Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Hamas really wants unity - with Islamic Jihad

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh today called for in-depth talks between Hamas and Islamic Jihad with an eye towards unifying the two terrorist movements.

Daoud Shihab, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, confirmed that Hamas and Islamic Jihad actually begun in-depth dialogue at home and abroad, in order to achieve unity.

He said, "The unity of our movement with Hamas will form the nucleus of the unity of the Islamic movement in the world", indicating that the meetings "are at home and abroad, in Israeli prisons and are also conducted at the highest levels of leadership" of the two groups.

No doubt this is more evidence of Hamas' peace-loving and pragmatic ways that so many Western experts believe in.

Fatah is moving towards the positions of Hamas, and Hamas is embracing Islamic Jihad. All this is being studiously ignored by the wishful thinkers of the mainstream media who love to hang onto their memes of a pragmatic, compromising Hamas and a moderate, peace loving Palestinian Authority.

Gaza human rights advocate stabbed after article critical of Hamas

A few weeks ago, a Gaza human rights advocate wrote an article where he said "It is safe to assume that neither the government nor the resistance is willing to step in to protect people who dare to criticize them."

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A human rights advocate was stabbed by unknown assailants in Gaza City after receiving threats over his authorship of an article critical of Palestinian resistance movements.

Mahmoud Abu Rahma, international relations director at Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, was attacked by masked men and stabbed multiple times while walking back from his brother's house on Friday night, he told Ma'an on Tuesday.

He received 12 stitches in a Gaza hospital and is recovering from his wounds.

Since publishing an article calling for greater accountability of resistance groups to Palestinian citizens on Dec. 31, Abu Rahma received texts and phone calls threatening him because of his views.

"They said I am a collaborator and I should wait for my punishment, saying I must revoke what I said or else," he told Ma'an.

Abu Rahma was also assaulted by masked men on Jan. 3 in the building where he lives, but he escaped without injuries.

The article, published on Ma'an and other outlets, called for legal redress for victims of misfiring and other operational mistakes by resistance groups and violations by Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Who will protect citizens from the mighty resistance and the powerful government when one, or both, of them harm them?," he wrote.

His article was critical of Fatah and the "resistance groups" as well, but clearly his focus in Gaza was on Hamas, even though he did not mention it by name once.

More Hamas/Fatah "unity" problems

Ma'an reports:

A senior Hamas official has told Ma'an that ongoing talks to implement the party's reconciliation agreement with Fatah are undermined by low confidence between the factions.

Both parties want to achieve national unity but the reconciliation deal, signed in Cairo last May, is plagued by a lack of trust, the Hamas official told Ma'an on Monday on condition of anonymity.

The deal aimed to end four years of divided government by forming a joint administration that would pave the way for elections. When the parties failed to agree on a candidate to lead the unity cabinet, they decided to proceed to elections without joining the governments.

The Hamas leader told Ma'an the failure to form a joint administration has made implementing terms of the agreement difficult.

A united government would have been a turning point in the division, the Hamas official said.

Talks between the parties and the work of the reconciliation committees are mismanaged and lack follow-up, the Hamas official told Ma'an.

The official said Hamas would not offer a candidate for the presidential elections because of the ongoing occupation, the situation in the West Bank and the party's tense relations with the international community.

Despite the recent success of Islamist parties in some Arab countries, the situation is different in Palestine and Hamas is not in a position to run in presidential elections, he said. He said Hamas and Fatah would agree on a candidate for the presidency.

Asked about upcoming internal elections in the Hamas movement, the official said politburo chief Khalid Mashaal would step down and probably be replaced by his deputy Mousa Abu Marzouq.

Mashaal cannot run again to head the politburo as he has served the party's limit of two terms in office.

In other news, the Palestinian Authority strongly criticized Ismail Haniyeh's statements yesterday that the Hamas security apparatus in Gaza would remain in place even after "unity" is achieved. The PA says that there are only three security organizations - National Security, Homeland Security and General Intelligence - and there would not be any more.

Also, Fatah accused Hamas of attempting to take over the entire territory not through elections but by bidding to control the PLO, which would make elections moot since the PA reports to the PLO.

Meanwhile, Hamas released a list of its members arrested in the West Bank by the PA, even after the "unity" discussions started. Political arrests was one of the major areas that were supposed to be solved between the two parties months ago.

Although I cannot find the link now, yesterday Hamas also denied that the PA had fixed the passport situation, one of the easiest problems to be solved over the past eight months of "unity."

The Western media is still clueless about all of these issues that I have been documenting daily.

The next milestone was supposed to be the announcement of a temporary unified government in the next two weeks; I have not read anything about that lately.

Turkey warming up to Israel again?

Al-Manar Jerusalem is reporting that Turkey and Israel recently formed a committee to help repair their relations and resolve outstanding problems, and to get back on the path of enhancing coordination and cooperation in various fields. Diplomatic sources told Al Manar that this committee would attempt to tackle all issues between Turkey and Israel, including Turkey waiving legal action against Israelis involved in the Mavi Marmara raid, and the resumption of military cooperation and the sale of Israeli arms shipments to Turkey, as well as to discuss other developments in the region.

The sources claimed that a high-level Israeli official will visit Turkey in the near future to help resolve differences between Ankara and Tel Aviv, and also claims that Turkey recently allowed Israeli security officials to visit a refugee camp in Turkey for Syrians fleeing their country.

I have no idea if Al Manar Jerusalem is a reliable paper, but certainly Turkey has become increasingly diplomatically and economically isolated in the past year - as illustrated in a biting article in Hurriyet Daily News today. A bold move for rapprochement with Israel would be a huge signal to Europe and the US that Turkey wants to change direction back towards the West.

(Last week, YNet reported that Turkey dropped all lawsuits against Israel regarding the Mavi Marmara, h/t Yoel.)

Hamas bans singing competition TV show

From Ma'an:

The Hamas government in Gaza has banned residents of the coastal enclave from participating in the national reality singing show "New Star."

The first episode of "New Star," which follows the same format as popular US shows "American Idol" and "The X-Factor," was recorded in Gaza City via video link in December, and around 120 people turned up to audition.

But the successful contestants will not be able to continue in the competition as the Gaza government media office has since banned the talent show, which is produced by Ma'an TV network and broadcast on Ma'an-Mix satellite channel.

Hasan Abu Hashish, who heads the media office in the Hamas-run government, told Ma'an's public relations director Ala al-Abed that the program was "indecent."

The singing contest contradicts the customs and traditions of the Gaza community, Abu Hashish said, adding that singing was the passion of a few and not in the interests of the majority of the community.

Hamas doesn't like singing? Come on...they love to sing some songs:

Hasbara - Egyptian style

From Al Masry Al Youm:

Egypt’s military leader Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi has ordered the formation of a committee of high-ranking army generals tasked with ensuring the Egyptian armed forces are given positive media coverage.

The new body — to be called “The National Military Media Committee" — will be comprised of 11 generals, and will be responsible for providing information about the military to journalists to counteract what the armed forces considers “biased coverage.”

Sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm that part of the role of the committee will be to give the military's account of any future events that take the media spotlight, particularly those that involve armed forces personnel.

Since anti-Zionists are so aghast at Israeli hasbara, I wonder what they think about Egyptian propaganda being pushed at the highest level of the military.

Or do they only object in one specific case?

(h/t Missing Peace)

An open letter to 17-year old Jesse Lieberfeld

Carnegie Mellon University held an essay contest for Martin Luther King day, and chose two "searingly honest essays" as winners.

One of them is by 17-year old Jesse Lieberfeld, a high-school junior, who wrote about his experience trying to understand Judaism and Zionism - and failing.

Excerpts:

I once belonged to a wonderful religion. I belonged to a religion that allows those of us who believe in it to feel that we are the greatest people in the world -- and feel sorry for ourselves at the same time. Once, I thought that I truly belonged in this world of security, self-pity, self-proclaimed intelligence and perfect moral aesthetic. I thought myself to be somewhat privileged early on. It was soon revealed to me, however, that my fellow believers and I were not part of anything so flattering.

Although I was fortunate enough to have parents who did not try to force me into any one set of beliefs, being Jewish was in no way possible to escape growing up. It was constantly reinforced at every holiday, every service and every encounter with the rest of my relatives. I was forever reminded how intelligent my family was, how important it was to remember where we had come from, and to be proud of all the suffering our people had overcome in order to finally achieve their dream in the perfect society of Israel.

This last mandatory belief was one which I never fully understood, but I always kept the doubts I had about Israel's spotless reputation to the back of my mind. "Our people" were fighting a war, one I did not fully comprehend, but I naturally assumed that it must be justified. We would never be so amoral as to fight an unjust war.

Yet as I came to learn more about our so-called "conflict" with the Palestinians, I grew more concerned. I routinely heard about unexplained mass killings, attacks on medical bases and other alarmingly violent actions for which I could see no possible reason. "Genocide" almost seemed the more appropriate term, yet no one I knew would have ever dreamed of portraying the war in that manner; they always described the situation in shockingly neutral terms. Whenever I brought up the subject, I was always given the answer that there were faults on both sides, that no one was really to blame, or simply that it was a "difficult situation."

It was not until eighth grade that I fully understood what I was on the side of. One afternoon, after a fresh round of killings was announced on our bus ride home, I asked two of my friends who actively supported Israel what they thought. "We need to defend our race," they told me. "It's our right."

"We need to defend our race."

Where had I heard that before? Wasn't it the same excuse our own country had used to justify its abuses of African-Americans 60 years ago?

...I decided to make one last appeal to my religion. If it could not answer my misgivings, no one could.

The next time I attended a service, there was an open question-and-answer session about any point of our religion. I wanted to place my dilemma in as clear and simple terms as I knew how. I thought out my exact question over the course of the 17-minute cello solo that was routinely played during service. Previously, I had always accepted this solo as just another part of the program, yet now it seemed to capture the whole essence of our religion: intelligent and well-crafted on paper, yet completely oblivious to the outside world (the soloist did not have the faintest idea of how masterfully he was putting us all to sleep).

When I was finally given the chance to ask a question, I asked: "I want to support Israel. But how can I when it lets its army commit so many killings?" I was met with a few angry glares from some of the older men, but the rabbi answered me.

"It is a terrible thing, isn't it?" he said. "But there's nothing we can do. It's just a fact of life."

I knew, of course, that the war was no simple matter and that we did not by any means commit murder for its own sake, but to portray our killings as a "fact of life" was simply too much for me to accept. I thanked him and walked out shortly afterward. I never went back.

I thought about what I could do. If nothing else, I could at least try to free myself from the burden of being saddled with a belief I could not hold with a clear conscience. I could not live the rest of my life as one of the pathetic moderates whom King had rightfully portrayed as the worst part of the problem. I did not intend to go on being one of the Self-Chosen People, identifying myself as part of a group to which I did not belong.

Dear Jesse:

I am a bit older than you, but I remember well what it was like being seventeen. I remember having questions that could not be answered by adults and people who I thought should know. I remember asking about things that seemed self-evident to everyone around me.

I don't blame you for being uncomfortable with what you were hearing and reading about Israel and Judaism. It shows intelligence and assertiveness. It shows that you are a moral person. You are absolutely right to bring up issues that disturb you.

And I can also empathize about how you think that your questions cannot be answered. You confided in your peers, you asked your parents, and you confronted your rabbi. You did everything that you should do.

There is only one problem.

Not to put a fine point on it, but your eighth grade peers were ignorant fools. (There is no Jewish race.) And your rabbi, the person you trusted to know the answers, the person who is is just as ignorant as your childhood friends were.

I am not going to spend my time here defending Israel. I cannot defend it adequately without knowing what you think you know. But I can say, without any doubt, that you did not ask the right people to get the answers to your very valid questions.

If all I knew about Israel is from what the newspapers say and the TV images I saw, I would be upset too. You are reacting to the reality you are subjected to. And, sorry to say, most Jews are not all that knowledgeable about the Jewish state, and are ill-equipped to answer any questions that go beyond the surface.

Their ignorance is not proof that Israel is in the wrong.

Jesse, you are now famous. Your essay is in the paper. Well known people are praising you. All because of your opinion and your bravery.

And you were indeed brave for what you did.

But I'm going to ask you to do something even harder and even braver.

You see, Jesse, once people become famous for their opinions, it is nearly impossible for them to keep an open mind. They get fans who praise them. They get lots of positive reinforcement for their words. They don't want to disappoint all their new, like-minded friends.

But based on your description of the idiots who support Israel that you know, I can say with certainty that you never heard the true Zionist side of the story. Not once.

The question you need to answer for yourself, honestly, is whether you want to even listen to pro-Israel people who aren't as thoroughly clueless as your family rabbi. Can you give the other side an honest hearing with an open mind?

Most people could not.

If you think you are one of the few who could - if you are interested in truly understanding both sides of the conflict - if you can actually see the possibility that Israel is not a one-dimensionally monstrous regime - I will be happy to answer any questions you have.

In public. On this blog.

If you are interested, just email me. At the very least I can guarantee that you will learn something.

Sincerely,

Elder

Pure anti-semitism in Iranian "news" sites

From the state-run Tehran Times, which Google indexes as a "news" site, as well as IRIB, the Iranian radio website:

Jonathan Azaziah is an Iraqi-U.S. Muslim poet, activist, analyst, writer and journalist from Brooklyn, New York. He is currently residing in Florida. His articles, poems and music deal with the subject of international Zionism. He is also a staff writer for Pakistan's premier alternative media outlet, Opinion Maker, a regular contributor to Veterans Today journal and a frequent guest and co-host of the Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement's Ugly Truth radio broadcast.

The nucleus of the Zionist mindset, the energy source that drives those who think in this manner to behave like the inhuman monsters that they are, is Jewish supremacism; the need to destroy all that it is not Jewish, the goyim, in order for “the Jewish people” to survive. The developer of the neutron bomb, Samuel T. Cohen, was a Zionist with a strong Talmudic-Jewish upbringing, as was Robert J. Oppenheimer, the creator of the atom bomb. The supremacist-need to destroy all non-Jewish peoples and cultures was close to the blackened hearts of the early leaders of the usurping Zionist entity, hence why Ben-Gurion, Dayan, Eshkol and Peres collectively came up with the “Samson Option,” the military plan to unleash ‘Israeli’ nukes upon the world if any nation or every nation attempted to confront Zionist power. The polar opposite of this thuggish outlook on existence, is the Islamic Revolutionary Republic of Iran, a nation whose Persian history is rooted in the very essence of creation. The finest poets, artists, mathematicians, scientists and theologians that the world has ever known originate from this great land.

The Zionist entity, in its twisted collective mind, must destroy Iran because the Islamic Republic represents everything that it is not: tolerant, beautiful, non-destructive, non-aggressive and most importantly, God wary. Iran does not bow down to the feet of the Zionists and their rabbinical overlords, it only bows before Almighty God and for this, it has drawn the ire of the Zionists and their imperial conduit puppets. From the geopolitical perspective, the Zionist entity must not allow any Islamic nation to acquire nuclear weapons because that would neutralize its domination of the region...

The true goal of Zionism is to wipe out all non-Jewish peoples in vast parts of Egypt, including most of its north, all of Sinai and Cairo, all of Jordan, all of Kuwait, a gargantuan portion of Saudi Arabia, all of Lebanon, all of Syria, all of Cyprus, an elephantine part of Turkey up to Lake Van and finally, part of Iraq south of the Euphrates River. The expulsion and/or mass murder of these peoples would lead to the creation of the Zionist dream known as Greater Israel. So branding this usurping dragon of an entity simply as an “apartheid state” is not only incomplete, it is deceptive. And this disingenuous injection of language into the vocabularies of Palestine’s supporters is also meant to deflect the attention from the root cause of this 63-year occupation: the age-old Talmudic ideology that gave birth to Zionism, which is an amalgamation of terrorism, racism, barbarism, supremacism, expansionism and imperialism.

All persons who represent this entity, all of its occupiers and squatters, must be thrown out immediately so the 8 million Palestinian refugees worldwide can finally return to their homes. Its sayanim across the Western world must be prosecuted for treason. We will not make peace with this usurping Jewish supremacist beast. We will never recognize this filthy entity. We will not share our lands with thieves and thugs, killers and degenerates. There will not be ‘equal rights’ for oppressed and oppressed.

It must also be noted that Apartheid South Africa did not own and control global mass media; Zionism does. Apartheid South Africa did not control global commerce; international Jewry does. Apartheid South Africa didn’t have a worldwide Afrikaner lobby network that dominated governments into submission; the Zionist entity does. And Apartheid South Africa didn’t have a foreign intelligence directorate committing false flag attacks all over the world in order to further its geopolitical objectives; ‘Israel’ does, with its Mossad. International Zionism is strangling the world because its agents think that their “chosen-ness” gives them a free pass to do so.

There is no doubt that the United States, the ‘golem’ of the international Zionist Power Configuration and Jewish banking interests, is the world leader in terrorism. The US is in no moral position to condemn any government or group in the world until it fesses up to its own blood-soaked history. 100 million Native Americans exterminated. 150 million Africans, many of them Muslims, murdered in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which was dominated by Spanish Jews like Aaron Lopez who had an entire fleet of slaveships and financing from the Rothschild family; these Jews, who were of the extremist and now dominant Talmudic-Kabbalistic school of thought, also introduced the Curse of Ham to their Gentile slave-trading brothers, a horrific, racist story concocted and developed by the rabbis in their Talmud which lowered the rank of our brothers and sisters of beautiful black skin to animals. This Talmudic drivel was used to justify the dehumanization of millions of others and in the greater geopolitical sense, it is now being exercised to justify more Zionist aggression on the African continent.

Guess who else picked up on this interview? Intifada-Palestine, also indexed as a "news" site by Google!

But they are of course not anti-semitic. Perish the thought. They are just uncomfortable with Zionism, nothing else. This can in no way be considered incitement to genocide against all Jews, no way.

"Moderate" Fatah: "Our war is against the descendants of apes and pigs"

From Palestinian Media Watch:

The following is an excerpt from the Fatah ceremony broadcast on PA TV:

Moderator at Fatah ceremony:

"Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews)
is a war of religion and faith.
Long Live Fatah! [I invite you,] our honorable Sheikh."
PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein comes to the podium and says:

"47 years ago the [Fatah] revolution started. Which revolution? The modern revolution of the Palestinian people's history. In fact, Palestine in its entirety is a revolution, since [Caliph] Umar came [to conquer Jerusalem, 637 CE], and continuing today, and until the End of Days. The reliable Hadith (tradition attributed to Muhammad), [found] in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says:
"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.
The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.
Then the stones or trees will call:
'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'
Except the Gharqad tree [which will keep silent]."
Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad [trees]
surrounding the [Israeli] settlements and colonies.."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 9, 2012]

Unfortunately, the video has been taken down from YouTube. I found one at MRCTV:

If there are any female singing trios out there, I'd love to write lyrics for "Don't Sit Under the Gharqad Tree"...

Arab "expert:" Abbas afraid of assassination

The Director of the Center of Palestine Studies in the UAE, Aldrawi Ibrahim Masri, has figured out the reason why Mahmoud Abbas agreed to participate in the sham Quartet negotiations in Amman.

He is afraid that if he doesn't, he will be assassinated - just like Arafat was.

How can you argue with logic like that?

I wonder if Abbas has been feeling the effects of those long-distance, high technology, poisoning Joo-Rays?

I'd love to be a Director of Palestine Studies in some Gulf state. Getting a salary for making stuff up is a pretty sweet gig. I hope they'd let me telecommute.

Lebanese terror suspect charged in Thailand; may have targeted synagogue

From The Local (Sweden):

A man carrying a Swedish passport who was arrested on terror suspicions in Thailand last week was indicted on Monday after leading police to a massive stash of bomb-making materials.

According to reports in the Swedish and international press, the man is 47-year-old Hussein Atris, a former Lebanese-born barber who lived for many years in western Sweden before moving back to Lebanon seven years ago.

Atris took Swedish citizenship after marrying a Swedish woman in 1996, Israeli news site Ynet reported.

Atris , who has alleged ties to Hezbollah, was arrested in Thailand last week following a warning from United States about a threat against tourists in the kingdom.

Following a tip from Atris, Thai police on Monday morning carried out a raid at a warehouse where they discovered more than 4,000 kilogrammes of fertilizer and several litres of liquid ammonium nitrate at a warehouse, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported, citing Thai media reports.

Citing anonymous sources, the AP reported that Atris told police he had rented the warehouse last year along with three other accomplices.

Later on Monday, Atris was charged with illegal possession of explosives material, the AP reported.

According to his wife, Atris was in Thailand on business at the time of his arrest.

A senior Thai intelligence officer who did not want to be named told AFP that the kingdom had been informed before the New Year by Israel of a possible threat.

The New York Times reported on Friday:

Amid public warnings from the United States and Israel of a possible terrorist attack, Thai officials said Friday that they had arrested a Lebanese man believed to be a member of Hezbollah in connection with a plot to strike tourists in Bangkok.

The country’s defense minister, Gen. Yuthasak Sasiprapha, said the plot may have involved using car bombs at tourist sites, synagogues and the Israeli Embassy. He said Israel intelligence agents first informed the authorities in Thailand on Dec. 22 that two or three men were suspected of plotting an attack in Bangkok, the Thai capital.

There is a Chabad House in Bangkok, making one wonder if this was meant to be a Mumbai-type attack (which is Debka's conjecture, h/t Yoel)

Unity! Haniyeh insists that Gaza security forces will remain

At a graduation ceremony of "police" in Gaza yesterday, Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh insisted that the security forces that the Hamas security forces in Gaza will remain in place no matter what. Which means that he is against any consolidation of security forces with the PA - the acid test for any real unity between Hamas and Fatah.

He also said that the "police" were "a fortress for the Palestinian people and resistance."

Here is a photo of these "police" carrying weapons and marching in ways that make them look a lot more like soldiers than policemen.

I don't know what he was supposed to have said here, but Google auto-translates part of his speech as saying

"What we have built we will not destroy, because the Palestinian people felt the fruit of construction, particularly by ending the security chaos, and the presence of police work for the home clean hands, tongue, vagina, grew up on the table the Koran."

That is some kinky stuff right there.

Abbas' alleged Israeli travel permit (photo)

AP reports:

Israel has stripped Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of VIP status and given him a watered-down travel permit that is valid for just two months, Palestinian officials charged Sunday.

The officials said that Abbas complained about the permit at an internal meeting of his Fatah Party last week.

In a speech, Abbas said the new permit, similar to those required for Palestinian laborers entering Israel, was a reflection of Israel's continued control over the Palestinians, and suggested that Israel was trying to punish him for applying for Palestinian membership in the United Nations.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because they were not allowed to brief reporters.

Maj. Guy Inbar, a spokesman for the Israeli agency that issues travel documents to Palestinians, said there has been no change in policy. He said the permit was the result of a technical glitch that should be resolved soon.

"Freedom of movement ... remains exactly the same as it was," Inbar said. "I deny all claims of changes in travel passes of Palestinian officials," he said. "There is no change in position or policy regarding the travel passes of Palestinian officials."

The VIP permit allowed Abbas to travel whenever and wherever he wanted. Palestinian officials acknowledged the new permit has not prevented Abbas, a frequent traveler to world capitals, from moving in and out of the West Bank. On Sunday, Abbas flew to London for talks with British leaders.

Dozens of local Facebook users spread what appeared to be a copy of Abbas' travel permit, in many cases with sarcastic comments about Abbas' weakness. "See you at the checkpoint," wrote one user, identified as Nidal Ahmed.

This photo is circulating on PalArab social media sites:

It supposedly shows Mahmoud Reda Abbas' temporary travel permit card. It says he can stay overnight in the West Bank and Gaza Strip only, and is allowed to enter Israel except for Eilat, and is not allowed to drive a car in Israel, and a handwritten note "valid despite security prevention."

It is valid for two months.

Palestinian Authority issues fake statistics, no one questions them

Ma'an reported in 2006:

The Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs has revealed that 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested and imprisoned in Israeli prisons since 1967. This means that 25% of the total population of the occupied Palestinian territory has been held in Israeli jails over the last 29 years.

In a report, the ministry pointed out that 50,000 of them were arrested during the current, Al Aqsa Intifada (which began in September 2000) and 10,300 of them are still in Israeli prisons.

Today, the Ministry has updated the figures, saying that about 800,000 Palestinian Arabs have been arrested since 1967.

We have already looked at how Addameer inflates their statistics on arrests, pulling their numbers out of thin air.

Now let's look at the Ministry's numbers.

Let's say that 50,000 were really arrested between September 2000 and September 2006, during the height of the intifada, as they claimed in 2006.

If that is true, is it remotely credible that more than double that amount has been arrested in the 5 years since then, when things have calmed down considerably?

If 100,000 were arrested in the past 5 years, that would be 20,000 a year or about 55 a day. Yet an already unreliable study published at the end of December claims only 3,300 were arrested last year, and the most arrests were in 2007 when some 7,000 were alleged.

Even those numbers seem grossly exaggerated, as the only group that seems to keep tracks of actual arrests is PCHR, and they only record about 1000-1500 arrests a year. Last week, for example, they recorded 31 arrests and 29 the week before.

Since 2006, the number of Arab prisoners in Israeli jails has decreased from about 10,000 to under 4,000.

While all available evidence shows that the number of arrests is far less than the Ministry of Prisoners Affairs is reporting, no one is questioning them (or Addameer) for their absurd inflation of these statistics.

These ridiculous numbers get accepted by the UN and by the mainstream media.

This is not some NGO without any oversight issuing these numbers. This is the Palestinian Authority, funded with billions of dollars from the West, and using that money to issue ridiculous lies back to those same Western countries.

Isn't it time that someone calls them on these fabrications?

"Israeli prisons worse than Nazis'"

Today's disgusting statement by a Hamas minister:

Palestinian Minister for Captives Affairs Ataollah Abu Sabah said Palestinian prisoners are suffering harsh and inhuman conditions in Israeli jails, and stressed that Israeli prisons are much more horrible than those of the Nazis'.

Speaking to FNA, Sabah said that almost 4,400 Palestinian prisoners are incarcerated in Israeli jails, and added that those prisoners who are sentenced to long terms of imprisonment are kept in central prisons whose conditions are gravely inhume and terrible.

"These prisons lack sanitation and are overcrowded," he said, and added that Israel is using the harshest methods of suppression against Palestinian prisoners in these jails.

He added that conditions in Ketziot Prison, where many Palestinian political prisoners are held, are even harsher than the conditions tolerated by prisoners in the Nazi Germany.

Sabah added that prisoners in Ketziot are not safe from night torture.

Palestinian prisoners have always voiced complaint about the torturing and mistreatment of prisoners by Israeli guards.

In July, more than 20 Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli Negev jail were poisoned after eating meals served in the prison's canteen, prisoners reported.

They explained that after eating burger sandwiches from the canteen the prisoners suffered from diarrhea and vomiting after which they were carried to the prison's clinic but the administration did not tell them about their condition.

They asked the Red Cross to intervene and demand their transfer to hospital for adequate checkup.

Canteens? Burgers? Red Cross? Treatment in a hospital?

Not to mention TV, free college education, smuggled cell phones, Halal meals...the list of evil Zionist torture devices goes on and on.

As far as overcrowding is concerned...when Dachau was liberated, the Americans found 32,000 people in 20 barracks - 1600 per barrack - each designed to hold 250 people.

I would not mind one bit if Abu Sabah finds out what real torture is, first hand.

By the way, if you want to do a social experiment, the PressTV version of the interview said that there were 44,000 prisoners, not 4,400. Do a search to see how many webpages reproduce that version without giving it the slightest bit of critical thinking.

(h/t CHA)

What does it mean for Jews to be pro-Israel today? (Expanded)

I gave a little more thought to the question asked in Moment magazine of "What does it mean to be pro-Israel today?" that I briefly answered on Friday.

I would like to expand the answer, and to narrow the question a little bit, to "What does it mean for Jews to be pro-Israel today?"

If you are Jewish, then you are more than just someone who shares a belief system with other Jews. You and the Jewish people also share nationality, culture, and a long-standing emotional ties to the Land of Israel with your fellow Jews. As Jews colloqually say, you are a "member of the Tribe."

You are, effectively, family. And family members, when they are not dysfunctional, are expected to love each other unconditionally.

Of course we fight. Of course we argue. Of course we get passionate, and angry, and emotional. But the undercurrent of all these actions is love. We want what is best for our family, for our people, for our nation, and we are willing to fight for what we believe is right, even when most others disagree.

Israel, both in its geographic and its political incarnation, is our home. We can disagree and argue over what is best for Israel, and in fact we do. And as long as the dominant emotion behind the disputes remains love, all is fair.

But there are two things that family members do not do to each other.

One is that they do not air their disagreements in public. They do not go to media outlets outside of their community to disparage their own. They especially do not tell their family's sworn enemies that they agree with them and disagree with their own people. When one does that, it indicates that he or she is more interested in their own selfish agenda than in bettering their people. It is effectively a declaration of independence from the family, a statement that one believes that the family's actions are so reprehensible that one does not want to be associated with them anymore.

Anyone is free to do this, of course. But their actions show that they are not behaving out of love, but rather out of spite. It shows that they are taking themselves out of the community and that they respect their own people so little that they cannot stomach trying to fit in anymore.

That is not how family members behave.

And the other thing that loving family members do not do to each other is to assume that when others within the community do anything seemingly disagreeable, that they are automatically guilty.

When anything happens in Israel that looks bad on the surface, the vast majority of the time it can be shown to have been misunderstood or even fabricated. The psyche of Israelis is one of morality; while there might be exceptions one cannot fairly say that Israel is an immoral country. There is always another side to the story, one that sadly does not get the publicity of the seemingly bad one.

To be pro-Israel is to start with the assumption that Israel is right, and to be skeptical when things look otherwise. In the end, perhaps the explanation will not be satisfactory, but one needs to make the effort to at least find out what it is. If you are truly pro-Israel you would first do everything possible to find out the truth. That is what support means. And that is what family members do for each other.

When you start assuming that your family's actions are abhorrent before you even investigate their side of the story, you are placing yourself outside the community.

These two metrics show who is pro-Israel and who is not. Criticizing Israel or Jews is not inherently anti-Israel or anti-semitic, but criticizing them in the pages of Al Akhbar or the Guardian is. Lobbying your own community institutions to change is admirable; lobbying outside parties to force your community to change is reprehensible. Doing that shows that you care more about pleasing the rest of the world than about your own people. It doesn't matter that Israel's enemies can read our criticisms of each other in Ha'aretz - what matters is that the intended audience is your own people. Nothing needs to be hidden, but publicly disparaging your own people in venues that are not friendly to them indicates that you do not believe you are a member of your people any longer.

Similarly, hearing a rumor or a report that makes it sound like your relatives did something bad and jumping to the conclusion that it is symbolic of an inherent evil that pervades your own people is not what a loving family member does. They would find out the truth, and trust what their own relatives say above what a newspaper says, all else being equal.

In short, being pro-Israel means treating it the way you would treat your own loving family.

Any member of the Jewish community is free to leave. They are free to cut all ties with their family. But they are not free to claim that they are criticizing out of love when their actions show that they have no love for Jews or Israel. When they act against the family as a whole, they should not be surprised to no longer be treated like a family member.

Israel building more "Talmudic Gardens", says PA

The official PA Wafa news agency reports that Israel is building new "Talmudic gardens" all around Jerusalem:

Israeli bulldozers Sunday increased its work speed to establish Talmudic gardens between Damascus Gate and Herod’s Gate (Bab el-Amoud and Bab al-Sahira in Arabic, respectively), two of the most famous gates of the Old City of Jerusalem, aiming to judaize the city and change its historical and cultural character, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that several Israeli bulldozers increased their work pace more than usual, after finishing the first part of work in the area near the Damascus Gate and in Sultan Suleiman street, adjacent to the Old City's walls, which character was completely changed through the establishment of car parking lots, a Talmudic garden near Sulaiman cave (Mgharet Sulaiman) in Sultan Sulaiman Street.

Similar works are under way in Tantur Faron, an area south of Al-Aqsa mosque, which is considered an archaeological area that extends back thousands of years.

The committee for the defense of Silwan uncovered the building of fake Jewish graves in Tantur Faron area in an attempt to seize the land permanently to connect it to nearby settlement outposts.

In addition, similar works are also under way in Wadi al-Rababa, an area in Silwan south of Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to establish Talmudic gardens, near al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan.

What exactly is a "Talmudic garden?"

Are they growing Mishnah flowers, Baraita bushes and Tosefta trees?

As we mentioned the last time we came across this term, it seems that the Arabs use the word "Talmudic" as an epithet when they really, really hate something. So we hear about, for example, "Talmudic rituals" being practiced by Jews who visit the Temple Mount.

Most archaeological tourist sites in Jerusalem show a Jewish presence in Israel that far pre-dates the Talmud (which itself pre-dates Islam.) The mention of the "Talmud" in relation with these shows that what the PA hates and fears more than anything is Judaism - not Zionism, not Jews, but actual living Judaism that shows an unbroken connection to the Land for thousands of years.

After all, the Mishna and Talmud Yerushalmi were all written in Israel - well after the destruction of the Second Temple. They show that there was a vibrant Jewish community in Israel up until the Muslim invasion. The recent discovery of a Menorah stamp in Acre, apparently to tag bread as kosher, was created in the 6th century.

When you include Talmudic times in the Jewish history of Israel, it is the Muslim presence that appears to be anomalous and temporary - not the modern manifestation of Jewish statehood.

This might be why the word "Talmud" gets the Arabs so riled up. It reminds them that they are the interlopers, invaders and colonialists - not the Jews.

(h/t CHA)

Let's reframe the Israel debate (Point of No Return)

From the Point of No Return blog, currently behind a paywall at JPost:

We need to explode the misconception, commonly held on the Left, that Israel is an outpost of western colonialism and imperialism. Jews were indigenous to the region 1,000 years before the Islamic conquest, with an uninterrupted presence not just in Palestine, but all over the ‘Arab’ world. The Arab invasion turned native Jews and Christians into minorities in their own lands, converting them to Islam, appropriating their shrines and erasing their history. Jews ‘stealing Arab land’ is an offensive inversion of reality. Jews in 10 Arab countries were stripped of their rights and in most cases dispossessed of their property.

The terms we use undermine Jewish rights to our ancestral homeland. ‘Settlements’ and ‘West Bank’ reinforce a sense that the land has always been Arab, and paint Israelis as colonialist imposters. Yet, until their ethnic cleansing in 1948, Jews had always lived beyond the Green line. Yet it must be said that to talk of Judea and Samaria, and Israeli ‘communities’, not settlements, in no way precludes an Israeli withdrawal as part of a peace deal.

We need to restore a vital context to the discussion: the conflict is not between the Israeli Goliath and the Palestinian David. It pits six million Israelis against 300 million Arabs. In terms of values, the battle is between pluralistic, democratic Israel and the jihadists of Islam. The Palestinians are not independent agents. Economically they are propped up by international aid; strategically, they represent a pan-Arab, and increasingly pan-Islamic cause; politically, they are controlled by external regional forces.

We need to emphasize that half the Jews of Israel never left the region - they were uprooted from the Arab and Muslim world to a tiny sliver of land on the Mediterranean. If these Jews are now full and free Israeli citizens, it is largely because Israel offered them unconditional refuge from pre-existing Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism.

...We must convince western libertarians to see the self-determination of a small, indigenous Middle Eastern people – the Jews – as a progressive cause. Rejectionism of Israel is rooted in a religious and cultural view of ‘dhimmi’ Jews and Christians as inferior, forced to surrender their rights to the Muslim overlord. For a non-Muslim people to rule itself, still less Arab Muslims, is anathema. By supporting the Palestinian campaign against Israel – deceptively cloaked in the language of human rights - western liberals have become unwitting agents for the re-establishment of Arab and Muslim supremacy over a ‘dhimmi’ people.

Israel represents the national liberation of the Jews, one of the most ancient of native Middle Eastern peoples. If we are to win hearts and minds, we must reframe the debate.

Read the whole thing.

IDF Bedouin family proud to serve their country

From The Jewish Press:

(h/t Yerushalimey)

PLO admits it is not taking talks with Israel in Amman seriously

Pan-Arab Al Hayat reports (via PalPress) that even while the PLO is going through the motions in attending Quartet-sponsored meetings in Jordan with Israel, it has no real interest in reaching any agreement and is planning its next stage of de-legitimizing Israel.

The PLO is expecting to hold these cosmetic talks until January 26, after which it is planning a diplomatic offensive to get UN Security Council members to vote to call for a halt in Israeli building across the Green Line.

Abbas is already meeting European leaders to urge them to pressure Israel to stop the settlements and to agree to the "1967 borders" as the basis for negotiations. He is also planning a meeting with Arab leaders next month in light of the "failure" of the current negotiations that he has not yet even begun.

As usual for Arab leaders, when he talks to the West he is blaming his people for his intransigence, saying that the Arab citizens of the territories would never accept any negotiations while Israel continues to build in the settlements. Of course, his people never said a word about it when Abbas himself was negotiating with Israel without any building freeze - it is a pre-condition he created himself around 2008.

It needs to be repeated that Israel only allows building within existing settlement lines, and there is no official support for building in new areas. In fact, just last week the IDF demolished three outposts considered illegal - including one raid at 3 AM - not that this was covered by the mainstream media.

Tuba-Zangaria resident: "No way a Jew torched this mosque" (updated)

Three months ago, a mosque was burned in the Israeli Arab village of Tuba Zangaria.

Graffiti scrawled on the mosque seemed to indicate that it was done by Jewish settlers in a "price tag" revenge attack against Arabs. Israel's leaders condemned the attack and many came to the village to show solidarity in the face of the Jewish terrorists.

I noted last month that an Israeli blogger, Gal Chen, went to see the situation for herself and unearthed some serious inconsistencies between the official story.

Now, Israel's Channel 2 went back to Tuba Zangaria three months after the supposed "price tag" attack and asks some of the same questions Chen did.

And at least one Tuba Zangaria resident says he is certain that the arsonists came from the village itself:

"No Jew came to burn this mosque"

"The one who burned this mosque is one of us - I am not afraid to say so."

The report goes on to mention what Chen said: that no Jew knows where that mosque even is, that there are three mosques on the way, and that the way that "price tag" was written indicates it was done well after the arson.

UPDATE: A few hours after this report was aired, the house of the resident shown here, Bassan Saweid, was sprayed with automatic gunfire.

(h/t Yoel)

Hezbollah's leader mocks UN. No one is bothered.

Intransigence without penalty:

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah dismissed on Saturday a United Nations call for his movement to disarm, saying it was determined to maintain a military capacity to defend Lebanon.

"I affirm today, firmly, decisively and with the greatest conviction ... the choice of armed resistance," Nasrallah said. "These weapons, along with the Lebanese people and army, are the only guarantee of Lebanon's protection."

Mocking a demand by visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Hezbollah lay down its weapons, Nasrallah said he was happy that Hezbollah's military prowess was a cause for concern.

"Your concern, Secretary-General, reassures us and pleases us. What matters to us is that you are worried, and that America ... and Israel are worried with you," he said in a televised speech marking a Shiite holy day.

Ban, speaking in Beirut on Friday, said he was "deeply concerned about the military capacity of Hezbollah" and the lack of progress in disarmament. "All these arms outside of the authorized state authority, it's not acceptable," he declared.

There are a lot of people out there who defend the UN and express righteous indignation when it is perceived to be disrespected.

I haven't heard anything from them about this.

Hamas building tourist hub on beach, displacing residents

From The Media Line via JPost:

If the plans proceed on schedule, [Gaza's] Al-Rashid Road, popularly known as the Beach Road, will be transformed into a scenic seaside promenade, or corniche, in the style that has made the meeting between land and sea in places like Beirut, Alexandria and Nice tourist attractions and a gathering place for their residents.

Sami Abu Hamdah, one of the project supervisors, talks enthusiastically about the corniche and its surrounding infrastructure, which will cut a swathe of 40 meters (130 feet) over two kilometers (1.2 miles), as well as plans to extend it deeper into the city in the next phase.

The narrow asphalt strip will be widened to a grand boulevard helping to ease the traffic congestion. Sidewalks along both sides of the street will be widened and a seafront promenade 11 meters across will run along the length of the beach. Parking areas are being built for visitors as well as a series of tunnels that will deliver beachgoers to the seashore away from the noise and cars of the street.

Once this phase is done, says Mugani, officials have ambitious plans to turn large parts of the city side of Beach Road into parks and gardens that will encourage tourism projects in Gaza.

But widening the road and adding new attractions has to come at a cost, and Abu Mahmoud Al-Ara’ir is one of the people paying it.

More than a decade ago he squatted on a piece of shorefront property, building a small house out of simple materials and fencing off the area around it with pieces of plastic and wood. The fence has come down as Abu Mahmoud is undertaking a strategic retreat in the face of warnings from the city to surrender all his property.

“After all, I don’t own this land and the municipality isn’t even obliged to compensate me according to the law,” he told The Media Line. “But the fact that I have been living here for the past 11 years makes me the owner, I think, even if I don’t have ownership papers or actually paid for it.”

Not all of the area’s residents are taking their loss with such equanimity. While the beachfront would normally be desirable real estate, many of those living in the area are poor.

Interviewed by The Media Line, many expressed the view that they should be entitled to squatters’ rights and that even if the authorities compensate them with other land, they don’t have the money to build themselves new homes on it. “Don’t we have the right to accept or refuse or even choose the location or compensation? Why can’t they just leave us alone and do this project somewhere else?” asks one.

Gaza’s municipal government is not sympathetic. In a statement issued in response to the complaints of angry beachfront residents, it said: “Ninety percent of these ‘owners’ don’t actually own their land. They took it and built simple houses on it over the last 10 years. The governments left them there because they had no place to live and the lands weren’t needed. So we aren’t obliged to offer compensation.”

I have a feeling that the people who are up in arms about Israel evicting Bedouin squatters who build illegal housing will not say a word about Gaza's government doing the same.

At least future anti-Israel activists will have a nice promenade and park benches from which to write their eyewitness accounts of the horrors in Gaza.

Work accident!

From Ma'an:

An explosion in the southern Gaza Strip killed a member of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, the group said late Saturday.

Khalid al-Qaisi, 38, died and five others were injured in the blast at the al-Qaisi home in Rafah, the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades said in a statement. The injured were not named.

The statement said al-Qaisi was killed in action while performing a "jihad mission" in Rafah, but no other details were disclosed.

A medical official, Adham Abu Salmiya, said the charred corpse of an al-Qaisi family member was transferred to Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital after the explosion in Rafah, which borders Egypt.

A Ma'an correspondent said parts of the city "literally shook" during the explosion, the cause of which was not immediately clear. An Israeli military spokeswoman denied army involvement.

The PRC said secretary-general Zuhair al-Qaisi, a relative of Khalid, was unharmed.

This is of course Israel's fault.

If Gaza wasn't so crowded, PRC members wouldn't have to build their bombs in their own houses. They would have modern, gleaming bomb/suicide belt/rocket factories, with the latest quality control procedures to minimize these "work accidents."

Perhaps even the UN and Jimmy Carter's "Elders" could send inspectors to issue certifications and vouch for the safety of these factories, all to ensure the health and security of Gaza's terrorists.

Latest Latma

Many of the jokes this week would only be understood by Israelis.

38 of worst 50 countries persecuting Christians are Muslim

Here are the countries ranked as the 50 worst in persecuting Christians during 2011:

North Korea

Afghanistan

Saudi Arabia

Somalia

Iran

Maldives

Uzbekistan

Yemen

Iraq

Pakistan

Eritrea

Laos

Northern Nigeria

Mauritania

Egypt

Sudan

Bhutan

Turkmenistan

Vietnam

Chechnya

China

Qatar

Algeria

Comoros

Azerbaijan

Libya

Oman

Brunei

Morocco

Kuwait

Turkey

India

Burma (Myanmar)

Tajikistan

Tunisia

Syria

United Arab Emirates

Ethiopia

Djibouti

Jordan

Cuba

Belarus

Indonesia

Palestinian Territories

Kazakhstan

Bahrain

Colombia

Kyrgyzstan

Bangladesh

Malaysia

Nine of the top ten, and 38 of all 50, are Muslim countries.

Given this list, UN Watch points out the irony that the Organization of the Islamic Conference sponsored a UN resolution entitled "Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping, stigmatization, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons, based on religion or belief."

Netanyahu: "For the first time I see Iran wobble."

From The Australian (registration required):

Benjamin Netanyahu is cast as the ultimate "heavy" of the Middle East. But after a long discussion in this small office, a discussion sandwiched between meeting the Indian foreign minister in the morning and a delegation of powerful US congressmen in the afternoon, Netanyahu extends our time together for a few minutes because there's one thing he likes to show visitors.

He leads me over to his window.

"You see this," he points to a small collection of stones taken from an archeological dig. The stones are dated from nearly 3000 years ago. This is the signet ring of a Jewish official of that time. And the official's name was Netanyahu." The Israeli leader never misses an opportunity to emphasise the long, deep connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

He is, I suspect, all the things he is said to be: tough, ruthless, determined, qualities it is hardly surprising that an Israeli Prime Minister will possess. But he is also intensely self-aware, full of irony and humour, constantly making jokes he then rules off the record.

He is, in his own words, committed to peace and a fair settlement with the Palestinian people. But, for the moment, he is most of all concerned with the threat from Iran. At last, he believes, international pressure is starting to bite.

"For the first time I see Iran wobble," he declares, in words that will surely shake the Middle East.

Tehran is wobbling, in Netanyahu's view, "under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank".

Netanyahu believes they just might work: "If these sanctions are coupled with a clear statement from the international community led by the US to act militarily to stop Iran if the sanctions fail, Iran may consider not going through the pain. There's no point in gritting your teeth if you're going to be stopped anyway. In any case, the Iranian economy is showing signs of strain."

A few days before we meet, Iran announces it is moving a big nuclear facility underground. This would make it harder to hit. Netanyahu is trenchant, but measured, in response: "Iran is brazenly violating international law and its own commitments. It's trying to sneak underground its nuclear weapons program.

"It's enriching uranium now in two facilities. I believe this is a great danger to the peace of the Middle East and the world as a whole."

Netanyahu wants to stress that it is not only Israel that would be endangered by an Iran with nuclear weapons: "The greatest threat facing humanity is that nuclear weapons will meet up with a radical Islamic regime, or that a radical Islamic regime may meet up with nuclear weapons. The first will happen if the Taliban takes over Pakistan. The second will happen if the ayatollah regime were to acquire nuclear weapons. Either one would be a catastrophic development for peace, for the supply of oil to the world, for the peace and safety of many countries, first of all my own, but also many others."

If Iran is the most acute issue Israel faces, the agonising effort to find a modus vivendi with the Palestinian populations in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem is the most chronic and pathological. Shortly after he became Prime Minister for the second time three years ago, Netanyahu surprised many by declaring his commitment to a Palestinian state.

"My vision of peace is a demilitarised Palestinian state that recognises the Jewish state of Israel," he said.

For much of the past three years the Palestinians have demanded that Israel stop all construction beyond the 1967 borders, that is, in the West Bank, and in the Jewish suburbs of East Jerusalem, and said it would not enter peace negotiations without that pre-condition being met. Israel responded that East Jerusalem occupied a different status from the West Bank and that within the West Bank it would not occupy any more land for Jewish settlements, but would not stop construction within existing settlements. This week, for the first time in a very long time, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Jordan to talk directly. What does Netanyahu hope these talks can achieve?

"The most important thing to come out of them is a commitment to have continuing negotiations in order to achieve an agreement. We're prepared to do that, the Palestinians aren't. They keep piling on pre-conditions for the beginning of such negotiations. I think this is a mistake.

"Israel is prepared to sit down without pre-conditions, the Palestinians are not. There's a simple way to prove it. I'm willing to get in a car and travel the eight minutes, 10 minutes, from here to Ramallah and sit down to negotiations immediately with (Palestinian) President (Mahmoud) Abbas. He is not prepared to do the same thing with me. This may not be the fashionable international perception, but sometimes it's important to cut through the accepted perception and get to the truth."

But could a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians really be practical in today's environment?

"We can't know until we do it. Obviously much has changed in the last year with the convulsions that have rocked the Arab world. This increases our concerns for our security because we are concerned that any territory we vacate will be taken over by radical Islamic forces. That has happened already twice - Lebanon taken over by Iran's proxy, Hezbollah. And when we left Gaza and it was taken over by Iran's proxy, Hamas. We cannot let this happen a third time, to have the Judean and Samarian (West Bank) mountains taken over by Iran.

"Israel would be left in a tiny corridor - 10 miles wide by the sea, and have over 100,000 rockets targeting our cities, our air fields, our vital installations. So, naturally, we are concerned about having security safeguards."

When a nation is absorbed with as many immediate threats and issues as Israel is, it can be easy to lose sight of the longer term, the more fundamental questions. But Netanyahu is deeply absorbed in both Jewish tradition and the wider world of ideas. He recently read Gertrude Himelfarb's study, The People of the Book, which recounts the tale of pro-Jewish sentiment within British history, what Netanyahu calls "philo-Semitism". It is perhaps typical of Netanyahu's robust outlook that he likes to take consolation from the existence of philo-Semitism as much as he is sobered by the evidence and legacy of anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, I ask him why there is so much hostility to Israel in the world. "First of all, it's not so uniform as one might think. I just had breakfast with the Indian foreign minister. We talked about great projects of co-operation. It was a very positive conversation. We have similar experiences with China, which we feel has a desire for greater co-operation with Israel. Both countries express a real appreciation for Israeli technology. Israel has become a world power in technology: in agriculture, in medicine, in irrigation, in telecommunications, in IT, in cyber and in many other areas.

"Our president just went to Vietnam. Israel, I would say, is quite popular in Asia. People judge that it makes sense to have a close collaboration with Israel in the 21st century, the century of knowledge. I said in jest to the Indian foreign minister that together our two countries comprise about one sixth of humanity. We're small, but we punch above our weight."

Netanyahu is actually making a profound point here. Israel is making very big gains in Asia, which an Atlantic-centric Western media and the Arab world both tend to miss. Israel is making significant progress in Asia diplomatically, economically, in all measures of trade and in military-to-military exchanges. And it's not just in Asia that Netanyahu has something positive to talk about: "The same thing is happening in Africa. I'm going there soon, but I just had visits from the leaders of Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan. They're concerned with the Islamist tide above them.

"We have excellent relations with many countries of central Europe. They're concerned with the Islamist tide to the south. Canada is like the other Australia, or Australia is like the other Canada, an extraordinary country.

"I would also mention that small, little-known country called the United States of America. The support for Israel in the US has skyrocketed. It has always been high, but it has gone up year by year."

Netanyahu cites a plethora of polls to bolster this claim, and continues: "An overwhelming swath of the American public identifies with Israel because they view it as sharing the same values and ideals as the US.

"So the description of Israel as isolated in the world is not correct.

"I didn't even talk about certain connections we have in the Arab world where there is concern with the directions things might go."

Nonetheless, Netanyahu certainly acknowledges a deep hostility to Israel in parts of the Western press and in parts of the Arab world: "Where you have this antagonism to Israel, it is intensified in certain segments of Western European opinion, not necessarily European opinion as a whole, but Western European opinion.

"Obviously you have bastions of friendship there for Israel, but you also have an amalgam, a strange union between radical Islamists and radical people on the fringe of European politics.

"It's almost as if the Anarchists join the Islamists. These radicals speak often of being progressive, of being for gay rights, women's rights and so on. The only point of common cause they make with radical Islamists is animosity to Israel and to the US. Israel is seen as representing the US. It's the most anti-Western forces in the West that cause the problem. They can sometimes even shape the positions of some governments."

Is traditional anti-Semitism a part of this?

"There is traditional anti-Jewish feeling in the Islamist movements. That is different from traditional European anti-Semitism. There are two forces in the West - traditional anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism. In the 19th century philo-Semitism won. There was a shift in the inter-war years. The pendulum has swung from very strong support for Zionism in British intellectual circles to opposition.

"In general the European vision of Israel is different from the American. The formative European experience in foreign affairs was colonialism. The formative American experience was nation-building. Some Europeans wrongly conceive of Israel as a foreign implantation in someone else's land. We don't view ourselves as foreign interlopers in our own land."

The wearer of the signet ring, that earlier Netanyahu officiating in Jerusalem those millennia ago, no doubt felt the same.

(h/t P)

What does it mean to be pro-Israel today?

Moment magazine has a very interesting (and somewhat puzzling) list of people answering the question "What does it mean to be pro-Israel today?"

I would answer it a bit differently than the esteemed contributors.

An important Jewish concept is to be "dan l'chaf zechut," to give the benefit of the doubt. And if there is a distinction to be made between the pro-Israel and the anti-Israel crowd, it is that the former practices this dictum with respect to Israel and the latter tramples upon it.

When anything happens in Israel that looks bad on the surface, the vast majority of the time it can be shown to have been misunderstood or even fabricated. The psyche of Israelis is one of morality; while there might be exceptions one cannot fairly say that Israel is an immoral country. There is always another side to the story, one that sadly does not get the publicity of the seemingly bad one.

To be pro-Israel is to start with the assumption that Israel is right, and to be skeptical when things look otherwise. In the end, perhaps the explanation will not be satisfactory, but one needs to make the effort to at least find out what it is. If you are truly pro-Israel you would first do everything possible to find out the truth. That is what support means.

In short, being pro-Israel means treating it the way you would treat your own loving family.

It is a shame that some people who call themselves "pro-Israel" do the exact opposite - they take every sensationalist story out of the region as a priori proof that Israel is in the wrong. That is not "pro-Israel" by any definition. The excuse that they are doing it "for Israel's good" rings hollow when their antipathy is so consistent.

Being pro-Israel means that you are willing to be dan l'chaf zechut towards the Jewish nation.

"Freedom Convoys" to Syria blocked in Turkey and Jordan

From Gulf Daily News:

Authorities prevented a convoy of 200 opposition activists yesterday from entering Syria via Turkey with medical aid for victims of the ongoing uprising.

Some of the activists said they had travelled from as far afield as the US and western Europe in order to join the so-called 'Freedom Convoy' which included five buses and several cars.

Brandishing Syrian flags, the convoy was initially stopped by Turkish police at a lay-by, 15km from Oncupinar customs gate in the southeastern Turkish town of Kilis.

And a delegation from the convoy which approached the border was later turned back by Syrian officials and returned empty-handed.

"Our delegation was denied entry and so we have decided to stay here until we reach a decision all together," said Dalati Bilal, a 42-year-old Syrian-American businessman who had travelled to Turkey from California.

"If the Syrians refuse (to let us in) then we will just camp here until they allow us to.

"The whole idea of the convoy is to support the Syrian people inside, to show that we are with them even if it's so little what we are doing. They are dying for freedom."

Zeyna Adi, one of the organisers, said a second "Freedom Convoy" which had been hoping to enter Syria via Jordan was cancelled at "the last minute" after being blocked by the authorities there.

Curiously, no one seems to be blaming Turkey and Jordan for stopping them.

Islamists tell us their plans, Westerners hope for the best

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon delivered by Egyptian cleric Ali Abu Al-Hasan, which aired on Al-Hekma TV on January 6, 2012:

Ali Abu Al-Hasan: With the [Muslim] emigration [to Europe], and the unwillingness to get married and have children [among the Europeans]… A hundred of people there are succeeded by eighty, and ten years later, those eighty will be succeeded by sixty, and those sixty will later be succeeded by forty, and those forty will become ten a decade later, and twenty years later, not a single one of them will be left!

Europe has realized this. After a while, Europe will become a single Islamic state, which will know nothing but "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger." This will happen whether they like it or not. This is the decree of Allah. Islam is coming!

But if this message gets you upset, please latch onto what British Foreign Secretary William Hague has to say about the Arab Spring:

Electoral success by parties rooted in Islam has led some to fear that change may be for the worse. But to say that Arab Spring has turned into cold winter is wrong. Such pessimism misses the extraordinary opportunities that popular demand for freedom and dignity bring...[G]reater freedom and democracy in the Middle East is an idea whose time has come. It holds the greatest prospect for the enlargement of human freedom and dignity since the end of the Cold War.

It is true that parties drawing their inspiration from Islam have done better at the polls than secular parties and there are legitimate concerns about what this will mean. ...But these parties will be under pressure to stick by their pledges to share power and chart a moderate course.

Now is not the time to lose faith in the Arab awakening — but to show the same boldness in our thinking as the people of the region have shown in their actions.

See? Now you can breathe easier again. Things will all work out great.

As long as you have faith.

(h/t Israelinurse)

Salafi leader in Egypt: Forbidden to greet Christians on their holidays

From Al Masry al Youm:

Abdel Moneim al-Shahat, a senior figure in the Salafi-oriented Nour Party and the official spokesperson for the Salafi movement in Alexandria, said in a television interview on Wednesday that giving festive greetings to Copts on their occasions is forbidden under Islam.

Shahat is known for making controversial statements based on his extreme Salafi views, and some blame him for causing his party to lose seats during the recent parliamentary elections.

His comments on Wednesday came during an interview with Moataz al-Demerdash, the presenter of the “Masr el-Gededa” talk show on the privately owned on Al-Hayat satellite channel.

In the same interview, Shahat said: “The maximum tolerance for this belief [Christianity] is that I tell them: "You have your own religion, and I have my own religion.”

He continued: "The Christian is a partner in my homeland, but this has nothing to do with greetings."

His stance contrasts with official views on the matter of greeting Copts during Christian holidays, with many Muslim establishment figures attending public occasions related to Christmas and Easter, and publicly greeting figures from Christian denominations.

The Salafist Nour party has received roughly 25% of the vote in the parliamentary elections.

You can read Shahat's opinion on Christmas in this article.

Unity! Haniyeh says Abbas tried to stop leaders from meeting him

Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh is accusing Mahmoud Abbas of attempting to prevent the leaders of Arab countries from meeting him on his recent mini-tour.

Haniyeh said in a speech in Gaza City on Thursday, "I told by the brothers in Tunis, that Abbas sent a message to prevent the President of Tunisia from receiving me.

"Tunisia is a country of law and it received Haniyeh as the legitimate Prime Minister according to the law."

It appears that Haniyeh's charges are correct. There have been other reports of the PA being upset at his trip, acting like the Prime Minister of Palestine. Moreover, Fatah apparently planted a false story in the Palestinian Arab media about Meshal telling Arab leaders not to meet with Haniyeh.

Another manifestation of Hamas/Fatah "unity" - scheming behind the scenes to take the other side down.

(h/t CHA)

What is the Muslim Brotherhood's goal? Oh, just world domination.

Mohammed el-Badi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, spoke at the end of December in a speech that was reported on in Al Masry al Youm. Here is a translation of part of that speech:

The Brotherhood is getting closer to achieving its greatest goal as envisioned by its founder, Imam Hassan al-Banna. This will be accomplished by establishing a righteous and fair ruling system, with all its institutions and associations, including a government evolving into a rightly guided caliphate and mastership of the world....When the Brotherhood started its advocacy [da’wa], it tried to awaken the nation from its slumber and stagnation, to guide it back to its position and vocation. In his message at the sixth caucus, the Imam [Banna] defined two goals for the Brotherhood: a short term goal, the fruits of which are seen as soon as a person becomes a member of the Brotherhood; and a long term goal that requires utilizing events, waiting, making appropriate preparations and prior designs, and a comprehensive and total reform of all aspects of life.The Imam [Banna] delineated transitional goals and detailed methods to achieve this greatest objective, starting by reforming the individual, followed by building the family, the society, the government, and then a rightly guided caliphate and finally mastership of the world.

There seems to be a formula we can apply: history's biggest pushers of the fraud known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are invariably those who really actively plan to take over the world themselves.

(h/t DG via Raymond Ibrahim)

Imagine the headline: "Evil Zionist doctor murders unborn Iranian child"

This is from a couple of months ago, but in light of the earlier post about the Dutch woman who felt that Israeli doctors showed their racism by treating her pregnancy with way too much care, this seems appropriate:

Although the leaders of Iran regard Israel as a Satan to be destroyed by nuclear weapons, Israeli medicine is regarded as excellent by some Iranian doctors, including one who consulted a senior physician at Kaplan Medical Center and prevented complications that would have risked a pregnant woman’s life.

Dr. Adi Weissbuch of the unit for at-risk pregnancies at the Rehovot hospital was recently contacted with urgency via e-mail by a female doctor who identified herself as “NN” from an Iranian-university hospital.

She had read a comprehensive article published in an international medical journal in which Weissbuch wrote about a rare genetic complication of pregnancy and supplied his e-mail address at the bottom.

Consultation was urgent, the Iranian doctor wrote, because according to Islamic law, abortion is forbidden after the 18th week of pregnancy, and her patient was already in her 16th week. She sent the Kaplan physician a copy of lab results and asked his opinion.

Weissbuch wrote back that on the basis of the data, there was very little chance that the woman would have a healthy baby and that delivering the baby would endanger her life. The Rehovot doctor had discussed a very similar case in his article.

After receiving the information, the Iranian doctor advised the woman to undergo an abortion immediately, and she did so.