Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Today's Palestinian Police Phunnies: A dose of reality

This article from the Sunday Herald (UK) says so many truths about the situation that it is hard to know what to highlight. The bias that the Herald uses in making the terrorist heroic is nothing new but even so, this article is a must read.

To begin with, notice how even this article recognizes that the Palestinian "security forces" are meant to be an army to fight Israel rather than meant for law and order and stopping terror.

By day, he is a Palestinian Authority soldier, guarding his land against Israel. By night, he is a Hamas warrior, fighting his countrymen

GAZA MAN Abu Khaled leads two very conflicting lives. During the day he serves as a soldier in the National Security Force, the notional army of the Palestinian Authority (PA), guarding a token position a few hundred metres from the Israeli border fence.

But when night comes, he takes off his army uniform and puts on the black mask and fatigues of the al-Qassam Brigades, the guerrilla wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known by its Arabic acronym, Hamas.

Twice wounded in combat with Israeli forces as an al-Qassam warrior, on four occasions he has only narrowly escaped being killed by missiles fired from Israeli robot aircraft. [The human vs. unthinking robot motif is one used many times by the MSM to frame the conflict, but rarely so explicitly. - EoZ]

Now, however, he faces a new and even more disturbing threat to his life. In Gaza, Ramallah and Nablus in recent days, his Hamas comrades have fought bloody skirmishes with loyalists of the rival Fatah movement, which Hamas defeated in parliamentary elections last January. [Notice how the Herald is disturbed that a terrorist's life is threatened by Israel. - EoZ]

Despite Fatah's defeat, the vast majority of the PA's public servants and security men still profess loyalty to the former ruling party, leaving 23-year-old Khaled, a known Hamas supporter in their midst, dangerously exposed to violence from either side.

Last week, Khaled would only agree to be interviewed in a moving car, driving around his north Gaza home of Beit Hanoun to avoid attracting attention.

"It's miserable and terrible right now," he said. "We are afraid all the time that we could be hit, either by the Israelis or by our own factions. The al-Qassam Brigades haven't attacked any army posts yet, but they might, and I'm afraid that Fatah guys could get information that I'm a Qassam Brigades guy and come and shoot me."

Many members of Fatah's various private militia groups also double up as members of the armed forces, a tangled network of 14 rival police, military and intelligence agencies set up by the late Yasser Arafat to keep his gunmen fed, loyal and - just as important - divided.

...
In recent months, moreover, Abbas's position has been further boosted by the dramatic expansion and retraining of his own presidential guard force.

The Palestinian Authority's 3.7 million people may be wilting under the international political and financial boycott imposed following Hamas's election win, but Abbas has nevertheless found money and weapons to upgrade a personal army which is expected to reach 3000-strong. And its members' salaries are still paid even while other public servants - including Fatah loyalists - are left without.

There is now considerable debate about how Abbas has pulled this off, particularly in Gaza, where the bulk of the new-look presidential guard is leading the confrontation with Hamas's own new "Executive Force", a force set up by the Hamas interior minister supposedly to counterbalance Fatah's control of the established security forces.

It is openly acknowledged, though, that US military and intelligence personnel have been training Abbas's new force in the West Bank town of Jericho, from where they travel to Gaza through Israeli territory. Moreover, it was widely reported last week that the White House is asking Congress for as much as $90 million (£46m) in special aid for Abbas's guard, to strengthen it for a showdown with Hamas.

In a tour of the Middle East last week, prime minister Tony Blair sought to portray the Abbas/Hamas stand-off in the mould of the war against terror, as part of a wider struggle between extremist forces such as Iran and Syria - both of which support Hamas - and more "moderate" Arab leaders, such as the regimes in Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf.

Mr Blair suggested that part of the hundreds of millions of dollars in customs revenue and aid currently withheld from the PA by Israel and the West should be passed directly to Abbas's "moderate" forces. In the process, he said, care should be taken to ensure that the money went only to Abbas's security forces and not to armed factions.

But, as anyone who has visited Gaza knows, the PA security forces and Fatah's armed factions are largely the same thing.

As violence intensified last week, masked presidential guards drove through Gaza City in armoured cars and trucks mounted with new heavy machine guns, shooting in the air and openly brandishing yellow Fatah flags.

...While both sides have much to be ashamed of after months of brutal feuding, the mere suggestion that Fatah leaders are in effect working with the US - and by implication with Israel - to bully and starve out an elected Palestinian government points to fresh depths of horror ahead.
...
Fatah's rag-tag gunmen, whether in PA uniform or not, have little hope of taking on Hamas's well-trained religious warriors without extensive support from Israel, which effectively controls the wider strategic map. But victory with Israeli and US support would rob Fatah of what legitimacy it still possesses in Arab eyes, transforming it into a quisling government.

So while this article has its share of anti-Israel bias, it is important in that it shows the utter uselessness of arming and training thousands more terrorists in the name of "peace" and for a "moderate" Fatah that is equally bloodthirsty as Hamas and PIJ.

A month of a unilateral "cease fire"

As the calendar on my sidebar is showing, we now have had nine consecutive days of Qassam rockets being shot at Israel, making it 24 out of 32 days since the illusory "cease-fire" was announced that rockets have been launched (click on any day's link for more details; some of the days link to earlier articles in the day and more Qassams were fired later that I didn't capture):

So far today (12/26)there have been five rockets.

Olmert, trying hard to prove that he can decend to new levels of idiocy every day, took strong action:

The Olmert administration is depending on diplomatic retaliation at this point and instructed United Nations Ambassador Dan Gillerman to register a strong complaint with the U.N.

And how was this strong complaint worded?

"The continuous rocket attacks and grave violation of Israel's sovereignty constitutes a grim threat to peace and security in the region... which may bring to a deterioration of the situation," Gillerman continued in the letter.

Gillerman asked that the Security Council immediately condemn the attacks and warn those parties on the Palestinian side who are "provoking the situation" that they may bring to a renewed eruption of hostilities.

Evidently, in the bizarre language of UN diplomacy, dozens of Qassams don't destroy peace, but are only a "grim threat." They aren't "hostilities", but they may bring a "renewed eruption."

But surely there are fewer rockets being fired now than before the cease-fire? Certainly things are calmer, right?

Ummmm.....no.

Information collected by the defense establishment indicates that only during the months of June, July, and November more rockets were fired than in this month of calm. In contrast, during the months of February, April, August, and September, the months where there was no calm, there were less Qassam attacks than during the ceasefire.

So there is literally no relationship between Israel acting with restraint and the number of Palestinian Arab rocket attacks.

Yet Olmert, against the advice of the IDF, is gambling with his citizen's lives and betting that the world will put some sort of "pressure"on a reichlet that he himself is now funding and arming!

Fatah terrorists slam Hamas - for being too soft

From the PA Arabic mouthpiece, WAFA (autotranslated/cleaned up):

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military arm of the "Fatah" Movement, today rejected "Hamas" on the truce offer, for its unprecedented free concessions to Israel.

Abu Al-Walid, spokesman for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said in a telephone conversation with the "Voice of Palestine", this morning, that this document, beyond the constants and national standards, through repeal the right of return, and acceptance of the temporary borders of Israel which will give full opportunity to intensify settlement and looting Palestinian land and divide it into "cantons".

He added that the "Hamas" resort to its pledge not to make concessions before the Palestinian arena, and the basis of the national principles to extricate the government from the crisis, saying : "The government was out" Hamas "from the crisis deserves to implicate the Palestinian people in free concessions."

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, to fight the "Hamas" by all means, pointing out that Ahmed Yusuf, the political adviser to Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, who arrive at the document with other Western intelligence, represents only the "Hamas", adding that spokesmen, "Hamas" are misinforming the Palestinian people is a shame.

Some of the accusations are clearly a purposeful misreading of the Hamas "hudna" offer to make Hamas look weak compared to the Fatah "military arm," and much of this statement is political positioning rather than reflecting reality, but it proves yet again that Fatah is no more interested in peace than Hamas.

Also interesting is the fact that though this is a pro-Abbas newspaper (really a mouthpiece), there is not the slightest hint that the newspaper is distancing itself from the feelings of the Al Aqsa Brigades the way that its articles on Hamas make clear that they are "the other side."

And just like Abbas refuses to say anything bad about Al Aqsa, notice that Al Aqsa is slamming Hamas and refusing to say anything bad about Abbas, even though he has publicly claimed (when criticizing Hamas!) to only want a state on the 1967 territories and nothing more.

Which means that, at best, Abbas has no interest in reigning in his "military wing" even when their statements are totally at odds with Abbas' public, more "moderate" statements. At worst, it means that the Brigades is just part of the PalArab Fatah strategy to use both the carrot and the stick to get Israel to bend to their will and that Abbas agrees with their statements wholeheartedly. This was a hallmark of Arafat's methodology.

Yet somehow Olmert and his European friends think that strengthening Fatah is the key to peace.

Handy-dandy guide to Olmert's negotiating skill

The increasingly French Olmert showed off his devastating negotiating skills with the "moderate" terrorist leader Mahmoud Abbas this evening. For those too lazy to read all the details, here's a scorecard:

What Abbas got	What Olmert got
$100 million	More Qassams Saturday and Sunday
Discussion of extending the "cease fire" to the West Bank
Abbas' Force 17 will be deployed at the Philadelphi Corridor
Discussions on how Israel will release terrorist prisoners
PLO "Badr Brigrades" troops will come from Jordan
Removal of some checkpoints in the West Bank

For good measure, Saeb Erekat described the meeting to Palestinian Arabic news sources in this way (autotranslated):

Mr. President addressed the revival of a meaningful peace process between the two sides leading to the end of military occupation, the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the application of the road map, including the Arab peace initiative and other issues of the final status negotiations, Jerusalem, settlements, borders, refugees and water.

So apparently, despite Hamas running the government, everything that PalArabs want is still up for negotiation while not a single Israeli position is even discussed.

Way to go, Olmert! It's nice to see you are so empathetic with the Palestinian Arabs, the Saudis and the Europeans. That covers almost everyone!

HH XCIX

Today's Haveil Havalim #99 represents the age-old Roman numeral question: why is it XCIX and not IC?

Anyway, this week's round-up of the best of the JBlogosphere is hosted by me-ander. She does a great job.

I am honored to say that she picked two of my better posts (Time for the PalArabs to step up. But they won't. and Don't forget Islamic Jihad) for the round-up as well..

Check it out!

The Khaleej Times on freedom of expression

From today:

AS EXPECTED, David Irving’s release from an Austrian prison and subsequent return to England has sparked an intense debate regarding the freedom of speech in the modern era, especially with regard to subjects as sensitive as the Holocaust.

How free is it that in addition to Israel, several European countries also have strict laws against Holocaust denial. In Austria, for example — where the ageing historian/writer initially sentenced for three years — the ‘crime’ carries a prison term of up to 10 years. The relevant law states that ‘anyone who denies, plays down, approves or tries to excuse the Nazi genocide or other Nazi crimes against humanity’ automatically qualifies for a stint in the slammer.

That much of the world’s Jewish community continues to nurse psychological wounds from the much-reported Holocaust is understandable considering that according to popular opinion, it threatened to practically finish them off, and that too in the most gruesome manner. But there is a fine line between advocating justified sympathy and muscling all and sundry into acceptance of what is their own version of the episode, true or concocted notwithstanding. It is no secret that the slightest question posed to the Jews’ analysis of Hitler’s atrocities — even if it is with the sincerest of intentions — draws the severest reaction from right across the West. So much as a word is taboo, and one is slapped with charges of anti-Semitism even before one’s point is made completely. The media hounds do the rest and the person-in-question’s credibility is reduced to scarce more than dust.

What is it that has pushed the Zionist lobby to the verge of paranoia, if not into it? Having suffered one of the worst known human rights abuses on record in the Holocaust, they should be eager to encourage rather than shun research and analyses into it. If their claim is right and true, what other could be unearthed by those looking into it?

It bears noting that this iron-fist no-questions-asked approach is widely reflected in the Israeli character. Truth be told, history will judge them as gross violators of human rights themselves, hardly becoming of a people that have suffered injustices. It does not take genius to figure out that only those with something to hide discourage debate and reason, especially in the modern age of much trumpeted freedom of speech. Unfortunately though, it looks as if for such topics it’s going to be ‘Mum’s the word’.

The stupidity of the editorial is apparent, as is the underlying hate, scare quotes and condescending words that show the author himself doesn't quite believe that the Holocaust actually occurred. Hiding behind the absurd premise that the Ahmadinejads and Irvings of the world are actually interested in the truth, the Khaleej Times is painting Jews as a paranoid and scheming people who wouldn't know truth if they saw it. And, overall, the newspaper's editor hides his aching to see the Holocaust debunked under the pretense of "freedom of expression."

But in a somewhat different context a couple of months ago, the editor does not seem to be quite as sanguine about freedom of expression:

More importantly, now it is not possible to dismiss the cartoon episode last year as something that was the handiwork of a loony and reckless cartoonist. Clearly, there is a method in the madness. In fact, these disturbing acts of vandalism are not limited to Denmark. They are part of what has become a disturbing trend across Europe as the right-wing media and politicians whip up paranoid frenzy against everything Islamic. There is sickness in the heart of Europe. And the all-pervasive war on terror unleashed by the US neocons appears to have boosted it.

If it was the Danish cartoons last year, it's Danish video this year. Then there was this opera in Germany that took the concept of artistic licence too far when it showed the beheading of Prophet of Islam besides that of Jesus and Buddha. Last week, prominent French newspapers published an incredibly painful article by a Jewish 'scholar' about the Prophet accusing him of all sorts of absurdities.

What is going on? Can you blame the anguished Muslims if they see a clever and concerted campaign being conducted across the continent to vilify their faith and its revered figures and teachings? And can you blame the Muslims if they come out on the streets, from Morocco to Malaysia, in anger and frustration?

Whatever the explanation for these growing attacks on Islam and Muslims, they could have dangerous and far-reaching consequences for the whole world. The leaders of Denmark and other European countries cannot hide behind the fig leaf of the freedom of expression as these acts of intellectual vandalism and intolerance are unleashed on Muslims, Europe's second largest religious community. The freedom of speech is fine and Muslims respect it too just as they respect all other rights. However, the freedom of speech mustn't be abused to insult other people's beliefs and sensibilities. As the OIC has argued, it is the responsibility of politicians, governments, media and civil society organisations in the West to oppose all such attacks. This is essential if we want to avoid a dangerous clash of civilizations — between West and Muslim world.

Notwithstanding the implied threat in the last sentence ("don't upset us or else we'll hurt you") see how hypocritical his desire for truth and justice and freedom is? Freedom of speech is great when the victims are Jews, but if the victims are Muslims then a world war is the only logical outcome.

And this world view holds that Muslim world war to defend Mohammed seems preferable to jailing Holocaust deniers.

Egypt claims Eilat for Palestinian Arabs

In a breathtaking example of how the Arab world is trying to dismantle Israel piece by piece, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry is claiming that Eilat belongs to the Palestinian Arabs, arguing against others in Egypt's parliament that it belongs to Egypt.

No one admits it belongs to Israel.

In the course of the debate, which has been going on in parliament for the last two days, Abed el-Aziz Sayef a-Nasser, an aide to the Egyptian foreign minister, was called as an expert witness. A-Nasser is the director of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry's legal department.

"Eilat, or by its former name Umm Rashrash, belongs to the Palestinians," he said, representing the opinion of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

His predecessor, Dr. Nabil el-Arabi, was the head of the Foreign Ministry's legal department and headed the delegation for negotiations at Taba. He also emphatically declared: "Eilat belongs to the Palestinians."

A-Nasser's response was meant to calm tempers in the rowdy debate in the Egyptian parliament, after dozens of opposition representatives demanding holding negotiations to have Eilat returned to Egyptian sovereignty.

Opposition MPs recruited several legal experts, international law lecturers and experts on geography and topography who showed documents and opinions that Eilat is territory that belongs to Egypt and was captured in 1949 by Israel. They contend that the Egyptian negotiating team to Taba conceded Eilat to Israel 20 years ago "in the framework of the wish to build confidence and to display Egyptian good will in the spirit of the peace
agreement."

This was not the end of the matter. An Egyptian international law expert presented an intermediate position in parliament: "Eilat belongs formally to Egypt and administratively to the Palestinians."

In the debate in parliament two days ago, an opposition MP, Mohammed el-Aadali, whipped out a document from 1906 which states, in the name of the Ottoman sultan: Umm Rashrash belongs to Egypt. In this spot-said the Egyptian experts on topography and geography-Egyptian pilgrims would stop and rest on their way to the holy cities in Saudi Arabia.

OK, let's look at the UN partition map of 1947. The green part is dedicated for the Jewish state, even in 1947 (this is not designated as Palestinian Arab land):

And the southern tip in more detail:

Now, let's look where Eilat lies today:

Eilat is right on the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba while the partition shows that the Jewish state boundaries are some file miles to the south.

Evidently the heralded Egyptian Israeli peace treaty is not as great an example of cooperation and understanding as many would have you believe. Even Egypt looks upon it as a first step towards slicing Israel up into smaller and smaller slices until it is gone.

2006 Dhimmi of the Year

Here is Islam's ideal Christian: the Greek Orthodox archbishop in Jerusalem.

This is the same guy who claimed that an Israeli woman was spreading AIDS among Palestinian Arabs. Even during the Pope riots, when churches in the territories were being firebombed, he only condemned the Pope and not the rioters. But here we can see the true extent of his submissiveness to a religion that is not his own:

"The unity of the Palestinians is key to achieving our objectives. We have a common enemy to fight," Atallah Hanna, the Archbishop of Sevastia, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said.

Hanna fought shy of naming the common enemy but it was obvious that he was referring to Israel. In reply to a question about the ratio of Christians in the Palestinian population, he said roughly one per cent of the Palestinian population was Christian. [In 1950, it was 15%. - EoZ]

He continuously evaded a question about who he and other Christians in the Palestinian territories supported: 'Hamas or Fateh'. "We are supporting whoever the Palestinians want, but the infighting must end," he said.

Hanna is here to attend the two-day conference on Islamists versus Arab nationalists that began at the Ritz-Carlton here yesterday.

Hanna also did not clarify who he was siding with at the convention: the Islamists or Arab nationalists.

Asked if the Palestinian Christians had a political party of their own, he replied in the negative and said: "We don't believe in communal politics. We are in all the political parties of the Palestinians."

So this supposed church leader is so submissive, so dhimmified, so willing to forgo his own belief in his own faith that he is unwilling to even say anything against living under shari'a law, as Hamas calls for in its charter.

His only negative words are aimed at the one nation in the area who is not oppressing his coreligionists.

Previously, this man of God also has called on Arab Christians to start doing their own suicide terror attacks against Israel. His statements were so extreme that he was fired as official spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem but that doesn't stop him from always being found among Islamist terrorist leaders, supporting the murders of Israelis and acting as a de facto spokesman for Arab Christians in his many interviews.

For slavishly adhering to the same political line as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Archbishop Hanna is the hands-down winner of the 2006 Dhimmi of the Year award.

UPDATE: Soccer Dad points to "the only Catholic priest in Gaza" as a strong contender for the title.

A couple of short items about hospitals

On Tuesday, some of the Fatah/Hamas gunfighting occured in the corridors of a hospital in Gaza.
At Shifa Hospital, the biggest in Gaza, tensions are so high that wounded from different factions cannot be placed in the same room. "Everyone has family, friends and bodyguards," said hospital spokesman Dr. Jumaa Saqqa. "We have to separate them. Otherwise there will be clashes."

Hamas' security forces took control of the hospital four months ago, at the orders of the health minister from Hamas, Bassem Naim.

On Tuesday, a two-hour gunbattle raged in the hospital's hallways, sparked by a confrontation between Hamas guards and escorts of an officer from the Abbas-allied intelligence service who sought treatment for a broken leg. A security officer was killed and 10 people were wounded in the fighting.

Israel is treating some of those wounded in the intra-Palestinian Arab fighting in its own hospitals, according to a news flash in the Palestine News Network website (only the Arabic site, not the English one, because it is not responsible to inform the world of anything decent that Israelis do.)

I somehow doubt that anyone from the press will point out the irony that Palestinian Arab fighters, who are sworn to destroy Israel, are safer in Israeli hospitals than in PalArab hospitals.

Menorah meme

I wasn't tagged by anyone for this meme that originated at The Ignoble Experiment, but what the heck...

Due to unforeseen circumstances, our normal family menorahs are inaccessible this year. Last Friday at noon I went out with Junior Elder on a quest to find a nice, cheap, last minute menorah.

The local Judaica stores had many but they were generally in the $100-$250 range and since I was only planning on using it this year, that didn't make sense.

Finally, we went to a dollar store.

8 medium sized blue glass candlesticks, one larger clear candlestick, and three packages of colored tea-lights later, and I had my $12 Elder Menorah 2006:

The household was quite pleased!

Hate site upset that I emailed Google News

The People's Voice, which had a virulently anti-semitic article that I mentioned here, is a website where any idiot can publish anything and Google indexes it as "news" in the news.google.com site.

Apparently the site took note of my mentioning them as they wrote a long article criticizing me as a racist, a bigot, a Jewish supremacist and who knows what else. As proof, they used comments made by others on this blog, as well as at least one obvious joke that was making fun of what people like them think - and that they hilariously took seriously.

Their inability to understand simple English is shown by their criticism of something I wrote:

As I scrolled down the page containing the exchange between rj and the people on this site I noticed that the site is filled with statements denoting race, the 'Arabs' this, the 'Arabs' that. Here is a small example:
"This letter implies how difficult it is for Arabs to even have a clue about real world history, as the Arabic literature on secular topics is very sparse. This is a tragedy that is usually overlooked - a billion people who only can read one language are imprisoned by the non-existence of any ideas that are not politically-correct for the Arab world."

What if they had said:

"This letter implies how difficult it is for some Jewish people to even have a clue about real world history, as the Jewish literature on secular topics is very sparse. This is a tragedy that is usually overlooked - a billion people who only can read one language are imprisoned by the non-existence of any ideas that are not politically-correct for the Jewish world."

Well, first of all the correct analogy to "Arabic" would be "Hebrew." So even though word substitution is almost always a ridiculous argument, let's go for it:

"This letter implies how difficult it is for some Jews to even have a clue about real world history, as the Hebrew literature on secular topics is very sparse. This is a tragedy that is usually overlooked - fifteen million people who only can read one language are imprisoned by the non-existence of any ideas that are not politically-correct for the Jewish world."

As can be seen, if a proper word substitution is placed in this paragraph, it becomes nonsensical - firstly because most Jews read and write languages other than Hebrew, and secondly because there are plenty of secular Hebrew books. So my original paragraph makes a lot of sense and is not bigoted in the slightest.

At any rate, buried within this rant was the cry that I was trying to censor them, even though I explained twice that asking Google News not to index them as a legitimate "news" site is not the same thing as trying to stop their website from publishing. They are so clueless that they mention that my "hate site" blog is indexed by Google, not having a clue that there is a difference between Google, a web site spider tool, and Google News, where human beings choose what is considered a news source.

So The People's Voice is, as usual, playing a victim card.

Google News actually emailed them and told them that they were removing the hate article from their index, and warned them that if they continue to publish similar articles then they would be delisted from Google News.

A tiny step against pure hatred.

British airline bans Bibles to Saudi Arabia

Britain's BMI airlines have banned its employees from bringing non-Muslim religious articles on its lucrative Saudi Arabia route.

Keep in mind - this was not in response to a request from Saudi Arabia. Like good little dhimmis, they want to proactively deny their own rights to make sure they don't upset the 'ummah.

London, Dec 21 (ZEENEWS.COM) A British airline has banned its crew from taking the Bible into Saudi Arabia for fear of upsetting Muslims.

BMI bosses have told staff to take the Koran instead, and this without any intimation to this effect from Riyadh.

As expected, things have not gone down too well with the staff. One middle-aged stewardess is planning to sue BMI for religious discrimination at an industrial tribunal due to take place in the New Year.

In the meantime, BMI has decided to exclude her from flights to Saudi Arabia.

A BMI source said: “Foreign Office advice is that non-Islamic religious material is not permitted in Saudi”.

But another BMI worker said: “We understand our embassy has confirmed that the Saudis never enforce this rule”.

“The stewardess is deeply religious and takes her Bible everywhere she travels. The bottom line is BMI don’t want to jeopardise the Saudi route, which is worth millions to them,” The Sun quoted the worker as saying.