Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Is the "Jordanian Option" still alive?

This is an interesting article about recent closer ties between Jordan and the (West Bank) Palestinians, raising the question of what role Jordan can play in an ultimate peace treaty.

It may be a bit too premature and optimistic to think about something like this but it is an intriguing read. I would guess that a huge majority of Israelis who would prefer Jordan taking care of security rather than the ineffectual and doomed Abbas.

The capitalist Gaza tunnel subculture

Although this long article has the usual British fawning over Palestinian Arab terrorists, it is an excellent piece of investigative journalism that reveals the real motivation for tunnel-building between Gaza and rafah: pure profit, and lots of it.

It is ironic that these are the high-minded ideals that Rachel Corrie "martyred" herself for - so that some Arabs can make hundreds of thousands of dollars off of other Arabs.

Excerpt:

But a chance conversation resulted in my living in Rafah for a week with the "tunnel people". It was like discovering a lost tribe in a city I had been visiting for 15 years. I found an extraordinary, secret tunnel culture known only to a few Palestinians. The tunnel people told me they originally smuggled in contraband drugs, women, cigarettes (5 shekels in Egypt, 12 shekels in Gaza), and even the python that still slithers around in the Rafah zoo, and the ostrich that escaped during the May 2004 Israeli incursion, to the great glee of Rafah kids, who rode bareback on the big bird until the zookeepers recaptured him. Since the second intifada began five years ago, however, the tunnellers have mostly smuggled weapons.

The profits are huge. A Kalashnikov sells for $200 on the Egyptian side, but fetches $2,000 on the Gaza black market. A good night's delivery is 1,200 Kalashnikovs — a profit of more than $2m. Bullets — 50 cents in Egypt, $8 wholesale in Gaza — are even more profitable. A standard one-night delivery returns a profit of $750,000. The tunnels are financed by wealthy families — locals call them the "snakeheads" — who run the tunnels as businesses. They rent the passage to anyone who pays $10,000 for one night's use — a gun dealer, Hamas or Islamic Jihad, the militant Islamic fundamentalist groups, or a man who can't get his wife legally into Gaza. Cash is the currency, not politics, patriotism or sentimentality.

They rent, build or buy a house, even an entire farm, just to disguise a tunnel's "eye", as they call the entrance. The gun dealers are their biggest clients. "We call them blood dealers," said Abu Sibah, 36, the bearded head of a rogue Palestinian militia in Al-Bureij refugee camp north of Rafah, outside a car mechanics' shop where he had stored his latest shipment of Kalashnikovs and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). "But there is nothing to do about them. We depend on the tunnels for guns." He was particularly proud of the shiny black Belgian revolver in his belt — at $3,000, a special order. It was to this world that Nadr Keshta turned for the money to marry.

His relatives were in the tunnel business and he heard a "big project" was about to start. He signed on with a group of eight young men, all relatives. In the tunnels there is a hierarchy: those not related to the patron work for $100 a day as diggers, while those who are relatives get a share of the profit in return for their labour, a much better deal. When the tunnel is finished they are entitled to a percentage on every load that passes through it.

Obligatory Harry Potter review (no spoilers)

I had ordered 2 Harry Potter books from Amazon for my two kids, to avoid their fighting over it. And, sure enough, the books arrived on Shabbos, right on time.

But I didn't figure on being on a business trip this week. So I had to buy a third Half-Blood Prince at the airport just to make sure that I would get to read it this week.

The book breaks the successful but tired formula of the other books, where Harry and his pals try to interpret events based on incomplete information and therefore get themselves in trouble, with the final hundred pages dedicated to explaining how all the pieces fit together. In fact, this book contains surprisingly little action until the last few chapters; most of it fills in the backstory of Voldemort.

It is also interesting to see how Harry is far more confident then he was in Book 5, and has less self-pity. He speaks to adults in positions of power as equals, and in the case of the new Minister of Magic, he is dismissive.

Much of the book concerns the romantic entanglements of the main characters, and the maturity that Harry shows in dealing with the adult world is understandably missing in his interactions with girls. There are amusing riffs on how public displays of affection can alienate bystanders, as well as the games people play to make the objects of their affections jealous.

A couple of ethical issues were dealt with very well, if only in passing. One of the troubling things about Book 5 was the seeming loss of Harry's free will; the Prophecy seemed to foretell his future and place him in a position of having no choice but to go towards his pre-ordained destiny. Dumbledore neatly shows Harry that this is not true.

Another lesson from Dumbledore that I found interesting was his insistence on being polite even to those who clearly do not deserve such consideration. Manners are not optional.

As the next-to-last book in the series, it has to set up the final volume, leaving us feeling that it ends in the middle of the story. This can't be avoided, just as the death of a major character couldn't be avoided, to bring the series to its final battle in Book 7.

Altogether, it is a satisfying read and aimed at an older audience than the earlier books. The book also managed to shake up our comfortable ideas of how each installment would be - it is not altogether clear that the majority of Book 7 will even take place at Hogwart's. The fact that we can still be surprised after we know the series so well is a testament to Rowling's skill.

Oh my G-d, I can’t deal with this anymore. I hate them. I hate them. They’re evil and I hate them.

Maybe I’m dumb. But I just don’t get it. Why are they still shelling us? The explanation has always been because we’re in their territory. We’ve moved into their homes and they want us to get out, so they try to kill us. But we’re freaken LEAVING. The government has decided to evacuate every single Jew by force from the entire Gaza strip. SO WHY DO THEY STILL WANT TO KILL US? What explanation can be provided now? Since Thursday night, the shelling has not let up. We came home at 2:00 a.m. to find our guests at the kitchen table, pale and frightened. The woman had awakened to the sound of nearby explosions. We explained that it was nothing, that they were always sending mortars, that the roof of the house was reinforced and protected.

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip to Mirty.

Palestinian TV calls for genocide against infidels

It is funny that no matter how many times Palestinian-controlled TV broadcasts the most vicious hatred, the most vile bigotry, the most intolerant ideas - yet most Westerners choose to willfully ignore the plain facts that a Palestinian state would be a criminal terror state that would be used as a launchpad to further destroy Western civilization. The tolerant, civilized, liberal Westerners who want a Palestinian state are the desired victims of mass murder espoused by a significant number of potential members of that same state.

No, it is easier to close our eyes and pretend that a Palestinian state would bring peace. The truth is so much more uncomfortable, it is simpler to look for the easy solution where it appears only Israel would have to pay.

Less than 24 hours after the July 7 terrorist bombings in London, a Palestinian Authority Television sermon called for the extermination of every single Infidel:

'Annihilate the Infidels and the Polytheists! Your [i.e. Allah's] enemies are the enemies of the religion! Allah, disperse their gathering and break up their unity, and turn on them, the evil adversities. Allah, count them and kill them to the last one, and don't leave even one.'
[Suleiman Al-Satari, PA TV, July 8, 2005.]

This call for the genocide of all Infidels is particularly striking coming as Britain was still reeling from the London terror attacks - especially since PA religious usage routinely includes Britain in the 'Infidel' category. [See examples below.] (not in this excerpt - EoZ)

Such a call does not represent a new policy - or even a shift in policy. While the PA is careful to exclude this hate ideology from the image it presents to the foreign media, to its own people in Arabic the PA has always presented itself as part of a greater Arab-Islamic conflict against the West. This enmity is focused primarily on the US and Britain, who are seen as the dominant forces of Western civilization. This enmity is neither time nor event dependent, but is presented as part of Allah's plan. The ultimate victory is predetermined, Palestinians are taught, and Islam will eventually rule over America and Britain.

This representation of current affairs as an Islamic-Western religious conflict is of particular significance given the overwhelming religious sentiment in PA society. In a recent poll, 69% of Palestinians preferred that the PA follow the Shari'a - Islamic religious law, while only 16% preferred laws passed by their own Palestinian Legislature. Another 11% wanted both. [Palestinian Center for Research and Cultural Dialogue, March 3, 2005]"

1936: Arab incitement, terror, "condemnation." Repeat.

In 1936, the Arabs of Palestine and neighboring areas intensified their campaign of incitement against Jews moving into Palestine, with the usual lies about Jewish threats to Muslim holy places:

This incitement culminated in a series of murderous terror attacks against Jews by the Arabs in Palestine. Fatal shootings and bombings were everyday occurrences, with the victims invariably innocent civilians.

One particularly horrific day in Jaffa had two Jewish nurses murdered, with a third woman murdered as well while acting as a lookout. In the days surrounding these murders a 7-year old boy was blown up with an Arab bomb, a Jewish college student was shot and killed, a Jewish telephone repairman was murdered, a Jewish taxi driver was shot to death.

This was a few weeks into the Arab terror spree, and the world pretty much ignored Arabs murdering Jews. But the murder of the nurses touched a nerve and there was a measure of worldwide outrage towards this disgusting act of terrorism. So much so, that even an Arab organization decried the murders, as the Palestine Post opinion page that follows shows.

But then, as now, the "condemnation" of terror was hollow, and the Post pointed out the hypocrisy of denouncing a specific act of terror while not bothering to call for an end to the incitement and terror that preceded it.

So, just like today, we have Palestinian Arab leaders who incite their people to murder Jews, who whip up their people into a Jew-hating frenzy, who use their media and their mosques to broadcast the most hateful kinds of bigotry - and then who dutifully parrot their "condemnation" at any murders that occur in the wake of their agitation and who do nothing to stop the terror from continuing.

Cross-posted to Palestine Post-ings.

"Some of my best friends are terrorists" - Reuters finds them hilarious

Those terror-supporters (sorry, militant-supporters) at Reuters sure know how to tickle the funny bone - and especially how to get yuks from their colleagues at the BBC, ITN, other "news" outlets. Jew-killing hasn't been this hilarious since Goebbels called the yellow star "humane."

I can't wait for the side-splitting London bombing videos that will be shown at responsible journalists' parties. Hell, it looks like Reuters can round up those murderers faster than the British police can - they probably have them on speed-dial.

Top terrorist Zakaria Zubeidi made a “guest appearance” in a video prepared by the staff of Reuters news agency in Israel and the Palestinian Authority as a “going away” gift for a colleague, Ynetnews has learned.

Zubeidi, who heads Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Jenin, has been named by security officials as a key figure in organizing terror attacks on Israeli civilians.

Zubeidi’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have claimed responsibility for more than 300 terror acts in the last five years.

A Reuters spokeswoman confirmed the video’s existence, but said the London-based news organization is “not associated with any group or faction in any conflict.”

The screening, which occurred in a Jerusalem restaurant last March, involved the showing of a video during a private party.

'The video's theme was what Israel would be like in 10 years,' said an Israeli government official who attended the party and viewed the video.

'All of a sudden, at the end, there is Zakaria Zubeidi, playing the head of Reuters. Zubeidi was sitting in Reuters' Jenin office, saying he was Reuters’ chief,” the official said.

The party included guests from the BBC, ITN, the Independent newspaper, and French journalists.

'They all thought the video was hilarious,' the official said. He added that only a few individuals did not seem amused during the screening.

'They were laughing; they thought it was very funny, he said.”

Hat tip to Backspin:

November 1933: Arabs use Koran for political purposes

In 1933, the Palestinian Arabs wanted to pressure the British not to allow Jews to immigrate to the area. They chose to use mass demonstrations, as a follow-up to the 1929 riots. The British didn't want to see a repeat of 1929 and made such demonstrations illegal. The Arabs held them anyway, in Jerusalem and Jaffa, and there were a number of injuries that were greatly exaggerated by Arab newspapers.

Anyway, as the following article shows, a month later the Arabs used Islam as an excuse to have the demonstrations. They claimed that Britain, by making their anti-Jewish demonstrations illegal, was infringing on their religious freedom! And they were using Western standards of "freedom of religion" to push their own purely political (and, incidently, bigoted) agenda!

This is perhaps one of the first times that Arabs who despise Western ideals used those same ideals as weapons against the West.

Things have not changed much since 1933.

Cross-posted to Palestine Post-ings.

Reuters' editorial quality shines through

Apparently, Reuters in England doesn't know English. Either that, or pieces of land have turned murderous.

Here was the headline:

Gaza kills Israeli woman, Palestinians clash

I guess it was just too hard for the "news" agency to say that Palestinians killed an Israeli.

NYT cluelessness

A jaw-dropper:

LEEDS, England, July 13 - In the gritty, working-class suburbs of Leeds, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, was the fun-loving, rich kid of the neighborhood, the son of a savvy, Mercedes-driving shop owner.

Hasib Hussain, 18, who lived nearby, was the impressionable one, a charming young man who had been drifting into a reckless teenage life until religion set him straight.

And Mohamed Sadique Khan, 30, was the grown-up one, with a wife and a baby daughter at home. The three men used to work out together at the Hardy Street mosque in Beeston, the Leeds neighborhood that two of the suspects called home.

As the identities of these suicide bombing suspects slowly emerged Wednesday behind a thicket of disbelief, the question that nobody in these neighborhoods could answer was this: What kind of radical force threw the three men together, with another bomber, to commit such a heinous crime against their country, the one they rooted for in soccer matches, and their people?

Obviously it couldn't have been the religion that set them straight, could it?

45% of terror attacks during "lull" from Fatah

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center publishes a bi-weekly review of all Palestinian terror attacks since the "cease-fire" was announced. Here was an interesting statistic: Mahmoud Abbas' own Fatah organization was responsible for far more terror attacks than Islamic Jihad or Hamas.

So, which is it: that he cannot control the "militants," or that he doesn't want to? After all - these guys are on his payroll. This shows yet another lie of his, that somehow by paying the terrorists to be "policement" they would stop their attacks.

Distribution of total terrorist attacks perpetrated since the
Sharm el-Sheikh summit by terrorist organization
(estimate based on claims of responsibility)

Every rabbi has his price

Working late nights and browsing JBlogs I came across this at mentalblog in between the GoogleAds for Jews for Jesus and Third Temple supporters:

(Apologies for diappointing those who thought I was writing an article showing how all rabbis of persuasion X are hypocritical scum. There are plenty of other blogs for that.)

Why Muslim leaders don't truly condemn Islamic terrorism

In the aftermath of the London bombings there have been a number of excellent articles in the British press that take an honest look at the role of Islam in modern terrorism. This long one is also excellent, and although he parrots the "tiny minority of extremists" line, the author raises some very good points. Here is an excerpt:

There seem to be two broad reasons why many Muslim leaders appear unable or unwilling to break absolutely with the teachings that give cover to violence. The first is that their religion is much more literal and much more political than modern Christianity. Its Prophet was a political and military leader.

The faith Mohammed taught does not just hope that the world will become Muslim. It wants all human society and politics to be governed by religious law: it draws no distinction between the secular and religious sphere (except to condemn the secular). Therefore, Muslim leaders find it very difficult to resist the hotheads who say that Sharia - the divine law - should be imposed wherever possible.

In addition, the religion is absolute in its attitude to particular bits of territory. It is forbidden, for example, that any other religion be practised in the Arabian peninsula, because that land is considered sacred to Islam. Therefore, it is hard for a "moderate" to oppose the second-class citizenship of Christians or Jews in Muslim lands, or to say that "infidels" fighting in Muslim countries should not be murdered - even when they are his fellow citizens in a Western country.

When someone like bin Laden says that Islam should confront the "Cross-worshippers" and the "Zionists", he is making a claim in which politics and religion dangerously reinforce one another - a claim which most Muslims might not like, but which most of their leaders cannot find quite the right words to resist.

The second reason is that the leaders are frightened. In private conversations with the moderates, one is always told that they are under "enormous pressure", that they risk losing control of their own people, and therefore they cannot say very fierce things against the extremists. One must accept that this pressure exists, which only goes to show how serious the problem is.

The Bishop of Stepney, say, would not have to look over his shoulder before he dared to condemn Christian suicide bombers (if there were any). But if his friend Mohammed Abdul Bari wants to condemn Muslim ones in Israel, then his life - or certainly his career - might be threatened.

The Jews (Michael Ledeen, National Review Online)

An interesting article on British anti-semitism's role in the proliferation of terrorists in the UK.

It was widely noted, most passionately by the Iraqi blogger Hammorabi, that when Tony Blair reminded the House of Commons that many countries had been scourged by the terrorists in recent years, he omitted Iraq from the list. His speechwriters had Iraq in a different part of their database; Iraqis weren't victims of terrorism in the same way as Brits, Americans, Kenyans, and Indonesians. One's instinct is to let it go as an oversight, but there was another country missing from the list, and this case was somewhat less widely noted: Israel. And at this point, one is forced to do some thinking. What do these two countries have in common, that they should both be ignored in the British government's response to the London attacks?

Fake Palestinian terror "condemnation" #1473

Yet again, the Palestinians attack and kill Jewish civilians in a terror attack.

Yet again, the head fo the PA pretends to "condemn" the attack - but a closer look at his words shows that he has no moral qualms with Jews being blown up, it's just that it was done at the wrong time.

And yet again, the world media prints this "condemnation" as if the head of the PA is anything less than a pathological, habitual liar.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday condemned a suicide bombing that killed two Israeli women in a seaside city hours earlier, using unusually strong language.

'We condemn this terrorist attack. It's a crime against the Palestinian people,' he said. 'Those traitors are working against the Palestinian interest. There is no rational man who can do those things on the eve of the Israeli withdrawal from 22 settlements,' Abbas said.

'They did a stupid thing that they should be punished for,' he told reporters."