Haveil Havalim #31 is up

The latest round-up of the best of the Jewish blogosphere is up, at Soccer Dad. Mentioned within are this post here, as well as the latest in my continuing series of Palestine Post-ings.

As usual, it is an excellent compilation, so check it out!

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The flip-sides of Arab honor

One of the driving factors of Arab behavior is a twisted, almost perverse sense of "honor."

You will see Arabs talking obsessively about honor, including bizarre concepts about their "honor" of women. (The fact that something called "honor killings" exists at all is powerful evidence to this.)

Beyond that, the entire idea that the concept of hated Jews owning their own land in the Middle East being so unacceptable is mostly because of this twisted sense of honor - the very existence of Jews controlling land that once was administered by Muslims is an affront to their honor. It is no coincidence that Bin Laden referred to Andalusia as well, as the 15th century eviction of Muslims from Spain was a similar offense to Islamic honor.

I can see a few corollaries to such extreme concepts.

One is that, since the Western world has so completely dominated the Islamic and Arab worlds in all spheres of influence (miltarily, culturally, scientifically), it is inevitable that a people obsessed with honor would get a massive, cumulative inferiority complex, and have an extreme need to "prove" themselves over and over again that they are still relevant. Hence, things like suicide bombings against Western targets are in some ways a way to grab the world stage, to show relevance of a culture that has been utterly and repeatedly defeated.

Another corollary is that Muslims will obsessively use Western concepts of freedom to protect their "honor," demanding rights for themselves in the name of their religion when in fact these rights are meant to protect honor. Examples would include the fight over the hijab in France and the idea that Muslims should be able to have public calls to prayer in Western cities.

A third, and under-reported corrolary is that a people obsessed with honor will inevitably want to use honor to humiliate their enemies. What is a beheading if not a way to humiliate one's enemy? And here is a story, mis-reported by the Reuters' Arab correspondent, which is ultimately about honor:

Tens of thousands of white-black-green-and-red Palestinian national flags are being sewn in workshops in Gaza City to fly over the 21 settlements, hated symbols of occupation, once the pullout starting in mid-August is complete.

Abu Dayya said the Palestinian Authority had ordered 60,000 flags for the pullout. Workers at one factory have been sewing some 3,000 pennants a day, labouring to meet an Aug. 7 delivery deadline.

Some 35,000 other flags will carry the logo of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and 20,000 will be imprinted with white-and-black headresses and pictures of Abbas and the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.

Abu Dayya said sales at his PLO Flag Shop increased during the revolt, thanks to orders by Palestinian militant groups for national flags and banners bearing the symbols of armed factions. He also sold Israeli flags to be burnt at anti-Israeli rallies.

What is not reported is the fact that thousands of Palestinian flags flying over Jewish-built homes is not only meant to instill Arab pride, but more importantly it is to humiliate Israel.

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Qurei again shows that Israel's destruction is the goal

Once again a Palestinian "leader" shows that his commitment is to destroy Israel. Once again a "pragmatic, moderate" man shows utter disregard for what is best for his people and shows his true colors.

And once again the world media, including Israel's media, chooses to ignore what he says clearly and what he broadly implies, in favor of wishful thinking.

With just 19 days left to disengagement, the Palestinians have already set their sites on a new goal: Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said Wednesday that the prize is a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as is its capital. (In other words, anything less than that is unacceptable - he'd rather have his people under "occupation".)

"We are telling the entire world, today Gaza and tomorrow Jerusalem. Today Gaza and tomorrow and independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," he said while reviewing Palestinian forces in Gaza. (Don't leaders usually review their military troops, not "police"?)

Qureia said that the Palestinians would not establish a state without Jerusalem: "We won't establish a country with the racist separation fence; there won't be a (Palestinian) state with aggressive settlements and a state will not arise without our achieving all the rights of our Palestinian nation and the right of return." (So this so called "pragmatic moderate" leader says explicitly that compromise is completely unacceptable, and that his position is indistinguishable from that of Yassir Arafat.)

Qureia turned to Palestinian security personnel and said, "Our faith in you is great … We are facing great challenges and we'll succeed in overcoming this one and we'll bring an end of the occupation of our land, an irreversible withdrawal. " (Who exactly are "we"? It sure sounds like the Palestinian "police" are being treated exactly like an army meant to fight Israel. )

His message couldn't be clearer, and yet this story is just a tiny footnote and his reputation as a moderate is solid. The media is again completely negligent in doing its job of exposing truth in favor of going along with their agenda of giving Palestinians everything they want.

Meanwhile, Hamas says the goal a little more explicitly:

A senior Islamic Hamas movement leader announced on Thursday that the upcoming Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank is "a Palestinian national achievement."

Isma'eel Haneya told reporters that the withdrawal from Gaza and northern West Bank came as a result of "the armed resistance", adding that "it is the first step towards the liberation of the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories."

And we all know what that means.

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Egypt bomber group says they were targeting Jews

For some reason, a major part of the message from the group claiming responsibility for the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings is not being reported by the news media.

Dubai - An unknown group calling itself Mujahedeen Egypt has claimed the deadly triple bombings in Sharm al-Sheikh and given the names of five "martyrs" who allegedly died carrying out the attacks.

Its claim, which included a warning for Jews to leave Egypt, followed a statement from a group calling itself the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Levant and Egypt which said it carried out the bombings that killed 88 people.

The Mujahedeen Egypt statement posted on an Islamic website and dated July 23, the day of the attacks, mentioned seven bombings. Initial police reports also mentioned seven blasts.

"Your brothers in the Mujahedeen Egypt carried out the blessed earthquake in Sharm al-Sheikh," the group said in a statement which was not on usual sites used by Islamist militant groups to make announcements.

"Do not believe what is being said about the claim made by al-Qaeda, may God protect it," it said.

The group said the five "martyrs" carried out seven bombings against hotels and tourist buses used by "Zionists."

"As long as the Zionists do not get out of the land of the Muslims, they will be digging their own graves with their own hands," it said.

The statement identified them as Faisal Khalil, Hassan Abi Rawa, Mohamad Abdel Majid, Nader Mohamad Abdel Ghani and Mohamad Hammoudi al-Masri, said to be the son of the general common with a booby-trapped car that targeted the Ghazala Gardens in Naama Bay which is a resort crowded with Jews, and the hotel was totally destroyed," it said.

"The second (explosion) targeted the old commercial centre area with a second booby-trapped car.

"After 15 minutes, five explosions occurred, three of them with booby-trapped cars and two of them with explosive charges that targeted Jewish hotels and tourism buses."

A second statement by the same group, dated from Sunday, said the five men drove "one local car, three others from abroad and a bus".

It also gave "not more than 60 days for the Zionist Jews to get out of Egypt or else you will see what you have never even seen it in your dreams," said the statement posted on the same Islamic website.

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Canadian Imam threatens Canada

This is a variant of the old threat that the "Arab street" will rise up and do things out of the control of their leaders. It is all complete bull, of course, but Muslims seem to like this threat, because it has a history of scaring Westerners.

But what is noteworthy is that now they are threatening that Muslim citizens of Western countries will cause problems ( demonstrate? Riot? Blow people up? It seems to be purposefully ambiguous.)

Meaning that this Imam is implying that Muslim Westerners have more loyalty to Muslim concepts of 'honor' than to the law of their land.

How many times have Jews been accused of "dual loyalty?" Well, this Muslim leader is seeming to brag about Muslim dual loyalty.

A controversial Toronto imam warned Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan at a closed-door meeting to stop 'terrorizing' Canadian Muslims.

'If you try to cross the line I can't guarantee what is going to happen. Our young people, we can't control,' Aly Hindy, the head of Scarborough's Salaheddin Islamic Centre, recalls telling the minister at the May meeting she held in Toronto with dozens of Muslim leaders.

The meeting was part of an effort by Ms. McLellan to reach out to Canadian Muslims amid complaints that the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service are engaging in racial profiling.

The minister and her officials have been meeting community leaders to explain they are not targeting Muslims generally, only individuals with possible terrorist links.

By many accounts, the meetings have been positive and are contributing to a thaw in relations between Muslims and security agents, even if the exchange in May was a little heated.

Mr. Hindy, who has long complained that CSIS is spying on him, his family and his mosque, told Ms. McLellan that a young Muslim woman complained to him she was roughed up by Canadian spies while her husband was away at prayers. This allegation could spur reprisals because 'our women are the most valuable thing to us' and 'for a Muslim, honour is more important than his life,' Mr. Hindy said in a recent interview.

He made the point to the minister. Several people who attended shrugged off the imam's remarks, but some Muslims and government agents later approached Mr. Hindy asking him to explain himself.

'The police came to me and said, 'This is a kind of threat,' and I said yes,' he said. 'But it's for the good of this country.

'And they said, 'Do you know some of the names of those people you expect to cause some problems?' And I said, 'You just open the telephone directory.' "

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Pavlov and the Terrorists

Why do Palestinian leaders and press lie? Why did Palestinians switch from hijacking airplanes to package bombs to suicide bombs? Why did they seem to accept Camp David and then turn around and start the second intifada?

In short, why do Palestinian terrorists act so seemingly irrationally?

This question has been asked in various ways thousands of times over the decades. And in many cases, I have looked at these questions from a goal-oriented approach: if the Palestinian goal is to have an independent Palestinian state, none of the actions make sense. If the goal is the destruction of Israel, then all of their actions are consistent.

But one can also look at the problem, especially some of the specifics, with a behavioral approach. In short, actions that are rewarded tend to be repeated, while actions that cost more than their rewards tend to be abandoned.

As has been noted, Palestinian spokespeople and press lie continuously. Just to give two examples from the past week: they described the two murdered grandparents as "settlers" and they claimed that "witnesses" saw Gaza settlers kill a 12-year old Palestinian boy when it was later proved that it was Palestinians themselves who killed him.

If Israel's spokespeople lied, you can be sure that the world media would not hesitate to call them on it - and rightfully so. Israel's government and army have volumes of information on their websites and even a single purposeful error would make them useless.

But Palestinian media, even their English websites, are so full of holes that they are a joke. Their spokespeople have lied so often that they are completely unreliable. Yet the Western press continues to quote them seriously, without so much as a single caveat that they are known to have made up facts out of thin air in the past.

In short, lying works for Palestinians. It is rewarded with news stories that either never get retracted or get corrected so silently that the damage can never be undone. When a behavior is rewarded, it gets repeated; this is simple behavioral psychology.

On the flip side of the coin, Palestinian terrorists first made headlines with their famous series of airplane hijackings in the 1970s. For a while it got them rewarded with world press, and free publicity for their cause of destroying Israel. But soon, the reward turned into a punishment as the world governments who they wanted sympathy from turned against them. So they started their diplomatic offensive and abandoned explicit international terror, because the rewards had dried up.

For a while there, Israel could claim to have won the intifada war against Palestinian terrorists - Israel's building of the fence combined with pro-active targeted killings against terror leaders curtailed terror attacks dramatically. Terror leaders were in hiding and even the Palestinian people were turning against them in some circumstances.

But now, Israel has turned a punishment into a reward. The retreat from Gaza is the biggest reward that Palestinians could have asked for - it directly gives them a piece of what they always wanted, control over land that Jews had control over. No amount of doubletalk can deny that the Palestinian terrorists perceive that they are now being rewarded for terror. And as in countless other situations, the reward ensures that the behavior that caused the reward will continue.

The only way to stop terror, whether in Tel Aviv or London or Egypt, is to ensure that the cost is higher than the reward. "Proportional" and "measured"responses do not punish terror, it needs to be disproportionate and immediate.

This is how you train a dog, and this is how you train terrorists.

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Disgusting AP idolizes terrorists

AP - Sun Jul 24,10:54 AM ET

This picture released by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement on Sunday, July 24, 2005, shows Islamic Jihad activist Yahea Abu Taha, 22, right, and Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades activist Tareq Yassin, 23, getting ready prior to attacking an Israeli target at the Kissufim crossing, between Israel and the Gush Katif.

AP doesn't bother mentioning that the "Israeli target" was a car with two Israeli grandparents, Dov and Rachel Kol, who were murdered by the laughing "activists" :


AP also doesn't bother to point out that the terrorists affiliations prove that the Al Aqsa group, who gets paid by Abbas' PA, is clearly working hand in hand with Islamic Jihad and Hamas (while Condi Rice was praising Abbas for his pretense of fighting Hamas, his own people were planning terror attacks.)

(Hat tip to Boker Tov Boulder)

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Friday, July 22, 1938: Another day of Arabs murdering Jews

The sheer number of terror attacks by Arabs against Jews in Palestine in the 1930s is astounding. The atrocities are reported in the Palestine Post with revulsion but also somewhat matter-of-factly; this day was not particularly unusual for the time period - before "occupation", before "settlements", when most of the land was still empty. The methods are eerily familiar to those who look at current terror attacks. The chaos and lawlessness that we now see daily in Gaza and in Arab areas of the West Bank were happening then - but the targets were mostly Jews.

All these events took place in one day. All of the following articles came from the July 22, 1938 Palestine Post.

The headline was for an especially gruesome act of terror, with the "bandits" murdering women and children at point-blank range while shouting praise to Mohammed.


Meanwhile, an attack against a vineyard resulted in another Jew being killed before the attackers were driven off:

Near the Dead Sea, another attack killed three more Jews doing surveying:

A man who was attacked by a mob in Haifa died of his injuries:

Another Arab Haifa mob attacked Jews as well:

Arabs were stopped while trying to bomb Tel-Aviv:

Of course, Jews weren't the only targets when tolerant, civilized Arabs went wild:

And for some strange reason, even Jews in neighboring countries were considered legitimate targets:

The British had an interesting punishment for Arabs who attacked them. Amazingly, there is not one record of international condemnation for this "crime":

At that time, Jews had a most appropriate response to Arab terror.

It is a shame that today's Zionists don't understand the power of such a move anymore. For those who fell, the early Zionists created a new settlement in their memory.

The only way terror can be fought is to make it counterproductive, and if every terror attack in the name of real estate would have a firm response of "Fine, now you lose more land," it would cease.

Giving away land for free would appear to have the opposite effect.

Cross-posted to Palestine Post-ings.

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Electric Shabbat scooters?

This isn't my normal kind of topic, but it would be interesting to see what other bloggers think.

This isn't talking about Razor-type scooters but rather devices that are closer to electric wheelchairs for people who cannot move around on Shabbos otherwise.

Orthodox Jews now have a friend on the Sabbath.

Bridgeport Township-based Amigo Mobility International Inc. has devised a scooter that will give Orthodox Jews, forbidden by faith from turning on electrical devices on the Sabbath, wheels on the holy day.

The 'Shabbat' scooter -- a name derived from the Hebrew word meaning Sabbath -- is specially designed to keep users from switching circuits on or off.

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Today's Jewish world domination news

An interesting editorial from an apparent professor of History in Nigeria, named Abubakar A. Fari, about the global conspiracy against Islam, Jewish domination of the media, comparisons between Jews and Nazis, and of course justification for suicide bombings.

Someone forgot to send him the memo to substitute Zionist for Jew in this little screed.

Every day the news that is dished out from the western media represented namely by the VOA, the BBC and to a lesser extent the German and French radios are on Islamic terrorists and fundamentalist incursion or suicide bombers against the so called western targets or interests. The CNN is the king. One thing common with these imperialist and Jewish dominated media is a deliberate and orchestrated campaign of falsehood against Islam and Muslims and any governments that want to live under the dictates of Islamic laws and values the Sharia.
Their strategies are based on deliberate mischief, propaganda and repeated lies and lies and lies which they believe when repeated on and on and on, no matter what, the docile especially the so called civilized but ignorant U.S and western audience shall accept and indeed have accepted, hook line and sinker, except for a few broadminded ones.
As a concerned Muslim, and I believe that many like me, feel sad at these orchestrated lies and falsehoods designed to humiliate and abuse Muslims and our religion, Islam simply because, we do not subscribe to their values. To make matters worse none of the Muslim leaders in the Middle East, Asia and Africa is willing and ready to defend the interest of Islam and Muslims, except a few ones like Malaysia’s Mahathir Muhammad, in words and deeds. As a result only dedicated and incon-sequential ones resort to the inevitable - suicide bombing which is so far the only effective cry against these arrogant and terrible western leaders and their Jewish masters.
[...]As a concerned Muslim, again and’ again, I keep asking myself why is it that out of over 7 billion inhabitants on earth, it is only the Muslims, who comprise about 1 billion, or 14.3%’, that are daily being branded as terrorists. Are there no Christians, no Jewish, no pagan, no Masonic, no Zionist, no Buddist, no Hindu, no US citizen, no British citizen, no yellow, no white, no brown, and no capitalist terrorists?
The terrible and mischievous CNN, BBC World, Sky News, the Time Magazine: the Newsweek, the Economist and other Jewish dominated media that are as disastrous as AIDS endemic is, have rather chosen to only select Islam and Muslims for this dirty campaign and use it to justify the genocide against them.
It is instructive here to say that these orchestrated campaigns to insult, abuse, condemn and denigrate the Islamic religion spearheaded by the US and instigated by the Jewish media, is akin to the negative campaign of hate against the Jews in the 1930s. This campaign of hate and xenophobia were what led to the massacre of the Jews by Hilter and other Europeans in the 1940s. The same strategy is being used by the Jews against Muslims since 1945 to date.
This campaign is what has led to the murder and genocide of Muslims in Chechnya, Bosnia, Srebrenica, Afgha-nistan, Iraq, Palestine, Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria and elsewhere in the world.
Ironically, the Jew cry foul against the persecution metted on them and are exploiting the tragedy by making billions and have made billions in US Dollars and Deutch Mark from compensations, are daily committing murder, abuse of human rights and demolishing of homes of innocent Palestinians. The CNN owned and managed by their enemies, derives pleasure and with relish, displays it daily on their screens, while in the same vein shed crocodile tears, deceptively, when few of their relations are killed by so called terrorists, which is more often than not, are contrived killings, arranged by them to deceive the innocent public. Recently, the mayor of London declared that Arial Sharon, the Israeli prime minister is a terrorist and he is not saying anything new. Kofi Anan the UN Secretary General also declared that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. And for the UN Secretary to declare it illegal, means that this is against the international law and democratic principles of the United Nations.

He also added this priceless example of logic:

If these people do not trust and feel safe to see the Ayatullahs, the Hamas, the Hisbullah, the Arabs, the Africans, the North Koreans with weapons of mass destruction and who have no record of using them as opposed to Eisenhower of the US who dropped them against the Japanese in the-Second World War, why then should the Ayatullahs and any sane mind, trust and feel safe to see the US president in the shape and persons of the Bushes and co. in possession of these dangerous weapons and or in control of governments with such weapons?

A lovely man, Mr. Fari. It was especially interesting that he should mention capitalism, as he is a broker/dealer for the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

This news that the Jews control the world would be good enough for today, but wait! There's more!

This is from an interview of "retired Lebanese general and public relations expert Dr. Hisham Jaber." Among his rants that Zionists were behind 9/11 was this gem (hat tip to News for Members of the Tribe):

"Regardless of the logic of conspiracy, I would like to say something. We read history, and we know that since The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Zionism has forged the New Testament – and by now, 60 million in the U.S. alone have left Christianity to become believers in the Torah."

At least he got the memo!

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British Muslims issue fatwa against suicide bombers - does it apply to Palestinians?

There have been a few articles lately about a very strong fatwa condemning suicide bombing and terror written by a group of British religious Muslim leaders. Here is the relevant text:

On behalf of over 500 clerics, scholars and Imams the British Muslim Forum issues the following religious decree:

Islam strictly, strongly and severely condemns the use of violence and the destruction of innocent lives.

There is neither place nor justification in Islam for extremism, fanaticism or terrorism. Suicide bombings, which killed and injured innocent people in London, are haram - vehemently prohibited in Islam, and those who committed these barbaric acts in London are criminals not martyrs.

Such acts, as perpetrated in London, are crimes against all of humanity and contrary to the teachings of Islam.

The Holy Koran declares:

"Whoever kills a human being, then it is as though he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a human life, it is as though he had saved all mankind." (Koran, Surah al-Maidah (5), verse 32).

Islam teaches us to be caring towards all of Allah's (God's) creation, not just mankind. The Prophet of Islam who was described as "a mercy to the worlds" said: "All creation is the family of Allah and that person is most beloved to Allah who is kind and caring towards His family."

Islam's position is clear and unequivocal: murder of one soul is the murder of the whole of humanity; he who shows no respect for human life is an enemy of humanity.

We pray for the defeat of extremism and terrorism in the world.

We pray for peace, security and harmony to triumph in multicultural Great Britain.

On first glance, it looks like this may include condemnation of Palestinian terror attacks against Jews as well. But Islam is a legal based system, and systems of law often have loopholes.

Here is one possible loophole, from a fatwa on IslamOnline.net:

We'd like to address a point; all scholars agreed that what the Palestinians carry out in showing resistance against their enemies is not a suicide bombing; rather, it's to be called martyr operation.

As regards your question, the late Azharite scholar and the head of the Sunni Egyptian Institutions in Egypt, Sheikh Fu'ad Mukhaymar, states the following:

"The view adopted by the majority of our contemporary Muslim scholars, describing as martyrs the Palestinians who blow themselves up in the occupied land in showing resistance against the aggression, is correct for the following reasons:

A person who blows himself up sacrifices his life for the survival of others. He dies for his homeland and his holy sites.

Those disarmed people are annihilated every day. Their houses and factories are destroyed and their farms are devastated. They stand with their hands tied before the tanks and armored vehicles of their enemies. The least they can offer is this sacrifice. A person who does this operation is considered by Ulama as a martyr especially as he sacrifices his life, not for a material gain, but for the sake of Allah.

The Palestinians lack the military support of the whole world. In this case, do they have to wait their doom or try their best to defend themselves?

The instances cited by scholars, in supporting their arguments, are also correct. History is full of many fascinating examples in which Muslims demonstrated an outstanding courage and strong spirit in fighting their enemies; they would sacrifice their lives for the sake of achieving their aim.

As regards the questioner’s reference to the narration that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) disapproved the act of a fighter who killed himself, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did this when he knew that the man killed himself out of despair and discontent. But on the issue at hand, a Palestinian knows well what he does and chooses it with his free will. It’s for this great sacrifice that he deserves martyrdom.

It may not be fair to compare fatwas issued by two different groups. But since the entire Arab and Muslim world is so overwhelmingly supportive of Palestinian terror, it is reasonable to ask: does the British fatwa apply to Palestinians or are they considered martyrs when they blow up Jewish woman and children? An unequivocal, explicit condemnation of Palestinian terror would speak volumes, and conversely, the refusal of the British Muslim leaders to specifically address that issue would cast severe doubts over the relevance of this fatwa to the West.

For example, last Friday the leader of the most holy mosque in Mecca, Al-Sudayyis, said that the "enemy" is engaged in "moral terrorism against the values, ideals, and virtues of the Islamic nation" - referring here to pornography and loose moral standards. Is it unreasonable for a Muslim to interpret this as a call to war against the West, to defend the honor of Islam? If the Western world is explicitly called the "enemy" does that not mean that killing, say, a woman who is not covered with a hijab may be considered a required act?

The original British fatwa seems solid at first glance. But without a definition of "extremism, fanaticism and terrorism," it may only be empty words, especially since the Muslim world's definition of terror has never included attacks against Jews in israel.

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Gaza retreat dangerous to America

It very refreshing, and way too rare, to see articles that point out the obvious truths - about Abbas' lack of any real power, about how Hamas will take over Gaza, about Hamas' involvement in international terror.

Hat tip to Israpundit.

Eyeless in Gaza
What the terrorists know that we don’t.
By Barbara Lerner

The Israeli retreat from Gaza — now scheduled for August 17 — wasn't George Bush's idea. It was Ariel Sharon's. Sharon didn't succeed in selling it to his military and intelligence chiefs or to the party and people who elected him, but he was very successful in selling it to national elites in Israel and America, and to the media in both countries. In time, President Bush decided to buy it too.

We can, perhaps, see why. The president has other things on his Middle Eastern plate: a stubborn, bloody war in Iraq; looming deadlines with regard to Iranian nukes; a deadly flow of international jihadists through Syria into Iraq and Lebanon; fanaticism and instability in oil-rich Saudi Arabia; and restless decay in populous Egypt, where the mass following of the Muslim Brotherhood is a looming danger. On the Palestinian front, the moment of hope when Arafat died quickly faded, and was replaced by a weary recognition that Abu Mazen's incredible weakness made real progress impossible and continuing Palestinian violence inevitable. What was George W. Bush to do? Confront Palestinian terrorism directly, drawing the red line he promised to draw in his bold, no-peace, no-state speech of June 24, 2002? That would send the Al Jazeera crowd into overdrive and bring down the combined wrath of the Democrats, Old Europe, and the U.N., echoed and amplified by our own media.

This didn't seem a propitious time to take all that on. And there was Ariel Sharon with his Gaza withdrawal plan, offering an out — offering the illusion of progress, and claiming that behind it he could establish a better Israeli defensive line and some temporary peace and stability. It was a tempting apple, and the president bit.

But Gaza isn't Eden, and this isn't the apple of knowledge. It's a Rohypnol-like apple of ignorance, and it is blinding us to the danger America faces — a danger our Islamofascist enemies see clearly and are primed to take advantage of. We think Gaza is all about Israel and the Palestinians; our enemies know it's mainly about us. We think we are encouraging Israel to hand Gaza over to Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party, local Palestinians with purely local ambitions — ambitions that encompass the whole of Israel, perhaps, but nothing beyond it — ambitions that have nothing to do with us. Our enemies know that behind a Fatah fig leaf, we are handing Gaza over to Hamas, an international terrorist organization of global reach and ambition that is one of America's deadliest enemies. We think Hamas only attacks Jews. They know that Hamas is a main recruiting agent for Arab jihadists, not just from among the 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and from the much larger numbers of Palestinians scattered in strategic enclaves throughout the region and the world, but for other Arabs too. We think Hamas sends all these jihadists only to Israel. They know Hamas sends a never-ending stream of them to Afghanistan, Chechnya, the Balkans, Kashmir, Lebanon and, most critically for us right now, to Iraq. And when our press insistently refers to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the master terrorist who directs the foreign jihadists in Iraq, as "a Jordanian," our enemies laugh. They know Zarqawi has always called himself a Palestinian, and is recognized as such, in Jordan and throughout the Middle East.

To see what Hamas control of Gaza will mean for us in Iraq, we have to see it as our enemies do — not just Hamas, but its parent organization, the Brotherhood, and its longtime partners Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and the Wahhabi and Salafist movements. To do that, forget Israel entirely for a moment. Look only at the terror war against America, and at the geography of Islamofascism that supports it. Place Gaza in that context, and its strategic location jumps out at you. Control of Gaza gives Hamas and its partners direct access to the land border with Egypt, as well as access by sea to terrorist supply ports in Lebanon and Syria, and from them, overland, to the terror training camps in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran and to the ratlines from Syria into Iraq.

This is the reality we face: The "Palestinian democracy" we rattle on about is a mirage no desert-dweller is seduced by. Abu Mazen is president of nothing; his Fatah party no longer exists. It never was anything but a collection of competing terrorist gangs, but Arafat was a master manipulator who controlled them all by keeping the big carrots and sticks in his own hands and wielding them with ruthless cunning. With his death, Fatah splintered into a multitude of shifting groups and now they're not just competing — they're at war, regularly breaking up each others meetings with gunfire and shooting each other down in the streets, along with hapless bystanders. We pretend that with our help and a huge new infusion of Western cash the 58,000-man Palestinian security forces will be able to create order out of this internecine chaos, but this too is a mirage. It's the security forces that are doing most of the shooting, mostly at each other. As U.S. special envoy General William Ward, our no-nonsense military expert on the ground in Gaza told us last week, Palestinian security forces are "dysfunctional." Only about a third of them actually show up for work, and it doesn't make much difference when they do, because the chain of command that supposedly links them to their leaders is so broken that Abbas and his few remaining loyalists can barely get them to protect his headquarters in Ramallah, let alone the whole of Gaza and the West Bank.

What, then, of Abu Mazen's presumed popularity, you ask, the popularity that led to his easy victory in the first post-Arafat election, which so many American pundits of the right as well as the left praised as a birth of democracy, like the election in Iraq? That too is a mirage. The Palestinian election was nothing like the one in Iraq. Abu Mazen won the top job only because Hamas chose not to run, preferring to take control from the bottom up. Hamas ran in the subsequent municipal elections and swept to victory in almost every major Palestinian population center. It was poised to do the same in the parliamentary elections, until Abu Mazen postponed them indefinitely, and invited Hamas to join him without an election. It hardly matters. Hamas is taking over, with or without elections or invitations, and most Palestinians are glad. Hamas is a disciplined terrorist organization, and they are sick of chaos and corruption. Besides, like their Islamofascist brothers everywhere, they believe that it is Hamas that is forcing the Israelis to retreat in Gaza, and America with her. They see it as another terrorist victory, a harbinger of more to come. Meanwhile, they are enjoying the sight of the great American Samson, stumbling about, "eyeless in Gaza." They think our acquiescence in the once-mighty Sharon's appeasement plan puts us "at the mill with slaves," and they are jubilant.

The good news is that unlike the Biblical Samson, we are not irrevocably blind, only seduced and blindfolded by a mix of propaganda, ideology, and wishful thinking that prevent us from seeing reality. If we tear off our blindfold and call a halt to the Gaza retreat before August 17, we will save ourselves and our friends in Iraq much anguish, and save our Israeli friends and perhaps our Lebanese friends too. And if we do it boldly, proclaiming our determination to defeat Islamofascist terror in Gaza as we are defeating it in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will bring a final American victory much closer.

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