| Israeli think-tank looking at scenarios if Iran gets the bomb Posted: 09 Jan 2012 04:55 PM PST I have no idea how accurate this is, but it sounds plausible. From the Times of London (behind paywall): Israel has begun thinking the unthinkable: that it will have to deal with a nuclear-armed Iran within a year.
In documents seen by The Times, Israeli officials have begun preparing scenarios for the day after a nuclear weapons test. The move is a tacit recognition that Israel is backing away from its long-held position that it would do everything in its power — including mounting a military strike — to stop Iran acquiring nuclear capabilities.
Details of the war game, which was enacted by former ambassadors, intelligence officials and ex-military chiefs, emerged as the United Nations' nuclear watchdog confirmed yesterday that Iran has begun producing enriched uranium in an underground bunker designed to withstand airstrikes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said that it was monitoring the work at the Fordow facility, which is concealed in a mountain near the holy city of Qom. The simulation exercise was conducted in Tel Aviv last week by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a think-tank. Its conclusions suggest that a nuclear test would radically shift the whole power balance of the Middle East. The Israeli specialists assumed that the following would occur:
- The US would try to restrain Israel from military retaliation and propose a formal defence pact, including possibly inviting the Jewish state to join Nato;
- Russia would propose a defence pact with the United States in an effort to stop nuclear proliferation in the Middle East;
- Saudi Arabia, not content with US nuclear guarantees, would develop its own nuclear arms programme;
- Egypt would push for military action against Iran while Turkey would be likely to avoid a showdown with Tehran. If Israel were to become a member of Nato, Turkey would withdraw from the organisation.
All the predictions are based on current international policies.
The specialists — including a former head of Israel's National Security Council, two former members of the Prime Minister's Office, a former ambassador and others with close ties to Israeli military intelligence — believe that a nuclear test in January 2013 would be presaged by a series of provacative demands from Tehran. They include an Iranian call for its border with Iraq to be redrawn; calls for sovereignty over Bahrain and low-level actions against the vessels of the US Fifth Fleet in the Gulf.
The specialists made clear that although Israel would come under pressure to abandon any military plans against Iran, it would keep this option on the table.
"The Israeli military option is likely to be a significant lever, if not toward Iran, then toward some of the main players," said the minutes of the war game seen by The Times. "The simulation showed that this option, or the threat of using it, would also be relevant following an Iranian nuclear test," it added.
"The simulation showed that Iran will not forgo nuclear weapons, but will attempt to use them to reach an agreement with the major powers that will improve its position." In their report, the Israeli authors, INSS fellows Yoel Guzansky and Yonatan Lerner, wrote: "Iran is closer than ever to the juncture at which its leaders will need to decide whether to stay in a relatively comfortable position on the verge of nuclear capability or, alternatively, to break through to the bomb. Iran has an interest in postponing the decision whether to cross the threshold to a later stage. Nevertheless, a series of regional and international developments is likely to cause Iran to decide to accelerate its nuclear development and to break through toward nuclear weapons."
While Israeli officials have long maintained their position that the Jewish state could not live with a nuclear Iran, over the past year several high-ranking Israeli officials have come forward and questioned whether the Jewish state would not be forced to accept Iran's acquisition of nuclear capabilities.
In June last year, Meir Dagan, the former head of Mossad, publicly voiced his doubts concerning an Israeli strike on Iran, suggesting that it would engulf the region in war. Last month he added that a nuclear Iran "did not necessarily threaten Israel".
Both statements were condemned by the Israeli Government, which said it was inappropriate and unhelpful for him to suggest that Israel would not do everything possible to stop Iran's nuclear weapons programme.
The scenario laid out by the INSS suggests that the possibility that Israel has to "live with it" might become a reality.
Unlike other think-tanks, the INSS enjoys a particularly close relationship with the top echelons in Israel. It is led by the former head of Israeli military intelligence, and most of its fellows have held official positions within the defence and political establishment.
This week's report from the war game has been sent to Binyamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel.
Participants included Giora Eiland, former head of national security, Alon Liel, the former Israeli Chargé d'Affaires to Turkey, and Yehuda Ben Meir, the former Knesset member. (h/t Folderol) 
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| Egyptians plan to block Jews from attending pilgrimage Posted: 09 Jan 2012 02:15 PM PST From Al Masry al Youm: A number of political groups in Egypt announced Monday that they plan to protest at the Abu Hasira festival near the delta city of Damanhour.
The festival, scheduled for 9 to 10 January, is held on the annual anniversary of the death of Abu Hasira, whose mausoleum is located in the village of Damtu outside Damanhour.
The groups said they will form human shields to prevent any "Zionist" visitors from visiting Abu Hasira's tomb in the near future, saying that such a visit was unpopular, and unacceptable legally and politically, state-run news agency MENA said.
Bloggers Against Abu Hasira, the Nasserist Trend, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Freedom and Justice Party, the April 6 Youth Movement and the Mohamed ElBaradei campaign signed the group statement.
Permission for Israelis to visit Abu Hasira's tomb has angered some in Egypt, especially because it is not included in the list of celebrations authorized to be held in Egypt. The Supreme Administrative Court upheld a 2001 lower court decision to abolish the annual event.
In 2009, Israeli reports indicated that ousted President Hosni Mubarak agreed to a request on behalf of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow hundreds of Israelis to celebrate the festival.
Abu Hasira was born in Morocco and, according to Jewish lore, the ship that was carrying him to Palestine sank. Abu Hasira floated on a straw mat which eventually landed on Syrian shores. The rabbi, according to Jewish tradition, went from Syria to Palestine and then on to Egypt.
He died in Damtu in 1880. Every year, thousands of Jews come to celebrate the anniversary of his death.
After Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords in 1979, Israel requested the cooperation of the Egyptian security authorities in the organization of annual official trips to the tomb for the festival, which lasts for a period of one week.
The celebrations include a number of Jewish rituals along with the consumption of dried fruit, butter and feteer. During the celebrations, the visitors sit at the mausoleum, cry, recite Jewish prayers and slaughter animals in accordance to Jewish law.
The mausoleum, which includes the tomb and the hill it is situated upon, is among the Jewish Antiquities in Egypt registered with the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities. Former Culture Minister Farouk Hosni issued decision No. 75 of 2001 annexing the mausoleum to the Supreme Council of Antiquities. The youth division of the Muslim Brotherhood party said that "cessation of these celebrations should be considered one of the fruits of the January 25 revolution." But don't call them anti-semitic. They're just "anti-Zionist." Rosa el Youssef reports that Israel asked UNESCO to compel Egypt to allow the ceremonies. The anniversary of Yaakov Abuhatzeira's death is the 19th of Tevet, which would be this coming Friday night and Saturday. 
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| Links Posted: 09 Jan 2012 01:15 PM PST Things I didn't get a chance to blog.... Umar Mulinde, an evangelical pastor from Uganda who recently began preaching support for Israel, was doused with acid by Muslim extremists on Christmas Eve. Mulinde suffered severe burns and eye damage, and was brought to Sheba Medical Center for treatment. Katy Perry's preacher father slams Jews in a sermon. The official Bet Shemesh women's flashmob video. " Repression and state violence is likely to continue to plague the Middle East and North Africa in 2012 unless governments in the region and international powers wake up to the scale of the changes being demanded of them, Amnesty International warned on Monday in a new report." It takes guts to predict that things will remain the same. Will "unity" lead to Hamas takeover of the PLO? There will be a BDS conference at University of Pennsylvania called PennBDS next month, so the person behind Divest This! created a website to ridicule and rebut all of their points at PennBDS-Oy! 
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| Egyptian soccer fans calling for "a new Holocaust" Posted: 09 Jan 2012 12:05 PM PST From MEMRI, video of a huge banner at an Egyptian soccer game saying "One Nation for a New Holocaust": And in case you are thinking this isn't about Jews and Israel, there's the Facebook page from Egypt called "F** Israel: One Nation for One New Holocaust" (h/t Yoel) 
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| "Jew" in Pakistan forced to flee home Posted: 09 Jan 2012 10:45 AM PST From the Express Tribune (Pakistan): LAHORE: A man wrote that his name was 'Jew Jurian' on his national identity card form. The data entry clerk then assumed he was a Jew. Thus for the first time in the history of Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC), a Pakistani was officially declared a Jew.
The problem was that he was a Christian.
The bigger problem for Jurian, as he told The Express Tribune, was that he was accused of being a Jew – and subsequently, through the twisted logic of twisted souls, of blasphemy.
After thorough investigations, Jurian was released by the police, along with three others, in May 2003. Almost nine years later, he and his family still face death threats.
Qaiser Azeem, one of the other three men, was stabbed to death two years later. Another, Mushtaq Ahmed, was also shot after testifying against religious extremists accused of terrorism.
Despite the families of Jurian and those murdered fleeing the area, death threats still continue. An FIR [First Information Report - initial police report] obtained by The Express Tribune seems to confirm this.
According to the FIR, registered at Bakri police station by Jurian against unknown extremists, the victim (Jurian) was detained for blasphemy in 2002. Despite being declared innocent, he and his family received death threats. Through his father, Maqbool Masih, he then contacted Kamran Micheal, the provincial minister for human rights and minorities and submitted an application.
In his application he appealed to be saved from extremists. He also said that the assistant sub inspector of Baghbanpura police station is providing security to such extremists.
The contents of the FIR further stated that the victim received threatening calls continuously. Late at night on October 25, 2011, he received a call from a stranger calling him an infidel (kafir). This being a regular occurrence, Jurian and his family have now left the area. Only one Christian family lives in the area, Mohallah Green Park, situated in Shalimar Town, Lahore – and Jurian claimed that some local residents are in contact with religious extremists. He also alleged that a police official at a local station sympathises with extremists, and they have worked together to create trouble for Jurian and his family, eventually forcing them to leave. He alleged that the Baghbanpura police have continuously harassed his family and conducted various raids at his home.
Jurian, his family, and the families of those already victim to such extremists have left the city to live an underground existence. Be they Jew, Christian or unclassifiable, this is obviously an unacceptable state of affairs. Who are we to judge? It's a cultural thing, and multiculturalism must be celebrated. (h/t Dan) 
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| Unity! Hamas accuses Fatah of political arrests Posted: 09 Jan 2012 09:30 AM PST That famed Palestinian Arab unity keeps on going. The latest accusation comes from Hamas, who said that Fatah arrested 8 Hamas members in the West Bank over the weekend - including a journalist. They also accuse Fatah of extending the detention of other Hamas members, and of firing a teacher who is a member of the group. One of the major issues between the two sides has been political arrests, and even while the heralded "unity" meetings are taking place - the arrests continue. Nabil Sha'ath, the Fatah leader who traveled to Gaza last week to keep the appearance of unity going, charged that there are still some in Hamas who do not want reconciliation between the two sides. Naturally, Hamas responded with an angry denial, saying Sha'ath's remarks were "irresponsible and baseless." 
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| British atrocities against Palestinian Arabs, 1936-39 Posted: 09 Jan 2012 08:00 AM PST Here are excerpts from " The Banality of Brutality: British Armed Forces and the Repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936 – 39", by Matthew Hughes: Punishment in the form of the destruction of Arab property across urban and rural areas of Palestine was central to British military repression after 1936, the countryside being badly hit although there were some egregious house demolitions in urban areas. Destruction and vandalism became a systematic, systemic part of British counter-insurgency operations during the revolt, and justified by the legal measures in force at the time. Alongside the destruction, soldiers looted properties, something not officially sanctioned; indeed officers often tried to stop the men pilfering. Alongside the blowing up of houses—often the most impressive ones in the village—and the smashing up of Arab villagers' homes, there were 'reprisals' in the form of heavy collective fines, forced labour and punitive village occupations by government forces for which villagers bore the cost.
Abuses went unreported as the British heavily censored the Palestinian Arabic-language newspapers, while commanders such as Major-General Bernard Montgomery in northern Palestine banished newspaper reporters so that his men could carry on their work untroubled by the media.
During army searches, soldiers would surround a village—usually before dawn so that they could catch any suspects before they fled—the men and women then divided off, held apart from the houses, often in wired 'cages', while soldiers searched and often destroyed everything, burnt grain and poured olive oil over household food and effects.41 The men meanwhile were 'screened' by passing hooded or hidden Arab informers who would nod when a 'suspect' was found, or by British officials checking their papers against lists of suspects. If the army was not on a reprisal operation but was following up an intelligence lead and looking for a suspect or hidden weapons, any destruction was incidental to the searching of properties—troops also used primitive metal detectors on such operations. On such operations, however, brutality against villagers could occur as the army tried to extract from them intelligence on the whereabouts of hidden weapons caches or suspects, as happened at the village of Halhul in 1939. In some cases, the brutality would then extend to the vandalism of property as a means of gaining information. The level of destruction varied, the army using the excuse of weapons searches to justify any damage if there were complaints. Army engineers would also demolish houses or groups of houses.
The largest single act of destruction came on 16 June 1936 in the Arab city of Jaffa when the British blew up between 220 and 240 buildings,47 ostensibly to improve health and sanitation, cutting pathways through Jaffa's old city with 200–300 lbs gelignite charges48 that allowed military access and control. By this act—headlined in al-Difa' as 'goodbye, goodbye, old Jaffa, the army has exploded you'—the British made homeless up to 6,000 Palestinians, most of whom were left destitute, having been told by air-dropped leaflet on the morning of 16 June to vacate their homes by 9 p.m. on the same day.49 Some families were left with nothing, not even a change of clothes.
In June 1936, Muslim religious leaders wrote to the High Commissioner detailing how police officers on operations 'stamped' on things, destroyed everything, 'smashed doors, mirrors, tables, chairs wardrobes, glass, porcelain' and ripped women's clothing and bed linen. Soldiers mixed in margarine and oil with foodstuffs, they trampled on 'holy books', and they destroyed wooden kitchen utensils, as well as glasses, clocks, smoking pipes and basins.59 In the same month, another protest complained about police and soldiers hitting innocent people, insulting their dignity, stealing items and destroying furniture, goods and provisions.60As one rebel recounted, servicemen,61Searched houses, each one by itself, in a way that was sabotaging on purpose, and they looted some of the assets of the houses, and burnt some other houses, and destroyed provisions/goods. After putting flour, wheat, rice, sugar and others together, they added all the olive oil or petrol they could find. And in every search operation they destroyed a number of houses of the village and damaged others. They also put signs on other houses to destroy them in the future if there are any incidents near the village, even if that incident is only cutting telephone wires.
A British doctor in Hebron during the revolt, Elliot Forster, recalled the effect of living under sustained British military occupation. Accustomed to local life, Forster worked in Hebron's St Luke's Hospital and held surgeries in outlying villages. He lived through periods of intense military operations as the army and police fought local guerrillas. The rule of law collapsed as troops ran amok, shooting Arabs at random simply because they were in what was, in effect, a 'free-fire' combat zone. While some officers tried to restrain the men, local Arabs moved about Hebron and the surrounding countryside in fear of their lives, not from rebel actions but because of the violence meted out by marauding troops and police. 'Anyone who sees the army nowadays runs like a hare—I do myself!' wrote Forster.79 In engagements with rebels, the army would shoot Arabs near the battle zone, even when these were old men and boys tending their flocks. Forster daily treated local people brought in to his hospital with gunshot wounds. Candid as to when he was treating a real rebel, most of the time he was tending gunshot wounds inflicted by trigger-happy British troops. He included a well-documented account of policemen executing in broad daylight in October 1938 an Arab suspect travelling in a police vehicle through the Manshiya district of Jaffa, an outrage witnessed by non-British European residents, and repeated examples of troops robbing Arabs of money, including young children who were relieved of their pocket money.
For the soldiers, their activities in Palestine were unremarkable, their job being 'to bash anybody on the head who broke the law, and if he didn't want to be bashed on the head then he had to be shot. It may sound brutal but in fact it was a reasonably nice, simple objective and the soldiers understood it'.83Regimental histories and contemporary regimental journals did little to hide the reprisals, destruction and collective fines, recording how villages were 'beaten up', homes burnt and men detained in cages 'on orders from above' because of rebel activity nearby.84 While euphemisms would be used—'the search was drastic enough to shake the villagers'85—regimental journals would cheerily and sportily describe the trashing of a village, as with the Essex Regiment at the 'sack' (obvious pun intended) of Sakhnin, 25–26 December 1937, with physical force that stopped short of outright torture or blatant wanton destruction—or these were not reported.
It was common British army practice to make local Arabs ride with military convoys to prevent mine attacks. Often, soldiers carried them or tied them to the bonnets of lorries, or put the hostages on small flatbeds on the front of trains, all to prevent mining or sniping attacks. 'The naughty boys who we had in the cages in these camps' were put in vehicles in front of the convoy for the 'deterrent effect', as one British officer put it.89 The army told the Arabs that they would shoot any of them who tried to run away.90 On the lorries, some soldiers would brake hard at the end of a journey and then casually drive over the Arab who had tumbled from the bonnet, killing or maiming him, as Arthur Lane, a Manchester Regiment private candidly recalled:91… when you'd finished your duty you would come away nothing had happened no bombs or anything and the driver would switch his wheel back and to make the truck waver and the poor wog on the front would roll off into the deck. Well if he was lucky he'd get away with a broken leg but if he was unlucky the truck behind coming up behind would hit him. But nobody bothered to pick up the bits they were left. You know we were there we were the masters we were the bosses and whatever we did was right …. Well you know you don't want him anymore. He's fulfilled his job. And that's when Bill Usher [the commanding officer] said that it had to stop because before long they'd be running out of bloody rebels to sit on the bonnet.
British accounts also detail soldiers bayoneting innocent Arabs and Arab fighters in battle being machine gunned en masse by men from the Royal Ulster and West Kent regiments as they came out to surrender near Jenin. 'At one time the Ulsters and West Kents caught about 60 of them [Arab guerrillas] in a valley and as they walked out with their arms up mowed them down with machine guns. I inspected them afterwards and most of them were boys between 16 and 20 from Syria …. No news of course is given to the newspapers, so what you read in the papers is just enough to allay public uneasiness in England.'
Up to fifteen men died in Halhul, mostly elderly Palestinians (the youngest victim was thirty-five, the oldest seventy-five) who died after being left out in the sun for several days in a caged enclosure with insufficient water. Halhul villagers also claim that soldiers shot a local man at a well during the same operation—in fact, it seems that soldiers beat the victim and then left him to drown in the well.
"Before or after destroying the village [of Al Bassa,], almost certainly the latter, RUR soldiers with some attached Royal Engineers collected approximately fifty men from al-Bassa and blew some of them up in a contrived explosion under a bus. Harry Arrigonie, a British Palestine policeman at al-Bassa at the time, recalled what happened in his memoirs, with the British 'herding' about twenty men from al-Bassa 'onto a bus. Villagers who panicked and tried to escape were shot. The driver of the bus was forced to drive along the road, over a land mine buried by the soldiers. This second mine was much more powerful than the first [i.e., the rebels' mine] and it completely destroyed the bus, scattering the maimed and mutilated bodies of the men on board everywhere. The villagers were then forced to dig a pit, collect the bodies, and throw them unceremoniously into it."
A letter in Arabic of 8 September 1938 giving the Palestinian side of events extends the atrocity to include premeditated torture. The letter dates the rebel mine explosion to 10.30 p.m. hours on 6 September, following which, on the morning of 7 September, soldiers came to al-Bassa. They shot four people in the streets, in cafes and in the homes of the village, after which the soldiers searched and looted the village, before gathering and beating inhabitants with sticks and rifle butts. The British then took one hundred villagers to a nearby military base—Camp Number One—where the British commander selected four men (the letter lists their names) who were tortured in front of the rest of the group. The four men were undressed and made to kneel barefoot on cacti and thorns, specially prepared for the occasion. Eight soldiers then told off the four men and two per Arab detainee set about beating them 'without pity' in front of the group. Pieces of flesh 'flew from their bodies' and the victims fainted, after which an army doctor came and checked their pulses. The army then took the group of villagers to another base—Camp Number Two—while soldiers destroyed the village of al-Bassa. All of this happened on the morning of 7 September, with the army withdrawing at 1 p.m. on the same day. The article goes into much more detail and gives many more examples. The British destroyed other villages as well - Kaukab Abu al-Hija, for one. Yet it is extraordinarily difficult to find details on these events. Yet even after the author goes to great lengths to detail these horror stories, he concludes this way: Britain lost control of Palestine in the late 1930s during the Arab revolt. Faced with similar disturbances, other imperial powers responded much more harshly than the British did in Palestine, as even a cursory glance at other twentieth-century counter-insurgency campaigns shows, whether it is the Spanish in the Rif mountains, the Germans in Africa before the Great War and during the Second World War, the Japanese in China, the Italians in Libya, the French in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, the Portuguese in Africa or the Soviets in Afghanistan. These actions included systemic, boundless violence, large-scale massacres of civilians and POWs, forced starvation, overt racism, gross torture, sexual violence and rape, the removal of legal process, the use of chemical and biological weapons against civilians, ethnic cleansing, extermination camps and genocide. This does not excuse British abuses in Palestine but it provides some comparative context. Put simply, in Palestine the British were often brutal but they rarely committed atrocities. Indeed, by moderating its violence, Britain was probably more effective as an imperial power. Perhaps this is the best that can be said for the British 'way' in repressing the Arab insurgency in Palestine: it was, relatively speaking, humane and restrained—the awfulness was less awful—when compared to the methods used by other colonial and neo-colonial powers operating in similar circumstances, an achievement, of sorts. This study was released in 2009. Yet it made no discernible impact. No news articles about the revelations, no calls for public inquiries, no angry British demanding answers, no apologies from British who feel bad that these actions were done in their name. The next time any smug British journalist or politician decides to talk about supposed Israeli atrocities against Palestinian Arabs - ask them how it compares with Britain's record against those very same people. (h/t CHA for research) 
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| Another Qassam rocket explodes - in Gaza Posted: 09 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST The Gaza NGO Safety Office sent out an SMS message on Sunday morning: 08 Jan: Overnight Pal[estinian]. op[erative]s. attempted to fire 1 HMR [home made rocket] from Al Bureij Camp, MA [Middle Area], but the rocket exploded prematurely. No reports of injury or damage. Just because you haven't heard about any rockets from Gaza doesn't mean they aren't still trying to fire them. And as I have shown, as many as 30% of rockets explode on the ground or fall short in Gaza, sometimes causing injuries or even death. 
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| Coptic businessman on trial in Egypt over Mickey Mouse cartoon Posted: 09 Jan 2012 05:38 AM PST From Al Masry al Youm: The Central Cairo Prosecution has referred Coptic businessman Naguib Sawiris to trial over charges of defamation of religion.
In June, Sawiris posted a picture depicting Mickey Mouse wearing a beard and Minnie Mouse wearing a face veil on his Twitter account, a cartoon that many Muslims considered offensive.
Sawiris later apologized for posting the cartoon, however, his apology did not manage to calm the anger of Salafis who filed a report accusing him of defaming religion.
Salafi groups also launched a one-month campaign to boycott companies that Sawiris owns or is a partner in, such as Mobinil and Al-Masry Al-Youm, causing heavy losses, particularly for his mobile phone company.
On 25 June, Mamdouh Ismail, the lawyer for Jama'a al-Islamiya, and 14 other lawyers filed a suit over the incident, accusing Sawiris of intentionally ridiculing Islamic icons and attire.
According to the paper, Ismail said Sawiris has openly said he rejects Article 2 of the constitution, which states that Islam is the religion of the state, Arabic is its language, and Islamic Sharia is the main source of legislation.
Ismail added that Sawiris previously expressed his rejection of the veil, which he said provides proof that the former intentionally derides Islamic dress.
Other Islamist movements also criticized Sawiris after he posted the cartoon.
In July, Mohamed Morsy, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, criticized Sawiris and described him as "a corrupt icon from the former regime." A lawsuit is one thing - but now this is a criminal prosecution, decided upon after months of deliberation and thought. Before the Islamists officially take over. Welcome to the new Egypt. Keep in mind that people like Sawiri were the ones that the West latched onto as the face of the new Egypt - liberal, self-critical, open-minded and secularist - during the revolution. Based on the election results so far, that crowd ended up being a very small minority in Egypt. Here's the offensive cartoon he posted: 
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| The real apartheid in the Middle East (video) Posted: 09 Jan 2012 02:51 AM PST From Stand With Us: 
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