Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The limits of reliance

In the waning days of the Clinton presidency, Clinton presented his peace plan to Yasir Arafat with its well known concessions on the part of Israel (94-96% of the West Bank plus 1-3% of Israel proper, all of Gaza, splitting Jerusalem, destroying dozens of settlements.) Part of Clinton's intent was that if Arafat would not accept this offer it could not be a basis for future negotiations - as Dennis Ross wrote, “to be sure that it couldn’t be a floor for [future] negotiations... It couldn’t be a ceiling. It was the roof.”

This was an extremely extremely important point for Israel. Even so, Israel is now negotiating based pretty much on the same terms that were intended then by the US President to not be a basis for future negotiations.

In 2002, President Bush helped write the "roadmap" for peace, and he made it very clear that nothing would happen until Palestinian Arabs stopped their terror and incitement - cessation of violence was a precondition of every other part of the roadmap.

Again, this was a terrifically important point for Israel, the realization that a mindset of peace was a precondition for Israeli concessions, rather than the wishful thinking that peace will naturally come after Israel already gave up its own security. And yet, last week, COndoleeza Rice abrogated the roadmap and this condition. As Jeff Jacoby quotes Rice:

The reason that we haven't really been able to move forward on the peace process for a number of years is that we were stuck in the sequentiality of the road map. So you had to do the first phase of the road map before you moved on to the third phase of the road map, which was the actual negotiations of final status," Rice said. . . . What the US-hosted November peace summit in Annapolis did was "break that tight sequentiality. . . You don't want people to get hung up on settlement activity or the fact that the Palestinians haven't fully been able to deal with the terrorist infrastructure. . ."

In 2004, Ariel Sharon used a letter from President Bush as a major victory in the withdrawal from Gaza, showing that the US was against a withdrawal to the Green Line:

In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.

Yet again, this was a crucial point in Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, knowing that the US supports Israel keeping some of the major settlement blocs in the West Bank. However, now the US government disagrees with this interpretation of the letter:

The United States clarified to Israel during U.S. President George Bush's visit this week that it disapproves of all building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank including in the large settlement blocs, a senior Western diplomat said Tuesday.

The diplomat added that Israel and the U.S. differ on their interpretation of the letter President Bush sent to former prime minister Ariel Sharon in April, 2004.

"The letter refers to major population centers and not the settlement blocs, while stressing that everything must also be decided in the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians," the diplomat said.

According to the diplomat, Bush is steadfast in his objection of building in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem.

"The American government also opposes construction due to the natural growth of the present settlers", he said. He added, however, that if progress is made on border issues it may help to resolve the settlement issue. "When the route of the permanent border becomes clearer, the locations where Israel can and cannot build will also be clearer."

These three times Israel trusted her friends in the White House to help guarantee its security, and in each of these times the promises and understandings that Israel relied on turned out to be ephemeral.

It is clear that both Bill Clinton and George Bush have great affinity and feelings for Israel. But it is equally clear that it is a mistake for Israel to rely on any promises, letters, or understandings from a third party when the subject is Israel's security. In the end, countries act in their own interests, and in the case of the current administration the Arab world has fooled the White House into thinking that they would support the West against Iran if only the Palestinian Arabs get what they want, no strings attached. Since the Iranian problem is truly a geopolitical threat to the West, the false linkage to Israel turns into something that Washington needs to address.

Of course, the current Israeli government has more than its share of blame for this situation - it is unreasonable for Israel's supporters to ask the White House to be more Zionist than Israel's own leaders. Beyond that, though, Israel's dependence on US largesse also means that Israel is no longer free to make its own decisions for her own security without "consulting" (getting permission from) Washington.

Israel's relationship with the US should be one of mutual self-interest, not of dependence.

Joke of the day

From Jay Leno:

Today President Bush said the Saudis are fully enlisted in the war on terror.

Yeah - so fully, they're on both sides.

Saudi "love children"

From Arab News:

She looked Arab but spoke, in addition to English, a Southeast Asian language. When asked about her origin, she said her father was Saudi, who left her mother and returned to the Kingdom, said Najeeb Al-Zamil, a businessman and Saudi columnist, who met the girl by chance while abroad.
The girl worked as a masseuse, serving tourists at their private accommodations. “She was not the only Saudi-origin girl abandoned in that country or in other countries,” he said.
“Unfortunately, after four years the girl died at the age of 17 with HIV. ... She was not the only victim in the family. Her mother also had Arab features and she too was abandoned by her Saudi father as well,” Al-Zamil said.
“We tried to reunite them with their family in Saudi Arabia but both Saudi fathers left no trace and we failed to help them... The only thing we managed to do was to move them to a better home,” he added.
Al-Zamil said it was a reality that many Saudis fly to the Far East, get married, have children and then simply leave.
Another heartrending tale is that of a 14-year-old girl called Salma, not her real name. At the age of seven her Saudi father left both her and her mother, and returned to the Kingdom.
Salma left school early and began working at a bar and as a model featuring in low budget advertisements. She was nicknamed the queen of advertisements. However, life’s experience has left her bitter about men, Saudi Arabia and Islam.
In spite of everything, Salma’s mother, who had converted to Islam to marry her father, had still brought her daughter up as a Muslim.

Israellycool is liveblogging

Between Israel's offensive yesterday against Gaza terror, the huge increase in Qassams and the latest political news of Israel Beiteinu quitting the government (so what's the deal with Shas?), the news comes too fast to keep up with.

But Aussie Dave at Israellycool is doing the job, as he does during every crisis. Check it out!

30 rockets and counting

It has been very hard to keep track of the number of rockets hitting Sderot today, but my best guess right now is 30: 24 that Ha'aretz counted (plus 24 mortars) at 9:00 PM, plus six more in YNet's updates after that time. (And another two for 32, and another two for 34 if I am counting correctly.)

Four people were injured in Sderot, including a 5-year old girl. And earlier an Ecuadorian kibbutz volunteer was shot and killed by a Hamas Gaza sniper.

Hamas has taken credit for the majority of rockets and mortars as well as that murder, reversing its policy of pretending not to support attacks by its PRC partners.

As far as keeping track on my Qassam calendar, I'll be a bit more conservative for now. Over the past few days a number of rockets were claimed to be shot by Palestinian terror groups in Gaza but I could not find any mention of them landing in the Israeli press.

According to my numbers, this is certainly the worst day for rockets since May but it might end up being the worst ever.

UPDATE: YNet says over 40 rockets on Tuesday. JPost counted 28 plus a Katyusha.

UPDATE 2: 30 already on Wednesday. (Now 50.)

Torture victim of Hamas dies

From Palpress (autotranslated):

Local Palestinian sources said today that "a citizen of the Maghazi camp central Gaza Strip died in an Israeli hospital as a result of serious wounds he had sustained a month ago after the tortured and thrown from the roof of one of the security buildings of the Hamas militia in the central region."

The sources added that Mustafa Ezz El-Shafei, 24, "died from wounds he suffered after being tortured by the militias of Hamas and thrown from the top of one of the security purpose of the killers and after his confession to one of the leaders of the Qassam Brigades, a charge of theft and looting of the property of citizens center of the Gaza Strip."

Sources confirmed that Shafei had nothing to do with the theft.

Our 2008 PalArab self-death count rises to 7.

American wives in Saudi Arabia

Here is what life is like for American women who marry Saudi men:

Teresa Malof knew she wasn't in Kentucky anymore when a cleric issued a fatwa against her secret Santa gift exchange.

Malof proposed the idea at the King Fahad National Guard Hospital, where she has worked for more than a decade. It was supposed to be discreet, but rumors were whispered amid veils and hijabs that the lithe, blond nurse, raised on farmland at the edge of Appalachia, was planning to celebrate a Christian tradition in an Islamic kingdom that forbids the practicing of other religions.

"Even though I'm a Muslim too, I like to celebrate the holidays and have gift exchanges," said Malof, a convert to Islam who is married to the son of a former Saudi ambassador. "But word got out, and the religious people came with a fatwa (or edict) against the Santa party. My husband was having a heart attack. He was worried I'd be in a lot of trouble."

For American women married to Saudi men, such is life in this exotic, repressive and often beguiling society where tribal customs and religious fervor rub against oil wealth and the tinted-glass skyscrapers that rise Oz-like in the blurry desert heat. This is not a land of the First Amendment and voting rights; it is a kingdom run by the strict interpretation of Wahhabi Islam, where abayas hang in foyers, servants linger like ghosts, minarets glow in green neon and, as a recent court case showed, a woman who is raped can also be sentenced to 200 lashes for un-Islamic behavior.

"Haram, haram" (forbidden, forbidden). American wives know the phrase well. It is learned over years of peeking through veils at supermarkets or sitting in the back of SUVs while Filipinos behind the wheel glide through traffic. Their adopted Arab home is a traditionally close American ally. But like much of the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia's relations with Washington have been strained since the rise of global jihad. Terrorist bombings, which have killed nearly 150 people here in recent years, have kept many American families in gated communities that have the aura of golf courses protected by small armies.

Most non-Muslim women convert to Islam as a prerequisite for marrying a Saudi and living in the kingdom. Many American women, including those who converted before they arrived, have embraced the Quran; for others, the adoption of Islam is a pantomime act, the disguise of a second self to hold them over until they peel off their head scarves and travel to the U.S. for summer vacations.

For both kinds of women, it is a life of sacrifices and measured victories: Women can't drive or vote in Saudi Arabia, but their children are largely safe from street crime and drugs; a wife can't leave the country without her husband's written permission, but tribal and religious codes instill a strong sense of family.

Freedom lies behind courtyard walls, where private swimming pools glimmer and the eyes of the religious police, known as the mutaween, do not venture. Rock 'n' roll (haram) is played, smuggled whiskey (haram) is sipped, and Christianity (haram) sometimes is practiced. This sequestered, contradictory experience, a number of American wives noted, can turn an expat into an alcoholic or a born-again Christian, and sometimes both.

"American women get together and we talk," said Lori Baker, a mother of two who met her Saudi husband at Ohio State University in 1982. "We ask one another, 'Where are you on your curve now? Have you hit bottom yet?' We all go through the highs and lows when it comes to moods and tolerance. . . . When I first got here, I felt naked without my head scarf.

"Then after the terrorist bombings in 2003, I even covered my face. Foreigners were a target then. I became very comfortable with my face covered. I felt safe. Nobody knows me. They can't see me, and if you're covered, they respect you. Sometimes without a covered face it's like walking down Main Street wearing a bikini."

One American wife, who asked not to be named, said the country's repression of women led her to counseling sessions with a psychiatrist. When she was contacted for an interview, she said she was worried that her husband would object; she struggled with the decision for an hour before finally agreeing. "I told my husband I'm coming to this interview. I'm trying to be respectful, but I'm going to go. Is that haram?" she said, sitting in a black abaya. "It's only women who have to be perfect here. A woman. A woman. A woman. They're always making an issue of it. It's a sick pastime. I feel like I'm being bullied. This is not Islam. Where in Islam does it say this? This is tribal."

She paused and sipped a cappuccino. She grew up in Pittsburgh, the latchkey daughter of a working mother and a laid-off steelworker who abandoned his family and ended up homeless. She was 16 when she met a 27-year-old Saudi who was studying English at the University of Pittsburgh. He offered her stability and religion. They married two years later, first in a mosque and then before a justice of the peace. She said she hasn't spoken to her husband's family in six years.

UPDATE: In the comments, Soccer Dad reminds us of a similar tragic case where the US was complicit in the behavior of the Saudis.

The stupidity of the "smarter bombs"

Reuters reports:

The United States has agreed in principle to provide Israel with better "smart bombs" than those it plans to sell Saudi Arabia under a regional defense package, senior Israeli security sources said on Sunday.
Keen to bolster Middle East allies against an ascendant Iran, the Bush administration last year proposed supplying Gulf Arab states with some $20 billion in new weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits for the Saudis.

The plan has angered Israel's backers in Washington, who say the JDAMs, which give satellite guidance for bombs, may one day be used against the Jewish state or at least blunt its power to deter potential foes. Israel has had JDAMs since 1990 and has used them extensively in a 2006 offensive in Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government dropped its objections to the proposed Saudi deal in July after securing U.S. military aid grants worth $30 billion over the next decade.

Two Israeli security sources said the United States further mollified the Olmert government with an "understanding in principle" that future JDAM sales to Israel would include advanced technologies not on offer to Saudi Arabia.

"We are checking which of the top-of-the-line JDAMs will become available to us. The agreement is that Israel's qualitative edge will be preserved," one source said.

This is idiotic on a number of levels.

First of all, Saudi Arabia can have a trillion dollars' worth of weapons; they are useless in a kingdom that has no decent army, no military expertise, and utterly no ability to deter any Iranian offenses. If Iran would decide for some reason to attack Saudi Arabia, it would be the US that defends it anyway - the Saudis would crumple on their own no matter what advanced weaponry they own (and they already own quite a bit of it.)

The Saudi arsenal is nothing more than a tempting target for terrorists to get their own hands on advanced weaponry for uses that are far from their conventional intent.

Moreover, in a world where asymmetric warfare is the prevailing wisdom, giving Israel a "qualitative edge" in having "smarter" bombs doesn't help Israel's defense a bit. Is there any chance that the Islamists who might end up with Saudi weaponry would care that Israel is somewhat better at hitting back purely military targets? They'll be using this advanced weaponry against population centers in Israel. As Lebanon showed, Geneva no longer applies in the Arab wars against Israel and giving Israel better offensive weapons does not help much against an enemy for whom death is desirable.

Now, if the US would give Israel technology that can defend against the Saudi bombs - if an encrypted backdoor was placed in the JDAM software that could disable the weapons remotely, for example - then this might make sense. But the fact that Israel's theoretical future versions of JDAMs might have an accuracy of 3 meters rather than 6 meters is pretty much meaningless.

None of this makes sense. Iran is not deterred in the least by these moves, on the contrary it gives them even more incentive to build nuclear bombs. This might benefit defense contractors but pretty much no one else.

Muslim bookstore employee refuses to touch "unclean" Bible story book

From the Daily Express:

A MUSLIM store worker refused to serve a customer buying a children’s book on Christianity because she said it was “unclean”.

Shopper Sally Friday felt publicly humiliated at a branch of Marks & Spencer when she tried to pay for First Bible Stories as a gift for her young grandson.

When she put the book on the check-out counter, the young assistant refused to touch it, declared it was unclean and summoned another member of staff to serve instead.

Mrs Friday said her trip to the sales in Reading, Berks, with her daughter had been ruined.

“I went to the till and heard the girl say it was unclean and then she got someone else to serve me,” said Mrs Friday.

“At first I wasn’t sure what was going on and then I realised she was wearing a headdress and I clicked that the title of the book had Bible in it. I felt very humiliated and immediately left the store.”

How could she have felt humiliated? That emotion only applies to one set of people.

HuffPo ordains a rabbi

The Huffington Post has another insufferably self-righteous piece by "Rabbi" Michael Lerner, far-left editor of Tikkun magazine, titled "A Rabbi at a Mosque," where he describes his experience speaking at a mosque in Denver (and why it was "controversial" - because he is too Zionist.)

A little research shows that Lerner was never ordained as a rabbi by any recognized rabbinical school (he was accepted to the conservative Jewish Theological Seminary rabbinical school but never attended). He claims his "ordination" came from Zalman Schachter Shalomi and two other rabbis who he never named. Schachter-Shlomi had broken with his Lubavitch upbringing and created his own Judaic pseudo-cult which includes his own Hebrew translations of Buddhist and Sufi prayers.

I guess calling the article "A Leftist Jew who Pretends to Be a Rabbi at a Mosque" doesn't have the same zing.

See also Judeopundit's takedown of one of the incredibly stupid things Lerner actually wrote in the article.

How Mecca became a holy city

Some history that I was unaware of:

Mecca: 1st - 6th century AD

The town of Mecca, in a rocky valley with no agricultural resources, develops into a place of considerable prosperity. There are two good reasons. It is a trading post on the caravan route from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. And it is Arabia's most important place of pilgrimage.

During the centuries before Islam, large numbers of pilgrims arrive in Mecca to perform a ritual act of walking seven times round a small square building known as the Kaaba (Arabic for 'cube'). The building is full of idols, which are the objects of worship. It also includes a sacred black stone, possibly in origin a meteorite.

The Muslims and Mecca: AD 624-630

Relations with Mecca deteriorate to the point of pitched battles between the two sides, with Muhammad leading his troops in the field. But in the end it is his diplomacy which wins the day.

He persuades the Meccans to allow his followers back into the city, in 629, to make a pilgrimage to the Kaaba and the Black Stone.

On this first Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Muhammad's followers impress the local citizens both by their show of strength and by their self-control, departing peacefully after the agreed three days. But the following year the Meccans break a truce, provoking the Muslims to march on the city.

They take Mecca almost without resistance. The inhabitants accept Islam. And Muhammad sweeps the idols out of the Kaaba, leaving only the sacred Black Stone.

An important element in Mecca's peaceful acceptance of the change has been Muhammad's promise that pilgrimage to the Kaaba will remain a central feature of the new religion.

So Mecca becomes, as it has remained ever since, the holy city of Islam.

Mecca was a holy city for idolators, and Mohammed used its status - and its pre-existing customs - to help grow his new religion.

New weapon against Gaza rocket terrorists

From Israel's Channel 2 (I converted it for use in all browsers):

I don't understand all the Hebrew, and saw the link originally in a Palestinian Arabic site which I couldn't decipher completely. Here is the English description from the PalArab site:

The southern leadership of the Israeli army revealed for the first time a new weapon said to be for use against rockets fired from Gaza strip.

UPDATE: Commenter Annie translates:

A rough outline of what was said: At the beginning of the clip you hear a female soldier reporting in coded language what she is seeing. Then the missile is shot at the terrorist. Afterwards the narrator reports that the latest method to combat the kassam and other terrorists is by anti-tank units shooting anti-tank missiles which are much more efficient in hitting their targets. The terrorists are spotted by a combination of ground checkpoints, and balloons and drones operated by the IAF. Their findings are sent straight to a computerized intelligence centre who send out the anti-tank brigades with pinpoint information.

Channel two of the Israeli TV. broadcasted a video tape im which Israeli air and land units are using anti missile grenades against Palestinian activists in Gaza strip specially those who fire rockets at Israel.

The video tape shows a Palestinian activist trying to fire a rocket in direction of the Israeli towns, the activist was being monitored ever since he walked out , then an Israeli rocket targets him directly and when his friend approached to rescue him another Israeli rocket was being fired leaving both of them dead.

More humanitarian explosives

From YNet:

Security workers of the Israel Airport Authority uncovered 2 tons of material used for the manufacturing of Qassam rockets and explosives inside a truck attempting to enter the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

This is the second time in the past week in which such materials are brought into Gaza under the disguise of humanitarian equipment.

Meanwhile, Egypt also found some of those much-needed explosives on their way to the starving people of Gaza:

Egyptian security forces have found a smuggling tunnel linking Egypt with the Gaza Strip and containing explosives, security sources said on Monday.
The sources said the tunnel, north of the Rafah crossing, contained four artillery shells and 20 bombs, as well as electrical circuits.

But in the peaceful West Bank, in contrast:

The Palestinian intelligence service said on Monday that they discovered a bag containing 16 kilograms of explosives and a homemade projectile ready to be launched in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Director of Nablus intelligence, Abu Al-Abbas, told Ma'an that the bag was found inside a bigger bag with three detonators in the old city of Nablus.

However, the PA has had a less than stellar record of reliability when they report finds like these. Pretty much anything they "discover" during serious negotiations with Israel can be regarded as either fabrications or gross exaggerations.

UPDATE: Nablus' mayor denied that it was a rocket that they found, saying it was a pipe bomb.

Was the NIE report a brilliant piece of misinformation?

A report in the IHT last week brings up an interesting consequence of the NIE report:

A rift is emerging between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggesting that the president no longer enjoys the full backing of Khamenei, as he did in the years after his election in 2005.

In the past, when Ahmadinejad was attacked by political opponents, the criticisms were usually silenced by Khamenei, who has the final word on state matters and who regularly endorsed the president in public speeches. But that public support has been conspicuously absent in recent months.

There are numerous possible reasons for Ahmadinejad's loss of support, but analysts here all point to one overriding factor: the U.S. National Intelligence Report last month, which said that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 in response to international pressure. The report sharply decreased the threat of a military strike against Iran, allowing the authorities to focus on domestic issues, with important parliamentary elections looming in March.

"Now that Iran is not under the threat of a military attack, all contradictions within the establishment are surfacing," said Saeed Leylaz, an economic and political analyst. "The biggest mistake that Americans have constantly made toward Iran was adopting radical approaches, which provided the ground for radicals in the country to take control."

While the pressure was on, the leadership was reluctant to let any internal disagreements show. Senior officials, including Khamenei, constantly called for unity and warned that the enemy, a common reference to the United States, could take advantage of such differences.

The Iranian presidency is a largely ceremonial post. But Ahmadinejad used the office as a bully pulpit, espousing an economic populism that built a strong following among the middle and lower classes and made him a political force to be reckoned with. That popularity won him the strong backing of the supreme leader.

But the relationship began to sour even before the National Intelligence Report was released. A source close to Khamenei, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said Khamenei had been especially disappointed by Ahmadinejad's economic performance, which had led to steep inflation in basic necessities, from food to property values.

"Mr. Khamenei supported Mr. Ahmadinejad because he believed in his slogans of helping the poor," the source said. "But his economic performance has been disastrous. Their honeymoon is certainly over."

Economists have long criticized Ahmadinejad's economic policies, warning that his reliance on oil revenues to finance loans to the poor and to buy cheap imports would lead to inflation and cripple local industries. Inflation has risen from 12 percent in October 2006 to 19 percent this year, according to figures released by the Iranian Central Bank.

The rift between Khameni and Ahmadinejad has been obvious for months and the external threat was the major factor keeping it from becoming blatant. Bush couldn't backtrack on his approach to Iran without raising eyebrows, but the NIE was a neat way to get the US to back off on pressuring Iran - the press seized on the document, misinterpreting it to be far more damning to the Bush administration than it really is.

The idea of backing off from a belligerent tone with Iran for the purpose of weakening it was raised in another IHT article by academic Roger Stern:

Tehran seems unimpressed by administration war talk, perhaps because it has confidence in its navy. Lots of other people are scared, though. Take oil traders. Oil prices used to have a tight relationship with Saudi spare capacity. When capacity went up, prices went down. After two years of escalating threats between Tehran and Washington, however, new capacity no longer calms the market.

Under the old market rules, prices would be $50, not $100. So war talk sends an extra $20 billion a year to Tehran. The Bush administration's bellicose rhetoric thus makes a mockery of the president's pledge to "do everything in our power to defeat the terrorists."

If it wanted to honor this commitment, the administration would stop saying things that drive up oil prices. As it is, the long parade of threats just makes the mullahs richer.

Yet they spend their $90 a barrel windfall faster than ever, trying to buy legitimacy with pork. Deeply unpopular, the Iranian regime now relies on constantly rising oil prices for survival.

Its spending has quadrupled in the last six years, a remarkable rise that's evolved in lockstep with oil prices. Here, at last, is our adversary's weakness: An oil price decline would be a mortal threat.

If Bush wants to hit the regime where it hurts, conciliation should become his byword. In the price collapse that would follow, he'd find a brand new Iranian appetite for negotiation.

This is because, unlike sanctions that might take years bite, a peace initiative would threaten the mullahs tomorrow. Talking peace, which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will certainly scorn, would also help reformers in the approaching Iranian elections.

So before the president begins another war whose risks may be greater than he thinks, General Van Riper should be heard. And if the president really wants to regime change, he should talk peace, now.

He doesn't even have to mean it. At today's oil prices, just the threat of peace will do.

It is somewhat possible, although I wouldn't judge it as likely, that the Bush administration was one step ahead of this analysis, using the NIE report as a backhanded way to cool things off. Bush will still be quoted as being intransigent and as disavowing the NIE memo, but all the while wheels are in motion that could hurt Iran economically far more and far faster than any sanctions can.

Of course, oil price have risen since the NIE report, not dropped, so this wishful thinking is somewhat lacking. But there still may be more behind the scenes than is being "leaked."

Britney in a burqa?

Yes, in the quest for more pageviews I will allow myself to post a Britney Spears story.

From the Sun (UK):

SINGER Britney Spears will be ordered to cover her face with a veil and wear a full-length Islamic dress when she weds her British boyfriend, it was revealed last night.

She is planning marriage No3 to Muslim Adnan Ghalib, 35, who she hopes will help keep her on the straight and narrow so she can win back custody of her two sons.

But the only way Brummie cameraman Adnan’s strictly religious family will accept her is if she converts to the Islamic faith.

Astonishingly, party girl Brit, 26, is keen to do it – even though it will mean ditching the booze. The singer, famed for stepping out without her knickers, has even told friends she plans to wear a burka, or even a naqib, which leaves only the eyes visible.

One of her pals said: “She is really keen to do it.

“It would be a mark of respect to Adnan and his family, and it would give her the anonymity she’s craving.

“Adnan’s Muslim beliefs could be Britney’s saviour.”

Friends believe the couple had planned to tie the knot on a trip to Mexico last week, but put it on hold.

Her relationship with Adnan has stunned his parents, too. His mum Saghar teaches the Koran at home, while his dad Hussain attends the mosque daily.

Now, that would be a great reality show.

The ad that the "moderate" Arab newspapers refused to run

From JPost:

The Lebanese government has apparently blocked the Beirut-based Daily Star from running the Simon Wiesenthal Center's advertisement, which calls for the United Nations General Assembly to convene a special session on suicide terror.
The Editor-in-Chief of the Lebanese newspaper, Hanna Anbar, initially expressed his support for the ad but later indicated that the newspaper was barred by "security authorities" from running the full-page advertisement. Three other Arab publications, Saudi Arabia's Arab News, the London-based Al-Sharq al Awsat, and Lebanon's Dar Al-Hayat never responded to the Wiesenthal Center's repeated attempts to place the ad.

Here's the ad that is too controversial for our moderate Arab friends to run:

The new Odd Couple:: "Jesus and the Mahdi"

You've heard of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Bert and Ernie. But you haven't seen anything until you've seen the hilarious new TV series, "Jesus and the Mahdi!"

From AFP:

TEHRAN (AFP) — A director who shares the ideas of Iran's hardline president has produced what he says is the first film giving an Islamic view of Jesus Christ, in a bid to show the "common ground" between Muslims and Christians.

Nader Talebzadeh sees his movie, "Jesus, the Spirit of God," as an Islamic answer to Western productions like Mel Gibson's 2004 blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ," which he praised as admirable but quite simply "wrong".

Even in Iran, "Jesus, The Spirit of God" had a low-key reception, playing to moderate audiences in five Tehran cinemas during the holy month of Ramadan, in October.

The film, funded by state broadcasting, faded off the billboards but is far from dead, about to be recycled in a major 20 episode spin-off to be broadcast over state-run national television this year.

Talebzadeh insists it aims to bridge differences between Christianity and Islam, despite the stark divergence from Christian doctrine about Christ's final hours on earth.

"It is fascinating for Christians to know that Islam gives such devotion to and has so much knowledge about Jesus," Talebzadeh told AFP.

"By making this film I wanted to make a bridge between Christianity and Islam, to open the door for dialogue since there is much common ground between Islam and Christianity," he said.

The director is also keen to emphasise the links between Jesus and one of the most important figures in Shiite Islam, the Imam Mahdi, said to have disappeared 12 centuries ago but whose "return" to earth has been a key tenet of the Ahmadinejad presidency.

...In Talebzadeh's movie, God saves Jesus, depicted as a fair-complexioned man with long hair and a beard, from crucifixion and takes him straight to heaven.

"It is frankly said in the Koran that the person who was crucified was not Jesus" but Judas, one of the 12 Apostles and the one the Bible holds betrayed Jesus to the Romans, he said. In his film, it is Judas who is crucified.
...
Shiite Muslims, the majority in Iran, believe Jesus will accompany the Imam Mahdi when he reappears in a future apocalypse to save the world.

And Talebzadeh said the TV version of his film will further explore the links between Jesus and the Mahdi -- whose return Ahmadinejad has said his government, which came to power in 2005, is working to hasten.

Shiites believe the Mahdi's reappearance will usher in a new era of peace and harmony.

"We Muslims pray for the 'Return' (of Imam Mahdi) and Jesus is part of the return and the end of time," Talebzadeh said.

"Should we, as artists, stand idle until that time? Don't we have to make an effort?"

The laughs come fast and furious as Jesus and the Mahdi team up to save the world from evil Zionists and Crusaders. Every week, a new decadent Western country gets some major whoop-ass from the Dynamic Duo (PBUT). You'll be amazed and amused at how the sons of apes and pigs get what's coming to them!

Coming this spring to Iranian TV!

When scholarship can get you killed

The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article about the revelation that a decades-old photo archive of ancient handwritten Korans, thought to be lost, still exists and is in the hands of a scholar (who is keeping it to herself.)

On the night of April 24, 1944, British air force bombers hammered a former Jesuit college here housing the Bavarian Academy of Science. The 16th-century building crumpled in the inferno. Among the treasures lost, later lamented Anton Spitaler, an Arabic scholar at the academy, was a unique photo archive of ancient manuscripts of the Quran.

The 450 rolls of film had been assembled before the war for a bold venture: a study of the evolution of the Quran, the text Muslims view as the verbatim transcript of God's word. The wartime destruction made the project "outright impossible," Mr. Spitaler wrote in the 1970s.
[Photo]

Mr. Spitaler was lying. The cache of photos survived, and he was sitting on it all along. The truth is only now dribbling out to scholars -- and a Quran research project buried for more than 60 years has risen from the grave.

"He pretended it disappeared. He wanted to be rid of it," says Angelika Neuwirth, a former pupil and protégée of the late Mr. Spitaler. Academics who worked with Mr. Spitaler, a powerful figure in postwar German scholarship who died in 2003, have been left guessing why he squirreled away the unusual trove for so long.

...The Quran is viewed by most Muslims as the unchanging word of God as transmitted to the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. The text, they believe, didn't evolve or get edited. The Quran says it is "flawless" and fixed by an "imperishable tablet" in heaven. It starts with a warning: "This book is not to be doubted."

Quranic scholarship often focuses on arcane questions of philology and textual analysis. Experts nonetheless tend to tread warily, mindful of fury directed in recent years at people deemed to have blasphemed Islam's founding document and the Prophet Muhammad.

A scholar in northern Germany writes under the pseudonym of Christoph Luxenberg because, he says, his controversial views on the Quran risk provoking Muslims. He claims that chunks of it were written not in Arabic but in another ancient language, Syriac. The "virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are in fact only "grapes."

Ms. Neuwirth, the Berlin professor now in charge of the Munich archive, rejects the theories of her more radical colleagues, who ride roughshod, she says, over Islamic scholarship. Her aim, she says, isn't to challenge Islam but to "give the Quran the same attention as the Bible." All the same, she adds: "This is a taboo zone."

So she is keeping the research secret - for possibly the next couple of decades - even as she demonstrates that she is not open to unorthodox interpretations of the Koran.

The photos of the old manuscripts will form the foundation of a computer data base that Ms. Neuwirth's team believes will help tease out the history of Islam's founding text. The result, says Michael Marx, the project's research director, could be the first "critical edition" of the Quran -- an attempt to divine what the original text looked like and to explore overlaps with the Bible and other Christian and Jewish literature.

A group of Tunisians has embarked on a parallel mission, but they want to keep it quiet to avoid angering fellow Muslims, says Moncef Ben Abdeljelil, a scholar involved in the venture. "Silence is sometimes best," he says. Afghan authorities last year arrested an official involved in a vernacular translation of the Quran that was condemned as blasphemous. Its editor went into hiding.

Many Christians, too, dislike secular scholars boring into sacred texts, and dismiss challenges to certain Biblical passages. But most accept that the Bible was written by different people at different times, and that it took centuries of winnowing before the Christian canon was fixed in its current form.

Muslims, by contrast, view the Quran as the literal word of God. Questioning the Quran "is like telling a Christian that Jesus was gay," says Abdou Filali-Ansary, a Moroccan scholar.

With the slight difference that writing an article claiming that Jesus was gay will not get you a host of Christians vying to behead you.

More fun examples of Islamic tolerance for secular Koranic scholars:

In the early 1980s, when the archive was still thought to be lost, two German scholars traveled to Yemen to examine and help restore a cache of ancient Quran manuscripts. They, too, took pictures. When they tried to get them out of Yemen, authorities seized them, says Gerd-Rüdiger Puin, one of the scholars. German diplomats finally persuaded Yemen to release most of the photos, he says.

Mr. Puin says the manuscripts suggested to him that the Quran "didn't just fall from heaven" but "has a history." When he said so publicly a decade ago, it stirred rage. "Please ensure that these scholars are not given further access to the documents," read one letter to the Yemen Times. "Allah, help us against our enemies."

Berlin Quran expert Ms. Neuwirth, though widely regarded as respectful of Islamic tradition, got sideswiped by Arab suspicion of Western scholars. She was fired from a teaching post in Jordan, she says, for mentioning a radical revisionist scholar during a lecture in Germany.

Even the Wall Street Journal remains elliptic when discussing the very real dangers of scholars looking critically at the Koran as they have looked at every other holy work. Rather than mention the very real risk of being murdered, the WSJ only says that they can "provoke" and "anger" Muslims - even making a comparison to how Christians feel when confronted with unorthodox interpretations of the New Testament.

Peaceful PalArab weekend

From Ma'an:

Palestinian medical sources on Saturday announced that the body of a Palestinian resident of Ash-Shati' refugee camp west of Gaza City, has been found.

Mu'awiya Hassanein, the director of ambulance and emergency services in the Palestinian health ministry said thirty-three-year-old Sami Ar-Rawwagh was shot dead and his body was found in a Bedouin village in the northern Gaza Strip.

Palestine Press Agency mentions that this was the second body found in a few hours:

It is noteworthy that the citizen is the second Alrwag found dead a few hours in the Gaza Strip, where the citizen found Shaaban Dughmosh dead and lying in the hole Deek central sector this morning. "

Dughmosh was a police officer.

There was also a clan clash in the West Bank, injuring 5.

The American School in Gaza was attacked again, rooms ransacked, windows smashed and its computers stolen.

A group called Army of Believers-al-Qaida in Palestine claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack and accused the school of corrupting Palestinian teenagers.

A leaflet issued by the hitherto unknown group said: "Polytheists and enemies of Islam are pursuing each day their work to destroy our youths, who are falling by the dozens into the swamps of vice and moral decadence. That is why we must re-establish the truth and warn everyone who might try to corrupt our youths or try to open such places of corruption."

The previous attack was claimed by another al-Qaida-inspired group called Warriors of Jerusalem. It said the attack, which took place hours before Bush's meeting in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, was aimed at wiping out the "last symbol of US presence in the Gaza Strip."

The "Al Qaeda" group leader was interviewed by Palestine Press Agency (autotranslated):

And talked about the emergence of organization in the Gaza Strip and said: If we look at the situation in Palestine, and read the history of movements and organizations that have, we note the existence of factions patriotic and nationalistic Then came the National Islamic factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and these Islamic and national factions and not purely Islamic, and this is the difference between us and them.

He said: "We come purely Islamic perspective, and we consider ourselves part of the Muslims throughout the world, whether in America or India or China, and if Palestine is liberated Our jihad is continuing and that the will of God proceeded on the ground.

He added: "We are working without any names or ranks.

The Army describes the same trend Islamic nation struggling, which aims to establish the rule of Allah on earth and liberate the land of Isra and Mi'raaj, and take the approach of jihad for the advancement of the nation Zlha and underdevelopment.

The literature emphasizes that the current army aims to transfer the community of democratic and secular infidel to Islam, through the revival of the spirit of Islamic law and its application to the doctrine of Islam, worship and the life.

The literature indicates that the nation is an army of Muslims embrace Islamic project to meet the project western crusade in the world, based on the revival of Jihad, and to return the nation to the belief Ancestors based on the book year.

Of course, the fact that Gaza nutcases are running around blasting Hamas and Islamic Jihad for not being dedicated enough to worldwide Jihad must be blamed on Israel somehow.

The 2008 Palestinian Arab self-death count rises to 6.

Palestinian Police Phunnies XXX

The bloated Palestinian Arab security forces find a stolen car in their newfound love of law and order. So what do they do with it?

1. Return it to its original owner, if he is in the territories, or return it to Israel if it is from there?
2. Sell it at auction to help add money to the coffers of the PA?
3. Steal it to use it themselves?
4. Burn it?

Palestinian security officers stand next to a burning car they set on fire in the northern West Bank village of Anin, Thursday, Jan 10, 2008. The car, which was reportedly stolen, was set on fire as part of a police law-and-order campaign.
(AP Photo/Mohammed Ballas)

It is a testament to Palestinian Arab poverty that they can afford to burn vehicles.

Two Arabs write that it is up to the Arabs to make peace

MEMRI offers a tiny spark of hope, as it translates essays by two liberal Arabs who have the extraordinarily rare ability to think in terms of peace. Excerpts:

Mamoun Fandy: 99% of the Cards are In the Arabs' Hand

"And perhaps the time has come for the Arabs, and the Palestinians in particular, to seriously consider Israel's strategic apprehensions. The Israeli question on the nature of the Palestinian state is a logical and legitimate question. Will this state add stability to the region, or add instability? The Gaza model says that it [will be] a state that in no way participates in regional stability, whereas the West Bank model indicates that the newborn state will move the region towards stability...

"As I said earlier, visits by heads of state do not produce immediate results. But George Bush is a practical man, and he managed to impose the Annapolis document on the Palestinians and the Israelis - even though the two sides announced, before the conference, that they had not reached agreement.

"The Arabs can make Bush's visit into an historic visit by focusing on working with the pragmatic side of the president's personality, in place of the old Arab way, which wastes the time allotted for the meetings by entering into the labyrinthine history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and by grumbling about a 'double standard.'

"The Arabs hold the playing cards today. The question is: Will they play them well?"

Kamal Gabriel: The Cultural Elites Have an Allergy to 'Normalization with the Zionist Enemy'

"Many are the allergic diseases from which our audacious cultural elites suffer... but the greatest and harshest allergic symptom among the heroes of the microphone, the satellite channel, the car bomb, and the explosives belt is the allergy to 'normalization with the Zionist enemy'...

"The [purported] traitors to the 'unchanging national principles,' and the [so-called] agents of colonialism, think that 'normalization' is a goal for which all peoples should strive, and that wars and conflicts among all the nations of the earth must necessarily come to an end - and this end is always a return to peace and the reign of normal conditions - i.e. the reign of 'normalization.'

"As for the heroes and mujahideen of pan-Arabism and political Islamism, they don't reject peace and normalization in essence or in principle; they just make it conditional upon the preservation of 'our nation's unchanging principles.'

"While [the expression] 'our nation's unchanging principles' is fine and elegant, these principles are nothing more than the demand for 'destroying the rapacious Zionist entity' and turning Israel, through the return of all of the refugees, into one great democratic Islamic Palestinian mass republic...

"[According to these pan-Arabists and Islamists,] if the Zionist enemy and its supporters want peace, there is no need for negotiations and conferences... They need to accept 'our nation's unchanging principles' in a state of subjection, and let them return to us the land occupied since 1967, and allow the entry of 5 million Palestinian refugees into the land occupied in 1948. Only then can we consider the issue of normalization with them, and especially with the noble promises conferred by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, [i.e.] that it would allow Jews who immigrated [to Israel] to return whence they came without slaughtering them like sheep - despite the fact that they are basically the descendants of apes and pigs. And the Jews who were originally from Palestine will enjoy the excellent humane treatment that minorities enjoy in the other Arab regions!"

"How can he prove that the Arab regimes are capable of implementing peace and popular normalization when, with the president of the Palestinian Authority hardly controlling his own living quarters, the Palestinian street is contested by radical organizations of every kind... And this is the case also with the fighting masses in many Arab capitals...

"How can our negotiators give guarantees that normalization will continue, given that this is contingent on a culture of peace that doesn't exist. It is not absent just between the Arabs and the perfidious Zionist enemy; it is fundamentally absent among the internal components of the Arab countries. These countries have proven, throughout the years, their abject failure to normalize relations with their own minorities...So who will take seriously their promises of peace and normalization with the Jews, the enemies of Allah?

"The promise of normalization is like a promise of operations by armed forces whose arms have not yet been purchased, and who have not been mobilized or trained for combat...

"But in fact it is worse than that. The mission of preparing the capability and the readiness for peace does not just depend on a campaign of spreading the culture of peace; it demands first uprooting the culture of hostility and hatred that we have had an unparalleled success in planting in the region, and which has produced for us the blessed yield of internecine fighting in more than one Arab country.

"The problem with the normalization card is that it is like a check that doesn't have the funds to cover it. In order for it to be accepted, funds need to be put behind it, and it needs to be stamped with an 'acceptable for payment' stamp.

"[This stamp is] the spreading of the culture of peace, first of all among our peoples. We need to start practically putting it into practice long before we reap the fruits, as that is the nature of cultural transformations. [We need to do this] in order to convince the Israeli people that we have truly decided to accept it among us, and that the only thing standing between it and final peace is just the politicians sitting down together and signing peace agreements. The Israeli people could then force its government to submit to the requisites for peace. I say 'could,' since it is also possible that we will offer peace without receiving the minimum of our legitimate demands, in which case our governments would refrain from signing a final peace, and we would retreat from the path of normalization..."

This link came from Marty Peretz at TNR, whose article is worth reading:

Yet no one will promise -- let alone assure -- that when (and if) Israel withdraws from 90% or 96% of the West Bank the land it has left will not be turned into platforms from which rockets and missiles are launched against the population centers of the Jewish state...and against strategic positions like Ben Gurion International Airport. What then will the next American president or the one after counsel the Israelis to give up?

The fact is that the great impediment to peace with Israel is the fanatic obstinacy of the Palestinians. Does anyone have a strategy for negotiating with that?

Only 20% trayf!

(hat tip and photo credit to Junior Elder)

CNN outdoes Hamas in blood libel

CNN today once again went from the usual anti-Israel propaganda into absolute lies. From Ben Wedeman:

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Air Force One touched down in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. President Bush has come to the Holy Land for the first time as president of the United States.
But he's trapped inside his security bubble, his every step mapped out in great and precise detail by teams of security experts and handlers. In the end he'll see a side of this unhappy land that bears as much resemblance to reality as Hollywood does to real life.
I spend a lot of my time covering the West Bank and Gaza: here's what I see, and he won't....
President Bush won't see the hospital wards where babies, just weeks old, are dying because their doctors can't get permission from Israeli authorities to go to Israel for treatment as they did in the past.

This is a very interesting - and outlandish - slander.

Palestinian Arab newspapers have been keeping a "death count" of people who have died, supposedly because Israel is not allowing them to travel from Gaza. For reasons that were never clear, this count started about two months ago - even though the "siege" started in June - and there has been a steady stream of articles, pretty much once a day, of another "martyr" who died because of Israeli intransigence. That number is now at around 66.

I touched on this topic in November as Gazans were blaming Israel for some interesting deaths. I have not kept a close eye on the circumstances of each death since then, but the majority have been cancer patients or other extremely ill patients. It is pure propaganda - given the mortality rate among Gazans is 3.74 per thousand annually, one would expect with 1.3 million Gazans that some 13 of them die per day of natural causes; to say that these 66 deaths - less than 3% - are Israel's fault is simply to make things up. The fact that these deaths only started after four months of the Gaza closure and have been consistently reported as about once a day since then indicates that some Gaza administrator is choosing who the "death of the day" will be out of the dozen dying in hospitals anyway.

But assuming that each of those cases were true, and 66 people have died because Israel didn't give them permission to go to Israel for treatment (and neither did Egypt, but we'll ignore that for now,) then how many of these were "babies, just weeks old"? I don't recall any babies in the list, but I wasn't watching that closely. The rabidly hateful IMEMC reported on #62 and #63 last Saturday:

Medical sources in Gaza reported...that Aisha Al Jamal, 73, had lung cancer but the army refused to allow her to leave the Coastal Region to get treatment in Israel or the West Bank.

Another Palestinian cancer patient, Mohamed Abu Taha, 45, died late on Friday night; he also was not allowed by the Israeli army to leave the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army has imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip since June 2007, leaving the 1.5 million Palestinians living under severe conditions.

Al Jamal is the 63rd person who has died of a chronic illness since Israel placed the Gaza Strip under total siege. Among those 63 were children, the youngest was Doua Habib, who was five months old.

So according to the Gazans, the youngest one they blame Israel for was 5 months old. But CNN's Ben Wedeman, who proudly boasts of his intimate knowledge of the area, claims that there are a constant stream of weeks-old babies dying.

CNN is outdoing Hamas in its blood libel against Israel, and Ben Wedeman continues to shill for Hamas.

From the Gothamist:

This ad for Pakistan Airlines is real. And in the history of advertising, it really takes the creepy cake. Even worse than babies endorsing cigarettes! Seriously, if Nostradamus ran an ad firm to warn the world about blowback, this would have been in his portfolio.
It appeared in the March 19th, 1979 issue of Le Point (and surely countless other publications). Yes, the shadow is in pretty much in the same place as where the planes hit on September 11th, and there's no way the shadow should be that big unless it's seconds away from hitting the towers...but we don't think this should evoke any conspiracy theories. Right? [via 2Spare.com]

Other creepy ads here.

(h/t ndigenous via Mrs. Elder)

American International School in Gaza attacked with RPG

From JPost:

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Thursday launched a rocket attack on the local American International School in protest against US President George W. Bush's visit to the Palestinian territories.

No one was hurt in the pre-dawn attack, but eyewitnesses said large parts of the school were damaged by an RPG mortar, as well as other explosive devices.

This is the second time that the school has come under attack in the past few months. The previous attack occurred in April, when arsonists set fire to the school building in the northern Gaza Strip.

Ma'an Arabic says:

A group calling itself "Mujahideen Movement of Jerusalem" claimed responsibility for the bombing of the School, which expresses, according to a statement from the group, "The last symbols of the American administration and its allies in Gaza."

The ">principal condemned the assault saying, "The school's staff and students are all Palestinians, and it is licensed by the Ministry of Education. Its mission is purely educational with nothing to do with politics."

He said that the same school had been targeted in the past and that an American visitor to the school had been kidnapped about a year ago.

The school website says:

The year 2004 witnessed the graduation of the first 5 students from the American International School in Gaza, the first batch of AISG graduates. Those students proceeded to fulfill their dreams in life, their dreams of a better tomorrow. Those are the first AISG graduates to go and study at American universities.

The AISG dream began several years back. In 1999, a group of visionary investors identified the gap and lack of know-how and the need for quality elementary, middle, and high school education in Palestine, particularly in Gaza.

The American International School in Gaza (AISG) was established with the guiding principles of academic excellence and outstanding behavior for national and international students. This will be delivered by caring and highly qualified personnel, utilizing the best educational practices in English and Arabic, which will enable graduates to become productive and responsible participants of society as the "leaders of tomorrow.

Situated 800 meters from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the north of Gaza, our spacious and beautiful school is situated in an interesting mixture of a traditional Arabic village and the landscaped green of our modern campus. The present facility is built to accommodate 600 students in large classrooms, state-of-the art computer labs, media center with a library of 10,000 volumes, and fully-equipped science labs. Outdoor facilities for soccer, basketball, volleyball, and primary play areas contribute to the physical well being of our students.

Proving again how progressive thought and action in the territories are always going to be held hostage by the Islamists.

Ironically, in some ways the entire Arab world has been shaped in no small part from the establishment of American schools and universities starting in the 19th century. Much of Arab nationalism has been attributed to the American Christian missionaries who started these schools and their offering an American-style curriculum and ideology.

UNIFIL springs into action

The UN came out with a mighty press release:

9 January 2008 – A United Nations investigation team, including forensics and explosives experts, have inspected a site in northern Israel where two Katyusha rockets fired from southern Lebanon are reported to have landed and UN peacekeepers have combed locations for potential launching sites.
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), enhanced as part of the arrangements that ended Israel’s war with Hizbollah in 2006, neither observed nor detected the firing of the rockets yesterday and the investigation is continuing, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told a news briefing in New York.
The Israeli authorities informed UNIFIL yesterday that the rockets hit the town of Shlomi early in the morning of 8 January, causing minor damage to a house but no injuries.
“If it is determined that there was firing from within Lebanon, the incident would be a serious violation of resolution 1701,” Ms. Montas added, referring to the UN Security Council resolution regarding the ceasefire that ended Israel’s war with Hizbollah.

Those crack investigators at the UN sure have a tough job in front of the

m to figure out what happened.

One the one hand, they've seen actual rocket fragments in Shlomi. But on the other hand, they didn't notice them as they were fired. So it really could be any sort of metal tubing. This will require deep, deep investigation.

Another article on Christian life under Palestinian Muslim rule

This one doesn't pull punches:

For centuries, millions of Christian pilgrims visited the Holy Land to pray in the holy houses of worship. Palestinian Christians from all denominations who built these churches for centuries had the freedom to worship, without any problems from the nearby Muslims.

Things began to change a decade ago, after the Palestinian Authority took control of major sections of the Holy Land. And, as Islamic fundamentalism has risen in those territories during that time, relations between the two religions began to deteriorate. As Islam has grown, lawlessness has spread throughout the territories, where Islamic militants have been emboldened to act - sometimes illegally - to advance their cause.

Christians now say they have experienced anti-Christian sentiment from Muslims that have ranged from verbal accusations to vicious beatings and murder. And basic holidays that Christians always celebrated have now been forbidden. In December, the Hamas government in Gaza banned any celebrations of New Year's eve and New Year's day, a traditional Christian holiday period. Also, in the West Bank, an Islamic group, "Keepers of Sharia (Islamic Law) warned residents not to celebrate the holidays.

Besides being shaken down by the Palestinian Authority for blackmail money, and having their land stolen in elaborate schemes from Palestinian Authority officials, some Christians say they have looked on helplessly as they suffered what they call the ultimate injustice: the burning and desecration of their holy churches.

Christians are still reeling from September, 2006, when seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza were attacked in a three day period after Muslims were infuriated by comments made by Pope Benedict VVI about Islam and the prophet Mohammed. The pope's comments followed the publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed in a Dutch newspaper. After the churches were attacked by Islamic fundamentalists, a Hamas leader, Imad Hamto, called for the Pope to repent and to convert to Islam.

The attacks were not the first on churches in the Holy Land in recent years. In 2001, Palestinian gunmen took over Christian-Palestinian churches in Beit Jallah - a city near Bethlehem - so they could fire into Israeli neighborhoods. At the time, Palestinian snipers said they took control of the holy churches because they were confident the Israelis would not attack them.

And, some say the worst case took place in 2002, when more than 100 Palestinian fighters loyal to former PA President Yasser Arafat took over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and held dozens of hostages - including priests and nuns. Inside, the gunmen used bibles for toilet paper, emptied the church's charity boxes, and sold gold and silver crosses that had been in the church for centuries. They even lit a fire in a section of a church during the siege.

Christians say that the 2006 church burnings and attacks were a turning point in Christian-Muslim relations in the Holy Land.

"The Islamic people want to kill us. That's their principle and belief. They don't want Christians in this country. They don't want to hear our names; they don't want to see us. That's the reality," said Reverend Tomey Dahoud, who heads the Greek Orthodox Church in Taubas, a city near Jenin.

Dahoud's church, which was built more than 100 years ago, suffered extensive damage after its entrance hall was firebombed in Sept. of 2006. That attack sent shivers through the remaining 14 Christians in Taubas, causing some to consider leaving.

"We've had problems before with Muslims but they never touched the house of God," explained Dahoud. "What does it mean to set a church on fire? It's terrorism, it's a crime."

In Tulkaram, the last Christian family that takes care of the 200-year-old Greek Orthodox Church say they've had enough and want to practice their religion freely.

"We are preparing to move abroad to a place where we can live a better life as Christians," said Reverand Dahoud Dimitry, who heads the Tulkaram's Saint George Greek Orthodox church that burned to the ground in an arson attack on Sept. 16, 2006.

More than 30 years ago, the Christian community numbered close to 2000, but now Dimitry's family of 12 is the last remaining Christian family in this Islamic stronghold.

To date no one has been arrested or charged with the arson, which occurred after extremists poured gasoline throughout the church and on its alter.

The church was rebuilt but there are no funds for a security guard or for security cameras. During the fire, all of the church's contents except one bible were incinerated.

"We had two icons from the 15th century and they were destroyed. We had a small library and the most important thing that we had was a registry of all the names of Christians who had ever lived in Tulkaram. All of that burned and now we don't have any records of our ancestors."

In Nablus, there are now just 700 Christians left - down from 3,000 just 40 years ago. And, last year, the small Christian community was hard hit after four of its churches were burned by Islamic fundamentalists following the Pope's comments.

"We were afraid," explained Jamal Mahmud, who works at the Jacob Well Greek Orthodox Church in Nablus. Mahmud said during the days when Muslim rioted, 25 Molotov cocktails were thrown at the church, which suffered minimal damage. "When somebody throws a Molotov cocktail at you it's frightening," added Mahmud.

"The future will be even more dangerous for Christian people, added Reverand Yousef Jibran Saade, the spiritual leader of the Greek Catholic Church in Nablus. Saade's church was firebombed and riddled with bullets by unknown attackers on Sept. 16, 2006. No one has been arrested for the attacks, and, like other West Bank Christian clerics, he said the attack caused parishioners to consider moving abroad.

In Gaza, following the Pope's remarks, Islamic extremists bombed a 1,400-year-old Greek Orthodox Church. In addition, a group of Catholic nuns were threatened, and a bomb was placed outside of another church.

The attack and threats instilled fear into many of the church's parishioners. But even before the September, 2006 rioting, the small Christian community of 2,000 - mostly Greek Orthodox - felt unsafe. Since Hamas won the Palestinian elections in January of 2006, Sharia - or Islamic law - has been the informal law of the land. These days, Christian women cover their hair like Muslim women so as to not attract attention.

"It is dangerous for Christians in Gaza," explained Pastor Hanna Massad, a Palestinian-American who runs the 200-member Gaza Baptist Church.

Massad's church has been repeatedly threatened by fundamentalists in the last several years, and the bible store that his wife runs in Gaza City was firebombed twice in the last year. And in October, a bible store worker and one of his parishioners, Rami Ayyad, were kidnapped and murdered by Islamic fundamentalists. He was found near the Christian book store.

In Bethlehem, the threats, shakedowns, and anti-Christian sentiment have taken their toll on former Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser. Nasser said the community is still in shock over the 2002 takeover of the 1,400-year-old Church of the Nativity by Palestinian gunmen.

"For Christians it was a brutal feeling," said Nasser, who was born in Bethlehem, and also baptized and married inside the Church of the Nativity. "We were astonished and very angry. The church was not destroyed but we as Christians in Bethlehem, remain wounded."

At 70, Nasser plans to stay in the city. But, like other Christian families that trace their roots to this city for centuries, he has watched family members, like his son and daughter leave the city.

"There is no future for Christians," said Nasser.

Reverend Tomey Dahoud also says the pressure is mounting for all Christians to leave Palestinian-controlled lands. Still, he is prepared to stay, even if it means enduring violence. "Even if they are going to set fire to all of our churches we will stay and die here," said Dahoud.

Imagine how well Jews would be treated in a Palestinian Muslim-majority state!

Hamas thieves working in broad daylight

Palestine Press Agency, which is very anti-Hamas but most of their stories end up being confirmed by others, reports on widespread crime and corruption in Gaza: (autotranslated, cleaned up)

Gaza Strip is threatened by Hamas militia in recent significant occurrences of theft and robbery in the various cities and camps. The strange thing is that some cases of theft and robbery are in broad daylight, which suggests that the thieves are themselves in positions of power and not afraid of any prosecution or arrest.

Last Monday afternoon, a group of armed men entered Basha's Supermarket in Gaza City and stole computers and televisions...

Another incident occurred last week in Gaza City, where a man and his wife were driving in his car on Ali bin Abi Talib Street. A group of masked men attacked them, robbed him of his money, and stole his car. The man complained to Said Siam, interior minister of the Hamas militia who told him that the law would take its course. But the man was surprised a few days after "the law took its course" and saw that his car actually was being used by Qassam Brigades in operations to arrest Fatah activists in Gaza.

Many incidents occur in various cities and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip from burglary and robbery in broad daylight to swindling and fraud to steal drafted women, in addition to the incidents of theft and the seizure of dozens of private cars. Worse still, the theft of tens of houses were during entry Qassam and operational elements of those homes to inspect in search of Fatah activists arrested during the recent campaign, they steal the money sanctioned their hands or formulated in those houses.

Although dozens or even hundreds of previous incidents but he did not arrested any of the perpetrators despite the fact that many of them are known, but they belonged to Hamas and the various militias that gave them immunity to be above the law, even though they use the weapon of Hamas (Disarmament resistant??! !) executive militia uniforms and even some of those engaged in theft during their work and ambushes mandated by the Government of the faithful in Gaza (ie that they be Ode) of this phenomenon are in the rise in the Gaza Strip and the streets of cities in the sector has become devoid of pedestrians after sunset and turn into ghost towns once darkness falls on Gaza shelter until everyone to their homes or go out of the insecurity and fear of being subjected to theft or burglary, and the people there afraid to make complaints against the perpetrators despite knowledge of their personalities and their names and that of their conviction that it is supposed to be protected has become Hramiha.

The comments to that article include a number of Gazans who tell their own stories.

So much for the "law and order" government of Hamas!

Who is Yarmulke.info?

I just noticed that a website has popped up called yarmulke.info which mirrors pretty much all of my postings, plus others. It does not give any credit to me for the articles, and only mentions me as a "contributor" on its sidebar.

It might just be a way to grab advertising revenue, as there is no contact info on the site.

While I do choose to remain anonymous, I do not want my postings to be placed on other sites without attribution and without context. It is also a little disconcerting to think that someone is making money from my content without even giving me credit for each posting. This is, to me, a gross violation of netiquette.

UPDATE: Indeed, this posting itself was mindlessly published on Yarmulke.info as well.

UPDATE 2: Commenter Cao mentioned that blogs like this are called "splogs" or "spam blogs" - this is close to it according to Wikipedia's entry but it doesn't have the distinguishing feature of nonsense postings.

At any rate, it appears that they noticed my complaint and removed all of my posts and the link to here.

Ignoring elephants

In the reckless chase for Middle East peace, the number of elephants in the room is increasing exponentially. But the ability of the "peacemakers" to ignore them rises to the occasion.

Elephant 1: Hamas controls Gaza

Every peace plan includes Gaza in a Palestinian Arab state, and none of them has any provision on how to handle the fact that Gaza is a terrorist haven, in much worse shape since Israel uprooted the settlements there, controlled by a terrorist group that has no interest in restraining the even-more extremist terror groups that thrive there. Peace is impossible with this elephant, so it is easier to pretend it isn't there.

Elephant 2: Palestinian Arabs elected a terror government

In the only fair, democratic elections in the territories, the Hamas terrorists were chosen by the people. Poll after poll shows that Palestinian Arabs support terror in Israel itself. The elections proved that the conventional wisdom was wrong - and the conventional wisdom proceeded to ignore it.

Elephant 3: The current PA government was not elected

This corollary to Elephant 2 means that the current people negotiating for the Palestinian Arabs do not represent the people. Even if they sound moderate or compromising, they have no mandate. Negotiating with them is, literally, meaningless.

Elephant 4: The current PA government has almost no power

Outside of Ramallah, the Fayyad/Abbas government has little popular support and little power. The Nablus "clean-up" was an orchestrated fiction, as was the recent high-profile "surrender" of nine Al-Aqsa terrorists - who are now due to become upstanding, paid members of the security forces in three months.

Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods

The PA budget is bloated from "payroll" of non-working workers - but if they would slash the payroll, the people on intrnational welfare would revolt. So the very basis of the organized Palestinian Arab workforce is a fiction being kept barely alive by ever-increasing infusions of cash with no real plan to fix the problem.

Elephant 6: Fatah remains a terrorist group paid by the PA

Despite the recent claims that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has dismantled, it is a joke meant to appease the wishful-thinkers. There has been no serious move by the PA against terror except for its tit-for-tat arrests of Hamas members in the West Bank, and its moves have been almost wholly cosmetic and aimed for Western consumption rather than real fighting against terror.

Elephant 7: The first - and second - stages of the roadmap were never implemented

The entire point of the road map was to slowly build confidence, starting with the end of terror and incitement on the Palestinian Arab side, afterwards building a "provisional" state and only then going to final-status negotiations. By skipping to Phase III as if the other two phases were already in place, the entire exercise is simply a joke. Incitement remains at full blast and the slight lull in terror is tactical, not a sea-change in Palestinian Arab attitudes.

Elephant 8: The PA's goal remains the destruction of Israel

Whether it is by "right of return" or not changing the Fatah charter or by printing map after map showing no Israel, even the most moderate Palestinian leader clings to the idea of destroying Israel, and looks upon a Palestinian Arab state as only one stage in the process.

Elephant 9: Jerusalem

Most Israelis want a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Most Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept anything less than all of Jerusalem as the capital of a Muslim state. The positions are not compatible and a compromise will not reduce the chances for violence - it will increase it.

Elephant 10: What happened to Gaza

Forgetting Hamas for now, the time period between Israel's dismantling settlements in Gaza and the Hamas takeover is instructive as to how Palestinian Arabs take advantage of territory they gain. They didn't build new houses or communities to reduce the "refugee camp" population, no schools or hospitals. They destroyed the greenhouses purchased for them by American Jews; they turned beautiful former settlements into training camps for terror - in other words, Israel's last major concession not only didn't help achieve peace, it ended up encouraging terror. Any claims that something similar wouldn't happen in the West Bank is the triumph of wishful thinking over experience.

These are off the top of my head - any others I should add?

Tel Aviv - United States President George W Bush, on landing in Tel Aviv Tuesday for his first visit to the area since he took office, said he saw a 'new opportunity' for peace in the Middle East.
'The US and Israel are strong allies. The sources of that strength is a shared belief in the power of human freedom. Our people built two great democracies under difficult circumstances,' Bush told dignitaries at Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport.

'The alliance between our two nations helps guarantee Israel's security as a a Jewish state,' he said.

Bush also spoke out against extremism, saying that 'We most firmly oppose those who murder the innocent to achieve their poitical objectives.'

'We see a new opportunity for peace here in the holy land and for peace across the region.'

This is a pretty generic speech, but Ma'an Arabic, Palestine Press Agency and Palestine Today created headlines emphasizing Bush's description of Israel as a "Jewish state" and almost ignoring the rest.

On the other hand, YNet and the Jerusalem Post ignored the statement, Ha'aretz took note.

UNIFIL attacked by roadside bomb

Some strange, unidentified people tried to blow up a UNIFIL team in Lebanon:

RMEILEH, Lebanon: A roadside bomb exploded yesterday near a UN vehicle travelling along a coastal highway south of Beirut, lightly wounding two Irish peacekeepers.
It was the first attack on the expanded UN force in Lebanon since last summer, when six Spanish peacekeepers died after a bomb hit their armoured personnel carrier in June near the Israeli border in southern Lebanon.

In July, a roadside bomb struck a UN jeep near the southern port of Tyre, but there were no casualties.

Yesterday's explosion rocked the town of Rmeileh, near the southern coastal city of Sidon. Smoke was seen billowing from the scene.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon's force commander adviser, Milos Strugar, said one vehicle was damaged in the explosion and two peacekeepers in the vehicle were "lightly wounded" and taken to a hospital.

Lebanese TV stations said the wounded peacekeepers were Irish.

Well, some people claim to know who did it:

Hezbollah said the purpose of the terrorist act is "crystal clear" and the Amal Movement of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri pointed fingers of accusation at Israel, saying the attack only served Zionist interests.

Meanwhile:

In another incident, the [Lebanese] army has denied Israeli reports that two rockets were fired yesterday into northern Israel from Lebanon.

Yet:

UN peacekeepers from Italy and France examined the remains of a rocket fired from Lebanon into the northern Israel town of Shlomit in one of two attacks reported yesterday. (EFI SHARIR/AFP/Getty Images)

Any chance that the UNIFIL was attacked for checking out the non-existent Katyushas?

Oxford U.'s idea of evenhandedness

From Oxford Union, quotes and links from Solomonia:

Event Name: Middle East Debate
Start Date: 24th Jan 2008 8:30pm

Description: This House Believes That The State of Israel has a Right to Exist

In Proposition -

* Norman Finkelstein ['Hezbollah represents the hope']
* Prof Ted Honderich ['...the Palestinians have had a moral right to their terrorism as certain as was the moral right, say, of the African people of South Africa against their white captors and the apartheid state']

In Opposition -

* Ghada Karmi [One State Solution]
* Ilan Pappe ['Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts.']

Let's get 4 people who are rabidly anti-Israel and have them "debate" each other as to exactly how much the audience is supposed to loathe the Jewish state! This way, we ensure that everyone sees all sides (of one side) of the issue.

A similar "debate" between two sides of the same side occurred in print last year.

Interfaith dialogue, Islamic-style

An unintentionally funny article in the Arab News by "Islamic scholar" Zeinul Abideen Al-Rikabi:

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has urged Muslims to learn about Christian culture. This appeal, diplomatic as it is, is based on the assumption that Muslims are ignorant of Christianity, or at least know very little about it.

...Global human acquaintance and interaction is something endorsed by the Qur’an, and learning of the cultures of other nations is a primary asset among others.

So al-Rikabi goes on to prove the archbishop's point:

It is mentioned in the Qur’an: “And say we believe in God, the revelation given to us, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, as well as what was revealed to Moses and Jesus and all messengers of God. We draw no distinction between them and we submit to God.” As the verse states, belief in God and His Holy Books is contingent on belief in Jesus and his Bible. It is also mentioned in the Hadith that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “Whoever believes in One Allah and that He has no partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and prophet, and that Jesus is His servant and prophet and His Word spoken unto Mary, and that God sent the Holy Ghost to him, and that Heaven is true and Hell is true; Allah will admit him into Heaven for whatever good deeds he has done.” As a result of this, Muslims possess broad and profound knowledge of Jesus and Christianity. This knowledge incorporates the belief that Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) preached a system of values, concepts, ethics, virtues, and teachings and tenaciously pursued its instillation in society and in human conscience.
The following are examples of these principles, concepts, and values that Muslims learn from the Qur’an:....

So this Islamic scholar is saying that, while Muslims do need to learn about other cultures according to the Koran, they already know everything they need to know about Christianity - from the Koran!

This is classic: a Muslim pretends to be interested in "interfaith dialogue" but he is only interested in proselytizing his religion as he pays lip service to another.

See also this posting about the Muslim concept of "dialogue."

Early nominees for next year's Dhimmi of the Year

From MehrNews (h/t Dhimmi Watch):

NEW YORK (MNA) – An academic delegation of Columbia University professors and deans of faculties plans to visit Tehran to officially apologize to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The delegation plans to express regret for the insulting remarks Columbia University President Lee Bollinger directed at Ahmadinejad on September 24 in his introductory speech, the Mehr News Agency correspondent in New York reported.

Since the incident, the deans and professors from the faculties of history, anthropology, Middle Eastern studies, philosophy, and Islamic studies have criticized Bollinger’s behavior toward Ahmadinejad.

A member of the delegation, who requested anonymity, said the main goal of the visit is to meet the Iranian president and officially apologize to him.

UPDATE: They deny it.