Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, February 04, 2011

Egyptian conspiracy theories involving Israel spread

On Wednesday night, the Egyptian satellite TV station al-Mehwar broadcast a live interview with Shaimaa, a former journalist, who claimed to be trained by Jews in the US to destabilize the political regime in Egypt. Shaimaa said on air that many of the anti-Mubarak protesters at Tahrir Square have received similar training and have been applying it over the past week through organized demonstrations.

Rumors about Israel being the mastermind behind the Egyptian uprising spread on al-Qasr al-Aini Street. This morning, a pharmacist on the street claimed to have seen Egyptian troops arresting two Israelis at Tahrir demonstrations.

Close to al-Qasr al-Aini Hospital, a juice seller refused to sell water bottles to two Al-Masry Al-Youm reporters, who wanted to deliver them with medical supplies to the injured at Tahrir Square. “Israelis are killing our children and destroying our lives. I will take no part in supporting them,” he exclaimed.

Nevertheless, it remains unclear how many Egyptians truly believe that Israel constitutes the mastermind behind recent events.

Sherif Younis, a historian, attributes the dissemination of the rumors to a group of National Security Services members, secret police, NDP members, businessmen and media agencies—both government-owned and self-claimed independents--whose interests are tied to the existing political regime.

...

The media has been spreading a culture of fear among the Egyptian public, highlighting events of vandalism, looting and violence due to the absence of security forces. “Protect Egypt” has become a recurring slogan across various TV stations.

Last week, the Muslim Brotherhood was accused of organizing the protests. When this narrative failed to gain popular support, the recurring scenario of Israel emerged, said Younis.

For decades, Israel has been blamed as the root cause of all evil in Egypt. Despite the 1979 peace accords, the public continues to perceive it as a “symbol of evil or even Satan,” explained Younis. Egyptian media has been nurturing this narrative for years, with Egyptian cinema and TV showing Israelis as villains in various scenarios regardless of the genre of the movie.

Conspiracy theories are commonly accepted in Egypt, Younis said. Accusations of conspiring with Israel are common among opposition parties as well as the regime, he adds. The allegation was even used during sectarian strife earlier this year.

...

“Israeli-phobia” has become a characteristic of Egyptian national identity, which the state has been building over the past decades, said Younis.

Peaceful relations with Israel remain unacceptable to the majority of the Egyptian public, something acknowledged by the Israeli government in wikileaks documents released last year to the Jerusalem Post. Despite Israel’s unpopularity in Egypt, however, the Mubarak’s regime has remained one of its main supporters.

(h/t Clark)

A selection of today's analysis about Egypt

David Rieff at TNR on how US aid to Egypt, supposed to promote democracy, utterly failed.

Shmuel Rosner in Slate on Israel's fears. I don't agree with all of it ("Israel can be a spoiled brat") but he makes some thoughtful points.

Charles Krauthammer is great, as usual.

Reports are now surfacing of a massacre of two Coptic Christian families in Egypt last Sunday. No doubt by pro-democracy Muslim Brotherhood activists.

Benny Morris on why we should not be complacent about the Muslim Brotherhood.

Barry Rubin uncovers how the Muslim Brotherhood is likely to destroy the peace agreement with Israel.

So will Israel be able to take back the Sinai? Somehow, while other countries can always rip up their agreements, Israeli concessions are one-way.

"Apartheid" irony

From TheJC:

University security officers were called to protect the most senior Muslim in the Israeli Foreign Ministry when pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted his appearance at a British campus.

Diplomat Ismail Khaldi, a Galilee Bedouin, had just started to speak at Edinburgh University on Wednesday evening when demonstrators began chanting and surrounded him.

The university’s International Relations Society had earlier pulled out of the event, saying the invitation to Mr Khaldi was “unjust to the Palestinian people who live under an apartheid regime”.

A security team encircled Mr Khaldi as the gang chanted “shame on you” and accused Israel of ethnic cleansing.

The lecture was held up for around an hour before the speaker abandoned the event.

Yes - an Israeli Arab/Muslim who has a senior position in an Israeli government ministry - whose very existence is proof that there is no "apartheid" in Israel - is stopped from speaking by people who are screaming "apartheid!"

I forget - which side of this incident demonstrated liberal values? It is so confusing nowadays to keep it straight.

Hezbollah terrorists escape Egyptian jail

Last year:

An Egyptian court has convicted 26 men of planning terrorist attacks on ships and tourist sites.

The 22 men given prison sentences - some with hard labour - were accused of working for the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah.

Sami Shihab, a Lebanese citizen who Hezbollah had confirmed was a member, was given a life sentence.

The sentences were issued by the State Security Court in Cairo and cannot be appealed, reports say.

Another four men, who are still on the run, were convicted in absentia.

Now:

The Hezbollah militant group confirmed Thursday that members of its cell jailed in Egypt on terrorism charges escaped their jails during the ongoing civil unrest and are now safe at a hideout.

Mahmoud Komati, a senior member of the Iranian and Syrian backed Hezbollah, reported that Sami Shihab , the leader of the Hezbollah cell in Egypt, ‘was out of jail and safe.’

This follows the Wednesday report by by Al Rai newspaper that the 22 Hezbollah detainees that were convicted of plotting attacks against ships in the Suez Canal and Egyptian tourist sites, among other charges, were able to escape from their jail in Egypt.

Another dividend of Egyptian "freedom."

Egypt detains human rights activists; Wikileaks explains

From Amnesty USA (h/t Zach N via Facebook)

Two Amnesty International representatives have been detained by police in Cairo after the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre was taken over by military police this morning.

Amnesty International USA called on President Obama to immediately demand the release of the Amnesty International staff members. In addition, we have asked for a meeting in Washington with the Egyptian ambassador to the United States.

The Amnesty International representatives were taken, along with Ahmed Seif Al Islam Khaled Ali, a delegate from Human Rights Watch, and others, to an unknown location in Cairo. Amnesty International does not know their current whereabouts.

There happened to be a couple of Wikileaks cables released today that talks about how Egypt treats NGOs.

From December 2007, about a meeting of HRW's Joe Stork with Egypt's state security service SSIS:

Stork told us that Abdel Rahman opened the ninety minute meeting by asking that the discussion be "informal" and "off the record." Substantively, Stork characterized Abdel Rahman's position as "we (SSIS) don't do bad things." Abdel Rahman said that he commands over 40,000 police officers and told Stork he could count on one hand the number who had committed abuses. Abdel Rahman objected to Stork's use of the word torture, saying it implied something "systemic" and said Egypt's security services were "badly maligned." Stork asked about the monitoring and harassment of NGOs, which Abdel Rahman said was necessary because such organizations are run by "anarchists" and people with prior arrests who need "monitoring."

And from May 2009:

The quasi-governmental organization, the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), released its 2008 human rights report on May 6, criticizing the GOE for specific violations and offering 25 recommendations.

The report criticizes the GOE for human rights violations such as restricting NGOs, continuing the emergency law and reacting violently to the April 2008 Mahalla strike. It also expresses concern over tensions between Christians and Muslims.

The most prominent of the 25 recommendations focus on ending the emergency law, combating torture, abolishing prison sentences as penalties for journalists, and easing restrictions on NGOs and political parties.

...Under the existing NGO law, the GOE is able to shut down NGOs, limit their activities and refuse to register them, and often utilizes these prerogatives.

Mubarak to Obama: "You don't understand Egypt's culture"

An article by Christiane Amanpour on her interview with Hosni Mubarak:

He said he's fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot, he says, for fear that the country would sink into chaos.

...While he described President Obama as a very good man, he wavered when I asked him if he felt the U.S. had betrayed him. When I asked him how he responded to the United States' veiled calls for him to step aside sooner rather than later, he said he told President Obama, "You don't understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now."

In this case, Mubarak is telling the truth: Egypt will sink into chaos and Obama doesn't understand Arab culture.

Soros blames Israel for Egypt (NewsRealBlog)

At NewsRealBlog, I go into more detail on the ridiculous op-ed that George Soros wrote in today's Washington Post.

The most moderate PA leader blames Egypt situation on - Israel!

From Arab News (and AP):

PARIS: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Thursday that the failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has helped fuel unrest in Egypt and elsewhere in the Mideast.

During a visit to Paris, Fayyad said protesters’ complaints stem not only from internal problems in their own societies, but also from “a frustration, a desperation because of the failure of efforts to solve the Palestinian problem.”

Fayyad, the darling of the West and the most moderate, reasonable leader that Palestinian Arabs are ever likely have, just can't wrap his head around the fact that the entire world doesn't revolve around Ramallah..

He also cannot seem to grasp that the Arab world has paid nothing but lip service to the Palestinian issue for years. They gave up because the Palestinian Arabs couldn't get their own act together and they continue to act like babies who want everything handed to them on a silver platter.

Babies who think that...the whole world revolves around them.

When a Western-educated, so-called moderate leader of Palestinian Arabs doesn't make any sense, it makes it very unlikely that any real peace deal could ever happen.

Peace cannot be built on lies, and that is all that the Palestinian Arabs have been fed for over sixty years.

For more clear-eyed views, see David Suissa and John Podhoretz. (h/t Michael in FL)

Gazans smuggling food OUT - to Egypt

From JPost:

The tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt, used in the past to smuggle arms and supplies from Sinai into Gaza, are now an important lifeline of supplies for Sinai residents facing acute shortages because of the turmoil in Egypt, the Lebanese daily Al Akhbar reported Thursday.

According to the paper, which supports Hizbullah, traders in control of the tunnels have "been working for days" smuggling bread and food in the "opposite direction" - from Gaza into Egypt – because of "supply disruptions" from Cairo to the Sinai.

The paper acknowledged something that Israel has been arguing for months, that "Gaza's markets are no longer experiencing a shortage in most food" products since Israel eased the blockade of the region in June.

The smuggling out of Gaza does not impact on the supplies inside the Strip, those running the tunnels were quoted as saying.

This is not the first time the tunnels have been used to smuggle goods into Egypt, with western officials having said in the Fall that Israeli products, specifically fruits and vegetables, were making their way through the tunnels to Egyptian markets.

Isn't it amazing that in only one week of riots, Egyptians are in worse shape than Gazans after years of being besieged and imprisoned and suffering a slow genocide?

(h/t T34)

Guardian defends its "Palestine Papers" coverage

In the Jewish Chronicle, the Guardian defends itself against the accusations that their coverage of the Palestine Papers was biased and anti-Israel.

I think the record speaks for itself - the Guardian and Al Jazeera misinterpreted and misrepresented the papers to put Israel in the worst possible light, and they weren't above lying to do so.

But I found this part of their defense curious:

Examining the haul of 1600 documents, there were a number of passages that the Guardian's team of reporters agreed are highly significant.

These included the offer by Palestinian negotiators – in the context of an overall peace agreement – that Israel would annex all but one of the settlements in East Jerusalem. PLO negotiators also agreed to a remarkably low number of returning refugees.

These are two of the stories we ran, and almost a week after the rest of the world's media gained access to the documents – all of which are now publicly available – no one has found a major story that we missed. We were led, in other words, by the source material. It is no surprise that the majority of the stories concern the PLO, as most of the documents come from the PLO's negotiations unit.

I've been searching for the entire set of documents since the story broke. At the Guardian website, only 26 of the documents are available - no new ones since January 26th. I similarly cannot find a list of all the documents at Al Jazeera.

So the Guardian is claiming that they only highlighted the papers that are newsworthy, and they bring as proof that no one else has found any newsworthy papers - when they can't be found!

I would prefer to decide for myself what is newsworthy, thank you very much. (I've been doing that with Wikileaks.) Let the Guardian put all 1600 documents on their site and then we can truly decide.

UPDATE: Found them. I'll see if there is anything else newsworthy.

Israelis plan to occupy 14 million square miles of prime lunar real estate

From Ha'aretz:

If Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub succeed and send a robot to the moon, they'll donate their millions in prize money to promote science among Israel youth. Yesterday the trio announced their participation in the Google Lunar X Prize competition - an effort to send an unmanned vehicle to the moon and beam back high-quality photos and short films.

The competition seeks to encourage space scientists and engineers from around the world to develop cheap technologies for robotic space exploration. To win, a team needs to raise private funding; the first team to achieve the mission gets $13 million; second prize is $5 million. The other prizes total $5 million. So far 13 groups have registered for the competition; prizes can be won up to the end of 2015.

The X Prize gained publicity in 2004 when Burt Rutan, who led a group in cooperation with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the first private manned spaceship.

The Israeli group's official declaration was issued at a space conference held by Tel Aviv University's Yuval Ne'eman workshop for science and technology. The group goes by the name SpaceIL and is registered in Israel as a nonprofit organization. It's the only Israeli team in the competition.

The three young men are not motivated by money; they view the competition as a national mission to develop Israel's ability to explore space.

The group has a website, http://www.spaceil.com, in Hebrew. "Our mission is to put the Israeli flag on the moon. During the next two years, we intend to build a small space robot that will make the long journey from the earth to the moon. The vision is to promote technological education in Israel," the website states.

Those Israelis, always trying to grab land.

Israeli technology behind Jeopardy computer contestant

From Israel21C:

A team of about a dozen IBM employees from four countries -- the United States, Israel, China and Japan - have built an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered supercomputer, "Watson," which could be the world's smartest question-and-answer machine.

On February 14, 15 and 16, Watson will take on Jeopardy champs on national TV in North America. The long running, prime-time program poses answers to which contestants must provide the correct trivia question.

Watson, though he's just a machine, will attempt to win a $1 million prize by playing against two of the brainy game show's most celebrated contestants, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, in two matches over three days. IBM has pledged that if Watson wins, all the prize money will go to charity.

Named after Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM, and the assistant to Sherlock Holmes, the supercomputer will have a fan club watching. Dafna Sheinwald from the IBM Haifa Lab in Israel will be at the taping, excited to see how man will compete against machine.

It was a huge mission to develop a computer that could rival a human's ability to answer spoken questions posed as answers. Sheinwald and her research partner, David Carmel, say the contribution from the Israeli team was search algorithms that help sort out meaningful information from reams of heterogeneous data. That's their specialty at the IBM R&D facilities.

I found a poor-quality video of a test run showing Watson against the same two contestants - and it was very impressive:

A YouTube commenter wrote:

Welcome back to Final Jeopardy.

Our category is "Integers divided by zero".

The state of human rights at the UN (UN Watch)

UN Watch's Hillel Neuer testified before Congress about the state of human rights at the UN:

The transcript is here. Excerpts:

The urgent problem that I wish to address is the state of human rights at the United
Nations.

As you know, the primary U.N. body in this area is the 47-nation Human Rights Council,
which was created in 2006 to replace the Commission on Human Rights and redress its
shortcomings. Under its founding resolution, the council was required to review its work
and functioning after five years. With this review now underway at the U.N., our own
discussion here is particularly timely.

Let us consider, then: How has the council performed in its first five years?

Methodology

Let us measure the council’s performance by the yardstick of the U.N.’s own standards.
These were set forth in 2005 by then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In calling to
scrap the old commission, he identified its core failings:

 Countries had sought membership “not to strengthen human rights but to protect
themselves against criticism or to criticize others.”

 The commission was undermined by the “politicization of its sessions” and the
“selectivity of its work.”

 The commission suffered from “declining professionalism” and a “credibility
deficit”— which “cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as
a whole.”

Today, we ask: Has the council remedied these fatal flaws?

Looking ahead, the U.N. General Assembly made clear its expectations for the new
council. Resolution 60/251 of 2006 promised that the new council would elect members
committed to human rights. Serious violators would have their membership suspended.
The council would address the world’s most severe abuses, including by urgent sessions
that could be easily convened. The council’s work would be objective, impartial and nonselective.

Five years later, where do we stand?

...

Turning A Blind Eye to Victims

Apart from a handful of exceptions, such as resolutions on Burma and North Korea that
were inherited from the old commission, the council has systematically turned a blind eye
to the world’s worst human rights violations. The council has failed the victims who are
most in need of international attention.

Impunity for Worst of the Worst

o There have been no resolutions for victims in China, despite gross,
systematic and state-wide repression, the unjust imprisonment of Nobel
Laureate Liu Xiaobo, the massacre of Uighurs, and the killing of Tibetans;

o None for Cuba, where peaceful civic activists are beaten or languish in
prison;

o None for Iran, even as it massacred its own citizens while the council was
in session, and even as the regime continues to subject democracy activists
to torture, rape and execution;

o None for Saudi Arabia, where women are subjugated;

o None for Zimbabwe, despite ongoing brutality by the Mugabe regime;

o And the list goes on. In total, beyond the impunity for the worst of the
worst, approximately 180 out of 192 U.N. member states have never been
condemned by the council once for any human rights violations.

What is most troubling is that no resolutions have even been proposed regarding these
gross violators. For this the democratic minority cannot blame others.

Egypt ordered mobile phone companies to text pro-Mubarak messages

From Al Masry al-Youm:

In a press statement, international mobile operator Vodafone said that Egyptian authorities have ordered the network to send pro-government messages.

“Under the emergency powers provisions of the Telecoms Act, Egyptian authorities can instruct the mobile networks of Mobinil, Etisalat and Vodafone to send messages to the people of Egypt,” read the message posted on Vodafone’s website on 3 February.

According to the statement, the mobile network operators have no influence in the content or working of the messages.

“Vodafone Group protested to the authorities that the current situation regarding these messages is unacceptable. We have made clear that all messages should be transparent and clearly attributable to the originator,” read the statement.

Messages sent via Vodafone networks include a call to a protest on Wednesday in Mostafa Mahmoud square to support President Hosni Mubarak.

The funny part is that everyone is trying to use social media to frame what's going on to their advantage - but some do it more skillfully than others.

Even so, too many people are mindlessly believing everything they read on Twitter.

The other Tahrir Square - in Yemen

From AFP:

Tens of thousands of protesters massed on Thursday at Sanaa University for a "day of rage" against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule, while a similar number of loyalists flooded a central square in support of the embattled leader.

With Saleh supporters, some of them armed, taking over Al-Tahrir square from Wednesday night, protest organizers were forced to change the planned venue of their demonstration.

From early morning they drove through the streets advertising the new site over megaphones, blaming the change on the fact that "the men of the ruling party and their armed elements are holding Al-Tahrir."

By mid-morning tens of thousands of protesters had gathered at the university, with a similarly-sized crowd of loyalists massing at Al-Tahrir, about 2 kilometres away, in the center of the capital, correspondents said.

Police were on Thursday trying to filter the influx of people into the square, some of whom carried banners reading, "We are with Ali Abdullah Saleh. We are with Yemen," and "The opposition wants to destroy Yemen."

This is my 10,000th post

This post is the 10,000th post published on Elder of Ziyon.

Wow.

I'd like to thank you for coming here to read what I have to say, and especially for forwarding and linking to (and even translating) my posts. It is really humbling to know people have gone to my site some 2.2 million times.

And if you want to support me for the thousands of hours I pour into this site, I very much appreciate any donations you make.

Hamas and Fatah promoting Facebook revolution campaigns against the other

From Ma'an:

Major General Tawfiq At-Tirawi, former director of the PA general intelligence and Fatah Central Committee member called Wednesday in a statement for the people of Gaza to rise up in revolt against the Hamas government.

The people of Gaza, he said, should take their cue from Egypt and call for the end of the "dictatorship that restricts their freedoms."

At-Tirawi's statement is widely believed to be a response to the new group on the social networking site Facebook, Preparation for the Dignity Revolution, which calls for a mass rally in Gaza City on 11 February.

The group, created on 28 January, has 8,316 supporters, many from the West Bank. In its mission statement, unidentified organizers say they are not affiliated with any political party, but accuse Hamas of "implementing a Zionist-Iranian plan."

Ya gotta love Zionist-Iranian plans!

But Hamas websites are also promoting Facebook groups - against Fatah. The Hamas newspaper Palestine Times says:

Like the Egyptian revolution and the Tunisian revolution before that, thousands of young Palestinians began Facebook campaigns, with multiple calls to overthrow the authority of Abbas in the West Bank, demanding he step down from power and stop the injustice and tyranny and dictatorship in the West Bank.

One campaign, called "Palestinian revolution to overthrow the authority of Abbas," first set up on January 31, was titled "The first movement of the Palestinian people for change..."

The anti-Fatah page is here.

But I'm sure that both campaigns are strictly non-partisan and were set up by concerned young people, acting completely spontaneously. Absolutely.

Both sides in Egypt blame...the Jews!

George Soros, in a ridiculous op-ed in today's Washington Post, blames Israel (actually, the "Jewish lobby") for being the major obstacle to Egyptian democracy.

He writes

The main stumbling block is Israel. ... Israel is unlikely to recognize its own best interests because the change is too sudden and carries too many risks. And some U.S. supporters of Israel are more rigid and ideological than Israelis themselves.

He is not the only one.

Many of the protesters hate Mubarak because of....Israel:

Iranian TV says: (h/t G)

The International Network for Rights and Development said that three Israeli planes landed at Cairo's Mina International Airport on Saturday, carrying equipment for use in dispersing and suppressing large crowds, a Press TV correspondent reported.

According to the report, Egyptian security forces received the cargo on three Israeli planes, which were allegedly carrying a large supply of internationally proscribed gas to disperse crowds.

Of course, the Mubarak regime cannot take this ultimate insult lying down.

From YNet:

A young Egyptian woman claims that the Mossad trained her to assist in bringing down Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's regime. In an interview with Egypt's Al Mehwar network the woman, who noted that her facebook page was extremely popular, said that she was sent by an American organization to be specially trained "by Israelis and Jews" in Qatar.

The woman remained anonymous and was interviewed with her voice distorted and her face blurred. She told of her training and financial support from an American organization called Freedom House. She claims that her trainers were Jews and Israelis whose main job was recruiting "young and unexperienced" students from universities.

The organization is well known, and its website states that its purpose is to "support the expansion of freedom around the world" and that it was founded by "prominent Americans concerned with the mounting threats to peace and democracy".

According to the young woman, after her initial recruitment, she was sent to Doha in Qatar with a group of other young people for the next stage in the process. "We received intensive training for four days. The trainers had different citizenships but a predominant number among them were Israelis," she said.

At the end of the interview the woman was asked what led her to confess her secret activities. At this point, she burst into tears and answered that President Mubarak was "like a father to me," which is why she decided to share what happened to her.

I'm fairly sure the Arabic interview is here.

No matter what happens anywhere in the Arab world, you will never have to look hard to find people falling over themselves to blame - the Jews.

Omar Barghouti's lies in HuffPo

In the Huffington Post, Omar Barghouti argues against an earlier article by Bernard-Henri Levy in order to justify the anti-Israel BDS movement.

It doesn't take very long before one sees that the truth is not exactly Barghouti's strong suit.

The fact is the BDS Call was launched by a great majority in Palestinian civil society on July 9, 2005, as a qualitatively new phase in the global struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice, and self-determination. More than 170 leading Palestinian political parties, trade union federations, women's unions, refugee rights groups, NGOs, and grassroots organizations called for a boycott against Israel until it fully complies with its obligations under international law.

Do the organizations behind the boycott really represent the majority of Palestinian society?

I found the list of organizations that signed on to BDS on the website he cited, and a good number of them are not based in "Palestine" but rather in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Europe and North America. As far as I can see, there is not a single political party on that list. And if all the 170 organizations signed on in 2005, as the website says, then that means that not too many have signed on since then!

The Palestinian Arab organizations that signed onto BDS are a motley crew of trade unions, highly anti-Israel organizations like "Al-Awda" which agitates to destroy Israel completely, and some pseudo-"human rights" organizations like Addameer which inflates the number of Arabs arrested by Israel by at least a factor of a hundred.

Apparently, lying comes naturally to all BDS supporters!

However, the Palestinian Authority does not support BDS. Most Palestinian Arabs consume Israeli goods. I daresay that one will be able to find plenty of Israeli products in the offices of most of the West Bank and Gaza organizations listed.

Not only that, but most Palestinian Arab trade unions don't support BDS! In fact, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) is explicitly against BDS. (h/t Zach N)

The BDS movement tries to represent itself as being far larger than it is, but if you want a laugh, look at the "Achievements Calendar" on the BDS Movement website.

It is, as far as I can tell, completely empty!

He goes on:

"Rooted in a century-old history of civil, nonviolent resistance ..."

I always laugh when I see this claim made. The liars who say that the Palestinian Arab "resistance" movement was nonviolent usually point to the beginning of the 1936-9 riots, which started with a strike. Of course, that didn't last long, and by the time it was over there were thousands of casualties - most of them Arab, and many of them injured and killed by other Arabs - for not adhering to the strike!

Palestinian Arab terrorism has evolved since then, to airplane hijackings, suicide bombings and shooting rockets at women and children. All of which are supported, implicitly or explicitly, by many of these same "civil society" organizations listed.

Even today, when Palestinian Arabs talk about "non-violent resistance," they include throwing large rocks through the windshields of cars belonging to civilians who happen to pass by the wrong neighborhood.

[T]he BDS National Committee (BNC) [is] anchored in deep respect for international law and universal human rights...

The entire point of the BDS initiative is to deny and destroy the right of the Jewish nation to self-determination. That is its entire raison d'être. To say that is based on human rights is a very bad joke - yet this lie is one that is used repeatedly.

The BDS movement, being strictly rights-based, has consistently avoided taking any position regarding the one-state/two-states debate, emphasizing instead the three basic rights that need to be realized in any political solution. Ending the Israeli occupation that started in 1967 of all Arab territories, ending Israel's system of legalized and institutionalized discrimination against its own Palestinian citizens, and recognizing the UN-sanctioned rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes of origin are the three basic principles of the movement.

There is no UN-sanctioned right for the Palestinian Arabs to "return.' The 1949 UNGA Resolution 194 that they love to use has phraseology that limits this "right," it does not extend to the descendants, it was a General Assembly resolution with no legal weight, and it was roundly rejected by the Arab world anyway. It is simply a BDS and Palestinian Arab lie to take portions of one of its fifteen paragraphs as the holiest of holies while utterly disregarding the rest of the resolution.

Mr. Levy completely misrepresents my position on the matter. Citing a 2003 article of mine, he outlandishly claims that I endorse a "two-Palestines" solution....For more than 27 years, I've consistently and openly advocated a secular, democratic state in the entire area of historic Palestine.

Either way, the point of the BDS movement is to destroy the Jewish state. No two ways about that.

And when Barghouti says "historic Palestine" he is ignoring history and betraying the fact that the BDS movement is only interested in the portions of "historic Palestine" that happens to be controlled by Jews.After all, portions of Jordan were once considered "eastern Palestine" yet not one BDSer will ever insist that Jordan give up its portion of historic Palestine!

The BDS movement against Israel could not care less whether it is a Jewish, Muslim, Catholic or Hindu state; all that matters is that it is a colonial oppressor that persistently denies the Palestinian people their basic rights. Is this too difficult to understand?

If that was remotely the case, then the BDS movement would boycott every single Arab country - because every one of them has discriminatory laws to disallow Palestinian Arabs from becoming fully naturalized citizens of their states. Where are the boycotts of Lebanon? Saudi Arabia? Even Jordan has been systematically taking away Jordanian citizenship from their citizens of Palestinian origin.

Yet the BDS movement is silent on the matter.

The fact that they only call for sanctions against Israel indicates - actually, it proves - that anti-semitism is the root of the entire movement. Not that all of its members consciously realize it or not, but there can be no other explanation.

How Congress can help Egypt

From VOANews:

Even before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's announcement that he will not seek reelection, U.S. senators were speaking of his departure from power as a given. Senators from both major political parties said Tuesday that U.S. aid to Egypt has been money well spent, and showed no inclination to alter or cut off that aid - at least for now.

Hours beforeMr. Mubarak's statement, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry, said Egyptians have "moved beyond" their president. The Massachusetts Democrat said that declining to run for reelection should be but a first step for the Egyptian leader.

"To go even further - to move to put together a caretaker government over these next months in order to avoid violence and help transition Egypt to the future that its people want and deserve," he said.

For decades, Egypt has been one of the biggest recipients of U.S. foreign aid, totaling more than $1.5 billion a year during the past decade.

Connecticut Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman says it is money well spent.

"It did support a government which, over the years, has been very instrumental in maintaining stability in the Middle East," said Lieberman. "The second thing is, a lot of the money goes to the Egyptian military. And I think even in this moment of crisis, we see that the military is playing a critically important role in unifying the country."

Lieberman says now is not the time to threaten Egyptians or their military with a cut-off of U.S. aid.

Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agrees.

"I think it would be inappropriate to be having that discussion while the Egyptians themselves are attempting to formulate appropriate governance," said Lugar.

Fellow Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine also says U.S. aid to Egypt has been constructive for both nations and the Middle East as a whole. But she hesitates when asked whether she would guarantee future American assistance to Egypt.

"I think it is premature to make that conclusion," said Collins. "For example, if somehow the Muslim Brotherhood gained control of the country, then clearly we would not be giving any aid to Egypt."

In fact, I just received a draft email from a pro-Israel PAC, meant to be sent to members of Congress, that makes a much better suggestion:

As we all know, Foreign aid should never be viewed as an entitlement. Rather, it is for the promotion of values, which are at the core of American and indeed all western civilization. Foreign aid should be awarded to encourage and protect the establishment of democratic institutions, the preservation of human rights, and the formulation of productive economic planning.

Unfortunately, Egypt though often characterized as a moderate Arab country, has evinced a pronounced hostility toward these American values. Egypt regularly undermines American policy goals. It is now clear that Egypt is suffering the consequences of its decades of repression and with an educational system and state media steeped in the policies of racism and hate, will likely have a government takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood, the founder of the Islamic Terrorism movement.

Moreover, despite having received about $60 billion in foreign aid since 1979, most Egyptians are destitute. The grinding poverty has been exacerbated by poor economic planning, government corruption, and an affinity for massive military expenditures.

Given its lack of cooperation with America, its persecution of religious minorities, lack of human rights, and anti-western state sponsored media we question whether Egypt deserves any material amount of foreign aid. Our concern is elevated by the fact that the aid is used primarily to continue building a massive Egyptian war machine. We are arming to the teeth a totalitarian government in an unsteady region of the world. There is only one use for this kind of arms buildup. We fear it would be used against the only democratic country in the region, our chief ally, Israel or against America should the government change hands.

In discussing this position with a number of Congressional offices, we have found some concern about resulting instability of the Egyptian government that cutting aid might cause. We are thus proposing that members of Congress look to change the nature of the aid to Egypt from military credits to economic and social credits. This is a win for America, a win for American allies in the area, and a win for Egypt. The massive military buildup in Egypt is destabilizing. With the acknowledged precarious nature of Egypt's government and the ever-present danger of its growing fundamentalist movement, it is far more in America's interest to attend to the political, social, and economic needs of the Egyptian people so our country can help create a less desperate situation.

The economic impact to America is neutral, since the money comes in the form of credits to buy US goods. It would be better to let the Egyptian people buy our cars, our computers, our construction equipment, and other American goods. This policy would encourage peace and a more stable Egypt. It would also produce demand for American products beyond the scope of foreign aid.

Makes sense to me.

Wikileaks: Evidence of Syria's chemical weapons program

From Wikileaks, a cable dated December 30, 2008:

The U.S. has obtained information indicating that a Syrian institution with connections to the country’s chemical and biological weapons programs is attempting to acquire Australia Group-controlled glass-lined reactors, heat exchangers and pumps from the Indian firms XXXXXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXXXXX . Both firms are believed to have received visits from the Syria institution in the past 3 months and may be close to concluding their respective deals.

We would like to alert the GOI to this information. The GOI has a general obligation as a Chemical Weapons Convention State Party to never, under any circumstances, assist anyone in the development of chemical weapons. The U.S. also has publicly stated its belief that India is a strong partner on nonproliferation issues. We therefore seek the GOI’s assistance in investigating this activity and taking all steps necessary to prevent Indian entities from providing CBW equipment to Syria. We also want to remind the GOI that the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act requires us to report to Congress transfers of goods, services and technology on multilateral control lists, such as the Australia Group, to Syria. Sanctions may be imposed against individuals and entities identified in such reports.

What lovely, peaceful neighbors Israel has!

Not everyone who is protesting is pro-democracy

From Daylife:

A group of Israeli-Arabs and Palestinians organised a demonstration in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. The event was held in solidarity with the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt. Tel Aviv, Israel. 01/02/2011

Because Nasser was such a wonderful example of freedom and democracy....

Muslims visit Auschwitz...but who are they? (updated)

From Al Arabiya:

Prominent Muslims joined Jews and Christians at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz on Tuesday in a gesture of interfaith solidarity designed to refute deniers of the Holocaust such as Iran's president.

About 200 dignitaries from across the Islamic world, from Israel, European countries and international organizations such as UNESCO took part in the visit, which included a tour of the site and prayers in Arabic, Yiddish, English and French.

"We must teach our young people in mosques, churches and synagogues about what happened here," Bosnia's Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric told Reuters.
"This awful place should stand as a reminder to all people that intolerance and lack of understanding between people can result in... such places as Auschwitz."

Some 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, perished at Auschwitz during the Nazi German occupation of Poland in World War Two.

Organizers said Tuesday's visit was mainly aimed at rejecting the view, that the Holocaust never really happened.

"We chose to give priority to representatives of the Arab and Muslim world and the reason for this is clear," said Anne-Marie Revcolevschi of the Aladdin Project which works to build ties between Jews and Muslims.

"It is mainly from some of these countries that the speeches and documents come that serve as a vehicle for denial (of the Holocaust), hatred and anti-Semitism," she said, in comments delivered ahead of the visit to Auschwitz.

"There also exists in these countries currents and people who do not support these outbursts of hatred. We think the time has come to gather them and to let their voices be heard."

In a speech at the ceremony, Bosnia's Muslim Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric said it was essential to fight genocide denial in all its forms.

"I am here to say to those who deny the Holocaust in Auschwitz, and who deny the genocide in Srebrenica, that they are themselves committing genocide," Ceric said, referring to the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces during his nation's civil war.

The chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, Israel Meir Lau, echoed that comment, saying: "When a spiritual leader of the Islamic world, comes here to see with his eyes and to know and to feel the atmosphere here, of this greatest cemetery of mankind in history, this will help to deny those who deny the Holocaust."

Egyptian members of the delegation were unable to attend Tuesday's commemoration because of the political turmoil sweeping their country, the organizers said. Some guests from Tunisia, Algeria and elsewhere were also unable to attend.

I don't want to minimize this beautiful gesture, but I cannot find any accounts of this that specifically mention the names of any Arabs who attended. The article says that some Arabs from Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia couldn't attend because of the protests. But who were the ones that did attend?

I also could not find any mention of this news in the Arabic-language media. (Al Arabiya's Arabic version has been unavailable for the last couple of days because of the heavy traffic.) The Project Aladdin page does not give any details on the participants either.

If the Arab participants do not want their names publicized in their own countries, then doesn't that indicate that this laudable effort did not accomplish its goals? Besides Iran, the epicenter of today's Holocaust denial and anti-semitism is the Arab world and if this visit is not noticed in that sphere then it ends up only being a "feel good" exercise.

UPDATE: YNet has a more in-depth story, and includes the names of a few Arabs who were there. (h/t Challah Hu Akbar)

Violence in Egypt; turns out freedom isn't a cakewalk

From The Lede:

Thousands of demonstrators for and against President Hosni Mubarak, some on horses and camels, fought running battles in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square on Wednesday, despite a call from Egypt's powerful military for the president's opponents to "restore normal life."

The pro-government supporters had arrived in their thousands, but were outnumbered by Mr. Mubarak's opponents.

Their confrontations, which were descending into rock-throwing clashes, injected a new and perilous element into the eight-day standoff between anti-government protesters and Mr. Mubarak, hours after he offered to step down in September and President Obama urged a faster transition....

On Wednesday, Mr. Mubarak's supporters arrived in larger numbers than had been seen before. Hours before, antigovernment protesters had been chanting: "We are not going to go; we are not going to go."

In counterpoint, demonstrators supporting Mr. Mubarak chorused on Wednesday: "He's not going to go; he's not going to go."

Volleys of rocks flew between the two groups and many protesters were led away with bleeding head wounds. The clashes erupted close to the Egyptian Museum housing a huge trove of priceless antiquities.

Plumes of smoke, apparently from tear gas, rose as the rival crowds surged back and forth.

"Where's the Egyptian army?" anti-government demonstrators chanted.

Mackey also quotes Sandmonkey's tweets:

Watching the egyptian media now is driving me insane. Propaganda & Stupidity overdose!

The TV just annunced that there is a Pro Mubarak million-man-march. This will be hilarious. They managed to get 1000 today.

Clashes in Tahrir square. The egyptian TV claims that hundreds of thousands of protesters are Pro Mubarak.

Clashes, Pro Mubarak people attacking protesters. Tear Gas thrown. Very violent. No Army intervention so far.

Twitter won't work from my phone. Everything else works.

egyptian army is not seperating the people, they r holding the egyptian flag&urging egyptians- who r beating each other- to unite.

Twitter down on all mobiles. web still works.

Camels and Horses used by Pro Mubarak protesters to attack Anti-Mubarak protesters. This is becoming literally a circus.

You can't even make up a movie that would equal this level of insanity.

Ok, it is official, my @Mobinil line has twitter and facebook blocked on it. They work fine on my etisalat line....

This means the regime knows who I am and where I live. My life is now officially in danger.

people are showing on TV holding police ID's from the protesters they just clashed with.

Mubarak has proven to be smarter than all of us, he will not leave. Just watch.

The aim of this is to evacuate the Tahrir square & justify never having protests there Friday, where 1 is scheduled, or ever again.

Authoritarian regimes, watch Mubarak and learn from the master.... Ben Ali must be so jealous he didn't think of this psychotic brilliant plan.

There are reports that CNN's Anderson Cooper was punched in the head ten times by pro-Mubarak supporters/secret police.

It looks like Egypt is in for a lot more chaos and violence before this calms down - one way or another.

And the Islamists are happily waiting to take advantage of that.

Syria's Muslim Brotherhood poised for action

We saw in Egypt that the Muslim Brotherhood was not the instigator of the protests but quickly took advantage of the potential power vacuum to position itself as the largest and best organized opposition group.

Déjà vu time.

After a series of independent calls on Facebook and elsewhere to hold a "day of rage" in Syria this Saturday, some of which attracted thousands of members, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood had put out its own call for protest, calling for a ten part plan to reform Syria.

Just as in Egypt, their public position is not overtly religious but couched in terms of democracy and freedom (the single reference to religion is a call to have Syria rid itself of Iranian Shiite influence.)

Hamas, PA crack down on solidarity protests

From Ma'an:

Police in the Gaza Strip shut down a demonstration Monday in support of the uprising in Egypt.

Activists said six women and eight men were arrested at a park in Gaza City, where a few dozen demonstrators had gathered.

The women were released after a few hours. It was not immediately clear when the men were freed because they were separated, one of the protesters said.

Asmaa Al-Ghoul, a Gaza-based journalist and writer, was among those detained.

"Hamas police arrested me with group of demonstrators in Gaza in solidarity with Egyptian people," she wrote on Twitter. "Women's police beat me violently" and detained other young women.

They were standing in solidarity with the Egyptian uprising, Al-Ghoul added.

A day earlier, Palestinian Authority security forces shut down a demonstration in front of the Egyptian embassy in Ramallah, after calling in one of the organizers for questioning multiple times a day earlier.

Forces pushed demonstrators and a man who identified himself as a police commander said the demonstrators were in a "security area" and would have to disperse, they said.

The PA banned a similar demonstration in solidarity with the uprising in Tunisia last week.

Some interesting Egypt analysis links

A really good description of the events in Egypt from an Egyptian student's viewpoint, at American Thinker. (h/t Israel Matzav)

Yossi Klein Halevi describes Israel's worries in a NYT op-ed. (h/t SoccerDad)

And, while already slightly dated. Spengler at Asia Times has some very good insights. (h/t JL)

The woman who helped start a revolution

While rags like the New York Daily News still build up El Baradei as if he is Lech Walesa, it appears that this young woman, Asma Mahfouz, was really one of the people who started it all.

The original video was posted January 18th, calling on Egyptians to come to Tahrir Square on January 25.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

Video of Grad rocket barely missing wedding feast in Israel

Here are three security camera angles of a Grad rocket slamming near a wedding reception in Netivot, Israel, on January 31:

JERUSALEM, Israel - Palestinians in the Gaza Strip targeted two southern Israeli cities with longer-range Grad-type rockets on Monday night.

Wedding guests celebrating in a residential neighborhood in the town of Netivot, nine miles east of Gaza, ran for cover as the explosion drowned out the music.

"There was music, then we suddenly heard a loud blast," one of the guests said. "Everyone - little children and men - ran for cover. People fell over one another. It's a miracle no one was hurt," she said.

The rocket damaged a parked car and the paved road, and four people were treated for shock.

Moments later, another Grad exploded in a open area in the community of Ofakim, about 15 miles from the Gaza Strip.

"It was terrifying. We heard a boom [that sounded like] a nuclear bomb. We thought it was thunder. There was smoke and explosions," one resident said.

Another resident said she was making a cup of coffee when the explosion cracked the kitchen window.

"I'm traumatized and afraid of sleeping. We are at God's mercies. I don't even have a protected space here," she said, adding that the IDF needed to "reenter Gaza and launch another operation."

(original video from YNet)

Arab sentenced to prison for selling land to Jews

Palestine Press Agency reports that a man has been sentenced to prison for selling land to an Israeli.

The regional court in Nablus ruled on Tuesday against the Salfit man, sentencing him to ten years in prison for selling land to Israelis.

The accused is 70 years old, and he sold the land in 1981.

He violated the Article 114 of the [Jordanian] Penal Code of 1960 number 16, which prohibits selling land to "the enemy," with "the enemy" specifically defined elsewhere as "any man or judicial body [corporation] of Israeli citizenship living in Israel or acting on its behalf."

After Jordan's peace treaty with Israel, this law was revised, but the Palestinian Arabs still use the 1960 Penal Code - even though they have a draft law to replace it with a similar law mandating the death penalty for anyone selling land to "the occupier."

It is interesting that the Palestinian Arab court system still legally defines Israel as "the enemy."

ElderToons: Aliens land in Jerusalem

Because of this story....

MB leader wants to ready Egyptians for war with Israel

From the LA Times:

The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government.

The organization must reject violence and recognize democratic goals if the U.S. is to be comfortable with it taking part in the government, the White House said. But by even setting conditions for the involvement of such nonsecular groups, the administration took a surprise step in the midst of the crisis that has enveloped Egypt for the last week.

Monday's statement was a "pretty clear sign that the U.S. isn't going to advocate a narrow form of pluralism, but a broad one," said Robert Malley, a Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration.

Which makes this so much easier to swallow:

A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt told the Arabic-language Iranian news network Al-Alam on Monday that he would like to see the Egyptian people prepare for war against Israel.

Muhammad Ghannem reportedly told Al- Alam that the Suez Canal should be closed immediately, and that the flow of gas from Egypt to Israel should cease “in order to bring about the downfall of the Mubarak regime.” He added that “the people should be prepared for war against Israel,” saying the world should understand that “the Egyptian people are prepared for anything to get rid of this regime.”

The original Al-Alam article is here.

(h/t Qumran Qumran and Avi B.)

Muslim Brotherhood on El Baradei: "He's only temporary"

From this Russia Today video, starting around 2:15, interviewing a Muslim Brotherhood member:

Mohammed El Baltagy: "We didn't choose El Baradei. We chose him only for a short period of change. He's only temporary."

Notice how el-Baltagy phrases it, as if the Muslim Brotherhood is calling the shots of the current uprising and using players as pawns to gain leadership.

El Baltagy is a major figure in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Much of the rest of the video is about Egyptian skepticism over El Baradei, making some would-be analysts look like complete fools.

Synagogue torched in Tunisia (updated)

From AFP:

Arsonists set fire to a synagogue in the southern Gabes region of Tunisia, a leader of the local Jewish community said Tuesday.

"Someone set fire to the synagogue on Monday night and the Torah scrolls were burned," Trabelsi Perez told AFP, criticising the lack of action by the security services to stop the attack.

"What astonished me was that there were police not far from the synagogue," added Perez, who is also head of the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba, the oldest synagogue in Africa.

(h/t T34)

UPDATE: Another member of the community denies it was an attack on Jews but rather it was simple vandalism. (Ibid.)

Jordan's king sacks government

From YNet:

After weeks of opposition protests demanding change, Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday sacked his government and asked his former ex-military advisor Marouf Bakhit to form a new cabinet, an official said.

According to the palace, the king named Bakhit as prime minister with orders to carry out "true political reforms".

Bakhit's mission is to take practical, quick and tangible steps to launch true political reforms, enhance Jordan's democratic drive and ensure safe and decent living for all Jordanians."

King Abdullah's move came after thousands of Jordanians took to the streets –inspired by the regime ouster in Tunisia and the turmoil in Egypt – and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai who is blamed for a rise in fuel and food prices and slowed political reforms.

Ammon News adds:

Bakhit told Ammon News that he began consultations to form a new government, expressing that his focus is to fulfill the directives and aspirations of King Abdullah and the Jordanian people.

The New Prime Minister stated that it will take a few days to finalize his selection for the new cabinet.

In Ammon News' congratulations to the new Prime Minister, Bakhit replied "Say may God help me," and hinted that his government will be from "an older generation," and the interests of Jordan and Jordanians will be "our target."

Protests planned in Syria, Yemen

A "Day of Rage" of protests in Syria has been called for Saturday.

Even though Facebook is banned in Syria, there were over 5000 members of Facebook groups calling for the protests yesterday with more joining every hour (here's one with 2500 members now.) One Twitter group is called "AngrySyriaDay."

The protests are planned for Damascus and Aleppo.

Meanwhile, protests are planned in Yemen on Thursday, meant to mirror the Egyptian and Algerian protests. They are planned for Sana'a and other provinces, organized by opposition groups.

Some morning links

The Shalit family is concerned that the events in Egypt could further delay any release for Gilad.

Three Grad rockets were shot from Gaza to Israel, causing damage. Four treated for shock.

FAQ on US aid to Egypt (h/t Israel Matzav)

Barry Rubin on ElBaradei's deceptions concerning the Muslim Brotherhood.

Akiva Eldar in Ha'aretz really, really wants another intifada. So does Hamas, at least in the West Bank, apparently setting up Facebook groups for people to revolt against the PA.

Meanwhile, Hamas is arresting and beating journalists, but no one is calling for an uprising in Gaza.

Daphne Anson on an Israel hater who is loved by the British media.

Are Christian shops being targeted in Egypt looting?

UFO over the Dome of the Rock? (videos)

Some sites are pointing to videos taken last week of a strange light that appears to hover above Jerusalem, then suddenly come down atop the Dome of the Rock, stay there for a while, and then fly fast back up into the sky.

This one was taken from a distance and shows a flash of light before the light ascends:

This one is close up in the Old City, but I don't see the flash:

And here's a different one from a distance, which shows lights flashing in the sky afterwards (that the first video seems to refer to but is not visible.)

Is this an elaborate hoax? The two videos from a distance have the exact same timing.

The second video looks like it may be a hoax, though. It really does look like a photograph in the background.(h/t Al.)

One thing is certain: whatever it is, it must be Israel's fault.

Coverage here, here and here.

Nothing good likely to come out of Egyptian turmoil (Zvi)

From Zvi:

I don't see much possibility of a constructive outcome from any of this.

At home, Mubarak's regime is a nasty, brutish and repressive "mediocracy". The people on the streets do have a right to be heard and they do have a right to replace a government that is much more interested in power than in working for the betterment of Egyptians as a whole. There are many decent Egyptian people who really do want to build a better Egypt and who have no broader agenda - though many have beliefs about their Jewish neighbors to the east that have been twisted through propaganda into something paranoid and nasty.

Mubarak's regime is also responsible for officially supporting and encouraging anti-Semitism and has made no attempt to present a realistic picture of Egypt's Jewish neighbors. Mubarak's regime is directly responsible for a major portion of the virulent anti-Semitism that infests Egyptian public arena today. It could have taken a very different path.

But the other side of things is that the regime's systematic repression - and, to be fair, the tepid irrelevance and ineptitude of various opposition forces - has left no strong power center outside of the regime, the army and the Muslim Brotherhood. The fall of Mubarak's regime in favor of some junta drawn from the armed forces would mean the exchange of one thuggish regime for another - with the new regime much less stable and experienced than the current one. The fall of Mubarak's regime in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood would mean discarding a sane despot in exchange for lunatics who care more about destroying Israel and the west than they care about the lives of Egyptians - a disastrous result indeed.

The fact that the Arab League's Chief Thug (Amr Moussa) and the Atomic Wuss (El Baradei) are being presented as realistic alternatives to Mubarak by the western media shows just how ignorant the western media really is, and I'm quite afraid that western leaders will actually buy into this crazy alternative and compel Egyptian leaders to make insane choices based on such delusions. There is no better way for the Muslim Brotherhood to take over than for a complete idiot like El Baradei - a person with no constituency in Egypt and a weak or misguided idiot who coddled Egypt's Iranian enemies when he was in a position of authority in the IAEA - to end up in charge.

I suppose that somehow, by walking some tortuous, mine-strewn path that is not clear to me today, the Egyptian people could pull off a miracle and upgrade their increasingly unstable state from its current shabby authoritarian model to a free and open democracy, or at least something that tends in that direction - and they could double the miracle at the same time by managing not to be led into an insane war against Israel. But this would take more miracles than anyone has the right to expect.

Even with the best will in the world, with the wisest heads in the world leading, Egypt is in a very dangerous place now. Aside from the anger of the street, which can easily capsize the boat of wisdom, Egypt sits astride vital geopolitical fault lines, and there many countries will meddle, perceiving their interests threatened and believing, in their inexperience or cold calculations, that they know better than the locals how to stabilize Egypt.

The fault lines are many. For example, Egypt controls the Suez Canal, a key trade route of the modern era. Egypt has a basically pro-western Sunni government, which makes it a target of those who would damage the west. Egypt has kept the peace for over three decades, which has imposed a ceiling on the violence of Israel-Arab conflicts and ensured that every few years, thousands of Arab and Israeli kids don't have to march off to war and be killed; those who would fight Israel to the last drop of someone else's blood have every reason to target Egypt.

I really do wish the Egyptian people the best. I just don't expect it. I would love to see them surprise me in a good way. But it would have to be one heck of a surprise.

Hasbara 2.0 - why the Israel haters are winning today

Since it was frustrating trying to figure out what to post here and what to post at my NewsRealBlog gig, I decided to start to document my ideas about Hasbara 2.0 that I spoke about in December.

So I will be running a continuing series on hasbara there.

The first installment, an introduction, is up now.

Check it out!

"Israel shocked at Obama's 'betrayal' of Mubarak"

From Reuters:

If Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is toppled, Israel will lose one of its very few friends in a hostile neighborhood and President Barack Obama will bear a large share of the blame, Israeli pundits said on Monday.

Political commentators expressed shock at how the United States as well as its major European allies appeared to be ready to dump a staunch strategic ally of three decades, simply to conform to the current ideology of political correctness.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told ministers of the Jewish state to make no comment on the political cliffhanger in Cairo, to avoid inflaming an already explosive situation. But Israel's President Shimon Peres is not a minister.

"We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak," he said on Monday. He then switched to the past tense. "I don't say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East."

Newspaper columnists were far more blunt.

One comment by Aviad Pohoryles in the daily Maariv was entitled "A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam." It accused Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks.

Who is advising them, he asked, "to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president ... an almost lone voice of sanity in a Middle East?"

"The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations ... is painfully naive."

"The question is, do we think Obama is reliable or not," said an Israeli official, who declined to be named.

"Right now it doesn't look so. That is a question resonating across the region not just in Israel."

Writing in Haaretz, Ari Shavit said Obama had betrayed "a moderate Egyptian president who remained loyal to the United States, promoted stability and encouraged moderation."

To win popular Arab opinion, Obama was risking America's status as a superpower and reliable ally.

"Throughout Asia, Africa and South America, leaders are now looking at what is going on between Washington and Cairo. Everyone grasps the message: "America's word is worthless ... America has lost it."

Although perhaps the quoted Israelis are being slightly too generous to a despot, the larger point is very important: If Middle East leaders, especially Arab leaders, do not believe that the US is behind them anymore, then the idea of a domino effect of Arab regimes being replaced by potentially much worse Islamist regimes becomes much closer to reality.

Not only that, but if Arab leaders no longer perceive the US as protecting them, they will seek another country for them to orbit. Like, say, Iran.

No one is saying that it is easy for the US to publicly support a dictator whose country is now seemingly against him. But now the US is not acting like a leader at all.

Here is one possible idea that would be true to both democratic ideals and minimize the chances for an Islamist takeover of Egypt.

The US should pressure Mubarak to embark on a five-year program of increasing freedoms. Get rid of the "state of emergency" that Egypt has been under since 1967 and start to implement a concrete plan of action to open up Egypt to the marketplace of ideas - with a specific timetable.

Only after five years of freedom can one even hope for an electorate that can sort through the alternatives intelligently. It would also take that long for new political parties to have the chance to grow and get organized, gain supporters and money.

Then the real elections can take place, in a new, democratic Egypt, where no one is afraid that their words can get them killed.

Rushing into uncharted waters now has disaster written all over it. This is a vacuum that the US can fill if it acts skillfully and forcefully. But is there the will?

(h/t Zach N)

UNRWA report on Pal. poverty in Lebanon flies under the radar

On December 31, UNRWA released a major report that goes into detail of the poverty and unemployment for Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon.

Here are some important parts:

6.6% are extremely poor i.e they cannot meet their essential daily food needs (compared to 1.7% amongst Lebanese).
66.4% of Palestine refugees in Lebanon are poor i.e cannot meet their basic food and nonfood needs (compared to 35% amongst Lebanese).
56% of Palestinians are jobless
38% of the working age population are employed
2/3 of Palestinians employed in elementary occupations (like street vendors, work in construction, agriculture) are poor
Of the 425,000 Lebanese "refugees" registered with UNRWA since 1948, only 260,000-280,000 currently reside in Lebanon. The difference is apparently from some 200,000 who have fled Lebanon, mostly for Europe.

Lebanese vehemently oppose the naturalization of Palestinians into Lebanese. Such Tawteen (naturalization) is also strongly rejected by the Palestinians, who insist on their right to return to Palestine. The Lebanese position on return to Palestine is sometimes used to justify discriminatory policies against the Palestinian refugees, and their legal status even after 60 years remains that of foreigners. This has resulted in restrictive policies with regard to the social, economic, and civil rights of the Palestinians (Hanafi & Tiltnes 2008)

Tawteen is the scarecrow that has been used within sections of Lebanese society to generate public phobia against according civil rights to Palestinians. Indeed through editorials in key Lebanese newspapers (alNahar, al-Akhbar, al-Safīr, and L’Orient-Le Jour), Lebanese political groups accuse each other of promoting Tawteen, an act tantamount to treason. For instance, the front-page headline of the Lebanese daily al-Akhbār, read on 2 July 2007 “The program of al-Barid Camp reconstruction is the beginning of Tawteen”. Others (including religious authorities) consider the mere talk of the Palestinians’ right to work as being the first step towards Tawteen. Any debate about civil and economic rights starts by affirming that the objective should not be Tawteen, to the point that initiatives on according long-term rights to Palestinians come to be substituted with short-term interventions on humanitarian or security grounds.

We discuss below that the recent changes in labor regulations are no exception to this pattern. The only common ground between the various Lebanese political parties is the use of Tawteen as taboo. Throughout this debate the individual Palestinian is invisible. The deployment of bio-politics by humanitarian organizations (regarding Palestinians as bodies to be fed and sheltered without political existence) is one end of the spectrum and the Tawteen discourse is the other end. For those participating in such a discourse, the Palestinians are mere figures, demographic artifacts and a transient political mass waiting for return. Between humanitarian discourse in the zones of emergency on the one hand, and the Tawteen discourse on the other, the rights-based and entitlement approach for the Palestinians as individuals and collectives, as refugees but also as citizen-refugees with civil and economic rights, as well as the right to the city, is lost.

Accounts from Palestinian camp dwellers in Lebanon show that they refer to themselves as the “forgotten people”, feeling that they live in a hostile environment where basic human rights, including the right to work, have no effective means of representation or protection.

The part about how naturalization is strongly rejected by Lebanese Palestinians is a lie, as I have documented that every time a loophole opened up in Lebanese naturalization laws to allow Palestinian Arabs to become citizens, tens of thousands of them rushed to do so. Not only that, but the authors know it to be a lie because they mention one of those circumstances in footnote 18, saying "There were supposedly at least 25,000 Palestinians, the majority Christian, among those who received Lebanese citizenship in 1994. S. Haddad, “Sectarian Attitudes as a Function of the Palestinian Presence in Lebanon,” Arab Studies Quarterly 22 (2000), pp.81-100)"

Even with its flaws, this document is important in that it details exactly how there is endemic discrimination against Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon and the horrid results.

Yet I cannot find any UNRWA press release that summarizes the findings or any public calls to action.

It is almost like UNRWA wants to bury this report for fear of making waves. They only mentioned it peripherally as part of a list of January accomplishments but it never received its own press release, very strange for a report of over 100 pages.

(The paper indirectly damns the Palestinian Authority for not doing something about Palestinian Arabs in camps in the West Bank. It points out that only in the West Bank and Lebanon is there a significant difference in poverty rates between PalArabs living in the camps and living outside, and it attributes this to the fact that only in Lebanon and under the PA are the camps "closed" and not integrated with surrounding towns. This is not the case in Syria and Jordan, where the camps are more like suburbs. In Lebanon, of course, there is also societal discrimination against Palestinian Arabs which partially account for their unemployment and therefore poverty, but the idea that the PA is keeping the Palestinian Arabs who are in camps on a lower social status is something that requires further study - and UNRWA sure won't do it.)

Today's Jew-hatred courtesy of Google News and Veterans Today

At this time, the most anti-semitic site (by far) that is indexed on Google News is called "Veterans Today." (Sorry, I won't link to this trash. But it is easy enough to find.)

Here's a taste of today's entry:

The uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen are the inevitable results of the J-factor, which destroys everything. As I was told by a Saudi army general many years ago, all Arab countries are secretly controlled by Israel, including his own. (I hadn’t known back then that the Saudi “royal family” are themselves descendants of converts to Islam from Judaism and my partner didn’t tell me.) It is Jewish control of Arab countries that was the exact reason the Russian Jews were forced into the region following WWI: to destabilize Arabs and eventually control their huge oil resources....

The word “Jew” has become just as odious in the public mind as “kike,” and just as taboo. Jews dislike the use of the word by non-Jews. Jews behave as if they are guilty of something and try to avoid being named in public what they are. They prefer to be called “Jewish,” and that word itself should be spoken softly and reverently. Gentiles, not wishing to offend, obliged them for several decades after World War II for only one reason, and that was the Holocaust (the H-factor). The Jewish position was, if you use the word “Jew” or are disrespectful to us in any way, we assume you harbor sympathies with what the Nazis of Germany did to us. Disrespect would be in tying us to organized crime or to Communism or to any form of disloyalty.

Just as we used to do with the previous record holder of anti-semitism on Google News (The People's Voice) it is time to complain to Google about this site.

The offensive URL is http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/01/31/76001/ .

Hamas has no problem with movie theatres. Well, maybe a little.

From Ma'an Arabic:

The Minister of Culture in Gaza, Dr. Osama al-Issawi, said that his ministry does not have any objection to the reopening of cinemas in the Gaza Strip, pointing out that there has not been any application to the Ministry to open one so far.

Al-Issawi said in a press statement, "We believe that art is part of the basis of any society, and we encourage arts festivals and special film festivals. We do not have any objection to the reopening of any cinemas."

Then comes the but...

He stressed that [any cinema] should be under the monitoring and control of his ministry to maintain the customs and morals and traditions of Palestinian society.

Which means that al-Issawi wants all movies to be shown in Gaza to look like this classic:

All of Gaza's movie theatres closed in 1987 during the first intifada, and many were burned down.

The Muslim Brotherhood, 1948 (John Roy Carlson)

Last July I linked to some writings by the amazing John Roy Carlson. (Unfortunately, the Google Books link no longer shows large portions of the book I screen-captured.)

Here is a description of the "Moslem Brotherhood" in Egypt that Carlson wrote in 1948, published in the Palestine Post, as part of a larger article about Egypt altogether.

The article goes on to describe Al Azhar University, and ends with the ominous and prophetic words, "The Jew, if left to his own resources in Egypt, is doomed to pogrom and persecution."