Obama the actor

When a mid-level government official in Israel insults the White House without the knowledge of the Israeli prime minister, it is a major international incident that is escalated by the administration even after a series of apologies. When the Palestinian Authority insults the US Vice President directly, it gets papered over. From David Bedein at The Bulletin: The Bulletin has learned that Vice President Biden, now on an official visit to the Middle East, made a direct request that the P.A. cancel the ceremony that honors a terrorist. And as soon as Biden was back on the plane, the ceremony was held anyway, with officials from the ruling Fatah party in attendance. (To distinguish between the PA and Fatah is an exercise in splitting hairs. Mahmoud Abbas is the leader of Fatah as well as the PA.) People are wondering why Israel and other US allies are being publicly treated worse than Iran, Russia and Arab thugocracies by the Obama administration. It is not because the US is aligned more with Arab interests, although the president is making worrying moves in that direction. The reason is simply because President Obama fears confrontation with those whom he does not understand. He (thinks he) knows that Great Britain and Israel are not going to make a stink, because they value their relationship with the US. Above all, he knows that they are not going to do anything rash. But to Obama, the Second and Third Worlds are still a mystery. It is filled with scary characters who are not guaranteed to behave rationally. Deep down he knows that they don't think nor act like us. Yet to admit that fact aloud sounds too close to bigotry in a mindset where everyone must be fundamentally the same. It is a taboo subject. I once described this dichotomy as "Your Crazy Uncle Ned:" Geopolitics is partially based on the idea that Arabs and Muslims are completely irrational. Instead of treating them like normal adults who need to take responsibility for their actions, we treat them like your crazy Uncle Ned who makes a scene every Thanksgiving. We smile nervously, say whatever we need to say to calm him down for now, lock up the liquor cabinet and hope he doesn't drive into a crowd. And when he acts sort-of rationally, we fall all over ourselves complimenting him on not setting the table on fire. This is Obama's thought process towards Arabs and Muslims in a nutshell - but it is only half the story in understanding Obama. When Obama was running for president, the impression he gave was that he was surprised as anyone that he became the frontrunner. I believe that he ran for office as a setup for a more serious 2012 run, or at best to be picked as a vice president by Hillary. He was, simply, not ready to lead. He had less experience in governing than practically all presidents in history. Even with all his rhetorical skills, it never felt like he was a man who wanted to dedicate his life to serving and leading his nation; it always seemed like someone who wanted to act like a leader rather than be a leader. He had some vague, New Age-y ideas of how the world could be a better place through mutual respect, and enough yes-men who could convince him that he was the man of the hour, but it never seemed like he truly believed it himself. He is, far more than any president in recent memory, an actor trying to learn a role. Obama believes that a president, the leader of the free world, must act strong. But the problem is he cannot act that way when he cannot predict how the other parties will react to his show of strength. As in the movie Galaxy Quest, he may be acting but the other side is dead serious, and in such circumstances he is over his head. Upsetting a billion people or another nuclear power is something to be avoided at all costs. So he acts like a parody of a strong leader - against his friends. He knows they won't start a war or a terror spree against American interests. He calculates that by acting tough with his friends, there is little downside while he builds up his street cred as a resolute but fair leader. He hopes that Iran and Syria (and Russia and China) will interpret his actions as a message for them, avoiding actually making decisions that could set a course from which the US cannot go back. But what he cannot do is actually make any real foreign policy decisions. If he did, he would be burning a bridge and opening himself up to the chance that he is making a mistake. Worse yet, he would be revealing to the world that he doesn't have a clue. For an actor playing the role of President, changing the status quo is scary. Taking a real stand is frightening. Instead,the emphasis is to make it through your term without blowing up the world. You buy time and hope and pray for the best. You rely on your advisors to guide you and you hope they are not acting the way you are. And you continue to act how you think a President would act, hoping that your charade is not exposed.

Nuclear disarmament conference to be held - in Iran

In another transparent attempt to deceive the West (which already has plenty of people who are anxious to be deceived,) Iran will be hosting a conference next month: The Islamic Republic of Iran is scheduled to hold an international conference on nuclear disarmament in mid April. The conference, dubbed as "Nuclear Energy For All, Nuclear Weapon For None", will be held in Iran on April 17-18. Foreign ministers, representatives and nuclear experts from 60 countries are due to participate in the event to discuss challenges on nuclear disarmament, countries' commitments to the issue and the aftermaths of not destroying weapons of mass-destruction. In February, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani announced in Japan that Iran is scheduled to hold an international gathering on global disarmament in Tehran in the next two months to be attended by internationally renowned elites and experts, adding that participants are slated to assess the causes and reasons underlying the lack of heed and attention to the implementation of nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regulations, Article 6 in particular. A lot of well-meaning but ultimately idiotic Westerners strongly feel that as long as Iran is negotiating, it is not going to do anything dangerous. In truth, Iran has shown over the years that it will pretend to negotiate while completely undermining its public statements in private. Here is an especially telling example where Iran is cynically pretending to put on a public face against nuclear weaponry deliberately to take international pressure off of its aggressive nuclear program. There are enough credulous wishful thinkers in the West who will desperately grab at this straw, because the alternative is too scary for them to contemplate. For each Westerner who opines or argues that Iran is not a threat, it makes it that much harder for the clear-thinking Westerners, who see through Iran's act, to do anything effective. While it is true that Iran's leaders do not have the same mindset as the West, they understand the West much better than the West understands them, and this conference is proof. (h/t dd via email)

You know how Muslims say they respect religions?

From Jordan's Al Gahd: (h/t MEMRI Blog)

Gold boom in Gaza (updated)

From Al Arabiya: Gaza's borders are closed and its economy in shambles, but the glittering alleys of the territory's centuries-old gold bazaar are packed with young brides to be. The market has experienced an unlikely renaissance in recent years as Gaza's Hamas rulers have championed weddings and Israeli closures have crippled the local economy, making gold an attractive investment. "Not only have we not been hurt by the Israeli blockade, but our business has actually gotten better," gold merchant Iyad Basal says as people cram into his crowded family-run shop. "We have not stopped working since the blockade because the gold comes to us through smuggling and Hamas encourages marriage," he adds. Israel and Egypt have largely sealed Gaza's borders since Hamas seized power in June 2007, but some merchants have survived and even thrived by importing products through smuggling tunnels beneath the Egyptian border. Others have jewelry brought in through the Erez pedestrian crossing with Israel, which is usually open to foreign journalists, aid workers and Palestinians with special permits. Hamas has encouraged marriage by holding mass weddings, running a matchmaker service for war widows and other poor girls and giving financial support to thousands of young men hoping to settle down. Hassan al-Juju, a judge in the Islamic family courts run by the group, says the rate of marriage in 2009 was higher than any year in the last decade. Zvi points out: Starving populations do not import and purchase large quantities of gold. All around the world and throughout history, starving populations have sold what jewelry they owned to food traders in exchange for food to feed their kids. People who are seriously worried about starving in the future import and hoard large quantities of canned goods and staple foods. They don't import gold, which cannot be eaten. For an example of a normal response, consider the Warsaw Ghetto. The Nazis issued the Jews ration books that allowed them only 200 Cal/day, which is a starvation diet. Jews who had a silver bracelet or a gold ring used it as currency to obtain extra food from outside the ghetto, or (if they could scrape together enough) to pay smugglers to hide their kids on the Christian side of the wall, where they were safer. Jewelry was rapidly flowing OUT, from the moment when the ghetto was reestablished until the Nazis liquidated the population. Gaza is importing gold through its smuggling tunnels. Gold is an expensive luxury, purchased with disposable income. The spokespeople of the Destroy Israel Movement frequently claim that Gaza is "worse than the Warsaw Ghetto." They claim that Israel is starving Gaza. They claim that this is why Gazan terrorists murder civilians across the border in Israel. Three things are clearly true: 1. The spokespeople of the Destroy Israel Movement don't understand the situation in Gaza at all. 2. They don't understand the Warsaw Ghetto at all, and don't want to. 3. They are happy to spout absolute ignorant nonsense as long as it's anti-Semitic ignorant nonsense.

Junk science used to claim Israel using WMD in Gaza

The "New Weapons Committee" has just released what appears, at first glance, to be a scientific study of Gaza children's exposure to dangerous contaminants during Operation Cast Lead. The press release says: Many Palestinian children still living in precarious situations at ground level in Gaza after Israeli bombing during "Cast lead" have unusually high concentrations of metals in the hair, indicating environmental contamination, which can cause health and growth damages due to chronic exposure. This is the result of a pilot study conducted by the New Weapons Research Group (Nwrg), an independent committee of scientists and experts based in Italy, who is studying the use of unconventional weapons and their mid-term effects on the population of after-war areas. This research follows the previous one, published by Nwrg on December 17 last year, in which the group reported the presence of toxic metals in the areas surrounding the craters left by the bombing. Those tests had found abnormal concentrations of toxic metals in the craters, suggesting the possible contamination of the soil which, combined with precarious living conditions, particularly in refugee camps, might cause exposure, dermal, via inhalation and through food. With the new study, the group set itself the objective of verifying whether people were actually contaminated. The result is alarming: even if the quantity of metals in excess, in fact, are only 2-3 times higher than those found in hair of controls, these levels may still be pathogenic in situations of chronic exposure. The study, which lasted several months, analyzed the hair for 33 metals by ICP/MS (a type of highly sensitive mass spectrometry). The hair is a good indicator of contamination and investigation of environmental contamination based on its analysis are recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Nwrg examined hair samples from 95 people resident in heavily bombed areas (as reported by UNEP on the basis of satellite maps), for the vast majority children. Among them also seven pregnant women and 4 wounded people. The results have established that the distribution of metal contaminants in the three locations where the tests were performed, Beit Hanun, Gaza-Zeitun and Laly Beith, is higher than the average, and more than double in about 60 of these individuals. The research team is based out of Italy. One of the researchers is Paola Manduca. Manduca had already determined the results of the research while Cast Lead was still happening, as this press release from January 9, 2009 shows: Mounting evidence is emerging that Israel is experimenting new non-conventional weapons on civilian population in Gaza. "It is happening again what we saw in Lebanon two years ago", says Paola Manduca, genetics teacher and researcher at the University of Genoa and member of New Weapons Research Committee (NWRC), "where Israel used white phosphorus, Dense inert metal explosive (DIME), thermobaric bombs, cluster bombs and uranium ammunitions. Still today there are unexploded bombs and radioactivity on the ground". So we already have an indication that some of these scientists had an agenda. Now let's look at the methodology of the study itself. If one wanted to determine that some Gaza children were exposed to toxic metals from Israeli bombs, what would be a good control group? I can think of a few: * Compare the levels in children who live in heavily-bombed areas with those who do not. * Compare the levels of Gaza children with those in Egypt. * Compare the levels with those in Israel. * Compare with the West Bank. * Compare with hair samples from before Operation Cast lead. * Compare with people who left Gaza recently, for example, those who are in medical treatment in Israel or Egypt. The study, however, did no such thing. They compared the levels of Gazans with those of a single reference hair sample from China and a single control sample from Italy. A careful look at the data also shows that, while in general the levels in Gaza were higher than those of the single sample in Italy, they were not usually that much different (most are less than 2x the Italian sample.) The Italian sample was higher in many metals than for some of the Gazans. The variation within Gaza was high, and it would be instructive to see the natural variation between control samples. Even more interesting was the fact that the differences between the Chinese hair and the Italian hair were much larger than between Italy and Gaza, which would indicate that the Gaza data might not be that significant to begin with. Despite the control being a single sample, the press release represents the Italian sample as the "average," yet there is no indication that that sample is average in any way. Let's come up with alternative scenarios that could account for allegedly high concentrations of metals in Gazan hair: - Hamas weapons production probably does not have very good environmental controls. - Gaza metal shops and factories do not have adequate safeguards against toxic waste. - The water in Gaza might be contaminated for some other reason - and the aquifier is shared with Israel. Despite the big words that the study uses, there is no evidence that there was any scientific peer review or even that it was submitted to any scientific journal. The methodology seems to show that it would be laughed out of any serious scientific journal. On the contrary, the press release was released to the rabidly anti-Israel Uruknet. Furthermore, Human Rights Watch and the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons had already determined last July that there was no evidence that Israel used depleted uranium weapons or DIME weapons in Gaza (but they did find evidence of tungsten cubes as sleeves on Spike missiles.) The "New Weapons Committee" has already shown its bias from its previous press releases that convicted Israel without any evidence, their statements of Israel using DU in Lebanon with no evidence, and the very nature of the study itself. This is not research and this is not science: it is an attempt to smear Israel by hiding behind the fig-leaf of pseudo-science that the vast majority of readers will never bother to check.

Saudi cleric calls for destruction of Grand Mosque in Mecca

A hardline Saudi cleric, Youssef al-Ahmed, has called for the Grand Mosque in Mecca (which houses the Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam) to be destroyed! The problem is that when Muslims go to Mecca to touch and circle the holy rock, men and women are there together. Even though this has been the status quo for decades or centuries, apparently that is not good enough. So to avoid the chance that something terrible would happen, al-Ahmed is proposing to destroy the mosque and replace it with a series of smaller structures that can allow the separation of the sexes. al-Ahmed apparently put his opinion on YouTube. He claims that other clerics have called for the same action in years past. He is no stranger to controversy and is not necessarily taken too seriously by the Saudis at large, but he does have a following.

Arab unity - ain't it grand?

Libya is upset that some major Arab leaders may not attend an upcoming Arab Summit scheduled for the end of March. Six leaders might not attend. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has a good excuse, as he is recovering from surgery in Germany, but the others who are not expected to attend include leaders from Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Morocco, mostly for political reasons. In addition, there is the fear that Libya leader Maommar Qaddafi will invite Hamas to attend as an Arab state, which may prompt Mahmoud Abbas to boycott the event as well. Yet some Western "intellectuals" keep thinking that if only Israel would give up some land, the rest of the Middle East will turn into a peaceful oasis.

Major Muslim religious group calls for jihad against Israel

The International Association of Muslim Scholars, an organization founded by Yusuf al-Qaradawi as a "moderate" alternate to Muslim extremism, has called on the entire Muslim world to start a jihad "in all its forms" to "defend" the Al Aqsa mosque from presumed desecration by the Zionists. The "in all its forms" phrasing is meant to leave no doubt that he is calling for war. The photo illustrating the story in Palestine Today, showing coffins draped with Israeli flags, shows that the message is crystal-clear. The statement specifically calls on Jordan and Egypt to sever relations with Israel and for the Muslim world to pressure their leaders to "do something before it is too late," i.e., start a war with Israel. Qaradawi was considered by Newsweek to be a front-runner to take over as head of Al Azhar University after the death of Sheikh Tantawi.

The Land of Milk and Homer

From JPost (h/t Bubbe): After 20 years of poking fun at American culture, the Simpsons are scheduled to land at Ben-Gurion Airport to target Israel. The episode set in the Holy Land, titled “The Greatest Story Ever D’ohed,” airs on March 28 in the US, coinciding with both Pessah Eve and Palm Sunday. The plot involves Homer developing Jerusalem Syndrome and Marge interacting with an aggressive Israeli tour guide, voiced by Sasha Baron Cohen of Borat and Bruno fame. “He’s trying to get Marge to give him good grades on the comment card, and she goes, ‘You people are pushy,’ and he goes, ‘What do you mean, you people? You try having Syria for a neighbor! What do you have – Canada?’” Simpsons producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly: “It’ll be a show that all faiths can come together and be offended by.”

Tamimi doesn't even pause in his lies and incitement

Sheikh Tamimi, the main architect of the lie that Israel was planning to lay the cornerstone of a new synagogue at on the Temple Mount last Tuesday and the man most responsible for the riots in Jerusalem, now has "revealed" the next fictional plan to take over the mosque. Without a hint of apology for being so consistently wrong, Tamimi now is talking about a comprehensive Israeli plan of archaeology and tourism called "Jerusalem First" that is, of course, centered around the Al Aqsa mosque. He mentions 15 projects in this initiative, of which no less than 9 are aimed at Al Aqsa. He also mentions a new synagogue being planned to be built near or on the mosque. As usual, I can't find any real mention of this purported plan. Jerusalem sees many plans for development, some of which work out and some which do not, like any vibrant city. Tamimi seems to spend his day scouring the Internet to find any hint of such initiatives so he can grandly announce them to incite the Arabs to riot. He's been doing this for years. And not for a moment do the Palestinian Arabs seem to notice that 99% 0f these threats never materialize and that Tamimi is a clown. On the contrary, his statements consistently get major coverage in the Arabic press. So, he keeps on inciting violence with his lies. When lies are an integral to the very fabric of one's culture, lying is not a shortcoming - it is an asset. (In that same vein, the Al Qassam website has a memorial of a terrorist killed seven years ago, and in that context quotes Mohammed as saying "War is deceit." This is not in the Quran but in a hadith.)

Man murdered by Qassam

From YNet: A 30-year-old Thai foreign worker was killed Thursday after a Qassam rocket hit the hothouse area in Netiv Ha'asara in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council, north of the Gaza Strip. Magen David Adom emergency units tried to resuscitate the man, however were eventually forced to pronounce him dead. The attack marks the third time rockets have been fired into Israeli territory in the last 24 hours. On Wednesday night a rocket exploded in an open area in Sderot. Several hours earlier another rocket landed in the region causing two people to suffer from anxiety. The al-Qaeda affiliated Ansar al-Suna Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack from the Gaza Strip. The Al Qassam website is filled with articles that talk about how the opening of the Hurva synagogue is a great reason to kill Israeli Jews. The fact that there has been such an escalation of attacks from Gaza recently is no coincidence. Hamas maintains its hardly-plausible deniability by saying that it came from a splinter group but in fact all of the terror groups have a history of working together; not to mention that explosives cannot enter Gaza without Hamas knowing about it and approving it. The Palestine Today website calls the victim a "settler." (h/t Yehudit for headline)

Bizarro world: Herzl a terrorist, Arafat a statesman

From Arab News: Brazil's president placed a wreath on the tomb of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday and sharply criticized Israeli policies, leading Israeli officials to suggest he was not being evenhanded. Making the first visit by any sitting Brazilian president to Israel and the Palestinian territories, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has termed the trip a mission of peace. Lula laid a yellow and green wreath on Arafat's mausoleum on Wednesday, following protocol for visiting leaders. The visit came a day after Israel's hawkish foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said he boycotted meetings with Lula because the Brazilian did not pay a similar visit to the grave of Zionist founder Theodor Herzl. JPost adds: Foreign Ministry officials were fuming on Wednesday that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who refused to lay a wreath at the grave of Theodor Herzl in Jerusalem, contrary to new Israeli protocol measures recently instituted, donned a keffiyeh around his shoulders and laid a wreath at the tomb of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. “This is an insult,” one senior Foreign Ministry official said. “It is offensive that he laid a wreath at the grave of a terrorist, but not at the tomb of Zionism’s visionary." That pretty much sums it up.

Hamas puppet show shows its love

From MEMRI (h/t The Vicious Babushka): The following are excerpts from a Hamas TV puppet show, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 11, 2010. 'Alloush: Uncle Hassan! Uncle Hassan! Uncle Hassan: My God, why are you so happy, 'Alloush? 'Alloush: I am like the grown-ups, watching the news. Uncle Hassan: Good, I hope it will be a good day to watch the news. 'Alloush: I've heard a very good report. Very good. Uncle Hassan: That good?! This report will make us happy? 'Alloush: Yes! Do you know the Ibrahimi Mosque [in Hebron]? Uncle Hassan: Who doesn't know it? We all do. 'Alloush: Well, they have turned it into a museum. Uncle Hassan: What?! 'Alloush: So the people – all the Jews and the Christians – can visit it. Uncle Hassan: Are you sure that's what you heard? Are you sure? 'Alloush: Yes. Uncle Hassan: And you are still happy?! 'Alloush: Yes, this way they will protect it and stop destroying it. People will be able to see it, but not to touch it. Uncle Hassan: Are you out of your mind, 'Alloush? 'Alloush: Why? What's wrong? Uncle Hassan: Do you know that this mosque, at the Cave of the Patriarchs... 'Alloush: What about it? Uncle Hassan: It dates back to the days of Ibrahim. This is our legacy, and part of the Islamic waqf. How can you possibly be happy when a mosque – where we would worship Allah and pray to Him night and day – is turned into a synagogue and an archeological site, and the Jews come to defile it? 'Alloush: I didn't know this. What, they're making fun of us in the news?! Uncle Hassan: No, they are telling the truth in the news, but as you can see, the whole world is in turmoil over this. This is sad news, a real catastrophe for the Arab and Islamic world, 'Alloush. 'Alloush: Those Jews want to steal the Ibrahimi Mosque? Uncle Hassan: Yes, they want to steal it, and then make it like their false temple. They want to add it to their legacy for their future generations, 'Alloush. 'Alloush: Okay, so what should we do about this sad thing? Uncle Hassan: Unfortunately, 'Alloush and dear children, the Arab and Islamic nation is in a slumber. A deep slumber. We must stand up. We must awaken. 'Alloush and dear children – each one of you must tell his father, his grandfather, and the rest of his family that they should all arise as one. They must rise up against the criminal Zionists, who are planning to destroy Jerusalem, and to turn the Islamic waqf into something bad. We must rise against the Zionist criminals, the enemies of Allah, and liberate Jerusalem and all the holy places. We should liberate them. Do you hear, 'Alloush? 'Alloush: Ah, now I get it. I thought the Jews wanted to enable people to visit the Ibrahimi Mosque, but it turns out that they want to steal it. Uncle Hassan: That's right, 'Alloush. It's a good thing that you got it. Did you tell this to anyone else, or just me? 'Alloush: Just you. Uncle Hassan: Very good. You didn't make us look bad. Do you know what people would accuse you of, if you said this in the street? 'Alloush: Of what, Uncle Hassan? Uncle Hassan: They would accuse you of being a collaborator. They would think that you are a Zionist collaborator. I would like to tell you two things, in conclusion: We must think before we speak. Get it? We should be familiar with all our Arab and Islamic holy places, okay? 'Alloush: Okay. Besides the obvious anti-semitism, notice the subtext - Hamas is telling kids to be careful about what they say out loud, because if they say the wrong things, they could be branded "collaborators" - and therefore killed. Other people want their kids to ask questions, to learn, to have their own opinions. Hamas, on the other hand, warns their children not to stray from the party line at the risk of their very lives. This is the Islamic implementation of Orwellian newspeak. Limit what people can say and you therefore can control their thoughts. What a great message for children's TV!

Register for NORPAC MIssion to Washington

For the past two years, I attended the NORPAC Mission to Washington, speaking with members of Congress and Senators and their aides about issues of vital importance to Israel and the US. The trip is enormously rewarding. The opportunity to speak one-on-one with elected officials is too rare for the average citizen, and they take definite notice when such a large group comes down to speak with them, and it makes an impact. Everyone who visits in person is worth a thousand phone calls or emails. Unfortunately, I cannot attend this year, but if you live in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area I urge you to register and attend. Trust me, you will not regret it.

Convicted felon in Gaza - pretending to be a US congressman

From Ma'an: US Congressman Jack Shepherd entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the de facto border commission said. Shepherd was received by members of the A'tta Mother and Child Society upon his arrival. The congressman will be in the coastal enclave for a two-day visit organized by the society. The visit will include tours to hospitals, schools and other areas destroyed by Israeli forces during Operation Cast Lead in December 2008. The A'tta Mother and Child Society is the first of its kind in the occupied Palestinian territories. Firas Press reports on this visit by this member of Congress as well. Unfortunately, there is no representative with that name in Congress. Thank God for the Internet, though, as I was able to find exactly who this important official is. In fact, Jack Shepard has run for the Senate in Minnesota, not to mention governor - and President! Jack Shepard (Italy / Minnesota) STATUS: ANNOUNCED CANDIDATE. Dr. Jack Shepard is a USAF veteran and dentist ... and a convicted felon (narcotics possession) who fled as a fugitive to Italy to avoid trial in Minnesota when he became the suspect in the arson of his dental office. Claiming he was wrongly convicted in the drug case and wrong accused in the arson, Shepard continues -- from Rome, Italy -- to run as a candidate for federal political office in Minnesota to bring attention to his demand that the conviction be overturned and the arson charge dropped. He says the drug conviction should be overturned because dentists can have narcotics in their offices and that he is innocent on the arson charges. "I never broke the law," Shepard posted on one political website. The US government has never formally requested his extradition from the Italian government, although then-prosecutor Amy Klobuchar -- now US Senator -- requested the Feds seek his return. Shepard lost a GOP primary run for US Senate in 2002 and Congress in 2004 and 2006. In his campaigns -- waged on his websites and in emails to Minnesota newspapers -- accused various Democrats of either being tied to encouraging "the Terrorists" or being "owned" by "the Israel Lobby." Related links: Shepard for President (official site), ShepardUSGov.com (Congressional campaign site), and People for Peace Group (Shepard's organization). And now he is scamming Palestinian Arabs!

The exaggerated refugees

I just came across this interesting article from the Milwaukee Sentinel, February 19, 1971. Click to enlarge. The more things change....

BDS loses another one at Davis

From the Divest This! blog: On Monday evening, the forces of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) were handed a major defeat when the Davis Food Co-op, located in Davis California, turned down demands by BDS activists to put a boycott of Israeli goods to a Co-op wide vote. While this story may not be big enough to hit the national press, the details surrounding the decision make this as significant an event in the continuing annals of BDS failure as the Presbyterian Church’s 2006 decision to abandon divestment altogether (a decision which changed the threat level of BDS from “potential issue” to “serious loser”). Read the whole thing.

Gunbattles, kidnappings, rocket fire in Gaza. The usual.

PCHR reports that there was a gunbattle in the Jabalya camp in Gaza yesterday, in which hand grenades were used. One was injured. Also yesterday, there was the usual kidnapping and beating of a man in Gaza: At approximately 21:30 on Sunday, 14 March 2010, Salah al-Masri, an n employee in the Palestinian National Authority, was in a shop near his house in al-‘Oyoun Street in al-Nasser neighborhood in the north of Gaza city. In the meanwhile, a Golf car stopped, an three masked gunmen stepped down from it. At gunpoint, the gunmen forced al-Masri to get into the car. They blindfolded him with his sweater and drove him to an unknown destination. Al-Masri told PCHR that the gunmen took him into a building in an area that he does not know and questioned him about his relationship with the government in Ramallah. They tied his hands behind his back and forced him sit in a painful position, known as "Shabeh."They then violently beat him. They questioned him for several hours. During questioning, the beat him with an iron chain on his head and they tortured him with electrical shocks to his feet. At midnight, they drove him to the currency market in the east of Gaza city. They left him there and drove away. During the last three weeks, PCHR documented two similar attacks in Rafah and in Deir al-Balah town in the southern and central Gaza Strip respectively. In Rafah, Hammad Mohammed Abu Jazar, 42, was kidnapped and tortured by masked gunmen. According to Abu Jazar, on Saturday evening, 13 March 2010, a Hyundai car intercepted him while on his way to his house in al-Brazil neighborhood in Rafah. Two gunmen in civil clothes stepped down from the car and forced Abu Jazar to get into the car at gunpoint. They drove him to an unknown destination. Abu Jazar stated that the gunmen who were in the car beat him with their hands and gun butts throughout his body. They accused him of insulting Mohammed Shamali, a member of the Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas, who was killed on 14 August 2009 in armed clashes that took place in the vicinity of Ibn Taymeya Mosque. Fifteen minutes later, the gunmen dumped him near the border area. Abu Jazar then called one of his friends who came and transferred him to the hospital for medical treatment. On 02 March, Yousef Fu'ad al-Ma’ni, 21, from Deir al-Balah, was kidnapped and tortured by unknown gunmen. According to statements given by al-Ma’ni to PCHR, he was tortured by unknown persons who pressured him to sign and fingerprint documents that he does not know what they were for. They then drove him to an unknown destination, hit him on his head with a sharp tool and dumped him in the street. PCHR is loathe to accuse Hamas outright of these kidnappings, of course, but most of them indeed seem to be done by Hamas security forces. You know, those freedom fighters that people like George Galloway love so much. I don't know about the freedom part, but they sure love to fight! Also, a Qassam rocket exploded immediately after launch near Beit Lahiya today.

Abbas adopts a boy. Love or politics?

Here is Mahmoud Abbas with his new adopted son: The boy is the only survivor of a horrendous accident a couple of weeks ago where the boy's family's car lost control and crashed into an Israeli hummer. Does this seem like a genuine humanitarian act, or a sly political move? His adoption of the boy caused an outpouring of emotion and love from his loyal subjects at the Palestine Press website. Over a hundred comments are praising Abbas for this wonderful gesture. Remember that a member of Abbas' Fatah party accused Israel of deliberately causing the accident as part of its policy of "ethnic cleansing." Is there any chance that the photo above is simply a staged event and not representative of Abbas' supposed love for his people? Is there any chance that it is not?

Hamas arrests counterfeiters in Rafah

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas caught people counterfeiting US dollars near the Egyptian border. Apparently the counterfeiters dropped some of the bills from a window, causing a stir. Back in 2008, Hamas was accused itself of counterfeiting dollars and using them to smuggle supplies in from Egypt, from which they took a cut. The Egyptian authorities confiscated over a million dollars of fake currency. I guess they wanted to keep their monopoly.

The problem with the PalArabs (guest post)

Guest post by Zvi, commenting on the stone-throwing rioters: The PA already has a lot of cash and could spend it putting these kids to work. Instead, the PA spends it on 1) lining the pockets of PA leaders and 2) inciting people (their own and others') against Jews, with results such as you see here. Some people claim that young Palestinian men hurl cinder blocks at Jewish civilians because they are poor. Other people claim that living under occupation not only makes it not only natural for these young men to do what they are doing, but also right and proper. Both claims are bogus. Economics The West Bank has a 7% annual GDP growth rate (which puts it 9th in the world; China's is only 8.7%). The West Bank now has a slightly lower GDP per capita than India ($2900 vs. India's $3100 in 2009; Kosovo's is $2500, Bangladesh's $1600 and Zimbabwe's only $200). The West Bank's unemployment rate is is 2/3 that of Libya and 1/2 that of Muslim Kosovo. Due to its continuing customs union with Israel, the West Bank uses the stable Israeli Shekel. Riots incited by political parties don't break out everywhere in the world. There are a small number of places where it happens - and where it keeps on happening, as long as these parties remain in power. Political Situation Like the Palestinians, the Kosovars remain in limbo. Most countries refuse to recognize the state that they have declared. A major difference is that while the Israelis have made offers that involve an independent Palestinian state, the Serbs adamantly refuse to contemplate the possibility of an independent Kosovo. The UN also spends only a small fraction of the money and personnel on Kosovo as it does on the Palestinians, and the descendants of Kosovar refugees are not automatically considered to be refugees, as is the case with Palestinian refugees. Kosovar leaders, despite having very strong reasons to fight, including very real fears of genocidal behavior founded in very recent Balkan history, consistently made efforts to achieve their goals without violence. Though there was ultimately a relatively minor war, it was a last resort rather than a first resort. Somehow, most Kurds and Uighurs, Tibetans and Basques, Dagestanis and Australian Aborigines, Quebecois and Northern Irish (today, anyway) manage to live in the real world, facing the fact that they are not in an ideal situation, without periodically engaging in violent riots sponsored by political parties. In the case of the Palestinians, the Palestinian leadership and their allies around the world saw violence not just as the first resort, but as the ONLY ACCEPTABLE APPROACH, for the first 30+ years of their existence. Fatah's right wing and all of Hamas still see it that way. Fatah's "moderates" see violence as the first resort, but are willing to fall back on negotiation when threats, intimidation and propaganda fail them. Unlike most of the groups on the world stage, the Palestinian leadership continue to resort FIRST to histrionic incitement and violence, and only as a very LAST resort, to negotiation and coexistence. The Real Reason The reason why idiots in the West Bank are using heavy slings to hurl chunks of concrete and glass at Israelis is not because they are unemployed. It is not because they are uneducated. It is not because they are occupied. The reason is because their leadership, and the media in much of the Arab world, has sold them a nonsensical, bogus, and romantic notion that they are the "Heroes of the Arab World." They are petted and primped for their "leading role" and told that they are responsible for obtaining "Justice" for Arabs for every setback in the last 100 years. They have been sold the idea that the ONLY way to do this is through "Resistance" (a.k.a. attack) against the Evil Jews. If Jews re-dedicate a synagogue bulldozed by the Jordanian soldiers during the 20th century, these young men have been taught that this is "Provocation" and that the Muslim world "cannot stand for it." They are told that it is their religious and national obligation to riot. Meanwhile, the organizers of this scene - the "moderates" of Fatah - threaten a "new Intifadah." Never mind that they gained nothing from the last intifadah, and that it cost them enormously. The leaders of Fatah tell these young men that they are the vanguard of this new Intifadah. One day, if they are very lucky, they'll succeed in killing a lot of Israeli civilians, and they'll have a square named after them, like Dalal Mughrabi. Ultimately, the reason why the leaders of Fatah are fomenting this violence is simply because they need headlines. They need burning. They need people to bleed. They need to be victims. Because the media only pays attention to them when they're victims, and because they know that certain western governments, who wish to keep up appearances in the region until they leave Iraq in 2011, will ignore the real situation and instead threaten the Israelis for "causing" this violence. Why is this happening? Because until they are held accountable for choosing violence over peaceful negotiation and coexistence, the leaders of Fatah will remain certain that they can get away with it.

The settlements aren't the problem (Bret Stephens)

I'm reproducing the entire article because the WSJ will soon make it subscription-only: I once got an angry letter from Baruch Goldstein's father. Goldstein, remember, was an Israeli settler who in 1994 entered the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and gunned down 29 Muslim worshippers. A decade later, I wrote a column for the Jerusalem Post in which I described Goldstein as personifying Israel's lunatic extreme. The father insisted that his son deserved to be celebrated as a hero. Indeed, his grave site was transformed into a shrine until the Israeli army eventually tore it down. It's easy to dislike Israel's settlements, and still easier to dislike many of the settlers. Whatever your view about the legality or justice of the enterprise, it takes a certain cast of mind to move your children to places where they are more likely to be in harm's way. In the current issue of the American Interest, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer persuasively spells out the many ways in which the settlement movement has undermined Israel's own rule of law, and hence its democracy. And as last week's diplomatic eruption over the prospective construction of 1,600 housing units in municipal Jerusalem shows, the settlements are a constant irritant to the United States, one friend Israel can't afford to lose. So it would be a splendid thing for Israel to tear down its settlements, put the settlers behind its pre-1967 borders and finally reach the peace deal with the Palestinians that has been so elusive for so long. Except for one problem: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn't territorial. It's existential. Israelis are now broadly prepared to live with a Palestinian state along their borders. Palestinians are not yet willing to live with a Jewish state along theirs. That should help explain why it is that in the past decade, two Israeli prime ministers—Ehud Barak in 2000 and Ehud Olmert in 2008—have put forward comprehensive peace offers to the Palestinians, and have twice been rebuffed. In both cases, the offers included the division of Jerusalem; in the latter case, it also included international jurisdiction over Jerusalem's holy places and concessions on the subject of Palestinian refugees. Current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also offered direct peace talks. The Palestinians have countered by withdrawing to "proximity talks" mediated by the U.S. It also helps explain other aspects of Palestinian behavior. For Hamas, Tel Aviv is no less a "settlement" than the most makeshift Jewish outpost on the West Bank. The supposedly moderate Fatah party has joined that bandwagon, too: Last year, Mohammed Dahlan, one of Fatah's key leaders, said the party was "not bound" by the 1993 Oslo Accords through which the PLO recognized Israel. Then there is the test case of Gaza. When Israel withdrew all of its settlements from the Strip in 2005, it was supposed to be an opportunity for Palestinians to demonstrate what they would do with a state if they got one. Instead, they quickly turned it into an Iranian-backed Hamas enclave that for nearly three years launched nonstop rocket and mortar barrages against Israeli civilians. Israel was ultimately able to contain that violence, but only at the price of a military campaign that was vehemently denounced by the very people who had urged Israel to withdraw in the first place. As it happens, I supported Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, bloody-minded neocon though I am. On balance, I still think it was the right thing to do. By 2005, Israel's settlements in the Strip had become military and political liabilities. But there is a duty to take account of subsequent developments. And the sad fact is that the most important thing Israel's withdrawal from Gaza accomplished was to expose the fanatical irredentism that still lies at the heart of the Palestinian movement. The withdrawal exposed other things too. For years, Israel's soi-disant friends, particularly in Europe, had piously insisted that they supported Israel's right to self-defense against attacks on Israel proper. But none of them lifted a finger to object to the rocket attacks from Gaza, while they were outspoken in denouncing Israel's "disproportionate" use of retaliatory force. Similarly, Israel withdrew from Gaza with assurances from the Bush administration that the U.S. would not insist on a return to the 1967 borders in brokering any future deal with the Palestinians. But Hillary Clinton reneged on that commitment last year, and now the administration is going out of its way to provoke a diplomatic crisis with Israel over a construction project that—assuming it ever gets off the ground—is plainly in keeping with past U.S. undertakings. In the past decade, Israelis have learned that neither Palestinians nor Europeans can be taken at their word. That's a lesson they may soon begin to draw about the U.S. as well. Which is a pity for many reasons—not least because it gives the settler movement every excuse it needs to keep rolling right along. I obviously don't agree with his opinion on the settlements and settlers, but Stephens makes some very good points that need to seep into the American and European consciousness.

No cornerstone? No matter, we'll riot anyway

The putative reason for five days of riots, which was the alleged threat by "right wing" Israelis to lay a cornerstone for the Third Temple, didn't materialize today. What a surprise. Even some Israeli media like YNet reported that there were plans for such a ceremony: ...Police have declared they will not allow the Israeli rightists to go through with their plans to lay a cornerstone at the site. Unfortunately, these irresponsible journalists never quite managed to identify any such group that had announced those plans, essentially believing the rants of the lying Palestinian Muslim leaders who made up the story. YNet should have known better, because only two weeks ago Palestinian Arabs rioted over the exact same reason. From February 28th: Members of the Waqf and various Islamic organizations, including the Islamic Movement, urged Muslims over the weekend to flock to the Temple Mount, claiming that "radical Jewish organizations have called on their followers to arrive at the mount today and on Tuesday in an attempt to lay the cornerstone for the temple." So will the Islamic leaders look foolish to their people for their repeatedly false prophecies? Will Palestinian Arabs start being a bit more skeptical when these leaders make their wild claims against the Jews? Judging from history, the answer is clearly no. There will be new incitement and lies in the days and weeks and months ahead, and it will often succeed in getting young Palestinian men to riot on a moment's notice. And these lies will not have any consequences.

Test EoZ mobile site

I just found an alpha test of a service called Flurp that is meant to automatically make blogs mobile-friendly. At the moment, if you browse to my blog on a smartphone or PDA, it should redirect to a different, much faster mobile version of the page. The latest post shows up but you can get a menu of posts by touching the header. The bad news is that there are no comments, no sidebars, nothing but the posts. Let me know if this helps any. Another alternative is to use Google Reader to read the blog. Just surf to this URL and (assuming you have a Google account) you will see another mobile-friendly version of the site, with the same limitations. If people hate the redirect, I'll get rid of it. UPDATE: I just realized that the mobile users testing out the site cannot comment on it! This is a problem.

"Violence erupts" - all by itself!

When the media uses the passive voice concerning violence in Israel, you can be sure that the violence wasn't started by the Israelis: Clashes erupt in East Jerusalem Violent clashes erupt in East Jerusalem as synagogue reopens Clashes erupt in Jerusalem; US envoy cancels trip Clashes in Jerusalem Mark Rising Tensions US envoy halts trip as violence erupts over Jerusalem flats Palestinian Arabs don't riot. They are just passive bystanders as "violence erupts." And rocks just happen to crash through car windows, all by themselves. But sometimes, the media's hatred of Israel overpowers even the false desire for blamelessness: Israeli forces clash with Palestinians

Two Malaysian pre-teens married to middle-aged men

From Al Arabiya: Two Malaysian girls aged 10 and 11 who were wed to middle-aged men have been separated from their husbands as their cases are investigated, religious officials said Monday. The girls were married off last month by their fathers, who said they were following religious edicts, said deputy head of northern Kelantan state's religious department Mohamad Abdul Aziz Mohammad Noor. He said Samsudin Ajaib, who is also being investigated on suspicion of leading a religious cult, married 11-year-old Siti Nur Zubaidah and also gave away his 10-year-old daughter to a family friend. "Both girls have now been separated from their husbands," Mohamad Abdul Aziz told AFP. He said that a religious Sharia court had separated Samsudin's daughter from her husband while Siti's father had applied to the court to annul her marriage. Islamic law (Sharia) runs in parallel with civil law in predominantly Muslim Malaysia and Kelantan state allows under-age marriages if religious officials give permission. Siti's mother told the Star daily that shortly after the marriage, her daughter was found outside a mosque in the nation's capital and was now being treated in hospital. She would not comment on whether the marriage was consummated, but said her daughter was in a state of shock and traumatised by the events. Women, family and community development minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil urged action against Samsudin and the religious sect, saying it promised "heavenly rewards" for child marriages, the New Straits Times reported.

Comment headache open thread

People have been having problems with the comment system and I don't know how to fix it without causing other problems. One thing I am trying to do is find a decent RSS reader that would show the author and comment, and hopefully the post being commented on, to replace the comment widget on the left. Echo comments has an RSS feed but so far I haven't found a decent replacement widget. If anyone wants to try to find one, the RSS feed for comments is http://js-kit.com/rss/elderofziyon.blogspot.com . One thing I did do is increase the page length for the comments so that more fit on a page.

So today is the day!

Today is the day that Palestinian Arabs have been convinced the Jews will start construction of the Third Temple. This "news" has been all over the Palestinian Arab media for months, ever since Ha'aretz publicized an unsourced claim that the 18th century sage the Vilna Gaon had predicted the building of the Third Temple today, Rosh Chodesh Nisan. Some PalArabic media have even been publishing a photo of the cornerstone that Israel supposedly is planning to place today. Palestine Today mistranslates the banner as saying that the cornerstone will be dedicated "on Tuesday," a seeming mistranslation of "third" which in Hebrew is translated as "the third day." However, this photo is from last year, and while the Temple Mount Faithful website definitely wants the Third Temple to be rebuilt, it doesn't indicate anything special about today. The person most responsible for this lie is Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, who incites Palestinian Arabs to riot literally every day. Tamimi, along with other sheikhs, are always warning about threats that simply do not exist, almost always centered around the Temple Mount. Most of their warnings get a little play in the press but a some of them take hold of the imagination of easily excitable Palestinian Arabs and they get the riots that they so passionately want. Interestingly, while many Palestinian Arabs are credulous enough to believe Tamimi's and his cohorts' lies, the Arab media as a whole know by now that it is simply an exercise in incitement. Palestine Today complains bitterly today that Arab satellite TV stations have not been giving any coverage to Jerusalem lately. They whine that the Palestinian Arabs have been warning about the danger to Al Aqsa mosque for a week and a half now, but the Arab TV stations do not have any shows about Jerusalem and instead air infomercials about miracle cleaning products. (They interviewed one anonymous employee who claimed that it was deliberate censorship as they have specific instructions not to escalate tensions with Israel and that it is a business decision. )

WaPo slams Obama's Middle East missteps

When even the mainstream media starts calling the Obama administration on its mishandling of the Israeli Arab conflict, you know he is doing something wrong: The dispute's dramatic escalation since then seems to have come at the direct impetus of Mr. Obama. Officials said he outlined points for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to make in a searing, 45-minute phone call to Mr. Netanyahu on Friday. On Sunday senior Obama adviser David Axelrod heaped on more vitriol, saying in a television appearance that the settlement announcement had been an "affront" and an "insult" that had "undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region." But Mr. Obama risks repeating his previous error. American chastising of Israel invariably prompts still harsher rhetoric, and elevated demands, from Palestinian and other Arab leaders. Rather than join peace talks, Palestinians will now wait to see what unilateral Israeli steps Washington forces. Mr. Netanyahu already has made a couple of concessions in the past year, including declaring a partial moratorium on settlements. But on the question of Jerusalem, he is likely to dig in his heels -- as would any other Israeli government. If the White House insists on a reversal of the settlement decision, or allows Palestinians to do so, it might land in the same corner from which it just extricated itself. A larger question concerns Mr. Obama's quickness to bludgeon the Israeli government. He is not the first president to do so; in fact, he is not even the first to be hard on Mr. Netanyahu. But tough tactics don't always work: Last year Israelis rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu, while Mr. Obama's poll ratings in Israel plunged to the single digits. The president is perceived by many Israelis as making unprecedented demands on their government while overlooking the intransigence of Palestinian and Arab leaders. If this episode reinforces that image, Mr. Obama will accomplish the opposite of what he intends. Richard Cohen is no fan of settlements and doesn't have as much of a problem with the Obama team's language, but he can't avoid noticing the double standard (which for some reason he decides to ascribe more to Europe than the White House:) To my knowledge, there is no square in Israel named for the mass murderers of civilians. Palestinian society, in contrast, honors all sorts of terrorists. This is not a minor point. The veneration of terrorists says something unsettling about Palestinian society. ...An Israeli can recognize the legitimacy of Palestinian aspiration and appreciate the depth of the calamity that befell the Palestinians in 1948. The Palestinian intellectual Constantine Zurayk coined the term "al-Nakba" (the disaster) for their 1948 debacle -- and there is no doubt it was. But for Palestinians, that disaster has only been compounded by an Arab intransigence and belligerence that has played into Israel's territorial ambitions, particularly the annexation of East Jerusalem. The reliance on terrorism has had cinematic charms and given the Palestinians a certain cachet among the West's kaffiyeh set, but it has caused Israelis to dig in their heels. The adulation of Dalal Mughrabi and other terrorists is bound to give your average Israeli parent a certain pause: Is this the state we want next to us? Didn't pulling out of Gaza produce a steady drizzle of rockets and, in due course, another war? Editorialists around the world were quite right to bash the government of Binyamin Netanyahu for its in-your-face rebuke to Biden -- even though, as the analyst Stephen P. Cohen explains, the decision by right-wing ministers was meant also as a rebuke to Netanyahu himself. Still, it would have been nice for those same editorialists to have paused in their anti-Israel jihad to wonder a bit about the virtually simultaneous Palestinian veneration of terrorists. In fact, the determination in the West, particularly Europe, not to hold Palestinians morally accountable for terrorism -- as well as their commonplace anti-Semitism -- is a repugnant form of neocolonial mentality in which, once again, the Palestinians are being patronized. I dare say the Brits would have reacted differently if a square in Belfast had been named for some IRA terrorist. Leading Republicans poured it on: The second-ranking House Republican blasted the Obama administration as “irresponsible” in its dealings with Israel, accusing the White House of trying to curry favor with the Arab world by deriding America’s closest ally in the Middle East. “While it condemns Israel, the administration continues to ignore a host of Palestinian provocations that undermine prospects for peace in the region,” Cantor said in a statement. “Where is the outrage when top Fatah officials call for riots on the Temple Mount? Why does the Palestinian Authority get a pass when it holds a ceremony glorifying the woman responsible for one of the deadliest terror attack in Israel’s history? Surely, the Administration’s double standard has set back the peace process.” (h/t Soccer Dad, who reads the MSM so I don't have to :) )

Another attack on police in Gaza

The bombing attacks targeting Gaza police that have escalated in recent months continue. The latest was a massive explosion outside the police station in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza. There were no reported injuries.

A little Jew-hatred from Hamas

YNet reports: Amid growing tensions in east Jerusalem, senior Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Zahar leveled scathing criticism, replete with anti-Semitic rhetoric, over the rededication of the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City's Jewish Quarter. "You who are opening Hurva are heading towards ruin. Wherever you have been you've been sent to your destruction [a pun on the name Hurva - EoZ]. You've killed and murdered your prophets and you have always dealt in loan-sharking and destruction," he said Monday, during a conference of Palestinian groups in Gaza. "You're destined to be destroyed. You've made a deal with the devil and with destruction itself – just like your synagogue," al-Zahar said. Al-Zahar urged the Arab world to respond to "Israel's crimes and protect the sites that are holy to Muslims and Christians from the Zionists' racist onslaught". The Arabic Hamas article about Zahar's talk also includes his accusation that Jews have ruined every country in which they have lived. (Reluctant, unofficial co-blogger) Zvi comments: Al-Zahar is not talking about settlers. He is not talking about Israelis. He is talking about Jews - all of us, everywhere. He repeats with relish the standard blood libels, the standard claims that Jews are simply and irretrievably evil and must therefore be destroyed. This is a clear and straightforward admission of Hamas's real program. The fact that Hamas is currently not strong enough to carry out that program is beside the point. Only a suicidal Israeli government would allow such a crazed enemy to become strong enough. And only people for whom the murder of Jews is unimportant - or even greatly desirable - can possibly support the strengthening of that crazed enemy. And don't forget that the front page of Islamic Jihad's Saraya.ps online paper still has a link to an article about how Jews are historically evil. The mask that Palestinian Arabs try to put on claiming that they are not anti-semitic, but only anti-Zionist, has fallen yet again.

Report: Iran tried to buy nuke from Pakistan in 1988

From Ha'aretz: Iran attempted to buy a nuclear bomb from Pakistan as early as 1987, a leading Middle East analyst has told Haaretz. Documents obtained by Simon Henderson, a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former journalist, offer crucial evidence that Iran's nuclear program is not wholly for civilian purposes as it claims - but aimed at developing an atomic bomb. Henderson told Haaretz he has acquired material written by the scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan - popularly known as the father of Pakistan's bomb program - while under house arrest between 2005 and 2009. Khan was arrested by Pakistani authorities after it emerged he had for years been operating an 'atomic supermarket', touring the Middle East to peddle nuclear know-how to the highest bidder. During his detention, Khan provided Pakistani security services with a wealth of detail on his sale of nuclear secrets to Iran and Libya in the late 1980s and 1990s, much of which is now in the hands of British and American intelligence. But according to Henderson, Pakistan omitted to pass to its Western allies a sensitive report detailing visits to Pakistan in the late 80s by two Iranian officials, who Khan said offered $10 billion in exchange ready-made atomic bombs. The report, obtained by Henderson, reveals that in 1987 or 1988 Admiral Ali Shamkhani, a former senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard and minister of defense from 1997 until 2005, arrived in Pakistan with an entourage of officials. Shamkhani offered to buy the nuclear devices on the spot and came prepared to take them home with him, Khan said. The newly revealed material appears to confirm speculation that Khan, who despite his arrest remains a popular hero in his home country, did not act alone in selling Pakistani nuclear expertise to Iran and Libya, as Pakistan has claimed. Shamkhani's meetings suggest that Pakistani intelligence was aware of Khan's activities, as may have been the prime minister at the time, Benazir Bhutto. Pakistan apparently refused Iran's offer - but Khan later traveled to the Middle East, where he auctioned his services as a private adviser. It was Khan who first provided Iran with designs for the centrifuges with which it continues to enrich uranium at its plant in Natanz. ...American intelligence was able to trace an elaborate smuggling operation in which the Pakistani had transferred bomb technology using front companies in Dubai. In the Gulf emirate, Khan opened bank accounts under a variety of false names, including 'Khaidar Zaman', through which Iran paid him $5 million for his assistance. But I thought Iran had a strictly peaceful nuclear program!

"Unacceptable trousers"

From the Saudi Gazette: MADINA – A man here has accused the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) of assaulting him and holding him illegally inside a restaurant on Sultana Street on Saturday because they found his trousers unacceptable. Muhammad Sultan said he had pulled over at the restaurant to buy breakfast for his wife and her mother, who were in the car, when a Hai’a member approached him and asked for identification “claiming that I was suspicious”, Sultan said. Sultan said that he refused to give the Hai’a staff his identification card until a police officer was present “for matters to be clear”. “When I started dialing the police, the Hai’a member and his colleague confined me in the restaurant and assaulted me in front of my family and the other customers.” Half an hour after that, Sultan said, one of the Hai’a staff called the police. Five officers arrived. “I gave an officer my identification and he asked the Hai’a member why I was held and the man replied that I was wearing trousers that are unacceptable. Everyone in the restaurant thought the trousers were normal and socially acceptable,” Sultan said. Sultan added that the police took him to the station at the insistence of the two Hai’a members. He said he was held at the station for four hours. The Hai’a interrogated his wife and mother-in-law to confirm “they were related to me”. Thank Allah that the man's trousers were not seen by more people!

EgyptAir wipes Israel off the map

From The Z-Word: Visit the online route map of EgyptAir, the airline owned by the same state which signed an historic peace agreement with Israel in 1979, and you will see, once you click on the “Middle East & Gulf” section, that Israel has, well, disappeared. The area between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan has been divided down the middle - shades of a “Greater Syria” fantasy here, now that I think about it - and Amman appears to have moved several hundred miles to the west. No Tel Aviv, no Eilat, no Haifa. It’s like they never existed. Perhaps that’s the point. Meanwhile, I wonder what impact this alternative vision of the Middle East will have on relations between Egypt and the country that provides it with around $2bn annually in assistance. Here's the map: If they hadn't bothered to try to put in national borders, the obvious distortion could be chalked up to trying to make it more readable. But being that this is Egypt, the airline is probably more worried about riots that would break out if they would mention Israel, as nutjob anti-Zionists would accuse the airline of the worst insult that anyone can hurl in Egypt - that of supporting "normalization with the Zionist enemy."

Algeria reveals the extent of its participation in 1967, 73 wars

Al Quds has an article about a new book written by former Algerian defense minister Major General Khalid Nizar where he details Algeria's participation in aiding the Egyptian army from 1967 to 1971, and from 1973 to 1975. While it was known that Algeria did contribute some troops, planes and tanks, Nizar believes that this is the first time the extent of Algeria's participation. He was prompted to write the book after a friend visited the Cairo Museum and did not see a word about Algeria in the exhibits about the wars. According to Nizar, Algeria sent some 20,000 soldiers to each war and during the War of Attrition. They also sent hundreds of tanks, artillery and combat vehicles and nearly a hundred aircraft to help the Arab war effort. Although they were mostly in secondary, defensive support roles, about 100 Algerian soldiers died in battle.

Goldberg slams Sullivan on PalArab propaganda map

Andrew Sullivan, in his Atlantic blog, reproduces a map used by rabidly anti-Jewish Palestinian Arabs (courtesy of Juan Cole!) to prove Israel's hunger for Arab land: Jeffrey Goldberg answers him nicely: Andrew Sullivan should be thankful that The Atlantic's fact-checking department has no purview over the magazine's website. The magazine's fact-checkers vet each word that appears in the print magazine for accuracy and context, but because they have no authority over blogs (or anything else produced for the web), Andrew is free to publish malicious nonsense, such as the series of maps he published yesterday, maps which purport to show how Jews stole Palestinian land. Andrew does not tell us the source of these maps (in a magazine with standards, the source would be identified), but they were drawn to cast Jews in the most terrible light possible. The first map in the series of four is most egregious. It suggests that, in 1946, nearly all of the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean was "Palestinian." Land designated as "Jewish" in this map constitutes maybe five percent of the total. This map is ridiculous, not only because the term "Palestinian" in 1946 referred, generally speaking, to the Jews who lived in Palestine, not the Arabs, but because there was no Palestine in 1946 (nor was there an Israel.) There was only the British Mandate. Jews lived throughout the territory then occupied by the British, including, by the way, on land that today constitutes the West Bank (though in 1946 Jews did not live in Hebron; they were expelled in 1929, after an Arab massacre of Jewish religious scholars). The intent of this propaganda map is to suggest that an Arab country called "Palestine" existed in 1946 and was driven from existence by Jewish imperialists. Not only was there no such country as "Palestine" in 1946, there has never been a country called Palestine. Before the British conquered Jerusalem, Palestine was a sub-province of the Ottoman Empire. (And after the British left, of course, Jordan and Egypt moved in to occupy Gaza and the West Bank.) Goldberg could have pointed out that even if the map was relabeled "Jewish" and "Arab" land, it would still be a lie. The white parts show only the privately owned Jewish land, but the green part does not represent privately owned Arab land - it simply shows everything else. In fact, over 75% of the land in 1946 was publicly owned, and all of that land within the Green Line became Israeli after the War of Independence. The next map in the series is a rendering of the U.N. Partition Plan, which would have divided the British mandate into two equal parts, one part for Arabs and one part for Jews. But Andrew neglects to mention that the Jews accepted this partition of Palestine, and that the Arabs rejected it. When Israel declared independence, the Arabs sought to physically eliminate the U.N.-supported Jewish state, but, to their chagrin, they failed. All that happens today flows from the original Arab decision to reject totally the idea that Jews are deserving of a state in part of their historic homeland. And, although Goldberg mentions it in passing, the green sections of the third map do not show "Palestinian" land at all either, as there was no Palestine and the West Bank was annexed by Jordan - with full approval of the leaders of Palestinian Arabs - and Gaza was controlled by Egypt. I'm pretty sure the fourth map is equally false, but I cannot claim to know the geographic details of the areas controlled by the PA.

The importance of the ITIC report (guest post)

Zvi made a comment in response to the charge that the ITIC report on Goldstone I mentioned does not directly address the charges of war crimes against Israel, rather it concentrates on Hamas war crimes. It is worth publishing here, somewhat modified to make it less "comment"-like: When Hamas turns otherwise civilian structures into military operations centers, they become legitimate military targets. Bombing such targets is specifically NOT A WAR CRIME, even if a lot of legally ignorant and/or dishonest UNHRC, NGO, media, bloggers and other opinion shapers blather on endlessly about it being one. When Hamas terrorists pose as civilians, they endanger civilians. When they use civilian clothing, the soldiers fighting them fire back to protect their own lives; and if it is difficult to distinguish non-uniformed snipers shooting out of windows from non-uniformed civilians moving within the same part of a building, then even if 98% of the time the soldier avoids shooting, he may kill a noncombatant 2% of the time, EVEN THOUGH HE DOES NOT INTEND TO HURT NONCOMBATANTS. If he does not intend to hurt noncombatants, and has made an effort to distinguish them from gunmen, then the death of the civilian is an accident, and the soldier HAS NOT COMMITTED A WAR CRIME. Hamas, like Hezbollah, makes a consistent strategy out of firing rockets from civilian locales; using medical centers and mosques and schools as firing platforms; and fighting while wearing civilian clothing. The effect of this is to make it very difficult for Israelis, returning fire against the Hamas firing positions, to avoid hurting civilians by mistake. When Hamas rocket- and gunmen fire from areas near civilians or uses a metal shop as an armory, it makes it difficult for a drone pilot to distinguish civilians at that location from gunmen, when civilians appear to be participating in military operations. And we have only the word of Hamas that the other people were, in fact, civilians. It is NOT A WAR CRIME to kill a civilian BY ACCIDENT during a battle, no matter how much you dance around the truth, nor is it a war crime if Israel bombs a house that contains explosives, and the resulting secondary explosions engulf nearby houses; and when your enemy deliberately puts his rockets in a clinic or a mosque, it is NOT A WAR CRIME to bomb the clinic or the mosque. The reason why these things matter in the context of the report is NOT because "one bad turn deserves another." That's the kind of arrant nonsense that HAMAS trots out when faced with evidence of wrongdoing. Israel does not make that argument. Rather, it makes the argument that it is trying to avoid civilian casualties, but Hamas is deliberately placing its forces so as to create civilian casualties. There is ample video evidence, and evidence from Palestinian groups themselves, to back up this claim. One of the many problems with the Goldstone Travesty is that Goldstone's commission repeatedly and explicitly refused to deal with the question of whether Israeli soldiers' decisions were reasonable given the knowledge available to them at the time and given the standard tactics of the gunmen against whom they were fighting. The accuser bears the burden of proof; but Goldstone's commission explicitly rejected this basic principle and instead simply asserted that the Israelis were "guilty" of war crimes. The Goldstone commission simply assumed that all attacks in which civilians died represented malicious attempts by Israelis to massacre Palestinians and that the Israelis were guilty. They then waved their hands and used a rhetorical gimmick (that they had "no evidence", which given the fact that they persistently avoided receiving and investigating the evidence that was provided to them, is both sort of true and utterly meaningless) to avoid looking for the truth. In addition, because Goldstone repeatedly and persistently avoided any serious investigation of Hamas/PIJ/PRC/AAMB war crimes, there has been no comprehensive report that documents such war crimes. Advocates of understanding the truth should welcome this new report. As for the IDF's investigations, YES, the IDF is investigating incidents. Unlike Goldstone, it does this deliberately and with attention to facts and with investigation of sources. A second indictment has recently been issued against several soldiers, and a number of other "criminal investigations" - their words, not mine - are ongoing.