Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Qassam Rocket calendar - February

Here is my best shot at keeping track of when rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza so far this month. On the 8th, 10 were claimed to have been shot by Islamic Jihad but only four or so were recorded as having landed.

The numbers in parentheses are from Palestinian terror group claims, not from Israeli confirmed sources.

Remember that Israel still regards this as being "calm" and has only rarely responded to Gaza terror since the "cease fire" announced in November.

February 2007 Qassam attacks

March calendar here.

The Cotton Market

As we mentioned last month, Palestinian Arabs are protesting a synagogue that is apparently being built on the site of the Cotton Market in the Old City.

I have not found any mention of this being built in any Jewish or Israeli sources, but it would be between the Kotel and the Kotel HaKatan and 50-100 meters away from the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.

The Cotton Market was originally built in the 14th century and was for a time an important commercial center. But it fell into disuse and was abandoned for centuries, through Ottoman rule and through Jordanian rule.

Here's a picture of the market from National Geographic in 1917:

It was rebuilt only after Israel ruled the area, possibly as late as 1995, by the Waqf and paid for by the UN.

The Cotton Market mirrors the history of Jerusalem as a whole: when no Jews were there, no one cared about it or its historic value. Even when Jordan ruled Jerusalem nothing was done to rebuild this area. Only under Jewish rule was Arab interest rekindled in the Cotton Market and Jerusalem as a whole.

Remember this whenever you read an article about how sacred every stone of Jerusalem is to Muslims. The Cotton Market is undeniably a beautiful piece of architecture, ending in an impressive gate to the Temple Mount - but even so, it was abandoned and ignored by the very people who claim to love it the most today.

As with Palestine altogether, Arab and Muslim interest has traditionally been not so much in a homeland for Palestinian Arabs as in a place where infidels and dhimmis must not have any influence.

Here's a small experiment. Right now, the number of Palestinian websites that mention the Cotton Market (al-Qattanin) is relatively small. If in fact a synagogue will be built there, Google it in a few years and see how many websites will extol the supreme importance the Cotton Market has to Islamic history, all the while complaining about how the wicked "Zionists" have been working overtime to "Judaize" the city and threaten the mosques there.

Erez Levanon was a 42-year old devout Breslover chassid from Bat Ayin. He was the father of three, played the guitar and even released a CD - you can hear him here:

An intensely spiritual man, he had spent much time in India speaking to Israeli backpackers there about their own religion.

Levanon would go out in the fields near his home and pray for an hour every day. Yesterday, his routine was watched by two Palestinian Arabs who, during his prayers, brutally stabbed him many times.

The Palestinian Arab press is treating the murder of a man praying in the field as some sort of great victory, happening in a "well guarded" area, and it characterizes Israel's subsequent search and arrest of the two murderers as a heinous crime. Originally the PalArabs claimed that Palestinian Arabs found him and informed Israeli authorities; that people in their town of Beit Ummar were punished in retaliation, that Israel arrested two 17-year old "children." In fact, he was found by his neighbors who were looking for him and it is remarkable that the IDF found the apparent murderers so quickly.

The Israeli press is reporting that the youths were 18 and that they confessed to the crime, although they claimed that they did not belong to a terror organization.

Yet Islamic Jihad has taken responsibility for the murder.

(Even if you take the PalArab press at face value, it means that Islamic Jihad has trained "children" to be murderers and encourages them to kill any Jew they can find. )

Another peaceful PalArab weekend

The latest, all from Sunday:

At approximately 20:30 on Sunday, 25 February 2007, the body of Khalil Sufian El-Mathloum (16-year old resident of Sabra Quarter in Gaza City) was brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The boy was killed by a bullet to the chest which was accidentally fired from a firearm mishandled by one of his friends in Remal Quarter in the city.

At approximately 19:30 on the same day, Mohammad Abdel Rahman Ali (6) from Zaitoon Quarter in Gaza City was injured by a bullet in the right thigh. The boy was walking with his father; and was injured when a bullet was accidentally fired from a firearm mishandled by a friend of the boy’s father. He was taken to Shifa Hospital for treatment, where the injury was listed as moderate.

At approximately 13:00 on the same day, Basel Fathi Dawoud, a 24-year old resident of Beit Lahia in the north of the Gaza Strip, was seriously injured by a bullet in the head. The bullet was accidentally fired by a friend of the victim who mishandled his weapon.

There sure do seem to be a lot of people in the PA playing with guns and accidentally shooting their friends. Perhaps the NRA should go there and teach some basic gun safety tips?

And, as mentioned before, there were 6 other deaths since Friday morning, making this another wild weekend in the PA, although most of the killings seemed to be more clan clash rather than Fatah/Hamas murders. (It gets hard to tell because some families identify with one of the terrorist sides.)

Oh, and another three were injured when a terror tunnel collapsed between Gaza and Egypt.

So our count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by each other since Operation Summer Rains is now up to 331 and the number killed this year is at 126.

UPDATE (Monday): Maan News (Arabic only so far) has news of an apparent honor killing. A young woman was found in northern Gaza, dead with 10 bullet holes in her body. We are now at 332 and 127, and for those who are counting all of the Israeli casualties in Operation Hot Winter and want to compare, the score is now 2 killed by PalArabs and one killed by the IDF.

It's only a big deal when Jews do it

Two posts on the same theme from Life in Israel and My Right Word.

2500 posts

This is post number 2500.

Which makes me wonder - if I want to help Israel, is this the most effective use of my free time? Am I only preaching to the choir?

This poll made it sound like blogging is somewhat useful, and I try not to repeat what others are doing.

But I still wonder.

Hungry PalArab update

I mentioned last week a UN study that claimed that many Palestinian Arabs are not getting the nutrition they need.

Today, in Maan News (Arabic only) I see that vegetable prices in the PA have plummeted due to lack of demand and too much supply.

Something is not adding up....

Review of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East

I am finally (almost) finished with Michael Oren's Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present.

It is an important book, and one that would be difficult for me to do justice to. Oren uncovers a rich and complicated relationship between the United States and the Middle East that is older than the US itself. From the Barbary Wars through the first adventurers and missionaries who visited the area in the 19th century, on through American involvement in Egypt's early bids for independence and on to the American influence on Zionism, it is truly an encyclopedic work.

Meticulously researched, almost any random sentence could become an entire blog entry here. This is both a strength and a weakness as the sheer volume of facts is close to overwhelming. As a reference book it is stellar; as an enjoyable read it is somewhat less appealing, but for students of American history it is invaluable.

Oren shows how the Constitution itself was influenced by events in the Middle East, as our founding fathers realized that a strong central government rather than a loose confederation was the only way to build a centralized army and navy to fight the Muslim pirates of the Mediterranean, even as early American policy zigzagged between paying the North African states "tribute" and threatening them.

It was personally gratifying to see that my recent interest in what I termed Christian proto-Zionism was a large part of this book. Early Americans always looked upon themselves as Jews in the promised land, and the faith that Americans had over the past two centuries influenced US Mideast policy tremendously.

One of the important themes of the book was the influence of American missionaries on the Middle East - and vice versa. Their original intentions of converting Muslims and Jews to Christianity were spectacular failures even as more and more congregations raised money to send more missionaries to try. But when the missionaries changed their tactics and started creating schools that were more oriented to teaching basic skills and American ideology, the reverberations are still being felt today.

Arabs who were taught in these schools ended up becoming the leaders of the Arab nationalist movements - heavily influenced by American ideals of anti-colonialism. Conversely, many of the children of these missionaries who spent so much time in Arab countries gravitated to work in the State Department, whose pro-Arab tilt continues to this day.

Oren goes on to describe America's rising global power after World War I and its part in British policy in Palestine, on through the growing Zionist lobby, America in North Africa against Germany as well as against British and French colonialism and continuing on with FDR's ambivalence towards the idea of a Jewish state.

Oren's last chapter about US policy after Israel was born is much less detailed because, as the author admits, he has little new to add to the huge literature that already exists. Even so, it is a very good hundred page summary with plenty of facts I was not aware of or had forgotten about. (Everyone knows about Israel's accidental firing on the USS Liberty in 1967; how many know about Iraq's accidental firing on the USS Stark in 1987, killing 37 sailors?) He also effectively analyzes every US President's thinking and psyche on Middle East matters.

This book fills in a huge gap in our knowledge of American history and is a very worthwhile read.

(Also check out Pajamas Media's Michael Totten interview with Michael Oren for much more detail.)

2000 British Islamist terrorists

From AP:

The threat of homegrown terrorists attacking Britain is greater now than any time since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, a British Sunday newspaper reported, citing a leaked intelligence document.

More than 2,000 British-based Islamic terrorists are believed to be plotting attacks, according to a government threat assessment prepared this month, which The Sunday Telegraph said it had seen.

"The scale of al-Qaeda's ambitions towards attacking the UK and the number of UK extremists prepared to participate in attacks are even greater than we previously judged," the newspaper quoted the document as saying.

The newspaper said the document was being circulated between the Home Office, defense ministry, M15 intelligence agency and Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch.

The Home Office declined to comment on the report, but said in a statement that security arrangements are under constant review.

But not to worry: 2000 is still only a tiny minority of all British Muslims, so all is well.

Shahid inflation

One of the interesting things about the PalArab infighting is watching how the word "shahid" (martyr) is used.

It used to be easy - if you were killed while trying to murder Jews, you were in the exclusive Martyr's Club with not only large sexual benefits in Paradise but also your families would be paid handsomely by Arab regimes and the Western-supported moderate Palestinian Authority. Even blowing yourself up accidentally while only trying to build a bomb to kill Jews was plenty good enough to join the Club.

But now, what about all these hundreds of PalArabs killed by other Palestinian Arabs? Do they go to Paradise and get to screw lots of virgins? More importantly, do their families get the cash?

Pro-Fatah news sources routinely refer to their people murdered by Hamas as shahids, and I suppose that Hamas does the same to those killed by Fatah. And it appears that the definition just got expanded again:

Clashes broke out in Ramallah on Thursday afternoon after Palestinian security officers accidentally killed a Palestinian youth.

The incident began when a Palestinian military intelligence forces instructed a vehicle traveling in the West Bank city to stop. The driver refused and continued driving. The force opened fire at the vehicle, missed, and accidentally killed a teenager standing next to the vehicle.

The boy, Ahmed Abu Nefisa, was killed on the spot. In response to the killing, the boy's family members began attacking Palestinian Authority security officers and vehicle and set fire to police vehicles.

The rioters also vandalized several shops in the city and vandalized them. Almost all businesses in Ramallah were shut down in response for fear the clashes would continue.

Several hours later, senior members of the security organizations reached an agreement with the family members after promising them that the dead youth would be declared a "shahid" (martyr) and his family members would be compensated by the PA.

You see, it is getting easier and easier to be declared a Shahid. Just raise a stink, attack some police and - you're in, baby!

PalArab self-death update

Things have certainly calmed down in the territories, although not as much as you might think.

While Fatah and Hamas are not as successful in killing each other as beforehand, their efforts to kill Jews continue unabated (as yesterday's foiled terror attack shows.)

Yesterday, a Gaza man blew himself up while working on a bomb, making the counts of PalArabs who have been killed violently by each other go up to 322 since Operation Summer Rains and 117 so far this year.

UPDATE: PCHR mentions a number of incidents Wednesday, including two guys in Gaza who were messing around with a gun. One ended up dead.

Meanwhile:

At approximately 13:00 on Wednesday, 21 February 2007, Nahda Sa’di Hasanein, a 20-year old female resident of Sheja’eya Quarter in Gaza City was admitted to Shifa Hospital suffering from a gunshot wound in the abdomen. She was injured while inside her house; and the source of the shot was not determined. When members of the young woman’s clan were inside the hospital, a verbal dispute broke out when they refused to give information about the injured woman to the Executive Force station in the hospital. At approximately 19:30 on the same day, the Executive Force prevented members from Hasanein clan from entering the hospital because they were armed. An gunfight broke out between both sides in the hospital compound, and led to the injury of 10 people (including a 3-year old.)

Also a bomb set off outside the house of the Director of Police Security.

We are now at 323 and 118.

UPDATE 2: A PalArab policeman, chasing a car that didn't stop at a Palestinian Arab checkpoint (we never hear about those, do we?), fired his gun - and killed a bystander. 324 and 119.

UPDATE 3:Two more killed in Gaza (one shot many times, one stabbed.) 326 and 121.
During this week, 6 PalArab were killed by each other, and one was killed by Israel - and that one was responsible for attempting to kill many, many people.

UPDATE 4: 3 more dead as things are flaring up again. 329 and 124.

UPDATE 5: Apparently, the three killed on Saturday were in retaliation for a "militant" killed late Friday who I didn't count. So we are at 330 and 125.

UPDATE 6: For those of you visiting from LGF or Digg, there are plenty more where these came from. Here is a link to the next installment. And here is one to our last count update.

Arab family in Ramle has honor-murdered 8 of its women

A simply horrendous story in Haaretz:

The murder of Hamda Abu-Ghanem, whose bullet-riddled body was found in mid-January at her parents' house in Ramle, surprised nobody.

As police set about their investigation, everyone was aware that the victim's brother had been threatening to kill her, and that long before the murder, she had taken refuge in a battered women's shelter.

It was a typical "honor killing," meant to remove some perceived stain on the family's reputation.

The perpetrators of most honor killings in the Arab community are not apprehended. Hamda's murder, however, was one too many for the women in the Abu-Ghanem family. She was the eighth woman to be murdered in the extended family in the last six and a half years. All her predecessors also lost their lives in "honor killings."

This time, instead of keeping mum when the police questioned them, the Abu- Ghanem women gave detailed testimonies of everything they knew. One said she had seen Rashad enter the house where Hamda was. Shortly afterward she heard shots and seconds later saw Rashad, the key suspect, fleeing from the building.

The victim's mother told the police that Rashad had forbidden his sister to leave
the house after some men had called her a "prostitute."

"It was a women's revolt against the men of the family. While the men refused to cooperate with the police and forbade the women to speak, the women revealed all. They decided to put an end to the bloody circle of silence," Chief Inspector Haim Shreibhand, who was in charge of the investigation, told Haaretz.

The detectives gathered testimonies from 20 Abu-Ghanem women and assembled the pieces of the puzzle together into an indictment, he said.

Kamal Rashad Abu-Ghanem, 30, was arraigned in Tel Aviv's District Court yesterday for murder. His cousin Mahmoud, who was also arrested, was released for lack of sufficient evidence to file charges.

Rashad Abu-Ghanem was charged with entering the family's home, in Ramle's Juarish neighborhood. His sister was alone in the house, lying on her bed. She probably knew she was about to die. He went up the stairs with a loaded 9-mm. handgun, entered his sister's room and fired nine bullets at her.

Before Hamda, the other women of the Abu-Ghanem family who lost their lives for honor were Naifa, Suzan, Zinat, Sabrin, Amira, Reem and Shirihan.

Like some of the other victims, Hamda had spent the last few years in a shelter, hiding from her brother. Her "crime" was apparently her numerous telephone conversations, and being seen talking to her cousin once.

About a year ago, she asked to move back to her parents' house in Ramle. A few months later, she filed a police complaint against her brother, who had assaulted her. He was arrested, but later released by the court.

"The hardest thing at these murder scenes is the awful silence," said Yifrah Duchovny, Coastal Plain police commander. "Nobody cries, nobody speaks."

"We held everyone who was in the neighborhood at the time of the murder for questioning, and started collecting testimonies. The first one who cooperated with us, perhaps without meaning to, was a relative who said the murder wasn't justified, that Hamda had not breached any honor. Then a female relative agreed with him," Shreibhand said.

The detectives told Hamda's mother, sisters and cousins what the first two relatives had said and asked for their opinion. "Gradually they started to speak. Each one started by saying she had had enough, that she didn't want this situation to continue. The mother, who had first stood behind her son, suddenly started speaking against him, sharing things she knew with us. She said she was angry that he had murdered her daughter."

Hamda's sisters went further. When they confronted Rashad at the police station they spat out at him: "You're a dog," and "Sit in prison for life, murderer." One of them asked him, "Why don't you try to murder me too? I'm not scared of you any more."

The men, on the other hand, hardly said a word to the police. "After the women began to talk, they found themselves receiving threats," said Shreibhand.

The witnesses have been put in safe houses, for fear the men would try to harm them. However, several women were not comfortable in the safe houses and are returning to the neighborhood. "The relations between the men and women in the family have become really tense. We've had special meetings about how to protect the women after they testify and we have a plan," the inspector said.

However, Aida Touma-Suleiman, director of the Women Against Violence group in the Arab sector, said she has grave fears for the women's lives. "I support these brave women. They finally broke the circle of blood and silence. But I'm also afraid they will be hurt. As long as there is no witness protection program, these women will be abandoned after they testify. They may have been courageous, but they have also sentenced themselves to death," she said.

It took eight murders for the Arabs to finally cooperate with the police and even so, the remaining women are in grave danger.

All in the name of Arab "honor."

And this is the same "honor" that means that Arabs will never truly accept Israel's existence and will always try to destroy it - because Israel, by not being destroyed in 1948, has shamed the entire Arab nation.