29-Jan-07: Bread of Affliction

A bakery in a holiday resort town in this country came under armed attack today. Three ordinary people, makers of fresh bread, were blown to pieces by a bomber. He is an Arab. He died in his own explosion.

Today's act of hate-driven terrorism happened in Eilat, the southern-most town in Israel. Eilat is filled with hotels and a fairly un-Israeli relaxed ambiance. The fact that it has not previously been hit by self-mutiliating Arab murderers may explain why security in the town has been relatively relaxed. Until now.

We know from bitter experience that until a tragedy like today's hits you personally, you tend to think that it happens only to other people.

We've also learned that those with an inclination towards pontificating and placing things in neat moral boxes tend to sink to the occasion when faced with the opportunity to express an opinion about a tragedy of this kind. Unfortunately most editors and many consumers of news seem unable to distinguish between the pontificators and those with something valuable, insightful and instructive to offer.

So let's review a few published reactions from this day's reporting, and see how much light, as opposed to cheap heat, they manage to generate.

Report: "Israeli leaders said the bombing jeopardized a two-month truce in Gaza."
We say: Really? A two-month truce? We must have come awfully close to peaceful relations with our nation-building neighbours in those two months, right? Hardly. Consider this: "In 2006, the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) caught over 100 Palestinian terrorists who originated in the Gaza Strip and tried crossing into Israel from the Sinai Desert in Egypt. Among the terrorists were suicide bombers, weapons experts on their way to establish terror infrastructure in the West Bank and masterminds of soldier-kidnapping plots. In addition to the terrorists, security forces also succeeded in dismantling 11 terror rings that had established infrastructure which was used for infiltrations along the border. "

Report: "Prime Minister Olmert vowed to continue the "ongoing and never-ending struggle against terrorists.""We say: Really? Yediot Aharonot sees it differently.
"No obstacle along border, IDF officer says
"There is a substantial need for a physical obstacle along the border with Egypt, sources in the Israel Defense Forces said several hours after the Eilat terror attack , which claimed the lives of three people. A senior IDF officer said Monday evening that building such an obstacle, such as a fence along the Israel-Egypt border, was necessary in order to meet the challenges posed by terror organizations in the area. "What worries me is that what happened today will only tempt other terror groups to continue their attempts to carry out attack in the same pattern," the officer said. "We must remember that what happened today was not a record incident and that graver incident could take place. There is no physical, artificial or mental obstacle along the border," he added."

Report: Our defense minister, Amir Peretz, convening an emergency meeting of top security officials said: "This is a grave incident, it's an escalation and we shall treat it as such."
We say: Yes, it's grave. Every time the forces of terror manage to break through the defences which civilized societies put up against the barbarians, it's grave. But it's not an escalation of any sort. It's precisely the same old same old -- Arab terror is a constant -- that leaves us so exasperated by the empty words and incoherent actions of the political figures who bring so much noise and so little wisdom to public life here and in most other places.

Report: "A spokesman for Hamas, the radical Islamic group that controls the Palestinian parliament and Cabinet, praised the bombing as a "natural response"."
We say: Praising terror is what separates barbarian society from civilized society. So then why do the hate-filled statements of the barbarians receive so much air time? They're not only a threat to our society here in Israel. They're a threat to all societies.

Report: "Palestinian terror organizations Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, an arm of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, and Islamic Jihad have claimed joint responsibility for the attack. "
We say: A Jerusalem Post analysis puts this in perspective: "It also does not make much of a difference which terror group was behind the attack. Nowadays, most of the groups - Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Tanzim, Al Aksa Brigades, PFLP - work together with one supplying the bomb, the other the bomber, and a third the infiltration route. The attack is also a way of trying to divert the attention from the Palestinian internal factional fighting and unite the groups to fight against their common enemy Israel instead of against one another."

Report: "A senior aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack. "We reject these acts and we do not believe that they are in the interest of the Palestinian cause and that they blacken the image of the Palestinian people," Yasser Abed Rabbo told AFP news agency. "
We say: It isn't really a condemnation when you say something shouldn't have been done because it spoils your image. Can you imagine the impact of a Palestinian Arab leader getting up and saying "We have to stop these acts of murder and hatred because they're sending our society back to the stone age and creating a moral burden for our children's children's children that no society can ever bear. We have to stop this because it's immoral and appallingly wrong."
Well, we can dream.

Report: "The last suicide attack was at a Tel Aviv restaurant, killing 10 people. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in that time, mainly in the Gaza Strip."
We say: The BBC has an interesting way of framing the story. There was a previous terror attack, they say. Then afterwards the Israelis killed hundreds of Arabs (a toll that presumably includes deaths like that of the cowardly thug who attacked the bread loaves and ovens this morning). Tit for tat. Classic BBC-talk. Cycle of violence. Want to understand why today's killings happened? asks the BBC's editor. Because hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. Except that this killing by Arabs of Jews in the Jewish homeland has been happening for more than a hundred years. Long before there were occupied territories. Long before there were any Israeli forces. Long before the BBC and the other purveyors of morally-confused news reporting began sending their ill-informed and agenda-driven reporters and photographers to this area.

25-Jan-07: An Observation About Religion and Differences Among People

As people who just want to be left in peace to raise our family, to make an honest living, to protect our health and to contribute something useful to society, we sometimes feel like an endangered species. Israel is filled with people like us, of course. But looking around at our neighbours here in the Middle East and wondering about their values, actions and aspirations can sometimes be an extremely dis-spiriting thing.

Just two examples to make a point.

First, the absolutely indispensable but relatively little-known Palestinian Arab journalist, Khaled Abu Toameh, writes in one of today's dailies about some Arab voices you almost never hear.

"The situation is very dangerous... I believe that 15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian here. This is a very sad situation."

Abu Toameh writes of how a monk was recently roughed up for trying to prevent a group of Muslim men from seizing lands owned by Christians in Beit Sahur:

Thieves have targeted the homes of many Christian families and a "land mafia" has succeeded in laying its hands on vast areas of land belonging to Christians... "President Mahmoud Abbas is taking our case very seriously," said Georgette Lama. "But until now he hasn't done anything to help us get our land back. We are very concerned because we're not the only ones suffering from this phenomenon. Most Christians are afraid to speak, but I don't care because we have nothing more to lose..."
A Christian businessman who asked not to be identified said the conditions of Christians in Bethlehem and its surroundings had deteriorated ever since the area was handed over to the PA in 1995. "Every day we hear of another Christian family that has immigrated to the US, Canada or Latin America... The Christians today make up less than 15 percent of the population. People are running away because the Palestinian government isn't doing anything to protect them and their property against Muslim thugs. "

As Jews, we have never understood how little concern there seems to be among Christians outside the region about the suffering of their Christian brothers. And if you'd like to know why this bothers us so much, click on Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society.

Meanwhile here's a second illustration of how depressing it is to see what the people in the states that border on ours do and think.

This one is a Moslem viewpoint. Published a few weeks ago by a freelance writer from Islamabad, Pakistan, it expresses opinions that are rarely heard anywhere, and probably least of all in Islamic society. The voice belongs to Farrukh Saleem, a man brave enough - or maybe crazy enough - to publish his email address.

Saleem says the League of Arab States has 22 members. 7 of them are monarchies and 6 are classed by the UN Commission on Human Rights as "authoritarian" and among the "world's most repressive regimes" (Libya, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria and Somalia).

Against this promising background, our Pakistani observer shares with us these insights:

• Of the 330 million Moslems living in Arab countries, fewer than half a million live in a democracy. That's 0.15 per cent of all the Moslem Arabs in the world.
• You need to travel no more than 250 miles from the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo to encounter the sole parliamentary democracy in the entire Middle East. It's a place that has universal suffrage. It's a country with multi-party, multi-candidate, competitive elections. It's called Israel.
• "Israel [says Saleem] spends $110 on scientific research per year per person while the same figure for the Arab world is $2."
• Knowledge [he writes] makes Israel grow by 5.2 per cent a year. Meanwhile the average production per worker in the Arab League countries was negative throughout the 1980's and 90's according to the World Bank's Arab Development Report.
• The average per capita income in Israel is $25,000. In the oil-rich Arab League countries, it's $5,000.
• "The state of Israel [he writes] now has six universities ranked as among the best on the face of the planet. "
• He gets more specific, quoting an authoritative source on tertiary education: "The Hebrew University in Jerusalem is in the top 100. Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University and Weizmann Institute of Science are in the top 200. Bar Ilan University and Ben Gurion University are in the top 300. The Arab League does not have a single university in the top 400.
• Every second Arab women is unable to read and to write. Noting this, he quotes Imam Ali Ibn Abi Taleb: "If God were to humiliate a human being, He would deny him knowledge".
• Between 1998 and 2000, more than 15,000 Arab physicians migrated out of the Arab world. According to World Bank figures, "roughly 25 per cent of 300,000 first degree graduates from Arab universities emigrated. Roughly 23 per cent of Arab engineers, 50 per cent of Arab doctors and 15 per cent of Arab BSc holders had emigrated."
• Israel, on the other hand, has more engineers and scientists per capita than any other country in the world. For every 10,000 Israelis, there are 145 engineers or scientists.
• Israel ranks among the top 7 countries worldwide for patents per capita.
• He mentions Teva Pharmaceutical Industries - whose plant we can see from our living room window here in Jerusalem - because it's the world's largest producer of antibiotics. Teva also developed Copaxone, a unique immunomodulator therapy for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, the only non-interferon agent available.
• Most members of the Arab League grant Moslem women few rights in relation to marriage, divorce, dress code, civil rights, legal status and education. Israel is entirely different - its women enjoy the broadest possible rights by any standards.
• Spain (alone) translates more books in a single year than the entire Arab world has in the past thousand years.
• The world's six million Israelis buy 12 million books every year. This makes them one of the highest consumers of books in the world.
• Israel has the highest number of university degrees per capita in the world. The Arab world has the lowest.
• Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other country (109 per 10,000 Israelis). The Arab world? Next to none.

Does any of this matter? No, not if you're a Christian living in a Moslem country. Or a women, or a liberal.

But yes, it does matter to people like us. We have a lot to protect: a society that's growing, achieving, making an impact. If the Arabs in general, and the Palestinian Arabs in particular, had the same kind of stake in their own future, the chances that we might find ways to live in peace with each other would be immeasurably greater.

Even from Pakistan, it's clear how far we are from that happening.

1-Jan-07: The "Whole Earth Guide" to Blowing People Up in their Homes

You no longer need to wear a kaffiyeh to be a jihadist. Sometimes it's enough just to have access to a word-processor and an assignment from a major newspaper or electronic media publisher.

For years, major brands like BBC, NYTimes and Agence France Press have leavened their reportage from such terror-afflicted Israeli cities as Sderot and Ashkelon with the expression "home-made" in reference to Palestinian Arab weaponry, and especially their rockets.

A fine piece of writing in The Australian newspaper this weekend provides a valuable perspective on that sort of soft-headed, nonsensical journalism.

Here's an extract:

Qassam rockets are the brainchild of Adnan al-Ghoul - literally Adnan the evil demon who feeds on corpses - the chief Hamas bomb manufacturer until he was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2004. He devised the weapon after Yasser Arafat rejected the Camp David peace accords in 2000 and declared war on Israel, launching the second intifada.

Qassams are fuelled by a solid propellant made of potassium nitrate (fertiliser) and sugar, which is melted down to a combustible toffee in domestic kitchens. This fuel is packed into casings, made out of the steel poles used to mount traffic lights. The advantage of the Qassam is that it can be fired at Israel over the security wall, largely without endangering the lives of the terrorists. The disadvantage is that they are unguided but the terrorists have learned by trial and error that if they fire enough of them they will eventually murder Israelis.

Al-Ghoul's first rockets were constructed in Gaza and fired at Israel in 2001. They became increasingly deadly as their range and payload was extended. Al-Ghoul's earliest prototypes had a maximum range of 3km, weighed 5.5 kilos and had a 500-gram explosives payload. The Qassam 3 has a range of 10km, weighs 90kg and has a payload of 10kg. In July 2006, Hamas fired a Qassam that it claims has a range of 15km and hit a high school in central Ashkelon.

Qassam rockets are frequently referred to in the media as home-made, as if they were as wholesome as a tray of home-baked biscuits or simply a bit of fun for the kiddies on cracker night. Arafat before his death claimed Qassams hadn't killed anyone, saying: "They only make noise."

In fact, Qassams are deadly and Adir Bassad is only the latest to be left fighting for his life. Fatima Slutzker, 57, and Yaakov Yaakobov, 43, were killed by Qassams in November. The first fatalities were two Israeli toddlers, Dorit Benisian, 2, and Yuval Abebeh, 4, killed as they were playing outside their grandmother's house in Sderot near the border with Gaza in September 2004. Afik Zahavi, also 4, was killed as his mother was taking him to nursery school. Ella Abukasis, 17, was killed as she shielded her younger brother from a rocket. Dana Galkowicz, 22, was killed as she sat on the verandah of her boyfriend's house. Mordechai Yosepov, 49, was killed as he sat near the nursery his two grandchildren attended. In total, Qassams have killed eight people in Israel and five in Gaza - a Chinese worker, a Thai worker, two Palestinian workers and a Palestinian girl, killed by a rocket that fell short of theborder.

Please read the whole article. In fact, consider putting it aside to re-read the next time you come across such gems as the BBC's definitive backgrounder on the Gaza Strip, a classic analysis piece which manages to tell you everything you need to know without a single mention of the word Qassam (or Kassam). Why bother? They're really just for children.