Sunday, August 22, 2010

  • Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From AP, January 8, 1967:

Sen. Edwards Kennedy, D-Mass., toured three refugee camps in Jordan in November as part of a fact-finding tour, without arousing any apparent resentment among the Palestinians.
One patriarch, however, confronted and harangued the senator. "The Jews have killed your brother as they killed Jesus Christ," the refugee told the solemn-faced Kennedy.
Of course, the real irony of that statement was not realized until Kennedy's other brother was assassinated.
  • Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
I am stuck waiting for a flight that has been delayed 2 1/2 hours (so far.)

All I can say is thank G-d for 3G coverage with my carrier who usually has spotty coverage, for my now-obsolete Android phone having a hotspot feature so I can easily use my laptop, and for finding an electric outlet before the mad rush.

Also, for last minute $59 upgrades to first class instead of the center seat I was going to be stuck in.

Here's an open thread to celebrate my misfortune.
  • Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
It is too bad this AFP article is so poorly edited.

Here's the version that would have been decent:
KIBBUTZ KARMIYYA, Israel — Dana Chetrit, her husband Alain and their two young children in August 2005 reluctantly left their home in the northern Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai, never to return.

They were among 8,000 Israeli settlers evicted by their own government from 21 settlements in Gaza, in a move heralded as ending 38 years of Israeli occupation and as bringing closer an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

To Chetrit, a 36-year-old art teacher, the pullout brought broken dreams, broken promises and a broken marriage.

Five years since soldiers ordered settler Dana Chetrit out of her home, she is still living in temporary accommodation at the Karmiya kibbutz just across the border in Israel.

Her marriage collapsed under the strain of the move.

As a 22-year-old newly-wed in 1996, she had found her ideal home in the small settlement of Elei Sinai, just inside the Gaza Strip and about five kilometers (three miles) from where she now lives.

"It was our first home, it was the home we had been looking for," she said. "We wanted to live in a communal community, it was cheap, there were other young couples there, everyone was like us."

The idyll was shattered in October 2001 when Hamas gunmen cut through the settlement's perimeter fence and shot dead a 19-year-old girl and her 20-year-old boyfriend. Another 15 Israelis were wounded before the attackers were shot dead in a gun battle with soldiers.

Chetrit said the incident only strengthened her attachment to the settlement and her commitment to her neighbours.

But in 2004, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza. On August 18, 2005, the Chetrits were turfed out of their home.

The violence, however, followed them across the border to the small kibbutz collective farm, where she and the boys now live in a five-roomed prefabricated house.

Gaza militants regularly fire rockets across the border. In February 2006, a Qassam rocket, produced in the workshops of the Palestinian territory, thudded into a neighbour's house, destroying it and blowing a toddler out of the playpen in which he had been sitting.

The injured child recovered but the traumatised parents moved out the same day.

"Rockets had fallen before but this was a direct hit," Chetrit said. "If you had seen the house, you would have been amazed that anybody could come out of it alive."

In a separate attack, a rocket fell on the kibbutz football pitch, injuring two people, she said, adding that there were plenty of near misses as well.

Of around 50 families from Elei Sinai who were initially housed at Karmiya, only about 20 remain today, some driven out by fear of more rockets.

Chetrit, who has been promised land on which to build a home in the nearby village of Talme Yafe, said the bureaucratic wheels are turning very slowly.

"We haven't yet received a plot," she said. "By the time we get building permits ... it could be another four or five years."

She is not going to move again until she has a permanent home. "Qassams or no Qassams, I'm not leaving again ... I can't see myself packing up again and moving house," she said.
Instead, AFP threw in a "balanced" set of paragraphs about Arabs in Gaza with no consistent viewpoint and some questionable quotes, breaking up the narrative and changing the article from something pretty good into a nonsensical mishmash.

Why is it so against wire service editorial standards to have a story exclusively from an Israeli perspective? They sure do it for Palestinian Arabs enough.
Last week, PA TV broadcast a skit on a satirical program that made fun of Hamas leaders - and Hamas reacted angrily.

In the skit, Hamas leaders Haniyeh and al Zahar are waiting anxiously at the Gaza border for curvaceous Lebanese diva Haifa Wehbe to arrive. They are holding signs that say that "the siege is made of Iron, but only Haifa can melt it." When she arrives, she goes into Haniyeh's car and puts on a veil.

The skit continues with Haniyeh being so distraught at her eventual departure from Gaza that he cancels a reconciliation meeting with Egypt and Fatah.

The satire not only makes fun of Hamas hypocrisy but also of Arab celebrities who latch onto Gaza as a cause in order to further their careers (Wehbe was planning to join the women's ship from Lebanon before Hezbollah nixed the idea, according to reports.)

The same program has also made fun of PA leaders and corruption, but Hamas did not take kindly to its airing, accusing the PA Ministry of Information of broadcasting "black propaganda in support of the Israeli propaganda." It was to the "detriment of all Islamic morals and values of the Palestinian National movement, to the point of libel and slander." They said it was "making fun of the leaders of the resistance and the martyrs who gave their children."

I think it is time for a Hamas comedy channel!

(h/t Ali for translation help)
  • Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Some Egyptian areas are suffering from power outages, and as a result there are also water shortages. These are mostly affecting the governorates of Fayoum and Damietta.

The minister of iand energy is pleading with citizens to cut back their electricity usage during the current heat wave.

Affected citizens are starting to hold protests.

Not only that, but basic food staples are in short supply as well.

Of course, this is not news. There are no pictures in the wire services of little Egyptian kids eating their Iftar dinners in candlelight or of people queueing up to get clean drinking water. Because this is not Gaza and no one can possibly blame the Jews for the problems - so they might as well be invisible.
  • Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From JCPA:
To stand any real chance of success, every insurgent or terrorist movement needs a safe haven to operate from - one that is outside the control of the state being targeted and preferably in a land that is free from interference by the target state or its allies, whether due to geography, the protection of a friendly regime, or operating within a failed state. The Vietnam conflict was a classic example of the use of a safe haven. More recently, in the Iraq campaign, Sunni extremists had a safe haven in Syria which was their main logistic support base and a pipeline for suicide bombers flowing into Iraq. They also used extensive support networks in Iran, which also provided a safe haven for Shi'ite insurgents attacking coalition forces, as well as through the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hizbullah, which provided training, organization, munitions, and direction.

Today the Afghan Taliban's safe haven and support base is in Pakistan, although the second largest extremist group engaged in Afghanistan, Hizb-i-Islami, has its main base in Iran itself. In March, General Petraeus, the Head of U.S. Central Command, in testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, revealed that Tehran is letting al-Qaeda leaders travel freely between Pakistan and Afghanistan, effectively using Iranian territory as a safe haven, while permitting them also to hold meetings in Iran to plan terrorist attacks against U.S. and other Western targets.

Israel has had more than a flavor of what it can mean to leave hostile groups in control of lands adjacent to its own borders in southern Lebanon and in Gaza. Any similar move to totally cede control to the Palestinians of the West Bank or a part of Jerusalem may have considerable attraction for any peace process, and that is certainly the view of many in the international community. But both prospects would carry immense risk from the perspective of asymmetrical activities against Israel.

Some might argue that a modern high-tech state can monitor hostile activities outside its borders. Yet we've seen many failures of intelligence in relation to offensive activities by conventional forces and war plans by nation-states which are generally relatively easy to identify and monitor. But surveillance and intelligence collection against a deeply embedded, secretive, extremist network operating within a dense civilian population is the most difficult target, and no national intelligence organization can be confident that it will have a high success rate against such a target.

Despite many spectacular successes, including the killing in Pakistan of al-Qaeda's number three, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the unrivalled technological supremacy of the U.S. military has failed to effectively dent the Taliban's ability to smuggle munitions and infiltrate large groups of fighters across the Afghan border. I do not for a moment underestimate the difficulties this entails. Jordan's support or effectiveness in countering extremist activity directed at Israel from the West Bank could not be counted upon, and extremists would also seek to destabilize Jordan, an important stepping stone to the destruction of Israel.

...

It has been suggested that an international force, perhaps a NATO force should replace the IDF presence in the West Bank. While I would not exclude that idea in principle, it raises a number of very serious questions. First of all, where are the NATO troops going to come from and how long are they going to stay? Let us not forget the difficulties that NATO has had for years and still has in mustering forces for the war in Afghanistan - and this is for a campaign that is NATO's declared main effort and its only real, current, live operation. Many of the troops that are there are restricted by significant national caveats, including restricting deployments to the safest areas. Some nations are simply not prepared to put their troops into undue danger. Unfortunately, undue danger goes hand in glove with war and with the toughest peacekeeping operations, and the West Bank would fall clearly into that category. Some NATO nations can't operate after dark and they leave the insurgents to control the night, with all the implications that this has.

There is a significant risk that in trying to develop and maintain good relations with all parties, the peacekeepers would instead become the enemy of both sides. Potential contributors to the international forces would know that. What would happen to those who were prepared to take part when the going got tough, as it inevitably would? ...

Just how sure could we be that the electorates in contributing countries would allow their militaries to remain deployed in the West Bank under these kinds of pressures, and how effective would NATO be as a peacekeeping force in the demanding circumstances that we are considering? The only previous success that NATO is able to claim in this field, and it is by no means uncontroversial, was in Kosovo, which also in practice was a far less complex situation.

... Would a NATO mission be ready and able to take on insurgents, and if not, to what extent would they then get in the way of a vital Israeli effort to do so to protect their own people?

In many ways peacekeeping is far tougher and more challenging than fighting as combatants. It is one thing to act robustly against people that are attacking you and your comrades. It is quite another to put your troops' lives on the line when it is not them but others who are in danger. Dutch forces have fought gallantly and effectively in Afghanistan. They've been brave and they've taken many casualties, but Srebrenica cannot be forgotten. More than 8,000 civilians were massacred there in 1995 under the eyes of Dutch UN peacekeepers.

To conclude, I would neither exclude the possibility of an IDF withdrawal from the West Bank nor their replacement with a NATO force, but before either can be seriously contemplated there are some fundamental questions to be resolved. These issues are critical to NATO, the West as a whole, and the entire Middle East because a failed NATO mission and a West Bank under extremist control, flourishing under a security vacuum there, would encourage and strengthen violent jihadists everywhere in the world.


Read the whole thing.
  • Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Firas Press reports that a Hamas doctor has killed a mentally-handicapped man in order to harvest his kidneys.

Firas normally rips off their stories from other sources, but I could not find the original story, just a copy in a Fatah forum quoting "Kofia Press" which I am unfamiliar with but looks to be a Fatah website.

While it sounds like a wild rumor, what makes this story so interesting is the amount of specificity: it names the doctor, the victim, the dates, and the place of the alleged crime:

The perpetrator is a doctor named Mohammed Rashid Abdul Hamid Deeb, belonging to Al Qassam Brigades, who lives in the Nasr district, near the Turquoise towers in Gaza City, with identity number 900336215, who was born on September 12, 1974 and works in the Ministry of Health. The victim is mentally handicapped citizen named Anwar Hassouna - known as Anwar Abbas - from Beach Camp he was thirty-eight years old.

Anwar was kidnapped on 15.06.2010 and then [Deeb] killed him with an air injection into a vein leading directly to death, for the removal of his kidney, and the victim's body was disposed of in the area of Wadi Gaza.
The article goes on to say that this case indicates that other "natural" deaths in Gaza could have been murders by Hamas.
  • Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Last Friday, Hilary Clinton invited Israel and the PA to Washington for direct talks. “These negotiations should take place without preconditions and be characterized by good faith and a commitment to their success,” she said.

According to Asharq al-Awsat, Mahmoud Abbas was furious at the announcement.

The newspaper says that Abbas went "mad" when he heard Clinton's words, because he wanted there to be a statement from the Quartet before the negotiations to confirm that they support a solution based on the 1949 armistice lines.

His angry reaction caused much consternation in Washington, and the White House made three separate phone calls to Abbas in an hour in order to calm him down, according to the report, in order to convince him not to abandon the talks.
  • Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
A "news analysis" in the New York Times by Robert F. Worth comes, unsurprisingly, to a conclusion that the US must continue and perhaps increase aid to the corrupt and ineffective Lebanese army. Its flaws are obvious, starting with the beginning:

Earlier this month, Israeli soldiers were pruning a tree on their country’s northern border when a firefight broke out with Lebanese soldiers across the fence, leaving one Israeli and four Lebanese dead.

The skirmish seems to have been accidental.
And Worth's ability to ignore basic facts just keeps going. He mentions
The Lebanese Army, meanwhile, has been so intent on preserving its status as the country’s one neutral institution that it is now largely impotent. During the fighting in May 2008, for instance, soldiers sat in their American Humvees and watched, unwilling to take sides.

Yet he concludes that if the US wouldn't fund the LAF, then Hezbollah would take over Lebanon.

This "analyst" clearly hasn't spent five minutes reading the statements of mainstream Lebanese, including LAF leaders, concerning the border incident with Israel. Their reaction was identical to Hezbollah's - no one is the least bit critical that they sent a pre-planned ambush to murder Israelis, complete with tipping off a large number of reporters that a routine and legal tree-cutting was going to turn into major headlines. Their hatred of Israel far exceeds their hatred of Hezbollah. The liberal idea that funding states somehow magically turns them into friends has been proven time and time again to be laughably false, but it has become a major foundation of US foreign policy.

Everyone who reads Worth's worthless piece should also read the following, written by EoZ contributor Zvi.

Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid provides a fairly sensible commentary on the Lebanese Armed Forces' attempt to seek donations to fund procurement in the wake of the loss of $100M from the United States. Although one provably fallacious phrase has been added (the claim that the tree was in southern Lebanon is "malarky"), the rest of the column is quite sensible.  
 

The crisis with the Lebanese army is not due to it being ill-equipped, nor does this concern the army's need to develop, but rather the problem is the army's position in the structure of the state, and the lack of it being acknowledged as the only state instate with the right to bear arms.  
 
In other words, the problem is that the government of Lebanon is not a sovereign government, according to the definition of sovereignty. It does not have supreme, independent authority over Lebanon, because it cannot control territory held by Hezbollah or by the Palestinians. It does not enjoy a monopoly on the use of force, and cannot enforce its authority throughout the state.  
 
Al-Rashid concludes,  
 

One of the reasons that may have prompted the Americans to spend so generously to equip the Lebanese army – having invested more than $600 million to date – is because they think that the army will one day be strong enough to eliminate militias such as Hezbollah. However this is unrealistic when looking at the current situation in Lebanon; for the army will remain weak without a political agreement on granting the military powers, not just weapons.  
Any western support for the LAF is pointless and misguided. Recent events demonstrate that while the LAF cannot and will not solve any of Lebanon's problems, it can easily make them worse. With this in mind, and despite my respect and affection for the people of Lebanon, the United States and other western powers must not support or contribute to the LAF.

Who do you trust more to understand Lebanese politics: a New York Times columnist whose conclusions were set in stone before he did any research, or an Arab who has studied Lebanon for years?
  • Sunday, August 22, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From CBS:
A robbery in Brooklyn Thursday night led to the death Yoseph Robinson, a man whose life led him on a journey from street criminal, to music executive, to a conversion to Orthodox Judaism.

The former hip-hop record executive who converted to Orthodox Judaism, was shot and killed while trying to stop a gunman from taking a woman's jewelry at a Brooklyn kosher liquor store where he worked.

Police say Robinson was shot in the chest and arm Thursday night at the MB Vineyards liquor store in the Flatbush section of the borough.

Residents say the 34-year-old Jamaican-born man had recently converted to Judaism and enjoyed telling customers about his spiritual journey.

"He was a good guy. Rock solid," Rabbi Ezra Max told the New York Post of Robinson.

More than 100 people from the Orthodox and Hasidic neighborhood gathered outside the liquor store to pay their respects.
You can read more about Yoseph's life on his website.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

  • Saturday, August 21, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Hot on the heels of the slight easing of restrictions on professions that Arabs of Palestinian descent in Lebanon can practice, the Lebanese Forces (which are mostly Christian) are trying to ensure that PalArabs cannot live in Lebanese-owned homes:

The Lebanese Forces urged the government on Saturday to find a solution to Palestinian occupants of homes owned by Lebanese in villages east of the southern port city of Sidon.
While hailing parliament's decision to grant Palestinians working rights, an LF statement said "the Lebanese government is urged to find a quick solution to the issue which has become an unacceptable burden."

It said homes in Miyeh Miyeh, Darb al-Sim and other areas are occupied by Palestinians.

The government should adopt an effective solution to find alternative housing to them, the LF said.
The bigotry in Lebanon against Palestinian Arabs is so entrenched that it is not newsworthy. This isn't about the PalArabs owning land - this is saying that they cannot even live outside camps, even if they are (apparently) paying for it!
  • Saturday, August 21, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ya Libnan:

Samar al-Hajj, coordinator of the Gaza bound Mariam aid ship said on Saturday that the ship is now scheduled to depart Tripoli port on August 29, instead of Aug 22

She told LBC: “It seems as if there is universal war against us … We will not allow anyone to cancel the ship’s trip.”

Hajj added that the ship will not head to Gaza directly from Tripoli, stressing: “The ship cannot be the reason for the start of a war.”

Meanwhile, a source from the Cypriot foreign ministry told Ad Diyar Saturday: “Since Cyprus is a member of the European Union and maintains its policies, it will not allow the Mariam to sail to its ports and later head to Gaza in order to avert any problems.”

Cyprus’ foreign minister had recently toured a number of Arab states explaining his country’s position from the ships docking at its ports.

Earlier reports indicated that the ship may sail first to Greece instead of Cyprus and contacts are ongoing to get Greece’s approval for docking the ship at one of its ports .
Originally, the ship's organizers said they would sail some 9 weeks ago. Sounds more like a publicity stunt than an aid ship.

But who knows - maybe they will sail to Venezuela and then towards Gaza.
  • Saturday, August 21, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Includes The Bomb song:



Thanks to the many who sent this in!

Friday, August 20, 2010

  • Friday, August 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Last March, a group of left-wing British Jews started a new website called JNews. In the words of the founder of the site, Miri Weingarten, writing in Comment is Free,
There is therefore an urgent need for reliable, real-time information, authoritative and expert commentary, and deeper and more courageous analysis – all of which must be informed by a primary concern for human rights and social justice. JNews – Alternative Jewish Perspectives on Israel and Palestine is being launched today to answer this need.

An initiative of a group of British Jews, JNews will make its output available to the British and international media through its website. It will feature news and stories focusing on the lives of Israelis and Palestinians and on the work of organisations and individuals struggling to protect and promote human rights and create conditions in Israel and Palestine in which social justice can prevail.

JNews will bring to public attention the authentic voices of those directly affected by the conflict and highlight the problems facing migrants and asylum seekers in Israel, the poor and the dispossessed, Arab-Palestinian citizens and the Bedouin. More generally in Israel-Palestine it will focus on the conditions of prisoners and detainees, the status and treatment of women, and the political and civil rights of Palestinians living under occupation and under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
While the description here is heavily weighted towards perceived Israeli abuses rather than any Palestinian Arab abuses of human rights, this description at least pretends that it would look at both.

On the site itself, it partially describes itself this way:
JNews believes that disseminating a range of viewpoints broader than that offered by most Jewish and Israeli organizations will benefit Palestinians and Israelis.

JNews supports the human rights of both Israelis and Palestinians and believes the two are intertwined.

JNews believes in the application of the universal principles of social justice and human rights as the path to a just and comprehensive solution to the conflict.
Given these high standards, of being able to have a "broader" range of viewpoints and of caring about the human rights of all Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, how well has it done?

The answer is simple. It looks exactly like a Palestinian Arab publication. There is nothing Jewish nor the least bit Zionist about it.(There are two articles over five months that quote Jewish sources to advocate a secular, liberal Judaism.)

Based on keyword searches, I found exactly one article over the past five months that could be construed as critical of the Palestinian Authority or Hamas - and that was a verbatim copy of a PCHR press release about PalArab elections.

There is barely a word on the entire site criticizing Hamas' human rights record. There is  nothing criticizing the PA's human rights record. Nothing about the lack of press freedoms in the territories, nothing about rockets, nothing about terrorism, nothing about Hamas and Fatah infighting.

JNews does not care about the human rights of Palestinian Arabs. They only care about the human rights of those that they can consider oppressed by Jews. In this sense, they are exactly in the mainstream of world anti-Zionism.

As far as the supposedly broad "range of viewpoints" that it was meant to have, every single article is either left, far left or ultra left (including one by the founder that quotes without any criticism an EU opinion that every part of Israel outside the 1947 partition lines is "occupied.")

JNews is yet another case of using a veneer of Jewishness in order to do one thing: criticize the Jewish state.  That is the entire purpose of the site, and everything it says about caring about human rights and liberalism and a range of viewpoints is simply a lie. (So are many of the articles it chooses to publish, but that is an argument for another day.)

(h/t Bella)
  • Friday, August 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
  • Friday, August 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The media continues to claim that there is an Algerian ship headed to Gaza. Ha'aretz, the Jerusalem Post, UPI, and many others are making that claim.

They are all wrong.

It is beyond me why reporters parrot stories when they can look at the Algerian press and see that, from the outset, the ship was going to El Arish in Egypt. Algerian national radio also said that the ship was headed to El Arish.

This is why I try not to rely on secondary sources when I can avoid them. Reporters are lazy. Yesterday it took me about five minutes to track down the truth - and this is without knowing Arabic. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, the much-delayed Mariam is now supposedly going to sail this Sunday. However, it cannot go straight to Israel from Lebanon because the countries are in a state of war, and Cyprus has stated that they will not allow the ships to dock there.

I think that the IDF might be using female soldiers to handle that Mariam if it comes close.

UPDATE: Was the ship named after Mary in order to make intercepting Jews look bad? From the Tehran Times:

“After the Mavi Marmara incident, one of the women hailed Mary during our weekly meeting. Her exclamation came like a revelation, so we decided to call our ship Maryam (Mary in Arabic). The name was perfect for a vessel that comprised only women. Who could disparage the Virgin Mary, a recognized saint in most religions?” says Hajj.
  • Friday, August 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:

An investigation by [Al Mezan] confirmed earlier reports that unidentified men fired at Jabriyeh Abu Kanas as she sat in front of her house with her 75-year-old husband. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Ash-Shifa hospital.

In a sworn statement to Al Mezan, one of Abu Kanas’ relatives said he witnessed the shooting. He told the rights group he was returning from buying Jabriyeh groceries, and saw a silver Hyundai car, with blacked-out windows and no number plates, stop outside Jabriyeh’s house. He heard what he believed to be muted gunfire, and then the car sped away, leaving his aunt bleeding from her chest.

Abu Kanas’ relatives added that a fortnight ago two cars, a Mercedes and a Skoda, tried to approach Jabriyeh but fled when her family appeared.

Locals had accused the woman of practicing witchcraft and voodoo, officials said Tuesday. Her relatives told Al Mezan that she cured people using traditional methods.
If you don't like someone in Gaza, just start spreading rumors about them. The problem then takes care of itself.

Speaking of, I hear that Ismail Haniyeh is gay...
  • Friday, August 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
I am traveling today, using all three titular methods.

This gives me the chance to do two things: create an open thread, and use the word "titular" in a sentence.

Blogging will be light through Sunday.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

  • Thursday, August 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
A truly awful story emerged today from Israel, as there appears to be evidence that some IDF members stole and sold equipment from the flotilla ships a couple of months ago, including laptops.

"This matter is very problematic in terms of values, as the incident allegedly took place after it was clear that the flotilla was a serious international affair," the source added. "An officer who under such circumstances steals equipment which does not belong to him, and then tries to sell it – it's almost incomprehensible."

The affair embarrassed the political arena as well, with Knesset members demanding that the army prevent such incidents from repeating themselves at almost all costs.

"This is an embarrassing, humiliating and infuriating act," said MK Eitan Cabel (Labor). "The IDF must handle this affair according to the strict letter of the law.

Meretz Chairman Chaim Oron called on the army to utilize the investigation to the fullest, noting that "the multiple number of incidents, in which basic values are compromised, requires the army to hold a thorough investigation into the causes."
There is no doubt that the citizens of Israel will not stand for this and will do whatever needs to be done to ensure that the guilty parties are punished and that the root causes are fixed. There is a deep, nationwide sense of embarrassment, anger and shame over the incident.

Contrast this with this story that received next to no coverage:
French aid group Help Doctors accused the Palestinian Hamas organisation on Wednesday of seizing equipment and files from one of its Gaza clinics which it closed in June.

"Four men from the (Hamas) interior ministry entered the clinic on Tuesday morning and seized computer equipment, telephones, chairs, office equipment and medical files," the organisation said in a statement.

The men left the premises without saying why the equipment was being confiscated, it said.
Will Hamas open an investigation? Will people be prosecuted? Will the doctors have an opportunity to sue?

And - why are these questions laughable to a world that has no problem saying with a straight face that the IDF is less moral than Hamas?

There are, sadly, bad people everywhere. The best way to measure the morality of a society is by seeing how everyone else acts when their own people do bad things.
  • Thursday, August 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
A terrorist who heroically murdered a teenage girl.

From PMW:

On June 11, 2002, a Palestinian suicide terrorist walked into a restaurant in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya, and detonated a bomb that killed a girl,  15-year-old Hadar Hershkovitz, and injured 16 others.

Picture of suicide terrorist and Arafat on monument in town square in West Bank town Madama. [PA TV, May 15, 2010]

The town square in the West Bank town of Madama where the terrorist lived features a monument honoring "the heroic Martyrdom-Seeker" and his "heroic Herzliya operation." The monument has pictures of the suicide terrorist and of Yasser Arafat.

The text above the terrorist's picture is a verse from the Quran, urging Muslims to fight the non-believers and promising that Allah will "lay them low":

"Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands,
lay them low and give you victory over them,
and heal the hearts of a believing people." [Quran, 9,14]


Below his picture are the words:

"The heroic Shahada - Seeker (Martyrdom- Seeker, PA term of honor for suicide terrorists) Omar Muhammad Ziyada (Abu Samed) who carried out the heroic Herzliya operation on June 11, 2002

From the Jerusalem Post, June 13, 2002:
This coming Tuesday, Hadar Hershkowitz, 15, was to have sung and danced at her middle school graduation in a special performance of fairy tales created by the students.

Instead, friends and family members yesterday heaped her fresh grave with flowers and crowded into the Herzliya Cemetery only a few short blocks from her home to say goodbye.

Hershkowitz was killed by a suicide bomber while walking with a friend outside Jamil's shwarma grill on Rehov Sokolow. A friend, also a student at Ze'ev Jabotinsky Middle School in Herzliya, was seriously wounded in the attack.

One young speaker at the funeral said, 'We are all asking why, why was it you? ... We don't believe what happened, but still we are here to talk about our beloved friend.'

'We can still see you, hear you, and feel you,' another friend said. 'You loved life. You were nervous about starting high school, but you were still very optimistic. You were always so happy. You loved to have fun and to go out with your friends. You never liked being alone. We loved you so much and we won't forget you.'

Despite the hot sun, friends stayed in a tight circle around her grave and lit yahrzeit candles.

School principal Aviva Moran said, 'She was at the center of her social circle. She was very attached to her friends. She loved to help them. She got so much love from her family. She didn't keep it to herself - she passed it to her friends and they passed it back to her.'

I'm sure that there are outraged protests at that square every day by residents of Madama who are incensed that such a person is being honored in their town.

I'm sure that there have been many op-eds in the Palestinian Arabic media denouncing this honor.

I'm sure that President Abbas is working to ensure that this never happens again and that he will personally apologize to the family of Hadar Hershkovitz.

Because that is how decent human beings would act. And we all know that everyday, average Palestinian Arabs are just like everyone else, and would naturally find the existence of this square to be an affront to everything they hold dear.

They are the peace partners, after all. They wouldn't call a person whose entire existence is defined by his murdering a 15-year old girl at a shwarma shop a hero. That would be unspeakably horrific.

The square, which has been up since at least May, is surely an anomaly, a mere mistake and will be dismantled any day now. In fact it is difficult to even imagine that people designed and built it, that a town approved it, and that people pass it by every day without any hint of outrage.

Or, at the very least, I'm sure I can find a single person protesting it. A single Arabic op-ed. Something.

Right?

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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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