Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

"Hamas is the foreign-policy wing of Iran"

An interesting section of an op-ed by Cal Thomas:

Last week in London I spoke with Liam Fox, a conservative Member of Parliament and "shadow defense secretary." Fox told me, "There is a belief in some quarters that if only you can resolve the problems between Israel and Palestine, all the other problems in the Middle East, in a domino-like fashion, will fall into place. That is absolute nonsense."

Indeed, it is.

Fox said on a recent visit to Iran that Iranian politicians told him they realize they lack an air force to fight back if they are attacked by Israel, so they would use Hezbollah and Hamas. "They are part of our defense policy against Israel," Fox quoted them as saying, "Hamas is not part of the Palestinian problem. Hamas is the foreign-policy wing of Iran in Israel."

This simple fact is what Westerners fail to grasp: Hezbollah and Hamas are proxies for Iran - and they intend to surround Israel.

And if Iran is allowed by the West to develop a nuclear bomb, which it appears is already being treated as a fait accompli, it will not need to work that hard on its missile delivery system - because there are tens of thousands of human beings who would be more than willing to bring it themselves to Israel's borders.

Here are the reasons that the free world is letting this happen:

1. Israel is the obvious target, not Europe, Westerners don't feel personally invested or threatened.

2. Even though they work overtime to limit Israel's ability to defend itself, they figure that Israel will ignore them and defend itself anyway, so they don't feel they have to get involved.

3. The unwillingless to face the horrible - yet obvious - truth causes otherwise smart people to close their eyes and grab onto whatever justifications they can find, like the discredited NIE report.

4. Doing something means making hard decisions, something that democratic leaders are loathe to do when they have an eye on getting re-elected.

5. Everyone hates war and no one wants to start one without the other side doing something overtly aggressive. The only justification would be the existence of a huge crater where Tel Aviv was.

Turkmenistan!

From Eurasianet:

Israel has announced it will open an embassy in Turkmenistan’s capital of Ashgabat, located just 32 kilometers from the Iranian border.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman held a series of "secret talks" with officials in Ashgabat and a team of Israeli diplomats and security personnel will visit the Turkmen capital later in May to select a "suitable building" to house the Israeli diplomatic mission, Israel National News reported May 13.
Turkmenistan and Israel established formal diplomatic relations 17 years ago, but to date no Israeli ambassador has resided in the Central Asian state.
Ashgabat is situated in the foothills of the Kopet-Dag mountain range and is just a short drive from the Bajgiran border point. Turkmenistan and Iran share a 994-kilometer long border.

Even if Israel/Turkmenistan cooperation never reaches the point where this is strategically important, just knowing how much it ticks off Iran - that a neighboring Muslim state would open an embassy of the hated Zionists - makes it all worth it.

Benny Morris on a "secular, democratic Palestine"

The leading "new historian" tells it like it is :

The Palestinian national movement started life with a vision and goal of a Palestinian Muslim Arab-majority state in all of Palestine — a one-state “solution” — and continues to espouse and aim to establish such a state down to the present day. Moreover, and as a corollary, al-Husseini, the Palestinian national leader during the 1930s and 1940s; the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which led the national movement from the 1960s to Yasser Arafat’s death in November, 2004; and Hamas today — all sought and seek to vastly reduce the number of Jewish inhabitants in the country, in other words, to ethnically cleanse Palestine. Al-Husseini and the PLO explicitly declared the aim of limiting Palestinian citizenship to those Jews who had lived in Palestine permanently before 1917 (or, in another version, to limit it to those 50,000-odd Jews and their descendants). This goal was spelled out clearly in the Palestinian National Charter and in other documents. Hamas has been publicly more reserved on this issue, but its intentions are clear.
The Palestinian vision was never — as described by various Palestinian spokesmen in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to Western journalists — of a “secular, democratic Palestine” (though it certainly sounded more palatable than, say, the “destruction of Israel,” which was the goal it was meant to paper over or camouﬂage). Indeed, “a secular democratic Palestine” had never been the goal of Fatah or the so-called moderate groups that dominated the PLO between the 1960s and the 2006 elections that brought Hamas to power.
Middle East historian Rashid Khalidi has written that “in 1969 [the PLO] amended [its previous goal and henceforward advocated] the establishment of a secular democratic state in Palestine for Muslims, Christians and Jews, replacing Israel.” And Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah has written, in his recent book, One Country: “The PLO did ultimately adopt [in the late 1960s or 1970s] the goal of a secular, democratic state in all Palestine as its official stance.”
This is hogwash. The Palestine National Council (PNC) never amended the Palestine National Charter to the effect that the goal of the PLO was “a secular democratic state in Palestine.” The words and notion never figured in the charter or in any PNC or PLO Central Committee or Fatah Executive Committee resolutions, at any time. It is a spin invented for gullible Westerners and was never part of Palestinian mainstream ideology. The Palestinian leadership has never, at any time, endorsed a “secular, democratic Palestine.”
The PNC did amend the charter, in 1968 (not 1969). But the thrust of the emendation was to limit non-Arab citizenship in a future Arab-liberated Palestine to “Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion” — that is, 1917.
True, the amended charter also guaranteed, in the future State of Palestine, “freedom of worship and of visit” to holy sites to all, “without discrimination of race, colour, language or religion.” And, no doubt, this was music to liberal Western ears. But it had no connection to the reality or history of contemporary Muslim Arab societies. What Muslim Arab society in the modern age has treated Christians, Jews, pagans, Buddhists and Hindus with tolerance and as equals? Why should anyone believe that Palestinian Muslim Arabs would behave any differently?
Western liberals like, or pretend, to view Palestinian Arabs, indeed all Arabs, as Scandinavians, and refuse to recognize that peoples, for good historical, cultural and social reasons, are different and behave differently in similar or identical sets of circumstances.

That last sentence could be the slogan of this blog.

Read the whole article.

Selectively hearing the Pope's words

One of the interesting things that occur when the Pope speaks is not only that his words are examined exhanstively, but that the people who interpret his words show their own biases.

This occurs on all sides - there are plenty of Israelis as well as Arabs who are quick to criticize the Pope's choice of words. To give one example, some Israelis were not happy with the Pope talking about Jews "killed" instead of "murdered" in reference to the Holocaust, although as Batya points out, Yad Vashem uses the even more indirect word "perished."

The news media, however, pretend to have no biases. So when they start interpreting the words of the pontiff, we can see exactly where they are coming from.

From the Times of London:

Pope criticises 'tragic' West Bank barrier
Pope Benedict XVI today lamented the "tragic" building by Israel of the West Bank separation barrier in a speech to Palestinians at a refugee camp in Bethlehem in the shadow of the 25ft structure.

In sentiments that are sure to anger Jerusalem – who had blocked the building of a stage for the Pope next to the concrete and steel wall – the pontiff said the barrier was a symbol of the stalemate in relations between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Towering over us... is a stark reminder of the stalemate that relations between Israelis and Palestinians seem to have reached – the wall," he told a crowd at the Aida refugee camp.

“In a world where more and more borders are being opened up – to trade, to travel, to movement of peoples, to cultural exchanges – it is tragic to see walls still being erected,” he said.
“How earnestly we pray for an end to the hostilities that have caused this wall to be built."

It doesn't sound to me like the Pope is criticizing the security barrier - it sounds more like he is lamenting the terrorism that forced Israel to build the security barrier.

Somehow, the Times of London chose to interpret Benedict's words differently.

Perhaps because they are more bothered by the wall than by the terrorism that spawned it?

What could be worse than the "Nakba"?

For Palestinian Arabs, the "nakba" has little to do with the creation of hundreds of thousand of refugees and everything to do with the establishment of a Jewish state. Hence their Nakba celebrations are timed to coincide with Israel Independence Day (and the anniverary of the UN Partition of Palestine) and not with, for example, the events at Deir Yassin.

The leader of the Islamic Jihad just confirmed this:

Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Abdullah Ramadan Shallah said Palestinian recognition of Israel would be "more dangerous than the Nakba of 1948", the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi reported on Wednesday.
In a speech delivered by telephone for an event in Gaza on Tuesday, Shallah said: "What is more dangerous than the Palestinian people's Nakba is that the ones with the rights recognize their enemies and deny their own rights. Everything that is happening in Jerusalem is the result of the deals, agreements and negotiations with the Zionist enemy."

To the West, they will whine about Israeli massacres and atrocities and the "refugee" problem and use them as reasons to vilify Israel. In the minds of Arabs, however, the existence of a Jewish state in an all-but-ignored backwater of what they had lazily considered to be Arab land is the real crime, and everything else is a smokescreen to try to eliminate that aberration. Sometimes the methods sound peaceful, and sometimes aggressive, but the end goal has been consistent. The pain that the Arabs feel from Israel is not physical but rather its very existence is an affront to their manhood and their pride.

No amount of concessions will ever mollify that.

How not to clean a gun

From Ma'an:

A young Palestinian woman from the southern West Bank town of Beit Ummar was shot and died Wednesday when her fiancé misfired his gun while cleaning the weapon.

The 20-year-old woman and her 22-year-old fiancé have not been identified.

Neighbors say the man is a security officer in one of the Palestinian Authority’s security services. Several shots were heard as the man was reportedly cleaning his handgun. One of the shots hit his fiancé, who was killed instantly

.The Zionists make the Palestinian Arabs sound like they are dirty, but this one is so concerned with cleanliness that he kept cleaning his gun even while it was firing bullets at his fiancee!

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 75.

Iran TV: "Swine flu an American/Zionist plot"

Insanity from the Land of the Mullahs: (via MEMRI)

Reporter: Every so often, diseases develop in different corners of the world, and disappear after wreaking damage to the tune of billions of dollars. After avian flu, the time has come for pigs. It is a disease that afflicts pigs, but because of the physiological similarity between humans and pigs, this disease afflicts humans as well. Now, the main actors in this great movie must go into action. The director has fulfilled his role very well, and gathered the boldest and most famous actors for this blockbuster.

The international news networks air the trailers of this movie for free. With the outbreak of this disease, the American president went into action, and said in a sensational speech: "My government has consulted health officials, and they have not advised the closing of the U.S. borders."

In his speech, Barak Obama mentioned a medicine called Tamiflu – but what exactly is Tamiflu? Who are the compassionate manufacturers of this medicine? This great pharmacist is none other than Rumsfeld, the former American secretary of defense. He is one of the shareholders, and an active and influential member on the board of directors of Gilead Science, which is the main provider of medicine for this disease.

It should be noted that the Gilead Sciences is a Jewish company. Its name, in Hebrew means "holy place," and all its shareholders are Zionists.

Dr. Ali-Reza Mehrabi, Shaid Beheshti University: The United States is one of the few countries with an arsenal of viruses. It is one of the countries with the largest arsenals of smallpox.

[...]

It is interesting that last year, [Rumsfeld] bought, if I'm not mistaken, 18 billion dollars worth of new Gilead stocks.

[...]

If we accept the assumption that work was conducted in a laboratory in Mexico – whether in a pig farm or some other place – the mere fact that this substance found its way out, even if by mistake, shows that the U.S. is conducting experiments in a peripheral country, rather than on its own soil. In this case, the U.S. might have lost control.

(h/t Suzanne)

Men's fashions under attack in Saudi Arabia

From Arab News:

An official at the Saudi Arabian Airlines once prevented a young man dressed in Bermuda [shorts] to board his Riyadh-bound plane on the grounds he was not properly dressed.
Some youths dressed in Bermudas were prevented from entering hospitals even during times of emergency.
As a reaction to this fast spreading fashion among young men, calls have been made to draft a new law specifying the least minimum specifications for male clothes which could be socially acceptable. The calls were meant to restore the sense of decorum to the outfits men wear in public places.
Sheikh Saleh Al-Shamrani, a teacher at the Scholarly Institute for Islamic Studies in Jeddah, described the tight trousers and sleeveless open shirts as “contrary to men’s ethics”.
“It seems that every age has its fashion. Very often we are confused between men and women because of the dress they wear,” he said. Al-Shamrani stressed that the thobe (Arab garment) and Shumag (head dress) are for men while the Abaya and the skirt and blouse are for women. “If men give up this dress to dress like women they will be damned,” he said recalling the Prophet’s (pbuh) Hadith warning against men acting like women and vise versa.
He called for punishing such kind of men because they drifted away from the natural instinct and recalled another Hadith which says “kick them out of your homes”.
Asked how to treat men dressed like women in public places, Al-Shamrani said they should be taken away from these places to be taught the right behavior and the proper dressing sense.
“The alternative punishment like asking them to memorize the Qur’an or attend congregational prayers for a month will be a suitable punishment for them,” Al-Shamrani added.

So according to Saudis, studying the Quran is a punishment?

Conspiracy theory of the day: The artificial earthquake

A (presumably Arab) "expert in Israeli affairs" warned that Israel planned to create an artificial earthquake to demolish the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The evil Zionists are apparently using a rock-melting chemical to destabilize the Temple Mount and to ultimately cause its collapse.

It seems that the Jews have tested their localized artificial earthquake technology in the Western Negev and near Eilat.

I don't know about this one. It seems to me that if Israel could cause earthquakes at will, they would be wiser to direct it towards Natanz. Not that I would be terribly upset if the Muslim desecrations on the Temple Mount would happen to collapse due to an act of God.

Casualties of Truth

(This is the article that I wrote as an op-ed, that was inexplicably not published as planned. Much of it was beautifully rewritten by a prominent writer and author.)

For three weeks in December 2008-January 2009, Israel and Hamas fought a war in the Gaza Strip after Hamas announced it was abandoning the ceasefire and began escalated rocket and mortar attacks on Israel.

There is one fact about that war which people around the world think they know: there were about 1400 Palestinians killed in the war and most or almost all of them were civilians, mainly women an children.

This claim, however, is false and demonstrably so on the basis of careful research using publicly available and reliable materials. Indeed, a group of bloggers, including the author, have shown already that more than 30 percent of the claimed "civilian" casualties were in fact, to use the polite word, armed militants or members of Hamas-led security forces. And the number of such combatants we are discovering is rising every day.

While Hamas and other Palestinian political groups were using alleged civilian casualties to bolster their case with international public opinion, they demonstrably knew otherwise. In fact, they publicly bragged about the military activities of those they labeled innocent civilian bystanders.

The basis for many claims about the distribution of casualties was in a March report <http://pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2008/list.pdf> by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR). Widely covered‹and credulously accepted‹in the Western media, the report was a seemingly comprehensive, detailed list of every death. The bottom line: : the name, gender, age, location, and job of each person is detailed. Most importantly, the PCHR claimed 1180 of the alleged 1414 victims were civilians.

Our team cross-checked the names listed by PCHR with lists of "resisters" compiled by the Al- Mezan Center for Human Rights <http://www.mezan.org/en/index.php> , lists of "martyrs" published by Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), and other militant groups in Gaza, as well as from the Ma'an News Agency, and other Palestinian sources.

The IDF released its own report on casualties from Operation Cast Lead, saying that there were 1166 killed in Gaza, of whom 709 were known Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants. The IDF did not release their list of casualties, so we could not check specifics against the PCHR claims.

Our results so far show that at least, if all armed police are counted, 391 of the 1180 people who PCHR classifies as "civilians," were, in fact, militants.

PCHR's criteria to determine exactly who is a "militant" are unclear. Sometimes they speak of "active combatants" but at other times they state, accurately, that any members of armed groups, such as the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, would be considered legitimate targets under international law.

The team has identified members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, the PFLP and the DFLP considered "civilians" by the PCHR. Examples include Adib Harb (brigade commander for the PRC), 'Eid 'Oda al-Shandi (field commander in the al-Qassam Brigades) and even senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan.

The IDF has categorized most or all of the Hamas police force as "Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives" and therefore as legal targets. The PCHR takes strong exception <http://pchrgaza.ps/files/PressR/English/2008/44-2009.html> to this categorization, saying that Hamas policemen are civilians.

Even by the PCHR's own criteria, our research <http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-of-those-civilians-killed-in-gaza.html> has detailed proof identifying over 64% of the police killed in Operation Cast Lead some 180 of them out of 283, were also members of militant groups, predominantly the al-Qassam Brigades acting as combatants against Israel.

Certainly, the PCHR is aware of the affiliations of many of not all of the victims in Gaza . For example, the PRC al-Nasser Salah Addin Brigades‹the most extremist group in Gaza which has been reportedly linked to al-Qaida--published a list <http://www.moqawmh.com/ara/index.php?act=News&id=2583> of its 18 of its "martyrs" on January 22. Yet nine of them, including two commanders, were classified as "civilian" by the PCHR months later. Similarly, an al-Qassam Brigades' leader famous for developing the Qassam rocket, Amir Yousef Al-Mansy, was also called a "civilian." It strains credulity to think that the PCHR was unaware that they were militants engaged in fighting Israel.

Why, then, did they classify so many known militants as civilians? One can only conclude that the reason is to deceive the media.

Such a high number of Al Qassam members among the police killed indicates that Hamas itself does not distinguish between its so-called civilian and military wings. Effectively, Hamas considers its police to be the same as its military force. If Hamas does not make such a distinction, why shouldn't everyone else conclude that its entire police force is a legitimate target?

In addition to the police, we have identified 117 other militants that the PCHR classified as "civilian." None of our findings are inconsistent with the IDF report on Gaza casualties.

While the PCHR misrepresents the facts about Palestinian casualties it makes other statements which reveal the highly politicized nature of the group that show it is not a human rights organization. For example, it consistently uses the phrase "IOF" ("Israel Occupation Forces") instead of Israel Defense Forces, the proper name of Israel's military, in trying to make Israel look as bad as possible.

The PCHR's influence cannot be overstated. UN groups routinely quote PCHR figures and reports. News media around the world rely on organizations like the PCHR to give them accurate information about what happens in Gaza. The PCHR presents itself as an unbiased party and is taken as such in media reports. The truth, however, is quite different.

Israel's war in Gaza was not aimed at causing civilian losses, nor was it a war of "occupation," as the PCHR would have it, but of defense. The fact that the casualty figures are being misrepresented is a demonstration of the fact that charges made against Israel are false. We are confident that as our research continues we will find many more soldiers of Hamas and other groups waging war against Israel disguised as civilians.

(updated numbers 6/12/09)

Mystified and frustrated

As my readers know, I have been leading a group effort to expose the lies that the PCHR has continually been telling the media about the number of civilians killed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. The research has been painstaking, time consuming and completely transparent. In a large part, it has also been already successful, and we have found hundreds of so-called "civilians" who were members of terror organizations.

Unfortunately, we have been far less successful at publicizing our findings.

Every effort I have made to reach out to people doing similar research, in order to consolidate findings, has been met with silence. Every effort to publicize it through the media has been ignored.

I thought that would change as I was corresponding with an op-ed editor at a major Israeli newspaper about publishing an article about these results. The last I heard was that they were planning to run it, and they wanted a picture to go with my (pen) name. I politely declined and they have not returned my emails since then. (The article, which was graciously edited to the point of a beautiful rewrite by a well-known author and blogger, will follow this post.)

I just don't get it.

Is it not newsworthy? Is it automatically suspect because it originated at a blog? Are people turned off by the blog name? Do the other researchers feel threatened by "competition"?

There are at least two major findings we have, and many smaller but significant findings. We have so far identified some 287 members of various militant groups that the PCHR classified as "civilian" - far more than the number of militants that the PCHR identified initially. And perhaps more improtantly, we have identified that nearly two thirds of the "policemen" killed by Israel were members of the al-Qassam Brigades or other terror groups, making Israel's legal case for attacking "policemen" much stronger. We have also identified child terrorists, we've started some work towards identifying human shields, we've found indirect evidence that some people who died of natural causes during Cast Lead were counted as being killed by Israel, and we've found other mistakes in the PCHR totals.

One would think that the openness of this project and the fact that it is the only one of its kind where each finding is sourced - well over 300 links by now - would overcome any reticence about trusting the research. We also have no ulterior motive - I am not doing this to get more hits to the blog, I make no money off this blog, and I don't care if my blog title is associated with the research (although I would want to give full credit to the others who contributed should they desire it.)

We simply want the truth to be known.

I'll keep trying. There are a couple of other ideas that we have not yet explored. But I have to admit that I am mystified, and a bit frustrated.

Arab League boycott members meet in Damascus

From Al-Quds:

On Tuesday in a hotel in Damascus, Syria, the eighty-second conference of liaison officers to the regional offices of the Arab boycott of Israel opened with the participation of 14 Arab countries.

Eight countries were absent from the meeting, namely Jordan, Egypt, Mauritania, Oman, Bahrain, Comoros, Somalia and Djibouti.

The three-day conference will discuss a number of topics relating to the amendment of some items of the general principles of the boycott and the addition of companies in breach of these principles through their support for the Israeli economy and put it on the blacklist. The conference will discuss "the lifting of the ban on companies that have committed themselves to the terms of the boycott that were named on the black list," according to organizers.

The conference meets twice a year to draw up a "black list" of names of Israeli companies, or companies that do work in Israel, to be boycotted. Since the normalization of relations between a number of Arab countries and Israel over the past twenty years, the effectiveness of the Office of the boycott has been reduced.

The article doesn't list the names of the countries that attended, so it is unclear if, for example, Saudi Arabia or the UAE was there. Both countries had agreed to drop the boycott under US pressure for their entry into the World Trade Organization, and both apparently reneged.

It looks like the PA also attended. They had attended recent conferences.

The PalArab nutcase echo chamber

Sheikh Taissir Tamimi, the head of the PA's religious court, is completely insane.

For example, a couple of years ago he said "Israel is trying to hurt the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people also by means of exporting AIDS, drug trafficking, promiscuous norms, and making prostitution legal."

But he has no independent way of knowing that his consistent and absurd vilification of Israel is a bit crazy. His rants attract a great audience, his weekly screeds against Israel will get written up in the Arabic press approvingly, and he has fans who adore his crazy rhetoric. No one in the PA will ever stand up and say, "You know, this guy has a few screws loose."

The reason being that no one wants his crazy supporters to be angry at them.

So Tamimi, along with his similarly nutty Muslim and Greek Orthodox clerics, regularly gets only positive feedback as his rhetoric keeps getting ratcheted up. He knows that the crazier he speaks, the more popular he will become among Palestinian Arabs.

Every once in a while, the insanity that we get so used to in the Palestinian Authority - the craziness that is happily tolerated by the West as a minor issue that can be ignored - runs up against reality, and it forces people to notice, if only fleetingly, that these guys really are nuts.

Sheikh Tamimi, meet the Pope:

Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Notre Dame Hotel in east Jerusalem Monday night for a meeting with the heads of all religious represented in Israel was cut short by an unpleasant incident, after a Palestinian sheik interrupted his speech.
The meeting was attended by heads of the Rabbinate, Vatican State Secretary Cardinal Tarkisio Bertoni, heads of the various churches in Israel, Latin Patriarch Fuad Twal and Sheikh Taiseer al-Tamimi, head of the Palestinian Authority's Sharia Courts.
Patriarch Twal began the ceremony and then invited the pope to speak. Both clergymen spoke of the importance of unity, brotherhood and peace.
The pope's speech was suddenly interrupted by Sheikh Tamimi, who began crying out at his holiness, asking him to "see to a just peace. A just peace means a Palestinian state in which Israel will stop killing women and children and destroying mosques, like it did in Gaza."
Those present in the hall attempted to silence him, but he continued, slamming Israel for "destroying Palestinian cities and erecting settlements on Palestinian land. Jerusalem will remain the Palestinian people's capital," he said in Arabic, and called on the heads of the other religions present to "defend the Palestinians and their lands."
The pope left the room immediately after Tamimi was done, passing on the traditional exchange of gifts.

The Vatican responded:

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said: "The speech by Sheikh Taysir Tamimi was not scheduled by the organisers of the meeting. In a meeting dedicated to dialogue, this intervention was a direct negation of what a dialogue should be. We hope that such an incident will not damage the mission of the pope aiming at promoting peace and also interreligious dialogue."

It is not easy to tick off the Pope.

Is this how a cleric speaks to the head of the Roman Catholic Church? Tamimi is so completely clueless because of the echo chamber of approval that surrounds him - even among the so-called "moderates" of the PA - that he honestly thinks that he can do whatever he wants and will only get adoration.

And the funny thing is, within the Palestinian Arab community, his prestige will probably only increase after this.

Our tax dollars helping Hezbollah

Ha'aretz reports:

Lebanon arrested five people over the weekend suspected of belonging to an intelligence cell transmitting information about Hezbollah to Israel, the most recent arrests in a two-month crackdown apparently aided by American training and equipment.

...The United States has provided $1 billion in aid since 2006, including $410 million in security assistance to the Lebanese military and police. But U.S. officials have said they would review aid to Lebanon depending on the results of the June 7 election, which could oust the U.S.-backed government.

Israel has expressed reservations about American aid to the Lebanese army and security services, saying those organizations will ultimately be unable to contend with Hezbollah and that any aid is liable to serve Hezbollah's interests.

Let's see if we understand this: The US gives hundreds of millions to the Lebanese for security. The US presumably wants that money to be used against Hezbollah, not to help it. But in the end it is used to strengthen Hezbollah.

How exactly did this episode advance US strategic interests?

How often do we see the US or EU give money to questionable Arab regimes in order to "strengthen" them against the "radicals" only to find out that these regimes had more in common with the radicals than the Westerners had imagined?

The idea that giving money actually buys influence from people who hate you to begin with is perhaps one of the more naive aspects of Western foreign policy. And yet, the same mistakes keep repeating.

Pope politely did not call for PalArab state

Even though news headlines are saying otherwise, Pope Benedict did not call for a Palestinian Arab state in his address upon his arrival in Israel.

Ma'an writes:

Speaking at a red carpet welcoming ceremony, the pontiff called for renewed efforts for a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.

"I plead with all those responsible to explore every possible avenue in the search for a just resolution of the outstanding difficulties, so that both peoples may live in peace in a homeland of their own, within secure and internationally recognized borders," said Benedict.

The pope did not make reference to a Palestinian state in his first foray into the Palestinian-Israeli arena.

However, the Vatican is on the record as supporting a Palestinian Arab state. The New York Times notices his word choice and dismisses its significance:

While he did not use the word “state,” he made clear in a brief speech that he was underscoring the Vatican’s previous support for the creation of a Palestinian state, albeit with a stronger resonance imparted by the setting and timing of his remarks within minutes of arriving in Israel.

If Livni was still prime minister, chances are that the Pope would have had no qualms about using the word "state."

Which should be a lesson in diplomacy for Israeli leaders.