26-Jun-11: Longing and loving... and standing up for the terrorists of Gaza

Under the title "Why Alice Walker shouldn't sail to Gaza", the celebrated British writer Howard Jacobson - who won last year's Man Booker Prize for his comic novel The Finkler Question - asks some questions of his fellow cultural icon.

Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning African American author and poet, is best-known for her critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple.

Jacobson notes that the flotilla boats now sailing towards Gaza and intending to challenge and preferably break the Israeli-imposed naval blockade will be carrying, according to Walker "letters expressing solidarity and love." But...

Not, presumably, for Israeli children. Perhaps it is thought that Israeli children are the recipients of enough love already... What interest or aspiration do Alice Walker and her fellow travelers share with the people of Gaza? A desire for freedom? Well we all aspire to that. A longing to live in peace? If they have such a longing we must be solid with them in that too, though the firing of rockets from Gaza is not, on the face of it, an expression of such a longing. And what about the declared hostility of Hamas to the very existence of Israel? Hamas, we are often told, is the elected government of Gaza, a government that fairly represents the wishes of its people. In which case we must assume that Hamas's implacable hostility towards Israel fairly represents the implacable hostility felt by the people of Gaza. Are Alice Walker's letters of love and 'solidarity' solid with the people of Gaza in that hostility? [Source]

Alice Walker will be joined by other cultural figures on this week's flotilla boats, some of them Jewish. In making their decision, they ignore what the US government, to its credit, has warned them not to do:

The US State Department on Friday warned American activists planning to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza that they risk criminal prosecution if they go through with their attempt... “Delivering or attempting or conspiring to deliver material support or other resources to or for the benefit of a designated foreign terrorist organization, such as Hamas, could violate US civil and criminal statutes and could lead to fines and incarceration,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement. “Groups that seek to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza are taking irresponsible and provocative actions that risk the safety of their passengers,” she said. “Established and efficient mechanisms exist to transfer humanitarian assistance to Gaza... We urge all those seeking to provide such assistance to the people of Gaza to use these mechanisms, and not to participate in actions like the planned flotilla.”  [Source]

Alice Walker and her fellow travelers from several nations appear certain to ignore what Victoria Nuland said. And it's likely they have never heard of a sailing vessel of the same name - the Victoria - a container vessel (IMO 9290165) operated by Peter Döhle Shipping that made headlines here in Israel during March 2011. The affair of the Victoria was almost totally ignored elsewhere. This is a pity because it has some some instructive and relevant aspects.

That Victoria was a ship (like the flotillarati, having  multi-national origins: German owned, French operated, Liberian flagged) whose journey originated in the Syrian port of Latkia. It docked in Turkey's Mersin port en route to Alexandria, Egypt. Shortly after it sailed from Alexandria, and acting on intelligence, the IDF forcefully boarded the Victoria on the high seas 200 nautical miles west of Israel. The ship's paperwork, the bill of lading, said the containers were filled with cotton and lentils.

Some cotton.

Though the ship's crew, innocents like Ms Walker and her pals, had no idea, 39 of its one hundred shipping containers held a massive stockpile of weapons, some 50 tons of C-704 anti-ship missiles, rocket launchers, radar systems, mortar shells and rifle ammunition [source, includes the full shopping list of arms]. Israeli sources  say the Victoria was yet another joint Syria and Iran production, cooperating to send weapons to the terrorists of Hamas in Gaza.

We'd like to say 'happy sailing' to Ms Walker and her cultured and love-minded friends, but it would be insincere. We think they are naive and silly dupes whose actions are bound to produce more deaths and misery thanks to the relentless terrorism of the Hamas regime in Gaza.

24-Jun-11: Since the flotilla promoters won't tell you this, we have to

Our daughter Malki's beautiful life was deliberately and brutally ended by a gang of terrorists funded, equipped, organized and promoted by the same people who now run the Gaza regime.

When the 'humanitarians' and 'rescue workers' on the audaciously misnamed "Audacity of Hope" and other Gaza-bound flotilla vessels tell you of their noble intentions, ask them if they understand they are providing support to the very people - the actual individuals - who indiscriminately and willfully murdered hundreds of innocent people simply because of their being Jewish. Hamas has never concealed its intentions to do this, and its plans to keep on doing it.

One of Hamas' victims, fifteen years old when they stole her life from her and from us, was Malki Roth. Please take a moment to read a few words about who she was and what she did with her life. Please keep these ideas in mind when the flotilla and its participants take over the headlines in the coming days.

24-Jun-11: Gazan picture tells more than 1,000 negative/distorting words

Love the caption. Just in time for the coming tsunami of coverage focused on the Gaza 'humanitarian' flotilla, this appeared in yesterday's National Post, a Canadian daily. It illustrates a Kelly McParland article entitled "Dog days in the Hate Israel industry".

22-Jun-11: Incoming rockets on Israel, again - and Israel's reaction

A Palestinian-Arab Qassam rocket from Hamas-controlled Gaza exploded yesterday (Tuesday) in an open area in Israel's southern Eshkol region [source and source]. Half an hour earlier, a mortar shell from the same source struck the same area. Fortunately in both attacks, no injuries or damage were reported. We point out again (as we do whenever such attacks happen) that this is not due to a lack of desire by the terrorists. Their indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets invariably seek civilian - as opposed to military or strategic - victims. However they usually fail due to the incompetence of the missile operators.

Yesterday's rocket attacks came at about the same time Israel gave the green light to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building some $100 of new houses and schools in the Gaza Strip, and importing to Gaza (via the Israeli crossing) building materials for 18 new schools and 1,200 new houses. Ethan Bronner of the New York Times points out that Israel controls the cargo crossings into Gaza and has banned construction materials like concrete and steel from going in for fear that Hamas will incorporate them into weapons and bunkers.

19-Jun-11: Listening closely to the barbarians

Baby carriages and rescue workers: The scene outside
Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant, 9th August 2001 on the day
our daughter was murdered along with 14 others in
an 'armed resistance' massacre executed by Hamas   

We have a different viewpoint from most people, given that our daughter was murdered by the thugs whom the spokesperson below represents. "Armed resistance" is one of those expressions that terrorist groups everywhere are encouraged by their media contacts and public relations spinners to use. 

It masks the relentless appetite for the indiscriminate pain and civilian-focused damage, the restaurant bombings, the sniper attacks, the bus massacres and the showcase killings they seek to inflict on those they hate. But it sounds more political, almost romantic. 

Remind yourself of the kind of armed resistance that Hamas directed at a pizza store full of mothers and children.

Senior Palestinian leader: Armed resistance bestAssociated Press – 19th June 2011 GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A senior leader of the Gaza Strip's ruling Hamas movement says armed resistance is the "most effective" way to fight the Israelis, and that Palestinian plans to ask the U.N. to recognize their independence are a waste of time. Khalil al-Hayya says the Palestinian Authority's efforts to persuade the United Nations to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state are a "mirage." His remarks, communicated by his office Sunday, reflect the tensions between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority's dominant Fatah movement as the rival factions try to form a unity government. The head of the Palestinian Authority, President Mahmoud Abbas, is pursuing statehood at the U.N. because negotiations with Israel have been stalled for 2 1/2 years.

Al-Hayya is profiled here. In an interview published eighteen months ago, and referring to Hamas' paymasters in Tehran, he asserts that the terrorists of Hamas receive "Iranian support financially, politically and morally without paying any political price". And in January 2011, addressing the man who today stands at the head of Hamas' newest partner Fatah (with or without the intergroup "tension"), he said: "Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas does not represent the Palestinian people, and is no longer authorized to negotiate with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians."

Terrorists, when they speak clearly as this thug does, ought to be listened to carefully. If they are expressing a position over which they have control, they should always be believed.

Are you listening, Tom ("What to do with Lemons") Friedman?

18-Jun-11: The ordinariness of rockets being fired at ordinary people

Too often, the thugs who fire rockets like this one into civilian homes and

farms are called, as in this Gerry Image pic, 'militants'. The choice

of language is no accident, and deserves to be condemned. People who fire

rockets deliberately and indiscriminately into civilian areas

are terrorists. 

With Sabbath having just ended, we are catching up on some unreported developments here, including the fact that late Thursday evening, yet another Qassam rocket, intended to destroy or kill anything Israeli, was fired into Israel by the missile-rich Palestinian Arab terrorists of Gaza.

The rocket-borne explosives crashed into an open field in the Eshkol region, on the Israeli side of the Israel/Gaza border. Both Ynet and Jpost say there were neither injuries nor damage, but this is more a matter of the incompetence of the Gazan terror groups than a reflection of their plans.

What would your feelings be if an armed-to-the-teeth group of thugs periodically fired rockets indiscriminately in the general direction of your home and your children? How comforted would you be by the fact that there was no damage this time. In reality, as Human Rights Watch has noted, "The problem for most people was not being hit, but the fear, uncertainty and stress."

The numerous Palestinian-Arab terror groups that fire missiles and mortar shells into Israel state openly, proudly and repeatedly, their intention to hurt civilian Israelis. None of them denies it, and none of them denies that these actions are immoral, illegal and a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which makes them a war crime. Their rockets meet the definition of illegal weapons whether or not they are directed - as they almost never are - against military targets. They violate two fundamental principles of the laws of war: distinction (between civilian and military targets) and proportionality.

By the way, can you remember the last time a public figure or commentator referred to such attacks against Israelis as war crimes?

17-Jun-11: Sponsored racist hatred: time to call in the auditors

Most Western decision makers will never
read publications like Al-Hayat Al-Jadid (above).
But millions of Palestinian Arabs do.

We recently wrote here about legal decisions taken by the Palestinian Authority to reward Palestinian Arab terrorists with salaries [see 20-May-11: Rewarding the Palestinian Arab terrorists: is this being done in your name?]. Those moves, little remarked upon and generally ignored in international forums, are consistent with steps the PA takes daily to encourage hatred of Jews and Israel and fan the flames of terror. Why the PA continues to be thought of in certain circles as 'moderate' is baffling. Perhaps it's just that people don't know.

Here's a relatively small but disturbing current example of how it works.

The PA controls its own government-funded media channels, ensuring a consistent message reaches the people living under its jurisdiction. Palestinian Media Watch, and almost no one else, does consistent and professional work in tracking those messages. It puts out warnings - to which almost no other media channel reacts - when especially odious and/or dangerous content is identified.

Yesterday PMW issued an alert. It reproduces several quotations (in their context) carried in a publication called Al Hayat Al Jadida (Arabic for "New Life"). Wikipedia says it's an official daily newspaper of the ostensibly secular Palestinian National Authority.

PMW's Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik summarize the PA-sanctioned messages as:

• The enemies of Islam are "cultivating evil" against it. 
• The state of Israel is a "malignant cancerous growth" and its conflict with the Arabs is about faith and existence, and not about land and borders.
• The Jewish religion is false, distorted and corrupted. 
• Jews are inherently evil and have been so since the time of Cain and Abel.
• Jews, through their political philosophy Zionism, have a religious plan to take over the world and rule it while forcing non-Jews to submit to their will.

If there is controversy within Palestinian Arab circles over the publication of such filth, we're not aware of it, and we certainly invite anyone who can point to open discussions among Palestinian or other Arabs of the rights and wrongs of teaching things like this to let us know.

Now why do you think so many observers and reporters keep calling the PA and its ruling clique 'moderate' as they do here and here and here and here and here and so on and on? To put it mildly, calling the PA 'moderate' is to give them an easy pass. It implies support for their ideological racism. 

We believe institutionalized hate-mongering is absolutely fundamental to the PA nurturing a society which values terrorist martyrdom and acts of murder and destruction. It's all going on in broad daylight, but too many people avert their gaze. It's late, but never too late, to call the Abbas regime what it is: one of the world's leading sponsors of anti-semitism and hate-based education.

All of this is indispensably made possible by funding blindly provided by funders in Australia, the United States, Canada, the European Union and other providers of aid. It's way past time to call in the auditors.

16-Jun-11: Quote of the day: Violent repression, the Syrians and Washington

Happy Syrian family: the Hafez al-Assads, two generations
of despotic murderers 

From a Washington Post Editorial Board editorial published yesterday

It has been four weeks since President Obama said it would be "a top priority" of his administration to oppose violent repression and support democratic transitions across the Middle East, using "all of the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at our disposal." He singled out Syria, where the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has gunned down hundreds of peaceful protesters, choosing what Mr. Obama called "the path of murder." The French government has adopted the position that the Assad regime has lost the legitimacy to govern Syria. But the Obama administration has not abandoned the notion that the dictator could still steer Syria to democracy - as ludicrous as that sounds. 

Calling Bashar al-Assad's policies the 'path of murder' is no understatement. It calls to mind the tradition of massacring fellow Syrians that is central to his family's ethos. Consider his father, as recounted by Thomas Friedman in a September 2001 essay in the New York Times entitled "Hama Rules":

Not-so-happy Syrian family: Fleeing
for their lives from their own army 2011 [Source]

In February 1982 the secular Syrian government of President Hafez al-Assad faced a mortal threat from Islamic extremists, who sought to topple the Assad regime. How did it respond? President Assad identified the rebellion as emanating from Syria's fourth-largest city -- Hama -- and he literally leveled it, pounding the fundamentalist neighborhoods with artillery for days. Once the guns fell silent, he plowed up the rubble and bulldozed it flat, into vast parking lots. Amnesty International estimated that 10,000 to 25,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, were killed in the merciless crackdown. 

The Hama massacre in Hama was personally conducted by Bashar-al-Assad's uncle, Rifaat al-Assad, the younger brother of Bashar's father Hafez who was Syria's despotic ruler for the three decades until his death in 2000. That's when the current despot, his son, arrived on the scene.

Being able to control every word in the news media within your country, as the al-Assad dynasty has specialized in doing for decades, evidently ensures that such pesky matters as death tolls can be safely spun and ignored.

And would it surprise you to know that America's ambassador to Damascus, Robert Ford, "has not met with the Syrian Foreign Minister or his deputy “for some time,” and whatever meetings he’s had have been with “intermediaries”... That's according to an analysis published today on the Now Lebanon site where the author, Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, goes on to say:

The administration’s argument for keeping an ambassador was always problematic... This posture – the logical outcome of President Obama’s call on Assad to “lead the transition” – only legitimates the murderous Assad regime at a time when the US should be publicly declaring it illegitimate. President Obama already lent American prestige to Assad when he decided to... appoint Ambassador Ford. Awarding normal diplomatic relations with a superpower to a rogue regime is a legitimating act on its own. If the Obama administration is serious about ratcheting up the pressure against Assad, it should first state publicly that it is done dealing with the Syrian dictator, then follow that with a declaration that it is withdrawing the US ambassador from Damascus.

So why hasn't it?

15-Jun-11: The war against the terrorists requires that you choose the side you support

Click to view the Council on Foreign
Relations Crisis Guide: Pakistan

And the Pakistanis, it's increasingly clear, have made their choices.

Pakistan Arrests C.I.A. Informants Who Aided Bin Laden Raid
New York Times - Tuesday 14th June 2011: Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.
Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.

 Also from Pakistan today:

A lot learnt, a lot to learn about Pakistan and terror
Indian Express - Posted: Wed Jun 15 2011, 03:06 hrs:  Confessed American terrorist and Pakistani spy David Coleman Headley delivered explosive revelations about how [Pakistani] ISI officers funded, supported and directed the 2008 Mumbai attacks along with the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Because of his mix of front-line experience and high-level contacts, Headley’s testimony was a seminar in how terrorists communicate in code, do surveillance on targets and assemble plots while spies oversee the operations from the shadows like puppeteers. The case also showed how a growing number of serving and former Pakistani military officers have put their lethal talents at the service of Lashkar, al-Qaeda and other groups.

ISI stands for the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, more commonly known as Inter-Services Intelligence. It's Pakistan's premier intelligence agency. David Headley is actually Daood Sayed Gilani, a Pakistani American from Chicago who was among the planners of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks (in which the Jewish Chabad House was a principal target) and other terrorist activity. Wikipedia says he changed his Islamic name to a Christian name to hide his Pakistani-Muslim identity to make travel to India easier. 
To learn more, there's useful - and deeply worrying - background on Pakistan's terrorist connections at the website of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

14-Jun-11: Thumb-twiddling

There is an almost total passivity, even silence, from the Arab world over the bloodbath going on inside Syria (see some astute Arab comments in "Syria and the Arab silence… Again" published in the London-based pan-Arab daily newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat).

Greater numbers of Syrians are fleeing for their lives across the border to Turkey (see picture at right) with Assad's armed hordes firing in all directions right behind them, and some Arab voices - not enough but some - are sensing how dangerous Assad's actions are for the region, and warning where this might lead.

The death toll meanwhile keeps rising (six killed so far today, Tuesday, making a total of about 1,200 since mid March) as Assad's forces slaughter their fellow Syrians. The Telegraph (UK) points out ("Assad's death squads have had a busy few weeks. But don't expect the BBC to tell you") that a credulous media continues to straight-facedly publish the most implausible claims by the Assad regime though they are self-evidently fictitious: "In 12 weeks, he has not been able to produce a single video showing that his military is embroiled in deadly combat with roving gangs of terrorists. The Syrian people, meanwhile, have uploaded thousands of unedited YouTube clips depicting peaceful protests interrupted by acts of savagery". 

Dawood Al Shirian, the Saudi editor in chief of Alarabiya.net warns  

the Syrian regime will not remain silent while watching the Syrian citizens and defected soldiers cross to north Lebanon and Turkey. This is creating an increasing international pressure with time. If Damascus fails to move everyone’s attention from what is happening on its land through creating tension on its borders with Israel and Turkey, then it would try to ignite its border with Lebanon. It would try to mix the Lebanese-Palestinian cards, create more worries for Israel and force the UNIFIL to take a stand that would turn the situation upside down and impose a whole new status quo towards Syria. 

See what a ruthless despot who understands the sleight-of-hand in shifting people's attention can accomplish when he feels he is able to get away with it? Lovely people to make peace with.

14-Jun-11: Arab spring, Syrian fall?

Fouad Ajami in the WSJ delivers a sharply poisonous attack on the thuggish family that has kept its terrorist foot on the neck of Syria for several decades:

"Until the Arab Spring, nothing had stirred in Syria in nearly three decades. President Hafez al-Assad and his murderous younger brother Rifaat had made an example of Hama in 1982 when they stamped out a popular uprising by leveling much of the city and slaughtering thousands. Now, the circle is closed. President Bashar al-Assad and his younger brother Maher, commander of the Republican Guard, are determined to subdue this new rebellion as their father did in Hama—one murder at a time. In today's world it's harder to turn off the lights and keep tales of repression behind closed doors, but the Assads know no other way. Massacre is a family tradition."

The title of his article says what people need to hear: "Syria: Where Massacre Is a Family Tradition: The mask of the Assad regime finally falls, and the world is forced to confront its illusions about Iran's ally and Hezbollah's patron"

It's certainly worth reading the full text.

Zvi Barel writing in Haaretz yesterday takes a very Middle Eastern view of the barbarism taking place in Syria. His view is that the Syrian despot is going to succeed. Assad’s Syria, he notes, “has the full backing - and the threat of their veto of any anti-Syrian resolution - of China and Russia. Their support enables Assad to continue to characterize his violent suppression of demonstrations and shooting of protesters as an "internal Syrian matter" or the work of "armed gangs," and to claim that any international intervention is a plot to destroy the regime.”

He's evidently right. Syria is not the current destination of any ‘peace activists’ or ‘freedom flotillas’. Even if it were, the Assad family know how to stay cool and focused. Haaretz puts it well:

“Assad is operating on the assumptions that time is not working against him, that his army will succeed in suppressing the demonstrations even if they continue for longer than anticipated and that even if Turkey or other states sever ties with Syria it will still be able to count on cooperation from Iraq, Iran and Russia. Another assumption, presumably correct, is that Syria will not be subject to a Libya-style international military onslaught. Assad's Syria has endured periods of severe diplomatic isolation in the past. With the UN draft resolutions intended, for now, only to censure the acts of suppression, without imposing additional sanctions, Assad can ignore the threat.”

Syria, for years, even decades, has carried out massacre after massacre of its citizens while shouting to a gullible press gallery that it's Israel that is leading the region to war. Israel is brutal, Israel is threatening, Israel is destabilizing, Israel is igniting. And so on and on.

Try this. Google the string Assad + “Israel trying”. You will get thousands of hits, virtually all of them news reports from respectable sources giving uncritical airtime to the warnings of the man now revealed to be a world-class regional thug with more Syrian blood on his hands than any of his worst enemies do. 

9-Jun-11: Bringing Gilad home and the role played by the media

One of this blog's two authors published the article below today on FrontPageMag.com. She argues that there is something deeply disturbing in the way politicians and the media, including parts of the Israeli media, present the five year old struggle to free Gilad Shalit, an Israeli hostage, from the grip of the Hamas terrorist organization as if only Hamas' terms are relevant.

Released Palestinian terrorist with rifle: exactly
the sort of image and message Hamas wants to publicize.
So why would we want to aid them? [See note below]

The Tragic Fight For Gilad Shalit     [Front Page Magazine 9th June 2011] There are myriad reasonable paths available for securing the freedom of Gilad Shalit, kidnapped and held by Hamas five years ago. So why has Israel persistently pursued the suicidal release of hardened murderers in order to bring him home?
Senior PA officials revealed last week that an agreement between Hamas and Israel on a mass Palestinian prisoner release is imminent. We have PM Netanyahu’s serial bungled handling of Shalit’s captivity to thank for this sorry state of affairs.
Many opportunities presented themselves for pressuring Hamas to free Shalit without the disastrous return of convicted mass murderers to Hamas. Netanyahu caved-in on each occasion.
One confounding example is his recent payment of tax revenues to the PA.  In response to the PA’s unity deal with Hamas, Netanyahu initially withheld those funds, totaling $100 million, from the PA for two weeks. The Shalit family urged Netanyahu to remain firm and freeze that money until Shalit’s return. Yet their call won no support from the Israeli media; their desperate lone voice went unheeded. Under pressure from the West, and from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,  Netanyahu capitulated and transferred the funds to the PA.
The Shalit’s push for a prolonged revenue freeze aimed to hurt the perpetrators of Shalit’s kidnapping: Hamas and its new accomplice, the Palestinian Authority. Clearly, if the PA has genuinely reunited with Hamas terrorists, it now shares responsibility for all of Hamas’ actions, including, of course, the Shalit kidnapping.
As Noam Shalit said: “Today, after the reconciliation deal… the PA is actually responsible for the kidnapped Israeli soldier held by his captors, who are also part of the new government set to be formed.”
After the release of the funds, Shalit noted: “Unfortunately we received no explanation of why the tax funds were transferred to the PA given these facts.”
Of course not. There was no rational explanation.
In return for the transfer of funds, Israel received – in the words of Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz – “reassurances and clarifications that the money would not find its way to terrorists’ hands…”
Whom was he kidding? Those commitments come from the same Fatah and PLO people who promised that they would never join forces with the terror organization, Hamas.
Despite this, and throwing all caution to the wind, Israel has gone ahead and transferred the funds to the PA while failing to implement any mechanism for tracking the transferred funds.
After the confounding release of those tax revenues, Noam and Aviva Shalit turned to the US for help. They called on Congress to halt its financial assistance to the PA in the wake of its union with Hamas, until his son’s release. Since Fatah and Hamas have agreed to form a unity government, the letter argued, the PA can no longer disclaim responsibility for Gilad’s fate, and the threat of losing Washington’s annual $400 million donation might encourage it to take action. They even pleaded directly with Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner to halt that funding.
The Shalits reminded the two US legislators that under the Rome Statute of the International Court 1998, it is a war crime to hold someone hostage.
Then last week, the Shalits and several supporters successfully blocked a courier service truck at the Gaza border forcing it to return to Jerusalem. The truck was attempting to transfer fresh shekels to Gazan banks which Shalit activists want withheld until Gilad Shalit is granted visitations from the Red Cross.
All of these moves to free their son have been only briefly reported by the Israeli press. The successful blocking of the aid funds earned nothing but a 270-word report in Haaretz.
No columns or editorials referred to these efforts, let alone galvanized the Israeli public. The silence of the Israeli press has been deafening.  It contrasts sharply with the encouragement that Israeli journalists and columnists exude whenever the Shalits insist  that Israel  release all the terrorist murderers that Hamas demands in return for their son’s freedom.
The message to the Shalits could not be clearer: the media will assist you unstintingly as long as you stick to the prisoner release route. But once you try to punish the Palestinians for Shalit’s captivity – you are on your own.
In other words: Let the Israeli public pay the price for Shalit’s return  – just leave the poor perpetrators alone.
Turning a blind eye to the activities funded by those revenues is unforgivable. The PA provides a monthly stipend for all Palestinian and Israeli Arab terrorists imprisoned in Israel. Included on the payroll are the terrorists who carried out the bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in central Jerusalem on 9th August 2001, the massacre that cost the life of our daughter Malki, 15, and many other innocents. [JPost].
The fungibility of PA money means that while the US, the EU and other Western donors are not explicitly promoting terrorism, their gifts enable the PA to divert other funds toward that end. [Source: "PA to Pay Salaries to All Terrorists in Israeli Prisons"]
Together with the European Union, the US provides the bulk of financial aid that reaches the PA. Only 22% of the $530,000,000 received since the beginning of 2010 came from Arab donors . The total amount of foreign aid received directly by the PA was $1.4 billion in 2009 and $1.8 billion in 2008.
I have vowed to my dead daughter that I will never cease pleading and fighting for justice toward her  murderer, Ahlam Tamimi. Often misleadingly described as the woman who transported the bomb that was used in the Jerusalem Sbarro terror attack, Tamimi was actually the main perpetrator of that massacre. She selected the target, a venue packed at that hour with women and children. She transported the 10 kg. of explosives, met up with her accomplice, handed him the bomb, deposited him at the target and instructed him on the precise timing the attack so that she could escape unharmed.
Last week the website of Al-Qassam Brigades, the wing of Hamas to which Tamimi belonged, revealed that the streets of Ramallah – the “moderate” Abbas’ headquarters – are emblazoned with posters of Tamimi’s smiling  face.
The site also mentions Tamimi’s conviction and sentence: 16 life sentences along with “a recommendation not to release her in any possible exchange of prisoners.”
The judges foresaw the current predicament we are in but their clause is one we, the victims, have never heard or read from any other source. Presumably it is one that the media and the government would prefer to bury.
If the PA officials are correct, Israel is about to add fuel to the very fire of terrorist danger that IDF commanders warn is about to ignite. Once again, our leaders, entrusted with the job of protecting their constituents, are content to place us in the line of fire in order to remove one very painful political thorn in their sides.
And we, the parents of murdered Jewish children, will weep alone for our second loss.

Frimet Roth is a freelance writer in Jerusalem. Her daughter Malki was murdered at the age of 15 in the Sbarro restaurant bombing (2001). She and her husband founded the Malki Foundation [www.kerenmalki.org] which provides concrete support for Israeli families of all faiths who care at home for a special-needs child. 

About the picture above: Fatma Az-Ziq is one of 19 convicted Palestinian terrorists released by Israel in October 2009. The releases were part of a deal in which Israel received a video of Gilad Shalit from Hamas. Ziq's propaganda value to Hamas is exemplified by the AP photo (above) published throughout the world after her release. Sitting in her Gaza City home on 2nd October 2009, she holds a rifle that her handlers say she hopes to use in future acts of terror against Israelis. Imprisonment was a mere hiatus, and a brief one at that, in a life dedicated to terrorist acts against Israelis: that's the Hamas message, and like virtually everything they say, it ought to be taken seriously - though too often it is not.

8-Jun-11: Syrian diplomat quits - or not. In Syria, reality is a fairly relative concept.

There have always been two Syrias - the one that
trumpets the Assad regime's image to the world, as above, and the reality.
The reality is much bloodier. 

From today's The Australian, under the headline "Syrian diplomat Lamia Chakkour denies quitting":

ONE of Syria's most senior diplomats has caused huge embarrassment to the regime by appearing to resign live on French television only to make an about-turn hours later. Lamia Chakkour told viewers of the France 24 rolling news channel that she no longer wanted to represent Damascus in France after the violence in her homeland. The Syrian embassy in Paris confirmed her departure afterwards. Hours later, a second statement appeared on government-controlled Syrian TV in which she denied resigning. Ms Chakkour's father was a senior figure in Syria's secret police. Her background as a member of Syria's Christian minority, from a family regarded as loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, helped to secure her ambassadorial post. The episode reflects the turmoil within the regime amid mounting international pressure.

The Christian Science Monitor asks "Did Syria's ambassador to France just quit? If she did, it could spell trouble for President Bashir al-Assad":

Whether Chakkour's apparent resignation ends up being an outlier, or a moment when major cracks in the regime first burst into the open, is hard to say. After hundreds of democracy protesters were killed by Qaddafi's forces in mid-February, a slew of ambassadors resigned globally, weakening that regime diplomatically but not stopping Libya's descent into civil war. What's certain is that her decision comes after weeks of horrific reports trickling out of Syria that probably have lots of Syrian officials asking themselves how much violence they're willing to be associated with. Earlier today, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said that Assad was no longer the legitimate ruler of Syria, and that's a position an increasing number of Syrians seem to be taking.

Meanwhile in the past hour (it's now Wednesday 11:30pm here in the region), Associated Press has carried a syndicated report that thousands of so-called elite troops led by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brother are converging right now, Wednesday night, on what it calls

"a restive northern area, and neighboring villages warned that the convoys of tanks were approaching... Syrian forces have lost control of large areas of the northern province, a pro-government newspaper reported, in a rare acknowledgment of cracks in the regime’s tight grip after weeks of protest calling for an end to its 40-year rule... In Jisr Al-Shughour, where the government said “armed groups” had killed 120 security forces and taken over, a resident said nearby villages had opened their mosques, churches and schools to take in people who fled in terror. Many also crossed into Turkey from Idlib province, said the man, who would give only a nickname, Abu Nader, because he feared government reprisals. Witnesses in nearby villages called to tell people in Jisr Al-Shughour that tanks were approaching, Abu Nader said. He said he feared an attack was imminent.

The Arab spring is not working out so great for Syrians, except for the poster printers who are doing really well.

7-Jun-11: International terror victims group asks EC to intervene against PA's promotion of terror

The statement below by the International Alliance Against Terrorism was delivered to the President of the European Commission today.

The International Alliance Against Terrorism | Alliance Internationale Contre le Terrorisme

c/o MPCT, Maison du Citoyen et de la Vie Associative

16, rue du Révérend Père Aubry, 94120 Fontenay-sous-Bois France

alliance.against.terrorism@gmail.com

Tél: +33-6-6626-4223

Fontenay, 6th June 2011

Mr José Manuel Barroso
President of the European Commission
1049 Brussels, Belgium

Sir,

As European members (French, Italian, German, British and Spanish) of the International Alliance Against Terrorism network, we have been alerted by our Israeli partner about the payment of a monthly salary to terrorists, jailed in Israel, by the Palestinian Authority. A law is said to have been passed last April to that effect.

It is clearly not a humanitarian gesture but a promotion of terrorism, since Palestinians detained for car  stealing are excluded from this benefit.

Terrorism, the targeted murder of civilians, is thus treated as a honorable profession deserving fair wages.

We naturally wish all prisoners to be judged in fair trials and, if condemned, to get humane detention conditions. But we are shocked by this measure which revolts the families of the victims of these terrorists.

We are worried too, as this kind of incitement may bring about fresh outbreak of terror.

The Palestinian Authority has unfortunately sent many messages pointing to terror incitement.

A ceremony broadcast by Palestinian television on May 20 distinguished the families of  terrorists sentenced to life imprisonment for terror attacks targeting civilians. Among them was the family of Khaled Asakra, condemned  for murdering a French tourist in a Bethlehem restaurant in April 1991.

The European Union contributes over 150 million euros to funding the Palestinian Authority.

We do not want this money, which should help the Palestinian people, to be misappropriated and used to pay wages to terrorists.

Terrorism is one of the scourges of our time.

During May, according to our data, terror acts killed 614 civilians throughout the world and injured 1351.

Whatever his nationality and the cause he champions,  a terrorist may be called a criminal against humanity for  targeting civilians.

Sir, the  condemnation of terrorism is meaningless if it tolerates its justification.

What steps are you going to take to prevent our euros to help pay wages to terrorists?

Looking forward to a strong gesture from you, we pray you receive, Sir, our respectful regards.

Huguette Chomski Magnis, Spokesperson for the International Alliance Against Terrorism
Michael Gallagher, for the Omagh Support and Self Help Group, Northern Ireland
Dr Richard Rossin, President of Mouvement Pour  la Paix et Contre le Terrorisme, France
Reiner Schleicher, for NzT, Nein zum Terrorismus, Germany

6-Jun-11: Many nations have enemies - but what do you call people like this barbarian?

The massacre of the Fogel family - father, mother and three children aged 11, 3 and a three month infant, all slashed to death in their beds - had a devastating effect on Israeli society when it happened on a Sabbath night in March in the quiet Samaria community of Itamar. Not because murders of innocents in their homes is unknown in this country. Far from it. But unlike a bombing or a shooting or a drive-by killing, these murders were carried out by people who could see, touch, smell their victims as they slashed their flesh. The grandfather of the three slaughtered children said the scene was "horrendous, beyond description, beyond comprehension".

Two cousins, Amjad Mahmad Awad and Hakim Awad, from a village a short hike from Itamar, were charged with the murders, indicted in an Israeli court and confessed. DNA evidence found at the Fogel family home connects the two Awads to the crime.

Now in a reminder of how this ongoing war is not based on grievances or claims but on hatred so intense, so all-encompassing and profound that it leaves civilized people gasping, Amjad Mahmad Awad, 19, has given voice to the credo of terrorists everywhere:

"I don't regret what I did, even if it means I'm sentenced to death... I'm proud of what I did."

People who have not had to confront terrorism from close up often have difficulty comprehending just how far from familiar norms the values and standards of such people are. The hatred harbored by these people is simply in a different league. Imaging a life in which you compromise and come to terms with such people is something you cannot do once you become aware of the barbarity animating their lives and actions.

Now go try to find a single non-Israeli news channel that has published yesterday's statement by this vile and repulsive man.

For the record, the murderer of our daughter is made of the same sickening material.

6-Jun-11: What's actually going on in Syria?

Under the heading "Here's What Syria's President Was Trying To Hide When He Shut Down The Internet", a US-based website says:

Syrian officials shut off the country's Internet last week in the face of rising protests and civil disobedience. According to the Internet intelligence firm Renesys, the web is up and fully operational as of yesterday morning. The gap in service did not stop the following clip from being released on satellite phone showing Syrian forces firing on peaceful demonstrators. The shooting begins at :21.

The video clip is here:


Here's some more insight into the blood-letting going on in our northern neighbour's domain.

At about this time yesterday, as several busloads of rent-a-mob Syrians were being bused from Damascus to confront Israeli security forces on the Syria-Israel border, the Syrian authorities (the Assad family and its hench-persons) were engaging in yet another day of armed confrontation and massacre of their own citizens.

35 reported killed in crackdown in northern SyriaSyria uses pro-regime gunmen to crush protests
By ZEINA KARAM - Associated Press
BEIRUT (AP) -- The death toll in a government security crackdown in two northern Syrian towns rose to 35 Sunday, human rights groups said. Exiled opposition figures said any dialogue now with President Bashar Assad's regime would be a joke. Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths in the town of Jisr al-Shughour and nearby Khan Sheikhoun included six policemen. The operation is part of a crackdown that began Saturday. Human rights groups say more than 1,200 people have died in the brutal crackdown against anti-government protesters since March.

This past Friday, Reuters - quoting 'activists' - says the Syrian military killed seventy of their fellow Syrians.

You might think that when it comes to a vicious regime like that of Syria's Assad, the great international newsagencies might hesitate before publishing allegations by its various Damascus mouthpieces about Syrian casualties in the clashes on Israel's Syrian border on Sunday. You might think that the Assad regime's credibility would be, at the very least, questioned.

You would be giving them too much credit.

Here's CNN today:

"Israeli troops fired on protesters trying to cross the fortified border between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights on Sunday, with Syrian authorities reporting more than a dozen dead and hundreds wounded."

The San Francisco Chronicle

"Twenty-three people were killed and 350 injured, according to Syrian state-run television."

AFP:

"Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday as protesters from Syria stormed a ceasefire line in the occupied Golan Heights, with Damascus saying 23 demonstrators were killed."

And this sadly-typical contribution from the ever-aspiring The National ("the Abu Dhabi Media company's first English-language publication, has set a new standard of quality English-language journalism in the Middle East" - we have some personal experience of their 'quality')

"20 shot dead as Israeli snipers fire on Palestinians crossing border... Israeli soldiers shot and killed up to 20 protesters trying to enter the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from neighbouring Syria yesterday. The bloodshed was a repeat of deadly clashes last month when hundreds of Syria's Palestinian residents poured across the disputed border."

Do you think any of the above editors or reporters are interested in reading an article with this title? "Syrian government has a clear interest in exaggerating the number of casualties from Sunday's clashes in order to overshadow Assad's massacre of anti-government protesters".

Might be asking too much, right?

6-Jun-11: Just when you thought it can't get much worse...

Alongside all of the rising tension and artificially-induced confrontations of the past few days (about which we have been too stretched for personal reasons to respond), there is this very disturbing report about the region's largest and most active practitioner of terrorism.

"The Iranian regime is closer than ever before to creating a nuclear bomb, according to RAND Corporation researcher Gregory S. Jones. At its current rate of uranium enrichment, Tehran could have enough for its first bomb within eight weeks, Jones said in a report published this week. He added that despite reports of setbacks in its nuclear program, the Iranian regime is steadily progressing towards a bomb. Unfortunately, Jones says, there is nothing the US can do to stop Tehran, short of military occupation. The researcher based his report on recent findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), published two weeks ago. Making the bomb will take around two months, he says, because constructing a nuclear warhead is a complicated step in the process."

The full article is here.

Just to make the point again that they have their ways and we have ours, Israel yesterday inaugurated its first industrial-grade solar energy field, in a major step towards energy independence, and a cleaner and better environment. Congratulations to Arava Power Company for leading the way.

2-Jun-11: Notes from around the neighborhood

Living in proximity to neighbors, particularly those with a propensity for acts of terror against their own populations as well as ours, gets you fixated in what is happening over there. Today's very subjective selection.

Syrian Forces Shell Town, Kill 41 Khaled Oweis [Yesterday]

Syrian forces killed 41 civilians in Rastan on Tuesday in an effort to crush pro-democracy protests, human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouna said on Wednesday. Syrian forces also killed nine civilians on Tuesday in the town of Hirak, rights campaigner Ammar Qurabi said on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Egypt Revolution Leaves Sinai Increasingly Lawless Tim Whewell [yesterday]

Twice during the few days I spent in el-Arish, roads were blocked by armed Bedouin intent on avenging the kidnap of members of their clan by a rival tribe. After several days, I was allowed to visit the border with Gaza, but I went a little further, travelling down back roads, to visit an arms dealer. Between 2000 and 2007, he says, he was one of five smugglers in charge of the arms trade in Sinai, each of them making four or five deals a month, each involving between 200 and 400 guns. The main source was Sudan, the main market Gaza. Now, he says, it has all changed. Gaza has all the guns it needs, and Hamas can manufacture its own rockets. The market now is internal, within Sinai. "Because of the revolution," he says, "there are no police anymore."  (BBC News) 

Next week's 'Third Intifada' events Bulletin of the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center [Today]

A group using Facebook and calling itself "the third intifada," posted its plan for activities lasting from June 3 to June 7 (Facebook, May 24, 2011):
June 3: Masses of people throughout the Muslim world (including Judea and Samaria) are supposed to pray and call for the liberation of Jerusalem and Palestine. Marches are supposed to be organized to Al-Aqsa mosque and the churches in Jerusalem. Should the marches be prevented from reaching their destinations, prayers will be held at the roadblocks. Marches in the Gaza Strip are also expected to be  held to the border crossings with Israel.
June 4: "Rush to the Golan Day" will be held in Syria, during which Syrian civilians will try to cross the border in the Golan Heights. Such activities may begin on June 3 as well, and there will also be marches on June 5 (Facebook, May 25, 2011).
June 5: After afternoon prayers in the mosques, marches are planned in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan to the borders with Israel, with volunteer participants from throughout the Muslim world. Marches to the Israeli embassies will be held in Europe. In Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Israeli cities "marches and confrontations with 'occupation' soldiers will be held along the border."
June 6: A demonstration is supposed to be held at Maroun al-Ras in coordination with the Lebanese authorities. Fatah members in Lebanon may also participate in the march. In addition, preparations are being made for launching a ship (NOW Lebanon website, May 25; Al-Nashra, May 30; Facebook, May 23, 2011).
June 7: Marches are supposed to be held in Judea and Samaria and within Israel to Jerusalem. A convoy is expected to reach the Gaza Strip. The participants in the day's activities will "swear allegiance to Jerusalem."

What 'Arab Spring'? [Cal Thomas yesterday in the Washington Examiner]

If Western nations think what is happening in Tunisia and Egypt will lead to real democracy, where competing political parties, ideologies and faiths have a fair and equal opportunity of being debated, they are seriously deluded. The money would have a better chance of financing a winning streak in a Las Vegas casino. Democracy doesn't spring up of its own accord. It must have a base from which it can blossom. That was a point made by Timur Kuran, a professor of economics and political science at Duke University, in a recent op-ed column for the New York Times entitled "The Weak Foundations of Arab Democracy." Kuran wrote: "Democracy requires checks and balances, and it is largely through civil society that citizens protect their rights as individuals, force policymakers to accommodate their interests, and limit abuses of state authority. Civil society also promotes a culture of bargaining and gives future leaders the skills to articulate ideas, form coalitions and govern."
None of this exists in any of the nations to which the G-8 has pledged its support. In Egypt, supposedly the most progressive of the Arab states, fundamentalist Muslims still persecute Coptic Christians. The radical Muslim Brotherhood, which at the start of the revolution claimed no interest in political power, is now active in its pursuit of victory in the upcoming election and hints that it might revoke Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. The problems in North Africa and the Middle East can't be solved by money. What's needed is a change in outlook. Radical Islam forces women into second-class status; it is rooted not in optimism, but in pessimism. Radical Islamists appear to serve an angry god who commands them to kill those who do not believe as they do, but this belief will do little to lift the Arab world out of the religious and political deep freeze that holds it back from true progress.

And finally, as a reminder of the turbulence of neighborly relations within the Arab world...

Egypt limits crossings at Gaza border [Joel Greenberg in the Washington Post yesterday]

Egypt reimposed restrictions Wednesday on the number of Palestinians allowed to enter from the Gaza Strip at the Rafah crossing, days after permanently opening the border point in a move to ease Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory. Hatem Aweidah, who is in charge of border crossings for the Hamas government in Gaza, said that Egyptian officials had set a limit of 350 to 400 travelers who would be granted entry each day, on the grounds that border personnel could not handle more. A similar daily limit had been imposed in the months before the permanent opening on Saturday.

1-Jun-11: "Very likely a nuclear reactor... should have been declared by Syria"

Regional nuclear thug Assad denies the claims and has
powerful friends to back him up [source]

It's just the thing that people living in a bad neighborhood dread the most: vivid confirmation that those noisy, argumentative and extremely badly behaved people on the other side of the fence are indeed armed and dangerous, just as they have believed for a long time. Only in this case we're speaking of terrorism - national-scale terrorism - and the threat of destruction on a monumental scale.

An opinion piece entitled "The I.A.E.A. and Syria" in the 31st May 2011 edition of the New York Times adopts considerably understated language to say what Israelis sweat about when they look north. Writing about a site that was destroyed by someone's air force in September 2007 (presumably Israel):

"The International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, Yukiya Amano, in his May 24, 2011 report to the I.A.E.A. board of governors... concludes that the destroyed building was very likely a nuclear reactor and should have been declared by Syria... Although he does not explicitly say so, Mr. Amano’s finding places Syria in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Three years in the making, the I.A.E.A. certainly cannot be accused of a rush to judgment... At its meeting next week, the I.A.E.A. board of governors must decide whether to formally declare Syria in noncompliance with the nonproliferation treaty. Doing so will place the matter before the U.N. Security Council, opening the way for sanctions. The decision will test whether responsibility overrides timidity. At stake, the agency’s reputation as the world’s nuclear watchdog. To date Damascus has gamed that reputation and succeeded."

Those two last factors - damage to the IAEA's reputation and Syria's ability to fend off sanctions until now - owe much to the just-ended tenure of one man: Mohamed ElBaradei. An article ("Iran and the Bomb: How real is the nuclear threat?) to appear in today's New Yorker magazine, states the mess pretty clearly. ElBaradei -

a Nobel Peace Prize recipient who is now a candidate for the Presidency of Egypt, spent twelve years as the director-general of the I.A.E.A., retiring two years ago. In his recent interview, he said, “I don’t believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran.”

Nobel Prize winner or not, ElBaradei was wrong on Syria. If he's also wrong on Iran then whose interests are being served? And how much more dangerous is the world and our corner of it as a result?

1-Jun-11: 'Mysterious' blast in Gaza

One of many PRC moments in the media [Source] 

From a Khaled Abu Toameh report in today's Jerusalem Post:

Three Palestinian gunmen were killed on Tuesday in a mysterious explosion in a military training base near Rafah in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources in Gaza said. The sources said that the explosion occurred inside a training base belonging to the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of armed groups in the Gaza Strip... Local journalists said that several other people were wounded in the blast, which also caused huge damage. Hamas policemen sealed off the area and launched an investigation.

Popular Resistance Committees' work is defined in a Wikipedia entry as specialized "in planting roadside bombs and vehicle explosive charges - directed against military and civilian convoys in the Gaza Strip". One of those 'military and civilian convoys' was a sole vehicle driven by an unarmed and pregnant Jewish woman, Tali Hatuel, and carrying her four daughters aged 2 to 11. PRC took credit for the attack on this convoy on May 2, 2004 in which all the occupants of the family car were murdered.

The organization is defined here as

a kind of Hamas sub-contractor, carrying out attention-getting attacks against Israel. Handling the PRC behind the scenes enables Hamas to encourage terrorist attacks against Israel while outwardly maintaining its policy of restraint and coping with the political exigencies resulting from the composition of its government. Hamas provides the PRC with extensive operational support, including monthly funding, and providing arms, training and operational instructions.

It has been at the center of agitation within Palestinian Arab circles at various times, having attacked and kidnapped a number of public figures including police commander Razi Jebali (July 2004). It kidnapped and murdered Mousa Arafat, the head of PA Military Intelligence and cousin of Yassir; and made troublesome allegations against Palestinian Minister for Internal Security Nasir Yusuf, politician Muhammed Dahlan and other high-profile figures. They have their enemies. Still, five years ago,  the head of the PRC, Jamal Abu Samhadana, was appointed to be in charge of building the Hamas-Palestinian army under the supervision of the Hamas Interior Ministry.

Not so surprising then that Hamas, like any concerned investor, would want to have an investigation.