Elder of Ziyon Daily Digest |
- Jerusalem moves up in the Islamic Holy Place rankings, now #2
- Q&A on the September UN stunt (Avi Bell)
- US Marines training at IDF Urban Warfare Training Center
- Ibish, redux
- Dubai police clown says Israel behind Egyptian revolution
- Are Israeli textbooks racist?
- Egypt raids Sinai Islamists, 1 dead. Islamic Jihad member arrested
- Roundup of world reaction to Syrian state crimes (Zvi)
- Where's the Palestinian Arab Spring?
- What's missing from this CNN story?
| Jerusalem moves up in the Islamic Holy Place rankings, now #2 Posted: 16 Aug 2011 07:03 PM PDT Iran's IRNA quotes a Pakistani MK and religious leader, talking about the importance of Jerusalem as Iran's Al Quds Day is coming up in a couple of weeks. Maulana Mohammad Saleh Shah Qurashi said that "liberating Al Quds" is a pan-Islamic responsibility, which probably means that all Muslims should invade Israel as soon as they possibly can. He also said that Al-Aqsa is the second most holy place for the Muslims around the world. This news stunned fans of Medina, which had held onto the #2 position for centuries. This sudden move by Jerusalem up the rankings is sure to cause Muslim holy sport fans to complain to radio shows and resurrect the call for a playoff system where the holiest spot can be determined once and for all, for Shi'a and Sunni alike. Supporters of the Mecca Masjids are getting nervous as this s the first challenge to their position in a very long time. The Al Quds Crusaders are taunting them with chants of "First Qiblah! First Qiblah!" 
         |
| Q&A on the September UN stunt (Avi Bell) Posted: 16 Aug 2011 01:42 PM PDT JTA has a backgrounder that they call "A Primer for Palestinian Statehood." Distinguished international law scholar Avi (Abraham) Bell says that JTA's version is misleading and/or wrong, so he answered the same questions, correctly. I received this via email. What do the Palestinians want the United Nations to recognize? The Palestinians want to become a "member state" of the United Nations. This requires winning votes in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Since the Palestinians can't win in the Security Council if the US vetoes, they are apparently going to aim for one or both of two secondary options: either a non-binding resolution in the General Assembly "recognizing" a state of Palestine and its territorial sovereignty over Gaza and the West Bank and east Jerusalem or, alternatively, an upgrade of the observer status of the "Palestine" delegation from being the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the representative of the "non-member state of Palestine." Each of these secondary options requires votes only in the General Assembly, which the Palestinians can win handily. What's the legal process for becoming a state? Under customary international law, there is no fixed procedure for becoming a state. International law recognizes a state when it has the required ingredients of territory, a permanent population, a government with effective control and the capacity to carry on international relations. UN recognition is not part of a legal process for becoming a state. Although the Palestinians appear not to have the requisite ingredients, more than one hundred states in the world already recognize the "state of Palestine." The UN has a legal procedure for becoming a member, assuming one is a state. Membership requires a recommendation by the Security Council (which is subject to veto by the permanent members), and then a two-thirds vote by the General Assembly Is there a way for the Palestinians to overcome a U.S. veto? There is no way to get around a US veto in the Security Council. The Palestinians' two options for UN votes that don't require Security Council approval — a non-binding "recognition" and upgrade of observer status — are immune from a US veto, but mainly symbolic in effect. Incidentally, the Palestinians have already won "recognition" of the state of Palestine in the General Assembly in the past. Is there any benefit short of full statehood recognition that the Palestinians can obtain at the United Nations? Yes, but none connected with the "statehood" initiative. The Palestinians already have all the non-member rights that are possible, and will not gain any additional rights in the UN even if the observer status is now attached to a "non-member state" rather than an organization. The Palestinians already enjoy generous financial and political support from the United Nations, including dozens of non-binding anti-Israel resolutions every year, and the services of organs of the UN such as the UN Division of Palestine Rights that put out anti-Israel propaganda. The UN already reflexively adopts Palestinian political positions, and it treats the Palestinians as having sovereign territorial rights to the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians can use their automatic super-majority in the General Assembly to add new anti-Israel resolutions to the annual list, such as ones calling for legal, economic and other sanctions against the Jewish state. Irrespective of the procedure used for proposing and adopting the resolutions, the resolutions would be non-binding. Additionally, the Palestinians can use their effective control over UN bodies to create new anti-Israel "fact-finding" and other investigative missions, like the Goldstone Mission. And the Palestinians can use their majority in the General Assembly to request new anti-Israel advisory decisions from the International Court of Justice. The Palestinian aim appears to be a symbolic victory that can be used in its ongoing diplomatic, legal and political warfare against Israel. Why are the Palestinians seeking statehood recognition from the United Nations rather than negotiating directly with Israel? The Palestinians have explained that they do not see the UN move and negotiations as either-or propositions. The Palestinians pulled out of negotiations with Israel after Abbas received Prime Minister Olmert's peace offer in 2008, in anticipation of elections in Israel and the United States. In light of Abbas's rejection of Olmert's offer, Palestinian President Abbas explained to a Washington Post interviewer shortly after President Obama's inauguration in May 2009 that the Palestinians have little to gain from direct negotiations with Israel considering that Obama is likely to pressure Israel for unilateral concessions, and life is otherwise fairly good for the Palestinians. Other than a brief surrender to American pressure in September 2010, when Abbas agreed to negotiations for a few weeks on the eve of the expiration of Israel's unilateral 10-month settlement freeze, Abbas has been true to his word; as he promised the Washington Post, he has refused even to "begin negotiations" or help "confidence-building measures" unless Israel meets several new preconditions. The UN-Palestinian statehood initiative was born during those few weeks in which Abbas agreed to negotiate. In September, 2010, President Obama announced in the General Assembly that "when we come back here next year [in September, 2011], we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations – an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel." The Palestinians subsequently adopted the idea of seeking membership in the UN as a state by September, 2011. President Abbas explained in an op-ed in the New York Times that the goal of the UN statehood initiative is "the internationalization of the [Palestinian] conflict [with Israel] as a legal matter, not only a political one." What tools does Israel have to respond to the Palestinian bid? The Palestinians have long enjoyed an automatic majority in the General Assembly, so Israel has no way to block any anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian initiative in that body. By contrast, US vetoes of anti-Israel resolutions in the Security Council are not guaranteed, so Israel has to continue lobbying the Obama Administration for the requested vetoes. In addition, Israel is lobbying other states in order to reduce the symbolic victory for the Palestinians in the General Assembly by increasing the minority of votes in favor of Israel's position. Israel and allies of Israel have also considered steps outside the General Assembly for responding to the Palestinian initiative. Israel has considered sanctioning the Palestinian Authority in some manner, though the Israeli government has not pointed yet to any specific steps. The U.S. Congress has threatened to ban financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority if it pursues recognition of statehood at the United Nations in violation of its commitment to resolve outstanding disputes with Israel in direct negotiations. What's the plan for the day after the U.N. vote? If Israel or the Palestinians have a concrete plan, they have not revealed it. Among steps that the Palestinians have publicly considered are diplomatic and political steps to encourage European states to impose economic and political sanctions on Israel, legal measures against Israelis in courtrooms in Europe, and large-scale civil unrest. Israelis have worried that the civil unrest might quickly devolve into violence and terrorism, like previous Palestinian campaigns. However, recent reports suggest that the Palestinian Fatah leadership itself fears civil unrest lest it turn into a popular uprising against the corruption of the ruling Fatah authorities. Israel is reported to have prepared for potential Palestinian violence, and the potential for sympathetic disturbances along the Syrian and Lebanese borders. There is little indication that Israel is prepared for the internationalized legal and political warfare promised by Abbas. 
    |
| US Marines training at IDF Urban Warfare Training Center Posted: 16 Aug 2011 12:25 PM PDT From the IDF:
    |
| Posted: 16 Aug 2011 10:55 AM PDT Hussein Ibish followed up on calling me a "fool" and "moronic" after my response to his earlier article with a full article in Now Lebanon explaining how Israeli nationalism is just the same as Palestinian Arab nationalism, and Judaism has nothing to do with it. He writes: In the decades immediately preceding 1948, the word "Israeli" was totally unknown and meant nothing, and the word "Palestinian" meant many things, but certainly not what it means today. Both of these national identities—the Jewish Israeli and the Arab Palestinian—are contemporary constructs born of recent history. They are largely grounded in their encounter with each other. They also embody deep cultural memories, traditions, myths, legends and tendentious narratives that at least to some extent retrofit the past to privilege their own national projects. If one defines Israeli nationalism and culture in terms of kibbutzim, falafel and Hava Nagila, then Ibish might have a point - Israeli nationalism would be almost as shallow and recent as Palestinian Arab nationalism is. But the modern constructs of Israeli nationalism are built on the foundation of the Jewish nation, and are meaningless without that. To give one small example, the word "Israeli" may be a recent Western construct in English, but in Hebrew the same word - יִּשְׂרְאֵלִי - can be found in, well, the Bible (Lev. 24:10). I also noted last week that the idea of Zionism - that is, of returning to the Land of Israel and rebuilding it - is pretty much continuous throughout Jewish history, even if the name is relatively new. Moderan nationalism is a relatively new construct altogether, so it is easy to throw all modern nations in that bucket, but by any sane definition the Jewish people have identified as a nation - by themselves and by others - for millennia. Again, don't take my word for it. Listen to the words of Haman in Esther 3:8: There is a certain people (Hebrew: Am, עַם nation) scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from those of every people. Ibish goes on: But all of this is entirely beside the point. Neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli national identity is more or less "authentic" or "legitimate" than the other because both are self-defined nationalisms adhered to by millions of people. The extent to which they are based on imaginary constructs—as all modern national ideologies ultimately prove largely to be—is meaningless in practice. Objecting to these mythologies is the political equivalent of complaining about the rain. Here, without realizing it, Ibish touches upon the reason that Palestinian Arab nationalism is different from other nationalisms. Palestinian Arab nationalism is the only one whose very definition is based upon the negation of another people. What do self-defined Palestinian Arabs have in common? If Ibish is honest, the only thing that holds them together is their antipathy to Jewish nationalism. It isn't a common culture or language or history. Arabs who lived in Palestine for two years prior to 1948 are just as "Palestinian" as those who lived there for hundreds of years, thanks to UNRWA having created the main operational definition of "Palestinian." If there was never any Jewish nationalism, there would never have been Palestinian Arab nationalism. If Israel had been destroyed in 1948, there would be no one today who identifies as "Palestinian," since the land would have been carved up by Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Ibish knows this, and this is why he felt that that a book that created a construct of "Palestinian culture" based on costumes was important. He is pushing the myth, ex post facto, of an ancient history behind what is really a modern construct that owes its entire existence to...Jews. The very first person who could be called a Palestinian Arab leader was the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. Yet even he wanted Palestine to be part of Syria until the San Remo conference made that impossible. And the "nationalist" motivation of this leader, whether it was pan-Arabism or Palestinian Arab nationalism, was always pure anti-semitism. Specifically, his goals were always to negate Jewish nationalism, both by denying Jews access to their holy places and by denying Jews the right to move to their ancestral homeland. If Palestinian Arabs want to call themselves a people, that is fine. Based on how their fellow Arabs have treated them over the decades they do now have a claim to a cohesive identity. But to put Palestinian Arab nationalism on a par with Jewish nationalism is simply ahistorical and meant to trivialize the Jewish longing to return to Zion. Zionism is merely a particularly effective instance of ancient Jewish nationalism; it is not a modern construct as Ibish likes to pretend. Ibish, by comparing the two nationalisms, is trivializing a long standing and deeply rooted sense of peoplehood with a shallow and modern attempt at countering it. The analytical challenge is to recognize that while not all nationalist claims are necessarily equally valid (they may speak on behalf of very few people, for example, and not really have the constituency they claim), in some important senses they are, however, all equally invalid. Championing one's own nationalism as self-evidently "authentic" at the expense of a well-established, deeply-rooted and much-cherished rival identity is a particularly lowly form of self-delusion, chauvinism and fetishism. Not when one is based on historic truth and the other is based on negation. Another proof that Palestinian Arab nationalism is simply the denial of Jewish nationalism can be seen in archaeology. Every new archaeological finding that shows ancient Jewish roots in Palestine are derided by Palestinian Arab leaders.They routinely refer to the "alleged Temple." Jews, secure in their history in the Land, are not threatened by finding pre-Israelite or Philistine or Byzantine or Crusader-era treasures. But Palestinian Arabs are very threatened by Jewish history. And this is why these attempts to create a Palestinian Arab culture are, inherently, offensive. In reality there is no common history and no common culture for Palestinian Arabs. Attempts to create one are often another instantiation of the attempt to deny Jewish history. (Not that Ibish is doing that here, certainly not consciously.) If a historian or archaeologist finds an ancient inscription talking about the "Palestinians" of the 2nd or 12th century, I will be more than happy to admit I am wrong. But until then, claiming that there is an ancient Palestinian Arab history when there is none is indeed offensive because there is a history of fake Palestinian Arab nationalism, and it was aimed at destroying another people. (h/t AB for "יִּשְׂרְאֵלִי " idea.) 
    |
| Dubai police clown says Israel behind Egyptian revolution Posted: 16 Aug 2011 09:50 AM PDT Remember Lt. General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the Dubai police chief who enjoyed a few weeks of attention when a Hamas terrorist was assassinated on his turf and he never found the culprits? I wrote last year that he will be the last to know that he has turned into a worldwide punch-line. He still doesn't. From Gulf News: Lt. General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Commander in Chief of Dubai Police, speaking at the a special Ramadan gathering organised by the Dubai Press Club at Al Wasl Lounge, Trade Centre.... called on Arabs not to think deeply in the events taking place in Arab countries and judge them accordingly.There you have it - the Arab Spring is an Israeli plot! 
    |
| Posted: 16 Aug 2011 08:45 AM PDT From The Guardian, August 7: Nurit Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli academic, mother and political radical, summons up an image of rows of Jewish schoolchildren, bent over their books, learning about their neighbours, the Palestinians. But, she says, they are never referred to as Palestinians unless the context is terrorism.Since her book has not been published, it is difficult to look at how much bias this "political radical" has imbued her research with. But it is clear that one must take her "research" with a grain of salt given her extreme views. But even without reading her book, we can see that she is not telling the truth about the characterizations of Arabs in Israeli textbooks. Because she first floated this issue a few years ago, after having only examined seven textbooks, and CMIP wrote a lengthy paper destroying her thesis - mostly based on an examination of those very same textbooks! Here are just the points about her assertion that Palestinian Arabs are simply not shown in the textbooks: Is it really true that Israeli textbooks never show Palestinian faces? Here are some examples to the contrary, taken just from the books examined by Dr. Peled-Ehanan. In Book 5 on page 370 there are two photographs of Palestinians plowing their land and walking on a Jaffa street at the beginning of the 20th century. On page 372 we see Bedouins making coffee, and on page 373 – Palestinians leading a camel caravan loaded with oranges bound for Jaffa for export. On page 375 there is a photograph of two Arabs talking to a Jew in Jaffa. In Book 2, on page 166 there is a photo of Temple Mount in Jerusalem showing a group of demonstrators against Jewish immigration. A photograph on page 313, showing a Palestinian family leaving its village in 1948, has already been mentioned. Book 3 features a photograph of the Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini on page 93; and one of the late Chairman Yasser Arafat shaking hands with the late Prime Minister Rabin in Washington on page 256. The two photographs reappear in Book 4, on pages 95 and 322 respectively. We mentioned earlier the photograph of the shocked family of Palestinian refugees on page 267. Book 1 has a photograph on page 202 of a man driving a tractor or similar machine in the Arab sector of Nazareth. In Book 6, page 17 we see a photograph of Christian Palestinians praying in a church, and another one of Druze religious leaders gathering in a house of prayer. Dr. Peled-Ehanan's claim regarding this point is clearly false. Moreover, CMIP cited other textbooks that clearly showed the exact opposite of what Peled-Elhanan is claiming today: The evidence we have presented, taken from the sources Dr. Peled-Elhanan did use, is more than sufficient for refuting her accusation of racism leveled at Israeli school textbooks. However, for an overview of the actual orientation of Israeli textbooks concerning the issue of racism one may well consider the references aimed at actively combating racist prejudice against Arabs – notably in language and literature textbooks – an elementary procedure in which Dr. Peled-Elhanan has no interest.It is clear that Dr. Peled-Elhanan is not being intellectually honest and is twisting the contents of the schoolbooks into her own extreme viewpoint. If you want to know exactly how radical she is, here is what she said after her own 13-year old daughter was murdered by a suicide bomber in 1997 - during the Oslo process: My little girl was murdered because she was an Israeli by a young man who was humiliated, oppressed and desperate to the point of suicide and murder and inhumanity, just because he was a Palestinian....[J]ust as my daughter was a victim [of the Israeli occupation], so was he [the suicide bomber]."Which makes her a poster child for the Mondoweiss crowd. (h/t jzaik) 
    |
| Egypt raids Sinai Islamists, 1 dead. Islamic Jihad member arrested Posted: 16 Aug 2011 07:50 AM PDT From Ma'an: Egyptian troops and policemen battled with gunmen in the Sinai peninsula Monday, killing one person and arresting 16 others, a security official and state television said.Palestine Press Agency gives details about those arrested - including one from Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Yasser Atiyah Tarabin was born in Khan Younis and lives in Rafah. A member of Islamic Jihad, he was arrested and jailed in Egypt but escaped after the revolution. He was asked to join the Islamist cell "to fight the Jews;" then took him to the El Arish, where he met with other jihadis, received training in martial arts in the Sinai and the Gaza Strip, and he took part in the attack on the police station in El Arish a few days ago. He entered into Egypt through the tunnels, and planned to hit the security headquarters in northern Sinai. He also participated in the procurement of explosives and arms to target the military and the police. This is not the first time that Gaza terrorists have been found to work with Islamist groups in the Sinai. Interestingly, Islamic Jihad's mouthpiece Palestine Today is claiming that the Egyptian raid was against Mossad agents! 
    |
| Roundup of world reaction to Syrian state crimes (Zvi) Posted: 16 Aug 2011 06:40 AM PDT From Zvi: Given that the US government claims to be still waiting for a global consensus (what's that, you say? A stunning display of non-leadership?) I thought that I would enumerate the positions that various government, NGOs and others have expressed regarding the ongoing bloodbath in Syria. Syrian people (broad consensus): * Assad must go. * Islamists: "No Iran, no Hezbollah, we want Muslim rulers who fear Allah" (While Iran may, for political reasons, say that Alawites are Muslims, most Sunnis disagree. Syrian Alawites will truly screwed if the Syrian regime falls) * "One and all in the opposition to Bashar's rule are convinced that Hezbollah fighters and cadres of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have made their way to Syria to aid in the grim work of repression. There are even local reports that Iran has offered a large subsidy to bail out Damascus from the economic fallout of the rebellion." [wsj] (These reports are NOT unfounded rumors. [tel]) Arab League: * Called for an "immediate halt" to violence Bahrain: * Recalled ambassador Brazil: * Protects Syrian regime in UN as it continues to massacre its own people. China: * Protects Syrian regime in UN as it continues to massacre its own people. * China is a strong opponent of "humanitarian" intervention in any country by world powers. Egypt: * Grand imam of Al Azhar called on the Syrian rulers to stop facing unarmed protesters with "live bullets and iron and fire." [wsj] * Demonstrators in Cairo: Assad must go. GCC: * attacked Syrian regime's brutal repression (last week) Hamas: * Leaders remain in Damascus (probably very frustrated) * But Gazan columnists, even in pro-Hamas papers, are writing things like: "is extremely hostile to the aspirations and rights of its people" [bloom] Human Rights Watch: * "It's a continuation of a deliberate policy of the military crushing the protest movement," said Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch's senior researcher for the Middle East and North Africa. "We've seen it now in so many cities." [1] * Urged the Arab League to hold an emergency meeting on the bloodbath in Syria. [2] India: * Protects Syrian regime in UN as it continues to massacre its own people. Iraq: * PM Al-Maliki (historical ties to Assad regime) is allied with the al-Assad regime, an arranged wedding brokered by Iran last year. [kurd] * Iraqi Kurds and the majority Sunni Iraqiya Party have vehemently criticized the Syrian regime. [kurd] * Iraq is once again engaged in a heated dispute with Kuwait and is increasingly leaning on Iran. Jordan: * PM: "World anger and rejection of the bloodshed in Syria are growing." [cnn] * PM: urged "immediate halt to military operations", adoption of meaningful reforms * A Jordanian citizen was killed by sniper in Homs on Sunday. [jord] * A member of the regime's secret police, who fled to Turkey, claims that Syria is using Iranian snipers [scot] Kuwait: * Recalled ambassador * Mulling cutting off aid, loans [kuwait] * Huge investor in Syria, and Kuwaiti companies hold over 10% of Syrian insurance market [boyc] Lebanon: * Government, dominated by Hezbollah, humiliatingly defending Assad regime in UN * Future Movement: accusing Syrian regime of crimes against humanity * Walid Jumblatt (Druze): abandoning Syria and aligning with Turkey. As a Druze leader, Jumblatt tends to align with the "strong horse." Given that the Assads killed his father, Jumblatt will never love them. But he complies with their wishes as long as he FEARS them. [jumblatt] * Lebanese Druze: worried by Syrian accusations that Leb Druze are arming the Syrian Druze. I would be worried too. * Syrian-backed PFLP has stationed rocket launchers on Mt. Lebanon, near Aley. Jumblatt is furious. "According to Jumhouriaya sources Jumblatt understood that from his Syrian visit that the developments on 888 hill were a message to him in response to his calls on Syrian president Bashar al Assad to immediately implement the reforms he promised." * Hezbollah: continued support for Syrian regime, but trying to lower the profile. Support for HA in Arab street is mostly gone. Maldives: * Maldives calls for end to state-sponsored violence against civilians in Syria [mald] * Foreign minister urges UNHRC to refer the issue in its upcoming session * (Maldives is one of the freest of the "Muslim countries", though still rated only "partly free"; its Freedom House scores are close to those of Turkey) Morocco: * "The kingdom of Morocco, which has traditionally refrained from interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, expresses today its strong worries and deep concern over the sad events rocking Syria," [asiaone] OIC: * Accused Syria on Saturday of using "excessive armed force" and called on Damascus to stop the bloodshed. [reut] PA: * Abed Rabo: accused regime of crimes against humanity [latimes] * Abu Rudaineh: called on Syria to protect Palestinians in Syria [jpost] * Permitted hundreds of demonstrators in Ramallah to call for Syrian regime's overthrow [jpost2] Pakistan: * Pakistan's Bhutto family has historical ties to the al-Assad regime. [tribpk] * Silent on regime atrocities. [tribpk] * Supported Syrian regime at UN [tribpk] Palestine Solidarity Campaign (and other BDS groups): * - silence - Qatar: * Recalled ambassador (a month ago) [boyc] * A huge investor in Syria. One large electrical project has been frozen after Syria retaliated for Al Jazeera coverage of the slaughter by refusing a permit. [boyc] Russia: * Maintains naval presence in Latakia and Tarsus. Were the Russian sailors sitting idly by, watching Syrian gunboats pound Latakia? * Protects Syrian regime in UN as it continues to massacre its own people. Saudi Arabia: * Recalled ambassador (last Sunday) * King Abdullah called on Assad to stop the "killing machine." Spain: * Offered Assad asylum in July [haaretz] Turkey: * Increasingly strident "ultimatum" language. Today, FM Davutoglu issued what it called its "final words" to the Syrian regime. * FM in Saudi yesterday. Guess what they talked about? [arabiya] Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a vocal attacker of Israel: * - silence - UNHRC: * Dictators R Us! * Pretty much silent, although they have held special sessions. They tried to cover their silence with a team of independent experts who called for an end to violence. UNRWA: * Latakia: "The situation is very bad. There are more than 10,000 residents of the camp, and half of them left out of fear of incoming fire from the land and sea. We don't know where they are, and we're the ones responsible for them. We're just desperately trying to find out where everyone is." (Try looking in the stadium, where 1000s have been rounded up, stripped of cell phones and IDs and are being held indefinitely. Which should worry people.) UNSC: * Let's see how little we can accomplish, as slowly as possible. UN Secretary General: * Multiple futile condemnations of Syrian atrocities. Misc. media: * Jakarta Post editorial: "So much for the UN principles of Responsibility to Protect... . How many deaths will it take for the world to know that too many people have died?" [jakp] * TIME: "Syria's City of Graves: Hama and its History of Massacres" [time] By the way, definitely read the Time piece, one of the very few first hand reports from Syria and an excellent example of real reporting. 
    |
| Where's the Palestinian Arab Spring? Posted: 16 Aug 2011 05:25 AM PDT Khaled Abu Toameh writes in Hudson-NY: Last March, when it seemed as if the popular uprisings in a number of Arab countries had arrived in the Palestinian territories, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets as part of a Facebook-orchestrated campaign to demand an end to Palestinian "divisions."A case in point: A young political activist in the Gaza Strip has been arrested, members of his group feared Monday after he had been missing for two days.Gaza Youth Breaks Out has a webpage and Facebook page. They are pretty much angry at everyone, as their original manifesto started with: Fuck Israel. Fuck Hamas. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA!In their Manifesto 2.0, they expand on their anger at Hamas: Yes we voted for Hamas government. We all did. We were tired of Fatah government's corruption, wanted a change and hoped Hamas would be that change. That PRECISELY gives us the right to shout our anger at them, because they are responsible of us, responsible of our well-being, our security. Fatah in the West Bank arrests Hamas affiliates, Hamas in Gaza arrests Fatah affiliates, while everywhere in Palestine you can find family members from different factions living united. Yes we denounce our politicians – note that words; POLITICIANS – because their mutual hatred divided them even during the commemoration of the first anniversary of Cast Lead massacre, while a crowd of Palestinians from all factions stood united by martyrdom, grief, and love for Palestine.So it is predictable that Hamas would arrest Abu Yazan, and the nascent anti-government protest movements in both Gaza and the West Bank will always be viciously attacked by the "democratically elected" governments. Hamas last night also arrested a journalist, Thaer Abu Warda, and confiscated his computer. We see here, again, what a Palestinian Arab state would look like. It would look a lot like Mubarak's Egypt, at best. And no one seems to have a problem with this. 
    |
| What's missing from this CNN story? Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:04 AM PDT Here is an entire story from CNN: Airstrikes wound three in GazaSo what's missing? Just the fact that a Grad rocket was fired from Gaza to Beersheva a couple of hours earlier. In fact, CNN has nothing on that story, nor have they updated this with the IDF statement confirming that this was the reason: Overnight, IAF aircraft targeted four targets in the Gaza Strip. Direct hits were confirmed. The person who was killed in Gaza was a Hamas terrorist. (h/t Dan) 
    |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Elder of Ziyon To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
אין תגובות:
הוסף רשומת תגובה