| Hamas wins, gets free fuel for two months from Qatar Posted: 15 Apr 2012 11:00 PM PDT The fake fuel crisis has paid off in spades for Hamas. 25,000 tons of free fuel for the power plant is expected to arrive in Egypt in the next couple of days from Qatar. Egypt will ship it to Gaza through Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing. Hamas is also extracting promises from other Arab countries like Algeria to provide it with fuel, presumably for free as well, to help alleviate the artificial crisis. Remember how Hamas refused to accept fuel from the Kerem Shalom crossing for over a year, causing the crisis when Egypt cracked down on illegal smuggling. But now that the fuel is free, and Hamas can freely tax it, it has lost all its objections to receiving the fuel via Israel. I reported about the Qatar fuel being shipped two weeks ago. 
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| Syrians still fleeing by the thousands; Palestinians pose a special problem Posted: 15 Apr 2012 06:34 PM PDT From Jordan Times: A lull in violence in Syria has failed to slow the ongoing exodus of Syrians to Jordan, with over 3,000 refugees entering the Kingdom since the implementation of a UN-brokered ceasefire on Thursday, security sources and relief agencies say.
Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reported that France said on Friday it was considering sending aid for Syrian refugees in Jordan.
Reuters reported from Istanbul that Jordan and Turkey discussed accepting international aid to help share the cost of caring for the displaced Syrians.
According to a security source stationed in the border region, over 2,500 Syrians crossed into the Kingdom illegally between early Thursday and late Friday, marking one of the largest influxes of refugees into the Kingdom since Damascus' launch of a military crackdown on peaceful protesters in March 2011.
Local charitable societies say they have witnessed a spike in new arrivals since the start of a fragile ceasefire on Thursday, with Al Kitab and Sunna Society reporting the arrival of 1,000 refugees on Saturday alone, which places an increased burden on relief agencies and security forces.
"Thousands of Syrians entered the country illegally over the last three days, and we only expect this number to increase," Ziad Hamad, director of Al Kitab and Sunna Society, told The Jordan Times.
"We thought the ceasefire would lead to a drop in the number of refugees but we are seeing the opposite."
According to Syrian activists, some 400 additional families are currently camped out in the border region, holding out hope that the drop in violence will encourage Damascus to reverse a month-old ban on civilians travelling to Jordan.
The majority of new arrivals hail from Homs and Daraa, which activists claim continue to be under military siege despite Damascus' pledges to withdraw military forces from residential areas.
"The regime is not upholding its end of the ceasefire and more and more people are left with no option but to flee," said Ahmed, a Syrian opposition activist residing in Amman who did not wish to use his real name.
Several army defectors and officers were among this weekend's influx of Syrians, who, according to a security source, were transferred to a military-guarded compound outside Mafraq dedicated to former members of the Syrian armed forces. The Jordan Times is not talking about the Palestinian Syrians, though. Jordan is considering treating their Palestinian Syrian refugees differently from the others, as I reported last week. Arab News reports the situation in a beautiful example of doublethink: The brutal Syrian regime's bloody crackdown on the protesters, who have been taking to street to get rid of the autocratic regime, has not only inflicted unacceptable toll on the Syrian people but has also triggered a new wave of Palestinian refugees.
It is the destiny of those refugees to live in a permanent state of refuge. Palestinian refugees in Syrian are estimated to be 480,000.
With the continued influx of refugees from Syria, Jordan was alerted that the many refugees entering the country from Syria were in fact Palestinians.
It is worth mentioning that Jordan hosts some two millions Palestinians refugees and several hundred displaced. Therefore, receiving a new wave of refugees is a source of concerns in Amman.
But given the delicate demographic balance in Jordan, Jordanians are sensitive toward having new Palestinians refugees. There is a strong political current in Jordan that oppose resettling the Palestinians in Jordan calling for them to be given the opportunity to practice their right of return.
Against this, Amman cannot afford to be seen as encouraging the settlement of Palestinian refugees outside Palestine. For Jordan, the problem of dealing with Syrian refugees is complex as a considerable percentage of the refugees are Palestinians.
Sources from the Jordanian Ministry of Interior say that Jordan is considering establishing a buffer zone to place Palestinians refugees.
It seems logical for those Palestinian refugees to seek shelter and protection in sympathizing countries next door. Therefore, Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon seem ideal destinations for refugees. Notice how the Arab News is pretending that the institutionalized discrimination that Palestinian Arabs receive at the hand of every Arab government is natural and even praiseworthy, when in fact it is nothing less than the cynical use of Palestinian Arabs as political pawns against Israel. No moonbats are making weepy folk songs about their plight. Alas, that job is up to me to tell the truth about how Arabs treat their Palestinian brethren. 
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| Hamas, "the bearded traitor" Posted: 15 Apr 2012 01:30 PM PDT From a blog called Road2Tahrir: I am Palestinian. Just because I happened to be born in America, due to my family who decided to flee their homeland following the 6 day war with Israel, I am sitting here. Waiting. Stuck in Al-Arish, 20 kilometers from the Rafah/Gaza border, for 10 days now waiting to get permission to enter Gaza.
Their rules for entry are unclear and confusing and with no reason given – I have been denied permission to enter Gaza. I have been denied entry NOT by the Israelis. NOT by the US government. NOT by the relentless Egyptian military who has refused to loosen the Rafah border one bit, since the great Egyptian revolution. I have been denied entry by the Gaza gov't, Hamas – who has slowly and steadily been tightening their grip on the strip, and increasing in power and repression Daily – while under international blockade!
With such overwhelming odds such as an international blockade making it extremely difficult to rule, I felt it was important to give the Hamas government a chance to prove themselves. But not only has the "Palestinian parliament, which has a large Hamas majority, not convened" their "term effectively ended in January 2010, so it currently lacks constitutional legitimacy"1. Repeatedly, they reveal their true intention in one thing and one thing only – getting and keeping power and control over their lil fiefdom.
In providing some hope, their are those daring to speak out, such as Gaza Youth Break Out (GYBO) who wrote the Gaza Manifesto. But many of the youth have been targeted and imprisoned by the Gaza authorities, for doing so. It's fine for those in solidarity to blame Israel and US to a certain point, then it is up to Palestine activists everywhere to draw attention and highlight this fact. We can no longer remain silent, the youth of Gaza need our support for opposing such oppression!
...
It seems clear that Hamas is the next link in the chain of the victim becoming the oppressor. When will activists, rise up and start calling out the abuse of power, control and oppression from WITHIN Gaza?! It is up to us to FIRST stop building our own chains, that snakes and binds itself around our communities, and those who should be our most natural allies. And, if it is not stopped now – their grip on power will only grow stronger and more cemented in place making it much more difficult in the future. As usual, this call will be drowned out by those who obsessively want to blame Israel for everything, because the very idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East causes them to froth at the mouth. In other words, it is old fashioned anti-semitism that is hurting ordinary Palestinian Arabs more than anything else. It is the visceral and absurd hate of Israel that makes Arab governments reject naturalization of Palestinian Arabs as citizens; it is the irrational hate of Jews in power that ensures that Arabs cannot support true compromise with Israel and move on; it is the Arab inability to accept that the historic dhimmis have power and aren't going away that forces them to keep trying to make every battle an all-or-nothing, zero-sum game where the Jewish state is used an an excuse to keep millions of people in perpetual limbo - purportedly for their own good. Creating generation after generation filled with venom has been the Arab strategy of dealing with Israel, if not in this century then in the next. And as much as I sympathize with this writer, my guess is that he is still part of the problem. The people who are against Hamas and who created the Gaza Manifesto don't seem to accept Israel's existence any more than they are thrilled with Hamas' duplicity. And until a new group rises up that understands that the all-or-nothing option is never going to happen, and moreover that there are plenty of Israelis who would be happy to extend their own hands in friendship towards Arabs who don't want to see them all dead, then I am afraid that Gaza's youth will remain forever angry. 
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| Ten years since something that never happened Posted: 15 Apr 2012 12:00 PM PDT A must-read at Harry's Place: This is a guest post by Myrrh [I submitted this to the Guardian as a commentary piece on April 4. On April 12 they confirmed that they will not be running it. Both Brian Whitaker, former Middle East Editor current CiF editor, and Harriet Sherwood, currently the Jerusalem correspondent, have informed me that there are no plans to revisit the Jenin issue or theGuardian's coverage of it ten years ago. The readers editor also wrote me that he has no plan on revisiting the issue.]
For two full weeks in April of 2002, the Guardian ran wild with lurid tales of an Israeli massacre in the Palestinian city of Jenin on the West Bank — a massacre that never happened. The misrepresentations and outright fabrications have never been properly addressed in the ten ensuing years, as though the Guardian's editors believe nothing more than some hasty reporting and bad sourcing happened. But the reportorial failings were far too systematic to be so dismissed, and until the Guardian conducts a thorough investigation of its own errors and publishes a detailed account to its readers, its integrity on Israel-Palestine will continue to be called into question.
First the facts: On the heels of a thirty-day Palestinian suicide bombing campaign in Israeli cities which included thirteen deadly attacks (imagine thirteen 7/7's in one month), Israel embarked on a military offensive in the West Bank. The fiercest fighting in this offensive occurred in the refugee camp just outside the West Bank town of Jenin, the launching point for 30 Palestinian suicide bombers in the year and half previous (seven were caught before they could blow themselves up; the other 23 succeeded in carrying out their attacks). In this battle, which lasted less than a week, 23 Israeli soldiers were killed as well as 52 Palestinians, of whom at most 14 were civilians (there is some marginal dispute about that last figure).
There was nothing extraordinary in this battle or in these numbers. Looking back, what is extraordinary is that Ariel Sharon's Israel sat through 18 months of Palestinian suicide terror before embarking on even this military offensive. Seamus Milne assured readers on April 10 of the 'futility' of this military response, though with the benefit of hindsight we can clearly see this battle as the turning point in the struggle to end suicide terror on Israel's streets. Milne referred to 'hundreds' killed, 'evidence of atrocities,' and 'state terror.' Not to be outdone, Suzanne Goldenberg reported from Jenin's 'lunar landscape' of 'a silent wasteland, permeated with the stench of rotting corpses and cordite.' She found 'convincing accounts' of summary executions, though let's be honest and concede that it's not generally difficult to convince Goldenberg of Israeli villainy. In the next day's report from Jenin, a frustrated Goldenberg reported that the morgue in Jenin had 'just 16 bodies' after 'only two bodies [were] plucked from the wreckage.' This didn't cause her to doubt for a moment that there were hundreds more buried beneath or to hesitate in reporting from a Palestinian source that bodies may have been transported 'to a special zone in Israel.' Brian Whitaker and Chris McGreal weighed in with their own equally tendentious and equally flawed reporting the following week.
Only on the tenth consecutive day of breathless Jenin Massacre reporting did Peter Beaumont report on detailed Israeli accounts refuting the massacre accusations, though predictably this was presented as part of an Israeli PR campaign rather than as conclusive proof. Two days later, Beaumont conceded that there hadn't after all technically really actually been a massacre but then proceeded to repeat a handful of falsities as fact all over again. Without a doubt, though, the most memorable article the Guardian published on Jenin was its April 17 leader 'The Battle for the Truth.' The high dudgeon prose included the following sentences: 'Jenin camp looks like the scene of a crime'; 'Jenin smells like a crime'; 'Jenin feels like a crime'; 'Jenin already has that aura of infamy that attaches to a crime of especial notoriety'; and, unforgettably, the assertion that Israel's actions in Jenin were 'every bit as repellent' as the 9/11 attacks in New York only seven months earlier.
No correction or retraction has ever been printed for this infamous editorial. On the contrary, though mounting evidence emerged that the whole massacre calumny was a fabrication (never adequately reported by the Guardian), twice over the following year this leader article was obliquely cited — once incondemning another Israeli action by comparing it to the 'repellent demolition of lives and homes in Jenin' and most outrageously under the headline 'Israel still wanted for questioning.' The latter headline ran on top of the only leader that mentioned the UN report clearing Israel of the massacre charge. Rather than humbly acknowledging their own role in the libelous crescendo of that spring, the editors reminded readers, 'As we said last April, the destruction wrought in Jenin looked and smelled like a crime' and assured them that this was still the case. Someone who gets all their information about the world from the Guardian, a sizable phylum in the common rooms of my present university, would have no idea just how much of a lie the Jenin massacre was. Read the whole thing. 
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| Official Moroccan delegation visits Israel, first time since 2000 Posted: 15 Apr 2012 10:30 AM PDT From Al Resalah: An official Moroccan delegation arrived in Israel two days ago for the first time ever since the diplomat relations were first cut in 2000, Ynetnews reported.
The delegation arrived in Israel last Thursday, as being invited by Sam Bin Shatreat, the head of the Jewish Federation of Morocco to participate in the Passover.
The 4-member delegation, including the legal advisor of the Moroccan King, will meet today Danny Ayalon, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs , upon their request, Ynetnews briefed. According to the stories as told in Arabic media, they are taking part in the annual post-Passover Mimouna festival, and the trip was authorized by the King of Morocco. It is notable that for all the vitriol that Israel's Foreign Ministry receives from the "progressive" crowd, especially under Avigodor Lieberman, it seems to be doing a better job in forging friendships than any of the more centrist Israeli governments have done. 
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| How's that Syrian "cease fire" doing? Posted: 15 Apr 2012 08:45 AM PDT From Al Arabiya: Syrian government forces shelled the city of Homs on Sunday, resident opposition activists and a rights activist said, as a six-person advance party of U.N. observers is due to arrive in Syria to monitor a ceasefire meant to start four days ago.
"The bombardment of Khaldiyeh intensified this morning with an average of three shells a minute," the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.
The rebel district of Bayada was also shelled, Abdel Rahman said, adding that it was the fiercest shelling of Homs since a U.N.-backed ceasefire went into force at dawn on Thursday. CNN adds: Government helicopters pounded the besieged city of Homs from the sky, opposition activists said Sunday, three days after a so-called cease-fire in Syria.
In addition, "one bomb is being shelled every 10 minutes from the military academy, aiming at al-Wair neighborhood in Homs," said the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists.
At least nine people died across Syria on Sunday, including six in Homs, said the opposition Syrian Network for Human Rights. Two died in Aleppo a day after they were injured when regime forces opened fire at a funeral procession, the group said. Ooh, maybe the UN will upgrade their "condemnations" to "deplorings." 
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| Palestinian Arab media still blames Israel for Vittorio Arrigoni's death Posted: 15 Apr 2012 07:30 AM PDT It has been a year since Vittorio Arrigoni, Israel-hater and terror supporter, was murdered by an Islamic group in Gaza. At the time, the usual anti-Israel crowd was quick to blame Israel for the kidnapping and murder. However, Hamas identified members of a Salafist group that took credit for the kidnapping and killed a number of them in a shootout. Yet today, Palestinian Arab media is still blaming Israel for the murder - and this includes the "moderate" media. Both the Fatah-leaning Palestine Press Agency and the independent Ma'an News Agency are reporting today that the group that killed Arrigoni was "working for the occupation."
Any resemblance between Palestinian Arabic media reporting and the truth is purely coincidental.
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| Welcome to Palestine! Posted: 15 Apr 2012 05:45 AM PDT Today, a bunch of anti-Israel activists are attempting to embarrass Israel by flying in to the country to hold protests. They call this stunt "Welcome to Palestine." So far, it looks like a spectacular failure. It wasn't that long ago that there was a concerted effort to get people to visit Palestine, and the Palestinians at the time were actively seeking these visitors. But those Palestinians were Jews. A few years ago I collected a series of posters created by the Jewish Palestinians of the 1930s meant to encourage tourism to Palestine. Here are some others that are most interesting, especially for those who think that Palestinians are identical to Palestinian Arabs.
There were a series of Levant Fairs held in Tel Aviv in the 1920s and 1930s, and the 1934 fair was considered a "World's Fair." Exhibitors came from many countries worldwide - including Arab countries like Egypt and Syria. Here is one poster from the 1936 Levant Fair that shows how things could be today if Arab nations accepted Israel:
Incidentally, the logo for the later Levant Fairs was a flying camel, because ( the legend goes) the mayor of Jaffa told Mayor Dizengoff of Tel Aviv that a Levant Fair would only happen "when camels fly." Thanks to the Palestine Poster Project for these images. (They have posters from both sides, including some of my own.) 
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| Egyptian TV host spouts about the Protocols. And he's hardly alone. Posted: 15 Apr 2012 04:00 AM PDT From MEMRI: Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian TV host Hussam 'Aql, which aired on Al-Nas TV on March 23, 2012 : Hussam 'Aql : The Zionist entity and the Zionist movement are constantly "playing" with revolutions. What does that mean? After the revolutions, the situation is very fluid – the state is on its knees, and its institutions are shaky. This is the perfect opportunity for the Zionist entity to deal its blow and to play its little game. Whoever does not believe me can look at The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This is no book of poetry or stories. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a matter of undisputable science. There was a meeting of the Freemasons in France, and a French woman managed to smuggle out some dangerous documents, which circulated in the meeting. Between 1897 and 1951, the secret Zionist groups held nearly 23 meetings, one of which was a large gathering, which included over 50 Zionist groups. They issued several documents: How can we gain control over the world's minds? How can we gain control of the media? How can we turn the mighty national armies into cantons, which will fight one another? How can we gain control over the flow of capital? How can we gain control over the presidents and state leaders, and turn them into collaborators? A French woman managed to smuggle out these documents, which serve as the backbone of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. When the world read these documents… A Russian scholar called Sergei Nilos was the first to read these documents. He looked at the documents in front of him, and then examined the political situation around him, and realized how the leaders of the Zionist entity were playing with the money, and with the means of pressure, and how they were trying to take over regimes and governments, as well as the nascent regional forces. Look how Tel Aviv cannot keep its mouth shut when it sees Egypt on its way to become a regional power, and to restore the momentum of its activity and to lead the region. Tel Aviv cannot possibly keep its mouth shut. We do not want to be stupid or naïve. Sergei Nilos issued a warning and wrote research. Then in the early 20th century, along came Victor Marsden and translated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. We have read The Protocols, and we have detected the despicable, hellish, and Satanic plan to dominate the world and to humiliate the peoples and the nations. Just like I am humiliating Mr. 'Aql right now by showing him to be an idiot! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! And if you think that this is somehow anomalous and that most Arabs know that the "Protocols" are a forgery, check out Al Wafd from two weeks ago with a long article on the topic that accepts the veracity of the work unquestioningly. Or this recent article from pan-Arab newspaper Moheet. Or this even more recent article from a Jordanian newspaper As Sabeel. All of which accept the Protocols as absolute truth. All written by supposedly educated Arab journalists. 
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| Iran offers a "friendly" threat to UAE Posted: 15 Apr 2012 01:51 AM PDT Last week, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited islands that are in dispute between Iran and the UAE, and the UAE was not happy: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recalled its ambassador to Tehran Thursday, state news agency WAM reported, after having protested over a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a disputed island.
"The foreign ministry has recalled its ambassador to the Republic of Iran, Saif Mohammed Abid Al-Zaabi, for consultations," it said.
Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahayan Wednesday slammed the visit to the island of Abu Musa as a "'flagrant violation of UAE sovereignty over its territories."
This is a "setback to all efforts and attempts the UAE is making to find a peaceful settlement to Iran's occupation of the three UAE islands," the foreign minister said.
"This visit will not change the legal status of these islands which are part... of the UAE national soil," the English-language statement said.
Sheikh Abdullah, who visited Iran in February, said Ahmadinejad's move and "provocative rhetoric... expose Iran's false allegations regarding its keenness to establish good relations... with the UAE and countries of the region." Iran's response is about as threatening as possible while pretending to be "friendly": Secretary of Iran's Expediency Council advises the officials of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) against singing the same tune as Zionist regime of Israel and to avoid hasty measures.
Mohsen Rezaei made the remarks on Saturday in reaction to the UAE protesting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent visit to Iranian island of Abu Musa.
"The President's trip to the Iranian island of Abu Musa to visit Iranian citizens was the right thing to do," Fars News Agency quoted him as saying.
Rezaei stated that UAE officials appear to be abusing Iran's friendship and brotherhood, adding, "If they think Iran has become weak, [they] are mistaken. Today, Iran is very strong and will crush any [act of] aggression."
"Emirati officials had better apologize to Iran and not be dragged onto the same path as the Zionists because the region needs tranquility, peace and cooperation. If they have any objections, they can politely convey their objection to the Iranian government via diplomatic channels," Rezaei said.
He went on to say that the UAE has been issuing statements on three Iranian islands - Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa - for years.
"The UAE government sometimes uses a fake name for the Persian Gulf, but Iran continues its friendship and collaboration with the UAE with patience and by ignoring such wrong behavior," he added.
Rezaei said the UAE government has apparently misunderstood Iran's friendship or is trying to appease foreign parties due to pressures.
"It would better for the UAE government to maintain honest and friendly relations with Iran and not repeat its [earlier] mistake of cooperating with [Iraq's former dictator] Saddam Hussein," he concluded. It looks like the smile of a wolf as he circles his sheep neighbors. Most Arab states have denounced Iran over this latest provocation. 
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