Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 29, 2007

How crowded is Gaza City?

In 2005, I posted an article that debunked the idea that Gaza was ridiculously overpopulated, comparing the population density of Gaza with Macau, Monaco, Singapore and other countries.

In honor of "Land Day," the Palestinian Arab Central Bureau of Statistics came out with new statistics that showed that Gaza City itself is the most densely populated part of the PA.

Let's see how badly overcrowded Gaza City is compared to a representative sampling of major world cities:

City	Population/km²
Cairo	35,420
Dhaka	30,403
Mumbai	29,042
Seoul	17,008
New York City	10,439
Moscow	9,644
São Paulo	7,247
Gaza City	6,834
London	4,697
Los Angeles	2,980

"One of the most crowded places on the planet?" Not quite.

US aid to Abbas earmarked for attacking Israel

Reuters reports that the US is trying hard not to make past mistakes with the new round of funding Abbas' Fatah terrorists:

Members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard eligible for U.S.-funded training and equipment will be screened in advance for militant ties, U.S. documents showed on Wednesday.

The Bush administration is trying to allay concerns raised by some U.S. lawmakers and Israeli officials that a portion of the $59.4 million program for the presidential guard could inadvertently benefit militants from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is linked to Abbas's Fatah faction, or Hamas.

The groups are considered "terrorist organizations" by the United States and Israel.

Under the program, the United States will provide $14.5 million for "basic and advanced training" for the presidential guard and $23 million for non-lethal equipment.

Another $2.9 million in U.S. funds will be used to upgrade the presidential guard's training facilities, including a sprawling new base being build in Jericho, in the occupied West Bank.

A U.S. government document, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, said members of the presidential guard will undergo a series of local background checks before receiving any U.S.-funded training.

Their names also will be run through terrorism databases maintained by the FBI and the State Department.

In addition, Israel will be able to screen individual trainees before they are allowed to travel to Jordan for U.S.-funded training.

A Western diplomat close to the U.S. program said the screening process would create a "firewall against any terrorists becoming part of this program".

But it was unclear whether the safeguards would satisfy U.S. lawmakers and Israelis.

Presidential guard recruits already undergo screenings by local commanders. Some recruits have been dropped or moved to other branches, either because they are affiliated with non-Fatah groups or their family members are, Palestinian sources say.

Notice how recruits are allowed to be associated with Fatah terror groups like Al Aqsa, and would only be dropped if they are from non-Fatah groups.

Fatah has other ideas. From WND's incomparable Aaron Klein, who seems to be the only journalist who actually interviews terrorists (hat tip EBoZ):

The declared "military wing" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party took credit for two of seven rockets fired into Israel on Tuesday, vowed to break a Gaza ceasefire and told WND that US financial aid pledged for Fatah security forces will be used to "attack the Zionists."

"Even if the American money and weapons reach only members of Fatah who are not involved in the resistance, it will find its way to the Palestinian resistance and be utilized for attacks against the Zionists," said Abu Ahmed, the northern Gaza commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group.

Abu Ahmed was referring to $59 million the Bush administration announced Tuesday it will send to strengthen Fatah security forces.

Of course, this would not be the first time that US weapons are used by Fatah against Israel.

Kids die because of Arab pride (updated)

A cryptic article was posted to the Ma'an News website:

Ramallah - Ma'an - A young Palestinian child has died in vague circumstances in a hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The doctors of the hospital refused to speak to Ma'an about the case.

However, Ma'an has learnt that a forensic doctor arrived at the hospital and took samples from the baby girl and another child who was also suffering from the same condition. The doctor will take the samples to Amman, Jordan for further examinations and checks.

It sounds like a child died from some sort of disease, that may be contagious, and it is scary enough that the hospital places a news embargo.

Now, let's pretend that Palestinian Arabs truly wanted to live in peace with Israel. Wouldn't they want Israel's doctors to look at this case?

Israel's doctors are better, by any measure, than Jordan's.
If it is a contagious disease, Israel has great incentive to determine the cause and contain it.
Israeli hospitals do not discriminate between Jew and Arab, and they have treated thousands of Palestinian Arabs who are not citizens.
This could be a perfect opportunity to build bridges of peace between Israel and the PalArabs.

The only conceivable reason for not asking for help from Israel is because PalArabs do not want to look as if they can't handle the problem themselves. Admitting that Israel is better equipped to find a solution is yet another blow to Arab pride, and it is better to endanger the second kid and whoever else may have this problem than to appear weak and ineffective.

For Palestinian Arab leaders, 1984 lives: War Is Peace, Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.

UPDATE: Ma'an was wrong; the Palestinian Arabs did call Israel for help and for the first time since the Intifada, and Israeli ambulance went to Ramallah and picked up the sick (possibly poisoned) child. YNet has all the details.

Explosion in Hamas official's house; 5-year old killed

The unity government continues to show real results.

A 5-year old boy, Amir Killab (which gets auto-translated as "Amer struggle dogs") was killed and his 6-year old sister Fatima and 3-year old brother Ahmed were injured in their house in Khan Younis from an explosion there.

There were a couple of other kidnappings and shootings this morning in that sewage-filled paradise known as Gaza.

Things really improved there since those hated settlers left, didn't it?

Our count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by their own actions is now at 156 for this year.

Qassam Rocket calendar - March

As with the February calendar, the numbers for each date represent the number of Qassams fired on that day. The numbers in parentheses are those I saw reported by Palestinian Arab media, outside of parentheses are those reported in Israeli media.

March

Pride, Iran and the British prisoners

To understand what is going on in Iran, one needs to understand the psyche of Iran's leaders.

A year ago, Iran was riding high - it was working hard at becoming the de facto leader of the Muslim world, and it seemed quite close to becoming a superpower, taking aim squarely at the United States.

Since then, relations have cooled significantly between Iran and most Arab countries, internal criticism has increased, Ahmadinejad's list lost in an election and US pressure has had an effect on the shrinking Iranian economy. Clearly, the leaders have lost momentum, although they are still quite dangerous.

Islam is wedded to the notion of honor. This deceleration of Iranian influence was a challenge to Iran's Muslim sense of pride. And in today's Islamic world, the opposite of honor is not disgrace - it is irrelevance.

Iran simply had to show that it can affect world politics the way it did a year ago.

There is little doubt that this abduction was planned and staged. Great Britain has already proven that the ship was in Iraqi territorial waters. Either Iran also claims the same waters as its own, or Iran is lying.

But notice what Iran is demanding now - just Britain's admission of making a mistake. Notice what the video of the female prisoner was focused on - her admission that it was a mistake.

Iran is trying desperately to make itself look like the wronged party, but more than that - it wants to humiliate Great Britain. Because in the Iranian psyche, honor is a zero-sum game, and if England is humbled, Iran is glorified.

Iran assures the world that all England has to do is say a couple of words and then the great Islamic Republic will magnanimously release the prisoners. To the West, saying a statement like that is not a big deal, although the West certainly has pride as well. Iran was calculating that Great Britain's Western values putting human life above all else will force it to submissively take the blame for this snafu. This will then make Iran's stock zoom in the estimation of the other Islamic nations that share the same values and help restore Iranian honor and leadership.

What Iran did not seem to realize is that Western nations are almost as averse to dishonesty as Muslim nations are to dishonor. England is simply not going to say "oops" when it is in the right.

England should make it very clear to Iran that it has miscalculated, badly.

What's Hamas up to this morning?

I like to check the Arabic version of the Al Qassam (Hamas "military wing") website to see how much this group has moderated in recent months.

Highlights from today's edition:

Readers were asked if they thought the "unity government" would support the terrorists ("resistance option "): 67% said yes.
They condemned an assassination attempt of one of their officials, presumably by Fatah.
They denounced an Abbas advisor who implied that the unity government might crack down on "resistance."
A report on Israeli building activities around Jerusalem and another on Hebron consistently refers to them as "rape" and Israelis as "rapists."
A report on Israeli actions in Nablus against terrorists refers to Israel consistently as "Nazis."
The logo of the page shows a picture missing from the English website:

They sound like peace partners to me!

Gazans stealing sand led to sewage tragedy

From The Age:

However, construction of a new plant did not appear to have been affected by year-old international sanctions on the Palestinian Authority. The Gaza City mayor blamed the collapse on local people digging dirt from an earthen embankment around the structure and selling it to building contractors.

One can imagine that they were not selling shovelfuls of stolen dirt to these contractors. Almost certainly, since it is easier to get dirt that is above ground than to dig it, one can imagine trucks backing up to the embankment shoving in the dirt.

This is so negligent, these victims should almost be added to my list of PalArab self-deaths.

Saudi FM: Take our plan or face war

In an astonishing display of chutzpah, the Saudi Foreign Minister is telling Israel that the absurd "peace plan" that the Kingdom has been pushing is the only hope for peace and if Israel doesn't accept it, it has no interest in peace.

Mahmoud Abbas said something similar.

Remember, this plan says that the Arab world will accept Israel if Israel capitulates on every single issue (descendants of refugees, Jerusalem, 100% of territories.) And even if Israel does agree to commit national suicide by accepting these terms, there is no guarantee that Hamas or Islamic Jihad would.

So it seems to be a good time for Israel to make a counter-offer. Call it the Elder peace plan:

Allow Jews to return to Mecca and Medina, where they lived before the Islamic conquest.
Compensate all Jews from Arab lands for the possessions they lost when they were forced out after 1948.
Give control of the Temple Mount back to the Jews.
Rebuild or pay for all synagogues destroyed in Arab territory since 1800.
Change the laws in Arab countries to allow Palestinian Arabs to become citizens if they choose.
Allow Israeli TV to broadcast in Arab countries.
In return, Israel will establish diplomatic relations with every Arab country. They'll fully normalize relations, send sports teams and orchestras and dance troupes to perform in Arab countries.

And if they reject these terms, then clearly the Arabs are not interested in peace.

Hamas word games

From The New York Sun:

The Word Games That Hamas Plays
The MEMRI Report

By STEVEN STALINSKY
March 28, 2007"I am confident that the siege will be partially broken, which will give our people an opportunity to be prepared for the forthcoming stage." — Khaled Meshaal, Asharq Al-Awsat, February 2

Has Hamas moderated? Or are the Palestinian Arab organization's leaders following in the footsteps of Yasser Arafat, discussing peaceful intentions in talks with the West while declaring jihad in Arabic?

During a press conference in Tehran with President Ahmadinejad on March 4, the political leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said he supported the recently signed Mecca Accords for power sharing between Hamas and the Fatah Party of Arafat and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.

Mr. Meshaal also spoke in favor of other Palestinian Arab objectives, such as the establishment of a state with the 1967 borders and Jerusalem as its capital, and the so-called right of return.

Mr. Meshaal reiterated Hamas's position against official recognition of Israel, and he promised to continue the group's resistance. With a smile on his face, Mr. Ahmadinejad told the Hamas leader: "The Zionist entity is in the worst period in its history, and is headed toward crumbling. … The divine victory … will soon be revealed."

At an address at Al-Murabit Mosque in Damascus on February 3, 2006, Mr. Meshaal said publicly what some Palestinian Arabs have been talking about for some time with their press outlets: They will be patient in their battle against Israel. He promised, "Muslims will take over the world," and he explicitly said his organization's plan is to deceive Israel with semantics.

In his speech, the Hamas leader explained that his people are willing to continue fighting Israel even if it takes 1000 years for victory. Mr. Meshaal also said one aspect of Hamas's current strategy is to rely on such tools as using statements like "we love peace" or "we have given up the option of war," while still planning Israel's destruction.

Mr. Meshaal also promised: "Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. … We will make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains."

Besides Mr. Meshaal, many Hamas leaders have been discussing the coming "stage," or battle against Israel. A member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and columnist for the Hamas organ Al-Resala, Younes Al-Astal, called the Mecca Accords " Sulh Al-Hudaybiyya," alluding to a temporary peace agreement from the early days of Islamic history.

He wrote on February 15: "We are optimistic that the new Mecca agreement will be the key to many achievements, which will provide the internal security that is necessary to renew the siege on Khaybar [ Israel], and to subjugate the Zionists to the demands of the resistance."

There is no doubt that Norway and other countries now clamoring to recognize the "moderate" Hamas know about these statements as well. The problem is that they choose to interpret the "peaceful" statements as being accurate and the terrorist statements as rhetoric for the Arab audience.

The reason is, once again, that the desire for peace in the Middle East is so strong that wishful thinking trumps sober analysis of the truth. People believe what they want to believe and they pick and choose the facts to back up their beliefs, and this is the major reason that the world believes Arab lies and half-truths, over and over again, no matter how many times they are proven wrong.

UN invites terror bank to join

From NRO:

Bank of the Intifada to Join the U.N.
The U.N.’s legal body has recommended that the Islamic Development Bank be granted observer status.

By Anne Bayefsky

The United Nations’ nourishment of terrorism (a concept it has yet to define) reached a new low last Friday. On March 23, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly’s Sixth Committee — its lead legal body comprised of all 192 member states — recommended that observer status be granted to the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB), an entity that has been directly involved in paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Back in August of 2001, Ahmad Muhammad Ali, president of the bank, was questioned by the publication Asharq Al-Awsat about payments to the Palestinian Authority for the sake of carrying out the intifada. Ali told the publication that “there was no delay in paying financial assistance to the families of Palestinian martyrs,” assuring it, “We have started paying them soon after receiving the money.”

An Arab Summit in Cairo in late October of 2000 created two funds, the Al-Quds Intifadah Fund and the Al-Aqsa Fund. According to Ali, the IDB is responsible “for the smooth functioning of the two funds.” The final communiqué of the summit made no attempt to conceal the purpose of the funds: “the Al-Quds Intifadah Fund will have a capital of 200 million dollars to be allocated for disbursement to the families of Palestinian martyrs fallen in the Intifadah.”

The creation of a fund dedicated to making suicide-bombing financially appealing was the brainchild of then Crown Prince, now King, Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. He announced the move at the Arab League Summit thus:

[W]e propose the establishment of a special trust under the name of ‘The Jerusalem Intifada Fund’ with a capital of 200 million US dollars. This amount will be allocated, to the families and the education of the children of the Palestinian martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the struggle.

(That “education” is one that will certainly include the glorification of the violent and racist goals of the children’s parents.)

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has reported on some of the details of the financial connections between the IDB and terrorism. According to a 2003 report:

Saudi funds which originate in the Jeddah based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) reach the Palestinian Authority Treasury Department via Account 98 of the Saudi Development Fund (SDF). All funds for Prince Salman Ibn Abd Al-Aziz's Popular Committee for Assisting the Palestinian Mujahideen go directly to the PLO, while Prince Nayef's funds from the Support Committee for the Al-Quds Intifada and Al-Aqsa Fund go to the Palestinian Authority.

In June of 2006, the foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the 56-member voting bloc that drives the majority “non-aligned” movement in the U.N., praised the contribution of the Islamic Bank in forwarding the OIC’s hateful agenda. It adopted a resolution explaining its goals and the IDB’s role in achieving them, “Commending the just and legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people…[and] Commend[ing] the efforts of the…Administrative Committee of the Al-Aqsa and Al-Quds funds and the Islamic Development Bank…with respect to the management of the Funds.”

As recently as March 9, 2007, Arab foreign ministers concluded a meeting in Cairo and “decided to upgrade the ceiling of [the] Al-Aqsa fund and Al-Quds uprising by $300 million.”

None of this made the slightest difference at the U.N.

Saudi Arabia, where the bank is headquartered, put forward the application of the IDB for observer status, announcing in accompanying documentation that the IDB works “to promote social progress in accordance with the ethos of Islam.”

...
The U.N. Charter says membership in the United Nations is open to “peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter” — among them the commitment to “fundamental human rights and the dignity and worth of the human person.” This principle, which is supposed to apply equally to any other entity formally accredited by the U.N., didn’t seem to matter in this case to the U.N.’s member states. Instead, the recommendation that the IDB be granted observer status was adopted, by consensus, in the form of a draft resolution. The United States looked the other way. Only Israel registered a concern that the bank had relations to Hamas and pointed out that its “organizational chart showed that it had operated Al Aqsa and Al Quds funds, which had known ties to terror groups.”

Although the recommendation must now be formally ratified by the plenary of the General Assembly, it is expected to be rubber-stamped before June. The Islamic Development Bank will then join the ranks of the 64 other U.N. observers, on a par with the Holy See, the Council of Europe, and the Organization of American States. It will have a standing invitation to participate as an observer in all of the sessions and work of the General Assembly — extraordinary global access to policymakers for an entity linked to terrorists.

The American Embassy in Palestine

The webpage of the "Consulate General of the United States - Jerusalem" seems to imply that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine.

There are no activities I can find that take place on the Israeli side of the Green Line.

For example, the Consulate in Jerusalem offers 25 Fulbright Scholarships - with the following condition: applicants must be "legal residents of Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem."

Here is a list of events:

# Burns and Hughes Co-host a Ramadan Iftaar ( )
# Cinderella in Jericho ( )
# Consulate General host a special Iftar Dinner in Ramallah ( )
# Iftar and Storytelling for Shoufat Camp Children ( )
# U.S Consulate Jerusalem Hosts Ramadan Quiz Nights ( )
# YES Alumni Address ACCESS and High School Students in Ramallah (October 5, 2006)
# Ramadan Night at the American Corner in Jericho ( )
# U.S. Consulate Hosts Religious Tolerance Dialogue between Prominent Palestinian and American Muslims (October 4, 2006)
# Ramadan Storytelling and Music for Children ( )
# Concert by Al Kamandjati at the Palestinian National Theater ( )
# Celebrating Ramadan ( )
# USAID Provides Scholarships to Over 2000 Palestinian Students ( )
# U.S. Consulate Reinvigorates Partnership with the Jericho Municipal Library (August 17, 2006)
# Consulate Brings Musician/Environmentalist TH Culhane to Power up Summer Camps in East Jerusalem (July 19, 2006)
# U.S. grant creates Opportunity for Palestinian Women to promote their handicraft skills ( )
# Over 700 Palestinian Youths graduate from U.S.-funded English language training program ( )
# Gazan Students Graduate from English Language Program (June 5, 2006)

The site is available in English and Arabic - but not Hebrew. (Even the US Embassy site in Tel Aviv doesn't provide a Hebrew page.)

The Consulate is physically located in West Jerusalem - on the Israeli side of the Green Line.

The United States Congress agreed to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem in 1995 by an overwhelming vote, but every president since then has stopped the move. Yet it appears that the US State Department does recognize Jerusalem as the capital of a nation, even if it doesn't have an official embassy there.