Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The 2007 Splodie Awards

It is time for our First Annual PalArab Greatest Hits awards, known affectionately as the Splodies. Here is where we honor the very best of the (soon-to-be) 600 Palestinian Arabs who died from their brethren's violent acts this year.

So, without further ado, I present the 2007 Splodie Awards, in chronological order:

January 3: A bodyguard for the PA Interior Minister decided to moonlight as a bombmaker, since that is a respectable side job for a government aide. Unfortunately his bomb blew up a bit early, and his paycheck turned into life insurance payments for his family mostly paid for by the West in either case.

January 18: At the El-Bashiti wedding in Khan Younis, Gaza, one of the happy celebrants lost control of his assault rifle. He killed the groom's brother and injured three others, including one of those ubiquitous "security officers" and two teenage boys. No word about whether he shot anyone else the next day at the funeral.

February 23: A PalArab policeman, chasing a car that didn't stop at a Palestinian Arab checkpoint (we never hear about those, do we?) fired his gun - and killed a bystander. Human rights organizations condemned the act in the strongest possible terms. (Just kidding.)

April 26: Mohammad Khalil, 27, from the An Nasser Salah Addin Brigades (PRC) blew himself up in Beit Hanoun. They had to change the sign at the entrance to Gaza back to "0 days since the last work accident."

May 10: A "beauty queen" strangled her husband in Hebron, in what became one of the few dishonor killings of the year.

May 30: Two terrorists were killed and two others wounded when the explosives in their car went off a bit early in Nablus. Since it is not in Gaza, we know that the explosives were only meant for peaceful purposes.

June 10: Hamas threw a Fatah member off of a 15-story building. Not to be outdone, Fatah threw a Hamas member off of a 12-story building.

June 13: Two Palestinian Arab UNRWA workers were murdered, thus opening up two new jobs for the starving people of Gaza.

June 14: Hamas blew up a car, killing 4 kids. No tear-jerking documentaries were produced about these children.

June 15: Some very religious Muslim freedom fighters entered a hospital in Gaza and executed one of the patients, as well as shooting two women who were with him, no doubt for honorable reasons.

October 3: A tunnel collapsed and killed one of the diggers inside. But this wasn't a Rafah arms-smuggling tunnel - this one was at Beit Hanoun, apparently meant to tunnel into Israel to kidnap Israelis. Drinks all around.

Also, an RPG accidentally got fired and killed a 20-year old Hamas terrorist. Mother always said it is impolite to point.

October 7: After ignoring numerous death threats from members of the Religion of Peace, a Christian bookstore owner in Gaza finally got murdered. Well, it isn't as if he wasn't warned.

October 27: Two women and a four year-old girl were killed when their house blew up in Khan Younis in a "work accident." They were sorely disappointed when they entered Paradise.

October 29: A (possibly Western-trained) Gaza "policeman" accidentally shot himself to martyrdom.

November 4: A man who went through an oppressive checkpoint was shot in the back and killed. But since it wasn't a Zionist checkpoint and he wasn't "humiliated," there were no screaming headlines about it.

November 7: Hamas shot and killed a man at a funeral, thus saving his family untold burial expenses.

December 4: To allay any fears of sexism in the Palestinian Arab territories, a man was executed - for family honor.

December 18: During a funeral in Gaza, the celebratory gunfire severed a power line above, resulting in a live wire falling into the crowd, killing one and injuring eight. Hamas was impressed with the precise cutting power of the machine guns and is considering using them to help manufacture Qassam rockets.

Get your nominations in early for the 2008 Splodies!

Dershowitz anecdotes

From Powerline, December 8:

Professor Alan Dershowitz, of the Harvard Law School, spoke before friends of the Hudson Institute in New York [yesterday]. Hudson Institute is a major think tank that conducts research to advance global security, prosperity and freedom.
Among other things, Professor Dershowitz revealed that Noam Chomsky, the radical leftist, had once been his camp counselor. Apparently, Counselor Chomsky did no lasting harm to Counselor Dershowitz.

Another thing Professor Dershowitz revealed tells us much about former President Jimmy Carter. It seems that when Carter appeared at Brandeis to plug his book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, he pledged to answer any questions that students e-mailed him afterward. Many took him up on the offer, and Carter did answer every question... except one. That one was this: Did you advise Yasser Arafat to reject the peace offer Israel made at Camp David, at the end of Clinton's term? According to Professor Dershowitz, some 15 students e-mailed that question, and they were the only students not to be answered.

Hmm.

Professor Dershowitz also recalled his visit to the University of California at Irvine, which is a hotbed of anti-Israel agitation. He spoke to a large crowd, and first asked those who considered themselves pro-Israel to raise their hands. About 250 hands were raised. He then asked them if they would accept a Palestinian state, side by side, living in peace with Israel. Every hand went up.

Then he asked how many considered themselves pro-Palestinian. About 150 hands were raised. Finally, he asked this group whether they would accept a Jewish state of Israel, living side by side in peace with a new Palestinian state. Not a single hand went up.

Number 599

From Arutz-7:

A high-voltage power line fell over Tuesday during the Gaza funeral for two terrorists killed by the IDF Monday.
The line was severed by shooting in the air.
One person was killed and eight injured by the live wires.

This makes 599 Palestinian Arabs violently killed by their own actions this year, by my count.

Israel is sending video tapes showing Egyptian policemen assisting Palestinian terrorists along the Egypt-Gaza border to the United States Congress as part of an effort to influence the legislative body into clamping pressure on Cairo to stop weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip.

The video footage - which shows Egyptian security forces assisting Hamas terrorists cross illegally into Gaza - is being transferred to Congress through diplomatic channels and is intended for senior congressmen and senators who can have an effect on the House foreign aid appropriations process. Israel believes this can be an effective way of pressuring Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak into clamping down on Hamas smuggling activities.

Of course - why should Israel expect its "peace partner" to stop smuggling weapons meant for terrorists to kill Jews just because it's wrong? No, since the entire Egyptian "peace" is just because of American money and not because of any real desire for peace, only threats to withhold money may make Egypt act as if it cares about Hamas terrorism it helps facilitate.

Then again, why should Egypt act better than Israel itself?

The terrorists who killed 29-year-old Ido Zoldan near Kedumim last month used weapons the Palestinian Authority received from Jordan with Israel's approval, a government official said Monday.

No need for smuggling - the terrorists get weapons with the full transparency of Israel's approval process. And not for the first time, either.

All in the name of "peace," of course.

PaLogic

Of course, the PalArab terrorists in Gaza had to respond to Israel's successful elimination of twelve of their own this morning, so they shot more mortars - at the Kerem Shalom crossing.

Which is, of course, the main crossing point where not only do they get their food and fuel from, but also where hundreds of Hajj pilgrims used to cross through Israel into the West Bank and onto Mecca.

Once again, the Gaza "crisis" is self-inflicted. But the machismo of the PalArabs is far more important than the lives of their people.

Nice shooting (2)

A very good followup to my last Nice Shooting post....

A Hamas operative was killed Tuesday when an IAF aircraft fired a missile at a Hamas post in southern Gaza, officials from the group said....

The latest airstrike came after ten Islamic Jihad operatives were killed overnight Monday and early Tuesday as the IDF stepped up its operations against terrorists in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

...Palestinians also reported that the brigades' Jenin commander, Tarik Abu-Ra'ali, was killed during an exchange of fire with troops in Kabatiya.

Ha'aretz counts 13 terrorists, zero civilians. This is a record that is enviable for any moral army on the planet (excluding, of course, Arab armies whose goal is to kill civilians.)

Ha'aretz' Bradley Burston, hardly a right-winger, comments:

The IDF, it must be said, killed the Islamic Jihad men without shedding the lives of innocent Gazans. One of the men killed, Majed Harazin, has for years been one of the central commanders in the Jerusalem Brigades, the Jihad's armed wing. He and another Jihad commander killed in the Monday night raids were key figures in Qassam production, targeting, and launch against civilian targets and innocent populations. A third Jihad man killed was the wing's commander in the northern West Bank.

They were war criminals. More to the point, they were also soldiers. Soldiers in a war in which they are declared combatants, and in which we, civilian non-combatants, are the declared targets. It was our right to kill them. It was our responsibility.

After the deaths of Harazin, rocket mastermind Karim al-Dahdouh and the others, the Jihad e-mailed reporters, threatening to retaliate with a wave of suicide bombings inside Israel, effectively greatly escalating attacks against Israeli civilians. "The assassination of the general commander will open the door wide to a wave of martyrdom operations," the e-mail read.

In a second announcement, Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza told reporters at a mosque, "The blood of our comrades will be the fuel for the rockets that will bring death and destruction to the Zionists."

That how it is with lies. You can't have it both ways. You can't call yourselves Soldiers for Palestine, lovers of death, cravers of martyrdom, incinerators and dismantlers of Israel and the Zionist enterprise, and, at the same time, profess outrage and anger that we would have the temerity to kill you.

You're soldiers. Grow up.

The New York Times reports that the Islamic Jihad commander's car appeared to be filled with explosives, and the secondary explosion wounded some passers-by.

Time to send the IDF some more congratulatory pizza.

Conditional - or conditioning?

In 2003, the Financial Times reported about EU aid to the Palestinian Authority:

The EU has worked throughout the bloodstained months of the intifada to keep a Palestinian administration alive and to drive a process of reform within it. Often in the face of sharp criticism at home and abroad, the EU supported the Palestinian Authority with direct budgetary assistance at a time when its revenues were withheld by the government of Israel. Between November 2000 and December 2002 the EU granted nearly Euros 250m ( £170m) to keep the administration alive and to sustain the most basic of public services. Without our assistance there would have been no Palestinian interlocutor for the negotiations now under way.

At every step, the EU's help was made conditional on reforms that would make a viable Palestinian state a reality one day and in the short term make the Palestinian territories a better, safer neighbour for Israel.

It is largely because of such leverage from the EU that the Palestinian Authority now has a credible and transparent internal accounting system, that its budget can be controlled throughout its departments and that the recruitment of staff has ceased to be a covert form of social security. It is thanks to conditions that the EU imposed that a law was passed granting independence to the judiciary, and that progress is being made towards a legal base for the elections foreseen in the road map. Today we have a Palestinian Authority making a serious effort to reform itself and determined to continue doing so.

The EU was quite self-congratulatory about how well it had reformed the PA in 2003, while Arafat was still alive and stealing money. As Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote later that year:

How is it possible that the International Monetary Fund, CBS, the BBC, and even the PA itself were all able to document the PA's misuse of funds while Commissioner Patten failed to acknowledge it?

Despite thousands of the PA's own documents — some signed by Yasser Arafat himself — Patten, Swoboda, and many other MEPs not only continue to deny that European tax money has funded Palestinian terrorism, but also claim that the PA documents, authenticated by American, German, and Israeli experts — and even by the Palestinians themselves — are "forgeries produced by Israel."

The IMF report "Economic Performance and Reforms under Conflict Conditions," released last September in Abu Dhabi, was based on the same PA documents that the Israeli government had earlier provided to Patten and the European Parliament. The report concludes that at least 8 percent ($135 million) of the PA's annual budget of $1.08 billion is being spent by Arafat at his sole discretion — and does not even take into account Arafat's control of 60 percent of the security-apparatus budget, which leaves him with at least $360 million per year to spend as he chooses. In addition, the report states that $900 million in PA revenues "disappeared" between 1995 and 2000, and that the 2003 budget for Arafat's office, which totaled $74 million, was missing $34 million that Arafat had transferred to pay unidentified "organizations" and "individuals."

Patten and many of the MEPs constantly deny that EU funds have been misused. They refuse to acknowledge that the PA leadership is corrupt and uses its aid money to fund terror, choosing instead to grant the PA ever more aid. According to the IMF report, much of this money continued to be misappropriated even under the PA's reform-oriented finance minister, Salem Fayyad.

The EU's moral standing and fiscal accountability are also questionable. For the ninth year running, the EU Court of Auditors refused to approve the EU's €100 billion annual budget because the auditors could not account for 90 percent of the funds to the PA. The MEPs claimed that it was not the EU but the IMF and the CIA that supervised the PA budget. But the IMF has publicly denied this responsibility many times, and there is no evidence that the CIA has had anything to do with EU funds to the PA.

As for evidence that aid money was used to pay homicide bombers, Swoboda insisted that "there is no proof that any terrorist acts they committed were ordered by the PA — they may have been acting alone. Only if the DNA of the suicide bombers will match the DNA of those who received euros will we accept it as evidence."

But still the EU insisted that its program of "conditional" aid was paying off big time. It reported in 2005:

Conditional aid drives reformThe EU’s financial package for 2005 totals nearly € 250 million. The main focus remains on reforming and strengthening Palestinian institutions including the judiciary, fighting corruption, supporting the democratic process through elections, and addressing emergency and humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population. As before, it will carefully monitor the aid to ensure there is no abuse.

The EU also set up in April 2005 an EU Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support to assist the Palestinian Authority to assume responsibility for law and order and improve its civil police and law enforcement.

Since then, of course, the PA's wonderful police that the EU assisted so much lost Gaza with barely a gunshot, continues to employ moonlighting terrorists and is used as a jobs program where the workers do not have to work.

But the aid was "conditional"!

Rewarding the no-longer democratically elected "emergency" government of the PA, which still refuses to disarm its own Fatah terrorists, has become a habit, and today the EU added another $650 million in aid to the billions it has already wasted on the PA.

Apparently, the Palestinian Authority has managed to train the world to give it money whenever they ask for it. The aid isn't conditional - it is conditioning.

It's a real mystery, I tell ya

From Deutsche Presse Agency:

Ramallah - More than a quarter of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians or some 27 per cent say they cannot take current conditions any more and seek immigration, a public opinion poll published Monday has found.

The poll, conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, found that only 5 per cent of respondents gave a positive evaluation of economic conditions in the Gaza Strip and 8 per cent described conditions as good or very good.

On the other hand, 47 per cent gave a positive evaluation for economic conditions in the West Bank and only 31 per cent described conditions as good or very good.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) says already bad economic and living conditions due to Israeli closure policy and restriction on movement in the Palestinian areas since late 2000, have worsened with the landslide victory of the Islamic militant group Hamas in legislative elections in January 2006 and its violent takeover of power in the Gaza Strip in June.

Addressing a conference of donors to the Palestinians in Paris on Monday, Acting Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said that 'over the last seven years, the Palestinian economy has been on a continuous decline and by mid 2007 it was on the verge of collapse.'

It's really strange. In the years following Oslo, from 1993-2000, the Palestinian Arab economy was booming. Investors were lining up to build industrial parks, there was plenty of employment both in the territories and in jobs that PalArabs had in Israel itself, and there was a healthy amount of trade between the PA and Israel. Arabs were illegally moving from Jordan to the West Bank by the tens of thousands in order to grab a piece of the action.

Yet, something must have happened seven years ago to turn this around, to start this precipitous decline in the PA's economy that forces it to now admit that it is close to bankrupt and to beg for billions of dollars from the rest of the world.

For the life of me, I cannot find any news stories that describe what this event might have been seven years ago. It must be Israel's fault, of course, but what exactly happened then?

Honest Reporting UK notices this strange pattern as well.

Child abuse in Palestinian Arab "refugee" camps

From Media Line:

Azzmi, eight, limps along the corridors of al Hussein camp clinic, in the heart of Amman, to have an X-ray.

The little Palestinian refugee tells the doctors he fell from the roof of his house.

"What about the bruise on your back? asks a nurse, who recognizes the frail-looking child.

"When I fell on the ground, a piece of metal hurt my back," Azzmi replies.

This is the fifth time this year that this boy has visited the infirmary seeking medical attention, says the nurse, who is speaking to the press on condition of anonymity.

The clinic is run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Patients coming to this small clinic are either residents of the squalid al Hussein camp or crowded neighborhoods in the dreary eastern part of Amman.

The refugees, whose areas lack basic services and whose infrastructure is worn out, offer an incongruous backdrop to the posh parts of Amman, just on the other side of the road.

"I know he was not telling the truth because his wounds carry the hallmarks of physical abuse. But informing the police or referring the boy to social care cervices would aggravate the problem," says the nurse, who knows there is little he can do to help Azzmi.

"The boy would not tell us about the true source of his injuries. Taking him to the police would only make things worse for him and his family," he says.

Health-care staff working in government-run hospitals and UNRWA clinics receive extensive training from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on how to identify injuries related to abuse.

Ideally, abused children are referred to the nearest hospital for further investigation. In severe cases, police are notified and children are sent to special care centers set up by the government or NGOs.

Doctors and other clinic staff prefer to handle abuse cases discreetly. Parents are summoned to health centers to guide them on how to avoid violence when dealing with children.

"Parents tend to be receptive when we talk directly to them. Involving the government or the police could backfire," says a doctor from Baqaa camp health center, who also refused to be named.

Childcare experts admit that in a tribal country like Jordan it is hard to implement child protection programs according to the book.

There are no official records on the magnitude of the problem of child abuse at refugee camps, but experts believe the rate of mistreatment at the impoverished compounds is higher than anywhere else in the kingdom.

"Children at refugee camps suffer the most due to the deteriorating living conditions. These places are very crowded with a high percentage of unemployment, "admits Hemsi.

Leaders at refugee camps believe the cure for child abuse in refugee camps is simple – improve living conditions and provide jobs for the unemployed.

"We need to have better services. Unemployment is high and poverty is increasing, therefore it becomes only natural that people are frustrated and tend to resort to violence to solve their problems," says Walid Abu Salem, a tribal leader in Baqaa refugee camp.

And why are the living conditions so rotten in the camps?

Because the Arab leaders want to keep the Palestinian Arabs in miserable conditions, because otherwise their weapons of "Palestinian unity" and unhappy "refugees" disappear!

Child abuse is just one more price Arabs are more than willing to pay in order to be able to score political points against Israel.

Israeli Arabs' self-inflicted misery

Many people complain about the discrimination that Arabs in Israel suffer. But how much of that discrimination is from Zionist intolerance, and how much from how that community decides to act itself towards its country?

The Jerusalem Post interviews a "moderate" Israeli-Arab Islamic leader:

Israeli Arabs will never agree to do national service for the State of Israel because it would call into question their loyalty to the Palestinian cause, the founder of Israel's Islamic Movement, Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish, said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

"Any type of national service, no matter what it is, would be perceived by the Palestinian people as military service," said Darwish, speaking at his home in Kafr Kasim.

"He [the Israeli Arab who volunteers for National Service] would be seen as an enemy to the Palestinian people.

"To prove his loyalty to the Palestinian cause, he would be forced to join the Palestinian resistance movement against Israel. I do not allow my young people to enlist in organizations that fight for the Palestinian cause. But do not expect me to allow them to join the Israeli cause," added Darwish, who heads what is considered to be the more moderate southern wing of the Islamic Movement, created in the late 1990s.

If an easily-identifiable group decides to identify with a nation's enemies, what nation would treat them equally?

Even with the existence of a hostile, anti-state minority, Israel tries to bend over backwards to accommodate them, although Kadima at least seems to be a bit impatient:

Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter christened the first Kadima chapter in the none-Jewish sector Sunday, in the northern city of Shfaram.

"Even if they (heads of the Israeli-Arab community) choose not to celebrate our 60th anniversary, they will celebrate our 70th and 80th anniversaries, simply because we and the Muslim and Druze and Circassian and Christian citizens have no other country. It is as much theirs as it is ours," said Dichter.

When asked when he thought about the Israeli-Arab sector commemorating the "Nakba" – meaning the "catastrophe" of the establishment of State of Israel – every year, Dichter repeated his early statement, saying that the continuance use of such terminology is not in the sector's best interest.

"Anyone crying over the Nakba year after year can't be surprised if they end up with one… the Nakba won't give anyone better education or create new jobs."

Kadima, he added, rejects any kind of radicalism: "Any talk of transferring Israeli-Arab citizens to the Palestinian Authority is nothing but pure nonsense."

Contrast this with something else that happened this weekend:

President Shimon Peres and Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger met with Druse leaders in the western Galilee Sunday as part of the Id al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) celebrations.

Peres said that the state of Israel was proud of the Druse's contribution.

"Among Druse there is 0% draft dodging and 100% dedication to Israel's security," the president said. He said that 54% volunteered for combat duty.

Metzger said that "we are not just brothers in arms, we are brothers in peace and coexistence and love. I come to you with a request that you allow every person to live among you in peace. If a Druse comes to Tel Aviv to live, I will accept him with a blessing. If a Jew comes to Peki'in, accept him in a similar way."

Metzger was referring to a violent incident staged by residents of the Druse village of Peki'in against Jewish residents there.

It sure seems strange that the chief rabbis and president of a "racist state" celebrate a major Muslim holiday with some of its non-Jewish citizens.

Can the difference between how the the Druze and Israeli Arabs are treated have more to do with how they themselves act (despite the Peki'in incidents that chased 9 Jewish families from the town) and not as much to do with the supposed Israeli "racism"?

UPDATE: Treppenwitz has a great post on this same topic.

Saudi Arabia doesn't consider PalArabs a good investment

The Independent (UK) notes:

Saudi Arabia has so far refused to commit to budget support for the emergency government set up by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a political move casting a shadow over Monday's international donors' conference in Paris.
The kingdom, along with the Gulf states which normally follow its lead, has declined ahead of the conference to promise around half the $1.4bn (£700m) a year needed to meet the Ramallah government's annual deficit, according to diplomatic and Palestinian sources. One key reason is thought to be Saudi Arabia's reluctance to be seen to be throwing all its weight behind one of the two parties to the coalition deal which it brokered and which then collapsed in bloody internal conflict and Hamas's seizure of control in Gaza in June.

The pro-Hamas IMEMC adds:

Of $421 million in support pledged by Arab nations for this year's Palestinian Authority budget, only $80 million has been delivered.

Arab nations have in the past pledged big and delivered little to their Pali brethren:

Many nations will be assembled at the Paris donor conference, but unfortunately the countries that could contribute the most -- the Gulf states -- have done the least. It will be interesting to see whether Paris marks a new departure for these countries. For all their statements on behalf of their Palestinian Arab brethren and how important the peace issue is to progress on other regional fronts, the Gulf Arabs have contributed very little financially to the Palestinians in recent years. According to World Bank officials, the annual Saudi contribution to the Palestinian Authority has been $84 million for most of this decade, while the other Gulf countries have given less or nothing at all. Despite their joint pledge of $660 million per year at an emergency Arab League summit in 2002, when oil prices were a fraction of what they are today, little has actually happened. Similarly, a Saudi promise last year to provide $300-$500 million was never fulfilled, according to U.S. and Arab officials.

The minute amount that Saudi Arabia gives is even more telling in light of its huge oil revenues. As the Washington Institute for Near East Policy notices:

The shortage of Gulf aid to the Palestinians certainly does not result from a lack of wealth, which has reached staggering proportions due to the quadrupling of oil prices since 2002. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the IMF, oil revenue for the six Gulf Cooperation Council states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain) should reach about $400 billion this year, half of it belonging to the Saudis. This would make their joint contribution to the Palestinians only 0.04 percent of their annual oil revenues. Adding to that wealth is their cumulative current account surplus since 2003, which will reach $700 billion this year.

And although this question is not meant to be rhetorical, it really is:

Do Gulf Arabs really think that the U.S. mortgage market and similar opportunities represent better investments than funding the economic infrastructure and future well being of the Palestinians, for whom they have campaigned for decades?

As Arabs who have watched the Palestinian Arabs whine and fritter away opportunities for peace and stability for decades, the Saudis know far better than the West how supremely bad an investment the Palis are. Money given to them has historically, invariably been thrown away. Decades of UNRWA aid as well as Western aid has not improved things one bit - their leaders still choose terror rather than peace, living in "camps" rather than permanent housing, and investing in weapons rather than infrastructure.

The Saudis know a bad investment when they see one. Too bad that today, in Paris, the West is likely to continue to throw out billions of dollars on a people whose leaders will use that money to fund death.

UPDATE:Treppenwitz has a great post on this topic.

Iraqi kidnapping ring:"Stealing money from Christians is OK"

From the Christian Post:

Iraqi police in Kirkuk have captured all four members of a gang of brothers who specialized in kidnapping Christian doctors.

The men, who appear to have no link to terrorism or Islamic extremism, were arrested in a number of raids between Dec. 11 and Dec. 13. All of the men have confessed to kidnapping doctors.

According to AsiaNews, the men said they started kidnapping Christian doctors to “make easy money.” Furthermore, they added, "according to sharia (Islamic religious law), taking money from a Christian is legitimate.”

Amazing bias at WaPo

The Washington Post outdid itself in a front-page story today, meant to tug at the heartstrings about how Israel is to blame for everything awful in Gaza:

GAZA CITY -- The batteries are the size of a button on a man's shirt, small silvery dots that power hearing aids for several hundred Palestinian students taught by the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children in Gaza City.

Now the batteries, marketed by Radio Shack, are all but used up. The few that are left are losing power, turning voices into unintelligible echoes in the ears of Hala Abu Saif's 20 first-grade students.

The Israeli government is increasingly restricting the import into the Gaza Strip of batteries, anesthesia drugs, antibiotics, tobacco, coffee, gasoline, diesel fuel and other basic items, including chocolate and compressed air to make soft drinks.

This punishing seal has reduced Gaza, a territory of almost 1.5 million people, to beggar status, unable to maintain an effective public health system, administer public schools or preserve the traditional pleasures of everyday life by the sea.

Everyone knows that the first paragraphs of any news story are the only ones that 90% of the readers see, and these first paragraphs are a doozy. Heartless Israel is stopping the supply of hearing-aid batteries to first graders in Gaza, along with - gasp - chocolate!

Let's jump ahead a few dozen paragraphs to the end of the article, that no one ever looks at. Sprinkled towards the end reporter managed to touch fleetingly on some other possible factors for Gaza's woes in between other bash-Israel sections:

But since the rocket attacks from Gaza began -- killing a total of 13 Israeli citizens since the start of the most recent Palestinian uprising in September 2000 -- the frequent closure of crossings to Israel has choked the export-reliant Palestinian economy....

Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in January 2006, trounced the U.S.-backed Fatah movement in Gaza in June. The violent takeover, which Hamas swiftly consolidated politically and culturally, cemented the strip's isolation....

Now rolling blackouts have begun across the strip, partly because the Palestinian Authority refused for days last week to pay the Israeli company that supplies fuel to Gaza....

Trucks carrying tobacco and coffee usually have low priority in the lines backed up at the crossings. Israeli military officials say they try to push 60 to 70 trucks through a day, despite frequent rocket and small-arms attacks.

See how even-handed the esteemed WaPo is? They'll mention that the Gazans elected a bloodthirsty terror group and supported them in their takeover of Gaza, killing hundreds, and that Gazan terror groups shoot rockets at the very sources of supplies that the WaPo is crying about for 95% of the article. Just they'll do it in such a way that you can barely notice it.

Because we wouldn't want the intrepid reporter saying anything explicitly bad about Hamas or the people that freely elected them. After all, he has to work in Gaza, to tell the truth would be suicidal! Israel won't kidnap him for blaming the Zionists for Gaza's self-inflicted woes.

An indication of how utterly biased this article is can be seen by the fact that it was reprinted in the rabidly anti-semitic Uruknet website, that normally spends its time reprinting Al-Qaeda press releases.

Way to go, WaPo!

More misrepresentations of Islam

During Hajj, one sees many articles by Muslims trying to explain their religion to the rest of the world - more often than not, to entice new converts. This is their right.

What they do not have the right to do is to lie.

Unfortunately, newspaper editors are usually not too knowledgeable about the accuracy of these articles, and they will print them without question.

Yesterday I showed how the famous dictum that Muslims ascribe to the Koran, that killing one person is tantamount to killing the entire world, is not what the Koran actually says. Today, there are more articles being published with similar inaccuracies:

From the Allentown Morning Call:

According to Quran and biblical versions, the Prophet Abraham dreamt that he was sacrificing his first-born son, Ismail (Ishmael).

The Koran might imply that, but the Bible is quite explicit that it was not Ishmael.

From a Columbus, Ohio leader of CAIR:

This great annual convention of faith demonstrates the concept of equality of mankind, the most profound message of Islam, which allows no superiority on the basis of race, gender or social status.

Except that you have to be a Muslim in order to be a part of this great "equality of mankind." Does this mean that non-Muslims are not quite human?

Egyptian sheikh sues to allow female genital mutilation

From Earthtimes:

In an act that has sparked outrage among Egyptian women's rights activists, a controversial Islamic scholar filed a lawsuit against the minister of health protesting a recent ban on female circumcision, a practice referred to by rights groups as female genital mutilation (FGM). Egyptian Sheikh Youssif al-Badri claimed the ministerial decree violated the Egyptian constitution as well as Islamic principles.

Conservative Muslim and Christian Egyptian families, have their daughters circumcised as a means to preserve their chastity. Recent studies revealed that about 90 per cent of Egyptian women have been subjected to the practice.

In June, the health ministry banned doctors and nurses from carrying out the procedure. The announcement followed the death of an 11-year-old girl in Upper Egypt as a result of the procedure. Medics who carry out circumcisions may face imprisonment and being stripped of their medical licenses.

While al-Badri argues that the practice is necessary in curbing women's sexual inclinations, women's rights activists and physicians disapprove of his view.

"Many of the circumcised women who seek our help were traumatised having no ability to lead a normal sex life, which affects their relationships with their husbands," said Nihad Abul-Qomsan, head of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights.

...Egypt's top Islamic and Christian authorities were quick to voice support for the ban, saying the practice had no basis either in Koran or in the Bible.

"The constitution is based on the Islamic sharia law, which does not stipulate FGM, giving a wife the right to enjoy sex with her husband," Khalil Mustafa Khalil, who holds a masters degree in FGM legislation, told the independent al-Badeel newspaper.

I'm just wondering what university gives a masters degree in FGM legislation.

Has Bush's 2005 letter to Sharon any relevance anymore?

One of the highly-touted benefits from Israel's withdrawal from Gaza was a letter from President Bush to Ariel Sharon saying that the US position towards the "right of return" and major settlement blocs was in large agreement with Israel's:

The United States is strongly committed to Israel's security and well-being as a Jewish state. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.
As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

Today, the Annapolis push seems to have placed the US more towards the Arab side, as the Secretary of State shows her pique at Israel's building in East Jerusalem.

At the time, it seemed that the letter hardly made up for the amount of security Israel lost as a result of the retreat from Gaza. As time goes on, the letter seems to be more and more worthless, and the folly of Israel giving up tangible national assets in exchange for empty promises continues to increase.

UPDATE: Silly me. I thought that Kadima had okayed the Har Homa buildings to show how precious Jerusalem was to the government and to send a message. Now they are saying it was all a bureaucratic mistake.

Islamic apologetics in Canada

From the Vancouver Sun, in reference to the murder of Aqsa Parvez:

At the heart of Islamic logic, a logic inseparable from true faith, is the sanctity of human life. The Prophet Muhammad said in the strongest possible words, "Killing a believer is an act of disbelief." The Quran says that to kill one human being was tantamount in sin to killing all of one's human brothers and sisters.

Looking at the first quote, notice that it only applies to killing "believers". How does the Koran want to deal with unbelievers? 2:191 (Shakir translation):

And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.

This is but one of many Koranic verses strongly against those who do not believe.

What about the often quoted verse in the Koran, (taken directly from the Talmud, incidentally,) that killing one human being is tantamount to killing all of humanity? Here's the context, 5:32-36:

For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men; and certainly Our messengers came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them certainly act extravagantly in the land. The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement, Except those who repent before you have them in your power; so know that Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. O you who believe! be careful of (your duty to) Allah and seek means of nearness to Him and strive hard in His way that you may be successful. Surely (as for) those who disbelieve, even if they had what is in the earth, all of it, and the like of it with it, that they might ransom themselves with it from the punishment of the day of resurrection, it shall not be accepted from them, and they shall have a painful punishment.

So even the very chapter that Muslim apologists use to prove the humanity of the Koran proves the exact opposite! (And Islamic commentaries make it even more clear.)

Now, according to Shari'a, does a girl who takes off her hijab fall into a category of an unbeliever?

I am not going to pretend to be an expert in Shari'a, and I don't know how authoritative these quotes are, but cursory research reveals:

Removal of the Hijab had exactly the same effect. At one time, you were independent and lived with dignity, but now you are nothing but a slave of your evil desire and behave worse than a Kafir (infidel). By removing your Hijab (An Act of Faith), you have destroyed your faith....Imam Jafar Sadiq (as) says: Modesty is the symbol of faith and whoever has no modesty (Hijab), has no religion.

To be fair, I highly doubt that there are any fatwas around that advocate killing one's daughter for the crime of discarding her hijab. But one can imagine that many Muslims with a lifetime of exposure to these concepts could think that it is justified.

Any way you look at it, this editorial, like countless other examples of Islamic apologetics, knowingly perverts the words of the Koran for Western consumption.

This morning's peaceful Gaza news

* 34 people were injured, 5 seriously, from a grenade thrown at a funeral.
UPDATE: 4 were killed - three by the grenade, one from falling off a building. The PalArab self-death count for the year is now at 597.

* Today's kidnapping:

Unidentified gunmen on Friday morning abducted 'Umar Al-Ghool, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's advisor for national affairs from his home in Gaza City.

Al-Ghool's son, who lives in Ramallah in the central West Bank, told Ma'an that his father was abducted from his home in Tal Al-Hawa in Gaza City less than a day after he arrived there from Ramallah.

He accused Hamas of kidnapping his father, demanding they release him.

Which means that the "siege" of Gaza is hardly as total as the MSM would have us believe.

* And,

The Hamas leadership has requested political asylum from the Qatari government for 450 Hamas political and military leaders in the Gaza Strip who were involved in the Hamas takeover of the coastal region, Israeli radio reported on Friday.

The voice of Israel said that among the leaders who requested asylum were Mahmoud Az-Zahhar, Said Siyam, Salah Al-Bardaweel, Musheer Al-Masri, Fawzi Barhoum and Sami Abu Zuhri.

Palestinian sources were quoted as saying that the head of Hamas politburo in exile, Khalid Mash'al, has sent a message to the Qatari government asking for asylum for a number of Hamas leaders.

He also suggested that Hamas will hand over the major security headquarters and institutions to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas through Qatari and Egyptian mediation in exchange for negotiating with Fatah. Mash'al stipulated that a number of Hamas leaders be guaranteed political asylum in Qatar.

Sources claimed that Qatar has not accepted Hamas' request.

Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri denied the story. He told Ma'an, "This information is baseless, and we are endeavoring to bring back the Palestinian people to their homeland rather than sending them away."

UPDATE 2: The body of a murdered girl was found near Hebron. PalPress didn't publish her age; almost certainly another "honor killing." 598.

Hamas' little Hitler

From MEMRI:
Look at the mannerisms of this kid as he rails against the usual suspects - Zionists, America, Balfour. It's a midget Adolf without the mustache. (I cannot embed the video here, go to the MEMRI site to see it.)

And don't miss the girl who casually mentions genocide.

Transcript:

Boy: My beloved brothers, as you know, today the Al-Aqsa Mosque is crying out: "Where is the people of the frontline, the Palestinian people?" Yes, my dear brothers, that is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The subject of our lesson today is Jerusalem, to where your Prophet made his nocturnal journey – the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Yes, my beloved brothers, as you know today, and as you have known yesterday and the day before, the Al-Aqsa Mosque has fallen into oppressing and malicious hands, the hands of those who know nothing but injustice. But let me tell you how the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be returned, how we shall rescue it from the shackles of the occupation, from the shackles of the Zionist entity. Will it be through conferences? No, not through conferences, but by means of force, because the Zionist entity, your enemy, the enemy of Allah, the enemy of Islam, knows nothing but injustice and the killing of Palestinians, the persevering people on the frontline. Indeed, the [mosque] will be returned only by means of force. In 1917, the Balfour Declaration was issued. Balfour decided on the cleansing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But look what the Zionist enemy has done, look what Israel and America have done. Look what the allies of Israel and America have done. They have dug tunnels underneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but the sheiks and mujahideen of the Al-Aqsa Mosque have exposed these tunnels and called upon the Palestinian people: "Look what has happened, look what has happened." These calls have gone unheeded, my beloved brothers. But is it too late? No, it is not too late. If we all unite, the Al-Aqsa Mosque will not remain in the hands of the Zionist enemy, it will not remain in the hands of your enemy, despite all their conspiracies against the Palestinian people.
[...]
Girl: To Al-Aqsa, to Al-Aqsa – we shall unite our ranks. We will wipe out the people of Zion, and will not leave a single one of them.

(h/t LGF)

Palestinian Police Phunnies XXIX

The Jerusalem Post reveals:

PA Civil Police commander Gen. Kamal al-Sheikh revealed that more than 600 Fatah-affiliated policemen helped Hamas take control of the Gaza Strip last June.
"Out of 13,000 policemen in the Gaza Strip, only 612 participated in the Hamas coup against the Palestinian Authority," Sheikh said during a tour of Bethlehem.
Downplaying the significance of the move, he noted that this constituted only 1.8 percent of the entire police force.

And the other 98.2% twiddled their thumbs - and drew their salaries.

This is the first time that a senior PA security official has spoken about the involvement of Fatah-affiliated policemen in the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. Sheikh did not say what kind of role the rebellious policemen played during the coup, but pointed out that the PA leadership had dismissed them and was no longer paying them.
The PA, which is hoping to raise $5.6 billion over the next three years at Monday's donors conference, still hasn't made enough progress in imposing law and order in the West Bank, the PA officials conceded.

They told The Jerusalem Post that despite the lack of progress, they expected the 90 countries that were scheduled to participate in the conference to approve the PA's request.
According to the officials, the PA's US-backed security plan, which was launched in the last few weeks in Nablus and Tulkarm, had failed to achieve most of its goals, largely due to the incompetence of the PA security forces.
"The security operation has not been a big success," one official said. "We arrested many wanted criminals and members of the Islamic Hizb al-Tahrir party, but we weren't able to lay our hands on many weapons."
Another official said the security operation did not target militiamen belonging to Fatah's armed groups. "These gunmen are continuing to operate freely in the refugee camps near Nablus and Tulkarm," he told the Post. "We arrested citizens who stole olive oil three years ago or fired into the air during weddings two years ago."
In addition, the PA's efforts to reform the Fatah-controlled security forces in the West Bank continued to face major obstacles, the official said, citing a lack of discipline among the ranks of the Palestinian policemen.
"We still have many officers who are involved in various crimes and corruption," he said. "We are still far from talking about real reforms in the security establishment. In the coming days we will launch a similar security operation in Bethlehem. But the real test will be in Hebron and Jenin, as well as in the refugee camps, where Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah militiamen call the shots."
The PA has also failed to make good on its pledge to cut by half the number of policemen serving in the various branches of its security forces, a number estimated at over 70,000. The PA is reluctant to fire large numbers of policemen for fear of driving them into the open arms of Hamas and other radical groups.

So just to make things crystal clear: The PA is asking for $5.6 billion, much of which is to to continue paying "policemen" (and now they are adding policewomen, because clearly they don't have enough) who:

- don't actually do anything, or

- they are actively involved in terror,

- after they promised they would reform the security forces,

- after they fooled the US into giving them $1.3 million based on the "success" of the Nablus "crackdown,"

- after they pledged at Oslo that the number of policemen would never exceed 30,000.

And they fully expect the world to bow to their demands and throw more billions their way, because that's what the world always does.

Responsibility is apparently not a word that is in the PA's vocabulary. And why should it be? They get routinely rewarded by the Western world for inciting hate, supporting terror, lying, and breaking written agreements. Two generations of Palestinian Arabs now have no concept that there are any repercussions for acting like spoiled brats who think that the world owes them everything.

PalArab UN rep compares Jews to Nazis

Anne Bayefsky notes:

For those wondering whether the UN is going to continue to serve as a global platform for anti-Semitism—webcast around the world, free for all Internet users, and archived so that it may be accessed for a long, long time—the mystery is over. The UN Human Rights Council today broadcast uninterrupted hate speech—in the name of “human rights.” Palestinian UN representative Muhammad Abu-Koash had this to say on December 12, 2007 in the middle of the Council’s current session:

From Eye on the UN:

"The Israeli creeping geography has been countered...as the victims of Aryan purity have been transformed into the proponents of Jewish purity...

I will revert to poetry to deliver the message clearly to the Ambassador of Israel

Mr. Jail Man, do you not understand
Scars of concentration camps mark your hand
Negotiations commence today I understand
Leave our mountains, valleys,sea, air and land
Draw your lesson from France and Deutschland
Our will is strong, cease drawing lines in the sand
Washington, Mandela and Arafat stand so grand
Though called terrorists by occupiers in command
Mr. Jail man, you do not want to understand
You gave occupation new attire with Semitic brand.

Those who suffered in Europe, those who came from concentration camps, those who came from the ghettos, they should not act as our masters. They should know the meaning of suffering."

Just for some context of who this guy is, a few months ago he said: "Arafat, Castro, [Che] Guevara stand tall. . . in their worldwide influence, stature, and inspiration."

Also:

“The one who has monopoly on the violation of human rights is Israel... the darling of the High Commissioner.” — Palestinian Ambassador Mohammad Abu-Koash, Dec. 1, 2006, mocking Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who dared to cite Palestinian obligations to stop terrorism in addition to her regular criticisms of Israel.

And one year ago:

“The Holocaust is going on, and it is an Israeli holocaust against the Palestinian people.” Palestine Ambassador Mohammad Abu-Koash, Dec. 12, 2006.

He also referred to Qassam rockets as "Christmas firecrackers" on the very day that they killed an Israeli and injured two more.

Yup, Mr. Abu-Koash is a perfect representative of the Palestinian Arab people. He mocks human rights, loves dictators, pretends that everything wrong on the planet is Israel's fault and exhibits pure hate in the halls of the UN.

Palestinian Arabs celebrate Festivus

From the Jerusalem Post:

One Israeli diplomatic official, describing the atmosphere at the meeting in Jerusalem of the Israeli-Palestinian Steering Committee as "tense," said the sides came to the meeting with widely different ideas of what it was meant to accomplish.

The officials said that while Israel saw the meeting as "a festive resumption of the peace process" that would deal with procedural issues about how to move the process forward, the Palestinians saw it as a forum for airing their grievances.

Can't wait to see if they also do the Feats of Strength and the Festivus Pole.

The Eids crisis

OK, not really a crisis, but...

One of the vagaries of the Muslim lunar calendar is that the declarations of a new month (when the crescent moon is visible) often differ in different areas. So Islamic holidays sometimes are declared to be on different days by different Islamic leaders.

This month is unusual, though, in that there are three separate declarations. This is important because the tenth of the current lunar month, Dhu al-Hijjah, is the beginning of the Eid al-Adha festival, which celebrates Abraham's "sacrifice" of his son.

This year, Eid al-Adha begins next Wednesday according to Saudi Arabia, Thursday in Lebanon and Friday in Iran.

By the way, the Koran never says explicitly that Abraham sacrificed Ishmael, only that he sacrificed his son. The entire chapter never mentions Ishmael's name. It implies that Isaac was born afterwards but it is not clear. For those interested in the topic, check out Sura 37:99-113 and especially compare translations.

One last piece of trivia: Chanukah, in Arabic, is Eid al-Anwar (The Festival of Lights.)

Israel allows 8th electricity generator in Gaza this year

Another story about the "hostile entity" that you won't read in the MSM:

A new electricity generator is to be sent to the Gaza Strip, the Israeli liaison and coordination department for the Gaza Strip said in a statement on Wednesday.

The generator will enhance power capabilities for the coastal region. It will be added to seven others which have been allowed into the Gaza Strip this year in coordination with the Palestinian power authorities in Ramallah.

The Israeli liaison department has also facilitated the entry of 13 Egyptian engineers and technicians into Gaza, who will install the generator during the coming weeks.

These boots are made for walking - except in Iran

From AFP:

...The [Iranian] police last week launched what was termed a "winter" crackdown on unIslamic dressing, to follow an unusually vigorous summer drive against women whose clothing was deemed overly flimsy.
Tehran police chief Ahmad Reza Radan said women who wear high boots with their trousers tucked-in would be targeted by the moral police, as well as those who sport hats instead of headscarves and short tight winter coats.
Radan had described such fashions as an example of "Tabarroj", an Islamic term which means revealing one's beauty and bodily contours to unrelated men.
In the past years, it has become fashionable for liberal Iranian women to wear high boots over their trousers during the cold winter months.

"Wearing boots over trousers, according to Sharia (Islamic law), is tabarroj and an example of bad dressing, which will be confronted," Radan said, cited by the ISNA news agency.

The drive has been criticised by some moderates but the police have insisted the crackdown is popular with the public and necessary to improve security in society.

"I am sorry that you are concerned about the boots of a few rich women," was the response of hardline femmale MP Eshrat Shaegh, referring to the media interest in the ban.

"I am worried about women who do not have meat on their tables and no clothes on their children," she said.

AKI adds:

"If boots are not covered by pants that fall to the ankles, they show the female shape and that is therefore in contradiction with Islamic dress code," said Radan.

Iranian women can no longer leave home with their pants pushed inside their boots and they can no longer wear hats without a veil.

"A hat is not an adequate substitute for a veil or a hijab," he said. " If someone really wants to wear a hat, they can put it on the veil."

Generale Radan said decision to apply the Islamic code had come from a committee composed of the Revolutionary Guard, the judiciary, police and officials from the intelligence ministry and the ministry of culture and Islamic orientation.

That's a lot of men to spend their time discussing women's boots. Sounds like an episode of Queer Eye.

Arabs abstain on Israel-sponsored "Puppies are cute" UN resolution

After decades of being treated as a pariah, Israel finally managed to get a resolution approved by the UN:

The resolution encourages able nations of the world to develop farming technology for developing countries.

The resolution was passed by the UN General Assembly's Second Committee, dealing with development issues. There were 118 votes in favor and 29 abstentions, with no opposing votes. The resolution will be brought before the full General Assembly next week.

"For Israel, this is a very dramatic development, and an historic day at the UN," Ambassador Dan Gillerman told reporters. "It is the very first time that Israel initiates and authors and submits a resolution which has nothing to do with the conflict. It is not easy for Israel to have its resolutions and its points of view adopted," he added. "This makes Israel a much more normal and acceptable member of the UN. One of our main aims is to not be a one issue country and to bring awareness of Israel's excellence to the world."

Who can argue with helping poor countries farm?

A look at the countries that abstained from this vote is instructive:

Included in the 29 abstentions were South Africa and [all the] 19 Arab states present – though not including Muslim Afghanistan and Pakistan, who voted in favor. Iran did not take part in the vote. The abstentions came from Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Darussalam, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

So what do the Arab nations have against helping third-world farmers?

Palestinian Authority United Nations representative Riyad Mansour criticized the move, telling Reuters that Israel was "trying to score political points" and had rejected a move that would have obscured the Jewish state as the author of the resolution in favor of its presentation as a “consensus resolution.”

OK, so it is not that the Arab nations - even the ones supposedly at peace with Israel - have anything against the resolution.

They just cannot stand to agree with anything Israel says, no matter how innocuous. It is easier to abstain than to even give the appearance of being on the same side as the hated Zionists on any issue.

This is beyond politics - this is just a seething hatred for anything that Israel does; this is misoziony. The very idea of agreeing with the Jewish state on anything sticks in the throats of the Arab world. For them, emotion trumps logic, and visceral hate makes real peace impossible.

UPDATE: It's Almost Supernatural exhaustively analyzes South Africa's abstention.

Tunnel collapses in Rafah, one more terrorist dead

From PalPress (Arabic, autotranslated):

Palestinian medical sources announced today, Wednesday, killing appeared citizen Mahmoud Abdel-Hamid alive "23 years" of the inhabitants of the city of Rafah following the collapse of a tunnel on the Palestinian-Egyptian border.

The number of Palestinian Arabs who have been violently killed by their own actions this year is now at 591.

UPDATE: A child-killer named Rami Khalifa has died "in mysterious circumstances" in prison in Gaza. 592.

UPDATE 2: On Tuesday,

at approximately 10:30, several farmers found a dead body under an olive tree on the side of an agricultural road between Far’a refugee camp and the village of Sireen southeast of Jenin. The farmers saw gunshot marks as well as marks of violence on the body. A Palestinian civilian vehicle was near the body. The farmers called the Palestinian police, who examined the body. The dead body was identified as that of Mohammad Nayef El-Shaf’i (37) from Fa’ra refugee camp. He was the owner of the vehicle. The body was transferred to the forensic laboratory in Abu Dis for examination; and the police are investigating the incident.

593.

Morning links (updated twice)

Britain's Lessons in Cultural Suicide

The perfect car for a trip to Mecca

Jews' subway hero a Muslim

My return to Kever Yosef

Testimony at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs by David Wurmsler (h/t Israel Matzav)

Audit finds U.S. funded university linked to terrorism (h/t Anti-Racist Blog)

Canada Praised For What Israel Should Have Done

Saudis give big to US colleges (h/t Smooth Stone)

The Middle East needs a lot, but not more weapons (Lebanon Daily Star)

I just saw this picture on World Photos, but it is not clear if it was taken recently. Still, it is classic:

Tony Blair declares Bethlehem safe - what about Sderot?

Tony Blair stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel in Bethlehem last night, to show that Bethlehem was a safe place for Christians to visit and to jumpstart the Palestinian Arab economy:

Palestine is a “safe destination” for tourists to visit, envoy to the Quartet Tony Blair said on Tuesday evening.

Speaking to journalists at a joint press conference with the Palestinian minister for tourism, Khouloud Daibes, in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, Blair said, “Bethlehem is a safe and good place to come.”

Citing Bethlehem as the litmus test for Israeli commitment to peace, he told reporters, “The real test of the sincerity of the Israeli side is if we really get change here in Bethlehem.”

“I know the Palestinian Authority is prepared to do everything it can to meet any legitimate security concerns but really there is no reason why tourists can not come here safely,” he added.

I don't expect Blair to visit Sderot any time soon, to stay there overnight and to declare how safe it is. I don't expect him to refer to it as a "litmus test" on Palestinian Arab commitment to peace. I don't expect him to praise the PA over how well they are helping stop their own Fatah-based Al-Aqsa Brigades from firing rockets at Israel.

Sderot is not on the radar of the "peace" plan. Sderot cannot be found on the roadmap. The 20 rockets that were shot today towards Sderot are not considered an obstacle to peace. It is way too inconvenient to mention Sderot when talking about the sacred "peace process."

No, Sderot and its residents are not important to Tony Blair and the Quartet. Because if they are forced to think about Sderot, they would be forced to reconsider whether real peace is possible. They would have to recall that the peaceful Palestinian Arabs freely elected a terrorist government in their most recent elections. They would be compelled to remember that the Western-trained PA "security forces" folded immediately in their first real test.

No, the "process" is too important to be derailed by inconvenient facts. Blair knows he is safe from Israeli actions in Bethlehem, but he knows just as well that he is in danger from those peaceful PalArabs should he visit Sderot.

So he won't.

One last video for the eighth night

Happy Chanukah from the NBA Stars!

"Humanitarian crisis" meme - since 1993

Did you ever get the feeling of déjà vu when reading news accounts about a "looming humanitarian crisis" in Gaza?

You are not imagining it:

November 17, 1993:

...the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza continues to grow.

December 6, 2000:

...impoverishing families across The West Bank and Gaza Strip and risking a humanitarian crisis, according to international economists and aid workers...

June 15, 2001:

The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip due to a shortage of medical supplies there.

November 19, 2002:

The humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and Gaza is a crisis of access and mobility; it is further compounded by an economic downturn that severely limits the ability of the civilian population to purchase and access basic needs.

February 27, 2003:

Humanitarian crisis: The cumulative impact of damage to civilian infrastructure, curfews and closures, and ongoing violence led the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to describe the humanitarian situation as "the most dire since 1967."

October 7, 2004:

The United Nations has warned in a special report of an impending humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

August 19, 2005:

Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from a chronic humanitarian crisis that is deepening during the disengagement period.

March 19, 2006:

Gaza facing humanitarian crisis

May 18, 2006:

As the representatives of donor governments made fresh vows to rapidly establish a flow of aid to Palestinians on Monday, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues.

July 9, 2006:

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has demanded that Israel take urgent action to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.

August 16, 2006:

Humanitarian Disaster in Gaza: "People are crying, hungry, thirsty, and desperate"

November 20, 2006:

Gaza: UN appeals for $2.5 million to ease 'humanitarian disaster'

July 20, 2007:

U.N. Official: Humanitarian Crisis Looms in Gaza

December 8, 2007:

The World Health Organisation warned against a humanitarian crisis erupting in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip due to Israeli travel restrictions

One would have thought that after 14 years of this "crisis" the Gaza population would be decimated by now. Reading these stories you'd expect Gaza to be like sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, somehow, the brave Gazans still manage to get weapons, ammunition, fuel, food, medicine and hundreds of millions of dollars in Western aid, managing to stave off the starvation forecasted by "human rights" experts year after year.

It appears that there is an entire cottage industry of "human rights" organizations that are dedicated to sounding the alarm about Gaza every few months so they can keep their jobs and keep blaming Israel for every self-inflicted problem that the PalArabs have created in their Gaza homeland.

Bethlehem, 2007

Michael Gove in the Times (UK) mentions:

There’s one invariable sign that Christmas is almost upon us – a story about how Bethlehem is suffering at the hands of wicked Israel.
This year we’ve already had our first exercise in demonising Israel for its treatment of Bethlehem with the graffiti artist Banksy enjoying extensive coverage for his trip to decorate the security barrier near the town with his work. The message of Banksy’s work and the coverage it has generated is the same: oppressive Israel has snuffed the life out of the town where the Prince of Peace was born. Herod’s spirit lives on, even as the spirit of Christmas is struggling to survive.
The truth is very different. The parlous position of Palestinian Christians, indeed the difficult position of most Christians across the Arab world, is a consequence not of Israeli aggression but of growing Islamist influence. Israel goes out of its way to honour sites and traditions sacred to other faiths while the radicals who are driving Palestinian politics seek to create an Islamist state in which other faiths, if they survive at all, do so with the explicit subject status of dhimmis. But when it comes to Israel’s position in these matters it’s still a case of O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see them lie.

He is right, of course. Christians have been abandoning Bethlehem for decades, and the intifada has only accelerated their exodus:

In Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, the Christian exodus has been most acute. In 1990, 60 percent of the population there was Christian. Today, some estimates say 20 percent or less of the city's population is Christian.

Tens of thousands of Arab Christians have fled the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the years. An estimated one thousand Christians have left Bethlehem each year for the last seven years -- a period covering the Palestinian uprising. There are between 10,000 and 13,000 Christians remaining in the city.

Today, only 1.5 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is Christian.

This doesn't stop Bethlehem's Christian mayor from blaming Israel:

"The cradle of our Lord Jesus Christ has turned into a big prison," the mayor said.

"This discriminating wall, besides isolating our town from the outside world and depriving Bethlehem from any future growth, snakes its way deep inside our municipal borders... closing the historic and main entrance of Bethlehem."

The barrier has devastated Palestinian farmers, the mayor said, confiscating 7,000 dunums (about 700 acres or 280 hectares) of arable land, making the lives of Palestinians "almost impossible" and putting them in "ghettos".

Yet amazingly, Bethlehem's population continues to grow even as the Christians flee:

Locality Name	Mid-Year Population in
	2004	2005	2006

Bethlehem (Beit Lahm)

28,111

29,019

29,927

Somehow, according to Israel's critics, the horrible separation barrier is only effective in forcing Christians to leave Bethlehem but it causes Muslims to increase.

See also previous post: Guess who's stealing land?

Meryl also weighs in on the issue.

The PA's officlal car theft ring

From YNet, published on December 8:

In a report earlier this week, a senior Palestinian police officer boasted that following their new deployment, Palestinian police were able to confiscate a total of 180 stolen Israeli vehicles. An Israeli reading this report would think: Look at that, Mahmoud Abbas is starting to put the house in order.

But let’s wait a moment. What do they mean by “confiscated?” What would a Swiss police officer do if his people seized vehicles stolen in Italy? We can assume he would call his counterparts in the Italian police force and hand over the vehicles to them. However, Palestinian police “confiscated” the vehicles.

In other words, the Palestinian police force is short on vehicles, so it confiscates stolen vehicles to meet its own needs. Up until yesterday, a vehicle would be used by the person who stole it, or by the person who bought it from the thief. As of today, this vehicle is being used by a Palestinian police officer.

If the Palestinian police force was able to find 180 vehicles fitting for confiscation within a week, it means there are thousands of stolen Israeli cars out there that have not been taken apart.

Even in Nablus or Jenin one cannot drive around without a license plate, and in order to receive a vehicle permit anywhere in the world you need to arrive at some government office, present the documents of the new vehicle, and explain how you got it. So what does the Palestinian car thief say when he comes to the Palestinian government official and asks for a permit for a stolen Israeli vehicle?

My guess is that he tells the truth. Hello, I have a vehicle that was stolen from the Jews, how much do I need to pay in order to register it as a Palestinian vehicle? The official then offers his congratulations. Now fill out this form and pay the fees. Please fill in the thief’s name, date of theft, type of vehicle, and date of last emissions test in Israel. Please go over to the police now and fill out another form. We must have order here. The police officer may ask you to pay another fee. Good luck.

I’m certain there is an official procedure for this, with orderly registration. In fact, when an amateurish thief stole the vehicle of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef by mistake, a call was made to a senior Palestinian official and the car was returned within a few hours. How did they know where to find it? That’s very simple. The stolen vehicles are registered over there. The thieves pay fees. Everything is orderly.

UPDATE: Soccer Dad, who has a tremendously prodigious memory, recalls this article from 2001 that shows that things really don't change.

Another "mysterious explosion" kills another terrorist

From Ma'an:

A mysterious explosion killed one member of Fatah's armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Brigades, and injured two others just after midnight on Tuesday in the old city of Nablus, in the northern West Bank.

Medical sources at Rafidia Hospital in Nablus confirmed the death of of Sulaiman Al-Qassas. They said he had arrived at the hospital in a coma.

Al-Aqsa Brigades spokesperson Mahdi Abu Ghazala told Ma'an accused "the Israeli occupation and collaborators" in an area known to be a meeting point for Al-Aqsa Brigades activists.

Invariably, these "mysterious explosions" are "work accidents" where explosives meant to kill Jews go off a bit early.

Notice also that the tens of thousands of PA "security forces" cannot seem to find and shut down terrorists even in places that they are known to hang out, and even when the terrorists belong to the same organization that rules the West Bank. And this is in Nablus, where the PA received kudos - and $1.3 million - from the US on how well it pretended to fight terrorists in the weeks leading up to Annapolis.

My count of Palestinian Arabs violently killed by each other this year now climbs to 590.

IAEA talking to Tehran about university uranium

From AP via JPost:

Iranian and UN nuclear officials began a new round of talks here on Monday, this time to probe the source of weapons-grade uranium that was found at Teheran's university, the official IRNA news agency reported.

It was not clear from the report how or when the weapons-grade uranium was discovered at the Technology faculty of the state university.

This uranium was not found recently, but during IAEA's last visit to Tehran.

I wonder what the NIE's thoughts on this are?

Also, see Alan Dershowitz' take on the NIE fiasco.