city on Earth. How provocative! From the EU diplomats' perspectives, violent Arab reaction to such events is inevitable and Arabs are not responsible.

The disputes regarding various construction projects (e.g.“archeological tunnels”, recent plans to alter of the Western Wall plaza) serve as examples of a lack of consensus-building by Israel around those projects in sensitive areas of the city.

Do they honestly think that the Islamic religious leadership would allow Israel to do anything at all that tacitly accepts that Jews have the right to live in Jerusalem? How clueless can you be?

Work on the Mughrabi Gate has proven a particular example of this in 2010. The Waqf, the Islamic body responsible for the Haram al-Sharif compound, has expressed concern regarding the construction by the Israeli Authorities, without their agreement, of a new bridge to replace the collapsed ramp leading to the Mugrabi Gate. Work on the Mugrabi Gate, the passageway between the Wailing Wall Plaza and the Temple Mount / Haram al Sharif, started again in September after the Jerusalem District Court's decision to authorize the work. The Waqf believe that the damage caused to the ramp is negligible and could be fixed without replacing the whole structure. They suspect this may be used as an opportunity to undertake new excavations under the ramp or as seemed to be originally planned (prior to the Court’s ruling against it) to expand the area of the Wailing Wall Plaza. A new plan for the Mughrabi Gate, revealed in November this year, seems to be less far-reaching in the sense that it does not include any expansion of the Plaza. The Waqf, however, was again not consulted in the process.

The rocket scientists of the EU diplomatic corps want to give veto power to the Waqf - an organization that is as extremist and anti-semitic as possible - over everything that the municipality of Jerusalem undertakes for the good of the city. Strengthening extremism against moderation - what a great diplomatic initiative!

Did the EU, even once, say anything against the criminal bulldozing of priceless archaeological treasures by the Waqf on the Temple Mount? Or is the Waqf allowed to act unilaterally, while only Jewish decisions can be vetoed by the Arabs?

If it was up to the Waqf, the Western Wall and the Old City would be Judenrein. But the EU wants Israel to consult a racist hate organization before doing anything.

Unbelievable.

What is behind PalArab demands for Jerusalem?

Ha'aretz has a very vague report:

East Jerusalem should be treated as the capital of the Palestinian state, according to a report compiled by the heads of European diplomatic missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah. The report includes several other unprecedented recommendations to the European Union regarding its attitude toward East Jerusalem.

The European diplomats, mainly consuls, also recommend that EU officials and politicians refuse to visit Israeli government offices that are located beyond the Green Line and that they decline any Israeli security in the Old City and elsewhere in East Jerusalem.

The report, which was completed last month, was sent to the EU's main foreign policy body, the Political and Security Committee in Brussels. It was apparently not released at the time due to the sensitivity of its content.

The diplomats' report also discusses the possibility of preventing "violent settlers in East Jerusalem" from being granted entry into EU countries. In the area of commerce, it recommends encouraging a boycott of Israeli products from East Jerusalem.

If this is true, it represents another major political gaffe by the government of Israel in putting forth its case.

Much of that is the fault of Israeli governments that have reportedly already offered significant parts of Jerusalem to the PLO, implying that somehow it really isn't as important to Jews as it is to Arabs.

Even so, the GOI should be doing what it can to stop this impression of inevitability that a Palestinian Arab state must have Jerusalem as its capital. When one looks at the issue dispassionately, it becomes clear that this is not a political need - but a form of blackmail.

It hardly needs to be mentioned that Jerusalem was never the political capital nor religious capital of any Arab entity. The demand for Jerusalem has always been the demand to strip the Jewish state of its spiritual center, not because of any objective value that is placed on Jerusalem by the Arab world or by "historic" Palestinian Arabs.

Decades of listening to the mantra, started by Arafat, of "an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital" has convinced gullible Westerners that somehow Jerusalem has inherent value to Palestinian Arabs, rather than tactical value as a means to weaken the emotional and spiritual hold that Jews have on Israel.

The Arabic press makes this clear. To give a minor recent example, the Al Aqsa Foundation was quoted favorably in the Palestinian Authority's official newspaper when it complained about the iPhone "iKotel" app - a simple app that shows a live video feed of the Western Wall. The reason for the consternation is that the app helps strengthen Jews' emotional connection to the Wall, and this is what frightens them most of all.

The unstated but nevertheless consistent policy of the Palestinian Authority is to strip any vestiges of Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. This is why they are most adamant about Jewish holy places in Judea and Samaria. This is why they created - out of whole cloth - a fake "historic" mosque in Rachel's Tomb. It is because an emotional connection to a place is much harder to fight against than logical or legal arguments. Places that throughout history were ignored by the Arabs have taken on brand-new importance only when Jews asserted control over them. (And during the 19 years of Arab rule over them, their importance again faded into virtual invisibility, to be resurrected in 1967.)

To gullible Westerners, the fake emotional connection that Palestinian Arabs assert consistently over holy places is much stronger than the cool-headed, logical connection that modern Israeli leaders have paid lip service to.

This was not always the case. Guess who wrote these words:

The city of Jerusalem-which became in the course of time, from the crowning of David until our own days, not merely the most precious and Holy City in the Land of Israel, but one of the most revered cities in the world is not mentioned at all in the Five Books of the Torah. Further, after the reign of David who captured the city Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it the eternal capital of Israel and his son, King Solomon, built the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) within her. After Solomon died the people of Israel came to crown his son Rechavam, not in Jerusalem, but in Shechem. And of the forty years of David's reign, seven and a half he ruled in Hebron, while Jerusalem, though not mentioned at all in the Torah, was made by Israel's greatest king into the city of holiness.

However, don't forget: the beginnings of Israel's greatest king were in Hebron, the city to which came the first Hebrew about eight hundred years before King David, and we will make a great and awful mistake if we fail to settle Hebron, neighbor and predecessor of Jerusalem, with a large Jewish settlement, constantly growing and expanding, very soon. This will also be a blessing to the Arab neighbors. Hebron is worthy to be Jerusalem's sister.

It was staunchly secular and anti-religious David Ben Gurion.

In fact, the writings of all of the major early secular Zionist leaders showed a much deeper emotional connection to the land of Israel than we have seen from any prime minister since Menachem Begin.

And this is what frightens the Palestinian Arabs the most - because their ultimate goal is still to drive the Jews out of the land, one way or another. Jews who are emotional about their land are not likely to leave as those who look at Israel as just another Western country.

So Palestinian Arabs make Jerusalem a central issue (along with "return," something they have not wavered on.) And their repetition of its importance convinces Westerners against all reason.

Which brings up a bizarre situation where Western diplomats are apparently demanding that a city be divided, that thousands of residents be forced to leave their homes, and that Jews are estranged from their heritage - all in the name of "peace."

That "peace" has no relationship with reality. It is a form of Mafia-style blackmail. The Arabs are telling the world, almost explicitly, that unless they get their demands met - and Jerusalem is only an example - the result will be Arab-initiated violence. Both in Israel and worldwide.

This is the real reason the EU is caving to a demand that has no basis in history or logic. There is no real reason why "Palestine"'s capital cannot be Ramallah. It is incredible hypocrisy that the same countries that demand that Tel Aviv be the capital of the Jewish state also demand that Jerusalem be the capital of a state whose "people" simply did not exist as such a mere hundred years ago.

These two factors - Palestinian Arab demand to strip Israel of its Jewish soul, and EU fears of terror and "an end to peace"- are what causes insane developments like the one Ha'aretz is reporting to seem almost normal.

It is up to the Israeli government to understand this and expose it. They are failing, badly.

Netanyahu: "Hebron, Shiloh, Bet El, Kever Rochel must remain in our hands"

From IMRA, January 7:

Makor Rishon correspondent Ariel Kahane reports on the front page of today's edition that during the course of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's biannual presentation to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday he said:

"It should be remembered that we, as Jews, have been within the broad borders of the Land of Israel not tens and hundreds of years but instead thousands of years. When the Palestinians talk about historic rights they should remember that they have been there a shorter time. The rights of the Jews to Hebron and Beit El, Rachel's Tomb and Shilo, are greater and much more significant. Therefore these places should remain in our hands in any arrangement".

This statement seems to have slipped under the radar of not only Israel's media but also the Arab media - which usually jumps to publicize anything like this.

Egyptian TV: "Roman Wars against Cleopatra Instigated by the Jews"

Just uploaded to MEMRI's YouTube channel:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Wael Ramadhan, creator of an Egyptian-Syrian TV series about Cleopatra, which aired on Egyptian TV on November 18, 2010:

Wael Ramadhan: The [Roman] war against Cleopatra was Jewish in essence, and history repeats itself. The Romans had no territorial aspirations in Egypt in those days, and this is ignored by history and by many historians. The Romans were at war with the Parthians and the remnants of the Persian Empire, but they had no intention of waging war against Egypt.

But the Jews harbored resentment and pain, because of their expulsion from Egypt – when they were still called "Hebrew" – and they wanted to return to Egypt by force, in order to establish their presence there, but they did not have an opportunity to do so until that moment. So they recruited the help of the Romans.

This part of history is not mentioned in any Arab history book, but is the outcome of research I conducted myself, and this is my own perspective, which is unique and true.

Interviewer: Especially since it is based on sources that are...

Wael Ramadhan: On very important sources. [The Jews] financed the Romans, distracted them from their wars, and diverted them to Egypt. They failed in their attempt to get Julius Caesar to defeat Cleopatra. They failed to get Mark Antony to defeat Cleopatra. They had also financed the Mark Antony campaign. They failed in their efforts to completely control that region.

To this moment, they continue to try. History repeats itself. That is what should have been called the history of Cleopatra, and this was my approach when I made the "Cleopatra" series.

(h/t Challah Hu Akbar)

PalArabs pretend to have identified Arafat's "poison"

Firas Press reports that the former Special Adviser Yasser Arafat has, after months of painstaking research, determined the likely poison agent used to "assassinate" Arafat: Thallium.

According to the adviser, Bassam Abu Sharif, "British and European toxins experts are unfamiliar with this poison, but a specialist in criminal investigation on the murder by poison knows about it and and it is very effective, and there is no antidote to stop it after five hours of injection or being eaten."

Abu Sharif adds that "the expert who has done research confirmed that this poison works slowly to destroy the internal organs of the victim one after the other (liver - kidney - lung - and then the brain) and that the period of time to kill a man with this poison varies from person to person based on [various factors]. This period ranges from two to eight months, which gives an opportunity for offenders to escape from the crime scene."

The supposed "expert" looks like a scam artist who took money from Abu Sharif to pretend to unravel the mystery of how a man who died from AIDS can be credibly made to appear to have been poisoned by Israel. In fact, thallium poisoning usually is seen quite quickly and there is an antidote known to scientists since the 1960s - Prussian blue.

Oh well. Better luck next time!

(h/t Folderol)

Melanie Phillips: "Israeli hasbara is a joke"

A video where Phillips tells it like it is:

Facts and logic do not work on the ideologues

Ha'aretz this morning has another article that twists the facts of the Abu Rahma case. This one, by Gideon Levy, blames the IDF for what he thinks is clear evidence that Jawaher Abu Rahma's death, and he calls the IDF spokespeople liars.

Now there is no doubt that the IDF has not handled this as well as they should have. But what is even more clear is that there is no way that a healthy person with no other medical condition will be killed by a weak concentration of tear gas that hovered for a few seconds from between 150 and 500 meters away, depending on the version of the story.

So I commented on the story:

Never in history has anyone been documented of dying from CS tear gas inhalation outdoors - let alone from 150 meters away from the gas source. Never. It is essentially impossible to breathe in a lethal concentration of CS gas for the amount of time necessary for a healthy person to die in a ventilated area. Levy and Haaretz, by insisting otherwise, are the liars.

I received two responses. The first one was from Darwish:

Thank you for clearing that up. Now can you please list your credentials to lend support to your stated "facts."

So Ha'aretz has scientific credentials that I lack. I didn't know that.

The second one was:

How do you know all this? Researched intensively on tear gas use over the past 50 years have you? Doctorate in the subject? Even if this poor girl did have an underlying condition, it was evidently the gas which led to her death. Whether 99.9% of the population would not have died under the same circumstances is really not the issue. THe IDF should step up and take responsibility. Their constant evasion of responsibility is totally counterproductive.

So I answered:

Sources? Sure!
Physicians for Human Rights 1989 paper on tear gas
Archives of Toxicology vol 77 number 10 (misquoted by Haaretz on Friday)
BMJ June 2009
And, finally, Prof. Dr. Uwe Heinrich in his paper on CS at Waco said "There are no reports on human death related to CS exposure" in 2000.

Haaretz apparently doesn't let me put in URLs, but the reports are out there - IF you care about the truth and not simply finding fault with Israel.

(I had first tried putting in URLs to the blog, which Ha'aretz rejected.)

The funny thing is that my fact-based response, which anyone could Google, got seven "thumbs up" and five "thumbs down." (My original post also received a healthy number of "thumbs down.")

Now, why would anyone disapprove a post that gives the real research and unbiased information?

The only conclusion you can draw is that a lot of people are emotionally invested in the idea that the IDF is filed with murderers and liars, and any fact - no matter how tangential - that disturbs that meme is viewed somehow as a threat to their cherished viewpoint. Instead of shaking them up, it strengthens their resolve to fight.

In other words, logic and facts are useless. These people are following a religion, the religion of IDF-hatred, and convincing them otherwise is as useless as using logic against a Christian fundamentalist or an Apple Macintosh fan. One someone is emotionally invested, then - game over. This is why it is so difficult to find people who who publicly give out their opinions who are willing to admit to or correct their mistakes.

From a hasbara perspective, it is useless to try to convince the ideologues that they are wrong. Practically none of them can listen to facts that contradict their worldview without getting offended, and that very offense shuts down whatever little ability they may have had to listen to logic. It is a form of primitive flight or fight.

I am convinced, however, that most people do not have any strong opinions, and sort of go with the flow - whatever they glean from the headlines. These are the people that need to be targeted with facts - and with soundbites, posters, videos, and so on. When going into battle against the frothing haters like Levy and his fans, the important thing is to remember who the audience is.

It isn't the other side. It's the lurkers.

Chile's recognition of "Palestine": A partial victory for Israel?

Chile has joined other South American countries in recognizing "Palestine" - but this recognition is different than that of Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay. While those other countries mentioned the imaginary "1967 borders" as the boundaries of the state, Chile specifically didn't:

The State of Chile has always and consistently supported the right of the Palestinian people to establish itself as an independent state coexisting in peace with the State of Israel. It has also fully endorsed the right of Israel to exist within secure and internationally recognized borders.

It says nothing about the borders of the state.

Chile was heavily lobbied by its large Palestinian Christian community to recognize "Palestine" on the other side of the Green Line - and it evidently refused, instead echoing the wording of UN Security Council Resolution 242 which imply that the 1949 armistice lines are not going to be the final borders of Israel.

Morning links

Some stuff, new and not so new...

Melanie Phillip's excellent speech on how Israel must treat delegitimization (from last month)

The IDF is going on the record the Jawaher Abu Rahma did not die from tear gas. Not as many specifics as I would like, though.

The IDF also shows video from last Friday's Bil'in protest, showing that they wait for the stone throwing and fence-cutting before shooting tear gas.

The JCPA has a paper on Turkey's disappearing Jewish community.

The flying Mossad agent is being freed from Saudi Arabia!

And for those going to the counter-protest in New York today, please take pictures and video - especially if any of my posters are being used :)

Meanwhile, rockets continue from Gaza (Israeligirl)

From Israeligirl:

Rocket attacks on Israel have escalated over the weekend, as one IDF soldier was killed and several soldiers and civilians were injured in clashes with Palestinian terrorists.

The al-Quds Brigades, the militant arm of the Islamic Jihad group, took responsibility for the shootings. Hamas is looking the other way, allowing smaller terrorist groups to test how far Israel will go in its response.

Here is a summary of the events:

On Friday evening, An IDF force identified several Palestinian militants planting explosive devices near the fence in the Central Gaza Strip. The soldiers reacted by firing towards the Palestinian terrorists. For a reason that is still unclear, one of the shells deviated from its course and hurt IDF soldiers. Sgt. Nadav Rotenberg was killed and an other IDF officer was moderately injured. Three other IDF soldiers were lightly wounded during the incident.

3 foreign workers were injured when a mortar fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in the Sha'ar Hanegev region. One of the foreign workers was in moderate-serious condition from shrapnel injuries to his chest. A second foreign worker was moderately wounded by shrapnel in his leg and a third was lightly wounded in the incident.

At least three Qassam rockets were fired at southern Israel Saturday evening, wounding a truck driver lightly. The truck driver was hurt by glass shreds after driving near the rocket landing site.

It's been slightly more than 2 years since Israel launched operation "Cast Lead" and Hamas is increasing the fire slowly but surely.

For those who like to use Ma'an as a reliable source...

Today's Ma'an (English) says:

The Palestinians will achieve a historic triumph in any future confrontation with Israel, but the toll will be heavy on the Palestinian side, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar said Saturday.

"We are only a few steps away from achieving a historic triumph which might cost us a large number of our children. However, in the coming confrontation with the Zionist entity, we will realize our ancestors' dream and return history to the right track," Zahhar said

The Hamas official made the comments at a ceremony held to commemorate the second anniversary of a massacre at the UN-controlled Al-Fakhoura school in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.

The school which was bombarded by Israeli forces during Operation Cast Lead, a three-week offensive that began in December 2008.

Even the UNRWA admitted that no shells hit the school:

...[T]he Situation Report of 7 January referred to ‘the shelling of the UNRWA school in Jabalia.’ The Humanitarian Coordinator would like to clarify that the shelling, and all of the fatalities, took place outside rather than inside the school.

In fact, the shells hit a street outside the school, from which there had been mortar fire according to witnesses, and at least three and possibly as many as 10 militants were killed in the IDF response.

Western media will often quote Ma'an as if it is a real news source. They should think twice.

Is Ha'aretz just making stuff up? UPDATE: Not this time, at least.

Ha'aretz, Friday, had an article headlined: 2004 IDF study: High concentrations of tear gas could be lethal

Here's what it said:

Seven years ago, the IDF Medical Corps published a study on CS gas in both the Israeli medical journal “Refuah” and the overseas journal “Archives of Toxicology.”

That study, based on animal experiments, concluded that to kill a person, you would need a dose 800 to 5,600 times larger than the quantities used to disperse demonstrations.

Nevertheless, it added, a high concentration of the gas in a given location could cause serious or even lethal harm, and therefore, the gas cannot be considered innocuous.

Over the last year the IDF has begun using a tear gas grenade launcher in Bil’in, the Ringo, that allows them to shoot six canisters at once into the same place, creating a thick cloud of gas. The Palestinians say Abu Rahmah was caught in such a cloud.

When Haaretz contacted some of the doctors involved in the Medical Corps study, they declined to comment, saying the study was not necessarily relevant to today’s conditions.

The study “approved the way the IDF used tear gas then and determined that it was not life-threatening,” one explained. “If the way the gas is used has changed, and especially in a manner that creates much higher concentrations, it’s necessary to do a new study.”

I have this weird tendency to be skeptical of everything I read and to seek corroboration. And it just so happens that the Archives of Toxicology has its abstracts online, so I could look for any articles about CS over the past forty years or so.

The journal has published exactly five articles on the topic of CS, or to be precise, o-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, since only one of those articles was written in the past ten years, it has to be the article Ha'aretz is referring to because it was written by Israelis (published in 2003):

Report of accidental CS ingestion among seven patients in central Israel and review of the current literature
I. Solomon, I. Kochba, E. Eizenkraft and N. Maharshak

Abstract
A report of seven people who accidentally drank a juice contaminated with CS (o-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile) is given. Due to its mucosal irritating properties, CS (also known as "tear gas") is commonly used by policemen and soldiers in riot control. However, only a few reports of its ingestion by humans exist. Ingestion of CS may cause immediate irritation of the oral mucosa and gastrointestinal symptoms later on. Damage of internal organs, which has been shown in animals but only rarely in humans, is probably related to the dose ingested. The extensive use of CS gas merits recognition of the signs and symptoms of its exposure in order to reduce anxiety in both patients and medical staff and to facilitate fast and efficient management.

And the paper does survey the literature about CS, although it only studies the specific case of the seven who accidentally drank juice laced with CS.

There is only one problem: the paper doesn't say what Ha'aretz says is written there.

Here are the relevant parts (h/t Zach who got a full copy for me):

The irritant effects of CS are of rapid onset even in low concentrations and are short lived (15–30 min) if individuals are moved into fresh air (Worthington and Nee 1999), though the time for complete recovery has been questioned (Editorial 1998). Irritant symptoms are produced at concentrations at least 2600 times lower than the lethal dose (Danto 1987). The systems and organs most commonly involved are the eyes, respiratory tract, skin and gastrointestinal tract.

...At high concentrations, enclosed spaces, or prolonged exposures, severe side effects may occur and human deaths from lacrimating agents have been reported (Danto 1987; Ferslew et al. 1986; Thorburn 1982).

CS is just one lacrimating agent, and the Thorburn paper, at least, was entitled "Injuries after use of the lacrimatory agent chloroacetophenone in a confined space" - and chloroacetophenone is not CS (it is the agent used in Mace.)

Unless there is some other article in the Archives of Toxicology that I am missing, then Ha'aretz appears to be making things up. They go on imply that current IDF methods of shooting tear gas are much more toxic than in the past, and further imply that this makes CS as deadly outdoors at it potentially is in an enclosed space for a full minute.

The entire article is trying incredibly hard to implicate the IDF, and it hangs on a study that simply doesn't say what Ha'aretz claims it says.

So where did Ha'aretz get this from? Did they read the paper and ignore it? Did they take the information from someone else and that person made it up? Or, is there a chance that the Archives of Toxicology had another article on CS, by members of the IDF, within a year of the article I found?

I've been looking hard, and I cannot find a single case of someone dying from CS outdoors, ever. And even indoor cases are very hard to find. Ha'aretz, however, seems to want people to believe otherwise. Why is that?

UPDATE: I have been emailed a link to the Hebrew paper (in the Refu'ah journal) that Ha'aretz was referring to and it is not at all the one that was published in the Archives of Toxicology. It was written by different people than the paper I referred to above and appears to be a general overview of CS gas. (My Hebrew is not good enough to actually understand most of it.)

At any rate, Ha'aretz' assertion that the paper was published in the Archives of Toxicology is not true. I cannot find the paper in English anywhere, although here is the abstract.

Mrs. Ginsburg gets a visit from the Human Rights Police

SCENE: Mrs. Ginsburg is in the kitchen of her home in Israel, preparing a meal.

The door bursts open and three men in suits enter.

MAN 1: Drop the knife!

MRS. GINSBURG [dropping knife] : What's wrong? Who are you?

MAN 1: I'm Richard Johnson - Human Rights Police. Step away from the counter!

MRS. G: Oh, dear, what's wrong?

JOHNSON: Your chemical weapons killed an Arab woman in the next village.

MRS. G, surprised: What did you say?

JOHNSON: Oh, don't act coy, ma'am. You know what you did.

MRS. G: To be honest, I'm at a loss. I'm just preparing dinner for my family.

JOHNSON: Oh, sure. Dinner. And I suppose that all of your dinners include - onions? [pointing to her chopping board]

MRS. G: Well, some of them do.

MAN 2: Onions contain chemicals. At high concentrations the chemicals can kill someone. And that's exactly what happened to Mrs. Khalawar.

MAN 3: Propanol S-oxide.

MRS. G: I'm so sorry! I didn't know!

JOHNSON: Oh, yes you did. Your eyes tear when you chop onions - you know, and so does everyone else. Don't pretend and lie. You Israelis make me sick.

MRS. G: But if onions are so dangerous,then we have to warn the people in the nursing home down the block!

JOHNSON: Really? [Speaking into walkie talkie] - Whitson, new information about an old age home - check it out for fatalities. [Back to Mrs. Ginsburg] What's the name of the facility?

MRS. G: Ummm...the Gloria Cohen center, I think.

JOHNSON makes a disgusted face. [back to walkie talkie] Cancel that order, Whitson. [To Mrs. Ginsburg] Stop playing with us, the fumes only kill Arabs. Everyone knows that.

MRS G: I don't want to hurt anyone, but how can I cook without onions? I always use onions! Onion soup, chopped liver, and tonight I was making pepper steak...

JOHNSON: [Shocked] Did you say pepper?

MRS. G: Yes, pepper steak...

JOHNSON [to walkie talkie] Get the Hazmat suits, stat! We have a full blown case of chemical warfare here!

MRS. G: [sputtering] But...but...

MAN 2: Two lachrymatory agents in one dish! The horror!

MAN 3: Who knows how the S-oxide would combine with the capsaicin in the peppers? It could start World War 3!

JOHNSON: [to walkie talkie] Find out every Arab woman and child who has died in the past six months within a five kilometer radius. [eyeing Mrs. Ginsburg] We think we found the cause. Over. [back to Mrs. Ginsburg] Do you know nothing about human rights of Arabs? Now we have to shut you down.

[Men arrive in hazmat suits, start ripping apart Mrs. Ginsburg's kitchen.]

[Tight shot of a confused Mrs. Ginsburg. Fade out.]

An interesting school name in Rafah

Hamas concluded a week-long commemoration of the Gaza was with an assembly at a secondary school in Rafah on Thursday.

The name of the school is "Beersheba." ( بئر السبع )

Just another tiny proof among the thousands of others that many Arabs will not rest until Israel is destroyed.