Disenchanted Princess

House Hearings on American Muslims Set to Begin Today

2011-03-09T20:45:00.000-08:00

Republican congressman Peter King has called for hearings on whether American Muslims are being radicalized and whether they pose a threat to the American people. The mere language describing these hearings already sets up Muslims as an “other” and draws attention to the fact that King sees “American Muslims” as separate from “regular Americans.”

The provenance of these hearings in fact began with a 1999 speech by Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader and neo-con darling, who told the State Department that, “85 percent of all mosques have extreme leadership.” This statement, which was based on Kabbani’s personal opinion and not on any serious research, was picked up by Steven Emerson, who ran the Investigative Project on Terrorism, and then by Peter King, who is currently the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Hatem Bazian, UC Berkeley-based Islamic scholar and activist, says, “This fictional number became a factual record.” He claims that Kings policies, including the demand for these hearings, have been developed around this number. According to Bazian, actual research has revealed that American Muslim communities are penetrated by the same social problems as the larger American society- drug use, underage sexual activity- and for that reason are perfectly representative of American society, thus rendering useless the distinction between Americans and American Muslims.

Another reason King offers for calling for the hearings has been the lack of cooperation between law enforcement agencies and the Muslim community. King has claimed in interviews that, privately, law enforcement leadership has complained about this lack of cooperation, but publicly, they are saying the opposite. Attorney General Holder has said that Muslim cooperation, "Has been absolutely essential in identifying, and preventing, terrorist threats." Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, has said, “Many of our cases are a result of the cooperation from the Muslim community in the United States.” Similar examples abound. Perhaps this is why King has not invited any members of the law enforcement community to speak at the hearings.

This prompts us to examine who, exactly, is going to speak. The invited speakers, are as follows: Melvin Bledsoe, an individual with no scholarly or authoritative background whose son allegedly shot and killed an army recruiter in 2009; Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which released a film called "The Third Jihad”; Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who was invited to speak by the Democratic representatives on the committee, and who is expected to praise the Muslim community’s cooperation; Abdirizak Bihi, director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center in Minneapolis; and two congressmen, one Republican, and one Democratic. The Republican representative, Frank Wolf of Virginia, as a member of a House subcommittee, overseas the budget of the FBI and the Justice Department. The Democratic representative, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, is the first Muslim elected to Congress. There have been no scholars or researchers invited to speak.

Conspicuously absent is Daisy Khan, the woman behind the Cordoba House, which is the Islamic community center that has been incorrectly referred to in the media as “the ground zero mosque” (it is neither a mosque, nor at ground zero). Khan has said, “Islam is an American religion,” and has called extremists, “a fraction within a fraction within a fraction.”

It remains to be seen whether these hearings will devolve into a McCarthy-like witch hunt, with Muslims playing the part of the Communists, or whether King’s fellow committee members will see that America has actual problems to focus on that will not be solved by “othering” yet another minority group.

Guest Post: Who's Your Enemy

2011-02-27T18:55:00.000-08:00

Who's Your Enemy?

by Iyas Sartawi

I can't explain the feelings that I had once I heard the news on the morning of Friday, February the 11th. I was woken up at exactly nine in the morning by a text message that said, "Mabrouk Egypt! Mabrouk Arab Nation." By that text, I found out that "president Mubarak" resigned - finally. I didn't have my glasses on so I jumped out of my bed, put my glasses on and reread the message. I hurried down and read the news on Aljazeera, and that's when all those feelings of joy, happiness, and triumph intensified and I could not help but drop a couple of tears. I put Aljazeera Live on and started watching the events about Mubarak and Tahrir Square. All of a sudden, the image of the assassination of Anwar Al Sadat on TV came to my mind. That image is one of the earliest scenes from TV that I can remember. I was seven years old then and I remember how it was big news for my father, who was watching anxiously, and seemed very much into it and seemed happy, and joyful. I did not realize the immensity of that assassination then. But, how would I know? I was too young to comprehend.

I did not see the celebrations of the inauguration of Hosni Mubarak to become the next Egyptian president then. I saw this 30 years later, on Aljazeera on the day when he resigned and delegated his presidential powers to the Armed Forces Supreme Council. Very ironic!

I spent some time watching the celebrations of the brave men and women of Egypt. Most of the scenes were transmitted from Tahrir Square in Cairo, occasionally showing from other Egyptian cities such as Alexandria and Suez. Aljazeera showed some scenes of the celebrations taking place in Ramallah and Gaza. Officially however, these celebrations were banned by both the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah and self-appointed Hamas government in Gaza.

I didn't take too long to get over the feelings of joy, as I realized the president's resignation is just the beginning, and also the easy part. What's coming ahead is where the hard work is. I am a proud Palestinian, but at that moment I felt that I wished to be an Egyptian so I could fly and be there among those millions in the streets of Egypt and be a part of the planning for the future, be one of those guards of the Revolution. I realize how many will want to hijack the revolution and steer it toward their own agenda and benefit, where hijacking the the popular revolutions and people's aspirations isn't something we did not experience in the history of the Arab World. I remember what my late father always said, and again, I never really understood back then. He said: In the Arab World, never be happy for a change in regime; who comes after is just worse, and you will just cry on the predecessor. This time, and for this popular revolution, I don't think so. I hope and pray this won't happen to these holy revolutions of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, they're pure and holy, as pure and holy as of the blood of those young Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan men and women who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the rest of us to live in dignity and for a new dignified and corruption-free Middle East.

That's when my thoughts turned to the core of this crisis, Palestine. I thought I'd copy Wael Ghoneim and create a page on Facebook that calls for a Third Intifada in the Palestinian territories. (In fact, I have been thinking about it for a while now, long before the unrest started in Tunisia and Egypt). An intifada against corruption, tyranny, and occupation. The hardest was not the plan, it was choosing the enemy. Unlike Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and elsewhere in the Arab world, like Bahrain and Yemen where the enemy is just one--the corrupt regime--in Palestine, our enemy is many, whether the occupation forces of Israel, the corrupt regime of the illegitimate presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, the domination of the self-appointed Hamas government in Gaza, or the corruption in Jordan, where a large number of Palestinians reside, along with their Jordanian brothers and sisters, under harsh conditions of corruption and poverty. Tough job, isn't it?

My series of thoughts took me to a clip that I watched on Facebook the night before, where the clip showed footage of some of our fellow Tunisians being victorious after their revolution ended, shouting and calling for an Arab Unification. In the Middle East, we have this "dream" of an Arab Unification. We always viewed this unification as a dream. Well, just the liberation by itself from those evil regimes of the Middle East seemed something I never thought I'd live to witness, though I lived enough to see Baghdad fall to the American occupation forces.

The Egyptians woke up the morning of Saturday February the 12th, as free men and women since decades. I was thinking that when I woke up this morning, and I thought to myself, do they realize that it's a reality? Or is it just a dream? The sweetest of the dreams though? I would! Well, if my fellow Egyptians can wake up one day in liberty, freedom, and dignity, I believe this unity dream might come true one day.

Popular Uprisings All Over the Middle East a Death Knell for U.S. Credibility

2011-02-04T12:45:00.000-08:00

US has lost all credibility, as well as the opportunity to be relevant, in the region.

Popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan have been the main topic of news media of late, and while the democratic yearnings of the populace should, in theory, be supported by the U.S., a change in the status quo is the last thing our government wants.

Since the days of Eisenhower, our government has striven to make democracy our #1 export, in the perhaps mistaken belief that any democratic country would be our ally. Israel was the first country in the Middle East to get the American stamp of approval and, since its inception, this tiny state the size of New Jersey has received a total of $140 billion of aid (source), $53 billion of which was military aid (source). This is a symbol of America’s “special relationship” with Israel.

But what about our special relationships with the dictatorships of Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, and the monarchies of Morocco, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia? Are we “supporting” them to the tune of billions of dollars annually in the innocent hopes that they will voluntarily enact democracy in their countries? Since 1987 (the year Tunisia’s Ben-Ali took power), the U.S. has sold $349 million worth of weaponry to Tunisia (source). US military aid to Egypt totals over $1.3 billion annually (source). We gave Jordan $666 million worth of military aid in 2007 alone, spending $80 million of that on an anti-terrorism training center (source). All these countries either have rigged elections or no elections at all and we have propped up their governments with billions of dollars worth of military aid for decades. We even provided the gas with which Saddam Hussein committed an act of genocide against his own citizens (source), an act we apparently didn’t consider reprehensible until 20 years later.

In fact, during the Iran-Iraq war, we provided weapons not only to Iraq, but Iran as well, and even sent the proceeds of that arrangement to the Nicaraguan Resistance, which resulted in a little scandal called Iran-Contra. And now we lambaste Iran for providing funding and weapons to the Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah. We call Hezbollah Iran’s proxy and say “no fair”, and meanwhile we have dozens of our own proxies that we fund and equip on a fantastically larger scale.

And now the citizens of all these countries call us hypocrites (like here), and we have the gall to build anti-terrorism training centers that are supposed to shield us from the results of our own actions.

Once upon a time, the U.S. had a chance to be truly relevant in the Middle East by brokering a lasting peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. We said we wanted peace, we sent our ambassadors and negotiators jaunting back and forth between Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and elsewhere. But, more than ever, it seems like that was play acting, what many political analysts refer to as “stagecraft” rather than statecraft. And now, with the Palestinian Authority seeking recognition from UN countries directly, without America’s support, it is even clearer that we are no longer needed.

The Palestinian cause is the poster child of injustice in the region. Everybody from Morocco to Qatar knows that the Palestinians are increasingly subjugated and abused in myriad ways by the U.S., who continues to fund the Israeli military machine at the rate of $8 million a day while expecting the citizens of our ally countries to believe that we are doing so because Israel is under threat (source). If Israel were to be attacked, the chances are staggering that it would be bombed with our missiles, dropped from our planes, by soldiers whose salaries are paid by our tax dollars.

We are financing war because it is more profitable than peace, and the Middle East, at least, is tired of the status quo.

We have lost our chance to be relevant. If we want a chance to survive at all, with any moral dignity, we need a drastic change of plans.

Oh for Christ's Sake

2010-06-11T14:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am sickened when I'm reminded how deeply racism is embedded in a country that is supposed to be a democracy equally serving all of its residents. And that's saying something, because generally I don't care about other people at all.

This article from today's ynet reveals a clear incident of violent racism within its own culture, all the while attempting to dress it up as justified violence.

Four Border Guard officers were lightly injured Friday after being run over by a Palestinian driving a pickup truck in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz. The driver was shot, and quickly died of his wounds. His body was later snatched from the hospital and he was buried at a cemetery near the Temple Mount.

There are just so many things wrong with this one little paragraph. Firstly, the officers were "lightly injured" after being "run over." Really? I feel like one or the other of those phrases might be misleading. Normally people aren't just lightly injured when they are run over. So I'm thinking that most likely they weren't run over. Probably a car passed by them rather quickly and gave them quite a fright. Secondly, the driver "was shot, and quickly died of his wounds." A little trigger-happy are we? I might give the border guards the benefit of the doubt if I didn't already know that if a Jewish citizen had committed the same crime, he would absolutely not be shot at. Lastly, his body was "snatched" in order to be buried. A little misrepresentation-happy are we? Not only are these fiendish Palestinians driving too fast, they are stealing and burying their family members in accordance with their religious beliefs. Where will it end????

Let's move on:

After the incident, the assailant attempted to escape by foot and was shot by a Border Guard force stationed in the area. He was critically wounded and died shortly afterwards. Police suspect the incident was nationalistically motivated....The company commander began chasing the assailant, who tried to flee the scene. According to the police, he was shot after failing to obey the police's call to stop.

So he was shot in the back while running away. Because the police officer probably yelled "stop" in a language he may or may not have understood. I'm not an expert but usually in situations like this, lethal force is only authorized if the suspect presents imminent danger to someone else's life. But I don't know, maybe running away, even though he had left his "weapon" (ie his car) behind, might have seemed like it presents an imminent threat. And then, "police suspect the incident was nationalistically motivated." What does that even mean? How on earth did they come to that conclusion? Absolutely no evidence whatsoever has been presented for such a claim. Whatever. It doesn't matter. The "assailant" was Palestinian and his "victims" were Israeli, so naturally it was a terror attack. Obviously.

We have DWB in the U.S.- driving while black. Here in Israel, I guess its DWA- driving while Arab.

And the end of the story reveals that

Another passenger who was in the car with him was apparently injured by stones hurled at the road earlier and was evacuated to the Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital. The police are looking into his version that the driver who run over the officers was trying to evacuate him to receive medical treatment.

So in reality, he might have just been rushing his friend to the hospital and in his haste was not driving very carefully. Maybe. But now his life has been ended, so what difference does it make.

Finally, I would like the point out that the article includes a photo of the bulldozer from the "bulldozer attack" of two years ago. As if it is related in any way.

The first intifada started when a car accident was at first thought to be an intentional act of violent racism, by the way.

The Flotilla Fiasco

2010-06-09T03:11:00.000-07:00

Alright already. Now that the flurry (no, blizzard? Sandstorm? World-ending hurricane?) of rumors has ended I can finally report on the Flotilla Fiasco without reporting the same likely untrue information that everyone else was.

But seriously though. As soon as this thing happened, every news outlet and blog in the world was foaming at the mouth to get some information, any information about it. People were reprinting the most ridiculous things, subjects were branching off into whole other emotionally-motivated subjects. Like the whole Helen Thomas thing. Just wait 'til I get to that.

The Build-Up

So, first of all, we knew the ships were coming weeks in advance. The activists had made it clear they were coming, despite Israel's warnings. Both sides fueled the media hype by upping the ante, throughout the voyage. Israel was accused of trying to sabotage the ships (Israel is accused of trying to sabotage the ships every time an aid group sails to Gaza), and Israeli spokespeople (including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman) went on about how the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief (henceforth, IHH), who had provided much of the support for the operation, was secretly a terrorist organization and a front for Al-Qaeda. When asked for proof of this by savvy bloggers, Israel backpeddled a bit (as they will be forced to do throughout this debacle), saying that IHH supports Hamas and is "sympathetic to al-Qaeda" (source).

From the very beginning, the flotilla group made much better use of media, especially new media, tweeting and blogging and facebooking and youtubing away. Israel has attempted to match this threat in the media war by posting videos on the official IDF youtube page, but it was too little, too late. In my opinion, any formal entity, no matter how media-savvy its members are, cannot possibly match the pitch and intensity of an informal entity, whose members are not bound by any hierarchy, security concerns, or accountability. There has been in more recent days talk about an international enquiry into where the fault lies for this whole thing (the details I will get to, keep your pants on) but even if such an enquiry were to determine that Israel's use of force was justified and that the activists were at fault, who would shoulder the blame? It would be dispersed, symbolically, among everyone present. The Turkish government would have a little egg on its face (nothing compared to what Israel is currently wearing) but it would be a bit like when a mob starts a stampede on Black Friday because everyone's kid wants that toy and the store won't open its doors yet and it's 5am and everyone is tired and annoyed. Somebody started shoving first, all right, but we'll never know who it was.

So basically, before the confrontation even happened, everyone in the world knew Israel was going to end up looking bad, not least of all, Israel itself. FM Lieberman said on May 28, days before the action, that the whole thing was, "an attempt at violent propaganda against Israel."

In the Morning

On Monday, May 31, I woke to headlines about the "Flotilla Massacre." 10 people "at least" were dead, many more injured. Perusal of stories showed that Israeli "commandos" had slid down ropes from helicopters and opened fire on the unarmed activists. I simply put my head in my hands and sighed. I knew that, no matter what further information came to light on this issue, Israel had shot itself in the foot with this idiotic maneuver. In fact, it might not just have been the foot. Israel may have shot itself in the liver and will slowly and painfully bleed to death. We'll see. Threats have been made, but have proved to be most likely empty. But I have yet to get to that.

The headlines that day were mostly speculative. How many were dead? Who were they? Of what nationality? Who started the fighting? What would the international reaction be? And of course, where are all the images? In today's world, when everyone has at least a cellphone camera, and the people on the boat had already demonstrated their prowess for media technology, the curious question was why haven't we seen anything?

We found out later Israel was making serious attempts to control what information got to the press. It had cut communications on the Mavi Marmara just as Al-Jazeera correspondent Jamal Elshayyal was finishing a broadcast. He reported that two people had been killed and there were still sounds of live fire.

All cameras (or, we found out later, almost all) were confiscated from the activists as part of their intake at the Ashdod holding facility, and no media was allowed to speak to them. Prior to the Mavi Marmara's arrival, Israel had invited several journalists to observe the operation (codenamed Operation Sea Breeze) from Israeli vessels. However, these journalists were not allowed to share their observations due to a gag order.

The press was dying for information, as was I. I called my contacts, who provided me with almost no additional information. I called an activist friend of mine in Ramallah and when he picked up the phone, still sounding groggy, I said right away, "Do you know anything?"
"About what?" he responded.
"Are you kidding me?"
"Well I just woke up. Why? Did something happen?"
"Jesus look at the news."
He turned on his tv and flipped through the channels.
"There's nothing...nope...I don't see anything."
I apprised him of the situation and he promised to get back to me if he had more information. The next day, there was a "demonstration" in Ramallah, wherein a dozen or less activists held signs like "Pirates of the Mediterranean" and spoke to reporters about freeing Gaza. The reporters were tenfold more numerous than the demonstrators, which shows how desperate the press was to get anything, anything at all, to show.

The Light Shines On

Over the next fews days, videos galore came to light, along with commentaries about their validity. There was edited video, audio, and still photographs. Journalists on various sides of the issue cricitized anyone on the other side who had obviously edited the information, claiming it was a coverup.

A video emerged of Israeli soldiers on the deck of the Mavi Marmara, with rifles in hand. It looked like the sun had just come up. This contradicted the army's earlier claim that they had not had rifles at all, but also contradicted the activits' claim that they had begun shooting from the air, which was they became violent in return. So why are these Israeli soldiers standing calmly on the ship with rifles in hand, and nobody is fighting them?

There was audio clip of an Israeli seaman requesting by radio that the Mavi Marmara reroute to Ashdod, the nearest Israeli port, instead of attempting to reach Gaza. Someone from the other side responded, "Shut up, go back to Aushwitz." But then blogger Max Blumenthal pointed out that this clip was clearly edited and in fact included a photo from another video clip where nothing of the kind was said. Both clips were published on youtube by the IDF press office. When the IDF was pressed about the discrepancy, they responded that they did in fact edit the clip, but only for clarity. They also admitted that as it was recorded from an open line, anybody, on any ship, could have said it.

Reuters even got heat for publishing edited photos taken by the activists aboard the ship. In the original photos, you can see an activist holding a knife and standing over two injured soldiers, pool of blood and everything. Reuters edited the photo so that it included only one injured soldier (the least bloody of the two), no knife, and no blood pool.

The IDF also uploaded several videos of the activists attacking the soldiers. The activists' responses were usually that they had the right to defend the ship. The issue that the raid happened in international waters also featured prominently.

The Videos

The Interviews

After people began to be released (ie deported) from the temporary holding facility in Ashdod, interviews trickled out to the rest of the world.

Here is a clip with several interviews of different passengers, but unfortunately I am unable to embed it.

There were of course a gazillion more interviews, but all the ones I'm currently finding are either with people who were on other ships (where the violence was minimal and nobody was killed) or are total nutjobs and not worth listening to.

What I Think

Basically, what I can piece together from what I've seen and read, is that the Israeli navy first attempted to board the Mavi Marmara from the sea, but was rebuked by the passengers throwing things and spraying water. The soldiers then boarded the ship from the air, sliding down ropes from helicopters. Eyewitnesses and video footage agree that the activists attacked the soldiers immediately when they reached the deck of the ship. At least three were taken inside the ship ("taken hostage" say Israel's supporters, "taken into protective custody" say the activists). The next round of soldiers who came down from the helicopters was larger and they came down shooting live ammunition.

What is amazing here is that all of the 9 people reported dead were Turkish nationals, one with dual U.S. citizenship. Let's say for fun that the soldiers were told before the operation that they were to put the hurt on the Turks aboard the ship. Even in such a case, how would they have known which people were Turkish, especially in such a melee? What seems more likely to me is that, in an effort to save themselves and their fellow soldiers, they shot at whoever was being the most violent. While its true that Israel's claims that the IHH are a secret terrorist organization lack evidence, I can think of few reasons that only Turks were killed in the raid. There were a dozen nationalities on that ship. In this interview, a witness aboard the ship said, when asked how the Israelis boarded the ship, "The main boarding of the ship was by the helicopters and by sea, but the first attempt of the helicopter attack, or descent- the Turkish Resistance, I can say, grabbed four Israeli army and took them down."

Now, as to my opinion on where the fault lies. Firstly, there was no need for Israel to board the ship in the first place. Whether or not I think the siege on Gaza is right or the flotilla is right is not the issue. If Israel wanted to divert the ship to Ashdod using peaceful means, it could have. The propellor could have been disabled and the ship towed to Ashdod, without the soldiers ever boarding the Mavi Marmara, and thus avoiding the whole disgraceful nightmare. There was some jibber-jabber from the government press office that this type of ship is too big for such a maneuver, but my government contacts (who remain anonymous for obvious reasons) tell me that is completely untrue. Furthermore, the general consensus regarding why such a poor decision was made is that military minds only know how to design military solutions- a nod to Israel's current Minister of Defense- Ehud Barak- former general and Army Chief of Staff.

On the other side of the coin, let's take into account the actions of the Mavi Marmara's activists. They do not deny that they attacked the soldiers, saying it was their right to defend the ship. But what if they had just sat down? The same result would have been reached- that their ship would have been rerouted to Ashdod, their cargo unloaded for inspection, and themselves deported to their countries of origin- only nobody would have died. But maybe that wasn't preferable to them. Several media reports remarked that some of the Muslim activists were preparing for martyrdom.

One woman in this clip says, "We are now waiting for one of two good things- either to achieve martyrdom, or to reach Gaza." Another interviewee in this clip said, when asked if he had been subject to torture during his detainment, "No, unfortunately not." The one Turkish-American national who was killed kept a diary aboard the ship, the last words of which were reportedly, "Only a short time left before martydrom."

The Rachel Corrie

On Saturday, June 5, the Rachel Corrie (named after slain Gaza activist) was boarded by the Israeli navy. This time the activists did sit down, the soldiers met with the captain, and the activists agree to comply.

The passengers disembarked at Ashdod without incident.

This group was led by Mairead McGuire, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. The Israeli coverage of this event included a full-page photo on the front page of Yediot Ahronot of an Israeli soldier offering McGuire his hand to help her disembark, which she took graciously. The caption was, "This is what a real peace activist looks like."

Fallout

In line with the amount of attention paid to the "Go back to Aushwitz" comment was a similar yet, really if you think about it, completely irrelevant incident. Helen Thomas had been a White House correspondent for Hearst news for 57 years, I do believe the longest term ever for this job. On May 27, as the flotilla was very publicly on its way to Gaza, someone asked Thomas to comment on Israel. She said, "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine." And to the question, "Where should they go?" she answered, "Go home...to Poland, Germany."

Much, unfortunately, was made of this statement. Clearly it was in bad taste, but because of the timing, it was somehow used to confirm that exhausted line of Israel's reasoning that says everyone is against them. Ten days later Thomas hastily retired.

Naturally there was also a huge media mess regarding Israel's ties with Turkey. They had, before this incident, had a very good relationship, although it had declined slightly in the last few year as PM Erdogan began re-Islamizing the state and distancing himself from Israel. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel after the flotilla raid and proceeded to make vague threats that it then retracted. Ergodan reportedly threatened to personally accompany a new aid flotilla that would be escorted by the Turkish Navy. Turkey's foreign minister later retracted that statement.

Iran's Ahmedinejad also threatened to send an aid convey with a military escort but denied Israel the conundrum of whether to kill him by stating he would not personally be aboard the ship. No more has been heard about this threat.

Numerous concerts have been cancelled, for example the Klaxons, Gorillaz, and the Pixies.

Finally, I leave you with this:

(For the record, I find it distasteful and unhelpful, but it provides a comment on the issue.)

Well This Makes Me Feel All Warm and Fuzzy

2010-05-29T23:26:00.000-07:00

Lots of interesting things are going on over here, news-wise, but your favorite snarkist is neck-deep in finals over here in the holy land and I just don't have time to report on it. But, however, even so, and although...I do find this particular Haaretz article to be important based simply on how it makes me feel inside. It is one of several articles in the Israeli press of late that has speculated on whether there will be a summer war with Lebanon and whether Israel's military is ready for such a war.

The piece says, in part:

Hezbollah tries not to carry out openly military activities in the border area, and in all of south Lebanon for that matter, but reports of heightened activities have recently spiked. A former intelligence officer told Haaretz that lately he and other Galilee farmers have seen plainclothes Hezbollah personnel traveling along the border and photographing Israeli positions.

They are sometimes accompanied by individuals who do not appear to be Lebanese, as well as interpreters, who appear to be Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers and who have by now integrated into every command level in Hezbollah.

Several questions detract from the sheer unpleasantness this extract suggests: How do you know they're Hezbollah if they are in plainclothes? How do individuals appear to not be Lebanese? How do people appear to be interpreters? And finally, how do people appear to be Iranian Revolutionary Guards? If these questions could please be answered to my satisfaction, I could continue on with my goosebump fest, thankyouverymuch.

The News that Isn't News

2010-05-25T03:12:00.000-07:00

The world has ~~known~~ suspected for many years that Israel has nuclear weapons, but Israel's "ambiguous" policy toward announcing that fact means they will never confirm or deny this ~~fact~~ suspicion. But as Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Haaretz, and others are reporting today, another nail has just been hammered into ambiguity's coffin.

Writer Sasha Polakaw-Suransky broke the story wide open yesterday when he finally announced the results of his extensive research into Israel's nuclear activities. Basically what happened is he discovered documents that strongly suggest that Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa in 1975. The problem with the airtightness of the case is that the signature of Shimon Peres, current Israeli president and former defense minister, is on a secrecy agreement with South Africa, which was signed four days after a meeting between Peres and the South African defense minister. In the minutes of the meeting, typed and preserved by South Africa, nuclear weapons exchanges were discussed. So naturally, Peres is spinning the story by saying, correctly, that his signature is not on any document suggesting Israel has nuclear weapons or plans to proliferate them.

Polakaw-Suransky says about this, "he is speaking as a politician and someone predictably weasling his way out of a situation."

Yossi Melman, Israeli journalist, jumps on board the denial train and says that if Israel does currently have nukes, it didn't obtain them until 1979 and therefore couldn't have sold them to SA in 1975 even if they wanted to. He did however confirm that Israel traded tritium to SA in exchange for uranium.

In the above interview on Al Jazeera, the interviewer says to Melman, "Israel is not really in a position to cast dispersions on other peoples' nuclear ambitions. For instance, Iran."

Melman has that look on his face your kids get when you know they're doing something they're not supposed to do and you ask them what they're doing anyway and they respond, "Nooooooothiiiiing." You can tell he's thinking goddammit I should have known he was going to say that. So he takes a few moments to stutter and responds, "Well, that's not the same case. Israel has never admitted that it has nuclear weapons. It has never threatened to use nuclear weapons."

Wait. Am I...isn't that exactly the same case? Has Iran admitted it has nuclear weapons? Did I miss that announcement?

There are two main points of newsworthiness about this story. The first is obviously the evidence pointing toward Israel having nukes. The second is Israel's clear cooperation with Apartheid-era South Africa, which is unseemly and certainly doesn't help the image of today's Israel since its critics are constantly comparing Israel's policies toward Arabs to apartheid. However, as usual, only the Israeli press included the word "apartheid" in headlines about the event. Which is typical. Jewish guilt or whatever. I don't know.

Let's Recap the Times Square Bombing Fiasco

2010-05-10T05:42:00.000-07:00

I think it's time for a recap of this whole attempted Times Square bombing thing. The quick run-down goes like this: at first, nobody knew who did it, probably an amateur they thought, since the explosive device was made of fireworks and stuff. Also, this blog called Revolution Muslim had made veiled threats against the creators of South Park for including Mohammed, dressed in a bear suit, in their last episode. And the Viacom offices are in Times Square. Then the police apparently realized it was this guy Faisal Shahzad, below:

But they didn't want to make an arrest yet so they put him under surveillance and put him on the no fly list. He ditched his surveillance and was able to board a flight to Dubai, despite the no fly list. But upon a final manifest check, the airline was like, "Mmmmm, this guy isn't supposed to be on here. Let's call whoever we're supposed to call." Video of that whole process below:

PS, my fav part of this video: It's not like you just pick up the phone and call the guest house at the terror training camp and say, "Hello, was Mr. Shahzad there recently?"

Then the police came and took Shahzad away. They had him in custody and claimed he was singing like a bird, which didn't seem too plausible to me, but later there were stories on the news about how Pakistani officials had taken his family in Pakistan into custody, and I was like, oh I see. See in Pakistan they don't have pesky human rights laws and stuff.

So Shahzad apparently admitted he was part of the Pakistani Taliban and it was under their guidance that he planted the bomb. Which failed, I don't know if I mentioned that. Yeah, the bomb just didn't go off. It failed.

Anyway, meanwhile, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, created a youtube channel seemingly for the sole purpose of uploading two youtube videos praising Shahzad's attempt and promising further attacks on U.S. soil. Oh, and he also wanted to mention that he's not dead, as was previously thought.

That video is here. For some reason I'm not able to embed it, but here's a screenshot:

It's really worth watching. Seriously, it's like a trailer for an action film. Drama! Action! Suspense! Subtitles!

All this happened a week ago and then yesterday, I guess after they followed up on the leads Shahzad and his family gave them, the U.S. government announced it was sure the Pakistani Taliban was responsible for the failed Times Square bombing attempt.

And that's when they laid down the law.

Unmanned drones just went to town in Waziristan. Which is here, on Pakistan's Northern border with Afghanistan.

And by "went to town" I mean they shot two missiles and killed ten people. There was also a similar unmanned drone attack in the same region earlier in the week, according to the above article, but I could find no specific information about that. I don't know yet who was killed in this drone attack and how involved they were in the Times Square thing, but rest assured I will lean on my sources until I get that information. Who are my sources, you ask? I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

So let's review: in the span of a week's time, U.S. officials evacuated Times Square, neutralized a bomb, tracked down the bomber, arrested him, had his family ten thousand miles away arrested, convinced him to tell all, followed up on that, and then bombed the people who helped him make and plant the bomb.

Situation handled.

Doesn't this whole thing read like an action movie treatment?

Ohai There Ash Cloud

2010-05-10T05:05:00.000-07:00

So apparently the ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokul volcano will reach Israel by tonight.

How is "Eyjafjallajokul" even a word? You could put together any sequence of 15 letters and it would be equally as recognizable and easy to read (and by that I mean not at all) as "Eyjafjallajokul." Like, why not Ashjayecloudyajouyomommafnson?

Hanyway, my point is that things are windy and dusty over here and I don't like it one bit.

Well This is Going Swimmingly

2010-05-10T04:40:00.000-07:00

Remember back when everyone was mad at Netanyahu? That was because just as Joe Biden was in Israel trying to get peace talks started, Israel announced it was going to build a whole bunch of new settlement housing in East Jerusalem, in a neighborhood called Ramat Shlomo.

As part of the newest round of proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Israel annouced yesterday that it would not build the approved Ramat Shlomo neighborhood for at least two years. There, are you happy now?

Israel had pledged not to build in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of East Jerusalem for two years and that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vowed that he would work against incitement of any sort.

But then today, one day later, oops.

Just two days after resuming peace talks with Israel, the Palestinian Authority has reported to the United States what it termed the first violation of negotiation terms, a senior Palestinian official said Monday.

Yasser Abed Rabbo said the construction of 14 housing units for Jewish settlers in an East Jerusalem neighbourhood, as reported by the Israeli Peace Now pressure group, violated the terms of new talks.

About the first round of talks, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said:

Erekat said that during their meeting, Abbas gave Mitchell a letter outlining the Palestinian Authority's position on proximity talks and the issues it wants to discuss. Abbas would head the Palestinian negotiating team himself, Erekat said, adding that the Palestinians view the talks as aimed at "The end of the occupation and creation of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel along the 1967 borders."

And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak echoed his sentiments at a separate event:

"Without an agreement, we will be subject to international isolation, and we will suffer a fate similar to that of Belfast or Bosnia, or a gradual transition from a paradigm of two states for two peoples to one of one state for two peoples, and some people will try to label us as similar to South Africa. That's why we must act," Barak said. If both sides are willing to make brave decisions, he said, "it will be possible to get to direct negotiations and a breakthrough toward an agreement."

So it looks like Barak is super duper ready to make a two-state solution with the Palestinians, but clearly the rest of the government is not on board. Ah, well, no matter. I'm sure Netanyahu and Lieberman and all those guys will enjoy being a Jewish minority in, oh, 20 years.

Natan Sharansky and Netanyahu Outline New Jewish Agency Strategy

2010-05-06T02:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the Jewish Agency for Israel officially announced its new strategy for recruiting jews to live in Israel, which basically consists of spending more money on PR. The official press release quoted in the Ynet article doesn't say this, of course, but I was at an event sponsored by Masa on Tuesday night, which preceded the official announcement in New York by only a few hours. The Masa event, held in Jerusalem, was designed to strengthen the jewish disaspora's connection with Israel and included speeches by chairman of the Jewish Agency Natan Shransky, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Basically, Sharansky said the major question in approving the new strategy was, "Why should Israel have to pay for spoiled American kids to come visit?" I'm paraphrasing, clearly. But thankfully, Sharansky says, Netanyahu approved funding for this purpose.

The plan calls for building Jewish identity of Jews around the world and in Israel by forging a strong connection to Israel, Jewish heritage and people. The plan also introduces recommendations for new initiatives of social activism in Israel, and calls for directly engaging young Israelis on issues of Jewish identity.

I have uploaded Sharansky's speech and included it below, but I have had some internet problems which prevent me from uploading Netanyahu's speech so far. But stay tuned, it's coming.

PS I apologize for the terrible video quality here, I don't know what was up with my camera. Maybe it decided on its own that it would be best for my readers not to see Sharansky's face in focus.

Remember Actual Paper?

2010-05-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

By the way, the book I've been talking about forever is finally out. It is an anthology about the occupation, with stories from some amazing writers, including me. There are forewords by Cindy Sheehan and Amira Hass.

So buy it here and savor that righteous indignation to your liberal heart's content.

Abbas: Obama, Mitchell Useless, Settlements Not So Bad

2010-04-29T02:42:00.000-07:00

In an interview with Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Alawsat, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas hints that he was making more headway with Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni than he is with Obama and Mitchell and that in reality, Obama insisting on a settlement freeze puts Abbas in an awkward position. He can't very well publicly say that a settlement freeze is not necessary in order to continue negotiations, but he tells Asharq Alawsat's journalists that in previous negotiations with Olmert, he was prepared to ignore the issue, at least temporarily.

And that's not all. This article is filled with fascinating tidbits about the insides of such a complicated negotiation. Here are some important parts and my take on them.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Would it have been possible to reach an agreement with Olmert alone?
[President Abbas] I believe it would have been possible that I go up a little, and he comes down a little. It was possible to find a solution. He said that he would give me 100 percent.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] This is important and fundamental?
[President Abbas] He said 100 percent. He would take from this side, and I would take from that side. He presented maps to me. The maps included that he would take the settlements blocs (in the West Bank) in exchange for territories in the north, west, and south of the West Bank, in addition to territories to the east of Gaza.

So basically this is a territory swap he's talking about. Israel gets to keep the settlements they've built already and Palestine gets land that is not currently being used by anyone.

Wait. Not used by anyone? Don't we mean used by Palestinian residents of Israel? No.

[President Abbas] In a distant region (from the triangle region), because I explained from the beginning that I would not accept anyone (from the Palestinians of Israel). We were doing well. God is my witness, he was all right; he said to me: You will not find anyone other than me; and I said to him: But you will find someone other than me.

I guess Palestine has enough people. This brings a whole new angle to the argument about the Right of Return.

[President Abbas] Obama laid down the condition of halting the settlements completely. What could I say to him? Should I say this is too much? Moreover, halting the settlements is the second article of the Road Map, and it is something I want. At the end they blame me, and they say that the condition of halting the settlements was not on offer during the negotiations with Olmert. Bear in mind that at every meeting with Olmert the issue of the settlements was discussed.

And regarding Abbas' repeated threats to step down as president and his newest announcement that he will not seek re-election:

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Is not this decision tantamount to running away from the battle?
[President Abbas] Is the issue merely one of clinging to the chair? The chair does not matter to me.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] This is despite the fact that there is no alternative to you at this stage?
[President Abbas] It is wrong to say that there is no alternative. How can you say that there are 8 million Palestinians, but there is no alternative?
(Erekat [chief Palestinian negotiator with Israel]: I believe that the president did not say I do not want to be a candidate because he was scheming, maneuvering, or fed up).
[Asharq Al-Awsat] Or he might be sulking as he used to sulk in the past?
[President Abbas] No it is not sulking.

Hilarious. In what other situation would you find a journalist accusing a president of sulking during a private interview?

Moving along, Abbas says that Iran is standing in the way of a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas (the former rules the West Bank and that latter is in charge of the Gaza strip).

[President Abbas] Brother, they saw the Egyptian document before we saw it, they agreed to it, and then we signed, but they refused to sign. Why, because there are regional sides that do not want this.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] What are these sides?
[President Abbas] Iran is the first one. This is indisputable.

And here Abbas idealizes a bit. I think the situations he refers to have improved in the past several years, but naturally he is overemphasizing his success at reform.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What can a Palestinian State offer?
[President Abbas] It can offer a democratic state that has equality and transparency. I challenge anyone to say that there was a single case of corruption in the Palestinian Authority in the past two or three years. I mean a single case of corruption.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] Does this include political detentions?
[President Abbas] Or a single political detention.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] Does this mean that all the detentions are not political?
[President Abbas] The detentions are carried out in cases of weapons, security, money smuggling, or money laundering. I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] What about the issue of women?
[President Abbas] Women are equal to men. On every occasion we emphasize the need to advance women. The proof of this is that the Legislative Council has allocated a quota for women, whether the others like it or not; one of every three members of the Legislative Councils has to be a woman. This also applies to the local councils.

There is much too much in this interview for me to paraphrase everything, so I urge you to read the whole thing if you have an interest.

Oh No Wait, Nevermind

2010-04-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

According to this Haaretz article:

"There is no truth in the publications that Israel intends to deport Gazans residing in the West Bank," Brigadier-General Eitan Dangot, the coordinator of government activities in the Palestinian territories, told top Fatah official Hussein a-Sheikh during a phone conversation.

So instead of this order applying to Palestinians, it actually applies to everyone else:

A-Sheik added that "Dangot said that Israel would not enable tourists who enter Israel with a visa to enter the Palestinian territories."

So instead of physically forcing Palestinians to leave, they will just put a stranglehold on their economy and force them to leave that way. That's much better. Phew!

Nothing to See Here Folks, Don't Mind Us

2010-04-11T01:48:00.000-07:00

Well this is not at all like the holocaust. Nope, not at all. ~~Gaza is a ghetto~~ There have been no ghettos created for any special class of citizens, ~~dissidents are arrested and tortured~~ everyone is free to protest, and ~~at least Israel hasn't yet resorted to mass deportations of the undesirable portion of the population~~. Oh no wait. Yes they have.

From Haaretz today:

A new military order aimed at preventing infiltration will come into force this week, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years.

What this means is that, first and foremost, Palestinians whose ID cards show addresses in the Gaza strip will be deported. Even if they were born in the West Bank. Even if their spouses and children were born in the West Bank. Secondly, foreign-born spouses of West Bank residents will be subject to deportation. To where, I don't know. Palestinians with Gaza addresses on their ID cards may face deportation to the strip, but many Palestinians who were born and raised in the West Bank still do not have Palestinian residency cards, and are citizens of no country.

Amira Hass of Haaretz writes, "The new order defines anyone who enters the West Bank illegally as an infiltrator, as well as "a person who is present in the area and does not lawfully hold a permit." What that means is that, even if you enter Israel legally and decide you want to spend some time hanging with your second cousin, or your former coworker, or whomever in the West Bank, you have to obtain a permit from the local Israeli military commander. Even if the area you want to stay in is completely under Palestinian control. And what do you suppose are the chances of actually being granted a permit to chill with your people?

Furthermore, the order is so vague as to allow the local military commander to interpret as he sees fit:

The order's language is both general and ambiguous, stipulating that the term infiltrator will also be applied to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, citizens of countries with which Israel has friendly ties (such as the United States) and Israeli citizens, whether Arab or Jewish. All this depends on the judgment of Israel Defense Forces commanders in the field.

Pots and Kettles

2010-03-23T00:13:00.000-07:00

As part of my ongoing efforts to find out "what really happened" during, or to cause, episodes of violence in this beautiful land that is my temporary home, I search several newspapers for the same story to see what differs, and what is common.

This weekend, there were two separate incidents near the city of Nablus, in the West Bank, wherein four teenagers were killed by the Israeli army, two in each incident. These facts are not in dispute, according to my sources. What is in dispute is what caused the soldiers to kill the boys, and how exactly they were killed.

Regarding one incident, Israeli sources claim two of the boys tried to attack the soldiers, who were stationed at a checkpoint, with a pitchfork. Regarding the second incident, Arab sources called the event a peaceful demonstration while Israeli sources called it an "illegal riot." Are there legal riots? Not be a smartmouth, but seriously. Israeli sources claim that only rubber-coated bullets were fired, and that therefore their deaths were tragic accidents. Arab sources (and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem) claim the soldiers fired live rounds, which struck the boys in the head and abdomen, respectively.

I would like to offer now a sampling of media reports on the incident, first from Israeli news, and then from Arab news (Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera and Saudi-owned Asharq Alawsat).

Yedioth Ahronoth

The most popular newspaper in Israel, literally translated: Latest News.
IDF-appointed experts to probe death of 2 Palestinians

The IDF on Monday set up a committee of experts tasked with investigating the death of two Palestinian teenagers during riots that erupted near the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday. The Palestinians claim that Israeli soldiers used live fire, resulting in the death of two people, while the IDF contends that soldiers fired rubber-bullets, in accordance with army protocol.

The committee, consisting of military physicians and forensic experts who were appointed by the army, will be tasked with looking into the discrepancy between the two versions with the use of eyewitness accounts and evidence gathered at the scene.
The experts will also examine X-ray images of the Palestinians' bodies provided by a hospital in Nablus and the testimonies of IDF soldiers. At this point, the army said, the cause of death cannot be determined.

Mohammed Qadus (16) and Osayed Qadus (19) were killed during clashes in the West Bank village of Burin. The IDF said that during the incident dozens of Palestinians threw stones soldiers, who responded with crowd dispersal means.

Pitchfork remained on ground during purported attack

The IDF reports – according to which one of the Palestinians tried to attack the soldiers with a pitchfork or hoe – were shown to be inaccurate. The two Palestinians were indeed in possession of farming tools. However, they were reportedly left on the ground beside them. As the two were asked what they were doing in the area and asked to hand over their details, the company commander reportedly heard one of them mutter something that sounded like a prayer. According to the debriefing, he then attacked the soldier with a broken piece of glass that he allegedly picked up from the ground.

The company commander turned around and fired two or three rounds at the Palestinian. The company commander then noticed that the other Palestinian man started moving in a threatening manner with a syringe he held in his hand. The soldier then fired two more bullets.

Haaretz

The most popular left-leaning newspaper in Israeal, literally translated: The Land
PA accuses Israel of killing Palestinian teens 'in cold blood'

Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib called for an independent investigation into the killing of 19-year-old cousins Mohammed Qawariq and Saleh Qawariq on Sunday, who were shot by Israel Defense Forces troops who they attempted to stab with a pitchfork. The soldiers were not harmed in the incident.

Khatib cited witness accounts that the two had been shot only after being arrested, while Mahmoud al-Aloul, a senior figure in the Fatah party led by
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the youth had been killed
in "cold blood".

Oseyd Abd al-Nasser Kadus was hit in the midriff by a rubber-coated bullet and was taken to the hospital in Nablus, where he had been listed in critical condition.

Another youth, Ibrahim Abd al-Khader Kadus, 16, died Saturday after being hit in the heart by a rubber-coated bullet fired by IDF troops.

The two were wounded clash after IDF soldiers tried to prevent clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinians near the village of Iraq Burin, south of Nablus. Villagers own land that borders the nearby settlement of Bracha.

The Palestinians maintain that the two teenagers were hit by live ammunition and that the soldiers prevented Palestinian medical staff from evacuating them. The two teenagers were subsequently rushed to the hospital in private cars.

Al Jazeera

Qatari-owned TV station and news magazine, literally translated: The Island
IOF Kills Teenager in Nablus

A teenager was killed and another gravely wounded as Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened Saturday afternoon fire at them in the West Bank village of Iraq Burin south of Nablus.

The IOF entered the Iraq Burin and the neighboring Burin village, following a settlers attack on the two villages. As Israeli soldiers opened fire toward citizens they gravely injured Mohamed Kadus, 16, and Aceed Jamal, but Mohamed died in hospital.

Israeli Soldiers Kill Four Palestinians in Nablus over Weekend; Abbas Condemns

This came after Israeli occupation soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians Sunday at an army check post near the northern West Bank city of Nablus. An occupation spokeswoman claimed that both men tried to stab a soldier.
"Two Palestinians were killed after attempting to stab a soldier on patrol near Awarta, southeast of Nablus. Other soldiers opened fire at the attackers, killing them," the spokeswoman told AFP.

A 19-year-old Palestinian also died on Sunday of wounds sustained one day earlier when Israeli occupation forces opened fire on demonstrators south of Nablus.
Oseyd Abd al-Nasser Kadus was hit in the midriff by a rubber-coated bullet and was taken to the hospital in Nablus, where he had been listed in critical condition.
Another youth, Ibrahim Abd al-Khader Kadus, 16, died Saturday after being hit in the heart by a rubber-coated bullet fired by occupation troops.

Palestinians maintain that the two teenagers were hit by live ammunition and that the soldiers prevented Palestinian medical staff from evacuating them. The two teenagers were subsequently rushed to the hospital in private cars.

The two martyrs were wounded when Israeli soldiers opened fire at Palestinian demonstrators who were defending their families and properties from settler gangs attacking their village.

Asharq Alawsat

Saudi-owned and printed in the UK, literally translated: The Middle East
Second Palestinian Youth Dies after shot in West Bank

Osaid al-Kaddous, 17, was fatally wounded in a confrontation between Israeli forces and Palestinian youths, who had been throwing stones, in the Palestinian village of Iraq Burin, near Nablus. Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, was killed there Saturday.

Due to be buried later Sunday, they were the first Palestinians to die in recent weeks of protests in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Kaddous had been struck in the head by what a Palestinian medic who treated him said was a live bullet.

The Israeli army has denied live ammunition was used.

Do note that this paragraph:

The Palestinians maintain that the two teenagers were hit by live ammunition and that the soldiers prevented Palestinian medical staff from evacuating them. The two teenagers were subsequently rushed to the hospital in private cars.

was exactly the same, word for word, in the Haaretz article and the Al-Jazeera article. In my humble opinion, it seems that it is much less risky for an Israeli journalist to question and be critical of his or her government than it is for an Arab journalist. The wrath with which Al-Jazeera reports on developments in Palestine fades to a flicker when comment is made about the Qatari government, and is once again fanned when journalists criticize the rival Saudi government. But here in Israel, even mainstream publications echo the sentiments of their Arab peers and question the legitimacy of the Israeli military's official line until it is confirmed with facts.

Israel's critics accuse it of being an ethnocracy madquerading as a democracy, which is true, with Arab Israeli's rights dwindling as we speak. But one could make the argument, and indeed I intend to, that Israel's Arabs are treated more fairly than Arabs' Arabs. Were protesters not killed in Iran after Ahmedinejad was "reelected"? (And yes I know they are not Arab, don't split hairs with me). Have Egyptian journalists not been abducted, beaten, and disappeared for criticizing their leaders? Have Saudi TV producers not been fired and replaced simply for discussing the pros and cons of Western lifestyles?

I will continue this argument in my own head and possibly on the blog at a future date.

Amid Numerous Clashes, J'lem Police Chief says "No Worries"

2010-03-16T07:19:00.000-07:00

Couple days ago I wrote that some people think the third intifada could be starting soon. There have been outbreaks of violence, demonstrations, and vandalism throughout Jerusalem and the West Bank lately, but luckily Jerusalem's Chief of Police says there's no problem.

Police Commissioner David Cohen on Tuesday toured Jerusalem's Old City after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, and said he did not believe the recent violence would not spark a third intifada.

And in a not-really-funny but yes-really-funny way, this paragraph made me laugh a little:

Palestinians hurled stones at police and burned tires and trash bins in several areas of East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank during the 1967 Six-Day War.

"Burned tires and trash bins in several areas of East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank..." the first time I read that, I thought it meant Israel had captured the tires and trash bins in 1967. I was like, "wow, that's a long time to be holding onto those. Maybe they are really planning to give them back eventually."

Meanwhile, the West Bank closure I mentioned previously is still in effect. And as a parting thought, I include this paragraph about why this whole mess started in the first place:

Sporadic violence has erupted in recent weeks in Jerusalem after Israel decided to include West Bank religious sites in a Jewish national heritage plan stoked Palestinian anger.

Hamas Leader's Son Outs Himself as Shin-Bet Spy

2010-03-15T11:21:00.001-07:00

I love continuity. Really, it's my favorite thing when something I wrote about yesterday connects to something happening today. Well, ok, this didn't happen today, but I found out about it today. So with that said, I'd like to introduce Mr. Mosab Hassan Yousef. He is a Palestinian, born and raised in the West Bank, the son of a Hamas leader currently serving a prison term in Israel, and a voluntary spy for Shabak, Israel's intelligence service.

The news about this 32-year-old recent addition to California's population first broke on Israeli newspaper Haaretz- the writer, Avi Issacharoff, was given exclusive access to the now, we have to assume, on-the-lam Yousef. The story almost immediately bloomed into an international intrigue story. The same day as the Haaretz article came out, February 24, BBC picked up the story, adding some tidbits of their own. For example, the reaction from Hamas:

Earlier, senior Hamas leader Ismail Radwan condemned Haaretz's report as "baseless slander" aimed at the elder Yousef.

"The Palestinian people have great confidence in Hamas and its struggle and they will not be fooled by this slander and these lies of the Israeli occupation," he told AFP news agency.

Yousef became known over a year ago for outing himself as a converted Christian, and now he is outing himself again- this time as a spy for Israel- in a new book to be released soon, called Son of Hamas.

Some interesting tidbits from the Haaretz article:

Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "the Green Prince" - using the color of the Islamist group's flag, and "prince" because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement's founders.

During the second intifada, intelligence Yousef supplied led to the arrests of a number of high-ranking Palestinian figures responsible for planning deadly suicide bombings. These included Ibrahim Hamid (a Hamas military commander in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti (founder of the Fatah-linked Tanzim militia) and Abdullah Barghouti (a Hamas bomb-maker with no close relation to the Fatah figure). Yousef was also responsible for thwarting Israel's plan to assassinate his father.

Especially touching were his statements about Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier still held in Gaza.

"I wish I were in Gaza now," Yousef said by phone from California, "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done."

Yousef's former Shabak handler expressed his admiration for him.

Loai makes no secret of his admiration for his former source. "The amazing thing is that none of his actions were done for money," he says. "He did things he believed in. He wanted to save lives. His grasp of intelligence matters was just as good as ours - the ideas, the insights. One insight of his was worth 1,000 hours of thought by top experts."

He also says Hamas is a greater threat to the Palestinian people than Israel is.

I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does."

Lastly, check out this video which I am unfortunately unable to embed. It's an interview with Yousef on BBC Arabic where he talks about how Muhammad is a false prophet and Islam is a fundamentally flawed religion.

Tensions All Over the Place

2010-03-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

Things are getting hot over here. I've been reading lately some interesting opinion columns from local writers who think the third intifada is about to start, and if things keep going as they have been, that may well happen.

Firstly, Israel sealed off the West Bank beginning on Thursday and plan to keep it that way until at least Wednesday. What that means is that some Palestinians who are usually allowed to cross the checkpoints in order to pray at Al-Aqsa mosque will not be allowed to do so until the closure is over. Women are allowed to cross as usual but only men over 50 will be allowed during the closure.

This Ynet article describes five incidents of violence this week, which is not alltogether out of the ordinary, but one of those incidents was at the Old City's Damascus Gate, which is not usually a site of tension.

Recently there was also an incident of stone throwing and other tomfoolery at Al-Aqsa. The closure is a result of Israeli intelligence getting information that such an event was going to happen again this past weekend.

The decision was based on police intelligence received on a group of Arab youths planning to enter Temple Mount and causing disturbances. Accordingly, the Jerusalem District Police and Border Guard will deploy in force around the Temple Mount complex and the alleys of Jerusalem's Old City.

Speaking of Israeli intelligence, this other article brags about the intelligentsia's ability to preempt bad stuff.

The IDF emphasized that Udda's arrest illustrates the freedom the military enjoys in the West Bank and the precise intelligence hold it has which enables such arrests. "Anti-terror activity is constantly ongoing. We take action against anyone involved in terror now and against elements that were involved in terror in the past and have yet to be brought to justice. This is the approach that guides us, and will continue to guide us," an IDF source said.

This was in reference to the arrest of Maher Udda, a Hamas big fish that they consider the last man they were seeking in connection with the second intifada's terror attacks.

Everyone Hates Netanyahu

2010-03-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

Remember last week when I described how Netanyahu inserted his foot fully into his mouth with that whole Biden thing? Well, now clean-up is happening.

Firstly, yesterday, Bibi was apparently trying to explain that he handled the situation with Biden:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he thought his apology to Joe Biden over the ill-timed announcement of east Jerusalem construction was sufficient and believed the matter was closed.

This he says the same day he was "harshly reprimanded" on the phone by Sec. State Clinton. She expressed this sentiment herself:

In an interview with CNN, Friday Secretary of State Clinton said the move was "insulting" to the US.

"We have to make clear to our Israeli friends and partner that the two-state solution which we support, which the prime minister himself said he supports, requires confidence-building measures on both sides," she said.

And then today, when Netanyahu sees that everyone is still talking about it, he tries again:

"We opened the newspapers today and read all kinds of commentaries and estimates about the crisis with the United States. I suggest that we avoid getting carried away and calm down."

But the fact that he, himself, called it a "crisis" belies his message. In any case, the more interesting question to some will be whether Netanyahu really didn't know that the Interior Ministry would make the announcement on the same day as Biden's visit. My sources say no, that in fact, Israel really is that disorganized. But Netanyahu intends to remedy that:

Netanyahu on Saturday decided to form a committee comprising senior officials in the aims of preventing such mishaps.

The new committee will be responsible for establishing procedural guidelines to prevent the reoccurrence of similar incidents in the future.

Basically, everyone is mad at Netanyahu. Also, the word "crisis" was used exactly seven times in this one article.

Netanyahu is Going to Get Impeached

2010-03-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

According to this AP article Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really put his foot in it yesterday. VP Joe Biden showed up in Israel to try to re-start the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and what does Israel do? Announce its plans to build 1,600 new housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo.

The announcement was made just before Biden was scheduled to arrive to a planned dinner with Netanyahu. Meanwhile, Biden was on the phone with Washington asking just what he was supposed to do with this steaming pile of dung that had previously resembled a peace prospect. This caused him to be over an hour late to the dinner, a blunder which was perceived as an insult to Netanyahu, on top of the fact that he publicly condemned the move.

Israel's opposition party, Kadima, is reportedly planning a no-confidence vote to oust Netanyahu, which is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Israeli prime ministers who rub the U.S. the wrong way have suffered the same fate before. In fact, one of the reasons Bibi did not win re-election after his first term as prime minister is that he failed to please Clinton. And even Rabin, who would later be America's darling because of Oslo, stepped down partially due to the fact that he and Carter had bad chemistry.

Gitmo Released Taliban's Second in Command

2010-03-03T23:49:00.000-08:00

According to this AP story today, America's human rights activists are saying, "Ooops, my bad. Go on with what you were doing. Don't mind me."

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan – A man freed from Guantanamo more than two years ago after he claimed he only wanted to go home and help his family is now a senior commander running Taliban resistance to the U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, two senior Afghan intelligence officials say.

Abdul Qayyum is also seen as a leading candidate to be the next No. 2 in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, said the officials, interviewed last week by The Associated Press.

So now we can spend hundreds of millions of dollars in technology and manpower, not to mention the collateral damage of all his fine work, to find him somewhere in a cave or village in Afghanistan. But we could have just kept him in Gitmo. But he seemed so nice

And Qayyum is not nearly the only one who managed to slip through Gitmo's fingers, "U.S. intelligence asserts that 20 percent of suspects released from the Guantanamo Bay prison have returned to the fight and the number has been steadily increasing."

This guy could be the next #2 in the Taliban hierarchy and "From his houses in Quetta he appoints the (Taliban) governors, the district governors," Sharifuddin said. "Nothing happens in these provinces without his approval." Yet we thought he was just a nice rural boy who wanted to go home and help his family.

Oops.

'Biggest Dick' Refused in Saudi Arabia

2010-02-24T09:27:00.000-08:00

I cannot resist posting this piece from the MEMRI blog (the organization I am currently interning for under founder Yigal Carmon).

In an unfortunate result of translation, Pakistani diplomat Akbar Zeb will not become the next Pakistani ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Zeb’s credentials seem in order: He is the former ambassador to the United States, India and South Africa. He held the post of High Commissioner Designate of Pakistan to Canada and is the former director general of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry.

But despite Mr. Zeb’s impressive career, the 55-year-old diplomat’s name proved to be the immovable hurdle. When translated into Arabic, Akbar Zeb means “Biggest Dick.” In a region that stresses modesty, particularly in public, this could not stand.

Source: MEMRI

Hamas Again Advertises for New PR Rep

2010-01-23T02:50:00.000-08:00

This is nothing but a cry for help, just as this was.

"Hamas will keep rejecting the occupation and refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Priority will remain building and developing the resistance," said Meshal, who lives in Syria along with other Hamas leaders in exile.

The "Zionist entity." Does he have any idea how out of touch that makes him sound? This is a sci-fi series that has outlived its potential. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were a reality TV show, this would be the part where the contestants are urged to crawl through a tunnel of worms to win a phone call home.

If sounding like C-3P0 was the way to win hearts and minds, Meshal would have this thing handled.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank:

Abbas has said repeatedly he will not resume negotiations without a complete Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank and east Jerusalem - areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state. The Obama administration initially demanded such a freeze as well, but relented when Netanyahu resisted.

Netanyahu instead agreed to a 10-month slowdown in West Bank construction. But Netanyahu insists he will not relinquish any part of Jerusalem. The Palestinians seek the city's eastern sector as their future capital.

If we boil this whole thing down to a fictional conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his counterpart Mahmoud Abbas, you get this:
Abbas:[folds arms across chest and turns his back]
Netanyahu:Come on, talk to me. Please.
Abbas: No. You're just going to keep building more settlements and taking all our land. You're trying to force us into bantustans.
Netanyahu: [gasps] I would never do that to you. Now, come on, turn around and talk to me.
Abbas:[turns around] Well ok. Hey, what's that sound [settlement building resumes behind him]?
Netanyahu: What sound? I don't hear any sound. [settlement builder gives Netanyahu the thumbs up that he's done] Nevermind, I think we're all done here.
Abbas: [turns around and screams like Homer Simpson.]

This is Netanyahu's "realities on the ground" expansion plan.

Obama Gives up on Peace Process

2010-01-22T07:12:00.000-08:00

My Dear Reader,
I haven't written in many months, much to the chagrin of my biggest supporters (mom, et al). So if you're reading this, it means you either know me personally and have been warned I would begin writing again, or you have just stumbled upon this blog for the first time. Welcome, I say, to the latter. Welcome back, to the former. And I also must issue a warning: this blog may be hazardous to your political correctness. Side effects of reading this blog include uttering tasteless jokes, racist jokes, and offending friends and acquaintances in general. I am not a humanitarian, I am not a peacemaker, I can only barely be called a journalist. But along with a lack of human compassion comes a lack of emotional involvement in the affairs of the Israeli and Palestinian governments. I mock them both equally, where mocking is called for.

I also sometimes mock fellow bloggers and journalists.

Now, I will begin my update with a summation of the situation as of the last time I wrote, which was in August, and any developments since then.

Obama had been in office half a year and everyone was eager to see what his big plan was to solve Middle Eastern Conflict. Obama appointed George Mitchell as his special envoy to this end and after conferring with the region's leaders for five minutes or so came up with this totally original and incredibly detailed plan:
President Barack Obama's new Mideast envoy called Wednesday for an end to Hamas weapons smuggling and a reopening of Gaza's borders, seeking to strengthen the shaky cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants thrown into turmoil by new violence.
This reads like Mitchell thinks he's the magic peace fairy and he can just ask what each side wants and then POOF there it is. [The link to that article has since died, super sorry about that, but the quote is accurate.]

And then yesterday, this gem appeared in Ha'aretz, "Obama: U.S. expectations for Middle East peace too high." Obama is quoted as saying:
I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn't produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high.
Reading this article, I was shocked not only by the way Obama is willing to level with journalists, but also with his seemingly clear and realistic grasp on the situation. He summed up the key current issues as such:
Both sides ... have found that the political environment, the nature of their coalitions, or the divisions within their societies were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation.

And I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that. From Abbas' perspective, he's got Hamas looking over his shoulder and I think an environment generally within the Arab world that feels impatient with any process.

And on the Israeli front, although the Israelis I think after a lot of time showed a willingness to make some modifications in their policies, still found it very hard to move with any bold gestures.
Gilad Shalit is still held in captivity somewhere in Gaza. The Israeli soldier was taken in a cross border raid over three years ago and his imprisonment has played a key role in negotiations since that time. On August 12 of last year, this article revealed that Hamas was confident Israel would finally yield to its demands.
Mohammed al-Ghoul, the Hamas minister for prisoners' affairs, said "the Israeli occupation will soon surrender to the conditions that we have outlined for the release of Gilad Shalit."

According to al-Ghoul, Israel will release the Palestinian prisoners whose names appear on a list Hamas has passed to Egyptian officials. The list includes a number of prisoners serving life sentences, as well as women, children, and some elderly inmates.
First of all, al-Ghoul? Is that really someone you want to designate as any kind of representative to the western world? And secondly, that list has passed back and forth between Israel's and Hamas' hands so many times it probably carries swine flu, AIDS, and mad cow. The numbers of prisoners on the list has reportedly fluctuated wildly between 150 and 1,000 names. First Israel wouldn't release prisoners serving terms for murder, and then they would, but only certain ones, but Hamas wasn't happy with those certain ones, and so on. There are so many cooks in the kitchen on both sides that no matter the disposition of The List, it will never pass final muster. Sure enough, just one day later, a different Hamas rep was saying something else.
Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal said there is no real progress in talks for the release of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, despite recent reports to the contrary.

In an interview to Qatari newspaper al-Watan, that will be published in full on Sunday, with parts of it published on the Hamas website Thursday, Mashaal said mediation efforts in the matter were ongoing, but that no real progress has been made. He said this was due to "the manner in which the Zionist enemy's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is handling the matter.'
And most recently, any mention of progress in the swap has halted except for this item from January 19:
Mohammed Nazal told the Lebanese daily A-Sapir that the deal has been delayed thus far due to Israel's refusal to heed Hamas' demand to see top militants Marwan Bargouthi and Ahmed Sadat freed.
So basically at this point, Hamas is mainly concerned with these final two guys, but they're biggies. This is the first I've heard of this Ahmed Sadat dude, but Bargouthi is a Palestinian "freedom fighter" who is so popular it's basically assumed that if he's released, he'll win the Hamas presidency. He's considered to be the leader of both the first and second intifadas but strongly supported the peace process, including the Oslo accords. He's basically the Nelson Mandela of Palestine. Further research (meaning I can use google) has revealed that this Sadat guy is pretty popular too but he doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist and was in opposition to the Oslo process. He was Secretary-General of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) beginning in 2001 after the previous secretary was assassinated. The PFLP is basically Fatah's armed wing that they keep all hush-hush like when you have a retarded child that you keep in the basement just to feed annoying salesmen and Jehovah's Witnesses. Anyway, Sadat was accused of planning the assassination of Israel's tourism minister, who was the founder of right wing party Moledet and advocated the forced transfer of Israel's Arabs to neighboring countries.

So...what was my point? Oh yeah, transferring prisoners between Israel and Palestine is complicated.

Good god this update is exhausting. One more item.
Operation Price Tag is still in full swing. It was way back in October of 2008 that I first wrote about this lovely little grassroots movement wherein Israeli settlers damage Palestinian cemeteries, farms, and livestock, injure Palestinian children on their walks to school, and injure and sometimes kill Palestinians and/or Israeli soldiers who try to stop them in an attempt to curb opposition to the Israeli expansion project. How it works is, every time the Israeli governments clamps down and actually follows its own laws regarding the disposition of West Bank land, settlers in the area do some sort of damage that is designed to remind Palestinians and Israelis alike that there is a price tag to their opposition. I found the latest incarnation of this movement on Ha'aretz yesterday and here is the gist:
Recent violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, has been linked by some activists to the Israeli government's decision to impose a temporary, partial freeze on building in the enclaves.

Through a strategy known as the "price tag", the settlers have targeted Palestinians and their property whenever the Israeli government is seen moving, or thinking of moving against the settlements, which are deemed illegal by world powers.

Israeli police this month arrested four settlers on suspicion of involvement in an arson attack last month on a mosque near Nablus. Carpets and holy books were burnt in that attack.
These backlashes typically follow the evacuation of an illegal West Bank settlement by Israeli officials. Meanwhile, the freeze continues in name only as concrete foundations continue to be poured throughout areas planned for West Bank settlement.

And that's all kids. My snarky mockery will continue unabated as I'm in-country for a stay now.

Israel's Moderates Quiet As Usual

2009-08-03T23:53:00.000-07:00

Way back in the day (meaning mid-June), I wrote about how Obama's Cairo speech, and mid-east policy in general, was affecting the Israeli populace.

But Obama's loudly-proclaimed intentions have led to a more clearly defined divide among the Israeli people: those who value America's support above all else and those who are committed to settlement of the West Bank above all else.

But the issue of settlements may be a smart litmus test of Israel's intentions, because it draws a clear line between those in Israel and among its supporters abroad who support a two-state solution, and those who don't. Obama is betting the ayes have it.

Basically Obama just went ahead and put that out there, and now he's sitting back and waiting for internal strife in Israel to make Netanyahu more agreeable to a two-state solution.

And according to this article in today's Haaretz, that internal strife is bringing the settlement issue further into the limelight than it's been since The Disengagement in 2005. Basically, this latest development is that Israeli settlers are accusing the Israeli government of "colluding" with leftist Israelis against them. Notice how many times I used the word "Israelis" in that last sentence? That's because this argument is a family one. Leftist Israelis are pretty happy about Obama butting in to force the government's hand, but rightist Israelis would thank everyone to please mind their own business. I'm sure this is why the right wingers feel they're being colluded against but if the government is colluding with anybody, it's the settlers.

From this morning's article:

Settler representatives met with Defense Ministry officials earlier in the week in a bid to discuss a negotiated compromise on removing West Bank outposts. The state is interested in gaining settler acquiescence to voluntarily evacuate the outposts in exchange for the building of new neighborhoods in existing settlements, Army Radio reported.

Officials in the Yesha council of settlers told Army Radio they have no intention of discussing the voluntary removal of outposts.

This whole dog and pony show is really amusing to those of us who know that the settlers are completely dependent on the government for their ability to settle anywhere in the West Bank. So the government arguing about whether they should or should live on this or that hilltop is just for show. It's a delay tactic, wrapped and tied with a bow, direct from Netanyahu to Obama.

But anyway, back to that internal strife I was talking about. The theory was that Obama wanted to see whether the majority of Israelis supported settlements more, or U.S. support more. Both right and left have been more active, vocal, and organized of late. But it's not yet clear which of them can claim greater numbers.

Lieberman Pulls an Olmert

2009-08-03T03:58:00.000-07:00

Israeli Foreign Minster Avigdor Lieberman announced today that if charges are filed against him for bribery and fraud, he will resign his appointment as foreign minster and as head of the Israel Beiteinu party. Wait, what year is this? Because in summer of 2008, Israel's Prime Minister also agreed to step down amid accusations of bribery and fraud.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman responded Monday to the police announcement that it would recommend an indictment against him, saying that if he could go back, he would do everything exactly the same.

Of course he would. The resignation is nothing- he doesn't need to work anymore. He is accused of, "setting up a chain of front companies and bank accounts that allowed him to take in more than NIS 10 million."

He said that during the previous night he had "gone over the events of recent years, and I am at peace with everything that I've done. If I had to go back, I would do it all exactly the same. I would behave the same way if there was a second chance."

The only question left is why a ten year investigation just happened to turn up enough evidence for an indictment a few months after Lieberman's appointment as foreign minister. It's like someone had this dirt on him and promised to make it go away if he would stay out of the spotlight. But no, Netanyahu had to appoint someone as foreign minister who was referred to as having "erased in 20 minutes years of efforts to advance the peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians.

Lieberman's Hand Fully in Cookie Jar

2009-08-02T02:07:00.000-07:00

The police are just about ready to ask for an indictment against Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, for fraud. The investigation has been going on for about three years, and the police finally feel they have enough evidence to prove Lieberman:

managed a well-oiled business machine through front men even after taking public office, and made millions of dollars.

Lieberman and his associates are suspected of establishing several companies, some of them shell companies, in order to launder millions of shekels and funnel them into his own pockets. Police have investigated whether Lieberman continued running these alleged operations even after becoming a public official.

In addition, police believe Lieberman and his associates tried to obstruct the police investigation in at least three separate instances, by changing the names of companies he allegedly established in Cyprus after he suspected the police had identified them.

Last summer the big fraud case was against the Prime Minister at the time, Ehud Olmert, over which he agreed to step down. I'm pretty happy about this because, as you may know, Lieberman is the politician I have mentioned many times as advocating forced segregation of Jews and Arabs and forcing Israeli Arabs to choose between taking an oath of fealty to the Zionist state or deportation.

Link

Gay Kids Attacked in Tel Aviv

2009-08-02T01:47:00.000-07:00

I am astounded to read this piece of news. A masked gunman walked into a gay youth center in Tel Aviv and opened fire, killing two and wounding 15. This is particularly shocking because Tel Aviv is considered "the gay capital of the Middle East" and for good reason. There is a large and thriving gay community there, with gay pride held every June with no problems. Protesters strongly oppose a gay pride march and festival in Jerusalem, due to the higher number of religious residents there, but the Tel Aviv festival has not had such opposition from the right. In fact, in December of last year, Israel was one of the 66 countries that signed the UN's declaration decriminalizing homosexuality. The document recognized the human rights of gays.

What is also interesting about this piece of news is that the word "terrorist" was not used. If a Palestinian gunman had done the damage, or was suspected of having done it, reporters wouldn't call him a "gunman," they would call him an "armed terrorist." Even when acting alone, such as last summer's "bulldozer terrorist" did, Palestinians who hurt Israelis are almost always referred to as terrorists. But far-right Israelis, even when hurting unarmed civilians for a political aim, are not called terrorists. Another article about the same incident said, "Israel Police said that the incident at the club on Nahmani Street did not have a terror motive." Really? Opening fire on kids at a community center did not have a terror motive?

Because one can't be a terrorist without first being an Arab. At least in Israel.

Anti-Arab Racism Seething in Israel

2009-07-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

Israelis generally hate it when people compare their treatment of Palestinians to that of Nazis during the Holocaust, but I'm going to do that now, with good reasons, and with some qualifications.

The Nazis started small, with segregation, with government-sanctioned hatred and distrust of Jews. They didn't start right off with gas chambers, concentration camps, and wholesale murder. If they had, the world would have sat up and took notice immediately. They did it slow, so they could let the world adjust to the idea. "Separate but equal" was how it started in the U.S. but fortunately did not continue in that vein. There is an old adage: if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump right out. But if you put a frog in a pot of cold water and slowly make it hotter, the frog will slowly boil to death.

Most Israelis probably don't even realize that this is the direction their country, and their culture, is heading. Most are idealistic, democratic, and share the values of the West. But values of racism and segregation are slowly permeating the culture. Slowly, so that people can accept incidents as isolated rather than as part of a pattern.

But meanwhile, Jewish settlers (with their government's support) take over Palestinian homes and farmland. They beat and sometimes shoot Palestinian farmers and schoolchildren, seldom with any consequences. The government discusses laws like the "Nakba law" that would make it illegal to publicly commemorate the expulsions that resulted in the creation of Israel. Members of parliament openly advocate forced segregation based on race. Palestinian Jerusalemites cannot buy property in West Jerusalem. I could go on, but I won't.

But the most obvious symptom of the pervasive culture of racism that is blooming within Israel is the one you can see on the walls of mosques, schools, bus stops, and everywhere else unwanted Arabs make their home. Graffiti like "gas the Arabs," "death to Arabs," "no Arabs allowed," and more are everywhere.

Please do click this link and see a post on "Lawrence of Cyberia" exhibiting a collection of photos from all over Israel and West Bank bearing these messages. Anyone who wants to deny anti-Arab racism exists at such a level in Israel will say that these are indeed isolated incidents. That the pictures were taken over a period of many years, perhaps, or that the grafitti is removed right away.

But those things aren't true. Out of the 26 photos on the post, I have personally seen 9 examples- either the very piece of graffiti pictured, or a very similar message, in the last year. In fact, several of them I saw last summer and they are still there this summer, a year later.

Gush Katif Residents Clueless, Ironic

2009-07-29T02:22:00.000-07:00

Former residents of the Gush Katif settlement in Gaza, which was evacuated in The Disengagement of 2005, ask to go back to their homes, which actually don't exist anymore. Ynet says they protested yesterday at the Kissufim border crossing. Former Gaza settler Ophir Briner says:

the government acted "cruelly" in the aftermath of what he referred to as the "expulsion." Briner said he tells his young children, "We lived in Gush Katif, which is a part of the Land of Israel. We were forced to leave, and now we are waiting to return."

Sucks, doesn't it?

Israel Dismantles Outpost. Sort of.

2009-07-29T02:07:00.000-07:00

Haaretz says today that Israel dismantled a small outpost outside of the Kiryat Arba settlement, which had been expanded on Tuesday to include two new families. But the article says, "The settlers are expected to build the outpost again on Wednesday, as is customary following their dismantlement by security forces."

This was after the Youth for Israel movement established 11 new outposts earlier this week.

Also earlier this week, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said, "the IDF has not received orders to prepare for the evacuation of outposts in the West Bank." One of the movement's members, Shlomit Amitai, said:

"What we do is like bandaging a mother's wounds," Amitai says, explaining the proverb's meaning. "This empty earth is a wound that must be bandaged with a settlement."

And by "empty earth" she means, "earth currently being cultivated by Palestinian farmers who, as non-Jews, have no rights to the land."

At the beginning of this whole spat with the US over settlements, activists and the blogosphere predicted that Netanyahu would order a few far-flung outposts dismantled, which would inevitably make it into the news and make it look like he was making an effort to stop settlement expansion. And that prediction seems to be all too true.

An opinion column on Ynet today says:

We have to admit that despite the unpleasantness involved in the American reprimands over the unauthorized outposts, this confrontation has several benefits. The Israeli government and its settlers enjoy every moment, as every minute dedicated to the quarrel over the removal of illegal mobile homes in Judea and mobile washrooms in Samaria is a minute that is not devoted to the truly important evacuations.

Besides, the preoccupation with the “illegal outposts” is a good thing, as it implies that all the other settlements are legal; as if alongside the lawbreaking thieves we see legally sound thieves, who rob and steal in line with the rules.

In addition, the outpost festival allows the official Israel to present an image whereby the problem – that is, the enemies of the peace process and of an agreement – has to do with reckless hilltop youth, devoid of any restraints or Ritalin.

What isn't mentioned here is that even these random, youth-initiated, illegal outposts are protected by the army and are sooner or later provided with paved roads, electricity and plumbing by the Israeli government. They literally could not even set up a tent without the support of the IDF. If Netanyahu didn't want them to set up house, there would be no need for a settler-military confrontation, he could simply ignore them. But what he's after is the creation of "facts on the ground", a phrase that become synonymous with Israel's race to populate the West Bank with Jews before the world puts its foot down about the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade Hot for Bruno

2009-07-28T07:15:00.000-07:00

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Bruno star Sacha Baron Cohen has been threatened by members of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (an armed wing of Fatah) because of a member's portrayal in the movie.

The group denounced Cohen's "dirty use" of Aita, claiming that he was misled as to the "real context of the film." Bruno is seen remarking to Aita: "I want to be famous. I want the best guys in the business to kidnap me. Al-Qaida is so 2001."

Aita was reportedly furious with his portrayal in the film. "We reserve the right to respond in the way we find suitable against this man," Aita said in a statement published by World Net Daily.

Supposedly this guy Ayman Abu Aita is going to file a lawsuit against Cohen. Really? A lawsuit?

These guys shoot people in the street for lesser humiliations than that. Cohen has "tightened his security following the group's statement."

Good luck with that.

I couldn't find a clip of the actual scene in the movie, but above is a video of Sacha Baron Cohen telling Letterman about the "interview."

Palestinians Film Parody of Israeli Commercial

2009-07-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

Last week, this commercial for Israeli cell company cellcom started making the rounds of the blogosphere, with everyone having their two cents to put in about it. Basically the consensus among Palestinians and left-wing Israelis was that the commercial attempted to make light of the occupation and the security wall.

This week, residents of the beleaguered village of Bil'in, about which I have written before, decided to film a response to the commercial to show the world what such a situation is like in reality.

Night Watch in Bil'in

2009-07-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here on a rooftop in Bil'in with Sami, Luis, and some ISM activists. It is near midnight and we are waiting for the soldiers to come. They do arrests in the middle of the night- it is standard practice- and these activists try to observe the arrests to prevent brutality and at least film it and act as witnesses when it does happen.

Besides the foreign activists, nearly every rooftop at the edges of the village has a Palestinian look-out watching for the soldiers. Gaggles of pre-teen boys follow us wherever we go, joking with us, practicing their English, and excitedly telling us about themselves and their friends. Their smaller brothers toddle behind, sucking their thumbs.

On nights they do arrests, the lights of their jeeps can be seen on the Israeli-only roads near the wall, on the outskirts of the village. The lights go out and then the soldiers wait, as do we. Between one and three in the morning usually, the soldiers quietly cross the fields and enter this tiny village of 1,700 residents by foot to make what arrests they can.

There are some 150 names on the list of Palestinians to be arrested, but generally the soldiers are only able to make one or two arrests per night. The List has come into the hands of some anarchist Israeli activists and so by now everyone on it knows they're on it. They have begun to take precautions against arrest accordingly by moving locations at night.

One may wonder why nearly 10% of the village's population (and about 29% of the adult male population) is wanted for arrest, and there is an answer. Bil'in holds protests against the wall and the occupation in general every Friday. These protests are peaceful and are attended by international observers and news media, but the villages' participants are persecuted anyway with impunity.

Perhaps #1 on The List is Ashraf Abu Rahma, who has been dubbed the Palestinian Che Guevara for his non-violent but fearless and relentless protests against the occupation. (My previous writings about his travails here) Standing on the roof with me, he asks if I know the story of how he was shot by an Israeli soldier after being blindfolded and handcuffed. Indeed, I remembered vividly the event from last summer since it was captured on camera by 14-year-old Salam Amira. Salam's father was later arrested in what was believed to be an act of retribution for the filming.

Ashraf's character is significantly different from what I expected, given his exploits. He is small, kind, childlike, talkative, and a little goofy. He freely admits he is crazy for doing what he does. He speaks little English and the words he does use are frequently slightly incorrect. For example, he says baby for maybe, five for fine, and, my personal favorite: menstruation instead of demonstration. Everyone in the village knows him and as we walk the streets together, looking for more signs of soldiers, everyone enthusiastically welcomes him to sit with them.

So far this evening, we have seen 8 pairs of headlights converge upon the hill and go out. This means somewhere between 70 and 100 soldiers will probably enter the village tonight. So we await their arrival.

*****

At one in the morning, we left our perch atop the roof of the house and walked to the edge of the village, where the soldiers usually emerge from the field. Our plan was to alert the other members of the mission, by phone, so everyone could follow the soldiers together to observe their behavior. We all sat side by side in the road, under a clouded half-moon, waiting for the soldiers to step out of the shadows.

We chatted in hushed tones, smoked cigarettes, and dozed. The two Israeli activists who had just arrived discussed their passions and taught us Hebrew words. The Palestinian residents of Bil'in taught us Arabic words we didn't know, and the foreign participants taught the others some English words. With a combination of the three languages used, we all made it a merry, if subdued, night.

At 3:50, the muezzin sang the call to prayer and we all agreed that most likely the soldiers would not come now that everyone was up and about. We waited another half hour and then sleepily made our way home.

It may be that the soldiers knew we were there, waiting for them. Certainly they are light years ahead of this grassroots movement in terms of available technology. And it is rumored that the tower perched atop the highest hill in the village holds a camera which captures the village's movements. Throughout the night, the soldiers set small, controlled fires at what seemed random locations around the outskirts of Bil'in. They do this even on nights they don't make arrests, I am told, perhaps to cause confusion among the activists.

Some believe the last week (during which no arrests were made) served to cause the activists to lose interest and leave so that the Israeli military can swoop in and make several arrests in one night, without international supervision to hinder them.

Saudi Arabia Jumps on the Bandwagon

2009-07-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

According to this article in Ynet today, Saudi Arabia has announced a plan to build a fence along 5,000 miles of The Kingdom's borders. Five thousand miles. That's 2,000 miles longer than the width of the United States. That's 1,000 miles longer than a trip from Seattle to Bogata would be.

The winning bid for the project was made by European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) and is reported to be worth $3.5 billion.

Those Saudis are like Michael Jackson: they have so much money it has caused them to lose their minds. It's like they heard China did it and thought it might be cool. But when you have that much money, everybody is afraid to talk sense to you. Like, "Um, Your Highness, China built that wall before airplanes and missiles were invented. There's stuff that can go over walls now."

A Look at Life for Orthodox Jews in Israel

2009-07-10T07:33:00.000-07:00

No doubt women's rights groups will be scowling at their computer screens when they read this article, on Ynet today.

Renowned Rabbi David Batzri comes up with creative solution for thousands of single women participating in prayer assembly in Jerusalem on 'respectable mating.' Rabbi appeals to women not to put off pregnancy once married, says 'using birth control damages household income'

Have at least 12 children, do not use birth control, and continue having children after 40. This is the formula for overcoming sterility and long-term bachelorhood in the Religious Zionism movement put forth by renowned Rabbi David Batzri.

In a women's assembly in Jerusalem held Thursday in Jerusalem, the rabbi asserted that "a girl who wishes to marry must take upon herself already on the first date an obligation to have no less than 12 children." In addition, he encouraged women to put pressure on one another not to delay pregnancy after getting married and not to wait long in between births.

Oh wait. There's more.

The rabbi claimed that using birth control damages household income. He said, "When you use control methods, you stop abundance. When you see a woman whose youngest child is three, this means that she has been using control methods for three years. Convince her not to do this."

'Don't believe the doctors'

The rabbi also spoke on the issue of abortions. "Doctors are liars," he said. "Don't believe them. They tell you that the fetus is not healthy. This is only to protect themselves from lawsuits. It is forbidden to listen to doctors. Women who have consulted with me and didn't abort their child have the most healthy and righteous children."

Rabbi Batzri added, "Even at the age of 40 and up, it is possible to give birth, and it isn't dangerous."

So basically, quantity is more important than quality, he's saying, and if you endanger your life to produce more children you are doing it in God's service. Or something. I'm paraphrasing.

Interview with Combatants for Peace

2009-07-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

CFP
by hrhlolita

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Bassam Aramin, co-founder of Combatants for Peace. I think the video speaks for itself.

For more information, go here.

Israeli Housing Minister Advocates Forced Segregation

2009-07-09T02:23:00.000-07:00

The article I'm about to quote is from July 2, but I'm just now getting around to reading it.

Israeli Housing Minister and Member of Knesset (parliament) Ariel Atias announced:

"I see [it] as a national duty to prevent the spread of a population that, to say the least, does not love the state of Israel," Atias told a conference of the Israel Bar Association, which focused on a reforming Israel's Land Administration.

The Shas minister referred to Harish, a housing project built for the Haredi community in northern Israel, saying that the Arab population from the nearby Wadi Ara was spreading into the Harish area.

I find it unfathomable that today, in 2009, a high-level politician would openly advocate forced segregation based on race. I just don't know what else to say about this, except to add:

if we go on like we have until now, we will lose the Galilee. Populations that should not mix are spreading there. I don't think that it is appropriate [for them] to live together.

My fellow Americans, is this not undeniably a repeat of Jim Crow? How does this kind of news not make it to most of America? How do American supporters of Israel ignore this? Will they also call this a "security measure"?

Israeli News Got the Memo

2009-07-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

I have been saying for a long time that it is the Israeli people who need to change their minds about the conflict. The rest of the world is basically on board with the idea of a Palestinian state and an end to the daily human rights abuses that have been documented for anyone with internet access to see.

But the question is how to reach Israelis? They are terribly mistrustful of outsiders, especially those who don't speak Hebrew and attempt to criticize their country. It must come from inside, and now, with groups like Peace Now swelling in size, I feel a quickening on the horizon. More and more Israelis will jump on board the human rights movement, like whites who demonstrated for civil rights in 1960s America.

And here, a ray of hope. This segment was on the Israeli evening news. Bold, unapologetic, and extremely sympathetic to the Peace Now activists it focuses on.

Let Mommy and Daddy Talk, Kids

2009-06-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

Ha'aretz says today that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak went to Washington DC to discuss with George Mitchell about whether or not Israel would agree to a temporary freeze of settlement construction. Their four-hour "discussion" (Mommy and Daddy aren't fighting, kids, we're discussing) did not seem to bring them any closer to a decision. But that might be because Obama and Michell have not explicitly demanded an end to settlement construction, instead saying, "that Jerusalem must take 'action' on the matter."

And this article talks about a deal where settlers in Migron (a tiny settlement just East of the Palestinian city of Ramallah) would be relocated in Adam, a settlement annexed to Jerusalem and much closer to the green line.

Ha'aretz says:

Barak was quick to present the plan to evacuate Migron and build at Adam as an effort meant to deter a petition by Peace Now, scheduled to be brought before the court Monday. The defense minister's aim is to gain more time. In any case, the Defense Ministry argues, the construction of the new neighborhood in Adam will take at least two years - a decent amount of quiet time. Barak based his gamble on the images of the violent evacuation of the Amona outpost and is hoping that the justices will be deterred from another clash with the settler-invaders, and will jump at the opportunity to put the whole matter to rest for a long time.

Every single time, I am dumbounded that an entire government acts as a frightened child with even the thought of action from a violent minority of their own population. Again and again, it's been made clear to us "outsiders" that the settlers have the Israeli government on a short leash.

Returning to the Occupation

2009-06-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

I just returned from my weekend in Jordan and fully intended to write all about it, but I swear to god, as soon as I crossed the border into Israel/Palestine/the West Bank/whathaveyou, I became mentally exhausted. There were a total of at least 9 checkpoints in the roughly five mile span between the Jordan river and Jericho. I say "at least 9" because I lost count. My passport was handled by so many different people it probably has an STD by now.

I really do intend to write a play-by-play of the whole experience, but at this point, I only have the druthers to share one small portion of it.

On the bus from the Israeli side of the border to Jericho, I was seated next to a Mr. Bassam Aramin, co-founder of Combatants for Peace. He politely asked to sit next to me, and then lapsed into an exhausted silence. We arrived at the second of the day's Palestinian checkpoints, where a border guard boarded the bus and asked to take everyone's papers. When I handed him mine, he spoke to me in Arabic, and I asked the kindly man next to me what he said.

"He says foreigners should take the bus straight through to Jerusalem, and not this way. It is what the Israelis want." He paused and added, "It generates money for them, you know, the transport. And they don't want foreigners to see this." He shook his head and as he focused on something far outside the window, he said sadly, "Another face of the occupation."

We got to talking, and he revealed that his 10 year old daughter was shot and killed by the Israeli military outside of her school two years ago. News reports about the incident say she was caught in the crossfire between soldiers and Palestinian stone throwers.

Here is an excellent article about Mr. Aramin and the beginnings of Combatants for Peace.

Israelis Are Worried

2009-06-13T02:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's tense over here with this Obama-Israel rift in the making. Y'all know I wrote about Obama's Cairo speech, called "A New Beginning" and the effect it had on Israelis.

Well.

Things have continued on in that vein. Public Sentiment, the great barometer of the little people, has spoken. I give you two examples:

First, this article in Time Magazine
The title- "Can Netanyahu Repair the Rift With the U.S.?" pretty much says it all. Israelis are well aware that they stand at a precipice. On one side is their sovereignty, on the other is their prosperity. Israelis receive about $10 billion of aid money from the U.S. every year (more on that below) and $7 million daily just for military use. If Netanyahu ignores Obama's ~~demands~~ polite requests to freeze settlement construction that aid may be jeopardized. Even though Obama did call the U.S.-Israel bond "unbreakable" in his Cairo speech, he also made it clear he won't stand for any more riff-raff. ("The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.")

The article says:

When an Israeli cabinet minister proposes that his country impose sanctions on the United States, his government is clearly in a state of distress. Pressure from the Obama Administration to freeze Israeli settlement construction and move toward a two-state peace with the Palestinians has reportedly spurred Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled (who belongs to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's own Likud party) to recommended that Israel shop outside the U.S. for aircraft and military hardware, sell sensitive technology to clients disapproved of by Washington, and invite America's rivals to play a greater role in the Middle East.

This is clearly a knee-jerk reaction and these sanctions are very unlikely to come to fruition. It's big-talk for Obama's benefit.

But Obama's loudly-proclaimed intentions have led to a more clearly defined divide among the Israeli people: those who value America's support above all else and those who are committed to settlement of the West Bank above all else.

But the issue of settlements may be a smart litmus test of Israel's intentions, because it draws a clear line between those in Israel and among its supporters abroad who support a two-state solution, and those who don't. Obama is betting the ayes have it.

Basically Obama just went ahead and put that out there, and now he's sitting back and waiting for internal strife in Israel to make Netanyahu more agreeable to a two-state solution.

Opinion polls often find a majority of Israelis willing to give up West Bank settlements in exchange for a genuine peace, and that same majority is unlikely to be willing to jeopardize Israel's relationship with the United States in order to defend the settlers' right to build on Palestinian land, a right the settlers say is based on the argument that it forms part of the Biblical Land of Israel.

Despite this trend, the status quo is a very powerful thing and it takes a lot of momentum to shift it. Obama knows this and has apparently calculated that now is the time to roll with that forward momentum.

Netanyahu pleads that his hawkish coalition will collapse if he does as Obama asks, but skeptics point out that the Prime Minister chose to ally with the far-right when he might have chosen the centrist Kadima party, which has enough seats to shore up a government committed to a two-state solution.

Ooooopsie. Wrong choice, Bibi.

And he'll also likely take down one or two outposts built without permission by Israeli zealots outside of the boundaries of their existing settlements. Such actions will provoke televised clashes between settlers and police, and make the case that Netanyahu is acting on the settlement issue (without necessarily stopping construction within the boundaries of settlements, as demanded by Washington).

So right. The government cannot, I mean literally cannot go up against any group of settlers without a violent and highly publicized reaction.

Secondly, Israel's SNL Shows us the Score:
The Israeli comedy show Eretz Nehaderet (Beautiful Country), which is similar to America's Saturday Night Live, had a skit last night commenting on the possible rift between the U.S. and Israel. Actor-comedian Tal Freedman was dressed as PM Bibi Netanyahu and hosted a parody of the show "Million Dollar Race." Only the prize amount was ten billion (the same amount as Israel receives from the U.S.) and the possible sources of the money were various other rich and powerful world countries. Contestants competed for a new sponsor for Israel.

So that basically sums up the situation over here at the moment.

UPDATE:

I forgot about this. A week ago, journalist Max Blumenthal and Ta'ayush activist Joseph Dana published a video on youtube called "Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem" in which they interviewed drunk American Jews about Obama's upcoming speech. The speech hadn't even been made yet and everybody was all in a tizzy about what he would say. All the interviewees are basically ignorant and racist ("Who's Bibi Yahoo?") but something had to have prompted them to respond so viciously to their own president, whom, statistically speaking, they probably voted for.

On Natural Growth

2009-06-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

As I've been trying to explain lately, natural growth is not only a problem for settlement construction, it's a major problem in the construction of Arab homes. However, the former group gets much more media attention.

This Ha'aretz article does an excellent job of breaking this issue down in concrete terms- using statistics rather than public sentiment to show that Palestinians are indeed discriminated against regarding housing.

God vs. Parking Tickets

2009-06-12T00:46:00.000-07:00

There's been some controversy in J'lem of late about the parking lot in Safra Square (basically City Hall), and whether it should stay open on Saturdays. The large Orthodox community in Jerusalem is careful to remind government officials and other residents when they overstep the bounds of Jewish law- businesses are to be closed on Shabbat, no exceptions. The Orthodox leaders also feel Jews should not be driving at all on Saturday, in any case.

However, Jerusalem's secular residents feel differently and declare Mayor Nir Barkat will feel the pain next election if he caves to the ultra-Orthodox residents of the city. Barkat had previously opened the lot for use on Saturdays but Orthodox residents rioted in response and he agreed to close it for the next two Saturdays while he explored alternative solutions to Jerusalem's parking problem.

Ynet says:

"If Barkat gives in and the parking lots are closed even once on Shabbat, this will convey a message to everyone that those who act violently win," said Nir Pereg of the "forum of organizations for a free Jerusalem".

If the President Could Mind His Business Please

2009-06-11T15:35:00.001-07:00

Israeli President Shimon Peres suggested today that Israel should finally get around to defining its borders, thereby giving Palestine some borders as well. A few rightist parties in the government suggested that he "desist from 'interfering' in controversial political matters."

"The president of the state lacks any authority in political matters, in particular diplomatic and political subjects that are steeped in controversy," wrote MK Zevulun Orlev, chairman of Habayit Hayehudi, which is in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, in a letter to Peres.

The Ha'aretz article also added, "Peres said that Israel and the Palestinians should agree on the declaration of a Palestinian state with provisional borders, 'subject to a clear promise that the border will in a short span of time become permanent borders.'"

Obama's Name Lacks Desired Effect

2009-06-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

President Obama gave his speech to a packed audience at the American University of Cairo last week and you can bet everyone had something to say about it. While the speech gave fair lip service to both Israelis and Arabs, the effect was not the same on both groups. Arabs, who are used to a certain amount of verbal abuse and misunderstanding from American leaders, were basically pleased. Israelis, who are used to unconditional support from America, were basically disappointed.

He began with a nod to Islamic history and progress and acknowledged the role Muslims have played in advancing the interests of the US. He commented on our shared global destiny, his plans for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Gitmo. And then he fully and unequivocally recognized Israel and called the US-Israeli bond "unbreakable." Then he denounced extremist violence. Then he said Israelis should stop building settlements.

Here is the part of the speech concerning the Israel-Palestine issue:

The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction - or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews - is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations - large and small - that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers - for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires. The obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them - and all of us - to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

To someone who is educated on the issue but is not either Israeli or Arab, this speech seems totally fair and balanced. But that's not what everyone heard. I give you [drum roll] a random sampling of Israeli and Arab bloggers responding to "A New Beginning."

Arabs

Rantings of a Sandmonkey:

The speech was everything was expected and more. The guy achieved his goals and executed it effectively and brilliantly...My favorite parts of the speech had to be the following in order: The way he deliverd el salamu alaikom (the audience looked like it just had a collective orgasm), the Koranic shout outs, the pandering to Hijabis, the dig at Hillary (women became leaders in islamic countries, while the US is still "struggling with it"? Nice!), and the way he spoke of the Israel Palestine Issue. For me, again, it didn't say what he intends to do, but it made people happy. They were walking outside saying how , for the first time, they hear an american leader "talk with some balance on the issue".

Asharq Alawsat:

Obama's speech addressed those that we have always described as the silent majority, in other words the ordinary citizen who abhors extremism, backwardness and attrition [e.g. war of attrition fought between Egypt and Israel] where the situation is neither that of war nor peace. [Obama speech addressed] the citizen who desires an education, and wishes [only] to live with dignity.

And Saad Edin Ibrahim of Voices for a Democratic Egypt said on Riz Khan:

He was very reconciling, he was very firm, he was very fair. And I think the fact that he talked about Muslim communities, not about the Muslim world, was also well pointed.

Israelis:

Tikkun Olam:

He is playing right into the so-called Palestinians' hands by placing the onus on Israel, and basically not requiring anything of the Arabs-an extremely one-sided, unjust deal. I had my problems with Bush's "Road Map," but this is even worse: Obama is preaching to the entire world words which indicate that Israel, and Israel alone-is the culprit by creating obstacles to peace in the Middle East.

West Bank Mama:

What Obama said [about settlements] is not new at all. It really describes most of the world’s perception of the conflict pretty well – although it makes me angry that my living in my home is equated with terrorists killing innocent men, women, and children. Am I really as dangerous as a suicide bomber? I am a suburban mom raising three kids, and have never threatened anyone – I just live in a place that some think is “disputed”. Why are my actions compared to a terrorist who shoots rockets at civilians?

Israpundit:

By and large, President Obama’s address yesterday in Cairo has been well received in both the so-called “Muslim world” and by other audiences. Nobody may be happier with it, though, than the Muslim Brotherhood - the global organization that seeks to impose authoritative Islam’s theo-political-legal program known as “Shariah” through stealthy means where violence ones are not practicable. Egyptian Muslim Brothers were prominent among the guests in the audience at Cairo University and Brotherhood-associated organizations in America, like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), have rapturously endorsed the speech. The Brotherhood has ample reason for its delight. Accordingly, Americans who love freedom - whether or not they recognize the threat Shariah represents to it - have abundant cause for concern about “The Speech,” and what it portends for U.S. policy and interests.

What is most interesting about this last writer's opinion is that the "Muslim World" (which is what exactly, and what's with the quotes?) differs quite a bit. The article in Asharq Alawsat I already quoted also said of the Muslim Brotherhood:

As for the Muslim Brotherhood, they believe that Obama's speech contains an unjust view on the Palestinian issue. We do not know how [they can believe this] when Obama insisted upon the right to existence for a Palestinian state, as well as insisting that America will not turn its back on the suffering of the Palestinians.

It is not only the Muslim Brotherhood who is confused [with regards to Obama's speech], Hamas is as usual playing the game of presenting two faces [to the word], a moderate face, and a hawkish face. And so whilst one face compares Obama to Martin Luther King, another says that Obama's speech is unjust and contains nothing new. This is normal, and not surprising from Hamas, who is essentially unconcerned with Palestinian unity, or establishing a Palestinian state. This can be seen in the Hamas movement's order to its gunmen to treat the security agents of the Palestinian Authority as they would the soldiers of the Israeli occupation.

We can possibly extrapolate from this that Muslim and Arab leaders who are supportive of Obama are also critical of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Meanwhile, extremist Israeli leaders are pretty unhappy with just everything right now, especially Obama's speech in Cairo.

Ynet quotes the Yesha settlement council as saying,"Only time will tell if the US president is Barack or Hussein." The Shomron settlers' committee also said, "The State of Israel is paying the price for its leaders' defeatism. Hussein Obama opted to adopt the Arab's bogus versions over the Jewish truth."

These references to Obama's middle name is a symbol of the divide between the president and Israeli settlers- his first name, Barack, means "shining thing" or "lightning" in Hebrew. His middle name, Hussein, is Arabic for "handsome one."

I'm serious.

If there ever were a president that could get respect from both of these groups, it's him. The potential is built-in.

The Ynet article continues, "Baruch Marzel, chairman of the rightist National Jewish Front movement, said in response to the speech 'we will continue to settle the Land of Israel whether Obama likes it or not. Obama and American administration officials can make declarations, but the actions of the youths are what will determine the results on the ground.'"

Marzel has a strong following among the Orthodox and settler communities in Israel and the West Bank, but he by no means represents the majority of Israelis. Evidence of this is the fact that his own government has declared one of his groups, Kach, a terrorist organization. Marzel and his party were banned from participating in the 1992 Israeli elections under a new law that bars parties who attempt to incite racism.

The official Israeli government response to Obama's speech was positive, with Netanyahu vowing to comply with Obama's terms.

Netanyahu Gives Lip Service

2009-05-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

President Obama's new Middle East peace plan has been outlined, and according to The Australian:

Under the Obama proposal, Palestinian refugees would not be permitted to return to Israel, but they would be permitted to return to the Palestinian state that would arise on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Those who continue to reside in Arab countries where they have been largely confined to refugee camps for 60 years would be given citizenship of those countries, ending their refugee status.

On the critical question of Jerusalem, Mr Obama will support the Arab demand that Palestinians be permitted to establish their capital in East Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in the Six Day War in 1967. However, the walled Old City at the heart of Jerusalem, where the principal holy sites of Christianity, Judaism and Islam are located, would become an international enclave and fly the UN flag.

The Palestinian state would be demilitarised, maintaining a significant police force to keep order but not an army that might pose a security threat to Israel.

But according to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netanyahu said of his meetings with Obama:

Last night I returned to Jerusalem, our capital, from a very important visit to Washington, capital of the United States. It was very important for me to come back to participate in this ceremony and say the same things I said in the United States:

United Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Jerusalem has always been - and always will be - ours. It will never again be divided or cut in half. Jerusalem will remain only under Israel's sovereignty. In united Jerusalem, the freedom of worship and freedom of access for all three religions to the holy sites will be guaranteed, and it is the only way to guarantee that members of all faiths, minorities and denominations can continue living here safely.

The truth is somewhere in the middle and one thing to remember is that, like all politicians, Netanyahu must give lip service to his far right constituents in order to make gains for his far left constituents, and vice versa.

Settlements Not an Obstale to Peace

2009-05-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington meeting with President Obama this week, and he made some surprising concessions, in theory at least. Only time will tell if he will make good on his promises.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are of two types: state-sponsored and illegal. The "legal" settlements are built by the Israeli government, are protected by the Israeli military, and are usually much larger than the second type. Illegal settlements are those that are built in areas not approved for settlement by the government. These settlements are sometimes home to only one family, or several families.

Of the 26 illegal outposts on record, Israel will dismantle "a number of" them. No mention of dismantling any of the "legal" settlements. But no matter. According to Netanyahu, those are not really an issue.

From Haaretz:

The document, which Netanyahu issued for distribution only after meeting Obama, says Israel is ready to evacuate the illegal outposts. As for stopping construction in the settlements the document was more cagey, saying the settlements were not an obstacle to peace and that the evacuation of settlements in Gaza only led to the establishment of a Hamas terror base in the Gaza Strip.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak also added, "the new Israeli government would take action against the outposts, not because it was told to do so by the United States, but because Israel 'is a state of law."

It is widely understood that these statements were the price Netanyahu paid for Obama's support regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is taking a tougher stance on even the officially recognized West Bank settlements.

WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a hard line against settlement construction in the territories Wednesday, including a call to freeze building for natural growth. Her statement came in contrast to the general terms U.S. President Barack Obama expressed about the issue to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the week.

"Natural growth" refers to home additions designed to better accommodate a growing family. For example, adding a room onto the house when you've had a new baby. Or adding another small home to the property when one of your children marries. This type of natural growth is common in Arab families, as one piece of land is often lived on by many generations of a growing extended family. Unfortunately in many cases, this natural growth is deterred by the denial of building permits. In East Jerusalem, Arab homes are sometimes demolished because a proper permit was not obtained.

Everyone Hates Lieberman

2009-04-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

Israel's opposition leader Tzipi Livni responded to FM Lieberman's recent statements by saying he, "erased in 20 minutes years of efforts to advance the peace process."

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni on Friday accused Foreign Minister Avigdor Liebermanas having "erased in 20 minutes years of efforts to advance the peace process" when he declared that Israel was not bound by commitments it made at a 2007 summit in Annapolis to pursue creation of a Palestinian state

In an interview with Israel Radio, the Kadima chairwoman said she had expected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to announce that he did not share Lieberman's expressed sentiments, and was disappointed that such clarification was not made.

Meanwhile, outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert said on Thursday that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process kick-started in Annapolis bolstered international recognition of Israel.

But on the upside, Lieberman is now being investigated for fraud, which is awesome because it means at the very least, he will lose some credibility among his base of support. Best case scenario, he steps down.

Ha'aretz writes:

Police questioned Avigdor Lieberman as part of a corruption investigation on Friday for the second time since he was sworn in as foreign minister earlier this week.

Fraud squad detectives questioned the foreign minister, who is also chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, for more than five hours and said another round was likely in the coming week.

On Thursday, Lieberman was questioned for more than seven hours over suspicions of bribery, money laundering, fraud and breach of trust, less than a day after he took office.

Lieberman, of course, " denies any wrongdoing and says the probe is politically motivated." As much as I would love to see him investigated right out of office, I hope the investigation is not politically motivated. Because the fact is, his appointment is a symbol of one of my favorite concepts: freedom of belief. That being said, Lieberman has been investigated since 2007 and is suspected of laundering "large sums of money," so I think it's unlikely this latest round of questioning is connected to his appointment as Foreign Minister.

Of Course He Did

2009-04-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

The AP says today

JERUSALEM – Israel's new hard-line foreign minister delivered a scathing critique of Mideast peace efforts Wednesday, telling a room crowded with cringing diplomats that concessions to the Palestinians only invite war.

Lola is not amused.

The Realities of West Bank Settlements

2009-03-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

As part of my quest to try to explain the complicated situation of Jewish Israelis who settle in the West Bank, I urge you to read Seth Freedman's article about Bayit Echad in the Guardian. He touches on a very important aspect of the settler experience and reminds us that there are very real and human reasons that they continue to live there. We cannot ask anyone to change without first addressing their concerns.

"If we don't make peace, the Middle East will explode", he warns. "We can't live by the sword forever; if we don't deal with the Palestinians [over a negotiating table], they'll return to terror, and no army can beat terror; only diplomacy can." Raz is, by definition, a settler – albeit an incredibly reluctant one. He is desperate to relocate his family west of the Green Line, but economic conditions make such a move financially unviable, and he wants the government to enact legislation to help him.

Read the rest here.

Lieberman Makes Me Sad

2009-03-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Netanyahu, who began his official premiership today, appointed Avigdor Lieberman, of the Yisrael Beitanu party as foreign minister.

Can we just take a minute to examine what this means?

Lieberman is the very same politician who advocates forced expulsions of Israel's Arabs and who, at the very least, has been pushing for this population to face a tough choice: swear their loyalty to the Zionist state or have their citizenship revoked. To the outsider, this may seem natural. After all, why should defectors get to live in a state they oppose? However, it is possible to oppose Zionism and still support Israel.

Have we not many American citizens who love this country but oppose capitalism? Wanting to change some aspects of your government is not the same thing as wishing the whole state to disappear.

But Lieberman and his cronies, thinking as they do, are motivated by fear. And in a world where everyone is out to get you, you have to do whatever you can to stay on top. In Lieberman's view, the only way to be safe is to be the most powerful, or alternately, for everyone around you to be just like you.

Despite Netanyahu's mumblings about peace, his government is likely to take a hard line approach to peace efforts. Which basically means he will try to bully the Palestinians into submission. Like Operation Cast Lead, Bibi will apply pressure in all the most sensitive places so that giving Israel whatever it wants seems like the only option.

There is virtually no way peace will be made between Israel and Palestine without dismantlement of the settlements, and peace talks cannot even be taken seriously until Israel stops expanding existing settlements.

But this won't happen with Lieberman as foreign minister. He rabidly supports the settlement of the West Bank by Jewish Israelis.

It seems like what I wrote back in August is coming to fruition. Palestinian Authority officials said peace talks with anyone but Tzipi Livni would fail.

This Week's Dose of Moral Turpitude

2009-03-23T09:41:00.001-07:00

I have been ignoring this story since it started circulating around the blogosphere, and then onto local news sites, and then political commentators who are in the know. Now that it has finally reached the AP, I feel I would be remiss in my duty to you if I did not take note of it.

The long and short of it is that Israeli soldiers have been printing tshirts with slogans like "1 shot, 2 kills" paired with the image of a pregnant Muslim woman. An army spokesperson says the soldiers involved in printing the shirts and handing them out to graduates of basic training have been penalized.

The shirts "are not in accordance with IDF values and are simply tasteless," the military said in a statement. "This type of humor is unbecoming and should be condemned." The army said it would not tolerate such behavior and would take disciplinary action against the soldiers involved.

A small number of the shirts (probably several dozen) were printed for specific army training units.

Another story making the same laps is the one about misconduct during Operation Cast Lead. Ha'aretz has printed several stories about IDF soldiers saying they were ordered to shoot unarmed women and children, and that they followed those orders. Some within the blogosphere have called into question the validity of such statements, saying that the stories are only heresay and that even if they are true, each case resulted in tragedy because of Palestinian error, not Israeli malice.

Relevant to both stories, the AP has the following to say:

On Monday, the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, defended his troops.

"I tell you that this is a moral and ideological army. I have no doubt that exceptional events will be dealt with," Ashkenazi told new recruits. Gaza "is a complex atmosphere that includes civilians, and we took every measure possible to reduce harm to the innocent."

Palestinians too have glorified attacks on Israelis in the past. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas-controlled media consistently send messages that Jews cannot be trusted and that Israel is a bloodthirsty, militaristic state eager to seize Palestinian land and slaughter Palestinian children.

Pro-Israel Counter Protesters Speak Up

2009-03-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest video for San Francisco IAM. The recent protests against the Israeli invasion of Gaza, among other things, have been met with a small but determined force of pro-Israel counter protesters, who have an entirely different story to tell. Listen to their story here.

In a Break From Your Regularly Scheduled Program

2009-03-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

Why I love San Francisco:

I found these miniature items attached to the building across the street from my house. My 10 pound poodle gives you the scale.

Bulldozer Dude's Family Soon to be Homeless

2009-03-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

In July of last year, Palestinian construction worker Hussam Duwiyat took the bulldozer from the construction site where he was working and took it on a rampage through Jerusalem streets, in what would be the first incident of its kind, to be followed by several other copycat construction workers. Duwiyat killed three people and indured dozens before he was shot and killed by an off-duty soldier, on camera.

[Link to my post about it.]

At the time, there was talk about demolishing his parent's home, as a method of collective punishment that had been discontinued but then reinstated several months previously. At various times, the Israeli government has decided that home demolition is not an effective deterrent for would-be terrorist and, alternately, that it should be done anyway. It seems they are out of ideas.

The debate about whether the Duwiyat home should be demolished was based on his family's argument that, firstly, he was not a terrorist, but rather, simply a disturbed individual and secondly, that he did not have rights to his parents' home anyway.

High Court Justice Edmond Levy ruled today that there were no grounds to reverse the decision made by defense officials to raze the family home, which is a multi-story dwelling housing Duwiyat's entire extended family.

Motivational Speech from America to Iraq

2009-03-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

This thing kind of speaks for itself, but I have to say a few things. Firstly, I never had a drill sargeant talk that nice to me when I was in the army. Drill sargeants are generally meaner than snakes and they have a captive audience. Secondly, the Arabic translator is sugar-coating everything the guy is saying. For example, when the American soldier called the Iraqi soldiers pussies, the translator instead said, "You didn't do it."

4:00:

American: Any questions?

Iraqi soldier: When we heard something is happening in the factory, we went there and the Americans said 'you're crazy and you're in the militia and you're Iranis.' And everybody got killed in the factory and we went there to check it out. And when we tried to intervene, Americans came and said we were terrorists and took our IDs. And they said it's not your duty to intervene. The Americans even arrested our sargeant. And then everybody called us Iranis and terrorists.

American: You want to erase that image...you want to fix your image? Fuck your stupid checkpoints, they're worthless. Get together, get all your weapons and start marching South, towards the river. I guaruntee you'll get in a gun fight and I guaruntee you'll fuck some people up. Get down there and kick some ass.

Iraqi soldier: Ok, so give us some trucks to go.

American: Fuck, you don't need trucks. Take some water, take some food, and walk.

Iraqi: How can we go there when the airplanes are on top of us? And they call us terrorists and Iranis? The last time it happened, the airplanes and hummers surrounded us and arrested us.

American: Hey, quit making excuses...until you man up, shut the fuck up.

Iraqi: We cannot do anything because American snipers are everywhere.

I'm Just Saying...

2009-03-07T11:14:00.001-08:00

An AP article today mentions the resignation of Salam Fayyad, Prime Minister in the West Bank, which is really not the most interesting thing about the article. Waaaaay down at the bottom, it says:

In other developments, an internal report by European Union diplomats said Israel is undermining prospects for establishing a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem because Israel keeps building homes for Jews there and demolishes Palestinian-owned homes.

"Long-standing Israeli plans for Jerusalem, now being implemented at an accelerated rate, are undermining prospects for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and a sustainable two- state solution," said the 20-page report, made available to journalists by the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions. An EU diplomat verified its authenticity.

And I was reminded of a question I have asked myself many times. Maybe one of my readers can take a stab at answering. These right wingers who continue to demolish Palestinian homes, build settlements, and otherwise make a two-state solution improbable, what do they expect to gain from it? If they don't want to give Palestinians their own state, the only other result will be one state, with Jews as the minority. This has always seemed to me a less strategic outcome for the Jewish citizens of Israel.

Are they just being shortsighted? Is there something I'm missing?

Ayn Rand Institute Champions Israel

2009-03-05T11:33:00.000-08:00

I went to the Objectivist Club of Berkeley on Tuesday to a lecture called, "What is America's stake in the Arab-Israeli conflict?" The lecture was given by Elan Journo, a writer at the Ayn Rand Institute. As a preface to Journo's lecture, I must first explain Objectivism, Rand's philosophy. The main premise is that human beings are without instincts to serve our self-interests, therefore we must be guided by a set of moral principles. Journo's argument, constructed using Rand's philosophy, is a moral one. In fact, the subtitle of the event was, "a talk on the moral defense of Israel."

Personally, I think moral arguments are weak. But I also think nobody is objective, so maybe Journo's argument was weaker than a logical one, but also more honest.

The first thing I noticed coming into the room was that there were campus police officers present. I don't know if this is standard practice for lectures at Berkeley, or if the officers were present because this pro-Israel lecture occurred smack in the middle of Israeli Apartheid Week on campus (during which protesters urged passerby to take BDS actions against Israel).

Journo's lecture opened with a description of the high hopes held by all after Rabin, Clinton, and Arafat finished the Oslo Accords, which established the Palestinian Authority, in 1993 (Rabin and Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize for these actions). This portion of the lecture was brought to a close with a sad story about an Israeli boy who was emotionally traumatized when a qassam rocket landed near his house. Then he said pointedly, "A lot of people have died." I wondered why he didn't mention how many Palestinians have died in the conflict (four times as many as Israelis). I began to suspect that he would not bring up any counter arguments, and that he could not answer them if he did.

Next, he discussed Hamas coming to power in 2006, and launching war against Israel, together with Hezbollah. He painted Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, and virtually all Arab leaders with the same brush, describing these leaders as corrupt, dangerous, violent, and against freedom. In fact, he even referred to the UN as "a corrupt organization." He especially emphasized these groups' violence toward their own citizens and said that there is no civil control, "with people killing each other in the streets."

I wondered if he had ever been to any of these places and thought to myself that this seemed antithetical to everything I know about Arab culture.

Then he painted a very different picture of life for Israelis. He characterized Israel as a land of freedom, democracy, choice, and equality. He emphasized the freedom of press and speech that Israelis enjoy, while the residents of the West Bank and Gaza do not enjoy any such freedom. His argument was that Israel has the moral high ground, and therefore should be the victor in this conflict. But again, he left counter arguments completely off the table, which left gaping holes in his argument.

Of Israelis' freedom of speech, he said, "They don't have to fear the knock at the door at midnight." Because he was not taking questions, I was not able to raise my hand and ask, "What about the Palestinians? Should they fear the knock at the door?" The question would have been rhetorical anyway because I know that Palestinians often do find Israeli soldiers knocking on their door in the middle of the night. Sometimes the aim is simply to discombobulate the resident, sometimes they come to arrest someone. In fact, from what I know, arrests are rarely made during the day, unless they are made during a protest.

He then cited the court decisions regarding the separation wall as proof that Israel's judicial system is morally sound, uncorrupted.

Residents of the West Bank have been complaining for years that the wall separates them from their own lands, families, and workplaces, and have been trying to get the route of the wall moved to accommodate these realities. Journo was right when he said the Israeli high court ordered the wall moved. But he did not mention that this decision has still not been implemented and that other measures designed to reappropriate Palestinian land are still under way in full force (settlement expansion, home demolition, crop burning).

He mentioned the financial success of Israel's start-up companies as proof that the Israeli government helps its citizens, that the free market is thriving, and that Israelis are more motivated to succeed. He did not mention that companies in the Palestinian territories are not allowed this opportunity- by Israel. The territories' borders are controlled by Israel and exports to other countries are severely limited. The free market is not alive and well in Palestine, but that is certainly not a result of laziness.

Journo ended his litany of Israel's moral superiority with the story of The Disengagement. In 2005, Israel evacuated all its settlements in Gaza and relocated those citizens. Because there were no longer any Israeli civilians in Gaza, the world believed Israel had truly left Gaza to its own devices- to succeed or fail on its own merits. Journo argued that because the disengagement only led to the firing of more and more qassams, that pulling out had, in and of itself, only encouraged Hamas to be more violent.

I hear this argument against "land for peace" often- the disengagement didn't bring peace so giving up West Bank settlements won't do any good either. This faulty logic ignores two factors:

Gaza was basically made into a bantustan with no autonomy or access to the outside world. Israel controls who gets in and out, and which supplies are allowed in. Gaza is a welfare state.
Gaza and the West Bank are one country, even though they are not contiguous. They are the same people. As long as one is occupied, some people in the other will be militant.

Of the basic moral difference between Israel and Palestine, Journo said, "One side seeks war and destruction and tyranny and one side does not." His argument is that the state with the moral high ground should have power. He cites Israel's free speech and democracy as that high ground, but ignores the double standard- equal rights are not afforded to Israel's Arabs.

As the lecture ended and the Q&A period began, I thought I might amuse myself by asking why he chose to make a moral argument- since these are the hardest to settle. I didn't stay to ask, though. The first question was from an earnest boy in the second row who asked how Israel could have the moral high ground when so many people believe it was established by taking away the homes of the Palestinian residents. Journo responded by assuring the boy that no Palestinians were forced to leave at all. Rabble went up in the back of the room by the keffiyeh crowd and someone yelled, "Never happened!"

Even though I know that there are people who don't believe in the expulsions- nakba deniers who are characters in my eyes on par with holocaust deniers- I am still surprised to hear their fervent denials each time. When the world has instant access to the exact words of the Israeli leaders who ordered these expulsions, how can they continue to deny? At 1:30pm on July 12, 1948, Rabin himself (then a lieutenant colonel) gave the following order, "The inhabitants of Lydda (now a city in Israel called Lod) must be expelled quickly without attention to age." The residents of this city and nearby al-Ramla were forced to walk to Ramallah with nothing but what they could carry.

I didn't stay to hear any more.

Iran is Blatant

2009-03-03T13:27:00.000-08:00

Back in July of last year, Israel released a handful of prisoners to Hezbollah in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers. The most prominent of the live prisoners Hezbollah received in the deal was Samir Kuntar, who was convicted in 1979 of murder after a cross border Hezbollah operation killed four Israelis.

The American intelligentsia has ~~known~~ suspected for some time that Iran has been supplying militant group Hezbollah with weapons, funding and soldiers, possibly in an effort to expand its base of support should things come to blows over their nuclear program (source).

That is relevant today because Samir Kuntar got married. (Check out the lucky lady here.) Among the attendees at the wedding were "a delegation appointed by His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah" (the head of Hezbollah) and Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Reza Shibani. Oh, and a bunch of media.

As the Kabober's say, "And of course it's not a true Hezbollah function until the Iranian Ambassador shows up."

Oh, and P.S., in the Arabic news report of the wedding, Kuntar is referred to as, "former Dean of the Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails." No mention of the crime. This is not at all surprising to me because prison time has become a rite of passage for the citizens of Israel's enemy countries. Because of Israel's judicial policies, there is now hardly any distinction between criminals like Kuntar and a 17-year-old boy who is jailed for throwing stones.

Let Mama Kiss It Make It Better

2009-03-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, hosted a conference this week where various world dignitaries patted themselves on the back for their generosity. The purpose of the conference was to discuss the rebuilding of Gaza (Israel's Operation Cast Lead caused about $5 billion of damage) and to decide who would be paying for what. While the U.S., France, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Japan were among those present, Hamas was not. Hamas, the democratically elected government of Gaza, was not invited.

But no matter. I'm sure the reconstruction of Gaza will be successful without the cooperation of the quasi-state's government.

The pledges are in, and the most noticeable results are as follows:

Saudi Arabia: $1 billion
The U.S.: $900 million
Lebanon: $1 million (a token gesture of solidarity)

The caveat is that the majority of the donations will go to the PA, an administrative body that has almost no power in Gaza. Some countries have opted to oversee their own pet reconstruction projects in Gaza, thereby circumventing Hamas' infrastructure alltogether. As usual with the region, their world seems bent on ignoring the facts on the ground.

Let's assume that the reconstruction of Gaza can actually be completed without Hamas' coordination- what then? Israel's attack, which caused all the damage, was in response to the continuous barrage of rocket fire from Gaza. These rockets are still flying, almost every day. Almost like the operation never happened. Almost like Hamas was not deterred at all. In fact, Ha'aretz reports that Gaza militants have fired 110 rockets at Israel since the ceasefire began on January 18th.

Israel bides its time. After one rocket hit the semi-large city of Ashquelon, Israel filed a complaint with the UN. After seven qassam rockets hit Southern Israel in one day, Olmert made vague threats. How long can this go on?

Making no judgments about the moral rightness or wrongness of firing the rockets or of Israel's response to it, the facts on the ground are that Israel will not continue to accept this kind of life for its citizens. They will strike again. And again. Until the rockets stop and/or Hamas has been eradicated and replaced with Fatah loyalists. Why bother rebuilding Gaza without first securing a just and lasting peace for both sides?

The reconstruction is irrelevant and unrealistic. Like putting a band-aid on a broken leg. It makes us all feel like we're doing something, though. And when dealing with two groups as hard-headed as Israelis and Palestinians, sometimes a band-aid is a necessary symbol.

Hamas Advertises for PR Guru

2009-02-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

How do these guys manage to make themselves look so bad? It's just like that anniversary parade fiasco. Every time I start feeling those predictable stirrings of underdog pity, they do something like this. They need to hire a New York publicist. Just, a full time spin doctor with a blackberry full of names.

Ha'aretz reports:

Amnesty International two weeks ago accused Hamas of carrying out a "deadly campaign" against its Palestinian opponents and critics in the Gaza Strip, particularly those they accuse of "collaborating" with Israel.

The newspaper reports that 17 men have already been executed since Israel's offensive ended. They were convicted of collaborating with Israel.

So. Dumb.

Bibi Makes Headway

2009-02-19T09:17:00.000-08:00

The AP announced today that Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right leader of Israel's Yisrael Beitanu party, has joined the Likud coalition, headed by former Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu. This virtually guarantees that Netanyahu will become the next Prime Minister, which is as much a victory for Israel's right as Obama's was for America's left.

Tzipi Livni, leader of the centrist Kadima party and PM hopeful, was also asked to join the coalition, but her response was in the negative:

"Today the foundations were laid for an extremist right-wing government under the leadership of Netanyahu," Livni's office quoted her as telling a meeting of Kadima members. "That is not our way and there is nothing for us in such a government ... We must be an alternative of hope and go into opposition."

The victory of these far right parties means more delays for peace talks, since Netanyahu does not value peace efforts in their current form. He prefers to use force as leverage to get the Palestinians to agree to his terms. This may put him at odds with President Obama, who has vowed to push for peace in the region on more liberal terms.

The Idiot's Guide to Israeli Elections

2009-02-11T12:23:00.000-08:00

Israel's much-awaited national elections happened yesterday, and while I must admit pleasant surprise that Kadima was so successful, when I looked at the breakdown of voting records, I was not at all surprised.

The two major contenders for ruling coalition/Prime Minister status were Kadima and Likud. Kadima is headed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has made mouth noises about evacuating some West Bank settlements in a "land for peace" deal with the Palestinians. She is basically considered moderate, but the only visible leader willing to make concessions for peace. Likud is a right wing party headed by former Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, who makes no pretenses at all about his unwillingness to make concessions for peace. He believes in force and "Greater Israel," meaning the West Bank should belong to Israel, not Palestine.

Other major players in this year's elections were the Labor party and Yisrael Beitanu, which is a hardcore right wing party led by Avigdor Lieberman, who openly advocates that Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent should have their citizenship revoked. His party has also discussed forced expulsions.

(On a side note, Lieberman is right to be panicky about Israel's Arabs- studies show that they will outnumber Jewish citizens within the next 10 to 20 years.)

The minor players this year were the various religious parties, the Arab parties, and the peacenik parties. But they played a very important role: the Israeli blogosphere was abuzz this past week with religious voters saying they planned not to vote for religious parties because that would only give Kadima more power. A comparable situation in the U.S. would be a lefty activist suggesting that a vote for the Green Party is the same as a vote for the Republicans.

This Ha'aretz article breaks down voting by city, party, ethnic group, whatever you like. What it revealed was this-

Residents of settlements in the West Bank voted mostly for Likud (perhaps because of the analogy I just explained) but also for Yisrael Beitanu.
Residents of Southern Israeli towns, who have been bombarded with Gaza's missiles for several years, voted mostly the same as the settlements, but with quite a few votes for Kadima.
Residents of major city centers like Haifa and Tel Aviv voted mostly for Kadima and Labor.
Jerusalem voted about equally for Likud and the religious parties.
Wealthy areas around Tel Aviv voted about equally for Likud and Kadima

In addition to the by-city breakdown, the Ha'aretz data also shows that Kibbutzim voted mostly for Kadima, Labor, and Meretz (which one could call a socialist and/or peacenik party) and that Bedouin communities voted overwhelmingly (and when I say overwhelmingly, I mean 80%) for the Arab parties.

As it stands now, Kadima has 28 seats in parliament to Likud's 27, which makes Tzipi Livni the Prime Minister by default, provided she can set up a ruling coalition. However, preliminary results show that Likud has had more success with that. And let's not forget that Livni was given the chance to put together a coalition last summer, thereby avoiding the election alltogether, but she was unable to do it then.

We shall soon find out.

God I Love Google Maps

2009-02-03T14:14:00.000-08:00

This is Lake Burullus, 100 miles North of Cairo. Just take a minute and look at it.

For several days before I stumbled upon this, I was using google's street view to locate businesses in Toulouse, France. Without actually setting foot on French soil, I spent several days "walking" around the streets of Toulouse, taking a tour of all the nice shops there.

Lola Goes Professional

2009-02-03T10:11:00.000-08:00

I made this movie about San Francisco's protests against Israel's Operation Cast Lead for video journalism hub SanFranciscoIAM. You can watch the video directly on the site here.

Gov't Report Reveals Corruption at Highest Levels

2009-01-31T12:02:00.000-08:00

With Israeli elections just around the corner, we can safely assume that all major political developments are at least in part one group or another's attempt to win favor with the electorate. Operation Cast Lead was one example of political maneuvering, and quite possibly the most significant one of this election. It has seemed to achieve its goals of creating a sense of national unity, feelings of patriotism, and a strong distrust of outsiders and their criticisms. In short, the country has been put in a war mood.

This is good for Prime Minister candidate Bibi Netanyahu, who has already held the office from 1996 to 1999, as leader of the conservative Likud party. Support for the latest Gaza war and Israelis' tendency to go insular when they are threatened has made his success much more likely.

This could be the reason a secret government report revealing settlement construction to be illegal and corrupted has recently been released, even though it was completed over two years ago. What's more is that the research was done by the Israeli government and at the behest of former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, another right-wing candidate for Prime Minister in this election.

Ha'aretz writes:

An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements - about 75 percent - construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued.

Now, let's deconstruct this in order to fully realize the significance. Building without permits is a pretty piddly violation. If building without permits was the only accusation we could make against the Israeli government, I wouldn't have anything to write about. What makes this significant is that Palestinian homes built without permits are demolished, oftentimes without warning, meaning the residents not only lose their home, but many of their possessions as well. Before the appearance of this report, government spokesmen could make all the excuses they want about these demolitions, but now, they can no longer claim Palestinians receive equal treatment in this regard.

Moving on:

The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents.

The government admits that it knowingly builds on the property of the West Bank's Palestinian residents.

The Ha'aretz article, besides a summary of the report, includes interviews with settler leaders and Housing Ministry officials. Not surprisingly, they all pass the buck higher and higher, until it becomes clear that decisions regarding the illegal building come from the very heights from which the order to compile the report was given. Nevermind why Shaul Mofaz would order a report written that could very well cost him the election, the question is: who released the report to the public, two years after its completion?

The answer, if I may speculate, comes from the left. If Operation Cast Lead hurt Tzipi Livni's chances in the election, this report does the same to her right-wing competitors. If the electorate knows their government is out looking for trouble, support of the Gaza war could wane, thus giving Livni the boost she needs at the polls.

Obama's Envoy Cracks the Case

2009-01-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

Obama sent his brand new Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, to the region yesterday to see what he could figure out about this whole Gaza situation, and he came up with a brilliant plan!

President Barack Obama's new Mideast envoy called Wednesday for an end to Hamas weapons smuggling and a reopening of Gaza's borders, seeking to strengthen the shaky cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants thrown into turmoil by new violence.

This is a totally original idea, one nobody has ever thought of before. Stopping the missile fire?? Of course. I'm sure Prime Minister Olmert and his cabinet of bone-weary ministers are kicking themselves for not having thought of it themselves. And Hamas must be wondering why they never thought of trying to get the borders reopened.

"Oh, you want the borders opened? Why didn't you just ask!" Israel says to Hamas.

Cracker-Jack start, Mitchell!

Can't wait to see how he plans to make this happen.

[Source]

Damage Control

2009-01-22T10:12:00.000-08:00

Three weeks and 1,285 lives later, both Israel and Gaza are cleaning up the mess. As I mentioned a few days ago, weakening Hamas was not the sole objective of the offensive. IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who was abducted in the summer of 2006, is still behind enemy lines, although whether he is alive or dead remains to be seen. Public pressure to retrieve Shalit is tremendous. Protests are held demanding that the government facilitate his release, letter writing campaigns are run, and Ha'aretz newspaper has a perpetually-running PSA on its front page, reminding readers how long Shalit has been in captivity (942 days, 5 hours, 46 minutes, and 42 seconds, as I'm writing this). The fact that time ran out on this operation before Shalit could be rescued is a crushing blow to the current administration, especially Tzipi Livni, who may be blamed for the failure, hurting her chances in the upcoming election for Prime Minister.

So Israel is doing its media spin thing. The AP's Ben Hubbard writes today:

Israel indicated Thursday that it wants to swap Palestinians held in Israeli jails for an Israeli soldier captured in 2006 as part of a longer-term truce after three weeks of fighting in Gaza.

Israeli media said some Cabinet ministers have softened their positions on releasing dangerous Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit, signaling the government is trying to work out a deal with Hamas ahead of Israeli elections next month.

What makes this story a big yawn-fest for those who have been paying attention is that Israel has been saying this for at least six months. The two governments were negotiating, through the ubiquitous moderator Egypt, back in July about how many prisoners Hamas would get in exchange for Shalit. Israeli leaders will have to balance the unpopularity of releasing convicted murderers against the popularity of bringing Shalit home.

In an effort to make it seem like everything is going according to plan, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said recently, "I believe the war created levers that could hasten Gilad Schalit's return home." Meaning Israel had applied sufficient pressure to make Hamas more docile.

Olmert could be referring to the destruction of hundreds of underground tunnels Hamas uses to smuggle weapons into Gaza. The recent offensive destroyed or damaged 60-90% of those tunnels (depending on which side you ask), which numbered upwards of a thousand. But, according to the AP's Alfred de Montesquiou, tunnel operators are already fixing the damage and could be back in business within days. As a result of the collective punishment methods Israel utilizes to try to weaken Hamas, goods, not just guns, are in short supply in Gaza. Tunnel operators describe the goods they smuggle as potato chips, cigarettes, baby formula, underwear, and even animals for the zoo.

About weapons smuggling, Montesquiou writes:

While both traffickers insisted they had never considered bringing weapons for Hamas, Abu Bilal, another colleague repairing his own tunnel, said he wouldn't mind doing so. "But frankly, the resistance never asks us to," he said. "I think they've got their own tunnels and don't want to pay us," he said.

What's materializing as the smoke clears is that neither side has achieved its goals- both are right back where they started, politically- but both are claiming victory. Meanwhile, 6,000 Gazans are dead or injured and southern Israel will continue to be bombarded with Hamas' qassam rockets until both Israel and whoever rules Gaza learns to use diplomacy instead of brute force.

Yes We Did

2009-01-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

San Francisco's Bush Street became Obama Street shortly before the 9am inauguration yesterday. This of course was not an official change and did not apply to every Bush Street sign, but as you can see, this one is very convincing.

Wait For It...

2009-01-16T10:09:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks before the IDF began bombing Gaza, I warned some of my Palestinian friends that a major Gaza operation would be coming. They asked me how I knew. I said a good friend of mine, an Israeli former Special Forces soldier, had been called for reserve duty and the only information he was given was that it had to do with Gaza.

My Palestinian friends shrugged this off, saying, "They do this shit all the time. It means nothing."

When the bombing began, my friends said it would last a few days and then stop. They said Israel was only making a statement, sending a warning to Hamas about the rocket fire. I told them there would be a ground invasion, and I said that weakening Hamas was not their prime objective.

Well, there's certainly no satisfaction in being right about this. I wish I had been wrong. But my predictions haven't stopped coming. Weakening Hamas is a pleasant side effect of the operation, but the IDF's primary objective is recovering Gilad Shalit, alive or dead. Dead, most likely, at this point.

Shalit was abducted by Hamas in the summer of 2006 during a cross border raid. He has been held all this time. As of July of 2008 he was alive, but this week Hamas has been hinting that he may or may not be alive anymore. Words were to the effect of, "It is no longer our concern." This leads me to believe he's dead, which isn't going to be good for anyone. Not for Hamas, not for the morale of the Israeli people, and not for the politicians running in the upcoming election.

That's right, Israelis will vote for their prime minister presently and whoever is responsible for bringing back the country's beloved Missing Soldier will win the prize. Gilad Shalit is no longer just a person. He is a symbol. If he is found alive, national pride in Israel will flourish. If he is found dead, Israelis' hatred of "the other" will be further cemented and the Gaza operation will likely end later and with more civilians dead. The possibility that Shalit is alive is quite possibly the only factor applying what little restraint there is in this campaign.

On a personal note, I am deeply saddened by the hatred I see coming out of both my Palestinian friends and my Israeli friends. Those who could enjoy each others' company before this operation began can no longer be in the same room together. They see each other as monsters, no longer human beings. Sometimes it is too complicated for the mind to grasp the complexities of humanity in others, or even in ourselves.

But I know the truth. Each soldier who bombs a house, shoots a man, arrests a child...these soldiers are also someone's son, husband, or father. The same as the Hamas operatives who shoot qassam rockets across the border into civilian areas are sons, husbands, and fathers. It is not easy to accept, but it is true. I believe that true progress can only be made with this in mind.

If you believe your own actions are justifiable, then you must believe someone else's actions are too.

UPDATE: An AP article from today says:

Israel said it was approaching the "endgame" of its three-week offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers and scheduled a Security Cabinet vote Saturday on a truce proposed by Egypt. Under the cease-fire plan, fighting would stop immediately for 10 days, but Israeli forces would initially remain in Gaza and the border crossings into the territory would remain closed until security arrangements are made to ensure Hamas militants do not rearm.

According to my theory, Israel scheduling a vote on the ceasefire for Saturday means they think they have located Shalit and are probably planning a night rescue for...that would be tonight. If they were right and they were successful, tomorrow's news will reveal that. If they were wrong or unsuccessful, I doubt anyone will ever hear about it.

Protests Continue, Placards Get Angrier

2009-01-11T13:52:00.000-08:00

As the Gaza operation drags on and violence once again becomes the norm, people around the world have been sounding off about their opinions and concerns. There isn't much difference presently between rumor and "respected" news (partially due to the fact that Israel has blocked all outside media people from entering Gaza). News we receive by word of mouth carries just as much power as if it were disseminated by a major outlet, maybe even more. In 1948, news of the Deir Yassin massacre had reached every ear in Palestine before it hit the papers. Media blackouts in Nazi Germany kept journalists from reporting what actually happened to the Jews in the camps, but word spread anyway.

This week, there has been word that Israel is purposefully bombing schools and hospitals, that Hamas has not allowed the sick and injured to flee into Egypt. There has been word from supporters of Israel that Hamas gunmen use crying children as human shields. And there has been word from supporters of Gaza that Israel drops leaflets to the Palestinians, telling them where it is safe to hide, and then bombing said safe place with an unmanned drone.

It is easier on the psyche to make your enemy into a monster. In fact, it is well-documented that human beings have a strong tendency to assume the worst about the out-group and assume the best about their own in-group. It is survival, and it is as old as our species.

I will let the video and pictures from this last protest speak for itself. The people will tell you what they think through the signs they carry.

[Note: The lack of signs supporting Israel is due to a lack of any counter-protesters at these events, not my disinterest in letting them be heard.]

[Enough chit-chat in Gaza!]

[This one looks to be a leftover from this week's Oakland protests, wherein a police officer shot a subdued and unarmed young man in the back. Perhaps they thought their sign would be appropriate for this protest too.]

[There is no god but God and Mohammad is his prophet.]

San Francisco Gets Told

2009-01-04T09:21:00.001-08:00

Over a thousand people took to the streets of San Francisco on Friday, January 2nd, to protest the bombing and invasion of Gaza by the Israeli military. The protest was the third of the week and one of hundreds of protests happening worldwide.

San Francisco Protest Against Bombing of Gaza
by hrhlolita

[I've had some technical difficulty with embedding this video. If it doesn't work, go directly here.]

Condi pwned by Al Jazeera

2009-01-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

Regarding the current week-long Israel Air Force bombing of Gaza, Al Jazeera writes:

Condoleezza Rice, having observed that more than 300 Gazans were dead, said: “We are deeply concerned about the escalating violence. We strongly condemn the attacks on Israel and hold Hamas responsible.”

Someone should ask her to comment on teenage knife-crime, to see if she’d say: “I strongly condemn the people who’ve been stabbed, and until they abandon their practice of wandering around clutching their sides and bleeding, there is no hope for peace.”

The Israeli government suffers terribly from this confusion. They probably have adverts on Israeli television in which a man falls off a ladder and screams, “Eeeeugh”, then a voice says, “Have you caused an accident at work in the last 12 months?” and the bloke who pushed him gets £3,000.

To date, over 400 Gazans have been killed by this operation, the vast majority civilians. Israeli government officials claim this latest "defensive" maneuver is in response to the continuous qassam rocket fire from Gaza, although the number of Israelis killed by qassams in the past five years hovers somewhere between 4 and 18.

Israel Signs Ironic Human Rights Declaration

2008-12-23T13:32:00.000-08:00

In a precedent-setting move, Israel signed the UN's anti-discrimination declaration that calls for decriminalization of homosexuality. The declaration was sponsored by France and Holland and signed by 66 countries. Syria sponsored an opposing declaration, which 60 countries signed. Conspicuously absent from either declaration was the U.S.

But no matter.

The interesting thing here is not Israel recognizing the human rights of homosexuals- Tel Aviv, in particular, has been an accepting city for gays and lesbians for quite some time. The newsworthy bit about this is that this is the first time any country has formally recognized the human rights of sexual minorities before recognizing the human rights of racial minorities.

Approximately one million Israeli Arabs are treated as second class citizens- many have reported housing discrimination, job discrimination, violent attacks, and property damage- and millions more are treated worse than animals in Gaza and the West Bank.

Ha'aretz writes:

The declaration strongly condemns “all forms of stereotyping, exclusion, stigmatization, prejudice, intolerance and discrimination and violence directed against peoples, communities and individuals on any ground whatsoever, wherever they occur, and especially use of the death penalty and the practice of torture and other forms of cruelty for reasons of sexual identity.”

Yet the Israeli government tacitly and explicitly supports this sort of treatment of Palestinians, both living inside Israel as Israeli citizens, and those living in the West Bank and Gaza. I do not post here every injustice I see, hear about, or read about, because they are too numerous. My blog would become a laundry list of human rights abuses if I were to cull from the Internet every single violation of international law by Israel. Government-sanctioned racial violence and humiliation happens every day, everywhere that Palestinians live, work, or shop.

For just a sampling of this week's abuses in Israel and the occupied territories go here, here, and here.

[Source]

"One thing is for certain: he caused you to ask me a question about him."

2008-12-15T13:50:00.000-08:00

The internets are abuzz with the whole shoe throwing fiasco. In case you just got back from outer space or whatever, what happened was an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Bush during a press conference, and also called him a dog, which is the second worst insult in Arabic, #1 being, "your sister's pussy."

W ducked just in time, with an amused smile on his face, then ducked again when the second shoe was thrown. You can see the BBC's fancy slow-mo video of that here. The best part was when a reporter later asked him a question about the incident and he said, "I don't know what his cause is.[...]But one thing's for sure: he caused you to ask me a question about him."

The journalist, Muntadar al-Zeidi, has become an overnight hero in the Arab world, with comics already commemorating the incident. He was arrested after the incident, of course, and today thousands of Iraqis protested his incarceration and demanded his release, many saying that he did what world leaders were too afraid to do: stand up to Bush and denounce, among other things, the killing of 98,000 Iraqi civilians since 2003.

His shoes are still being held as evidence. He may never see them again.

Playground Antics from Hamas

2008-12-14T09:25:00.001-08:00

More than 150,000 Gazans filled an arena today to celebrate the 21st anniversary of militant group Hamas. The highlight of the event was when Hamas paraded a mock Gilad Shalit before the crowd. He was in fact a Hamas loyalist, but was dressed in an IDF uniform and begged to be released, in Hebrew.

This is not the first time I have been disappointed by Hamas- the abduction of Shalit two years ago is case in point- but never have I seen them so thoroughly disgrace their own name and harm their own cause. Palestinians, especially Gazans, are rightly angry and have a right to fight. I believe they even have a right to fight dirty, since the playing field is not even. But an event like the one yesterday only tells the world that Palestinians, especially those loyal to Hamas, are not worthy of the world's sympathy.

Men of honor do not parade someone else's pain to incite celebration. Men of honor do not find happiness in cowardly actions.

Link to Ha'aretz article here.

"It's All in the Medical Report"

2008-12-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

The best part? His haircut. Which I didn't even notice until like 6:40.

Go here to read commentary by the Kabobers.

House of Contention Update

2008-12-02T08:27:00.000-08:00

In a troubling update about Beit Hameriva, the House of Contention, in the West Bank city of Hebron, Ha'aretz writes:

Medics said 18 Israelis and seven Palestinians were hurt in the violence. The clashes took place near Hebron's "House of Contention," where settlers have been holed up in defiance of a Supreme Court eviction notice...IDF officials described the severity of the settlers' riots as 'unprecedented.' They said the violent clashes were initiated by the settlers and not by the Palestinians, who only responded by throwing rocks.

Israeli security officials are planning a large operation to evict the settlers from Beit Hameriva, but they decline to state when that operation will be, for fear of allowing the settlers enough preparation time to prepare a defense against the IDF.

It is also worthwhile to note that an Israeli parliament member (Member of Knesset) is currently living in the House of Contention, which illustrates the political support right wing settlers enjoy and explains why their activities are referred to as "protests" in some newspapers, and "riots" in others. Many of you have asked me why violent settlers are not punished for their continued violence, and I offer this as only one reason why. Violent settlers are a very small minority of the Israeli people, and yet they enjoy tremendous power.

For another post I wrote on this curious phenomenon, go here.

In Case You Forgot

2008-12-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

An update on the consequences of Israel's siege on Gaza:

The Gazan people are living without adequate supplies of food, clean water, medicine, and basic human rights and freedoms. What I have found most noteworthy, and most heartbreaking, is that the collective punishment Israel utilizes to prevent terrorist attacks only fosters a hatred of Israel that makes terrorist attacks more likely. An entire generation of children suffers right now because of Israel, and they are too young to understand the particulars. As adults, they will only remember that their childhoods were characterized by cold and hunger because of this mythical beast "Israel" and they will be all the more vulnerable to indoctrination by those who seek to use them as weapons.

From the video:

The people are generally frustrated here and they think that this policy of collective punishment is cold, it's wrongful, it's sad, and it's more harmful for the Israelis than beneficial, because it makes a kind of hatred growing with the new generation...we Palestinians, we need freedom. We fight only for freedom, we don't fight for any other thing.

Top UN Guy Calls Israel Apartheid State

2008-11-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

The UN General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann called Israel's policies toward the Palestinians apartheid yesterday.

Ha'aretz says:

He added: "We must not be afraid to call something what it is." Brockmann stressed that it was important for the United Nations to use the heavily-charged term since it was the institution itself that had passed the International Convention against the crime of apartheid.

Israel's ambassador to the UN earlier called Brockmann an "Israel hater" for hugging Iran's President Ahmadinejad. Further evidence that one cannot criticize Israel without being dubbed an anti-semitic.

Uuuuummmm....WHAT?

2008-11-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

The Tel Aviv District Court today sentenced eight gang members to various prison sentences for crimes like assault, conspiracy to commit a crime, and racial incitement.

Oh yeah, and the gang was a neo-Nazi gang.

Huh?

Ha'aretz says:

The court stated that the phenomenon revealed during the investigation of the case is extremely severe, shocking and horrifying - particularly in light of the fact that the suspects were all youths and immigrants from the Commonwealth of Independent states. According to the original indictment, filed last September, the eight defendants - mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union between the ages of 17 and 20 - perpetrated violent hate crimes against Asians, religious Jews, drug addicts and homosexuals.

So, ok. Let me see if I can just wrap my head around this. You are from countries that 60 years ago were under Nazi occupation. Countries where your grandparents were possibly killed because they were Jews. And then your parents got the good sense to get the heel out and move you to the only Jewish state in the world. Which is when you join a neo-Nazi gang.

Um...no, I still don't get it.

Hebron Settlers Need a Nap

2008-11-20T07:55:00.000-08:00

My readers may remember me writing about the beleaguered city of Hebron in the West Bank. I visited it this summer and noted the forced segregation between Israeli and Palestinian residents, the curfews that only applied to the latter, and the ubiquitous anti-Muslim graffiti. 650 Israeli residents in this city of 180,000 Palestinians are guarded by Israeli troops in fortified enclaves in order to maintain their position.

In April of 2007, an Israeli family confiscated a house in Hebron which, at that time, was occupied by a Palestinian family. The Israeli family claimed they were the real owners of the house and, against the wishes of the original residents, began living in the house. Almost immediately, the house became known as Beit Hameriva, House of Contention. Last week, that's November of 2008, Israel's High Court found that the Israeli occupants of Beit Hameriva had forged ownership documents and ordered them to vacate the property by noon of the following Wednesday. Of course, they didn't leave, and nobody made them.

The Palestinian residents of Hebron were not happy and since, again, Israel has blocked Palestinians from pursing their rights through legal channels, tensions have been high this week. However, according to government spokesmen, it was not Palestinians who were responsible for this week's wave of violence.

Ha'aretz says:

The Defense Ministry said it would avoid the use of force in the evacuation and would try to urge the settlers to leave on their own accord. By late Wednesday, the house was still not evacuated and the settlers' protests grew hotter throughout the city.

During the protests, some settlers began to attack Palestinian locals while others wounded an IDF soldier by spraying turpentine at him as he tried to stop them from throwing stones at Palestinians.

Activists also punctured the tires of police and military jeeps stationed nearby.

The settlers also scribbled graffiti around Hebron, including spraying 'Mohammed Pig' on the walls of a local mosque and on Palestinian homes nearby.

To see a Ha'aretz article from when the Beit Hameriva was born, including information about the legalities, go here.

And, a refresh of what Hebron looks like:

Price of Palestinian Blood Low Due to Recession

2008-11-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

Back in this post, I interviewed members of an organization called Zochrot, which seeks to bring the story of the Palestinian Nakba to the Israeli public. Zochrot member Ranin Geries told me that Israelis think "the blood of the Palestinian is very cheap" and this sentiment was echoed last week by the sentencing of Avraham Tomer in Tel Aviv.

In October of 2006, Tomer and a few other Border Police officers detained Iyad Abu Ra’iyeh and two other Palestinian men at the construction site where they worked, on suspicion of living in Israel illegally. The men were detained in a small room on the construction site and beaten while they were questioned.

Israeli Human Rights group B'Tselem reports on the case and Judge Oded Mudrik described the events in his verdict:

The three PSIs [Palestinians] were forced to sit with their backs to the wall, and the defendant was posted to guard them. The defendant cocked his rifle, which was lying on his shoulder in the “cross” position, while aiming it at one of the PSIs, Iyad Tawfiq Abu Ra’iyeh (hereafter: “the deceased”). In this situation, as he was cocking the rifle, the defendant absent-mindedly pressed the trigger. A bullet was fired from the weapon of the defendant and it struck the neck of the deceased, causing his death.

For "absent-mindedly" pressing the trigger of his gun, Tomer was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to one year in jail. You can go to the B'Tselem page if you have any interest in reading Judge Mudrik's justification for the sentence he handed down.

If You're Brown, Stick Around

2008-11-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

I'm breaking my self-imposed radio silence to share this story with you.

Teen shot after slashing cop in face with broken bottle
A policeman shot a teen in the leg during a clash in Ramat Gan early Saturday after the teen had slashed him in the face with a broken bottle.

The incident occurred when police apprehended a group of Russian-speaking teens, aged between 16 and 17, who had allegedly attacked a couple in the central town after returning from a night out.

The article goes on but all you need to know is there. First of all, When I saw the headline, I knew that the teen was not a native Israeli. That variety is usually given much more latitude from the police. A sabra would not be shot for assaulting a police officer, even if he had a gun. Israelis feel strongly about protecting their own.

Second, when I read the first sentence in the article, I knew the teen was not Palestinian. If he were, he would have been shot in the chest or the head, not the leg. He also was not likely a mizrahi, a dark skinned Jew, because he may have been mistaken for Palestinian in this case.

This left me with one guess: he was Russian. And the next sentence confirmed my hypothesis.

Israel can parrot all it wants about being the only free democracy in a sea of corruption, but if its policies toward racial interaction are so obvious to an outsider, none of it means much.

File it Under Human Nature

2008-10-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

File this one under "people will do what they gotta do."

Those tunnels I've mentioned numerous times are now conservatively estimated to number in the hundreds. And they are going legit.

AP announces that tunnel operators are registering their tunnels with Hamas, installing electrical equipment, and paying their smugglers workers' comp.

Hamas says:

"We are watching what is coming through and we prevent the entry of weapons and drugs," said spokesman Ehab Ghussen, spokesman for Gaza's Interior Ministry, adding that the tunnel trade would be halted if borders reopen.

Lola Loves Glaring Errors

2008-10-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

There's something, um, off about this article in Haaretz this morning. An Israeli Arab lawyer was arrested at an airport in Tel Aviv after he refused to take off his pants during a security check. He said he would rather leave the airport than take his pants off, at which time he was handcuffed and his pants were removed anyway. Haaretz writer Ruth Sinai writes, "The authorities found no irregularities and released Dukhi, three hours after his flight was scheduled."

Police said Dukhi was released as soon as the search was completed. "Police got a call from the security officials in the Sde Dov airport, saying there was a man there who was refusing to be checked and was becoming unruly," police said. "Patrol officers arrived at the scene and told the suspect that since he was refusing to be searched, he would have to be arrested. Since the suspect refused, the police officers arrested him, searched him, and when the search was completed, he was released on the spot."

How is it that he was released immediately after the search was completed but somehow three hours after his plane had departed? Either the search of his pants took three hours or the police spokesman is lying.

Lola Does Livni

2008-10-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

I'm getting a little bit excited about Tzipi Livni. So far she's doing well at creatively and compassionately pursuing peace while not upsetting certain right-wingers who have stalemated peace efforts in the past. She is still in the process of setting up her government so her attitude might not be permanent, but we can hope.

In Haaretz today:

"I do not believe in far-reaching proposals and an attempt to expedite matters, especially in light of the political situation," Livni, the prime minister-designate, told [French Foreign Minister] Kouchner on Sunday.

She was referring to Olmert's peace plan that offers Israeli withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, small areas of territory, the latter of which belongs to Syria.

About Palestinian disapproval of the offer:

Livni's explanation was a criticism of Olmert. "Abu Mazen [Abbas] in his present political situation cannot accept such an agreement," she said. "The political situation in Israel also does not allow it to be signed."

Livni also argued that blaming the Palestinians for refusing to accept Olmert's offer does no good. "We can say this is their fault - but what will that do?" she said. "We had the same thing after Camp David in 2000 and look where that got us."

Once upon a time I asked for a politician that is more concerned with actually accomplishing things than with being right. Could she be the one? The bigger person. The one to stop pointing fingers.

Operation Price Tag: Settlers Organize their Attacks

2008-10-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Israeli settlers living in illegal West Bank outposts sometimes attack when soldiers come to evict them or take away their building supplies.

One such resident, Itai Zer, tells the New Zealand Herald that these are not uncoordinated attacks in response to isolated incidents. These attacks are all part of "Operation Price Tag," an effort designed to disorient both Palestinian villagers and IDF soldiers so that outpost evacuations must be postponed.

Recommended methods reportedly include arson and road-blocking to force troops to abandon the evacuation and deal with the protesters’ actions, as well as demonstratively entering Palestinian villages - a tactic used repeatedly in the village of Asira al Qibliya.

Due to these acts of what some would call protest and others would call terrorism, 50% of the olive trees in the village of Burin, adjacent to the Yitzhar settlement, have been burned recently, and with the olive harvest just around the corner, some residents wonder where their livelihood will come from.

Yitzhar settlers also poison and shoot livestock and cut telephone and power lines in their effort to keep the situation chaotic. Some of these protesters draw the line at attacking people, but say they wouldn't stop others if they chose to attack Palestinian villagers directly.

There are nearly 300,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, from all different walks of life. Some are hardcore Jewish ideologues who seek to secure the entire West Bank for Israel in the fulfillment of a biblical promise. Others simply moved there in search of cheaper housing.

Palestinians acting in reprisal of the settler attacks have suffered doubly. Throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there have been four times as many casualties on the Palestinian side with eight times as many children killed or injured. Recent events prove no different.

Two weeks ago, Yitzhar settlers went on a rampage in Assira al-Kubliyeh, following an arson and stabbing attack that injured a 9-year-old boy from the settlement. Dozens of stone-throwing settlers, some firing in the air, smashed windows of several homes and overturned a car in the village. Six villagers were hurt, including a 17-year-old girl shot in the right arm. Yesh Din said Israeli soldiers did little to prevent the riot.

Later that week, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy was shot to death while throwing a firebomb at Yitzhar.

Unfortunately, by not protecting the Palestinians, the IDF leaves them no choice but to retaliate for the settler violence, a natural act which nevertheless only hurts them once again and reinforces the settlers' mission to expel them.

Apartheid in Palestine, the South African Perspective

2008-09-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

When writing about the Israel-Palestine conflict, one must sometimes use words, indeed sometimes a whole language, specific to one side or the other. There are certain entities, ideas, and events that each side has a different word for. The UK Guardian's Seth Freedman wrote about this last month in his piece about al-Aqsa TV.

As the news began rolling once more, all I could concentrate on was the language employed, rather than the stories that were being reported. The abandoning of western media parlance – "Israel", "IDF", "settlers", and so on – in favour of an entirely different lexicon was a rude awakening for me, having been fed on a vastly different diet over the years.

Israelis call their military the IDF- Israel Defense Forces- their country Israel, and the wall separating it from the West Bank the security barrier. Palestinians call these same things, respectively, the Zionist Occupying Forces, Occupied Palestine, and the apartheid wall.

It is this last word that is most inflammatory, especially to Israelis. Most people worldwide recognize apartheid to have been an appalling period of South African history and its abolition a righting of decades worth of wrong. Which is why hearing this word used to describe Israel's policies toward Palestinians is a bitter pill to swallow.

Back in July, I made a visit to Hebron after which I quoted a humanitarian worker I interviewed as saying, "They cannot travel on this road. It’s an apartheid road." Out of all the writing I had done on the subject of the occupation, this one sentence drew the most fire from my Israeli friends. They argued that this word could not be used to describe their situation because it was born in South Africa and, therefore, could only be applied there. They said it was a cheap shot, an attempt to manipulate my readers by using a highly-charged word.

Yesterday I went to a talk called "Apartheid in Palestine: Black Perspective on the Israeli Occupation" hosted by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. The most striking portions of the talk, for me, were the parallel's drawn by South African pastor Reverend Kelvin Sauls between the Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Reverend Sauls had just returned from a visit to Israel and Palestine and said that what he found was that life for Palestinians is even worse than it was for him under apartheid. Sauls, who grew up in Soweto, near Johannesburg, said, "There was never a wall built around Soweto" and cited the sewage running downhill from Israeli settlements into Palestinian vegetable gardens.

In 1948, the same policy took root both in South Africa and in Israel, Sauls says. It began by establishing bantustans, small areas of minority control. Former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, wrote in the UK Guardian back in 2004:

Similarly, when in South Africa a failed attempt was made to solve demographic problems by creating "homelands for the blacks", liberals originally supported the idea, and even a portion of the international community viewed the measure as a step toward "decolonisation". But, after a short time, it became clear that the ploy was designed to confer legitimacy on the expulsion of black people, and their uprooting. The bantustans collapsed, demands for civil equality intensified, and the world mobilised for the defeat of apartheid.

The bantustan model for Gaza, as depicted in the disengagement plan, is a model that Sharon plans to copy on the West Bank.

The US decided that separate was not in fact equal in 1954 with Brown vs Board of Education and segregation here collapsed as well. In relation to American race laws, Reverend Sauls said, "Jim Crow is alive and thriving in the Holy Land" and said that a two state solution would allow Palestine to become a bantustan, which he considers a non-viable entity.

Other similarities Sauls cited were the constant dispossession of land, the passbook system wherein anyone not carrying his or her papers at all times risks imprisonment, identifying people based on race and religion, the constant military presence, and the suggested appropriation of land by Israel.

In the currently discussed two-state solution, the map proposes that 85% of the land of historic Palestine goes to Israel and 15% goes to Palestine. This is the same way land was appropriated in South Africa.

Israelis often have a sense of pride in being what they consider the only democracy in the Middle East. Sauls reminds us that South Africa also thought similarly of itself, even though in both cases this democracy was racially based, a concept Sauls calls "ethnocracy."

Reverend Sauls, a pastor from the United Methodist Church, said about his trip, "My time in Palestine was very, very difficult. I never thought I would see such a manifestation. It was probably the most dehumanizing experience of my life."

However, he was also careful to point out that he supports Israel and believes that Israelis have a right to exist, but not by extinguishing another people. He says, "To do to Israelis what they have done to Palestinians will not make it ok," and says about Palestinians, "Their liberation will facilitate the liberation of all Israelis. You see, whites in South Africa were bamboozled, too."

Reverend Sauls and colleagues Gerald Lenoir and Phil Hutchins emphasized the difficulty in changing what they found in Palestine. Hutchins said, "This is the most difficult issue to talk about in US politics. Anyone criticizing Israel is called anti-Semitic," and added later, "We're going against the tide here." One of the reasons the Israeli occupation has survived much longer than apartheid is that terrorism and persecution have continually served to paint Israel as the victim, beginning with the holocaust and continuing on through Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Hutchins says, "Unlike South Africa, Israel has had the moral high ground since 1948."

For more information on the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) please go here.

Iran Shipping Uranium to Somalia

2008-09-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

An Iranian merchant ship was hijacked by pirates near Somalia and some interesting events have ensued.

The Times reveal that the pirates who took over this mysterious vessel, "suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died."

Weird, because that sounds just like radiation poisoning. Which is caused when people come into contact with radioactive material. Like uranium. Which is used to make nuclear weapons.

The ship's manifest says it's carrying "minerals." What's more interesting is that the shipping company is Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, a state-owned company run by Iran's military.

Out of about 100 pirates who boarded the ship, a number of them fell ill and died during the six days of negotiating with Somalian officials. This was confirmed first-hand by Hassan Allore Osman, minister of minerals and oil in Puntland, who was sent to investigate the reports of toxic cargo.

The Long War Journal adds, "Somali and regional officials directly involved in the negotiations over the ship and who spoke to The Long War Journal are convinced that it was heading to Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia's Islamist insurgents."

This, of course, is not terribly far fetched.

Iran's involvement in the conflict in Somalia on behalf of Islamist insurgents is well documented. In 2006, Iran flouted arms embargos and provided sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), intelligence sources told The Long War Journal, including SA-7 Strella and SA-18 Igla MANPADS - shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles - as well as AT-3 Sagger antitank missiles.

A report issued by the United Nations in 2006 states that weapons were transferred to Somalia through Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which also absorbed a contingent of 700 Islamist fighters from Somalia during Hezbollah's war with Israel. The report also states that Iran provided support for Islamist training camps inside Somalia and had sent two emissaries to negotiate with the ICU for access to Somalia's uranium mines.

See? Uranium.

Second Voyage for Siege Breakers

2008-09-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

In a new development of the breaking of the Gaza siege the Free Gaza Movement announces another trip to Gaza that departed from Lanarca, Cyprus on Thursday at 10am local time.

A list of the passengers and crew has been released and it includes one Palestinian lawmaker and one Israeli lawmaker, an Italian opera singer, a writer from Al Jazeera, and several medical doctors, among others.

When the last boat full of humanitarians arrived in Gaza, they were criticized for not bringing in more material goods, but reminded the world that the first trip was largely symbolic and immediately announced that more trips would bring more goods. It looks like they are keeping their promise- this trip has brought six cubic meters of medical supplies and doctors to administer much needed treatment.

The arrival of humanitarian volunteers in Gaza has provided means of assistance other than material, the most important of which has been the aid workers' accompaniment of Gazan fishing boats. The Israeli military does not normally allow the boats far enough from shore to catch adequate numbers of fish, but with an international presence on the boats, the IDF is reluctant to fire. However, even with international volunteers present, force has been used to keep the boats closer to shore.

Economics as it Applies to Human Life

2008-09-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

This AP article says five more people have been killed in "tunnel collapses" while smuggling "contraband" into Gaza.

First, those "tunnel collapses" were caused by explosions. Second, the "contraband" was, in this case, fuel.

AP writer Ibrahim Barzak writes:

The five were bringing contraband goods from Egypt into Gaza when an explosion collapsed the tunnel, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been cleared for publication.

Two bodies were located shortly after the explosion Tuesday and the rest were removed early Wednesday. Three smugglers survived and emerged on the Egyptian side, where police arrested them, an Egyptian security official said. The three told police they were smuggling fuel.

Gazans blame the Egyptians for blowing up the tunnels but the Egyptians deny it. Everybody is under a lot of pressure here. The Egyptians are being pressured by Israel to stop the flow of weapons to Hamas through these tunnels and by the Arab world to stop doing what Israel says. The Israeli people are pressuring their government to prevent the resumption of daily missile attacks by Hamas. And Gazans are being pressured by their pesky children for a daily supply of food.

Daily I tell you.

Since the start of the year, 45 people have died in tunnel collapses and, in one of life's cruel ironies, a similar number of people have died as a result of the shortage of goods the tunnel operators were trying to solve. This loss of human life in the prevention of the loss of human life is a bit like our consumption of oil or mass produced food. The energy output exceeds the gain.

Palestinian Infighting Now Infamous

2008-09-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

Al Jazeera writer Ramzy Baroud questions whether the idea of "Palestinian Unity" has any meaning anymore in his article Palestinian Unity: Goal or Mantra?

Palestinian disunity, and political -- if not, geopolitical -- fragmentation is eroding the Palestinian cause more than all Israeli efforts, walls and military incursions combined. The painful-to-watch televised bickering between representatives of various Palestinian factions has led to confusion among traditionally pro-Palestinian groups worldwide. The political objectives -- once agreed upon as "constants" -- and symbols that once united Palestinians everywhere are now wide open for extreme interpretation.

In fact, "respecting the sanctity of Palestinian blood", which for long served as the lowest possible denominator agreed on by every Palestinian grouping, has been violated many times in recent months and years; too many times to count. Repeating the slogan is, at this point, an empty mantra, joining the numerous other mantras that have for long served as a sedative for the hapless masses, whether Arabs, Palestinians or both.

I read Al Jazeera and Israel's Haaretz news everyday, and it's not often that they both say the same thing, but when they do, I find it bears repeating. Further underscoring my commentation of Abbas' temper tantrum the PA again uses the media to issue veiled threats to Hamas.

Haaretz writes:

RAMALLAH - The Palestinian Authority must be ready to use force against Hamas in Gaza "to reunify the homeland," said the head of PA forces in the West Bank, Gen. Dhiab al-Ali (Abu al-Fatah), considered the Palestinian chief of staff.

"If Gaza remains mutinous, the Palestinian Authority will have no choice but to use force against it," Ali said in a recent interview with Haaretz at his Ramallah offices.

Ali said the PA has not ruled out using force if the territory remains in Hamas' hands.

"There haven't yet been consultations with the Israelis on the issue," Ali said. "We hope we won't need that option - for us it's the last choice for unifying the homeland - but we must be prepared to implement it."

No senior PA official close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has ever expressed such views to the media, and especially not shortly before a Fatah delegation is set to attend talks in Cairo on a possible detente with Hamas.

The mention of Israel backing up Fatah forces in a Gaza takeover is both heartbreakingly optimistic and a confirmation of a recent quip by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Firstly, Fatah doesn't have forces, per se. As I wrote back on August 9th, the U.S. is funding the creation of Palestinian security forces, but the first battalion of 500 soldiers has just finished training. This is hardly a force one goes off conquering non-contiguous pieces of land with.

Secondly, Hamas released a statement July 29, saying:

"Now the Zionists are protecting you," Hamas said in a statement addressed to security forces in the West Bank. "You know that once the protection of the Zionists is over, people will enter your headquarters and kick you out," it said.

"You must know we are not acting against you now in the West Bank because ... we know the Zionists will immediately back you."

Abbas and his cabinet do not seem concerned with countering this statement. In fact, it seems they rather enjoy the world knowing they are under Israel's protection, as the faction most cooperative with Israel's agenda. The problem is, they have secured Israel's cooperation at the expense of their peoples' needs and wants, which is perhaps what causes the infighting Baroud mentioned above.

Your Dog's Poop Under Investigation

2008-09-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Once or twice a month I feel the need to start a blog post with the word "Wow." I have barely restrained myself in this post, but you get the point.

Anyway.

Reuters reports today:

Under a six-month trial programme launched this week, the city of Petah Tikva, a suburb of Tel Aviv, is asking dog owners to take their animal to a municipal veterinarian, who then swabs its mouth and collects DNA.

The city will use the DNA database it is building to match faeces to a registered dog and identify its owner.

Big brother alive and well in Israel.

2am proves IDF's Rush Hour

2008-09-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

I normally do not report on the type of story I am about to report on. The potential for sensationalism and exaggeration is much too great. But I have seen so many similar reports over the last few months that to continue to ignore the trend would be to purposefully hide it. And so I must try to create something midway between sensationalism and deception.

At the customary hour for such dealings, 2:30 in the morning, On September 11, 12-year-old Mohammad Saleh Khawaje was awakened at home and arrested by Israeli soldiers for the charge of "stone-throwing and disturbance of public order." He is still in jail awaiting bail with his codefendant, 13-year-old Abdul Ahman.

In the Israeli justice system, Palestinian youth can be tried as adults at the age of 12. In contrast, Israeli youth are considered children until they turn 18.

This situation is further complicated by Mohammad's father's belief that his son was arrested in an act of revenge. Abed Saleh, Mohammed's father, says he had complained to Israeli police and military about a daylong beating he suffered at the behest of the now-infamous Lt. Col. Omri Bruberg.

Saleh tells ISM:

Abed Saleh wasn’t home when Israeli soldiers invaded the village of Ni’lin on Thursday night and raided his house. “The soldiers came to the house to take me again,” he explained. “They asked where I was. When they found out I wasn’t there they took my son instead.”

Saleh is not the first to accuse Bruberg of violence or of revenge for the complaints about such violence.

This is the second time in recent history that such allegations have been laid against Israeli soldiers under Lt. Col. Omri’s command. One month ago Jamal Amira, father of Salam Amira, the teenager who shot the infamous video in which Omri ordered the aforementioned shooting of Ashraf Abu Rama, was arrested as “Salam’s father” by self-proclaimed “friends of Omri”, and subjected to abuse strikingly similar to that Abd Saleh describes in his testimony.

A similar case was noted by the UK Guardian's Seth Freedman back in July. In that case, another Muhammad, this time 14 years old, described his ordeal in prison for the same charge as I previously mentioned: throwing stones. Freeman notes that, "Since September 2000 Israel has arrested and detained almost 6000 children, with 700 under-18s arrested in 2007 alone."

These are the facts on the ground, not rumor. What is debated is whether or not the children were actually throwing stones, and if they were, if this is a crime a 12-year-old should be arrested for.

Palin Answers Questions, Sort of

2008-09-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin is interviewed by Charles Gibson:

Oh, oops. Wait. Sorry. I had the wrong one. They were just so similar! Here's the right one:

From Another Angle

2008-09-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

In covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I've heard a lot of complaints from both sides. Why can't they just... is a common prefix for such complaints, framed as questions. And they're logical questions, ones I've had myself.

Well, there's an article on Haaretz today that might answer one of those questions. And this article is by no means out of the ordinary.

The jist is this:

Some 90 right-wing activists on Thursday besieged an Israel Defense Forces post north of Ramallah, in protest against the civil administration's decision to remove construction supplies from an illegal outpost in the West Bank.

The settlers rallied around the civil administration officials, pierced the tires of a supervisor's car, and sicked a dog on one of the soldiers.

Israeli settlers were about to start building a house, or houses, in an unapproved area, so the IDF showed up and carted their construction materials away. This may partly answer the question, Why can't they just stop letting in more settlers?

Illegal settlements have been dealt with in a multitude of ways. Sometimes the government ignores them. Sometimes the government gives passive support. Sometimes the government gives active support, like providing IDF guards to protect the settlers. Sometimes the government evicts them. No doubt the Israeli government's reaction to each settler has more to do with the strategic placement of that particular settlement, and whether it supports the land grab, but illegal settlers are not always supported wholeheartedly.

However, when the IDF does take any action against Israeli settlers, the backlash is fierce, both immediately and long term. In the short term, you have attacks like in the Haaretz article above. You have settlers spitting, yelling curses, and the like, at their IDF brethren. Calling them traitors. In the long term, well.

In 1947, David Ben-Gurion struck a deal with the orthodox Agudath party. In exchange for implementing Jewish law as national law in the new state of Israel, Agudath supported Ben-Gurion politically and he became the well-loved first Prime Minister of Israel.

Ever since then, the orthodox Jews in Israel have had extraordinary power over the government. One cannot win office without their support. And once in office, one would be swimming against the tide to try to accomplish anything without their support.

And they support Jewish settlement of the West Bank.

So any Israeli politician who dares to remove settlers from Palestinian areas will first have the soldiers they send spit on, cursed, and possibly beaten, and then they will be booed out of office.

This is the state of affairs.

Palin Seems Likable Behind Her Curtain

2008-09-09T08:33:00.001-07:00

So like, I don't know anyone who has ever voted Republican. At least not that I know of. I've never thought about voting Republican. I'm still not thinking of voting republican.

But.

Ever since I realized Obama is behind 20 points I've found it useful to at least look at the bright side:

Yes, both McCain and Palin identify as anti-abortion, but neither has led a political life with that belief, or their other religious principles, as their signature issue. Politicians act on their passions - the passion of McCain and Palin is reform. In her time in office, Palin’s focus has not been to kick the gays and make abortion illegal; it has been to kick the corrupt and make wasteful spending illegal.

It wouldn't be the end of the world, right?

Yesterday I read a NYT's piece, which I subsequently cannot find again, which basically spent a thousand words talking about how Palin brings her kids to work and how she nurses Trig during conference calls and says things like, "Mommy has to go do this press conference."

So I find that she's just too likable. I can't seem...to stop myself...from liking her.

ALTHOUGH! It has been ten days since she was announced and she still has not spoken to the press. So I am still waiting for the other shoe.

Andrew Sullivan has opinions on this:

Notice that most campaigns actually believe that it is good for them to get press interest in their vice-presidential pick. Normally, they can't wait to get him or her in front of the cameras. It's important to realize that, whatever the intimidation from the GOP, what is happening with Palin is without historical precedent.

The question we have every right to ask is: why?

UPDATE:
Found the Time's piece, and I give you quotes:

She assured them she would not take much time off: she had returned to work the day after giving birth to Piper. “To any critics who say a woman can’t think and work and carry a baby at the same time,” she said, “I’d just like to escort that Neanderthal back to the cave.”

Ms. Palin installed a travel crib in her Anchorage office and a baby swing in her Juneau one. For much of the summer, she carried Trig in a sling as she signed bills and sat through hearings, even nursing him unseen during conference calls.