There won't be any plays written about this ISM member

A member of the International Solidarity Movement was murdered last week.

Let's look at the circumstances of his death and compare it to another famous ISM member's demise:

Name	Rachel Corrie	Akram Ibrahim Abu Sba’
Gender	Female	Male
Nationality	American	Palestinian Arab
How killed?	Allowed herself to be hit while standing in front of a slow-moving bulldozer	Shot in the chest, point blank, by Islamic Jihad
Was the killing condemned by ISM?	Yes	No
Plays written about life story?	Yes	No
Used as a symbol of war crimes?	Yes	No

Poor Akram. He had the misfortune to be killed by people who ISM considers the "good guys."

If only he didn't belong to a group whose entire purpose is hypocritical, he might have been considered a martyr.

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Help wanted: Job in Jerusalem starting at $126K/yr

Yes, you can live comfortably in Jerusalem if you qualify for this job!

Director of UNRWA Operations, D-1, West Bank (Jerusalem)
Ref. VN/M/35/2007

Under the overall direction of the Commissioner-General based in Jerusalem is responsible for:

(1) Administering the health, education and relief and social services programmes through subordinate officers by:

A) Assessing the needs for quasi-governmental services, drafting and implementing programme objectives to meet changing needs of refugee population, assigning available resources to meet objectives;

B) Monitoring the implementation of, evaluating and taking corrective action on programmes and projects administered by the Agency;

C) Supervising periodic and final reporting and evaluation of all programmes

(2) Promoting Agency objectives and refugee programme services by:

A) Establishing and maitaining effective relations with the host government/authority, diplomatic missions, other UN Agencies, non-governmental agencies and the media;

B) Negotiating with the host government, authorities and donors on privileges, permissions and physical assistance to improve the refugees' situation.

C) Briefing officials of donor governments, embassies, local government, NGOs and other UN agencies in relation to use of contributions, pursuit of Agency programmes and the refugee situation in general;

D) Undertaking a variety of speaking engagements and public appearances in order to promote the position of the Agency;

E) Coordinating, at the country level, fund raising, public information and public relations activities and following up on fund raising appeals.

(3) Managing the human and financial resources for the offices in the field by:

A) Planning and supervising overall activities of offices of the field and their operational requirements;

B) Ensuring efficient application of Agency policies, directives and procedures. ;

C) Motivating, training and developing staff, and providing support in the face of political and social upheaval and volatile security situations;

D) Overseeing the preparation of field budgets and work plans;

E) Representing the Agency in discussions on working conditions with staff unions.

(4) Providing substantive input to the Commissioner-General and the Management Committee for the formulation of Agency policies and plans. Providing input on political, social and economic developments in the host country/authority, as well as the impact on and of Agency policies and programmes.

ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE:

A) An advanced university degree in political science, social science, public or business administration, or international relations.

B) At least 15 years of professional and managerial background of which at least 10 years should have been in successively senior positions in a large governmental or international agency dealing with similar programmes. The incumbent must have a high level of skill in management of broad programmes, political decision making and negotiating as well as demonstrated tolerance to frequently changing and highly charged situations.

C) Excellent command of written and spoken English.

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS:

A) Knowledge of UNRWA operations and services;

B) Knowledge of Middle East geo-political realities and its socio-cultural implications.

C) Knowledge of Arabic and/or French.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The incumbent will be required to travel frequently throughout the Agency's area of operations in the Middle East.

CONDITIONS OF SERVICE & HOW TO APPLY:

UNRWA offers an attractive compensation package including gross annual salary starting at $126,565 ($94,564 net tax free with dependants, $87,407 single) plus 37.1% (subject to change) of post adjustment.) Other fringe benefits could include mobility and hardship allowance, education grant, dependency allowance, home leave, pension fund, health insurance and 6 weeks annual leave. Initial contract is for 1 year, which is also considered a probationary period, and is extendable for further periods depending on the performance of the incumbent.

If you are craving a little more adventure, there's a job in Gaza as an assistant director that pays about $105K, but you aren't allowed to bring your children to Gaza with you.

The jobs that UNRWA offers to the locals don't pay quite as much. Positions in Amman, including programmer/analysts, pay closer to $12K annually.

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Freedom of the press, PalArab style (XII)

Today it is Fatah's turn to threaten and beat journalists.

From Ma'an (autotranslated):

has seen the area around Hebron University today, Sunday, clashes between the Palestinian security services and students belong to the Islamic bloc Hamas, intervened when settling devices student conference held in front of the university students bloc.

Al "Ma'an" that the university administration refused Conference held inside the university campus, owing to the suspension of the study today, which made a request to Hamas held in the street in front of the university, and then intervened by security agencies rushed Badd using big sticks and batons to disperse them, which led to a number casualties among students and arresting others.

Security agencies and assaulted a number of journalists and newspaper photographers, and prevented them from covering the event.

Our correspondent reported that the security forces detained correspondents and photographers working with local media and global levels, and prevented them from using cellular phones or cameras, and after the intervention of the Hebron area commander Brigadier corner Samih summer, allowed for workers in the media to exercise their work, but that security agencies took assaulting them again and to prevent them from performing their work.

The devices physically assaulted a photographer Reuters applies Jamal, and his colleague, safe and Zooz, photographer USAID "AP" Nasser Alchioukhi, photographer and the French news agency Hazem Bader, and television cameraman hope in Hebron Imad reply, where he was transferred to Al Ahli Hospital in Hebron for treatment.

The medical sources at Al-Ahli hospital, the reporters were some bruises after being assaulted with batons and their health reassuring.

Condemned applies Jamal photographer Reuters by security agencies stroke beaten his colleagues, after giving him permission for photography in the region.

Ma'an names the journalists who were beaten, including those from AP and Reuters. So how do the wire services cover the story?

AP mentions it incidentally:

The security also forbade journalists from taking pictures, confiscating the camera of one photographer, witnesses said. Some journalists were also beaten.

As of this moment, Reuters and AFP have not covered this story at all - neither the demonstration with Fatah beating students nor Fatah beating journalists. It looks like the combination of supporting the Fatah thugs as "moderates" and being intimidated by them allows Arab terrorists, once again, to minimize negative coverage of their violence.

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The Irish conspiracy

Hilarious.

In fact, the biggest hidden influence in American politics is no doubt the Irish Conspiracy. Largely staying in the background of American life, the Irish have penetrated all our institutions, even the Presidency itself. No less than twelve American presidents are believed to have had Irish ancestry. (See Kennedy, Reagan). Irish politicians have been rife at all levels of American government (Tip O'Neill, Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Ed Rendell).

In many cities entire police and fire departments are stacked with the Irish. The iron fist of paramilitary dominance is exercised every year for all the world to see, as Fifth Avenue in New York City has its center line painted green and the Chicago River flows into Lake Michigan dyed green on St. Patrick's Day, a demonstration of raw power that chills to the bone knowledgeable initiates into the secrets of this cabal. None will ever reveal to the rest of us the dark truths they hide......Clever conspirators always divert attention to sidewhows, lest their true powers become visible. The very lack of active public discussion of the Irish Conspiracy is the most convincing proof of all of the real power exercised by it, and the cunning intelligence of the puppet masters behind it.

(h/t Sophia via Prosemiteundercover)

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AP canonizes Finkelstein

This is an almost unreal cheerleading article by AP on Norman Finkelstein, the self-hating Jew and Israel-basher who was denied tenure from DePaul University:

In the home of Norman Finkelstein's youth, talk about a watchful God was not welcome. His parents survived concentration camps during the Holocaust, but all their relatives died. Their belief in God died with them.

As a scholar, when Finkelstein saw what he considered to be some Jewish groups' exploitation of the Holocaust for political and financial gain, he thought about his parents and began to call those groups to task.

On Wednesday, Finkelstein resigned from his job as a political scientist at DePaul University, months after he was denied tenure at the school where his views and scholarship have come under fire.

“I felt that the memory of my late parents' suffering was being cheapened by this industry that was reducing their suffering to the moral stature of a Monte Carlo casino,” said the Brooklyn-born Finkelstein.

...Finkelstein's regard for the students was clear Wednesday when he heaped praise on them while reading a statement announcing his resignation. On the way to tell students he was leaving – knowing his views make it an almost certainty he will never teach college students again – Finkestein was asked what he would do now.

He paused for a few seconds, before he said, almost in a whisper, “I like to teach.”

Dozens of students showed up Wednesday to support Finkelstein and stage a protest outside the college president's office. “You are a great teacher,” one student tearfully told Finkelstein.

“He was consistently ranked high in student reviews, (and he) received some of the highest marks in the political science department,” said student Thomas Bellino, 22. Bellino said Finkelstein was one of his best teachers at DePaul.

Still, Finkelstein knew his views were putting his job and prospects of tenure at risk. He recalled that a few years ago he was called into the office of the university president after his writings caused a furor.

“He said 'We'll keep him but we will take a hit,'” Finkelstein said.

Tenure, Finkelstein said, was another matter entirely: “I recognize if they had me on campus as a tenured faculty I would be an albatross for them for 20 years,” he said.

Still, Finkelstein kept it up, something he practically promised to do as far back as 1995, six years before he came to DePaul, in the dedication he wrote to his parents for his first book: “May I never forget or forgive what was done to you.”

AP seems to be saying that Finkelstein is honoring his parents and the Holocaust by writing inconsistent, historically inaccurate books blaming Jews for various perceived crimes. The article doesn't quote a single specific criticism of Finkelstein - he is made into a martyr for his views, which AP clearly sympathizes with.

The New York Times review of Finkelstein's Holocaust book states:

There is something sad in this warping of intelligence, and in this perversion of moral indignation. There is also something indecent about it, something juvenile, self-righteous, arrogant and stupid.

Benny Morris, who Finkelstein claims to admire, stated about him, "Norman Finkelstein is a notorious distorter of facts and of my work, not a serious or honest historian."

This article's praising of a man who has consistently sacrificed honesty and accuracy on the altar of his own biases is beyond disgusting.

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Strong correlation between PalArab monetary aid and murders

CAMERA just came out with a report that has an astounding graph, showing a very strong correlation between the amount of aid given to Palestinian Arabs and the number of murders that they perform the following year (both Israeli and PalArab victims):




CAMERA makes the point that aid does not tend to moderate Palestinian Arabs, as is its intent, but on the contrary to radicalize them and allow them to purchase more weapons and ammunition.

In short, it means that giving Palestinian Arabs more money is one of the surest ways, historically, to ensure more dead people the following year.

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Freedom of the press, PalArab style (XI)

More details on this morning's festivities specifically concerning journalists who tried to cover the Fatah protest rallies:

Across Gaza, seven journalists covering the clashes were beaten and two of them were later detained, witnesses and reporters said. Two Associated Press staffers and another news photographer were also briefly detained by Hamas men.

In Jebaliya, the Hamas security men ordered journalists to stop filming and move away.

One security officer told reporters, "If a single shot is on TV, you know what will happen." He then drew his finger across his throat. At one point a Hamas security man tried to take a photographer's camera.

"I identified myself as a journalist and showed him my card, my journalist card, I told him, 'If you want the tape take the tape, I don't care,' but they kept on beating me and took the camera," Muhammad Abu Sido, a cameraman for a Palestinian news service, told AP Television News.

Similar incidents of harassment against journalists took place during previous weeks' Fatah protests.

Taher Nunu, a Hamas government spokesman in charge of coordinating media coverage, said the reports of harassment of journalists "were individual cases and won't be repeated," and that he was working to free the detained reporters.

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AFP massively spins poll of Israelis to make them look insecure

From AFP:

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A quarter of Jewish Israelis doubt that Israel will exist long-term and more than 70 percent have a bad assessment of the country's security situation, an opinion poll revealed on Friday.

When asked if they "felt certain that Israel will exist in the distant future", 25 percent of respondents said no and 74 percent of the respondents said yes, according to the results published in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

Without going into what exactly the "distant future" means, if a poll shows a 3-1 margin on a question, the minority is usually not the newsworthy part, let alone a story lead.

But once AFP is on a roll, it really gets going...

Only 57 percent of respondents said it was safer for Jewish people to live in Israel than in the West, compared to 39 percent who said it was safer in the West or amounted to the same thing.

Let's examine this one: Israelis are the ones who are under attack, and they still say by a large margin that it is safer to live in Israel than outside - and AFP tries to make it look like exactly the opposite!

Although 86 percent felt Israel was a good place to live and 86 percent described their mood as "good" as opposed to "bad", 72 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the security situation in the country.

Some 26 percent described the security situation as "good".

The poll was carried out by an independent institute. It was based on a sample of about 500 Jewish Israelis and had a margin of error of 4.5 percent.

Using the word "although," AFP minimizes the astounding statistics saying that 86% are very happy living in Israel in order to highlight the fact that the security situation is not satisfactory - which is hardly contradictory.

In other words, a poll shows Israelis are by a huge majority happy with their lives and optimistic about the future, and AFP does literally everything possible short of lying to make Israelis look miserable and insecure.

Just to emphasize ther point, here's how AFP summarizes this article in the picture caption accompanying the story:

An opinion poll revealed that a quarter of Jewish Israelis doubt that Israel will exist long-term and more than 70 percent have a bad assessment of the country's security situation.

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No Gaza prayer deaths, but...

According to Palestine Press Agency (Arabic), 65 Fatah supporters were injured during Hamas/Fatah clashes this morning, two seriously. Six journalists were arrested by Hamas as well and their film confiscated. Many Fatah members were arrested.

Some pictures managed to get through. In this one, Reuters charmingly says:

Security forces from the Hamas Islamist movement arrest a member of the Fatah movement during clashes in the southern Gaza strip September 7, 2007

Doesn't this look like a policeman arresting someone?

Another pic:

Palestinian members of the Hamas Executive Force use their batons as they detain a Fatah supporter during clashes at a protest following Muslim prayers in Gaza City, Friday, Sept. 7, 2007.

UPDATE: A 14 year old student was stabbed by another in Qalqiya. 521.

UPDATE 2: The body of a person whose name is translated as "Talaat Mohamed Abdel Karim Beekeeper" was found in Netzarim in Gaza, four days after he was abducted by Hamas, his hands and feet bound. 522.

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Moral relativism's ugly progeny

Many years ago, before blogs and even before the Web, we had Usenet. It was effectively a world-wide bulletin board in which it could take days for a message to propagate through the system, and when almost everyone used their real names.

In the early 1990s a group of Holocaust revisionists started spamming dozens of newsgroups with their heavily footnoted "proofs" that the Holocaust never happened. This upset a lot of people, and many people spent countless hours documenting proofs that the Holocaust did happen.

I remember seeing one post from someone saying that, after reading both sides of the issue, he was convinced that the truth was somewhere in the middle.

Here we see the effectiveness of lies. As long as they are dressed up with large words and references to source material that sound legitimate, and as long as the audience is uneducated on the matter, they are just as effective as the truth. The truth does not always win out - the winners are the ones with the best presentation who can appeal to the existing worldviews of people.

In this case, it is not only a situation of truth versus lies - it is also a case of right versus wrong, of morality against immorality. In a society where everything is relative, where everybody has an equal claim to the truth, where concepts of morality are considered naive - such a society is in deep trouble.

Two news stories that reflect this complete lack of both a moral compass and the ability to distinguish truth from lies came out yesterday.

In one, 42% of Democrats think either that President Bush caused 9/11 or knew about it ahead of time and let it happen. This is a direct result of the so-called "9/11 Truthers" who have come out with insane conspiracy theories and publicizing them to people who just don't have a clue. When the theories happen to coincide with existing prejudices, in this case against Republicans, they are much easier to swallow. It is a modern manifestation of the logic of Holocaust denial.

The other troubling story was that many younger, non-religious Jews have no attachment to Israel and most would not find it tragic if Israel would be destroyed. Again, this is a result of a combination of ignorance and relentless "even-handedness" where they have grown up seeing Israel demonized in the media and put on an equivalent moral plateau with the Arab world, although their own disenchantment with being brought up with an empty form of Judaism certainly plays a part as well.

Is the truth in between? Yes, if you define "in between" as being anywhere between 0.000% and 100%. The liars will hammer away at the 0.1% that supports their thesis and the ignorant will think that proof of of the 0.1% means that the truth is at 50%.

We are raising a generation of people who have no ability to think and check facts independently, who are not given the tools to distinguish fact from fiction, and who believe that there is no such thing as being "right." This is a truly frightening prospect.

UPDATE: Soccer Dad in the comments here mentions another factor for the Jewish apathy towards Israel - the unremitting left wing bias that Jewish weekly papers have towards Israel.

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How much do Arab countries contribute to UNRWA?

Close to zero:


Things improved slightly by 2006:

COUNTRY	REGULAR BUDGET	NON-REGULAR BUDGET	GRAND TOTAL
AUSTRALIA	3,307,087	2,768,625	6,075,712
AUSTRIA	940,000	1,450,284	2,390,284
BAHRAIN	30,000	0	30,000
BELGIUM	2,434,918	1,317,511	3,752,429
BULGARIA	10,000	0	10,000
CANADA	8,620,690	19,106,433	27,727,123
CHINA	80,000	0	80,000
COLOMBIA	4,143	0	4,143
CYPRUS	66,300	0	66,300
CZECH REPUBLIC	70,735	0	70,735
DENMARK	10,012,378	3,713,010	13,725,388
EGYPT	10,000	0	10,000
FINLAND	3,105,590	2,040,816	5,146,406
FRANCE	8,529,015	3,444,638	11,973,653
GERMANY	2,967,819	5,334,108	8,301,927
GREECE	400,000	0	400,000
HOLY SEE	20,000	0	20,000
ICELAND	100,000	0	100,000
INDIA	20,000	0	20,000
IRELAND	3,129,574	637,755	3,767,329
ITALY	0	2,962,923	2,962,923
JAPAN	7,031,687	6,832,703	13,864,390
JORDAN	656,133	0	656,133
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF	100,000	0	100,000
KUWAIT	1,500,000	999,958	2,499,958
LEBANON	17,700	0	17,700
LIECHTENSTEIN	22,599	0	22,599
LUXEMBOURG	2,073,460	241,838	2,315,298
MALAYSIA	25,000	0	25,000
MEXICO	5,000	0	5,000
MONACO	5,000	0	5,000
MOROCCO	23,000	0	23,000
NETHERLANDS	15,766,924	2,418,716	18,185,640
NEW ZEALAND	204,900	497,400	702,300
NORWAY	14,749,263	10,565,995	25,315,258
PAKISTAN	17,468	0	17,468
PALESTINE	853,772	0	853,772
POLAND	50,000	0	50,000
PORTUGAL	100,000	0	100,000
SAUDI ARABIA	1,200,000	0	1,200,000
SOUTH AFRICA	159,212	0	159,212
SPAIN	8,161,709	5,157,602	13,319,311
SPAIN (CATALONIA)	0	665,554	665,554
SPAIN (VALENCIA) 1/	0	228,823	228,823
SPAIN (BASQUE) 1/	0	194,291	194,291
SPAIN (ZARAGOZA) 1/	0	52,701	52,701
SPAIN (TEULADA) 1/	0	1,318	1,318
SWEDEN	29,635,488	11,552,665	41,188,153
SWITZERLAND	6,963,359	5,842,001	12,805,360
SYRIA	85,293	0	85,293
THAILAND	30,000	0	30,000
TUNISIA	9,302	0	9,302
TURKEY	500,000	1,251,880	1,751,880
U.A.E.	500,000	0	500,000
UNITED KINGDOM	26,191,696	897,088	27,088,784
USA	79,650,000	57,350,000	137,000,000
TOTAL GOVERNMENTS	240,146,214	147,526,636	387,672,850

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

96,470,176

46,783,440

143,253,616

The total Arab nation percentage of the UNRWA budget is about 1.1% .

Fourteen individual nations give more money to Palestinian Arabs through UNRWA than the combined amount given by Arab nations, not counting the aggregate EU contribution. Apparently, Finland cares more about Palestinian Arabs more than all the Arab nations combined.

A UAE "charitable foundation" gave $6 million to UNRWA, more than the combined Arab governments did.

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Update on tomorrow's Fatah/Hamas prayer showdown

Today, Hamas staged their own anti-Fatah rallies to blunt tomorrow's prayer protests planned by Fatah.

Tonight, Hamas is filling all public areas in Gaza with garbage, presumably to make those areas unsuitable for prayer or difficult to access (I haven't been able to determine exactly what kind of garbage makes a place unsuitable, certainly urine and feces do but I do not know if Hamas has gone that far.)

Meanwhile, Hamas is arresting all the Fatah members they can to stave off the protests.

PCHR has documented numerous cases of torture by Hamas in recent weeks.

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