And I thought that stones were not harmful. Silly me.Hours after the attack, PA security forces tried unsuccessfully to detain a Jihad terrorist in Jenin. The man, who was not identified, was shot in the shoulder during the attempt to detain him.
Eyewitnesses said scores of Fatah and Islamic Jihad gunmen, backed by many civilians, foiled the attempt to apprehend the terrorist and take him to a prison in Jericho.
Local members of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's armed wing, voiced support for the suicide attack, pledging to use force to thwart any attempt by the PA to detain Islamic Jihad officials. The group's commander, Zakariya Zubeidi, was among those who welcomed the attack, saying it was "a natural response to Israeli violations of the truce."
Another attempt to detain Jihad activists in the Balata and Askar refugee camps near Nablus also failed after dozens of gunmen drove back the PA security forces after pelting them with stones.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
From AFP:
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack as an act of "terrorism" and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.From AMIN, where we see exactly why Abbas is condemning the attack (and it isn't because innocent Jews got murdered:)
"We severely condemn this terrorist operation in Netanya," a statement from his office said.
"President Abbas has ordered all the security services to catch whoever is responsible for this attack and bring them to justice."
Palestinian presidency spokesman said in a statement that President Abbas “has strongly condemned the terrorist operation which took place in Hasharon shopping mall in Netanya”.(As Soccer Dad noted, Abbas is quite capable of condemning a terror attack on moral grounds when he wants to. However, it is too much to ask him to actually pretend to be upset when Jews get killed.)
The President issued strict instructions to arrest those involved in and responsible for the operation and bring them to justice.
"These operations against civilians cause the greatest damage to our commitment to the peace process, and the Palestinian National Authority will not show indulgence towards anyone who is found responsible for this operation," the statement said.
At any rate, he was careful to use the word "terror" this time.
But apparently the PA's International Press Center didn't get the memo, because they consistently put the word "terror" in scare quotes:
Israeli security sources said that the "Israel defense Forces" along with the secret services have started a campaign of multifarious activities to undermine the infrastructure of what they designated as "terrorism". And they added that the attention will be focused on the leaders of the Islamic Jihad.Notice the complete absence of quotes when relaying the Hamas statement.
The sources added they saw every prospect of long-lasting activities of such a kind.
Shaul Mofaz came out from the consultation session with all his recommendations ratified by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.
The most important recommendations implied: a large-scale military operation in the north of the West Bank; placing Gaza Strip and the West Bank under a watertight curfew; and resuming the extra-judicial assassination against the Palestinian Factions' operatives.
Talks around operating the safe passage were frozen until further notice. In addition the VIP cards of the PNA senior officials were canceled.
Sharon said that these procedures will remain in effect until the Palestinian side proves a serious crack-down on the "terrorism".
He also, arrogantly, held Abbas responsible for the attack, arguing that he was engrossed by the elections instead of fighting "terrorism".
In its comment on the Islamic Jihad operation, Hamas said that the responsibility of the operation rest squarely at the Israeli shoulders, for the Israeli breaches of the truce and escalations were, as it is always, the reason behind the Palestinian retaliation.
It sure seems as if the Palestinian Authority agrees with Hamas!
It appears that international pressure can make the PA pretend to act like they are a part of the human race, but in the end, they will choose blowing up Jews over accepting Jews having their own country any day of the week.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
In 1948, the Arab League was upset at King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan for his territorial designs on the West Bank. Under their prodding, the notoriously anti-semitic ex-Mufti of Jerusalem set up his own "government" in Gaza in September 1948.
Abdullah was adamantly opposed to this "Gaza Government" and the issue caused a major rift between Transjordan and the rest of the Arab world.
The actual wishes of Palestinian Arabs do not seem to have entered the equation for either party! (click all pictures to enlarge)

The democratic nature of the nascent nation was soon apparent...
Also look at King Abdullah's objection - that creating a Palestinian state was like accepting Partition! (Note also the article in the middle!)

And what is a country without a flag?

Tensions mounted between Transjordan and Iraq over this issue:

Alas, as soon as Israel launched an counter-offensive against Egypt later in 1948, the Gaza government ministers (who no doubt had a great love of the land) fled bravely to Cairo. And then their ministers started quitting, one by one. By March, the "government" was in tatters:

The New York Post published an interesting analysis on the situation back in October 1948:
The entire enterprise fell apart, without ever having governed anybody (but that didn't stop many Arab countries from recognizing it.) The cynical nature of the effort was emphasized in 1950, when the Arab League tried to resurrect the Gaza Government again for purely political gain, as is mentioned in this good overview from the Palestine Post then:
Rift in the Arab Front
Abdullah and the British Are Isolated
in the Middle East
By OBSERVER
Behind the Arab front there is a rift. The Arab League has set up a government in Gaza comprised of the followers of the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem. Abdullah of Transjordan has not recognized this government. Hilmi Pasha, who commanded the Arab forces on the Jerusalem front, was elected head of the Gaza government. Abdullah then stripped Hilmi Pasha of his authority as commander on the Jerusalem front and placed the Old City of Jerusalem under a new commander. The Gaza government is on the territory occupied by the Egyptian army.
Abdullah’s legion has done more fighting than the forces of any other Arab state on Palestinian soil. Abdullah hoped to have the entire country for himself, but since Israel successfully defended its territory, he now counts on the annexation of at least the Arab part of the country to Transjordan. His rival is the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem. They are carrying on an old feud.
* * *
The British planned that Abdullah’s legion—their own creation—should conquer all of Palestine for Abdullah, which means for them. So they supplied him with officers, money, ammunition and even spies.
The ex-Mufti planned that Abdullah should conquer the country for him. His own “Army of Liberation” under Kaukaji proved to be good only on the run.
Egypt is not at all interested in increasing the British sphere on its border; for many years the entire policy of Egypt has been directed toward getting rid of the British, in Egypt proper, in the Sudan, in the Suez Canal zone. The Egyptians think that if the British should dominate Egypt from the Negev, they would never leave the Suez Canal zone or the Sudan.
Egypt would therefore like to have southern Palestine for itself. Opposition to Zionism is artificially intensified; the Egyptians make war against Israel but they regard the British as their real enemy and Abdullah as a British stooge. Said one of the Egyptian delegates at the Paris Conference, quoted by the United Press correspondent in his dispatch of October 2: “Britain is now considered the Arabs’ number one enemy.”

A few notes of interest:
- The entire episode was so embarrassingly inept, no Palestinian Arab advocate today ever mentions this as an example of historical Palestinian sovereignty. They prefer the myth of a nation called Palestine to the reality of a short-lived aborted vanity enterprise.
- Not once can I find that any of the parties showed the slightest interest in what is best for the Palestinian Arabs that they were pretending to help.
- The "government" ran away and abandoned its supposed subjects at the earliest sign of fighting.
- Should such a state have succeeded, it would have been just another Arab dictatorship - in this case a theocracy under the Mufti.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Monday, December 05, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
No, Kiryat Gat is not in "occupied" territory. But the Arabs are claiming that it was built on the ruins of a town called Iraq al-Manshieh. They demand:
* Intel abandon its investments in Israel. The company’s proposed expansion site is located on land confiscated from the Palestinian village of Iraq Al-Manshiya.* Israel forced out the original inhabitants of Iraq Al-Manshiya and the nearby village of Al-Faluja after the 1948 war ended contrary to international law and an armistice agreement sponsored by the UN and which Israel signed.
At any rate, the implication from the terrorist sympathizers is that Israel forced the residents of Iraq al-Manshiyah to leave. But as is clear from the articles at the time in the Palestine Post, the Arab residents of the area all wanted to leave, the world was quite aware of their situation, the Arab League didn't want to take them in, and in fact the evacuees complained that the evacuations were too slow!
Not only that, but the Jewish community of Gath which Kiryat Gat was named after was not built on top of anything, but was under siege itself during 1948, and was evacuated under Egyptian fire - three months before the state of Israel was declared.
So you may want to email to Intel, the way that Al Oufok wants you to, but to thank them on their smart business decision to continue to create world-class technology in Israel.
As Al Oufok says:
Call and write to :
Craig R Barret, Chairman of the Board
Email : Craig.R.barrett@intel.com
Phone : 480-554-5977
Paul Otelline, President and CEO
Email : Paul.Otellini@intel.com
Phone : 408-765-5551
Please cc your correspondence to alerts@al-awda.org . I'm sure they'll be happy to read your emails!
Monday, December 05, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
TEHRAN, Dec. 5 (MNA) -- Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani said here on Monday that Iran has called for unconditional talks with the European Union.
“Setting conditions for talks will disrupt the process, and I don’t think either of the two sides would want to do that,” he told reporters.
He noted that the preliminary talks would be about the agenda and method of negotiations, in other words, formulating a model for talks.
The nuclear issue is not a complicated matter, he said, adding, “If we all try to reach a logical solution, an appropriate conclusion can be reached over the next few months.[Any guesses as to what that "appropriate conclusion might be? Anyone? - EoZ]
He said, “We are pleased that European states, Russia, China, and member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement have announced their readiness for talks,” adding that Iran regards Europe’s step to resume talks as positive.
“We will try to hold constructive as well as serious talks with the three EU countries (Britain, Germany, and France), and negotiations will continue in order to reach a logical and accessible solution.”
Larijani stressed that the talks would focus on the main points of contention, i.e., assurances that Iran’s nuclear fuel program would not be diverted toward weapons development and Iran’s right to master the complete nuclear fuel cycle on its soil.
“Iran views the future talks as a win-win game,” he said.
“We certainly have a positive view of the talks, otherwise we would never have wasted so much time on them."
Monday, December 05, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Riza Asefi responded to recent Israeli comments that Iran's nuclear program was an unacceptable threat to its security, saying that 'Zionist authorities are well aware that if they make a foolish mistake against Iran, Iran's harsh response will be destructive and determined.'
But, hey, I'm sure that diplomacy will work wonders in defusing the crisis.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
Jonathan D. Halevi (News First Class-Hebrew)Your tax dollars at work.
On the very day of a suicide bombing in Netanya, it has been reported that the chairman of the Palestinian Authority gave budgetary approval to assistance for the families of suicide bombers.
Each martyr's family will receive a monthly stipend of at least $250 from the PA.
The budget for families of martyrs, prisoners, and the wounded could reach $100 million a year out of an annual budget of over $1 billion.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
"I believe that this harms Palestinian interests and is another act to sabotage efforts to revive the peace process and to sabotage the Palestinian elections," Erekat said.
In other words, if killing many innocent Jews would help the Palestinian Arab cause in any way, Erekat would be all for it.
Yesterday I posted how the director of the film "Paradise Now" strenuously tries to distinguish between suicide bombings in Israel and those in Bali, London, Madrid, Iraq, New York, Afghanistan and anywhere else in the world. He said, "Palestine is a different conflict. The Palestinians are being physically oppressed. We face 60 years of occupation. Maybe they use the same methods elsewhere, but to understand anything, you must understand the conflict, not just look to the action."
This is not a unique perspective. The fact that the film has gotten so many awards shows that much of the left, and much of Europe, also subscribes to the notion that Palestinian terror attacks are somehow more justified - and the inescapable conclusion is that they feel that when the victims are Jews, it is somehow more moral. The Palestinian Arab leaders themselves are often quick to condemn attacks such as 9/11 on moral grounds.
Which begs the question - according to the smug genteel Jew-hating intelligentsia of Europe, what could the Palestinians do that would be considered immoral? In other words, once blowing up shoppers in a mall can be justified because of "occupation," what cannot be?
Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say that a Palestinian terrorist decides to murder a baby girl, gut out her insides and replace it with explosives, sew her back up and throw the baby bomb in the middle of a Jewish kindergarten.
Or let's say that the Palestinian terror leadership decides that while bombing Jews is an effective method of terrorizing Jews, mass raping teenage Jewish girls and boys would also cause Jews to be scared and consider ceding land.
Once the "occupation" justifies terrorism, what does it not justify? There are no red lines anymore, as long as the "greater good" of Jews giving up land to Arabs is the potential result.
Or to put it another way, anyone who considers Palestinian suicide bombings at all justified in any way, shape or form is a completely and thoroughly immoral person, and any moral justifications that they find for their cause is the worst sort of hypocrisy.
And Saeb Erekat is one such person.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
IAEA chairman Muhammad ElBaradei on Monday confirmed Israel's assessment that Iran is only a few months away from creating an atomic bomb.
If Teheran indeed resumed its uranium enrichment in other plants, as threatened, it will take it only 'a few months' to produce a nuclear bomb, El-Baradei told The Independent.
On the other hand, he warned, any attempt to resolve the crisis by non-diplomatic means would 'open a Pandora's box. There would be efforts to isolate Iran; Iran would retaliate; and at the end of the day you have to go back to the negotiating table to find the solution.'
And we all know that a diplomatic Pandora's box would be much worse than hundreds of thousands of dead Jews.
Much better to continue with the effective negotiations that the West has pursued with Iran over the years. There will be a breakthrough, any decade now.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
Ghida Fakhry is New York Bureau Chief of Asharq Al Awsat and a weekly columnist for the newspaper. From 2002 to 2004, she was Anchor of Al-Hayat/LBC’s main evening news broadcast live from London. During the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, she reported on location from Kabul and Baghdad, and interviewed numerous senior US officials, including Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. During her journalistic career, she covered extensively the United Nations as New York Bureau Chief of Al Jazeera and for Abu Dhabi Television. She traveled on special assignments with Kofi Annan to the Middle East and conducted several in-depth interviews with the Secretary-General of the UN. She appears as a guest analyst on CNN, ABC News, NBC and MSNBC. Ghida Fakhry holds an M.A in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and an M.A. in International Relations from Boston University.
One would think that with such credentials she would have at least a passing familiarity with Middle Eastern history.
One would be wrong.
The United Nations marked last Tuesday the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" held every year on 29 November. Paradoxically, this is the day the General Assembly adopted in 1947 Resolution 181 on the "Future Government of Palestine" –a landmark if forgotten resolution that set forth the "Plan of Partition with Economic Union" that was to establish an "Arab State" in 43.5 percent of then British-occupied Palestine, a "Jewish State" in 56.5 percent of that territory, and an international enclave to include Jerusalem and its surroundings. In adopting the Partition Plan, the United Nations committed two sins. The first one, by paving the way towards the establishment of two States, the United Nations legislated a fundamentally artificial political segregation between "Arabs" and "Jews", as if an Arab could not belong to the Jewish faith and a Jew to the Arab world. It laid a barrier between communities that more often than not intersected, had more to unite than divide them. It was a conceptual distinction that pitted communities against each other that had coexisted peacefully for centuries and, aided by the migratory influx of European Jews into Palestine, fuelled hatred and deepened the sense of injustice. The second sin of the United Nations was to adopt a Plan and not ensure its implementation. To say the least, this is undoubtedly the international organization’s biggest blunder.As the author well knows, there is no paradox to the date that the UN chose to annually condemn Israel and pretend to care about Palestinian Arabs. It was chosen on purpose.
As I have documented many times in the Palestine Postings blog, the life of Jews in Palestine was hardly peaceful (the 1929 massacres would seem to prove that), and to blame the UN for the Arabs' terroristic intransigence against allowing Jews to control any land in the entire Middle East is pretty funny. The separation between Jews and Arabs were wholly the fault of the Arabs who just couldn't stomach Jews in power.
But the funniest part of this poorly-written paragraph is that she is blaming the UN for not making sure that Resolution 181 was not implemented! The Jews accepted 181 wholeheartedly, it was the Arabs who rejected it unanimously - and tried to destroy the Jewish state that resulted.
There is no doubt in my mind that Ms. Fakhry knows these facts as well as anyone.
So the only conclusion that can be drawn is that this esteemed Arab journalist and scholar is simply a liar.
Which begs the question - why do CNN, ABC and NBC use easily provable liars as analysts?
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
A: "I'm going to be home a little late tonight, honey. "
(Indirect hat tip to JudeoPundit.)
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Elder of Ziyon

An Israeli soldier (L) inspects a Palestinian man at a checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron on December 4, 2005. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun
You might think I'm just an oppressing Zionist with no empathy or sympathy. But believe me, I think I -- and indeed most Israelis -- can understand a little bit of the Palestinian's position, and then some. We go through the same checks countless times in our daily lives as well, just to get into the supermarket, the library, the swimming pool or our kids' schools. Nor do our spouses and kids just stand by watching the checks, they get checked too. And once we pass the security check we don't breathe a sigh of relief and hope the next guy gets off easier. No, we pray the security guard is as inconveniently intrusive with everyone else who follows, if not more so.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
This time, as with #45, I am mentioned twice - for this news roundup from last Friday (which I considered pretty much a throwaway post myself) and for this post where the BBC blames Israel for the internal problems that the Palestinian "security forces" are having. (My "Palestinian Police Phunnies" series is a small sample of documentation that the Palestinian police problems are a little deeper than how the august BBC describes them.)
As I always say whenever I'm mentioned, it is an excellent roundup of the best of this week's JBlogosphere. (Although in the section entitled "Palestinian Democracy" I am at a loss as to why he didn't use scare quotes around the word "democracy.")
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
But as this article in the Toronto Globe and Mail shows, the director is hardly unbiased (and, frankly, his grasp of the politics is puerile.) A reporter destroyed everything the director claimed about the conflict, leaving only the idea that he just hates Israel's very existence:
By MICHAEL POSNERMoronic nonsense, in black and white. He doesn't even try to maintain a consistent position, except that he hates the Jewish state - everything else is a smokescreen to make him sound more reasonable that gets shredded at the slightest questioning.
I had intended to question director Hany Abu-Assad about his film Paradise Now, the story of two Palestinians, auto mechanics from the West Bank, who decide to become suicide bombers. It didn't work out that way.
When we met during the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, I began by telling Abu-Assad -- a tall, elegant, 43-year-old Palestinian who spends much of his time these days in Amsterdam -- that I considered the film provocative.
"Why provocative?" he asked.
Because it attempts to explain, and thus implicitly justify, the taking of innocent lives, I replied. And because suicide bombing is no longer a tactic that occurs only in Israel or even Iraq. In the current geopolitical climate, it could happen anywhere.
Abu-Assad disagreed. "Palestine is a different conflict," he insisted. "The Palestinians are being physically oppressed. We face 60 years of occupation. Maybe they use the same methods elsewhere, but to understand anything, you must understand the conflict, not just look to the action."
According to Abu-Assad, the despair that turns ordinary car mechanics and teenage girls into suicide bombers is the result of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank (and until recently, the Gaza Strip).
But there was Palestinian militancy, even terrorism, long before the Six-Day War in 1967. Moreover, I countered, suicide bombing is not something generally organized by moderate Palestinians committed to finding a peaceful modus vivendi with Israel. It's the work of Hamas, which regards not just the West Bank, but all of Israel as occupied territory. In the film, the two bombers are trained and monitored by just such a shadowy, unnamed group. So where do you stand, I asked him.
Abu-Assad deflected the question. "It's not about where is Palestine and where is Israel. It's about denying the rights of Palestinians in their land. It's about the principle that both have to have equal rights, as individuals and as a nation. Hamas is no different than most of Israel. Most of Israel thinks it's all Jewish land. Hamas wants an Islamic state and Israel wants a Jewish state. So the same, yes?"
Well, no, actually. First of all, the vast majority of Israelis have renounced any claim to so-called Greater Israel. Indeed, the man who was once the chief proponent of that idea, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has become the grand architect of disengagement, handing back the Gaza Strip and a handful of West Bank settlements this summer.
"They have just made Gaza a bigger jail," Abu-Assad maintained.
But the logic of that argument leads to the Hamas position. Whatever land Israel returns, it will always be simply "a bigger jail" until the Zionist cause is finally abandoned.
Look, he said, "the issue is equal rights. Unless they are equals, you will have conflict. There is no other solution." But true peace, Abu-Assad added, can only be achieved if Israel severs its ties with the United States. "How can you survive in a place where you are protecting the interests of someone else?" he asked.
But why would Israel do that, "surrounded by 22 Arab nations, many of which are committed to its dissolution?"
Very simply, Abu-Assad said, "To survive. To be part of the Middle East." Besides, he added, "Washington's interests will diminish when the oil is gone, and what will Israel do then?"
Which, come to think of it, is pretty much the Arab and leftist position regarding Israel to begin with.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Friday, December 02, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
Any problems that are internal are described in the passive voice that we are all familiar with; but Israel's supposed role is highlighted - as if the Palestinian police would otherwise be Scotland Yard.
Also implicit is the BBC's acceptance that the role of the Pal Police Phonies is only to stop internal crime; not a word about stopping terror against Israel. That way, when Israel defends itself it is just another attack against the upstanding police - trained by the EU.
Note as well the unsubstantiated "fact" that an Israeli missile dug out a massive crater in the picture. Perhaps it did, perhaps it was a Hamas rocket gone awry, perhaps it was an attack against a known terrorist - but the BBC will never say where their "facts" come from.
With the departure of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip this summer, attention is focusing on the ability of the Palestinians to assert control in an area of increasing lawlessness.How exactly arming known terrorists and giving them new cars and materials will help Israel is something that the BBC will have to explain a little better one day.
It is a challenge beset by problems: the infrastructure of the Palestinian security forces has been decimated by Israeli attacks and the territory is awash with illicit weapons and armed groups.
The multitude of security forces themselves are in poor shape - badly-equipped with ill-defined roles, competing branches and an unreformed hierarchical structure set up under the autocratic rule of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
But after a period of stagnation and disarray, the international community has begun a drive to transform the largest of the security services, the civilian police, into a modern force capable of enforcing the rule of law and stamping out growing chaos.
At the centre of this move is the European Union, which recently announced a new three-year mission to reform and rebuild the police force in the West Bank and Gaza.
"The civil police is the cornerstone of all the Palestinian security forces," Jonathan McIvor, the head of the EU Co-ordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support, known as EU-Copps, told the BBC News website.
"It is a cornerstone of democracy, it's the most important of all the Palestinian security forces in terms of building a Palestinian state, not to mention the most 'together'."
A fleet of new police cars sit near a crater carved by an Israeli missile
Kaj Stendorf, chief superintendent of the Danish national police, is among the advisers training the Palestinian police.In a parade ground outside his office in the Palestinian police headquarters in Gaza City stands a fleet of gleaming blue patrol cars, part of a 1,000-strong consignment delivered by the European mission.
Beside them lies a deep crater gouged out by an Israeli missile - a reminder of the damage from which the police have yet to recover after years of conflict.
Within its first few months, the mission - with the help of Denmark, the UK and Norway - restored the radio communication system to 60% of the Palestinian police force, after it had been decimated by Israeli attacks.
Bomb squad
One of the EU-Copps' most important functions has been to modernise and train the Palestinian police's bomb squad, or Explosive and Ordnance Disposal Unit (EODU).
The Gaza Strip is littered with deadly devices, from mines left behind by the Israeli army to explosives planted by militants and even shells dating back to WW1.
Palestinian children are often among the casualties caused by discarded explosives, prompting the UN children's charity Unicef to launch an awareness campaign....
By the end of its three-year term, Kaj says, the EU-Copps mission should benefit both sides.
"We aim to turn the Palestinian police into a modern, well-organised, well-structured, well-policed security service.
"It will provide safety not only for Palestinians, but by default Israel too."
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
Hamas Leader Says He Won't Renew Truce: "'The resistance must go hand in hand with political work,' he said. 'It is not accepted to pressure the resistance to choose between resistance and politics.'
Asked if Hamas would accept a peace accord creating an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, Mashaal said the group 'will never abandon any Palestinian right and will not recognize the legitimacy of occupation whatsoever.'"
The Muslim Brotherhood, spiritual forebearers of Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda, also embraces democracy - much to the approval of Madeline Albright.
The president must be thrilled - democracy is spreading quickly throughout the Islamic world!
There's only the minor detail of what these new enthusiasts of democracy plan to do with their political clout.
Towards a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy
(Points of Departure, Elements, Procedures and Missions)
This report presents a global vision of a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy [or "political Islam"]. Local Islamic policies will be drawn up in the different regions in accordance with its guidelines. It acts, first of all, to define the points of departure of that policy, then to set up the components and the most important procedures linked to each point of departure; finally we suggest several missions, by way of example only, may Allah protect us.
The following are the principal points of departure of this policy:
Point of Departure 1: To know the terrain and adopt a scientific methodology for its planning and execution.
Point of Departure 2: To demonstrate proof of the serious nature of the work.
Point of Departure 3: To reconcile international engagement with flexibility at a local level.
Point of Departure 4: To reconcile political engagement and the necessity of avoiding isolation on one hand, with permanent education and institutional action on the other.
Point of Departure 5: To be used to establish an Islamic State; parallel, progressive efforts targeted at controlling the local centres of power through institutional action.
Point of Departure 6: To work with loyalty alongside Islamic groups and institutions in multiple areas to agree on common ground, in order to "cooperate on the points of agreement and set aside the points of disagreement".
Point of Departure 7: To accept the principle of temporary cooperation between Islamic movements and nationalist movements in the broad sphere and on common ground such as the struggle against colonialism, preaching and the Jewish state, without however having to form alliances. This will require, on the other hand, limited contacts between certain leaders, on a case by case basis, as long as these contacts do not violate the [shariah?] law. Nevertheless, one must not give them allegiance or take them into confidence, bearing in mind that the Islamic movement must be the origin of the initiatives and orientations taken.
Point of Departure 8: To master the art of the possible on a temporary basis without abusing the basic principles, bearing in mind that Allah's teachings always apply. One must order the suitable and forbid that which is not, always providing a documented opinion [? "Il faut ordonner le convenable et interdire le blâmable, tout en donnant un avis documenté"]. But we should not look for confrontation with our adversaries, at the local or the global scale, which would be disproportionate and could lead to attacks against the dawa or its disciples.
Point of Departure 9: To construct a permanent force of the Islamic dawa and support movements engaged in jihad across the Muslim world, to varying degrees and insofar as possible.
Point of Departure 10: To use diverse and varied surveillance systems, in several places, to gather information and adopt a single effective warning system serving the worldwide Islamic movement. In fact, surveillance, policy decisions and effective communications complement each other.
Point of Departure 11: To adopt the Palestinian cause as part of a worldwide Islamic plan, with the policy plan and by means of jihad, since it acts as the keystone of the renaissance of the Arab world today.
Point of Departure 12: To know how to turn to self-criticism and permanent evaluation of worldwide Islamic policy and its objectives, of its content and its procedures, in order to improve it. This is a duty and a necessity according to the precepts of sharia.
Clearly, the goal is an Islamic state that is not going to be democratic. Using political means and temporary alliances to move closer to the goal of a worldwide 'ummah is acceptable, but ultimately such a state would be governed by Sharia law, and non-Muslims will either be banned (infidels) or have to pay their toll tax and accept second-class status (dhimmis.)
Unfortunately, the self-righteous hypocritical Islamist whining about "democracy" is very effective for wishful-thinking bleeding heart idiots like Albright.
Democracy without freedom is worthless.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
Perhaps more newsworthy than the headline, which can be looked at as the ravings of a single lunatic, are the explicitly anti-semitic literature that is being sold at the Great Mosque in Stockholm. The Muslims who claim that they are not anti-semitic don't expend too much effort to eradicate such hate from their midst, which waters down their arguments substantially. (A good example is the EJP interview with another Swedish imam who denounces the words of the other Imam but softpedals its importance.)
An investigation by a Swedish radio station has revealed a deep-set hatred for Jews amongst some of the country’s Muslim leaders who have were caught on tape calling for the destruction of Jewry and other “infidels”.
Last Friday, the Swedish Radio program Ekot, The Echo, broadcast an investigation they had made into what is said in mosques and Muslim prayer services in Sweden.
Using a hidden microphone, they taped prayer sessions and conversations with 15 imams in Sweden.
They found that all imams but one, stated that war, violence and terrorism are incompatible with Islam.
However, one imam led a prayer service in which he called for the destruction of the “Jews, Americans and Brits” and “enemies of Islam. " The service included the following call:
“God, keep Islam and Muslims high and protect Islam
God, humiliate the infidels
God, humiliate the enemies of Islam
Jews, Americans and Brits
And all those who support them
Who cooperate with them
And who are in alliance with them
God, destroy them all,
God, leave none of them alive,
God, give victory to mujahedin everywhere”
Antisemitic tapes sold at Mosque
On Sunday, the Echo program also reported that they had uncovered tapes featuring anti-Semitic content which are being sold in the bookstore of the Great Mosque in Stockholm.
On one tape, which featured a picture of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas leader that Israel assassinated in March 2004, said: “Oh God, eradicate the Jews, Oh God, eradicate the Jews, Oh God, eradicate the Jews! Oh God, curse them and banish them and let them be whipped by suffering. Oh God, over heaven and earth!”
According to Swedish Radio, the tape also spoke of “Jews as vermin, as brothers of monkeys and pigs, and that there is no solution to the Jews but a jihad – a holy war”.
On Monday, the Chancellor of Justice, a legal authority dealing with freedom of speech, stated that it will now consider the case whether, in selling this and similar tapes, the Great Mosque can be charged with incitement against Jews.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
The report was issued a couple of weeks ago, and many of the recommendations seem more oriented towards proselytizing and promoting Islam in the UK rather than containing extremism. Not surprisingly, the Muslims who wrote the report seem to spend more time blaming the British for creating an environment that somehow forces Muslims to become terrorists than the terrorists themselves.
The (British) Asian News site has details. Notice how the "moderate" writers of this report take for granted that Palestinian suicide bombings against Jews are not terrorism and are justified, as well as the myth of al-Dura being factual:
The introduction to the report, for example, states: "Emphasis has also been placed repeatedly on the need to look not only at the events that occurred on those two days in July, but to the causes behind them."So not only does the British Muslim community completely abdicate any soul-searching for the existence of terrorists in their midst, not only do they continue to justify terror against Jews as being perfectly acceptable when writing a report to their own government, but they blame the British for how their terrorists act and cynically use a terror attack as a springboard to increase the influence of Islam in the UK!
In the section on security the working group is openly critical of legislation presented by the Blair government as a means of 'saving' the public from future suicide bombers. They warn in this section: "One cannot ignore the effect of successive UK Governments’ foreign policies........neither can Islamophobic attitudes, still largely prevalent in British educational institutions, much of them based on mythical paradigms of Islam and Muslims cultivated by orientalists over many centuries, be considered irrelevant to the issue."
This same group sound a grave warning on proposals to make "inciting, justifying or glorifying terrorism" a criminal offence. Does this mean, they ask, that UK Muslims who publicly support Palestinians who attack the state of Israel for occupying their land, will be arrested for justifying terrorism, indeed, under such new laws, would Cherie Blair have run the risk of charges when she was shown on television stating she could understand what motivated suicide bombers after witnessing a young Palestinian boy shot dead by Israeli soldiers as his desperate father attempted to shield him?
Other working parties suggested a series of reforms aimed at tackling violent extremist attitudes and boosting the image and knowledge of Islam in Britain.
A raft or reforms are proposed to improve the profile of UK imams and mosques. They amount to a regularisation of the Islamic clergy rather along the lines of the structure and training of the Church of England priesthood.
They want to see national advisory council of mosques made up of influential imams and Islamic thinkers representing the many traditions in the faith.
This would give guidance on training and practices in and around mosque.
A National Islamic Resources Centre is another suggestion. This is seen as a powerhouse for developing more affective training within the Muslim community and could also spearhead a campaign to improve the knowledge of Islam in mainstream schools.
There is also a proposal for forming similar centres in areas with a significant Muslim community including Manchester. They would be come a cultural hub for mosques and Muslims as well as representatives of other faiths.
For existing imams there would be professional development programs to keep them 'up to scratch'. Home grown imams would be encouraged as opposed to the present practice of bringing them in from the Indian sub-continent.
In order to win especially young Muslims from extremist, and to educate the non-Muslim population on the values of Islam, a travelling 'roadshow' of international Islamic scholars is suggested. They could tour the country staging conferences and seminars on the faith.
The report also suggests that a British Muslim toolkit could be established to help Islamic societies, mosques, parents and youth on how to develop in the faith.
The working party on education highlights what it calls the "gaping hole" in the national schools curriculum on the contribution of Islam to European civilization. One of the ways to remedy this, says their report, would be to create an Islamic way of life exhibition to tour schools.
On a national level the report wants to see an Islamic media unit, similar to the one that exists in the Foreign Office, created in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. This could disseminate positive information about Islam and counter, what it sees as the general negative reporting, especially in tabloid newspapers.
The proposals have been welcomed by Home Office minister Hazel Blears, but even if they are implemented, will they alone be able to overcome the rising anger in the Muslim world over perceived violent injustice against Islamic nations which began with the first Zionist land grab in Palestine and continues with the occupation of Iraq? Time will tell.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Elder of Ziyon
On Monday, Fatah leaders in the Gaza Strip called off primary elections after rival Fatah gangs fought street battles and stormed polling stations, firing into the air and stealing ballot boxes.
Primary elections that were held in five West Bank areas late last week have resulted in a stunning defeat for representatives of Fatah's old guard.
'What happened in the Gaza Strip is a real disaster for Fatah,' said Haitham Salah, a Fatah operative. 'It shows that we are living in a jungle full of gangs and militias.' (Bright guy, this Salah. - EoZ)
Many of the candidates who lost the vote have since complained of irregularities and cheating, urging Abbas to cancel the results and hold new elections. PA officials here said the turmoil in Fatah could force Abbas to postpone parliamentary elections scheduled for January 25.
PA Civil Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan, who is running in the primary elections, called on Abbas to form a commission of inquiry to look into the events that took place in the Gaza Strip on Monday. He accused veteran Fatah leaders of seeking to disrupt the vote to prevent young activists from winning.
Dahlan and many other Fatah activists fear that Abbas is planning to appoint his own candidates to run in the parliamentary vote because of the party's failure to hold free and democratic elections. "The era of appointments is over," Dahlan stressed, referring to times when Yasser Arafat used to appoint Fatah officials. "We insist on elections."
Sources in the Gaza Strip said Dahlan's followers were among the gunmen who raided several polling stations to protest against the fact that the names of thousands of Fatah members had been omitted from voting lists.
I love how the most violent people are the first ones to lecture others on democracy!
Elder of Ziyon




