| The anti-Palestinian Arab nations (Algemeiner) Posted: 24 Feb 2012 01:00 PM PST Continuing my experiment on writing things for others, here is an article I wrote for The Algemeiner. 
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| Haniyeh incites Egyptians against Israel at Al Azhar Posted: 24 Feb 2012 11:00 AM PST  Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh gave a speech to 3000 chanting Egyptians in the Al Azhar mosque in Cairo today. Haniyeh said that the Egyptian revolution and the Arab spring "is the beginning of the liberation of Palestine" adding that "Palestine will be liberated through Egypt." Haniyeh said that Hamas and the Palestinian government in Gaza are subjected to strong pressure to recognize the state of Israel, saying, "We will never recognize Israel and the resistance will continue as long as the occupation continues." Hamas considers all of Israel to be "occupied." The congregants in the mosque and its courtyard started chanting, saying, "the commander Ismail said he will not recognize Israel" and "We go to Al Quds, martyrs in the millions." Haniyeh continued, saying,"Our hope is not only the independence of Palestine, but the independence of the Islamic nation [where we will] put an end to the current situation of political wilderness, cultural and foreign interference and encroachment of the Zionists." He said that there was a Zionist plot for the Judaization of Jerusalem which wrested it from the Arab and Muslim world it belongs to, calling on Muslims to support Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem. Hundreds of congregants chanted in response, saying, 'Khaybar Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return," and "We, sons of Hassan al-Banna .. Islam! Islam!" (Hassan al-Banna was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.) No doubt, MEMRI will have a better translation sometime next week. 
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| Lebanon whines to the UN Posted: 24 Feb 2012 09:50 AM PST Everything is an international incident: Lebanon filed a complaint with the U.N. against Israel for erecting a barbed wire near the U.N.-drawn Blue Line in the town of Adaisseh, the foreign ministry announced on Friday.
The ministry said in a statement that the incident took place on Feb. 8 when Israeli forces "erected a 40-meter concertina wire near the Blue Line in the town of Adaisseh to block the road leading to the Blue Line and that crosses into a minefield."
The complaint, which was submitted to the world body through the Lebanese mission in New York, described the Israeli move as "an infringement on Lebanese territories as well as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty, Security Council Resolution 1701, international law and the Charter of the U.N."
It also said that the erection of the barbed wire "threatens international peace and security."
Lebanon asked U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take the necessary measures to end the Israeli violation, the statement added. I cannot tell from this description that the Israeli fence is on the Lebanese side of the Blue Line. It appears that it was built to stop people from accidentally going into a minefield. Everything Israel does on the border is painstakingly coordinated with UNIFIL. This complaint isn't to UNIFIL, but to the UN Secretary General. By the way, Adaisseh is a Potemkin village. It sounds like Lebanon is now simply making stuff up in order to complain about to feel important. (h/t Dan) 
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| Admiral General Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen) responds to Oscar snub Posted: 24 Feb 2012 08:44 AM PST Sacha Baron Cohen is not allowed to attend the Oscars in Los Angeles dressed as a character from his film "The Dictator," organizers said.
The British comedian and actor, known for his outrageous publicity stunts, is a cast member of Best Picture Oscar contender "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's first family flick.
The Hollywood Reporter said this week Cohen plans to attend the film industry's biggest night, dressed and acting like the bearded, Middle Eastern totalitarian ruler he plays in his upcoming comedy "The Dictator."
The academy subsequently reached out to Cohen's representatives and Paramount, the studio behind both "Hugo" and "Dictator," asking if Cohen really intends to walk the Oscar red carpet in character.
"We don't think it's appropriate," an academy spokesman told The Hollywood Reporter. Later, it turned out that he was requested not to wear the costume from The Dictator by the Academy on the red carpet. So Cohen released this statement, naturally in character, to respond to the "Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Zionists:" 
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| Jordan very nervous about Syria Posted: 24 Feb 2012 07:50 AM PST Ammon News of Jordan has a couple of articles about Jordan's uneasiness with the Syrian situation. The idea of Islamists taking over Syria is a major concern. Right now Syria is Jordan's major trading partner and many Jordanians in the north are related to Syrians. An Islamist takeover would strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, and the MB would try to unite with Jordan being between their centers of power in Syria and Egypt. It also has the potential of wrecking Jordan's already shaky economy. Syria is Jordan's gateway to Lebanon, Turkey and Eastern European markets. This is one reason why Jordan does not support economic sanctions against Syria. On the other hand, the massacres of civilians in Syria bother most Jordanians and the government as well. King Abdullah was among the first to call for Assad to step down. Their close ties make it inconceivable that Jordan would withdraw its ambassador, though. Another complicating factor is that there are thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, of Syrian refugees in Jordan now. King Abdullah reportedly does not believe that Syria is going to fall in the short term, but another major concern is that when it does, it will become another sectarian-torn mess like Libya and Iraq. Any way you look at it, Jordan will be in a worse situation in a couple of years than it is now - and it is not in great shape now by any means. 
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| Salafists terrorize Tunisian town Posted: 24 Feb 2012 06:35 AM PST From Reuters: Police in a Tunisian town used tear gas on Thursday to break up a crowd of about 200 hardline Islamists, armed with sticks, swords and petrol bombs, who set fire to a police station, witnesses told Reuters.
"The security forces are chasing about 200 Salafists armed with swords and sticks after an exchange of petrol bombs and tear gas," resident Omar Inoubli told Reuters by telephone from Jandouba, about 160 km (99 miles) west of the capital.
"These groups set fire to a police station .... (They) are broadcasting recordings through the loudspeakers of mosques calling for jihad (holy war)."
Residents said the clashes broke out when police arrested a Salafist but tensions had been brewing between authorities and the conservative Islamists who have become more active since last year's revolution.
"The situation has become serious in the city, which has been living in a state of terror and fear because of Salafist groups seeking to impose a strict way of life," another witness, a woman who did not want to be named, told Reuters.
One resident said the Salafis had threatened people drinking alcohol and slapped women wearing trousers or skirts.
The Salafists, who represent a small minority of Tunisians, have profited from the new freedoms. They have attacked brothels, bars and cinemas showing films they consider to be morally suspect, and staged protests to demand an end to mixed-gender classes at universities.
While many renounce violence, some have been linked to al-Qaeda's north African branch.
The Salafists represent an awkward problem for Tunisia's Islamist-led government.
Ennahda does not share their hardline views but if it cracks down on them, it risks alienating some of its more conservative supporters. As a result, it has been accused by secularist opponents of being too soft on the group. "Moderate" Islamists in power, who push for a Sharia-based legal system, embolden the "radical" Islamists to throw their weight around and make people's lives hell. Who could have guessed? 
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| 70th Anniversary of the Struma disaster Posted: 24 Feb 2012 05:20 AM PST A must-read from Sarah Honig: Exactly 70 years ago – on February 24, 1942 – 19-year-old David Stoliar terrifyingly clung to bobbing debris in the Black Sea. At first he heard screams in the frigid waters but the voices died down. It eventually emerged that Stoliar was the sole survivor of the Struma, an un-seaworthy vessel chuck-full of frantic Jewish refugees.
World War II was already in fever pitch. Against the enormity of the then-unfolding Holocaust, the loss at sea of 768 Jewish lives (103 of them babies and children) was at most blithely overlooked as a marginal annotation.
Moreover, although these Jews fled the Nazis, in the pedantic literal sense they weren't executed by Third Reich henchmen.
This atrocity was the coldblooded handiwork of Great Britain (committed while it combated the Germans but remarkably without compassion for their Jewish victims), supposedly neutral Turkey (whose so-called nonalignment didn't extend to outcast Jewish refugees), by the Arabs (who were openly and unreservedly Nazism's avid collaborators and who pressured London into denying endangered Jews asylum in the Jewish homeland) and, finally, by the Russians (who targeted the immobilized sardine can that carried Jews to whom nobody would allow a toehold on terra firma).
The entire world seemed united in signaling Jews how utterly unwanted they were anywhere.
...
What sets the Struma apart and imbues it with extraordinary significance is that from December 16, 1941, until the afternoon of February 23, 1942, its ordeal was played out before the entire watching but unfeeling world. No country could deny awareness of the impending calamity and yet all countries let it happen in full view.
The Struma, then a 115-year-old Danube cattle barge, was a pitiful peanut-shell of a boat packed with nearly 800 refugees from Romania. Bound for the Land of Israel, they desperately fled Hitler's hell and the horrors of Bucharest's fascist regime. Pogroms and ghastly atrocities had already sullied cities like Iasi, where thousands of Jews were assembled in the market square and mowed down with machine guns. Venerable old rabbis and Jewish community leaders were impaled on meat hooks in town centers.
The Struma wasn't struck suddenly. It was slowly tortured, accentuating with demonic deliberation how disposable Jews were, just when genocide's monstrous machinery was switched into high gear. This 75-day shipboard melodrama underscored the total helplessness and humiliation of Jews without power.
...Oblivion is perhaps the greatest sin against the Struma but also against ourselves. If we forget the Struma, we forget why this country exists, why we struggle for its survival. We forget the justice of our cause.
Dimmed memory and self-destructive perverse morality hinder our ability to protect ourselves from the offspring and torchbearers of the very Arabs who doomed the Struma. They haven't amended their hostile agenda. We just don't care to be reminded.
The state the Jews created is threatened with destruction and its population with obliteration. Yet there's negligible sympathy for Israel and even less practical support to avert tragedy. The Struma's story is seminal in understanding why the Holocaust was possible and why a second Holocaust cannot be ruled out. More than anything, the Struma powerfully illustrates what happens when Jews rely on others' goodwill. Read the whole thing. The New York Times story about the ship being blown up was buried on page 7 on February 25, 1942. (h/t Norman) 
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| Extremist Muslims get their wish; riots on Temple Mount Posted: 24 Feb 2012 04:00 AM PST From YNet: Friday prayers at Jerusalem's Temple Mount turned into a scene of major riots as protesters hurled stones at security forces who in turn broke into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Hundreds of Muslim worshippers at the Mughrabi Gate hurled stones at police and Border Guard forces who raided the compound to evacuate them. No injuries or arrests were reported as of yet. Dozens are currently refusing to leave the mosque itself. Islamist extremists have been calling for Muslims to "defend" Al Aqsa for the past couple of weeks because some Jews publicized that they would peacefully visit among the hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish visitors who visit every year. Here is video from earlier this week as Muslims broke chairs and tables to find projectiles to hurl at Israeli police outside who were escorting peaceful visitors: Here is the view from the outside as pieces of wood are hurled at the police from within, with the Muslims clearly starting the violence (starting around 1:15, also around 2:20). At the end you can see all the tables and chairs broken to be used as weapons. In watching dozens of Muslim videos on the Temple Mount showing Jews "storming" the area, I have not once seen any actions by the Jewish visitors that was the least bit provocative. Invariably, they walk around quietly. But I've seen plenty of videos of Muslims hurling objects and screaming at the Jews. 
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| Israel building a wall along Blue Line with Lebanon Posted: 24 Feb 2012 03:02 AM PST From The Daily Star (Lebanon): Israel Thursday officially confirmed plans to construct a wall to replace the existing technical fence along the Blue Line separating Lebanon's Kfar Kila village and the Israeli settlement of Metula.
"The IDF presented their plan to construct a wall to replace the existing Israeli technical fence. The wall will be on the line where the technical fence is at present," UNIFIL commander Maj. Gen. Paolo Serra said following a tripartite meeting with the Lebanese and Israeli armies at the Ras al-Naqoura crossing.
Media reports emerged in early January that Israel was planning to replace the technical fence with a 5-meter-high, 1-kilometer-long security wall equipped with surveillance and alarm systems. The area has been a source of tension in the past.
Serra added that the Lebanese Army had been informed of the technical details of Israel's plans, and that UNIFIL would now work to ensure sufficient security measures were in place during the construction process.
"UNIFIL achieved full understanding both with the LAF as well as with the IDF on the scope and technical details of the works that are to be carried out," he said. "UNIFIL's primary endeavor will be now to enable necessary security during the works and to ensure that there is no violation of the Blue Line in the process." The Muslim News (UK) adds: Residents of the southern Lebanese towns voiced different opinions about the construction of the wall.
A restaurant owner near Fatima Gate objected to its building, saying it will "detrimentally affect tourism since many people come to the restaurant to see the occupied lands and the Israeli soldiers up close."
A woman, whose house is a narrow road away from where the wall will be erected, hailed the project as good for her and her neighbors.
She said the wall would protect her three children from the Israeli army who might "attack at any moment" and will keep away the road dust kicked up by speeding Israeli military vehicles.
The woman's 60-year-old neighbor agreed with her, saying "it will relieve us from looking at them and their provocative behavior." Who knew that IDF soldiers are a Lebanese tourist attraction? 
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| Latest Latma Posted: 24 Feb 2012 01:18 AM PST |
Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh gave a speech to 3000 chanting Egyptians in the Al Azhar mosque in Cairo today.
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