יום שני, 2 במאי 2011

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest

ABC News: Osama Bin Laden killed

Posted: 01 May 2011 08:07 PM PDT

No real details yet, but...

Osama bin Laden, hunted as the mastermind behind the worst-ever terrorist attack on U.S. soil, has been killed, sources told ABC News.

His death brings to an end a tumultuous life that saw bin Laden go from being the carefree son of a Saudi billionaire, to terrorist leader and the most wanted man in the world.

Bin Laden created and funded the al Qaeda terror network, which was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The Saudi exile had been a man on the run since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan overthrew the ruling Taliban regime, which harbored bin Laden.

In a video filmed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden gloated about the attack, saying it had exceeded even his "optimistic" calculations.

"Our terrorism is against America. Our terrorism is a blessed terrorism to prevent the unjust person from committing injustice and to stop American support for Israel, which kills our sons," he said in the video.
President Obama is supposed to announce it any minute...

Reuters:
Al Qaeda's elusive leader Osama bin Laden is dead and his body has been recovered by U.S. authorities, CNN reported on Sunday night.

Different rumors as to whether he was killed in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

ABC is verifying it was a ground attack.

Obama says OBL was "deep in Pakistan."

Yom HaShoah

Posted: 01 May 2011 05:34 PM PDT

Roger Cohen just can't help blaming Israel

Posted: 01 May 2011 08:32 AM PDT

Another classic case of Cohen craziness:
So Qaddafi always thought this could happen, even 42 years into his rule. He feared someone might slice away the myths — Arab nationalist, African unifier, all-powerful non-president — and leave him, disrobed, a little man in a vast vault with nowhere left to go. In the twisted mind of the despot now derided here as "the man with the big hair," his own demise was the tousle-coiffed specter that would not go away.

Strange, then, that the United States and Europe never thought this could happen — not to Qaddafi, or Mubarak, or Ben Ali, or any of the other murderous plunderers, some now gone, others slaughtering their own people, here in Libya, or in Syria, or Yemen. Policy was based on the mistaken belief that these leaders would last forever.

They were paranoid about their fates. We were convinced of their permanence.

Of course it was not just a conviction about their inevitability that drove U.S. policy toward these dictators. It was a cynical decision to place counterterrorism and security at the top of the agenda and human rights — in this case Arab rights — at the bottom. It was about Big Oil interests. And, to some degree, it was about the perception of what served the security of America's closest regional ally, Israel.
I just looked through decades of Roger Cohen's columns, and he seems to have missed that Qaddafi might be in danger one day as well. How could he have missed it? Strange, then, that he never thought this could happen!

Equally strange is that he is not predicting that the same thing could happen to Mahmoud Abbas, or the Saudi royals, or Turkey's leadership, or Iran's. No, Cohen can blame the US for bowing to Zionist perceptions in their blindness, but his brilliance - where he can confidently predict what the US and Europe are too stupid and shortsighted to see - is still being obscured.

Come on, Roger - tell us who's next!

And why didn't you sound the alarm in, say, 2008? Wasn't it all so obvious to pundits who don't have the Zionist and counter-terrorist smoke in their eyes?

Key question: will the PA take over the Rafah crossing?

Posted: 01 May 2011 07:34 AM PDT

The agreement signed by Hamas and Fatah to so much fanfare has very little in terms of details.

Here is everything it says about security forces:

[The two parties] emphasized the formation of the Higher Security Committee, which will report to the Palestinian President and be composed of professional officers to be determined by consensus.

Does this mean that the Hamas security forces will be subsumed by a joint security force? It doesn't look like it. It looks more like the days of Arafat where there were as many as seven competing security forces, each one playing against the other.

If there is to be a joint security force, then the PA will have to become involved in the Rafah crossing again. According to a 2005 agreement between the PA, EU and Israel, the EU would act as a third party to monitor all people and items that cross at Rafah.

Now that Egypt has indicated that it will open Rafah permanently, this means that it is more important than ever to have a third party presence there.

EUBAM issued a mild statement seemingly in the wake of Hamas/Fatah unity news:

On 26 April 2010, the Council reaffirmed the political importance of EUBAM Rafah and its continued support for the mission. It welcomed in particular the maintenance of the mission's operational capability as well as its reactivation plan, which would ensure a rapid resumption of its full activities in case of re-opening of the Rafah Crossing Point.

Rafah is the key test as to whether the Fatah/Hamas deal is anything more than a scam meant to fool the world ahead of the UN initiative for statehood in September. If they are serious, then the PA must adhere to its commitment with the EU to monitor Rafah in cooperation with Israel.

So far, the indications are quite the opposite. From the Guardian on Friday:
The Islamist organisation [Hamas] also said it would keep control of the Gaza Strip under the accord, which is expected to be formally signed by leaders of the two factions in Cairo next week.

If Hamas maintains its own separate security control of Gaza, this is just more proof that the "unity" agreement is a sham.

Salam Fayyad or Palestinian Arab "unity:" Pick one.

Posted: 01 May 2011 05:13 AM PDT

One of the many reasons that the pending Hamas/Fatah agreement is not going to be viewed positively by Western nations is that it will almost certainly get rid of the West's darling prime minister, Salam Fayyad.

Fayyad was never elected to his post and he is not a member of either Hamas or Fatah. However, it is because of Fayyad that West has been enamored with the idea that Palestinian Arab statehood is possible over the past couple of years.

Fayyad has no terrorist history. He has a Western education and outlook. He has largely corrected the more egregious abuses and corruption that was endemic under Arafat.

And (for those very reasons!) he is hugely unpopular in both Hamas and Fatah circles.

The remarkably small and vague agreement signed by Hamas and Fatah includes this section:

Fatah and Hamas Agree to form a Palestinian government and appoint a [caretaker] prime minister and [government] ministers before the elections.

Which means that Hamas has veto power over Fayyad.

And Hamas is insisting that they do not want him as PM:
Hamas has insisted on the departure of Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister favoured by Israel and the west, under a deal agreed with its rival faction Fatah for a unity government, according to sources in Gaza.

The existing Fatah dominated PA is trying to deny the story, but since the two groups have not yet started to negotiate anything concrete it is pretty clear that absent huge external pressure, Fayyad will be gone. (And if they keep him it would only be until the minute they don't need him anymore, likely in September.)

Western nations that have been encouraged by Fayyad's actions need to understand that he will not be part of any "Palestine" and that the theoretical state would be dominated by corruption and terror.

Would the World Bank have written their fawning report on Palestinian Arab statehood had Fayyad not been running the PA's internal affairs?

Morning links

Posted: 01 May 2011 03:12 AM PDT

JPost: Israel suspends tax money to PA in wake of unity deal

TheJC: Palestinian Arab unions against trade boycott with Israel

JPost: Dutch government places IHH on terror list

TNR: Meet the anti-Israel demagogue who will likely be Egypt's next president

JPost: German left party equates Israel with Third Reich

I*Consult: A relevant 1991 editorial cartoon

(h/t Israel Matzav, My Right Word)
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