Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Morning links

So many links, so little time....

The Israeli video I mentioned in yesterday's linkdump showing footage from the Mavi Marmara as well as more generally how the Israeli navy trains and works is now on YouTube. Still only in Hebrew, though.

One of the potential next leaders of Egypt wants to trash the peace agreement with Israel, and says that he would hold a referendum on the issue.

An Egyptian writes an op-ed saying pointing out what I did last Friday - Egypt is now under military rule and we don't yet know how this will play out.

Jeffrey Goldberg links to a Cliff May piece that quotes Time magazine analysis of Iran in 1979 that is as wrong as much of the analysis of Egypt probably is today. Goldberg also links to a good David Frum piece on how little we really know about Egypt:

80 million people in the country. 17 million in Cairo. 200,000 protesters in Tahrir Square. Only the ones who speak English appear on our TV.

When we talk about the reach of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian society – or conversely the appeal of democracy – we are talking about things about which nobody knows very much and probably nobody can know very much. One out of seven Egyptians cannot read. Half of them live on less than $2 a day. What do they think? What do they want? And it may be an equally urgent question to know: who leads, guides and controls what they think and want?

Of course, the Thomas Friedmans of the world have a vested interest in pretending to know the answers to these questions. They don't get paid to say "I dunno," and their parachuting into the middle of Tahrir Aquare to form an instanalysis gives them ridiculous credibility when they don't even know Arabic.

Which country will be next domino? Saudi Arabia? Iran, Bahrain, Yemen?

Louis Harovitz looks at The Fairness Police:

In the Western world, among the people who know the history of the twentieth century and follow current events, no one is objective about Jews. Some people try to be fair, but that is very different from being objective. To find objectivity, read Chinese scholars (not affiliated with the government) who specialize in the history of the Jews. You will almost feel as if you’ve entered an alien world. You will never see anything like the pervasively judgmental rhetoric of the Fairness Police. A Chinese scholar would have great difficulty discerning any fairness at all in the actions, rhetoric, or demeanor of the Fairness Police.

Finally, another Goldberg piece excerpts an interview with an IAEA official who says that even after Stuxnet, Iran is "somehow" steadily producing enriched uranium and hellbent on building their nuclear program.

And an interesting profile of a religious Jewish jazz musician.

(h/t Mr. B., SoccerDad, Silke)

Prisoner news you won't read anywhere

The number of Palestinian Arab prisoners in Israeli jails have gone down to 5,642 in January, according to B'Tselem.

This makes 25 consecutive months where the number of prisoners has been reduced.

AFP had a story this week that said that there are 7000 Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. There hasn't been that many since October of 2009.

Arab activists usually say "over 10,000." There were never that many prisoners. The high was a little less than 9500 in 2006.

Prisoners has been one of the major issues that the Palestinian Arabs bring up in negotiations, yet Israel is releasing them outside the context of peace talks.

If Israel would have held on to, say, 8000 prisoners between the beginning of 2009 and now, and then offered to release 2500 in exchange for Gilad Shalit, they might have gotten a deal. It is hard to imagine even Hamas telling Gazans that 2500 prisoners isn't enough.

But instead, Israel has released thousands of prisoners slowly, without fanfare - and without getting anything in return.

Palestine Papers: PLO doesn't consider attacks on Jews "terrorism"

In the Palestine Papers we find some draft language created by the US to implement the Tenet Understandings in 2002, especially in the areas of PA responsibility for security.

Here is one of the original paragraphs, and the PLO's suggested revision:

Even though this was written during the height of the Palestinian Arab suicide bombing spree in Israel, the PLO specifically excises any reference to terrorism.

Even then, the "moderate" PA could not admit to the US that the attacks against Israeli civilians were the textbook definition of terrorism.

Jews pray. Arabs freak.

Ma'an reports that the Al Aqsa Foundation is seething - again.

Apparently, Israel's Channel 10 had a video report showing Jews on the Temple Mount - their holiest site - praying!

The report showed shocking footage of Jews silently praying in different parts of the Temple Mount.

The bigots at Al Aqsa say that this is proof that the Jews are about to start doing Talmudic rituals on the site, and the report was created by the Israeli authorities in order to get people acclimated to the idea of Jews praying on the Har HaBayit.

Bokra.net published the press release as well and illustrated it with these shocking photos:

Of course, silent Jewish prayers in their holy sites are incompatible with peace.

Every knowledgeable Westerner knows that the only way for true peace is to rid the Jewish holy places of Jews. It's so obvious that to dispute that proves that you are an anti-peace fanatic.

Video: Tunisian march on synagogue

This video, of Tunisians protesting outside the Great Synagogue of Tunis, appears to have been taken within the past two weeks. I had not read about it in any media.

Jews in Tunisia cannot be feeling too secure.

(h/t Atlas Shrugs via True Israel, original Facebook posting here.)

Guardian admits spinning PalPapers quote - but where are the other corrections?

From Just Journalism:

On the first day of The Guardian’s Palestine papers expose, on Monday 24 January, when Palestinian negotiators were attacked as ‘weak’ and ‘craven’, a quote from then foreign minister Tzipi Livni appeared in a box, titled, ‘What they said…’. It read:

‘The Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that it is impossible, we already have the land and cannot create the state.’ Tzipi Livni, then Israeli foreign minister

However, the newspaper on Saturday acknowledged that the full quote shows that Livni was characterising the Palestinian perception of Israeli policies, and not the policies themselves. What she actually said was:

‘I understand the sentiments of the Palestinians when they see the settlements being built. The meaning from the Palestinian perspective is that Israel takes more land, that the Palestinian state will be impossible, the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that it is impossible, we already have the land and cannot create the state.’
By cutting the quote to exclude the first part of Tzipi Livni’s sentence, The Guardian portrayed the Israeli politician as brazenly admitting a policy of making a Palestinian state impossible.

That's great, but it is a drop in the bucket of Guardian misquotes from The Palestine Papers, a pattern that can hardly be accidental.

Here are some:

The Guardian headlined an article "Palestinian negotiators accept Jewish state, papers reveal." yet the papers said no such thing. Instead they said that the PLO has no problem with how Israel defines itself, a position they have said publicly, but they would never accept that definition. In fact, they would never accept that there is something called "the Jewish people."

In that same article, they claimed that "Israeli leaders pressed for the highly controversial transfer of some of their own Arab citizens into a future Palestinian state." In reality, the Israeli leaders were saying that they did not want to have villages divided into two states, and the villages should be in one state or another. Moreover, the Guardian misuses the word "transfer" which is usually meant to indicate moving people from their homes.

The same article mischaracterizes Livni a third time by writing

[I]n an extraordinary comment in November 2007, Livni – who briefly had a British arrest warrant issued against her in 2009 over alleged war crimes in Gaza – is recorded as saying: "I was the minister of justice. I am a lawyer ... But I am against law – international law in particular. Law in general."

She made clear that what might have seemed to be a joke was meant more seriously by using the point to argue against international law as one of the terms of reference for the talks and insisting that "Palestinians don't really need international law". The Palestinian negotiators protested about the claim.

In fact she was referring to putting a reference to international law in the Terms of Reference of a joint statement at Annapolis - not saying she was against international law altogether, as the Guardian implies. They also put the "Palestinians don't really need international law" as a Livni quote, when it was a paraphrase in the actual memo, again referring to the joint statement.

Three misquotes in one single article. Three examples of willful deception onthe part of those who read the actual memos. And The Guardian has yet to correct any of them.

Mideast unrest roundup (video)

From TheJournal.ie:

AUTHORITIES IN IRAN have fired tear gas at anti-establishment protesters gathering Tehran in a show of solidarity with protesters in Egypt.

“Severe clashes” between protesters and police have broken out in the capital and many have been arrested, reports the BBC. The main opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi has been placed under house arrest, according to his official website. Fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi has also been placed under house arrest.

Internet sites and satellite news channels have been blocked by the authorities, according to reports.

Iran has officially supported the Egyptian revolution and has dismissed the Tehran protests as “political” moves instigated by the opposition leaders.

Meanwhile, protesters and police have also clashed in the capital of Bahrain, Manama. At least 14 people have been injured in the conflict so far -with breaking up one protest with teargas and rubber bullets, according to Reuters.

The majority Shia population of the tiny country is ruled by the Sunni al-Khalifa family, and analysts have said that an uprising in Bahrain could spark similar protests amongst Shias in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

On a statement in Twitter, activists wrote: “February 14th is only the beginning. The road may be long and the rallies may continue for days and weeks, but if a people one day chooses life, then destiny will respond.”

Likewise, hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets of the Yemeni capital Sana’a – with rocks being thrown by police and protesters, according to Reuters.

The Sydney Morning Herald/AFP gives us a rundown of other emerging hotspots:

ALGERIA: Opposition leaders planned a second protest march in the capital despite a long-standing ban on demonstrations, and France called on Algiers to allow anti-government protests to take place freely and without violence.

BAHRAIN: Bahraini police used tear gas to disperse dozens of protesters in the eastern village of Nuwaidrat, as security forces deployed in the tiny Gulf kingdom following Facebook calls for a February 14 "revolt."

EGYPT: The new military regime called on workers to end a wave of strikes and civil disobedience that has threatened to paralyse the country in the wake of the fall of Hosni Mubarak's government.

IRAN: Thousands of defiant Iranian opposition supporters in Tehran staged what they said was a rally supporting Arab revolts as riot police fired tear gas and paint balls to disperse them, witnesses and opposition websites said.

IRAQ: Baghdad will on March 29 host its first annual Arab summit since the US-led of invasion of 2003, in the wake of popular uprisings that transformed the political landscape of the volatile but long autocratic region.

JORDAN: Justice Minister Hussein Mujalli joins a sit-in held by trade unions and describes a Jordanian soldier serving a life sentence for killing Israeli schoolgirls in 1997 as a "hero," demanding his release.

LIBYA: Facebook groups numbering several hundred members have called for demonstrations to mark a "day of rage" in Libya on February 17 modelled on similar protests in other Arab countries.

MOROCCO: Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi was to meet the opposition to discuss parliamentary polls, with the impact of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia weighing heavily on the talks.

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas reappointed Salam Fayyad as premier and tasked him with forming a new government after his cabinet resigned.

SYRIA: Woman blogger Tal al-Mallouhi, 19, gets five years in prison after being found guilty by a security court of "divulging information to a foreign country." Her blog focuses on the Palestinians, not Syrian politics.

TUNISIA: The country marked a month since the overthrow of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

YEMEN: Pro-democracy protesters clashed violently with police and supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, with clashes also reported in Taez south of the capital, where thousands of people joined anti-Saleh demonstrations.

UN sponsors anti-Israel photo exhibit in Madrid

From Iran's PressTV:

A photo exhibition called Broken Lives, Female Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Jails in the Spanish capital city of Madrid has portrayed the suffering of Palestinian women.

“Circulos de Bellas Artes” in collaboration with UN Women, formerly known as the United Nations Development Fund for Women, UNIFEM, inaugurated the World Premier exhibition in the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Sunday, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The exhibition unveils stories of current and former Palestinian female prisoners in Israel's detention and interrogation centers, which every Palestinian knows well.

In the past three years, UNIFEM has received funds from the Spanish government for the implementation of the project aiming to protect the human rights of Palestinian female detainees in Israeli prisons as well as former detainees and their families.

Italian photographer Ventura Formicone portrayed the stories of women through photographs and direct interviews.

The 36 photographs take the visitors through the whole process of violent arrest, interrogation and detention endured by these women.

The article is accurate - the exhibition really is sponsored by UN Women, formerly UNIFEM.

It is a context-free exhibition. Nowhere is there anything mentioned about why these women are in prison, what terror attacks they might have been a part of, or how many people might be dead because of their actions.

UN Women funded a project called "Protection of Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees in Israeli Prisons" which has an outdated webpage. But even on that webpage, it says that the number of Palestinian Arab women in Israeli prisons are a whopping 32. It is apparently associated with Addameer, the organization that routinely hugely exaggerates the number of people Israel has arrested.

This exhibit does not shed any light on the subject; instead it obscures it by implying that Israel wantonly puts women in jail for no reason. The assumption is that every female prisoner is innocent and deprived of her civil rights.

Which means that the UN is again slandering Israel.

Jordanian minister calls for release of murderer of Israeli schoolgirls

From NYT/AP:

Jordan's controversial justice minister has joined protesters demanding the release of a soldier who shot dead seven Israeli schoolgirls in 1997.

It is an unprecedented move by a Cabinet minister in Jordan, which maintains cordial ties with Israel under a peace treaty signed in 1994.

The minister, Hussein Mjali, was the lawyer for soldier Ahmed Daqamseh, who received a life sentence for killing the Israeli schoolgirls during an outing near Jordan's northwestern border with Israel.

Monday's protest in front of Mjali's office was organized by Daqamseh's family. Mjali joined the crowd, saying he was participating in his capacity as the soldier's former lawyer.

He said he joined the new Cabinet to see changes made, especially to freedom of expression.

In the past, the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan and president of the Arab Human Rights Organisation called for the release of the despicable murderer of children.

The murderer's mother has said

I am proud of my son, and I hold my head high. My son did a heroic deed and has pleased Allah and his own conscience. My son lifts my head and the head of the entire Arab and Islamic nation. I am proud of any Muslim who does what Ahmad did.... [My son] said: The only thing that I am angry about is the gun, which did not work properly. Otherwise I would have killed all of the passengers on the bus."

Assabeel quotes the minister Mjali as saying that Daqamseh is a "hero" and saying that he is only in jail because "we are afraid of the Jews."

Al Jazeera quotes him responding to the possibility that this could hurt relations with Israel, saying "if it was a Jew who killed Arabs, they would have built a statue in his honor instead of putting him in prison."

Jordanian newspaper Addustour doesn't mention that he killed schoolgirls. Rather it says that he "killed a number of Zionists in the region of Baqura after they mocked him and the Holy Prophet during his prayers."

(h/t Samson)

Aw, now we'll never know about Qatar's investment in Judea/Samaria

From Ma'an:

President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree on Sunday, banning local media and officials from abuse and slander of the emir of Qatar and the emirate's government.

The announcement came a day after the resignation of PLO negotiations chief Saeb Erekat, who had made several accusations against the both targets, the most recent of which included allegations that the nation had holdings in companies active in Israeli settlement construction.

PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo also recently spoke out against the emir, saying Al-Jazeera's release of negotiations documents in a series of programs dubbed "The Palestine Papers" was a political campaign directed by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Ath-Thani.

Demonstrations and government-aligned media outlets also launched accusations at Qatar, where the Al-Jazeera network is based, and its leader.

And I was so anxious for Erekat to release details on his accusations of Qatari investments in Jewish settlements! Now he can't do it because he's being muzzled by that proponent of democratic reforms and free speech, Mahmoud Abbas.

Morning links

Some things to check out:

Israel's Channel 10 has a program about Israel's navy that includes never before seen footage of the Mavi Marmara from cameras on the soldiers themselves (starts around 1:30). The chaos and fear is undeniable. Hebrew only. (h/t JS)

CiFWatch is starting a contest where you have to say why the Guardian sucks - in less than 140 characters, including room to hashtag it on Twitter. Winner gets a $50 gift card. My entry:

The Guardian sucks because it discards any journalistic integrity it once had to push an anti-Western, anti-Israel agenda @cifwatch #cwcomp

Barry Rubin on whether the Egyptian revolution will be a net gain or loss for the West.

The Netherlands Parliament affirms Israel as the Jewish state.

The ADL lauds a German scholar on his work exposing the links between Nazi and modern Muslim anti-semitism (he has a nice takedown on Gilbert Achcar as well).

IsraeliGirl and Giyus bring us another set of hate links on Facebook that you can flag for removal.

Round 1, Match 3 of the Pro-Israel Blog-Off has finished, and it was very close! Round 4 begins today.

Ya gotta love hypocritical Muslim regimes

From NYT:

The Iranian leaders who cheered the popular overthrow of an Egyptian strongman last week have promised to crush an opposition march planned for Monday in solidarity with the Egyptian people.

“These elements are fully aware of the illegal nature of the request,” Mehdi Alikhani Sadr, an Interior Ministry official, said of the permit request for the march in comments published Sunday by the semiofficial Fars news agency. “They know they will not be granted permission for riots.”

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was blunt.

“The conspirators are nothing but corpses,” Hossein Hamadani, a top commander of the corps, said Wednesday in comments published by the official IRNA news agency. “Any incitement will be dealt with severely.”

How will the West respond to what happens today?

Unlike Egypt, there is very little desire to support the ruling regime by most governments. But also unlike Egypt, it is not easy to find media that can get into Iran to cover the protests live, and that - more than Twitter - is what galvanized world opinion.

Moreover, while one must accept that Al Jazeera had a lot to do with Egypt's and Tunisia's revolutions, their Qatar sponsors are more ambivalent towards Iran, worrying about poking the thousand pound gorilla across the Gulf.

At the moment it looks like Iran is doing everything they can to stop any rally from occurring, including placing all opposition leaders under virtual house arrest and blocking metro stations.

Will the West criticize Iran as they did Mubarak?

(h/t SoccerDad)

Palestinian Arab "democracy" in action

From BBC:

Palestinian ministers are due to submit their resignations on Monday as part of a cabinet reshuffle, sources say.

President Mahmoud Abbas will immediately ask Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to appoint a new cabinet.

On Saturday, the Palestinian Authority led by Mr Abbas said it seeks to hold presidential and legislative elections by September.

The move comes after the fall of Hosni Mubarak in popular protests in Egypt, an important neighbour.

The cabinet shake-up has long been demanded by Mr Fayyad and others in the Fatah faction, according to Reuters news agency.

On political source told Reuters that it would result in a "massive change" in the composition of the government.

Mr Fayyad, 58, will be asked to stay on in the post he has occupied since 2007.

An aide to Mr Abbas on Saturday said the PA planned to hold long-overdue elections before September.

"The executive committee has decided to start preparations for presidential and parliamentary elections in the coming months... no later than September," the PLO's Yasser Abed Rabbo told journalists.

The BBC's West Bank correspondent Jon Donnison says the election pledge seems intended to show that Palestinian leaders are responding to events in Egypt and Tunisia.

However, Hamas, who are in control of the Gaza Strip, immediately rejected the plan, saying Mr Abbas had no legitimacy.

"Hamas will not take part in this election. We will not give it legitimacy. And we will not recognise the results," spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.

The prime minister will remain a man who has never been elected and who received a tiny amount of the popular vote when he ran for office.

Now, that's democracy!

Iran bans Valentines Day

From WSJ:

In another sign of its ever more improvisational approach to governance, the Iranian regime has outlawed Valentine's Day. "Symbols of hearts, half-hearts, red roses, and any activities promoting this day are banned," announced state media last month. "Authorities will take legal action against those who ignore the ban."

Time adds:

In an attempt to banish Western influence from the lusting minds of Iranian youth, the Islamic country's state-run media announced that the production of Valentine's Day gifts as well as any promotion of the day celebrating romantic love between a man and a woman.

Whoops - it looks like we found a loophole!

Ya gotta love hypocritical Arab dictators

Libya leader Muammar Gaddafi called on Palestinian Arabs to act like the Egyptians and Tunisians and start a revolt against Israel.

Meanwhile, Gaddafi warned his own people against using Facebook.

You can't make this stuff up.

Besieged Gaza limits - imports from Israel

Exactly how you would expect a starving, besieged people to act, right?

From Ma'an:

A statement from Gaza's Ministry of the National Economy said Sunday that a new set of restrictions would be put on goods being imported into the coastal enclave, including a ban on clothing manufactured in Israel.

For several other items, the statement said, merchants would have to apply to the ministry for permission to sell the goods.

Ma'an obtained a copy of the list, which included the following items manufactured in Israel:

Require approval

- Home and office furniture
- Plastic products
- Tissues, toilet paper,
- Hoses
- Juices, soft drinks
- Chemical products
- Canned beans
- Biscuits, all types of candies
- Packaging materials

The ban and restrictions apply only to goods manufactured in Israel, with government officials saying goods produced from any other nation would not be subject to the restrictions.

Goods produced in Israel, merchants say, are often easier to import, and face fewer delays and restrictions at the crossings.

Palestine Press Agency explains that these restrictions are meant to protect the tunnel trade, which Hamas heavily taxes and which has taken a hit during Egypt's unrest.

Iran accuses the Mossad of being behind its drug trade

Palestine Today reports that Iran is accusing the Mossad of being involved in selling illegal drugs in the Islamic Republic.

Apparently, the Mossad is forcing drug dealers to lower their prices (by threatening them) in order to get the entire country addicted. And, of course, the drug dealers are listening to their Mossad masters.

Then, when every Iranian is busy being deeply fascinated with a single blade of grass, Israeli warplanes can swoop in and take over the country! And convert Natanz from a peaceful nuclear research facility into an atom bomb factory! Bwahahahaha!

12,000 tons of apples from Israel to Syria

From Ha'aretz:

Israel will begin transporting about 12,000 tons of apples from the Golan Heights to Syria on Tuesday. This is the largest quantity of the produce ever transferred between the two countries, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who will be overseeing the operation.

The apples were grown by Syrian farmers living in the Golan Heights. Although such transfer has been undertaken in the past, it is a rare occurrence as it requires extensive coordination between Syria's Foreign Ministry and Israel's Foreign, Defense, Finance and Agriculture Ministries,

The ICRC will act as a neutral mediator in the transfer, which will take roughly 10 weeks to complete. Three ICRC trucks will drive up and down a strip of demilitarized road half a kilometer in length, crossing the border between Israel-occupied Golan and Syria-occupied Golan.

I first mentioned this in 2008, and again last year when we saw that some of those Zionist apples get exported to Gulf states at a profit.

Morning links

The Sinai is turning problematic, as the Egyptian army does not have a strong presence there and the Bedouin are taking advantage of a lawless environment. Israel requested that all Israelis leave the Sinai and there have been attacks on a church as well as governmental and police buildings.

Some problems in Tahrir Square as well.

The Guardian started translating some of its articles into Arabic, apparently to solidify its base audience. Is a merger with Al Jazeera far behind? (h/t CiFWatch via Samson)

An Israeli Arab goes on YouTube to defend his country. (And I mean Israel.)

My Right Word looks at some of the pro-Palestinian Arab events being sponsored by the US Consulate in Jerusalem.

Israel finally found a permanent UN representative, Ron Prosor, who seems to be very good. That vacuum was a problem.

Hamas' Al Qassam website has a heartbreaking story about how some Arab kids in Silwan are under house arrest. Of course, it doesn't mention that these same kids have a habit of hurling life-threatening boulders at cars with Israeli license plates.

Sharansky on democracy, freedom, Egypt

The Jerusalem Post has a long interview with Natan Sharansky, giving him a chance to apply his concepts of freedom and democracy to what is happening in Egypt. Excerpts:

Now the critical step, which has not yet been made but which can be made, is the linkage. The free world is lucky here in two respects. First, that what happened in Egypt happened when the Muslim Brotherhood is not yet strong enough [to sweep into power]. The longer there is dictatorship, the longer the free world helps to destroy all democratic dissent, the stronger the Muslim Brotherhood becomes. In Prague, in 2007, (at a meeting of international dissidents that Sharansky organized), Saad Eddin Ibrahim asked president Bush, Why are you supporting Mubarak? Bush answered: Because otherwise there will be the Muslim Brotherhood. Saad Eddin Ibrahim said: That’s a mistake. That if you want the choice for Egyptians to be either Mubarak or the Muslim Brotherhood, it will ultimately be the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ten years ago, in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood would have had 10% support. Today they say they have 25 or 30%. Who knows what it will be in 10 years if things don’t change. People are unhappy. The only alternative to that unhappiness has been the Muslim Brotherhood. The free world has been helping to destroy any democratic alternative.

So it is good that this is all happening now in Egypt when the Muslim Brotherhood is not strong enough.

And secondly, it is good that it is happening in an Egypt that gets the second biggest foreign aid package from the United States [after Israel]. America has a lot of leverage. A lot of linkage for any future Egyptian leader. Whoever will be the leader of Egypt, if he wants to solve problems, he will be very dependent on the free world. He will not go to Iran for help.

If the free world makes clear that our help is tied to democratic reforms, there is a chance finally to start building a drive forward. This [untenable] pact between the free world and a bunch of dictators ostensibly bringing us stability was not broken by the free world. It was broken by the people in the streets. We have to go with this. This is the chance. I hope America will take it.

We saw a White House that quickly, to the dismay of some in Israel, abandoned its ally Mubarak and has also encouraged the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in the transition process. Is America getting this right?

America gets it right that Mubarak is a very problematic ally and in the long run cannot be any kind of ally. That’s true about all the dictators. At some moment, America will get it about Saudi Arabia. That was always the most difficult case, even among those [American presidents] who understood...

Like George Bush.

Bush went further with the freedom agenda than any other. It was great. He really, idealistically believed in this. The point on which he disagreed with me – although he told everyone to read my book – was over elections. [Contrary to what Bush believed], freedom and democracy doesn’t mean elections. Democracy is about free elections and free society. You must have free institutions.

He rushed into elections [for the Palestinian parliament in 2006]. He forced Israel to accept Hamas as part of the democratic process. Under all our agreements, we didn’t have to accept Hamas, because it denies our right to exist. And it was a clearly anti-democratic choice. He rushed to elections when the only choice for the Palestinians was between the torturing thugs of Yasser Arafat, who we empowered, and the terrorists from Hamas who were defending them. They voted for Hamas, an absolutely nondemocratic element. That was [Bush’s] mistake.

With the Obama administration – instead of taking a principled position and supporting any leadership which will support democratic reforms, and saying we will go together with you through these reforms and help – the danger is [over the readiness for] engaging: We will engage with whatever will come as a result. We’ll make them part of the process. That’s exactly how Hizbullah in Lebanon, step by step, became [ostensibly] legitimate partners.

On the day of the elections in the Palestinian Authority, I was at the White House, saying to them, this is your last opportunity. In 24 hours, the election results will be announced. You need to say that the results of the election have got nothing to do with democracy. Otherwise the whole world will say, well, this is Bush’s democracy: Hamas. And I was getting explanations: We’ll impose conditions; they will not be a majority in the government, this and that.

Elaborate please on why elections alone do not constitute democracy, on why you need free elections in a free society.

A free society means that there are institutions which guarantee to every individual the opportunity to choose between different ways of life, and that their lives will not be in danger, whatever they choose. In the Palestinian society, for instance, they had Israel’s occupation. After that, they had Yasser Arafat, who turned his Authority into a type of Mafia-run country where people were paying him patronage. I can tell you, as a former minister of industry and trade who tried to negotiate with Nabil Sha’ath on joint ventures to help their economy and create more jobs, that they were not interested in anything that would make their people more independent of them. They were interested only in how to establish more control. People were really fed up with this. That created a really nasty situation.

Then, there was a transition to Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) after Arafat died. And Bush asked me, is Abu Mazen a good guy or a bad guy? I told him, I can prove to you that he’s a bad guy, because I read his PhD (on the purported connections between the Nazis and Zionist leaders) in Russian. And I can prove to you that he’s a good guy in comparison with Arafat, because I saw them both at the negotiating table. But it doesn’t matter. He will now depend fully on your policy. The Palestinian Authority is fully dependent on the free world. America. Europe. If your policy is clear linkage to specific reforms, and you make plain that is there is no way Abu Mazen will get any legitimacy, or any recognition, or any support otherwise, he will go with it.

In fact, Bush did put these demands to Abu Mazen, but he never made the linkage explicit. He didn’t say: If you don’t do this, these are the consequences. And of course he didn’t have Europe behind him.

That meant the Palestinians moved almost immediately (to elections) from a situation in which they were still full of fear of the Arafat regime. In some Christian villages, Hamas was deemed to be a better protector, so the Christians suddenly became fundamentalists and voted for Hamas. That’s what you get when you have elections in a fear society. [The elections reflect only] the balance of fear. In that balance of fear, at that moment, Hamas got 51%. At some other moment, it would have got a different percent.

I wrote in my letter of resignation from Arik Sharon’s government [in April 2005] that Hamas would take over in Gaza [under his imminent disengagement plans]. That it would be bad for Jews, bad for Palestinians, good for Hamas. Instead of disengagement, I suggested making a transitional period, for three years of reforms, together with the Americans, maybe together with the Egyptians. See to it that, in these years, a fully independent economy would be established, normal education, dismantling of refugee camps and building good conditions for them, and of course cooperation to fight terror. Then, I suggested, after three or four years like this, hold elections. Those would be free elections. People would have different options and they would be protected, not afraid. And then you would have partners to negotiate peace. You would have people who, whether they hate you or not, whether they are anti-Semites or not, are elected because they are concerned about the well-being of their people.
...In the West Bank there are the first signs of a truly free economy. That’s good. There are no signs of improvement on the education system. There are signs of independence, of forces that are cooperating with us, on security. These are the beginnings. If this process, which must also include education, continues...

What’s needed on education?

The official [PA] education is that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist. There is not one Palestinian leader who is ready to go to a refugee camp and say, “Guys, we are going to have our own state. But you’re not going back to Tel Aviv. Let’s start discussing other options.”

Remember, I don’t know which meeting it was – there were so many – when Olmert gives Abu Mazen generous proposals and asks him only to recognize us as a Jewish, democratic state? And Bush is absolutely sure that Abu Mazen will now say this, because he’s getting so much. And Abu Mazen says no. Bush was surprised. Olmert was surprised. They were so sure that this generous proposal would do it. But Abu Mazen said it would be “a betrayal of our people in the refugee camps” to recognize a Jewish, democratic state.

Of course, it’s not only a question of going to the refugee camps and saying it. You also have to start building normal lives for them. You can’t keep them in the refugee camps in order to use them as a weapon against us.

So there are the first sparks. But it’s a long process. That’s why all these declarations, that we can reach peace in one year, or half a year, or two years, mean nothing. That’s just going back to the same idea of engaging with somebody, finding somebody with whom we can sign an agreement.

The idea that Abu Mazen is fully dependent on the IDF, and the hope that somehow he’ll be so dependent, he’ll agree to sign an agreement.

Wrong, because...?

What you need is to build peace from bottom-up. And bottom-up means democratic reforms. But I was always told, “Forget about it. It’s not for the Arab governments.”

And now?

And now it’s coming from the other end. Not from the peace process at all. Here, people are coming and demanding to build from the bottom, without any connection [to the peace process]. This is a great chance.

So how now, in the Egyptian context, should the West be acting? What signals should be sent. You’re the leader of the free world, what do you do?

If I was in the Senate, I would immediately pass a law maintaining US assistance to Egypt on condition that 20% of it goes to democratic reforms. What’s needed is real linkage.

The desire of the people has to be heard. It’s not up to us to decide whether it will be Omar Suleiman or Mohamed ElBaradei or someone else [who takes over]. Whoever it is, whoever is the leader, won’t want to depend on Iran, or even on Saudi Arabia so much. So they have to listen to the free world, and after all, Egypt is between the free world and Muslim fundamentalists.

And the entire free world has to say, “We are ready to help you, we are ready to support you, we are ready to be with you, but on condition that: first, there is no persecution for freedom of speech and for free press and so on; second, there is an independent economy; third, there is a tolerant, pluralistic education system where people can choose how they want to learn, what they want to learn; and, finally, that agreements that were signed with the neighbors about stability in the region have to be respected.

The entire free world should say that only those who accept these principles, and accept the principles of democratic change, should be permitted to participate and be empowered by the process. If the Muslim Brothers genuinely accept everything, then they can be part of it. But if, whatever they say, they continue in their mosques to speak about the war against Israel, or they declare that democracy will not determine what to do, then they cannot be a part of it. At this moment, it is still possible for the free world to do this.

So you think there is an extraordinary opportunity now, and that America has sent at least some of the right signals?

Yes. I think there was no opportunity as long as there was a strong belief, almost a unanimous belief, among the leaders of the free world that only strong dictators in the Arab world can bring us stability, and that only strong dictators are our allies, and that this can continue more or less forever. There was no chance.

No chance of what?

No chance of reform and also of a peace process. The moment this pact between democracies and dictators is broken, then there’s a chance for new concepts, for a new approach. It depends on us now. On the Arab side, they made their stand. The people made their stand, showing that “we’re here,” that “those who thought freedom is not for us, well, it is for us.” Now it is for the leaders of the free world to show that they really believe in this for them.

To set out the framework?

As Obama said in his inauguration speech, a fist to dictators and an open hand to those who want reform.

(Obama declared, “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.)

And what if, three steps ahead, Egypt, other Arab countries, the Palestinians, amazingly enough, with correct signals and assistance from the West, do go through this process? But that it then turns out that the will of the people, in a genuine, democratic society, is to wipe out the State of Israel? That that’s what the people want?

We should never stop, not for a moment, relying on the strength of the IDF, but this is the only chance [for a true change]. For all the so-called peace process, we are more and more dependent on the IDF... on our capabilities in war. I don’t think that we have to weaken. But the only chance to create something whereby we’ll be less dependent on our military power is to give a chance to democratic reforms.

And I think it’ll succeed, because I think, in the end, the majority of Palestinians don’t want to continue living in refugee camps. They got closer to the ideas of the free world, a free economy, more education, than did many others, because of their proximity to Israel. But the fact is, they were never given the opportunity to choose. In 1993, we brought Arafat from Tunis, who said, “Now we’ll be a dictatorship.”

So Israel shouldn’t be panicking as it looks at the region now? We should be saying well done to the Arab masses for telling the West that they don’t want to live under dictatorship?

This is the moment for those Israelis who believe that peace has to be built bottom-up. They have to prepare for that chance. Israelis like me, like [Minister Moshe] “Bogie” Ya’alon. There are not many. This is a great moment. Let’s try to use it.

For those who didn’t believe this, for those who believe that all these ideas of freedom, as Arik Sharon was telling me, have nothing to do with the Middle East, this is the moment to think again. Maybe something was wrong with this idea of keeping these people forever under a control, which was always working against us, because it was the Muslim Brotherhood who were coming after it, whether in Iran, the Palestinian Authority, in Egypt. We hoped to have great peace agreements with all these dictators, but then the dictators who have signed peace agreements will be replaced by Muslim Brothers.

Maybe this is the moment to try to put our trust in freedom. After all, we’re not losing anything. The Muslim Brothers, they’ll come anyway [if things continue as they have been]. Here we have, maybe, the chance that they will not come.

Israel has to be concerned. I don’t want to dismiss all these feelings. All the recent changes have strengthened the fundamentalists...

In Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, Turkey.

We also have to be concerned because our best partners are becoming appeasers.

Elaborate, please.

Europe demands that we negotiate with Hamas. Then they demand that we accept a Lebanese government with 50% Hizbullah. Then it will be fully Hizbullah. And then US leaders can very well say, “Well, for us, engagement with the regime is more important than who is in this regime.”

So, yes, there are reasons for concern. We are a small country. We can be destroyed in one day if we lower our guard. But, on the other hand, while we continue to be on guard, let’s be glad that what’s happening now on the Arab street is happening before the Muslim Brothers control the entire Middle East, and that could be the direction. Let’s be glad that it is happening in countries which are still very dependent on the free world. And let’s try to see whether, finally, we can find new ways for a peace process, and not only a process that depends fully on one thing – on the strength of the IDF.

The Guardian's whitewash of the Muslim Brotherhood

Last week, The Guardian looked at the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and - surprise! - managed to find that it was not nearly as bad as those ignorant Westerners think:

"There can be no question that genuine democracy must prevail," Mohammad Mursi, a brotherhood spokesman, wrote in an article for Tuesday's Guardian. "While the Muslim Brotherhood is unequivocal regarding its basis in Islamic thought, it rejects any attempt to enforce any ideological line upon the Egyptian people."

Although the Brotherhood appears to have firmly embraced democracy, the means for reconciling that with its religious principles are not entirely clear: the issue of God's sovereignty versus people's sovereignty looks to have been fudged rather than resolved.

The Brotherhood continues to maintain that "Islam is the solution" while at the same time demonstrating a kind of pragmatism that suggests Islam may not be a complete solution after all.

For example?

One example is jizya, the poll tax on non-Muslims, which is clearly prescribed in the Qur'an. The original idea was that non-Muslims, since they did not serve in the military, should pay for their protection by Muslims.

Today, most Muslims regard jizya as obsolete.In order to follow Qur'anic principles strictly, though, it would have to be reinstated. In 1997, the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide at the time, Mustafa Mashhur, did suggest reintroducing it but, in a country with around 6 million Christians, this caused uproar and the movement later backtracked. For non-Islamist Muslims, jizya presents no great problem: they can justify its abolition on the basis of historicity – that the circumstances in which the tax was imposed no longer exist today. For Islamists, though, this is much more difficult because the words of the Qur'an and the practices of the earliest Muslims form the core of their ideology.

The Muslim Brotherhood wants Egypt to be an Islamic country. The only way that can occur is through democracy. But if it acts too Islamic now, it can never gain the power it craves. So it tactically chooses what to emphasize and what to downplay.

This is not evidence that it believes that "Islam may not be a complete solution after all." It is evidence that they know how to play the game, very well. The Guardian completely misses the point.

The Guardian's misinterpretation gets worse:

Years of repression at the hands of the Egyptian authorities have made the brotherhood more interested in human rights than many might expect from an Islamist organisation. When the European parliament criticised Egypt's record in 2008, the Mubarak regime responded with fury, while Hussein Ibrahim, the brotherhood's parliamentary spokesman, sided with Europe.

"The issue of human rights has become a global language," he said. "Although each country has its own particulars, respect of human rights is now a concern for all peoples" – though he specifically excluded gay rights.

Rather than deploring criticism from abroad, he said, the Egyptian government would do better to improve its human rights record, which would leave less room for foreigners to cause embarrassment.

The Brotherhood's interest in human rights extends in exactly one dimension - human rights for Islamists in Egypt. While the Guardian parenthetically concedes that the Ikhwan would not support human rights for gays, it pointedly ignores the other groups that the Brotherhood does not see as legal equals:

Women
Jews and Christians
Atheists, Hindus and other beliefs that are considered "idol worship"

We have a movement that openly looks upon Muslims as being a higher class than the rest of the world, and that advocates discrimination (or death) against everyone else. And yet The Guardian praises them for their stance on human rights!

Other criticisms of the article can be found at CiFWatch.

Iran says Hollywood most active section of Israel, US military

From Tehran Times:

Participants at the Iranian conference “Hollywoodism and Cinema” issued a statement at the end of the conference claiming that Hollywood, the most powerful international propaganda tool for Zionism, is facing decline.

Organizers of the Fajr International Film Festival, in collaboration with the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, arranged the two-day conference on February 5 and 6, by inviting a group of Iranian and foreign cineastes, writers and critics.

The attendees, coming from 20 countries, discussed the impact of Hollywood in the world of cinema, focusing on Hollywoodism, terrorism, the Pentagon, and the CIA. They issued a statement at the end of the program.

Hollywood is not just for entertainment or propaganda, but is the most active section of the U.S. and Israel military industry, reads part of the statement.

Hollywood not only tries to depict the image of the opposing countries and cultures, specifically Islam and Iran as threats, but also tries to eradicate justice and revolution.

Hollywood is trying to ruin spiritual values and is promoting materialism and its culture.

At the end of the session the participants stressed that Iran has the potential to become the center for all the world filmmakers to produce anti-Zionist productions.

They also asked Iran to help unite world great cineastes to make and produce better movies based on respect and peace.

I must admit I didn't know that Hollywood was on the IDF payroll.

I had mentioned this conference last month.

Here's a video from the conference from Iran's PressTV:

Don't you love how all the international female filmophiles were forced to cover their hair as they complained about the nefarious influence of Hollywood?

An earlier Tehran Times article quoted a French attendee as saying that "Hollywood producers also use the Holocaust to devastate the morals of human beings. They use this procedure to avoid having people ask any questions on the Holocaust. "

Erekat gone; AFP lies

From AFP:

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat tendered his resignation on Saturday amid deadlock in efforts to renew peace talks with Israel, a Palestinian official said.

Erakat told AFP he was stepping down because of his responsibility for the disclosure of confidential documents on Al-Jazeera, shortly after his resignation was announced by senior PLO Yasser Abed Rabbo.

The chief negotiator said he was assuming "responsibility for the theft of documents from his office" that he said had been "deliberately" tampered with.

Last month, Erakat accused Al-Jazeera of taking part in a campaign to overthrow the Palestinian Authority (PA) after the Doha-based television began to release more than 1,600 confidential files known as "The Palestine Papers."

The documents, shared by Al-Jazeera and Britain's Guardian daily, expose concessions to Israel in 10 years of secret peace talks, embarrassing and angering the Palestinian leadership.

The files allege that Palestinian negotiators offered unprecedented concessions during peace negotiations, including on the ultra-sensitive subjects of Jerusalem and refugees, with nothing in return from Israel.

The files allege no such thing. The Guardian and Al Jazeera falsely reported that the papers said that; which means that AFP didn't bother to look at the files either and blindly believed the false reporting of their fellow anti-Israel advocates masquerading as journalists.

Any way you look at the papers, Israel offered to uproot tens of thousands of Jews from their homes, offered the Palestinian Arabs a state with about the same area as the West Bank and Gaza today, offered to take in some so-called "refugees," and offered to establish an atmosphere of true peace and normalization between two states for two peoples. It is simply a lie to say that these do not represent concessions from Israel.

Turkey's absurd flotilla report

Turkey today released its report on the flotilla incident. I haven't yet found the full report, but the conclusions are laughable. Here are some:

3. There were no firearms on board the ships.

Well, there was at least one, as an IDF soldier got shot with a bullet that didn't come from the IDF. Bullet casings were also found.

4. Prior to the convoy’s departure, an understanding was reached among Turkish, Israeli and American officials that the convoy would eventually steer towards the Egyptian port of Al-Arish, when faced with compelling opposition. Events demonstrated that Israel did not abide by this understanding.

This is a completely new claim. Certainly the captain nor the organizers ever said they would accept going to anywhere but Gaza - they repeatedly said the opposite when communicating with the IDF. In addition, the IDF told the flotilla repeatedly that they have the option of going to Ashkelon and getting the aid all sent to Gaza - why wouldn't they have asked them to go to El Arish? This is a really fishy story to pop up out of nowhere, and it shouldn't take long to get US or Israeli clarification.

5. No attempt was made by the Israeli forces to visit and search the vessels before taking any other action.

13. Prior to their attack, the Israeli forces did not proceed with standard warning practices, i.e. firing across the bow, to indicate an imminent use of force.

14. Israeli forces initially tried to board the Mavi Marmara from zodiacs. At this stage, the Israeli forces fired the first shots.

This is ridiculous. The videos show very clearly that the passengers were throwing items onto the Israeli boats before they attempted to board, so at least on the Mavi Marmara it was clear that they could not board peacefully. We've also seen videos of the IHH members brandishing iron pipes to stop any attempt to board from the sea, well before the helicopters were deployed.

The other boats in the flotilla were boarded peacefully because they did not offer any resistance. The Turks are knowingly lying.

15. The nature and magnitude of the Israeli attack caused panic among the passengers who, in fear for their lives, reacted in self-defence.

Reacted? They had already prepared themselves with slingshots, broken bottles, pre-cut iron bars and chains. Doesn't sound like a "reaction" to me!

17. The Israeli forces opened fire with live ammunition from the zodiacs and helicopters onto the passengers on deck, resulting in the first casualties.

They fired stun grenades. Shooting from a helicopter with 9mm guns does not make any sense, and, again, none of the videos show anything close to these allegations - and the video smuggled out by the activists showed the helicopters very clearly.

19. Israeli soldiers fast-roped down to the Mavi Marmara from helicopters. Three were subdued by the passengers. They were taken to the lower decks where they were treated for their non-lethal injuries.

"Subdued" must be the Turkish word for "mercilessly attacked with knives and iron bars." "Taken" must be the Turkish word for "kidnapped." I don't yet know what the Turkish word for "throwing off the deck" is.

22. The Israeli forces attacked the other ships as well. Violence by Israeli soldiers occurred on all the ships of the convoy.

What a great investigation to discover these new injuries so many months later!

26. Throughout the hours-long journey to Ashdod, the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara, including the Captain, and some on the other ships were subjected to severe physical, verbal and psychological abuses.

28. Throughout the ordeal, passengers from virtually all the nationalities represented in the convoy were indiscriminately and brutally victimized by Israeli forces.

I can't wait to read the details on these.

10 killed in Egypt

From MSNBC:

Elsewhere, in the north Sinai town of el-Arish, there was a alarming development with Reuters reporting that about 1,000 people attacked a police station in an attempt to free prisoners.

Witnesses said they threw Molotov cocktails and exchanged gunfire with police who retreated to the roof. Al-Jazeera television reported the attackers were protesters who broke away from the main demonstration in el-Arish.

Arabic media is reporting that 10 were killed and 50 injured in the attack, and 12 policemen surrendered.

It appears that the attack happened either during or immediately after Mubarak's resignation.

Comprehensive report on Israeli soldier at Hampshire college

A great report on the speech of IDF Sergeant Benjamin Anthony towards a hostile audience at Hampshire College on February 3.

“No soldier relishes going to war—if you doubt that, ask yourselves how you would feel if given ten minutes to prepare” for a mission that could cost your life and the lives of your friends. But one nonetheless goes willingly, he said, when the task is to intercept a band of terrorists planning an attack against civilians inside the borders of Israel, with the intention of murdering “children as they sleep in their beds at night.”

The soldiers, he said, fight simply in order to defend their homeland. A reference to that homeland as “Israel, the home of the Jewish people,” provoked another chorus of blowing whistles.

Heckler: “It has been occupied Palestine for over sixty years!”

...Israel, Anthony explained, had never known full peace or been free of threat: “For an Israeli soldier, the battle is one into which they are born. The clock starts ticking at birth.” It was not a fate that they would have chosen voluntarily.

“There is nothing glorious about war, and anybody who believes that is sorely mistaken.”

A student suddenly stands up and shouts that, “As-a-Jew” who had “lost relatives in the Holocaust," she cannot support the racist State of Israel and its policies.

More commotion. Some members of the audience rise, in agitation. Some protesters walk out.

A heckler again blows a whistle.

Sergeant Anthony: “Excuse me, the lady who’s Jewish—the lady who’s Jewish—and therefore uses her Judaism as validity for her opinion, could you please give me the title of last week’s Torah portion?”

Read the whole thing at To Find The Principles.

Mubarak gone

From USA Today:

Update at 10:42 a.m. ET:Reuters quotes a U.S. official as describing Mubarak's departure from Cairo as a "positive first step."

Update at 11:03 a.m. ET: Hossam Badrawi, who was recently appointed general secretary of the NDP, resigns saying Egypt needs new parties, Al-Jazeera reports.

Update at 11:05 a.m. ET: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned . Vice President Omar Suleiman said in a brief televised statement. His statement in full: "Hosni Mubarak has waived the office of presidency and told the army to run the affairs of the country. "

Update at 11:08 a.m. ET: Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators erupted in jubilation in Tahrir Square as vice president Omar Suleiman announces that President Mubarak has resigned and called on the army to "run the affairs of the country."

Update at 11:15 a.m. ET: Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, reacting to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, says: "This is the greatest day of my life. The country has been liberated."

Update at 11:22 a.m. ET MSNBC reports that President Obama was notified of Mubarak's resignation during an Oval Office meeting. He then watched the TV coverage for several minutes in an outer office.

Update at 11:27 a.m. ET: Al-Jazeera correspondent Sherine Tadros, reporting from Tahrir Square, reports that a number of demonstrators have fainted amid the jubilation and been helped out of the area.

Update at 11:32 a.m. ET: Our colleagues at The Oval report that President Obama will make a statement on the Egyptian developments at 1:30 p.m. ET.

Update at 11:34 a.m. ET: Here is the full statement that a grim-looking Vice President Omar Suleiman delivered on Egypt state TV announcing President Mubarak's resignation:

In these grave circumstances that the country is passing through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave his position as president of the republic. He has mandated the Armed Forces Supreme Council to run the state. God is our protector and succor.

Yemen's revolution stymied by qat addiction

From Al Arabiya/Reuters:

Yemen's opposition has drawn tens of thousands of people to the streets to rally against three decades of autocratic rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but by noon the protesters quietly vanish.

Many head straight from the streets to the souk, or market, to buy bags stuffed with qat, the mild stimulant leaf that over half of Yemen's 23 million people chew daily, wiling away their afternoons in bliss, their cheeks bulging with wads of qat.

"After I chew I can't go out. When I chew qat, the whole world is mine. I feel like a king," said Mohammed al-Qadimi, a student who has attended Yemen rallies but said it would be hard to motivate himself to protest all day.

"When we have protests, they quiet down quickly because of this Yemeni habit. Qat is a negative influence. Every afternoon people go chew qat and the protests don't last more than a few hours in the morning," journalist Samir Gibran said, as he sat chewing qat with friends. He said he only chews once a week.

Yemen, vital to the United States in its fight against al-Qaeda, faces economic conditions often worse than those that helped spur revolt in Tunisia and Egypt. Economists put unemployment at 35 percent or higher, while a third of Yemenis face chronic hunger.

"Qat time is from one to two in the afternoon. It's not possible for a protester to use that time for something else. For him, qat time is the most important," said Marwan al-Qalisi, an accountant in Sanaa, his cheek bulging with qat.

Qat, which sucks up around 40 percent of Yemen's rapidly dwindling water resources, plays such a large role in the country's economy that the central bank calculates indicators both with and without qat. The plant accounts for 6 percent of Yemen's GDP and a third of its agricultural GDP.

The World Bank estimates that Yemenis spend a tenth of their income on the plant and lose about 25% of potential work hours to qat chewing.

Dude!

Some links for the weekend

I have not been spending too much time blogging about Egypt, mostly because there are plenty of excellent people who are.

Here's a quick rundown:

Melanie Phillips on The American debacle in Egypt.

A whole series of Barry Rubin pieces:
Tariq's Tricks: How the West's Favorite Islamist Spins His Web to Ensnare Them Egypt: If the top intelligence Guy Thinks the Brotherhood is Secular; No Wonder U.S. Policy is so Screwed Up News Flash: Mubarak's not resigning and they were all wrong!How Do We Know What Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Wants? Because It Tells Us

Mubarak's not the one who should resign (on Leon Panetta's wrong intelligence)

WSJ on White House mishandling of Egypt

The Telegraph weighed in on Clapper's comment on the MB

Krauthammer on the needed freedom doctrine

Eric Trager on the Muslim Brotherhood's strategy

Really interesting article on "illiberal democracy" at Forbes that is very un-PC

In non-Egypt news...

I don't remember if I blogged Melanie Phillips article on former British ambassador to Israel, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles.

Just Journalism looks at how The Guardian reported on the Palestine Papers (I wish they would have referred to my research on what they ignored as well)

(Melanie was also nice enough to write up one of my Palestine Papers scoops, as was Yisrael Medad in JPost.)

(h/t Devora, SoccerDad, EV)

Pro-Mubarak actor says Tahrir Square filled with sex, drugs

Egyptian actor Talaat Zakaria defended Hosni Mubarak a couple of days ago against the insults being hurled at the Egyptian president from the protesters, asking how the protesters could dare insult their President who was a hero during the 1973 war with Israel.

Now he is telling Al Ahram that while he respects the January 25th revolution, Tahrir Square has turned into a hotbed of sex and drugs from the young people camping there.

If he wants to keep young people away from Tahrir Square, that's not necessarily the best way to do it...

Gilbert Achcar and Shlomo Sand: Peas in a pod

From Richard Millett's blog:

Gilbert Achcar asked me to leave last night’s talk at SOAS given by Shlomo Sand. If I didn’t he said he would call security.

The talk was called On the Nation and the ‘Jewish People’, although it was all taken from Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People.

For an hour I bit my lip while Sand tore into the idea that the Jews had any connection with Israel. He said there had never been an exile of the Jews under the Romans and so, as there was no exile, there could never be a return.

But all Israeli school textbooks spoke of this mythical “exile” he said.

He claimed the Jews were merely a religious phenomenon and as they came from all over the world, and so had no connection with each other, they could not be described as “a people”. Sand is an Israeli Jewish atheist.

Today’s Jews, he said, are just descendants of converts from African tribes i.e. the Khazars and the Berbers. These tribes had simply converted en masse to Judaism.

Zionists had only recently taken Jewish myths and cultured them into a nationalist ideology.

But Jews had never wanted to originally go to Palestine. Only after 1924, when America closed the gates, and eventually the British too, did they finally set sail for Palestine....

Then, after defining Nazi Germany as an ethnocentric state, he said he was against Israel being defined as a Jewish state because “I am sure it will finish with the massacre in the Galilee, because 20% are non-Jews in this state”.

What is the point of an unopposed two hour verbal attack on Israel and the Jewish people at a British university? No one learns a thing apart from more anti-Israel propaganda.

During the Q&A I asked Sand what is the problem with the Jews calling themselves “a people” if they wanted to. He might not like it but most Jews think of themselves as being part of “a people”. That is how nationalism works.

I challenged him on whether Jewish history really spoke of the Jews being “exiled” by the Romans. Instead, the Jews had lost sovereignty to the Romans and many Jews left the area to become the Jewish diaspora. Therefore, Jews have a historical right to return.

What about “Next Year in Jerusalem” and the ancient religious festivals when Jews look to return to Israel and Jerusalem one day? Was that all made up by Zionists?

Anita Shapira’s destruction of Sand’s book is good on this.

Sand answered that 93% of the Jews living under the Romans were peasants and so they couldn’t leave. And diaspora Jews had only ever thought of Israel as a “Holy Land”, not as a “Home land”. “Israel” is a theological notion, not a political one.

Jews felt that the land did not belong to them, but to G-d and Jews went to Palestine only to die, not to live, so they could be the first to be resurrected when the Messiah came.

I understood the religiousness of the “Holy Land” point he was making but Sand wasn’t answering my main question: What is wrong with Jewish nationalism?

I called him a coward for not answering that question, which eventually spurred him into action.

“The Jews only came to Palestine because the doors to America and Britain were closed,” he screamed at the audience.

Even if that were true it still doesn’t preclude Jews from recognising themselves as “a people” and calling for a Jewish state.

It is not too disimilar from what the Palestinians have done. Many of them are not indigenous to what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories either, but came to the area when Jews started arriving from Europe. But they are also demanding a state.

I continued to try to question Sand but he just mocked me for being a Zionist who can’t speak Hebrew and who doesn’t even live in Israel like he does.

By then Achcar was out of his chair and bearing down on me insisting that I leave or he would call security.

I refused to leave but sat there, silent, like a good boy for the rest of the Q&A.

On the way out I was surrounded by people wanting to lecture me, including one woman who insisted that I apologise to Sand for calling him Shlomo, instead of Mr Sand, and a coward.

I already exposed Achcar as an academic fraud in his book.

As far as Sand goes....Saturday afternoon prayers ask G-d rhetorically, "Who is like the people of Israel, a unique nation in the world?" These are not Biblical words but words written during Rabbinic times - after the Diaspora began.

That's just one tiny example of how Jews always considered themselves a nation.

Their desire to return to Israel is not only mentioned in the annual recitations of "Next Year in Jerusalem" but also multiple times in daily prayers.

Not only that, but non-Jews universally recognized Jews as a nation, as I mentioned recently.

If a group of people call themselves a nation and the world agrees (and even admits where that nation's land is), its hard to argue that there's no nation there.

Sand's postulating the discredited Khazar theory shows he has no intellectual integrity at all. But since I cannot resist demolishing arguments, here are a couple:

Some Jews are descendants of Aaron (Kohanim) and Levi (Leviim.) Kohanim and Leviim have different roles in the religion and that status gets handed down from fathers to sons. If all Jews are converts from Khazaria, how did many of them turn into Kohanim and Leviim?

Moreover, there is a continual written record of Jewish legal issues from the Mishna through the rest of the Talmud through the Geonic period, Rishonim and later. If there was an influx of a huge number of converted Jews coming out of Khazaria, it would have engendered many new questions and legal rulings regarding their status as Jews. Where are they?

Not only that, but to get to the level of expert legal knowledge required by leading rabbis is a long educational process. How could a large group of new converts gain such expertise so thoroughly that they could be accepted by the existing Jewish communities without any record of them attending any existing institutions of Jewish study? Jewish law is nothing if not complex.

Finally, as to Sand's point that Jews did not go to Israel to live but to die, there are a host of prominent Jews who moved to Israel far before the First Aliyah. Speaking of, that event also predates Sand's bizarre claim that Jews didn't move to Israel until 1924. By 1924 there was already a nascent Jewish political infrastructure in Palestine.

Two liars, pretending to be academics, sharing the platform at an anti-Israel event, where an idiotic audience eats it up. This is a sick world.

"An Israeli conspiracy that never existed" (Arab News)

Abdulateef Al-Mulhim, retired commodore of the Royal Saudi Navy, writes a surprising op-ed in Arab News, whose op-eds usually argue the exact opposite:

I have, since childhood, been hearing about an invisible thing called the Israeli conspiracy.

It is always said that Israel did this and Israel did that. What is worse is when I hear that Israel is planning to do that. So, if we already know what Israel is planning to do, then why not either stop it or avoid it. The biggest conspiracy I heard regarding the Arabs and the Israelis is the humiliating defeat of June 1967. The Egyptians blamed everybody but themselves for the defeat. They insisted on speaking about why some planes came from the north and not from the east. They insisted that they were American Navy planes attacking Egypt. Did not the military analysts hear about evasive maneuvers, or did they expect the air force to fly like commercial airlines by taking the shortest and direct routes.

It turned out that the Egyptian forces were commanded by Gamal Abdel Nasser who only held the rank of major. Hours before the Israeli attack, all air defense sites were told to be on hold because Field Marshal Abdulhakim Amer’s plane was in the air. So, it was not an Israeli conspiracy that defeated the Egyptians, it was the poor planning and having a tired army coming back from Yemen tasked to go to a war that even Nasser did not know how to manage.

That was Egypt in 1967, but what about the Egyptian uprising of 2011? Was it the Egyptians or outside forces? The Egyptian leadership used to call Al Jazeera the match box. The channel’s media center in Qatar is so small that people used to wonder why regional leaders were worried about such a small media building, one that is small as a match box. It turned out that the Egyptian authorities had Al Jazeera on the top list of places to close. There was also no Israeli media center and Israel has no interest in seeing an unstable Egypt. Thomas Friedman once said that Al Jazeera should have been established in Egypt, not Qatar.

Egypt is a country whose media should have been at the front of providing information. However, Egyptians living inside the country and abroad are glued to foreign news outlets. Let us not doubt the Egyptians in their sincere request for change. We cannot accuse 80 million Egyptians of being toys in foreign hands.

To this day, I see Arabs blaming Israelis for young Arab drug addicts, their poor education, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, bad roads, corruption, lack of democracy, unemployment, 9/11, the division of Sudan, the upheaval in Tunisia and the unrest in Egypt. If Israel can do all these things, then the Israelis are either super humans or we simply enjoy blaming others for our failings.

Read the whole thing.

Hollywood loves Israeli Druse "soap" star

From Israel21c:

When Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli comes to Israel for a visit, she makes sure to stock up on Gamila's soaps for her glamorous friends around the world. She and other celebrities like Justin Timberlake, Rihanna and Angelina Jolie swear by the stuff, according to Fuad Hiar, the eldest son of Israel's most lucrative soap maker the 70-year-old Gamila Hiar.

Gamila is adept at the role of traditional soap maker. She's traditionally dressed, and as one would expect from an iconic grandmother figure, she has inherited her family's ancient "soap wisdom" from prior generations, using recipes from her grandfathers, and herbs from their gardens around the Galilee village of Peki'in.

For more than 40 years now, Gamila has been making and selling soap - concocted into small bars worth their weight in gold - at about $35 each. Called Gamila's Secret, about 100,000 of them are shipped every month to 23 countries around the world.

The secrets aren't in the choice of oils Gamila publicizes widely: Olive, almond, avocado and lavender. They are in the 15 secret herbs and plant extracts native to the Galilee that give the soap its special restorative properties.

18th century anti-semitism in Palestine - and Italy

Giovanni Mariti wrote "Travels through Cyprus, Syria, and Palestine; with a general history of the Levant" in the late 18th century, and it was translated into English in 1792.

In the book he describes some everyday anti-semitism in Palestine. for example:

The Jews have also a small synagogue here [in Acre], which they are not permitted to enlarge; as the governor requires that they should be contented with the small portion of ground which he has given them.

But this section, about his entering Jerusalem, was more interesting for its footnote:

One of the interpreters in the service of the convent appeared very much surprised to see me arrive without notice being sent to these good monks by the governor. Having told him in what manner I had entered, he informed me that I must return without the city; because Europeans who came from Jaffa are forbid to pass through any other gate than that of Damascus. The infraction of this law would have exposed the monastery, and perhaps myself, to some disagreeable exaction. This unlucky accident was very distressing to a fatigued traveller; and I silently murmured against the fanaticism of the Mahometans, which delights to torment, by ridiculous customs, those of a different religion from their own. There was, however, no remedy; and I said, why blame the superstitious Mussulmans? They only behave to Catholics in the same manner as the Catholics behave to the Jews. What plausible reason can the Italians have for compelling these children of the Hebrews to wear yellow caps on their heads, which exposes them to the derision of the populace*? We, nevertheless, boast of being enlightened by philosophy.

The footnote:

* They are banished into the filthiest corners of our cities where the avarice of government is continually studying how to plunder them. But it is above all in the dominions of the Pope that they are exposed to the greatest oppression.

They have purchased at a very dear rate, and particularly at Avignon, the right of having synagogues. The nuncios do not blush to make them renew their payments four or five times in a year. When they want money, they cause the synagogues to be opened an hour later: this is sufficient to inform the Jews of their intention. These unhappy proscribed people must then hasten to make a contribution. It may be readily guessed that the nuncio is not visible when they carry it to him: they deposit the offering on one of the tables of his apartment; and if it is judged sufficient, the doors of the synagogue are forthwith, opened.