Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Video of civilian executed in Syria

From Al Arabiya:

Some 30 people were killed in Syria on Wednesday. mostly residents of Homs.

Ambassador Ford slams Syria - on Facebook

The US Embassy Damascus Facebook page has a note from the US Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford:

This past weekend, as Eid al-Fitr was concluding, I read reports of peaceful protests yet again being met with security force gunfire in places like Basra ash-Sham, Telbissa and Jassem. International media reports already speak of dozens of civilians killed. This is yet another sad day to reflect on the courage of the tens of thousands of courageous Syrians who march peacefully.

Some of the people who write on this page complain that the U.S. is “helping terrorists” in Syria. We support the right of Syrians to protest peacefully. Peaceful protesters are not “terrorists,” and after all the evidence accumulated over the past six months, no one except the Syrian government and its supporters believes that the peaceful protesters here are. Also, the United States is not providing any assistance to any armed group in Syria. If the Syrian government has evidence, let’s see it. I’ve asked them and I’ve gotten nothing back from the officials. The United Nations, which was finally allowed to send an assessment team here, instead has directly assigned responsibility for the violence in Syria to the Syrian government. The Arab League has assigned responsibility for the violence to the Syrian government. The European Union and its member states have done so. The governments of Canada, Japan and Saudi Arabia have done so. The Turkish government has done so. Don’t like or trust the United States – fine – look at what other organizations and countries are saying.

Some Syrian security service members have been killed. Some want the United States to acknowledge it; well, I’m the American ambassador, and I just did. But the number of security service members killed is far, far lower than the number of unarmed civilians killed. No one in the international community accepts the justification from the Syrian government that those security service members’ deaths justify the daily killings, beatings, extrajudicial detentions, torture and harassment of unarmed civilian protesters. I entirely agree with the group of Muslim scholars in Aleppo who says that the Syrian government, which has a clear preponderance of arms and force, bears the responsibility for the violence. And given the extent of the government’s brutality, neither the Syrian protest movement nor the international community will believe that this Syrian leadership desires or is capable of the deep, genuine and credible reforms that the Syrian people demand. This isn’t about Western military intervention. This isn’t about oil (many governments have banned its import). This isn’t about Israel or the West wanting to dominate the Arab world (an old, discredited government line). This is about basic political freedoms from the United Nations’ Human Rights Charter – signed by Syria, don’t forget – which calls for freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly. And the United States wholly supports Syrians’ rights to exercise those freedoms.

Better than nothing.

Work accident(s)!

From Ma'an:

A member of Hamas' armed wing died Wednesday during a "Jihad" mission near Ash-Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced.

Muhammad Rushdi Aqbalan, 52, died after suffering an electric shock, the group said.

This sounds like he was killed while in a weapons tunnel. That's the usual place that Gazans die from electric shock. 52 is a bit old for being a tunnel worker, though.

An Islamic Jihad terrorist who was killed when his car exploded may have been the victim of another "work accident" as well, as Israel denied any airstrikes. It all points to a lack of quality control in Gaza's rocket industry.

Tunisia synagogue looted

A few days ago I noted a Wikileaks cable talking about how Tunisian anti-semitism was well-hidden under the rule of Ben Ali, where he took special precautions to protect the Jewish community. I wondered whether that protection would continue after his fall.

The JC provides the answer:

A synagogue in the Tunisian city of Sfax has been vandalised.

According to CRIF, the representative body of French Jewry, Synagogue Beth-El was ransacked towards the end of last month while Tunisian Muslims were marking the month of Ramadan. It is believed the synagogue has not been guarded since the Arab Spring revolutionaries overthrew the government of President Zein el-Abbadin Bin Ali.

Witnesses told CRIF that windows were broken, marble plaques marking supporters of the synagogue were smashed and the contents of cabinets including collection boxes and silver Judaica items were stolen.

In addition, several household appliances including the air conditioner unit are missing from the apartment adjoining the synagogue.

CRIF adds that there has been a shortage of police because of the chaotic security situation. However, the synagogue was looted on a Ramadan night opposite a popular coffee house, so it is unlikely that no one saw it. CRIF details the vandalism - marble plaques, stained glass windows, silver candlesticks.

See entire comic book here.

Hilariously, a Mondoweiss writer saw this cover and interpreted it as saying that the authors view all Palestinian Arabs and their allies as "vermin" and said this was "reminiscent of Nazi propaganda."

Note especially how offended the Mondoweissers are that a pro-Israel organization "shamelessly appropriated Jewish religious symbols." Don't they know that Jewish symbols only exist for anti-Israel groups to use to prove their Jewish bona-fides?

(Disclaimer: EoZ is a partner with StandWithUs, which produces this comic book.)

(h/t Divest This!)

Obama bubblegum spotted in Ramallah

Joseph Dana tweets that he saw Obama-branded bubblegum in Ramallah.

I found a better photo of this product, though:

No, the circle-K doesn't mean "kosher" - it stands for Kenafric Industries, a Kenyan company that makes fine confectioneries and footwear.

This company also makes Magic Obama Special Edition Bubblegum and Obama Pop-Whistle Mouth Painting Lollipops.

PA whitewashed torture death of prisoner

From Ma'an:

Palestinian security officials privately offered American diplomats candid details about the 2009 death of a detainee while they publicly refuted allegations of torture, according to a US diplomatic cable recently released by WikiLeaks.

Suspected Hamas member Haitham Amr, a nurse at a Hebron hospital, died less than a week after the PA’s General Intelligence division arrested him in June 2009.

Security officials claimed publicly that Amr fell to his death trying to escape through a second-story window. But the recently released cable, part of a full batch posted online in late August, reveals that General Intelligence officials told the US Consulate in Jerusalem that their initial account was "simply wrong."

Corroborating allegations of torture from the victim’s family and human rights groups, the cable says the PA’s own investigation found evidence that Amr was abused before his death.

...The PA never retracted its initial account, although Interior Minister Said Abu Ali conceded in October 2009 that there had been a "violation of the rights" of Haitham Amr.

Rights campaigners say the new information casts doubt on the credibility of a special military court which acquitted five officers who were charged in connection with Amr's death.

No PA security official has ever been criminally convicted of abusing persons in custody "despite hundreds of documented complaints of torture and other abuse," [HRW's Bill Van] Esveld says. "Given these serious and widespread abuses, the US should stop funding PA security agencies until the PA ends this record of impunity."

In 2010, the US provided $350 million to the PA for its security forces in addition to $150 million in direct budgetary aid, according to Human Rights Watch.

US government officials have consistently denied that American funds support security agencies accused of torture; they say most aid goes to the PA's National Security Forces.

News reports suggest otherwise. In December 2009, The Guardian quoted Western officials saying that the CIA works so closely with the General Intelligence and the Preventive Security organization that the Americans seem to be supervising the Palestinians' work.

PLO insults the US again

From Al Arabiya:

Yasser Abd Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said US policy now appeared confined to one point: stopping the Palestinians from embarking on their diplomatic initiative at the United Nations.

“The subject is not settlements, or Palestinian independence or the rights of the Palestinian people, or halting the criminal violations perpetrated by the settlers against the Palestinian people,” he said.

“All this is being ignored and the only issue has become the issue of us not going to the United Nations,” he told Voice of Palestine radio.

“This shows not only disdain for the Palestinian position, but also scorn for what is happening in the Arab region -- a state of revival seeking justice for the Arab peoples and justice for the whole region.”

The PLO feels free to insult the US anytime it pleases, without fear of any diplomatic backlash.

Earlier this year the Palestinian Arab delegation walked out during a speech by Hillary Clinton. Also earlier this year, the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the US was an "obstacle to peace" and "not an honest broker" These are all strong words in the diplomatic sphere, and the US would react harshly if any other entity would constantly insult it.

As usual, though, the PLO will get a pass.

Wikileaks: Hezbollah's intimidation of a Lebanese journalist

From a 2009 Wikileaks cable:

On March 13, Embassy Public Diplomacy (PD) staff met with Beirut-based, Lebanese journalist Tha'ir Abbas of the Saudi-owned newspaper, Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat. Abbas, who is Shi'a, has been a PD contact for several years and is well-known for his objective reporting. While he does not write anti-Hizballah reports, he is known for not being a Hizballah supporter. His residence is located in Dahiyeh in Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hizballah stronghold.

Abbas went to the United States in November 2008 to cover the U.S. presidential elections. Following his return to Beirut, three members of Hizballah visited him at home, he reported. One member entered the house and the other two stayed on the stairs near his apartment: one on the stairs leading up and one on the stairs leading down. Abbas asked the one Hizballah member who entered his house to stay in the doorway. This person told him that he wanted to ask him some questions. Abbas told him that he would answer his questions only near the door.

This Hizballah member asked Abbas about every member of his family, including his wife, Linda Ayyach, who is a journalist for Hiya Magazine, and his two children. Allegedly, the questions were: what type of cars Abbas and his wife drive; which school do the children attend (Note: They attend an evangelical school. End Note.); what are their political affiliation/s, even the political affiliation of his eight-year old daughter; whether Abbas supports Hizballah; and, what was the reason for his visit to the United States. One of the questions that caught Abbas' attention was whether he has access to the Internet in his house and the reason he does. Abbas said he answered all of the questions because, as he explained to PD, since he lives "in Hizballah's stronghold," he always tries to avoid problems and keeps a low profile.

Following that incident, Abbas learned through his contacts that the security wing of Hizballah has contacts with all the concierges in the area buildings who "spy" on residents and report back to Hizballah. After the visit, Abbas has noticed that he is often followed by another car. He told PD staff that his phone is tapped, that he has another phone which he uses for personal business, and he changes his personal telephone number constantly.

Abbas said he told his story to a person close to Sunni majority leader Saad Hariri, who in turn told Hariri. According to Abbas, Hariri, who sees Abbas on a routine basis and knows him well, allegedly called Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, but was referred to Nasrallah's political assistant, Hassan Khalil. Hariri told Khalil what happened, noting that Hizballah has no right to act in this manner, particularly with journalists "who work for Saudi-owned newspapers." Hariri warned that, by acting this way, Hizballah was damaging its relations with him.

After Hariri's phone call, Abbas claimed he received a phone call from Hizballah's media advisor at the time, Hussein Rahhal, who blamed Abbas for letting the story reach Hariri, and tried to belittle the incident. Since that phone call, Abbas has been harassed publicly several times by members of Hizballah. Once, he said, there was a hot exchange between him and a person who blocked his way while he was trying to leave the garage in his building. This person closed the garage for about two hours, making it impossible for Abbas to leave. On another occasion, Abbas was harassed by a Hizballah member who was about to hit him. Another time he received a phone call from a member of Hizballah when he published an interview with Ahmad Al-Asaad, an independent Shi'a figure who is critical of Hizballah.

Abbas said he lives in constant anxiety over the possibility of being harassed by Hizballah. He explained that he looked into the possibility of selling his house and moving away, but he ruled out the idea because of the high prices elsewhere. He characterized the atmosphere in the Dahiyeh as "extremely intimidating" following the July 2006 war between Israel and Hizballah, noting that Hizballah has its own police force now on every street in Beirut's southern suburb. He also said, "Hizballah members were extremely kind and open before July 2006, but now they are completely different." For them, he noted "everyone is an Israeli or an American agent until the contrary is proven."

This fits in well with what Michael Totten described in his book "The Road to Fatima Gate."

(h/t Yoel)

Hamas denies permission to public rallies in support of UN stunt

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas has said that it will refuse to allow any public demonstrations in Gaza that support the PLO's attempt to have the UN recognize "Palestine" as a state.

In general, Hamas has not rallied behind the UN stunt, although it has made some occasional noises that it will not publicly oppose the move.

Hamas' opposition seems to stem from its reluctance to do anything to legitimize Israel's existence and to limit Palestinian Arab claims on all of Israel.

Israel kills PRC terrorist firing mortars

From YNet:

A commander in the Popular Resistance Committees' military arm was killed Tuesday evening in a fire exchange in the Gaza Strip.

According to Palestinian sources, the operative killed in Khan Younis was Khaled Sahmoud, 23, who was in charge of the the al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades' mortar unit. The PRC claimed that he managed to fire five mortar shells before being killed.

If you want to read the combination of flowery eulogy for Sahmoud and insane condemnation of Israel along with the requisite gory photos of the dead terrorist, check out the autotranslated article from the PRC website.

Morning links

Arafat's dream: What happens after the UN accepts a Palestinian Arab state?

Latest anti-BDS rally in Australia

What a concept: Jews from Judea and Samaria discussing peace with their Arab neighbors!

Turkish opposition leader slams government's "fake enmity over Israel"

Germany expels Israeli academic from conference because he teaches in Ariel (update: he is reinstated)

A UNESCO designated Jewish heritage site is being destroyed in Lviv, Ukraine - and UNESCO says nothing

BDS fail? A Greek singer who is performing in Israel referred to it as a "fascist state" last month.

Egyptian government press is calling Jews the descendants of pigs and apes. But it is a cultural thing and must be protected.

The PA honors the terrorists who bombed the Sbarro's pizza shop

Israel: From underdog to pariah

Lubavitchers start a biker gang (more here)

(h/t Yoel, jzaik, Russell)

"Happy Holocaust"

From Der Spiegel:

Much has been written about the village of Jamel near Wismar in the far northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Hitler salutes in the streets, firing practice in local forests and outsiders chased away. The small run-down settlement has become a dark symbol of the growing reach of neo-Nazi ideology.

In the run-up to Sunday's local ballot in the state, a journalist from the website VBS TV arrived in Jamel. Although she was familiar with the village's larger-than-life reputation, she was shocked to see a large rusty barbeque inscribed with the phrase "happy holocaust."

The grill was in the barbed-wire encircled garden of the office of the far-right extremist National Democratic Party (NPD). The backyard was overlooked by a watchtower and a red, black and white old German Reich flag of the type used by the far-right scene.

"I was shocked and I just couldn't believe what I saw. It felt really surreal," VBS TV journalist Barbara Dabrowska told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It was like in a bad American movie that tries to come up with the most ridiculous idea for how to make Nazis look really terrible. ... They probably meant it as a joke, but I was annoyed by their either stupid or incredibly provocative approach."

I briefly discussed the NPD here.

(h/t a new blog, Onion Tears News)

Tuesday night movie: The Chosen

I was not a big fan of Chaim Potok's books but as I recall this was not a bad movie. (From Hulu, with some commercials.)

(h/t Israel Video Network)

Wikileaks: Fearful Jews emigrating from Iran

From a Wikileaks cable from August 2009:

Morris Motamed, a former two-term MP for Iran's Jewish community, told IRPO that four Jewish youths were arrested by Basij militiamen while participating in the June 20 street demonstrations in Tehran. The four teenagers spent one night herded into a parking lot with dozens of other detained demonstrators. According to their families, the whole group was badly beaten with batons and stun guns throughout the night before being moved to a police station, where the physical abuse continued. Two of the young men were released after "two or three days" but the other two were transferred to Evin Prison and held 18 days. According to Motamed, who said he maintains ties with many former and current IRIG officials from his days as an MP, the two young men were released after he spoke with Hossein Ali Amiri, who is the deputy to Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Shahroudi. The two were re-arrested in their homes on July 18 by "IRGC security."...Motamed said that at least one of the young men picked up July 18, Yeghoutiel Shaoolian, was among the detainees prosecuted in the August 1 show trial. He said that Shaoolian's mother told him that at some point during his incarceration her son made a taped statement in which he confessed to spying for Israel. Motamed believes that Shaoolian's confession may be linked to the testimony of the "unnamed spy" referenced in the six-part indictment released by the government in advance of the trial. Motamed, who was an MP during the trial of the 13 Jewish Iranians arrested in 1999 in Shiraz and Esfahan on espionage charges, fears a repeat of that ordeal, which he says had far-reaching repercussions for Iran's Jewish community.

Motamed said that the consensus of the community is that only about 20,000 Jews now remain in Iran and noted that emigration has increased over the past two years following President Ahmadinejad's increasingly strident rhetoric against Israel and his public questioning of the Holocaust. Though Jewish Iranians "continue to love Iran" they are being compelled to leave, mostly out of fear that they will become targets of a government backlash should Israel confront Iran militarily. Motamed said he lives in fear of an Israeli strike because the Jewish community has no ability to protect itself from what he believes would be a wide-scale attack on Jews and Jewish interests. He said that while economic opportunity and the chance to live somewhere as a "first-class citizen" do factor into decisions to leave, the uptick in departures is driven mostly by fear of the future. Motamed noted that as a community leader, he has been asked for many years his opinion by Jews weighing their options. Until two years ago, he told people they had to make the decision themselves. Now, he said, he recommends moving out of Iran to every Jew who asks his opinion. He estimated that 80 percent of Jews emigrate to the United States, while the rest relocate to Israel or Europe. (Note: Motamed's wife is emigrating to the U.S. and he is considering his options.)

Some official Jordanian anti-semitism on Wikileaks

From a July 2009 Wikileaks cable:

Another intensely debated amendment concerned Article Twenty-Nine, which outlines restrictions on non-Muslim religious NGOs in Jordan. The amended article as submitted by the government to parliament allows non-Muslim religious organizations to provide "social and charitable services" as long as those services are not part of a proselytizing campaign. During the debate, MP Mamdouh Abbadi warned that the article as written would allow "Jews, Buddhists, and Baha'is" to establish religious charities in Jordan. He proposed an amendment that would only permit Christian organizations to form non-Muslim religious charities. IAF deputy Suleiman Sa'ad, warning deputies of the potentially nefarious influence of foreign religious charities, proposed a further amendment which would only allow non-Muslim religious organizations to operate in Jordan if their members were Jordanian. Abbadi countered that non-Jordanian religious organizations have set up hospitals and other service-oriented programs which provide valuable services to the Jordanian public at no cost to the government. In the end, Abbadi's amendment carried the day and Sa'ad's amendment was defeated -- only Christians will be allowed to establish non-Muslim religious organizations, but there will be no requirement that they be of Jordanian nationality.

Allowing Jews, Buddhists and Baha'is to open up charities in Jordan? How obscene!

Do Muslims ever apologize to non-Muslims?

Ma'an Arabic reports that a delegation of rabbis apologized for the arson against a mosque apparently done by Jews from Judea and Samaria a few days ago. Last year there was an apology by well-known rabbis for a similar incident.

Not condemnations - but apologies.

In light of this, as well as the recent kerfuffles over Israel's apologies and statements of regret to Egypt and Turkey, the question must be asked: do Muslims and Arabs ever apologize to the West for their actions?

There are some very rare occasions when one sees an Arab or Muslim apology to non-Muslims.

Abu Abbas, who masterminded the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1986, apologized ten years later for the killing of Leon Klinghoffer, saying it was a mistake.

An Egyptian and an Arab American citizen apologized on behalf of their people for 9/11.

And, in a very moving gesture, Jordan's King Hussein made a heartfelt apology for the murders of seven Israeli schoolgirls at the "Island of Peace."

Outside of these isolated cases, I am having a hard time finding any apologies by Arabs to non-Arabs. It is slightly easier finding Muslim apologies to other Muslims. Mahmoud Abbas apologized to Kuwait for the PLO's support of Saddam Hussein, for example. Turkey once apologized to the family of a man beaten to death in prison. Saudi Arabia apologized to Indonesia for beheading a maid without informing them. All of these are rare enough, but they are to Muslims.

A telling counterexample: in 1972, Japan apologized to Israel for a terror attack perpetrated by the Japanese Red Army at Lod airport - and Arab nations were incensed at that apology.

Finding apologies to the Muslim world by the West is easy. But given the tens of thousands who have been killed and mistreated by Muslims and Arabs, and the ubiquitous demands by Muslim leaders for non-Muslims to apologize for a huge array of perceived grievances, where are all the Muslim apologies?

Unity! Gaza and West Bank are in different timezones

I noted last week that Hamas decided to adopt a different date for moving from Daylight Savings Time than Fatah did, meaning that Gaza is now in a different time zone than the West Bank.

Al Arabiya elaborates:

Palestinian divisions have for the past years seemed endless, yet they were mostly political. Now, another problem has emerged: Gaza and the West Bank look like two officially separate countries, with a one-hour difference between them that confuses Palestinians and adds to their despair as far as unity in the Occupied Territories is concerned.

Until a few days ago, both the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank were within the same time zone, and both adjusted clocks backward before the start of the holy month of Ramadan so that sunset, when the fast is broken, would come one hour earlier.

After the end of Ramadan, the West Bank went back to its daylight saving time and advanced the clock one hour, while Gaza remained in wintertime so that, for example, when it’s midnight in Gaza, it is 1:00 am in Ramallah.

The time difference is all the more absurd now that two adjacent universities are using two different time zones. Al-Azhar University, located in Gaza yet affiliated to Fatah, announced working according to summertime, while the Islamic University right next to it is using wintertime. The two campuses are separated by a wall.

“This is ridiculous,” said student and blogger Khaled al-Sharkawi. “I live in Gaza but my university is following the West Bank time zone.”

The university case is repeated in several other examples. Private banks and international organizations in Gaza follow West Bank time, while schools, hospitals, and public institutions follow Gaza time. The website Date and Time, which tells you the time anywhere in the world, lists both times for Palestinian territories.

Gazan journalist Sami Abu Salem points out how the time difference between Gaza and the West Bank has become a joke for Palestinians.

“When it is 5:00 o’clock in Gaza and you ask someone in the street about the time, they tell you it’s 5:30, and when you ask why they added half an hour they answer that they don’t want to be biased towards Hamas or Fatah.”

Student Hamman Mubarak approaches the issue in a much more bitter way.

“There’s no problem with time difference. We are two republics and are divided about everything anyway,” he wrote in one of his tweets.

The tweet of IT specialist Ola Anan approached the issue politically and playfully imagined the confusion that might happen when Palestine asks for official recognition at the UN this month.

“I wonder if they will recognize the Palestinian state according to Gaza time or West Bank time.”

For writer Samir Abu Shetat, the difference in time is just one more addition to the internal divisions between Palestinians.

“It is this bitter division that turned our lives into hell,” he said. “The division splits our backs like it split our nation and our people.”

“I pray to God to unify our clocks.”

How's that unity coming along?

And the question is a good one: who will be represented in that new UN seat they are angling for?

Iran hacked Dutch digital certificates to spy on Iranian citizens

From The Register:

The Google webmail of as many as 300,000 Iranians may have been intercepted using fraudulently issued security certificates made after a hack against Dutch certificate authority outfit DigiNotar, according to the preliminary findings of an official report into the megahack.

Fox-IT, the security consultancy hired to examine the breach against DigiNotar, reveals that DigiNotar was hacked on or around 6 June – a month before hackers begun publishing rogue certificates. Between 10 July and 20 July hackers used compromised access to DigiNotar's systems to issue rogue 531 SSL certificate for Google and other domains, including Skype, Mozilla add-ons, Microsoft update and others. DigiNotar only begun revoking rogue certificates on 19 July and waited more than a month later to go public about the problem. The fake *.google.com certificate – which was valid for code-signing – wasn't revoked until 29 July.

The compromise was used, in part, to spy on Iranian internet users, using the forged Google SSL certificate to run man-in-the-middle attacks.

"The list of domains and the fact that 99 per cent of the users are in Iran suggest that the objective of the hackers is to intercept private communications in Iran," [Fox-IT] adds.

In English, this means that Iran apparently forged the certificates that are used to ensure that web traffic to various websites - like Google - is correctly encrypted. This means that Iran was able to spy on email and web traffic that even the most conscientious user would have assumed was safe from prying eyes.

Or, as Israel Hayom describes it:

In theory, a fraudulent certificate can be used to trick a user into visiting a fake version of a Web site, or used to monitor communications with the real sites without users noticing.

But in order to pass off a fake certificate, a hacker must be able to steer his target’s Internet traffic through a server that he controls. That is something only an Internet service provider, or a government that commands one, can easily do.

According to AP, technology experts cite a number of reasons to believe the attack is connected to Iran. Notably, several of the certificates contain nationalist slogans in Farsi, the language spoken by most Iranians.

“This, in combination with messages the hacker left behind on DigiNotar’s Web site, definitely suggests that Iran was involved,” Ot van Daalen, director of Bits of Freedom, an online civil liberties group, told AP.

Robert Fisk really wants to blame 9/11 on Israel

From Robert Fisk in The Independent:

I'm drawn to Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan whose The Eleventh Day confronts what the West refused to face in the years that followed 9/11. "All the evidence ... indicates that Palestine was the factor that united the conspirators – at every level," they write. One of the organisers of the attack believed it would make Americans concentrate on "the atrocities that America is committing by supporting Israel". Palestine, the authors state, "was certainly the principal political grievance ... driving the young Arabs (who had lived) in Hamburg".

The motivation for the attacks was "ducked" even by the official 9/11 report, say the authors. The commissioners had disagreed on this "issue" – cliché code word for "problem" – and its two most senior officials, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, were later to explain: "This was sensitive ground ...Commissioners who argued that al-Qa'ida was motivated by a religious ideology – and not by opposition to American policies – rejected mentioning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... In their view, listing US support for Israel as a root cause of al-Qa'ida's opposition to the United States indicated that the United States should reassess that policy." And there you have it.

So what happened? The commissioners, Summers and Swan state, "settled on vague language that circumvented the issue of motive". There's a hint in the official report – but only in a footnote which, of course, few read. In other words, we still haven't told the truth about the crime which – we are supposed to believe – "changed the world for ever". Mind you, after watching Obama on his knees before Netanyahu last May, I'm really not surprised.

When the Israeli Prime Minister gets even the US Congress to grovel to him, the American people are not going to be told the answer to the most important and "sensitive" question of 9/11: why?

Fisk believes that if the US would have dumped Israel as an ally - during the Oslo process, naturally - Bin Laden wouldn't have attacked America!

So simple! So clear! And there is even a book that says so!

(Actually, the book says that the hijackers and KSM were obsessed with "Palestine" - Fisk wants us to make that last logical leap that there would have been no attacks if it wasn't for Israel.)

Too bad that the words of Bin Laden himself make it clear that he threw in "Palestine" in order
to buttress his anti-American arguments. It wasn't his top issue by any stretch.

To find this out, all you need to do is read two fatwas issued by Bin Laden against America - in 1996 and in 1998.

The 1996 fatwa says explicitly that the major issue for Bin Laden was US forces in Saudi Arabia:

The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience. All of this and the world watch and hear, and not only didn't respond to these atrocities, but also with a clear conspiracy between the USA and its' allies and under the cover of the iniquitous United Nations, the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves.

The people of Islam awakened and realised that they are the main target for the aggression of the Zionist-Crusaders alliance. All false claims and propaganda about "Human Rights" were hammered down and exposed by the massacres that took place against the Muslims in every part of the world.

The latest and the greatest of these aggressions, incurred by the Muslims since the death of the Prophet (ALLAH'S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM) is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places -the foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka'ba, the Qiblah of all Muslims- by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies. (We bemoan this and can only say: "No power and power acquiring except through Allah").

And in his 1998 fatwa Bin laden was kind enough to enumerate his grievances in order of importance:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.

Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

In 2002, Yasir Arafat - clearly frustrated that his PLO was being compared to Al Qaeda - said that Bin Laden never did anything for "Palestine":

"Why is bin Laden talking about Palestine now?" Mr. Arafat said. "He never helped us. He was working in another, completely different area and against our interests."

In the Muslim world, if you want to gain a following, you have to blame everything on Zionism. OBL's words make it clear that his attachment to that cause was a cynical attempt to broaden his appeal to would-be jihadists, not a reflection of Al Qaeda's single-minded focus against America.

But Fisk knows better. His own hate for Israel is so visceral that he must find reasons to blame 9/11 on Israel, however elliptically. Which makes him no better than any of the crazy 9/11 conspiracy theorists - the same crazy people who are demolished in that same book that Fisk quotes so approvingly.

(h/t jzaik)

Palestinian Arabs deported to Gaza - by Egypt

You know how it is an international incident every time Israel sends a Palestinian Arab to Gaza?

Yesterday, Egypt deported three Palestinian Arabs to Gaza. They had entered Egypt illegally, via the tunnels.

Egyptians build wall to protect Israel embassy; activists vow to destroy it

From AFP:

The Egyptian authorities are erecting a wall around the Israeli embassy in Cairo as relations between the two neighbors who signed a peace treaty in 1979 are at a delicate phase.

The wall, about two meters high, consists of prefabricated cement slabs that are being installed around the building that houses the Israeli embassy overlooking a bridge in Cairo.

Part of the wall has been painted with Egypt's national colors: black, white and red.

Egyptian officials quoted by the local media have meanwhile stressed that the wall being erected around the embassy was aimed at protecting residents of nearby buildings.

Ali Abdel Rahman, the governor of Giza district where the embassy is located, told Al-Gumhuriyya newspaper the wall "has nothing to do with the protection of the Israeli embassy" but is for the protection of private citizens.

Some Egyptians aren't happy, and plan to destroy the wall:

Egyptian activists called for a people's march to the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday for the demolition of the concrete wall which was established by Giza to protect the embassy.

Activists in dozens of posts on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter called for all participants in the march to carry hammers to use to demolish the concrete wall that has become known as among the Egyptians as the "separation wall."

Egypt's reaction on Friday will be interesting.

(h/t Dan)

Palestinian Arabs would prefer negotiations to UN unilateralism

In the latest PCPO poll, released yesterday, this question was asked of Palestinian Arabs:

Which, in your opinion, is the preferable option for the future of Palestine? Is it going to the United Nations for the recognition of the Palestinian state without concluding a peace agreement with Israel, or going back to the negotiation table with the Israelis for the sake of a permanent peace with them and then resort to the UN?

59.3% said it was better to go back to the negotiating table with Israel; only 35.4% said going to the UN was preferable.

Another interesting finding is that a plurality of Palestinian Arabs oppose "holding huge peaceful demonstrations in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem with the aim as to overrun the barriers and close the roads against the Israeli army and the settlers after the proclamation of the recognition of the State of Palestine in the coming September" - 48.8% vs. 41.5%.

And given a three way choice:

Some people say that Palestinians should hold huge peaceful demos that overrun the barriers and close the roads against the Israeli army and the settlers with the aim to force the Israelis to withdraw from the territories of the State of Palestine after the proclamation of the UN-resolution recognizing the State of Palestine, whilst others say Palestinians should carry out violent actions against the Israeli army and the settlers, and a third group of people is in favor of going back to the peaceful negotiations with the Israeli government. Which of these three opinions is the closest to yours?

25.9% support demonstrations
15.2% support violence
53.4% support negotiations

Then again, when did anyone accuse the Palestinian Arab leadership of listening to their people?

Today's garbage from Roger Cohen

Roger Cohen in the New York Times says that Israel's refusal to apologize to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara is terrible for Israel:

Overall, the panel finds that Israel should issue “an appropriate statement of regret” and “make payment for the benefit of the deceased and injured victims and their families.”

Yes, Israel, increasingly isolated, should do just that. An apology is the right course and the smart course. What’s good for Egypt — an apology over lost lives — is good for Turkey, too.

...[L]ocked in its siege mentality, led by the nose by Lieberman and his ilk — unable to grasp the change in the Middle East driven by the Arab demand for dignity and freedom, inflexible on expanding settlements, ignoring U.S. prodding that it apologize — Israel is losing one of its best friends in the Muslim world, Turkey. The expulsion last week of the Israeli ambassador was a debacle foretold.

Israeli society, as it has shown through civic protest, deserves much better.

First, let's get Cohen's usual sloppiness with the facts out of the way.

The Palmer Commission recommended that Israel express regret, not that Israel apologize. And Israel did just that - over a year ago.

Israel reiterated that regret on Friday when the report was released. So Cohen is claiming that Israel obstinately refuses to do what Palmer recommended - when Israel already did.

Moreover, Israel did give a full apology to Egypt after the deaths of soldiers in the Sinai as Israel was pursuing terrorists - and Egypt rejected that apology as insufficient. In other words, demands for apologies in the Muslim world are a political tool, not an actual reflection of national pride, and acceding to them just engender more demands.

But what do you expect from a prestigious New York Times columnist - actual facts?

Let's look at the larger context. Cohen is insisting that Israel spologize for killing Turkish citizens who were violently attacking IDF soldiers with clubs, knives and chains as well as throwing soldiers overboard. The reason is that Israel's refusal to apologize hurts Israel-Turkish relations.

Last I checked, relations are a two way street. So it is equally accurate to say that Turkey's demand for an apology that it does not deserve is hurtful for Israel-Turkey relations. The Palmer Commission report, that I doubt Cohen actually read, blamed Turkey for not doing enough to stop the flotilla as violence was fairly likely.

To Cohen and his friends, however, Turkey's trumped up demand for dignity is inherently more important than Israel's dignity. Only Israel should bend its knee in abject apology (an apology that would probably also be deemed "insufficient") - in order to save the relationship. Israel must adhere to the demands of realpolitik while Islamist thugs are free to demand more and more to protect their own pride.

As usual, Israel is expected to act like the grownup, to look beyond intangibles like national pride and indeed the truth of what happened on the Mavi Marmara, while Muslim countries are expected to act like children that can make demands of apology from Western states whenever they want to - and then raise the stakes when the apologies aren't abject enough.

Cohen would never require any Muslim or Arab nation apologize for anything done to the West. That's just not how things are done in the Middle East. To him, only Arabs and Muslims have pride - Westerners don't.

As stupid and inaccurate as Cohen's piece was, he looks absolutely sane next to MJ Rosenberg, who used Cohen's piece as a springboard to come to the hilariously imbecilic conclusion that Turkey is Israel's best friend for demanding an apology and not acting like an "enabler."

PCHR's condemnation of Palmer shows its hypocrisy

It is hardly surprising that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights is livid at the Palmer Report finding that many of its well-worn anti-Israel tropes over the years are invalid:

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the report of the Panel of Inquiry (Palmer Committee) established by the UN Secretary-General to investigate the attack on Mavi Marmara, one of the ships of the Freedom Flotilla, while it was in international waters and headed to the Gaza Strip, carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza’s civilian population. PCHR believes that the Committee prioritized political considerations over the rule of international law and the rights of victims, while legitimizing the policy of collective punishment represented in the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.

...PCHR believes that the Panel of Inquiry, established by UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-moon on 02 August 2010, which started its mission on 10 August 2010, is purely political, and consequently, its conclusions are purely political.

PCHR further believes that the Panel of Inquiry lacks professionalism as its conclusions contradict various legal opinions issued by many international legal experts and UN bodies concerned with human right and international humanitarian law...

PCHR totally rejects the findings of the report of Palmer Committee considering it is politicized and disregards for the international law. PCHR calls upon all international organizations to condemn the report, and not to deal with the findings that contradict with international law and human rights standards.

Have you ever seen a so-called "human rights" organization demand that other human rights organizations condemn a UN Panel of Inquiry?

This part is even more interesting:

PCHR supports the move of the Government of Turkey to the International Court of Justice, as the highest international judicial body to consider this crime, and reminds of its Advisory Opinion on the wall in the West Bank issued in July 2004, which considered the siege imposed on the Occupied Palestinian Territory a form of collective punishment prohibited under the international law.

The ICJ's flawed advisory opinion on Israel's security barrier did find it to be illegal, but nowhere in that document did it say that the reason is because the barrier is "collective punishment."

The PCHR makes up its own facts.

We can see more than a little psychological projection going on here. While the PCHR said no less than four times that the Palmer Commission was politicized, it brought not a scintilla of evidence to back up that charge. But the PCHR itself is suffused with anti-Israel politics, as it cannot even use the term "Israel Defense Forces" in any of its press releases, instead referring to Israel's army as "Israeli Occupation Forces."

As I and my team exhaustively proved, the PCHR knowingly referred to hundreds of terrorists killed during Cast Lead/Operation Oil Stain as "civilians."

There are plenty of other examples where the PCHR clearly played politics rather than report the truth.

This lying and thoroughly politicized organization gets funding from donors like The Ford Foundation, Christian Aid, Oxfam, the EU, Norway and Denmark (as well as from George Soros.)

Perhaps these donors should start to require that PCHR adheres to a minimum standard of objectivity and truthfulness.

Abbas: "Palestinians have been under occupation for 63 years"

From NYT, in an interview with Mahmoud Abbas:

We don’t want to isolate Israel but to live with it in peace and security. We don’t want to delegitimize Israel. We want to legitimize ourselves.

All well and good - except for what he said immediately prior to this:

We are going to complain [at the UN] that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years.

How can one reconcile those two statements? If Israel has been occupying their land since its birth in 1948, doesn't that make Israel illegitimate?

(Somehow, I don't think he was referring to Jordanian occupation.)

The New York Times' Ethan Bronner, as usual, did not ask for clarification. And Mahmoud Abbas remains free to say whatever he wants to whatever audience he wants without fear of someone pointing out that he is a liar.

(h/t Dan)

Labor Day open thread

Vacation day here in the US, so here's an open thread while I do some things in the real world....

Palestinian Arab newspaper Al Majd has a study about USAID, the American governmental agency dedicated to offering humanitarian assistance and to help build democratic institutions.

The report accuses USAID of actually being involved in espionage and describes it as one of the most dangerous organizations in the world.

As evidence, the report notes that USAID requires partner NGOs and employees to sign an agreement renouncing terrorism and violence.

Not only that, but USAID will actually do background checks to verify that employees aren't terrorists - and, in the Palestinian Arab territories, they will even ask Israel to help with the verification!

This "study" goes on to say that the only people who remain after this vetting process are those who have "abandoned their national heritage."

In other words, terrorism and violence is - according to Al Majd - part of the Palestinian Arab national heritage.

The report piles on the horrid things USAID does. It actually encourages Palestinian Arabs to work with Israelis in the name of coexistence and peace! It promotes normalization with the "Zionist enemy"!

The study concludes that the entire point of USAID is to humiliate the Palestinian Arabs.

Of course, no one is forcing Palestinian Arabs to accept any aid from the US. Perhaps if the conditions for aid are so onerous, the PA should politely inform USAID that their money should be better spent elsewhere in the world.

I'm certain that American anti-Israel groups, who are so concerned over their tax dollars that go to Israel, would support USAID dropping all aid to the Palestinian Arabs as well.

A quick poster

Just because people don't know the basics:

And by the way, Amnesty International wrote a very nice legal definition of "occupation" in 2003, a definition they themselves ignore in respect to Israel. They wrote:

The definition of belligerent occupation is given in Article 42 of the Hague Regulations:

"Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised."

The sole criterion for deciding the applicability of the law on belligerent occupation is drawn from facts: the de facto effective control of territory by foreign armed forces coupled with the possibility to enforce their decisions, and the de facto absence of a national governmental authority in effective control. If these conditions are met for a given area, the law on belligerent occupation applies. Even though the objective of the military campaign may not be to control territory, the sole presence of such forces in a controlling position renders applicable the law protecting the inhabitants. The occupying power cannot avoid its responsibilities as long as a national government is not in a position to carry out its normal tasks.

So 96% of West Bank Arabs are not living under "occupation" according to the Hague - and Amnesty - definitions. (The same applies to 100% of Gaza's Arabs.)

Egyptian magazine draws Netanyahu as Hitler

Here is the front cover of the current issue of Egypt's state-run October magazine:

The article goes through a history of Israel's supposed "war crimes" which they claim is on par with those of Nazi Germany.

(h/t Yoel)

Abbas admits that the territories are considered disputed

From JPost:

The Palestinian Authority is prepared to listen to any proposals that would lead to the resumption of peace talks with Israel, PA President Mahmoud Abbas told members of the Fatah Revolutionary Council in Ramallah late Sunday.

Abbas reiterated his position that the peace talks should be based on a full cessation of construction in the settlements and acceptance of the pre-1967 lines as the borders of a Palestinian state. He also said that the talks should have a clear and acceptable timetable.

Abbas said that the PA application to the UN calls for transforming the Palestinian territories from the status of disputed lands to a state under occupation.

Sure enough, his Arabic comments use those same words.

(h/t DF)

Ashkelon man succumbs to injuries during Grad attack

From YNet:

Eliyahu Naim, 79, died at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem Sunday after falling over in his house while running for cover during a rocket attack on Ashkelon two weeks ago.

A Color Red alert sounded in Ashkelon on August 22. Naim, who was staying at his house together with his wife and nurse, rushed to the apartment's fortified space. "When he entered the foretified room he must have stumbled and hit a sharp edge of a library and as a result sustained a serious head injury," his son-in-law Eyal told Ynet.

...Naim was one of Ashkelon's first residents arriving there in the 1960s. He retired several years ago after working as an accountant at an agricultural products company. "He was a very likeable person, loved people, loved company, served as a medic in the IDF, salt of the earth," his son-in-law said.

He had apparently become used to rocket fire. "We talked about it several times. He wasn't scared or worried but was very cautious and always adhered to the Home Front Command guidelines," Eyal said. "He entered the fortified space whenever an alarm would go off."

Turkish member of Palmer commission criticized in Turkey

From Hurriyet Daily News:

Veteran diplomat Özdem Sanberk, the retired ambassador who represented Turkey on the U.N. panel investigating the deadly Mavi Marmara raid, has become the subject of criticism over the panel’s report, which Turkey rejected as one-sided.

“Sanberk should not have appeared in the happy picture taken when the report was submitted, despite his reservations, to the U.N. secretary-general. I think he could have nixed the release of the report if he had resigned from the team instead of just stating his reservations,” said Volkan Bozkır, an Istanbul deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, who joined the party recently after retiring from the Foreign Ministry.

“The commission failed to be an objective commission. It contained Turkish and Israeli representatives. The Turkish representative put his reservations on almost all conclusions of the report,” Bozkır wrote Sunday in a message on the social-networking website Twitter. The Istanbul deputy, who heads up Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, also urged Turkey to take more caution against this type of behind-the-scenes intrigue in international platforms and courts.

Despite Bozkır’s criticisms of Sanberk, others in Ankara believe the retired ambassador should not be made a scapegoat because any failures with the report are due to collective mistakes. Members of this camp say Turkish diplomacy ignored the ability of the pro-Israel lobby to influence such commissions, and that singling out the commission’s president and vice president, Geoffrey Palmer and Alvaro Uribe, to write the report’s conclusions was a mistake made at the beginning of the process.

It is eerie how many UN commissions are influenced by the Israel lobby, isn't it?

Wikileaks: Anti-semitism in Japan

From a newly released Wikileaks cable from April 2009:

Summary: Japanese anti-Semitism may be the ultimate oxymoron since Japan is a Shintoist/Buddhist society with virtually no Jewish minority and no history of discrimination against Jews as an ethnic or religious group. However, anti-Semitic attitudes and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are accepted by surprisingly many Japanese. The idea of Jewish economic, political and intellectual "omnipotence" has gained an audience among Japanese who are not otherwise anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism in Japan is manifested through books, magazines, public appearances by anti-Semitic writers, and several internet sites. The Israeli Embassy in Tokyo notes that what is found in Japan isn't "classical anti-Semitism," but a "combination of unfamiliarity, a tendency amongst a few to give credence to conspiracy theories about Jewish power, and some issues that are politically sensitive."

The first incident occurred on a national television talk show, TV-Asahi's Sunday Project, hosted by veteran journalist and interviewer Soichiro Tahara. Tahara's remark, which prompted a statement of criticism from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, took place during an interview with former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka. Tahara had raised the arrest of Tanaka's late father, former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, in connection with the Lockheed scandal in the mid-1970s and the recent arrest of an aide to Democratic President Ichiro Ozawa for illegally receiving political donations. Tahara, who has written a book alleging that the Lockheed scandal was a CIA plot against former PM Tanaka, remarked, "Mr. Tanaka was done in by the Jews, and Ozawa was done in by them too."

The second recent anti-Semitic incident was much more surprising since it came from Atsuyuki Sassa, a former policeman and one-time national-security aide (1986-89) to then-Prime Minister Nakasone who is now well known as a commentator on crisis management and defense issues. Appearing on a Saturday morning NTV infotainment program on March 21, the former chief of Japan's National Security Council, in referring to the issue of massive bonus payments by AIG to its executives, as well as the use of private jets by the heads of the "Big Three" companies, said: "There were terrible capitalists around the 18th century. I know it is bad to say this, but most of them were Jews. It is the Jews who are doing awful things today." When the program host immediately told Sassa that his remarks were out of line, Sassa insisted, "But that is my view."

Anti-Semitic books and articles occasionally appear in Japan even if these views are not widely shared. There are also several rabidly anti-Semitic websites in Japanese spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (e.g., that Jews masterminded 9/11). While most such literature tends to favor conspiracy theories of international Jewish control, even citing such fabrications as the early 20th century Protocols of the Elders of Zion, writings that deny the Holocaust or defend Nazi pogroms can also be found. One internationally notorious incident occurred in 1995 with the publication of an article by then 38-year old physician Masanori Nishioka titled. "There Were No Nazi 'Gas Cambers'," in the February issue of Marco Polo, a slick, 250,000-circulation monthly aimed at a young audience, published by Bungei Shunju, one of Japan's most influential publishing house.

One of most infamous peddlers of Jewish conspiracy theories has been Masami Uno, who has written such books as "The Invisible Empire - Jewish Zionists Control the World." Uno needless to say denies the Holocaust and even claims that the diary of Anne Frank was a hoax. With conspiracy theorists like Uno, just about everything that goes wrong in the world, including the current financial crisis, can be blames on the Jews.

Although anti-Semitic propaganda seems found mainly among right-wing nationalists, the same conspiracy-minded prejudices can be found in leftist publications, as well. Shukan Kinyobi (Weekly Friday) had a special collection of articles in its January 16 issue on "The danger of Obama" that excoriated the President and his policies. One of the features was a two-page spread with photos, names, and comments of the "Jewish lobby" that allegedly controls the Obama administration. The magazine characterized out Jews who were appointed or slated for appointments in the Obama administration as a cabal that would now run the U.S. government. The collection subsequently came out as a book available from Amazon Japan.

Blatant anti-Semitism can be found in the works of the political cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi, an ultranationalist whose books of polemical cartoons sell well among young readers. He has long been a frequent guest on a TV-Asahi all-night debate show on television and other talk shows, where his outrageous political views no doubt are expected to raise the ratings of the programs. He is a regular contributor to Sapio, a nationalist biweekly magazine that targets young readers.

Kobayashi's book contains a strong passage that reveals his hatred of the Jews. Singling out Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who directed the Manhattan Project that led to the development of the first atomic bomb, Kobayashi used him as a scapegoat for all Jews, who he accused of masterminding the atomic bombing of Japan. The following chilling passage comes from the book: "The director of the Manhattan Project was Dr. Oppenheimer, a Jew. He did the Devil's work. Japan saved up to 20,000 Jews during the war, but Jews built the atom bomb and lent their hands to Japan's Holocaust."

There are no reports of violence or discrimination against Jews in Japan. According to Arie Grosman, Coordinator for the Jewish Community Center in Tokyo, although protests at the Israeli Embassy itself tend to peak around periods of Middle East disturbance, "at a personal level there are no acts of anti-Semitism toward individuals. We do of course from time to time get threatening letters and post cards, but this is mostly when fighting is going on back home."

Palestinian Authority lies to US diplomats about incitement (Wikileaks)

A new Wikileaks cable talks about how the PA was supposedly fighting incitement against Israel in its mosques in 2009:

On October 1, PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud al Habash outlined his ministry's efforts to eliminate incitement from 1,500 West Bank mosques, 80-90 percent of which are currently controlled by the PA. Al Habash told Post: "we monitor and control the Friday sermons with unified talking points of approved themes, and (imams) are not allowed to stray to other topics." If an imam deviates significantly from approved themes, he said, "we bring him in, counsel him and see if we can fix the problem. If we can't, he'll be relieved from his duties and given an administrative job -- or we may separate him from service altogether." Al Habash noted the PA has partial cooperation from, but no control over, Gaza mosques.

When asked to cite specific instances in which the PA had acted against incitement in mosques, al-Habash noted that an imam from the Tulkarm village of Qaffin was recently fired for inciting worshippers against the PA. Pressed on actions taken against imams inciting against Israel, al-Habash asserted that "There is no more incitement against Israel in (our) mosques, because compliance with our guidelines keeps such views out of the mosques (that the PA controls)." He admitted, however, that Area C mosques are a problem. "In Bethlehem's Husan (village) there are four mosques not under our control; we've been asking the IDF for two and a half months to let PASF enter Husan for this purpose and we've had no response." NOTE: Husan is an Area B/C "seam-zone" village west of the separation barrier, bordering on the Beitar Illit settlement. END NOTE.

Al Habash noted that his ministry is currently reviewing the curriculum of eight religious schools in the West Bank and Gaza. In addition, he said, "President Abbas has approved giving (our ministry) jurisdiction over the religious programming in the Palestinian Broadcasting Company's radio and TV programs; no publications by official Palestinian media violates the rules." Referring to recent incidents in Jerusalem (reftel), Al-Habash said, "there was no violent reaction in any Palestinian city or village; this is indicative of success in our efforts to reduce the culture of violence." NOTE: Al Habash was a member of Hamas until 1996; after that he worked with PA security services in Gaza against Hamas and joined Salam Fayyad's 2007 government as Minister of Social Affairs, changing to Religious Affairs last May. END NOTE.

The PA eliminated incitement from mosques by October 2009?

Then how could the following televised sermons have been possible?

Palestinian TV preaching genocide: Jews are enemies of humanity from Palestinian Media Watch on Vimeo.

"Oh Muslims! The Jews are the Jews. The Jews are the Jews. Even if donkeys would cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl and snakes to bite, the Jews would not cease to harbor hatred towards Muslims. The Prophet said that if two Jews would be alone with a Muslim, they would think only of killing him. Oh Muslims! This land will be liberated, these holy places and these mosques will be liberated, only by means of a return to the Quran and when all Muslims will be willing to be Jihad Fighters for the sake of Allah and for the sake of supporting Palestine, the Palestinian people, the Palestinian land, and the holy places in Palestine. The Prophet says: 'You shall fight the Jews and kill them, until the tree and the stone will speak and say: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah' - the tree and the stone will not say, 'Oh Arab,' they will say, 'Oh Muslim'. And they will not say, 'Where are the millions?' and will not say, 'Where is the Arab nation?' Rather, they will say, 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah - there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' Except for the Gharqad tree [tree mentioned in the Quran - Ed.], which is the tree of the Jews. Thus, this land will be liberated only by means of Jihad..."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 29, 2010]

Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine:

"The Al-Aqsa Mosque is threatened by the plans of the enemies of Allah [the Jews], who have violated all faith and religious laws, and even deviated from their humanity."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), June 26 2010 & al-msjd-alaqsa.com (Al-Aqsa Mosque Forum), June 25, 2010]

PA TV broadcasts Friday sermon with preacher Dr. Subhi Ubeid. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Secretary General of the Chairman’s Office, Al-Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim, are in the audience.
“Saladin [Muslim military leader who conquered Jerusalem] was embarrassed to smile while Jerusalem was occupied. And now Palestine is occupied by the colonialist invaders. Where is Saladin to restore to this nation its glory and its greatness?”

Habash himself directly incites against Israel!

Speaker: Mahmoud Al-Habbash, PA Minister of Religious Affairs
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is in the audience.
"Jerusalem is not just a city. Al-Aqsa is not just a mosque. Jerusalem is the key to peace, and Jerusalem can ignite a thousand and one wars. Unless the issue of Jerusalem is solved, so that it returns to its owners; unless Jerusalem will be Palestinian, as it was throughout history, the capital of the Palestinian state and the capital of the Palestinian people, the place which is the object of heartfelt longing and which all Muslims aspire to reach; unless Jerusalem is like that way, there is no peace. There is no peace without Jerusalem. There is no stability without Jerusalem. If Jerusalem is dishonored, if Jerusalem is disgraced, if [Jerusalem] is lost, it may leave the door open to all possibilities of struggle, all possibilities of war. The term 'war' cannot be erased from the lexicon of this region as long as Jerusalem is occupied, as long as Jerusalem is disgraced, as long as the residents of Jerusalem are being targeted. It's not possible; Jerusalem has to return to its owners. And we are its owners."
[PA TV (Fatah), Aug. 20, 2010]

Egyptian ambassador admits terrorists coming from Gaza to Sinai

Palestine Today reports on statements made by the Egyptian ambassador to the PA, Yasser Osman, in Ramallah.

Osman confirms that Egypt is closing tunnels in Rafah, but not any of the tunnels that are used to smuggle goods into Gaza; rather only the tunnels that "harm the national security of Egypt and the Palestinians."

He said that Egypt plans to increase the number of people travelling through the Rafah crossing, but it has to wait for "the return of calm to the Sinai."

Which means that Egypt is publicly admitting that Gaza terrorists are infiltrating the Sinai and causing problems for Egypt as well as Israel.

While he didn't explicitly say that there was coordination with Hamas on the closing of tunnels, he said that "there is an understanding with the Gaza Strip on the border control and that includes the issue of tunnels."

Arab cartoon threatens Israel

A video from Arabic online cartoon network Kharabeesh:

The warning in Hebrew at the end translates to "Egypt will be the grave of invaders."

The tune at the end is an Arabicized version of Israel's national anthem.

(h/t Yoel)

"Jewish extremist gangs stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque"

Palestine Today writes that "Jewish extremist gangs stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque" this morning.

And they provide a photo of those rampaging, storming Jews:

Shocking, I know. They didn't even have enough respect for the holy spot to play some soccer.

Palestine Times' photo shows haredi visitors to the site today, which is a relatively new and growing phenomenon:

I have no idea why they censored some of the faces.

Wikileaks: Anti-semitism in Tunisia is well hidden

From a newly released Wikileaks cable from January 2007:

In separate meetings on December 12 with the Minister of Religious Affairs, the MFA, and members of Parliament, including Jewish community leader Roger Bismuth, the GOT presented a united front on Tunisia's record of religious tolerance. All interlocutors described the Tunisian model as a shining example of how a minority religious community was supported and protected by government policies. The Minister of Religious Affairs, El Akhzouri, stating a talking point heard throughout the day, said "Tunisian Jews are Tunisians first, Jewish second." Another oft-repeated soundbite heard from GOT officials was: "We shouldn't speak of tolerance, we should speak of acceptance." While recognizing some isolated incidents (Ref B), Tunisian officials denied that anti-Semitism was a significant problem in Tunisia.

...In Djerba, members of the community, including the community president and the Grand Rabbi of Tunisia, picked up where the GOT interlocutors left off the previous day, extolling the virtuous religious policies of President Ben Ali, and repeating throughout the day that "there are no problems." The President of the Djerba Jewish community, Youssef Uzan, nervously intimated to PolFSN that things were not as perfect as everyone said, but would say nothing more. "You may come and go, but we have to stay here and deal with (the GOT) when you are gone," he said, explaining why he did not want to complain about community problems to a foreign visitor. Throughout the day, Uzan had to constantly report on the delegation's whereabouts to GOT authorities (who were tailing the group everywhere in any case), and had to set an extra place when a local GOT official entered uninvited to a lunch prepared by the Jewish community for the visiting delegation.

One community member, a jeweler named XXXXXX, however, quietly told poloff "of course we have problems." While emphasizing that the GOT should be commended for its protection of the community, he said it was "ridiculous to claim that everything was perfect." He spoke at length, and with as much caution as if he were disclosing a state secret, of a long-standing dispute, dating back ten years, with the former community president. The president had received, in the name of the community, a significant donation from the widow of a Tunisian Jew. This former president had misappropriated the funds, and when the community tried to install a new president, the matter went to court. According to the Haddad, the court only recognized the former president since only his name was listed on papers establishing the Jewish association. Haddad told poloff that to officially replace him and gain control of the widow's donation, the community would have to create a new association, but that Tunisia's restrictive law on associations prevented this. Haddad said the former president left Djerba, and was currently living in "a million-dollar" apartment in Tunis, where he enjoyed high-level connections in the GOT.

XXXX also mentioned several periods of tension between the Djerban Jews and their Muslim counterparts. He said that in the early eighties, during a time of increased tension in the Levant, members of the Jewish community were the targets of physical and verbal assault, causing many members of the community to emigrate. He said that this had stopped with Ben Ali's accession to power in 1987, and the protective policies the GOT employed towards the Jewish community. XXXXXX said that the Muslim community now knew that the GOT had made it clear that any assault on the Jewish community would meet severe retribution, as the GOT benefited greatly from "showing the world" Tunisia's Jewish community. XXXXXX quickly noted that, absent this tacit threat, as well as the tangible measures of protection, he feared he and his fellow Jews would "again be stoned in the street."

The former regime was clearly protecting the Jewish community for political purposes and used them as a showcase for their tolerance. The question is, in the new Tunisia, whether the Muslims continue to treat Jews with respect or if things will go downhill for Jews without government protection.

Amnesty seizes on Palmer's criticism of Israel, ignores rest of report

Amnesty International has come out with their comments on the Palmer Report. Curiously, they are only on video.

What is not surprising is:

They seize on the one relatively small part of the report critical of Israel and completely ignore the other parts of the report - including those critical of Turkey and the flotilla organizers.
They do not address, at all, the parts of the report that completely contradict Amnesty's own legal reasonings.
They continue to call the Turkel report a "whitewash" even though the Palmer report was much closer to the Turkel report in most important matters, and Turkel himself recommended that the testimony of soldiers be made public - the exact opposite of a "whitewash."
They never responded to Turkel's not Palmer's, extensive legal arguments.

Truth does not seem to be what Amnesty is interested in.

PA: Palmer report "violates international law" (updated)

From Ma'an:

The Palestinian Authority on Saturday condemned a UN report into a deadly Israeli raid on a Turkish-led aid flotilla as a political document not based on international law.

"This report is terrible and negative. It's a purely political report, it's not legal," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said of the report on the May 2010 raid which killed nine Turkish activists.

"It's a political report that is not based on international law, but on the contrary, it violates international law, because the Gaza Strip is still under Israeli occupation," he told AFP.

"Israel's actions against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip has reached the level of war crimes," he said.

I have a feeling we will not see a scholarly repudiation of the Palmer report by Erekat, and that his criticisms will remain on the level of the political equivalent of schoolyard insults.

UPDATE: Challah Hu Akbar notes that the PA criticized the report without even reading it!

Poster: How badly do PalArabs want a state?

IAEA concerned over evidence Iran is developing nuclear weapons

From the BBC:

The UN nuclear watchdog says it is "increasingly concerned" that Iran is secretly working on components for a nuclear weapons programme.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) describes its information as "extensive and comprehensive".

In a report seen by news agencies, it also says Tehran is preparing to enrich uranium at a new location - an underground bunker near Qom.

The IAEA says "many member states" had provided evidence for its latest assessment on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Extracts of the report, published by the AFP news agency, said the IAEA was "increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organisations".

These included "activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile".

Sleep tight.