Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 27, 2012

The intra-Hamas split gets more obvious

On Friday, reports emerged of Hamas officially severing ties with the Assad regime:

Hamas has thrown its political clout behind an uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Palestinian Islamist group's longtime patron and host, a shift that cracks a formidable alliance and further widens the Middle East's sectarian divide.

Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, told worshipers at Cairo's Al Azhar mosque during Friday prayers that the political party and militia was supporting the uprising against Mr. Assad, calling the revolutionaries "heroic," according to the Associated Press.

What reporters didn't notice was how unusual it was that Ismail Haniyeh, and not Khaled Meshal, was making this statement.

After all, Meshal is Hamas' political leader. Haniyeh is supposed to only be the leader of Hamas in Gaza.

Yet Haniyeh has gone on three trips outside Gaza in the last couple of months, acting each time more and more like he is truly the leader of Hamas and that Meshal is a figurehead, not the other way around.

Meshal is the one whose headquarters, at least nominally, was in Syria, even though he has avoided his Damascus office for months now. Haniyeh's populist speech in Cairo, with the Muslim Brotherhood, seems to have been calculated to pull the rug out from under Meshal's careful balancing act between his Damascus sponsors and the Arab world that supports the opposition.

Yesterday, Meshal's deputy confirmed the split:

The Hamas leadership has left its longtime base in Syria because of the regime's crackdown on opponents there, the No. 2 in the Islamic militant movement said in an interview Sunday at his new home on the outskirts of Cairo.

Still, Hamas officials long played down reports of the movement's exodus from Syria.

Abu Marzouk noted Sunday that Hamas still has offices in Syria, but acknowledged that "practically, we are no longer in Syria because we couldn't practice our duties there."

Abu Marzouk has moved to a cottage on the outskirts of Cairo where he uses the second floor as an office. Previously, under the Israeli and Egyptian embargo on the Gaza Strip, only those with Gaza residency could live there, and many top Hamas leaders lived outside of the small, coastal enclave.

He said Mashaal and his aides have moved to Doha. Another Hamas official said this week that Mashaal twice turned down recent requests to meet with Assad and eventually decided to leave Syria.

"Our position on Syria is that we are not with the regime in its security solution, and we respect the will of the people," Abu Marouk said.

This doesn't sound like the fire-and-brimstone opposition to Assad that Haniyeh called for. This sounds more like an attempt by the political wing of Hamas to avoid the appearance of a split and to salvage Meshal's leadership while not quite burning bridges with Damascus.

This weekend, Ismail Haniyeh has catapulted himself into becoming Hamas' recognized leader even in the international political arena. The "Doha Declaration" between Abbas and Meshal is all but meaningless in the face of Haniyeh's (and Mahmoud Zahar's) opposition and Meshal's increasing irrelevance.

A similar analysis was done by Ehud Yaari in The Times of Israel with lots of good detail:

Hamas’s no longer undisputed leader Khaled Mashaal is now in deep trouble. ...

Abandoning their secure base in Damascus without being able to obtain an alternative safe haven, the “External Leadership” of Hamas is fast losing ground in its ongoing rivalry with the “Internal Leadership” centered in the Gaza Strip. Mashaal is no longer in sole control of the movement’s purse strings, since contributions from Tehran were reduced. He no longer enjoys the recognition of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah in his supremacy within Hamas.

...And so, earlier this month, Mashaal resorted to a sudden dramatic exercise: On February 6 in Doha he signed — under the auspices (and financial incentives) of the Emir of Qatar — an agreement with the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas to form a “temporary” technocrats’ Unity Government, with Abu Mazen himself as prime minister.They also agreed to postpone general elections without fixing a specific date.

This was a bombshell! Mashaal has agreed, at least implicitly, to make a major concession: to dismantle Hamas’ s own government in Gaza, which has ruled the Strip for the last five years, and to allow the PA administration (and security services?) to resume control over the different ministries. He seemed to be sacrificing Hamas’s autonomous enclave in the hope that, at an unspecified date, Hamas might win in the ballot boxes.

Furthermore, Mashaal made a few statements recommending “popular struggle” — which is the code for unarmed confrontation — against Israel. This was perceived as meaning he was willing to suspend use of bullets and rockets, contrary to Hamas’s traditional devotion to the concept of “armed resistance.” He also expressed acceptance of a Palestinian state within 1967 boundaries, although he stressed that there would be no peace or recognition of The Zionist Entity and the goal will remain the destruction of Israel. To many in Hamas, Mashaal sounded as if he was diverting to a dangerous course in an effort to adjust to the Arab Spring, handing their Fatah rivals an easy victory.

A chorus of protests by the Gaza leaders — not to mention by the West Bankers — immediately erupted. Mashaal was accused of acting behind the back of the Hamas institutions and deviating from the adopted policies. Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar, an old foe of Mashaal’s, took the lead in public, but many joined him during the closed doors sessions of Hamas meetings in Khartoum and then in Cairo.The plan to appoint Abbas as prime minister was described as “unconstitutional.”

Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, embarked on a tour of several Arab countries avoiding any hint of support for the Doha Agreement. Then he ignored warnings by the Gulf states and the Moslem Brotherhood and paid a widely publicized visit to Iran, kissing and hugging Supreme Leader Khamenei, and asking for direct financial assistance to Gaza. On his return to Cairo, incidentally, the crowd at al-Azhar mosque Friday prayer cheered him by shouting “Down with Iran, Down with Hezbullah!”…..

And so, right now, the ever-negotiated reconciliation process between Hamas and Fatah is again bogged down. Abbas insists on the implementation of the deal cut with Mashaal. The majority of Hamas leaders demand “amendments” to the Doha Agreement. Maintaining exclusive security control over the Strip is definitely a Hamas condition now, as is a demand for veto power over the appointment of all ministers.

The two parties keep conferring in Cairo but so far cannot agree on a visit of Abbas in Gaza. The internal debate within Hamas has been brought to the surface.

The movement has lost the pretense of cohesion. The battle over command and direction is on.

(h/t EBoZ)

Abbas makes another threat. Yawn.

From Ma'an:

The Palestinian Authority is planning to reconsider its security, political and economic agreements with Israel in the coming days, a PLO official said on Sunday.

After exploratory talks with Israel ended without agreement, the PLO Executive Committee has agreed to take a number of measures to jolt the current stalemate.

In an interview with Egyptian channel CBC on Friday, President Mahmoud Abbas said the PA was planning a "major decision" in no more than 10 days, in response to the talks' failure.

Now, where have we heard this before?

A few months ago, I noted:

Palestinian Arab media are buzzing about a dark hint that Mahmoud Abbas gave in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper that he will reveal something "important and dangerous" that is happening soon.

There is some speculation that when the UN Security Council bid for statehood is defeated, and because of the inability of Fatah to successfully negotiate any elections with Hamas, together with Abbas' repeated promises not to run in any new elections for president of the PA, that Abbas may dissolve the PA altogether.

In fact, Saeb Erekat hinted at this yesterday, telling Palestine Radio "Either there is power to the movement of Palestinians from occupation to independence, or Netanyahu has to assume [Israel's] responsibilities seriously from the river to the sea."

Before that, in 2010:

A senior Palestinian official warned the Palestinians may break their agreements with Israel if it continues with its current policies.

The senior adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned Palestinians cannot "remain committed to agreements that were signed with Israel forever."

It used to be that Abbas would threaten to resign, which he did repeatedly, when things didn't go his way.

He's still there.

This is the PLO version of politics: try to get a frightened West to put pressure on Israel by pushing empty threats.

If the PLO would decide to abrogate existing agreements, then the autonomy they have achieved would be gone. The situation that Abbas characterized in 2009 as "in the West Bank we have a good reality...the people are living a normal life" - would disappear.

Now, we have seen only in recent weeks that Hamas is willing to gamble with the well-being of the people under their control in order to make a political move - in that case, to pressure Egypt to provide power to Gaza - but Hamas' hold on power is unassailable. Abbas and his Fatah movement are not going to throw away their power - especially their security forces.

Abbas is good at threats. That's about all he is good at. He sure isn't interested in building a real state and making hard decisions.

(h/t CHA)

Tempest in a Wikipot: Did Israel destroy Iran's nuclear program?

From The Times of Israel, also reported elsewhere:

Israeli agents collaborating with Kurdish operatives destroyed Iran’s nuclear infrastructure last year, according to an unnamed Israeli intelligence source cited in communiques between intelligence analysts uncovered by Wikileaks on Monday.

The leaked emails also contain assessments that Europeans want a military strike against Tehran to divert attention from the euro crisis and that Henry Kissinger believes a panicking Israel will indeed attack the Islamic regime.

On November 7, 2011, a Stratfor analyst reported on a conversation he had with an Israeli intelligence agent. The analyst, Benjamin Preisler, said that the source — whose reliability the company was “still testing” — was asked what he thought of reports that Israel was planning a military strike on Iran.

“I think this is a diversion,” the source said, according to Preisler’s email. “The Israelis already destroyed all the Iranian nuclear infrastructure on the ground weeks ago. The current ‘let’s bomb Iran’ campaign was ordered by the EU leaders to divert the public attention from their at home financial problems.”

Replying to Preisler’s email, several senior analysts at Stratfor expressed doubt about that scenario.

“Would anyone actually accept that this could let the Europeans forget about the Euro crisis, something they have been experiencing every day for over a year?!” wrote Sydney-based Chris Farnham.

Two days later, Farnham sent another email, saying that the Israeli agent’s information “seems like quite a stretch however it has been put out there for some reason or another and is now playing in to what we are seeing.”

According to Farnham, the Israeli agent was asked to clarify what he meant when he said that Israel destroyed the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.

The agent answered: “Israeli commandos in collaboration with Kurd forces destroyed few underground facilities mainly used for the Iranian defense and nuclear research projects.”

Farnham further writes that if a direct military confrontation erupts between Jerusalem and Tehran, an Israeli attack on Iran would last “only 48 hours but will be so destructive that Iran will be unable to retaliate or recover and the government will fall. It is hard to believe that Hamas or Hezbollah will try to get involved in this conflict.”

He added, “Even if the Israelis have the capabilities and are ready to attack by air, sea and land, there is no need to attack the nuclear program at this point after the commandos destroyed a significant part of it.”

This is a non-story.

When you actually look at the email threads that have been leaked, you see that this is just a bunch of analysts, of varying skill levels, bouncing scenarios and ideas off each other. And to be honest, they don't sound all that well-informed.

In this case, one person heard what can only be described as an unsubstantiated rumor from an untested Israeli source. The others are skeptical but they consider what it might mean if it is true.

To give an informal email thread like this credence is exactly as stupid as to trust a blogger who claims to have inside information from his own unnamed and unknown Israeli security source.

Stratfor does some good analysis, but there is a reason why it is good - because their experts sift through the garbage to find things that are hidden. But whether you are a private intelligence enterprise, a reporter or a blogger, before you publicize things you build a case from multiple sources. A scenario like this one requires some corroboration. And none was given, which is why the story was ever not released by Stratfor.

Put it this way: Imagine how much more money Stratfor could have made had this panned out and they were the first to publicize it! They would have clients willing to pay millions for such great insider information.

But Stratfor apparently looked at this single factoid, tossed it around, and properly dropped it as not reliable. Which is something that the news media should make clear as well.

This entire episode is, to put it mildly, stupid. An unsourced, unverified claim is no more credible when it is leaked from an email chain from Stratfor or when it is reported on Facebook. It should be treated with an equal amount of skepticism.

Morning links

There are now some 80,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan, a much higher number than previously admitted.

From Facebook to the Arab League in four days

An incredible chain of events has recently played out in the Middle East, demonstrating the lengths to which opinion-shapers and politicians in the Arab world will go to demonize Israel.

The IRS distinguishes between New Israeli Shekels, and those remarkably similar shekels used in Jerusalem. There is a serious money-making opportunity there for foreign exchange traders!

Trying to give respectability to the one-state solution at Harvard, by Richard Cravatts (Times of Israel)

Palestinian Hunger Striker Khader Adnan Is No Hero, by David Keyes (Daily Beast)

The American Zionist Movement is holding a conference that looks interesting in Manhattan next month.

(h/t Shlomedic, Challah Hu Akbar, Yoel)

Hamas issues arrest warrant to rights activist

His crime? Correctly blaming the fuel crisis on Hamas!

The director of a Gaza-based human rights organization said Sunday that he received an arrest warrant from the Hamas government, after he criticized the state-run energy authority.

Al-Dameer director Khalil Abu Shamala, who is also a member of the public freedoms committee, said the arrest warrant included accusations from the Hamas-run energy authority that he had blamed them for the current energy crisis in Gaza.

It also said that he had created a rift amongst citizens, as well as threatening the security of the authority.

Here is the major reason why the media has been reluctant to point out Hamas' hypocrisy in refusing to accept fuel coming through Kerem Shalom, something that was routine until a year ago.

They don't want Hamas to attack their employees.

Hey, Hamas intimidation works. That's why they do it.

Media bias: AP awards Palestinian Arabs their state

Some bias in the middle of an AP article by Mohammed Daraghmeh:

It appears unlikely Israel's government would permit campaigning in east Jerusalem, one of three war-won territories that, along with the West Bank and Gaza, is to make up a Palestinian state.

Forget negotiations! AP has declared that everything beyond the Green Line is going to be part of the Palestinian state, no matter what. If they insist on it, they must get it all.

Is it any wonder why newspapers are going down the drain?

Jews are Judaizing Jerusalem?

From AFP:

Qatar urged the United Nations on Sunday to investigate Jewish settlement expansion in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, warning that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories was unacceptable.

“We must act quickly to stop the Judaization of Jerusalem,” said Qatar’s emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, in his opening remarks at the International Conference on Jerusalem in Doha.

In his remarks, Sheikh Hamad called on the U.N. to “investigate the measures Israel has taken to Judaize Jerusalem since its occupation in 1967.”

He said such an investigation would constitute the first step towards “forcing Israel to reverse those measures.”

One cannot Judaize Jerusalem any more than one can wet water. Jerusalem is Jewish through and through. Every stone is infused with holiness because of its Jewish past. Its sacredness to other religions is but a weak echo of the holiness it has been given by Jewish kings and prophets, prayers and tears.

The Muslim claim to the city, by comparison, is a poor attempt at a joke. There are no historic Muslim poems, songs, or prayers that extol the beauty or exhibit love for Jerusalem. The Muslim attitude towards Jerusalem is entirely derivative; it is not love but jealousy of the undeniable Jewish character of the city - a character that even today Muslims try desperately to erase, and miserably fail.

The centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish nation was known to all before Mohammed was born, and it will remain past the time that Islam has been reduced to dust.

Compared to centuries of tradition, generations of veneration, and the yearnings of millions, the depraved braying of a Qatari ass is utterly inconsequential.

The professor who pushes anti-Israel propaganda (Algemeiner)

My latest piece for The Algemeiner is online:

[Professor Amy] Kaplan accepts the premise of the question, that it is desirable to try to insert anti-Israel material into every class, but she notes that some courses (like biology or calculus, perhaps) do not lend themselves to such blatant propagandizing. However, she goes on, there is nothing to stop an intrepid teacher from not only injecting anti-Israel content into courses about literature and culture, but dedicated anti-Israel activist/teachers can actually create courses with that purpose in mind.

Read the whole thing.

Hamas starts campaign for female students to wear veils

The Hamas Ministry of Education in cooperation with the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Islamic Bloc student arm of Hamas has launched a campaign to encourage young women to wear veils.

The campaign was launched at the Ramla Girls' School east of Gaza City.

The campaign "seeks to instill virtuous Islamic values in the hearts of students, to feed their minds and souls and spirit with Islamic morality and ideas."

The Ministry of Religious Affairs is sending preachers to hold a number of seminars and religious lectures for the success of the campaign, praising the efforts of the girls of the Islamic bloc.

Here's the logo for the campaign:

How long until this "campaign" turns into law?

Hamas prisoners in PA prisons started a hunger strike

In the wake of what is widely perceived as Israel caving to Islamic Jihad terrorist Khader Adnan's hunger strike, four Hamas members started their own hunger strike in Junaid Prison, Nablus - against the PA.

They claim they were supposed to be released by now.

Two of them were apparently arrested for political reasons last September.

It will be interesting to see if the international community will show the same outrage against the PA as it did towards Israel for Islamic Jihad terrorist leader Khader Adnan's detention.

In related news, Ahlam Tamimi - the Sbarro's bomber who was among those released for Gilad Shalit - said in Amman yesterday that hunger strikes were a tactical move that will continue for at least two months, until April 17th, which is "Palestinian Prisoners' Day," for the purpose of reinstating prisoner privileges that had allegedly been denied since last year.

Islamic Jihad releases a book on how to fight Israel

Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades' Media Division has just published an e-book on how to fight Israel.

It is titled, simply, "Fight."

It supposedly documents how the Zionist mind works and how to defeat it.

A spokesman said "The book increases the awareness of all the jihadist Mujahideen on the land of Palestine, led by the Mujahideen of Al-Quds Brigades, in order to prepare the psychological and logistical support based on sound science to confront and defeat the Zionist army." Thousands of copies were distributed to all members of Islamic Jihad.

You can download it here.

It is hard to use translation tools on the PDF file (the text is reversed) but the book seems to be heavy on coming up with ways to destroy Israel's morale.

Remember that Islamic Jihad has courted recently by Fatah as part of "unity" talks.

The return of the "apartheid week" cult (National Post)

From Jonathan Kay at the National Post (Canada):

In Syria, the Assad regime continues to rain artillery on rebel positions in the city of Homs, killing journalists and innocent civilians alike. Iran’s mullahs are set to execute a Canadian citizen for the crime of operating a web site they don’t like. The new Libyan regime is torturing Gaddafi loyalists. And Egypt’s rulers are prosecuting NGO leaders on trumped-up charges. And so next week, Canadian left-wing activists will congregate in Toronto to express their hatred of … you guessed it: Israel.

The events of March 5-9 will take place as part of the 8th annual Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), and will feature presentations such as “Cutting the Ties to Israeli Apartheid: Cultural and Academic Boycott,” and “Rhymes Of Resistance And The Sounds Of Existence — with poets Remi Kanazi, Red Slam and Chand-nee.” The IAW website is full of the usual rhetoric about Israel’s “criminal” actions. There is not a word of acknowledgement about how utterly ridiculous it is to run a week-long event vilifying Israel when right next door in Syria, the government has just exterminated more Arabs than were killed in both Intifidas, the 2008 Gaza conflict, and the 2006 Lebanon war combined.

The timing of IAW this year truly does represent something of a farce. The eyes of the entire world are focused on Syria and the Strait of Hormuz. Even West Bank Palestinians themselves now seem more concerned with building up their economy than with grand international gestures aimed at the Jewish state. And in the “occupied” Golan Heights, Druze Muslims have been stirring — not against Israel, but against the Assad regime that many once looked to for “liberation.” In the streets of Cairo, Sana’a and Tunis, no one is talking about Israel — only about when they will get the democracy they were promised. Only among cultish, single-minded anti-Israel activists has the news of the Arab Spring failed to circulate.

The word “cultish” is used here advisedly — because even some veteran anti-Israel activists are getting tired of the false mantras that circulate at IAW events. This includes no less an anti-Zionist than Norman Finkelstein (who has called Israel a “vandal state” that “relentlessly and brutally and inhumanly keeps these vicious, murderous wars”). Speaking to an interviewer earlier this month, he attacked the animating philosophy behind IAW — the movement for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel (BDS) — as a “cult,” and an unsuccessful one at that.

National Post editorial writers have attended BDS events here in Toronto, and they all contain the same rousing assurances that the BDS movement will bring Israel to its knees. The self-consciously enforced spirit of viva la revolución solidarity that permeates these rallies reminds one of communist rallies in the days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Year after year, we hear the same clichés about how the BDS movement is on the cusp of victory. Yet the Israeli economy continues to prosper, and the only groups that have fallen into line with the boycott call are scattered NGOs and low-tier universities. “All [the BDS] claims about ‘victories’ [against Israel]: These 10 fingers more than suffice to count their victories,” Mr. Finkelstein said this month. “It’s a cult. The guru says: ‘We have all these victories,’ and everyone nods their head.”...

IAW and BDS are not what they seem: As some of Israel’s own fiercest critics themselves now admit, these are dishonest cults meant to enlist ill-informed activists in a campaign to destroy the Jewish state.