31-May-12: Highly effective terrorist, now on trial, is really sorry. Not.

Hundreds of dead victims; no wonder he's jubilant.
The smiling Amrozi, from the JI group, before
his career was terminated
by an Indonesian firing squad in 2008 [Source]

A series of horrific bombings in the nightclub zone of the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians. 240 other people were injured. Some of the background is in Arnold Roth's "A letter to the families of the Kuta Beach victims", published shortly after the massacre.

Over the years, the Indonesian authorities have captured several of the jihadist fugitives who carried out the Bali outrage as well as other terror attacks on Christian churches, the US consulate and several Indoensian hotels. The organisation at the heart of the terrorist campaign is Jemaah Islamiyah, an Islamist group headed by a religious functionary, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir. The Indonesians tried and convicted three: 'Imam' Samudra, Mukhlas (aka Ali Ghufron) and Ghufron's younger brother, the notorious "smiling assassin" Amrozi bin Nurhasyim. They were executed by firing squad in November 2008. Being Islamic terrorists, there was no remorse. All shouted Allahu Akbar in their final moments.

Now it's the turn of Umar Patek. He's on trial in another Indonesian court this week on charges of terrorism and mass murder. An article today ["Bali bombing accused accused begs for leniency"] in the Melbourne Age captures the way in which this jihadist's story is being told:

Umar Patek is a tiny man, pixie-faced and slump-shouldered inside the white baju koko worn by devout Muslims. ''I'm a quiet person, shy, and low in education,'' he told the Herald in an exclusive interview just before his trial... Throughout the four months of his trial at the West Jakarta District Court he has emphasised his smallness, his unimportance. He was ''a deer'', he told the court yesterday, among the ''elephants'' of the plot... In his heart, though, Patek said he knew what he had done. ''My conscience says I am guilty,'' he confided. ''I did mix [explosive] materials.'' Despite this, his lawyers have argued that he should be found not guilty of the bombings, and guilty only of forging passports. He opposed the killing of innocents..."

A British report ['I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart'] takes up the theme:

"An emotional Patek today told a courtroom: 'I still feel guilty.' He later added: 'From the bottom of my heart, I apologize to the victims and their families.' Patek said: 'I knew about the plan. I helped mix some of the chemicals use in the explosives. ... Why didn't I inform the police?'

Yes, indeedie. Quite easy to warm to the "pixie-faced" "little" fellow who really, between you and me, did nothing more serious than mix a mere 50 kg of explosives. And even that he did "half-heartedly only because the person who was mixing looked tired and tense. It's not my soul's calling and it's against my conscience" [an actual quote]. 

And warm to him and his conscience is just what important sections of the media are doing. Today's Reuters report ["Umar Patek apologizes for Jakarta bombings"] dwells on the "I'm so sorry" aspect of this story. So too does Radio Australia ["Accused Bali bomber Umar Patek has asked for forgiveness from the victims of the attacks, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians"] and the UK Daily Mail ["The militant Muslim accused of the Bali bombing which killed over 200 people today apologised for the first time to victims of the atrocity"].

But it's a fairly conditional kind of "sorry" from the terrorist who is on trial for his life. Reuters and others choose not to report that Patek said his role was "small" but it is "Jewish slander'' that has made it seem larger [source]. His real goal had been to "retaliate" for "the killing of Muslims in Palestine". He questioned why this should be done in Bali. After all, he said, "Jihad should be carried out in Palestine instead. But they said they did not know how to get to Palestine" [source].

It happens to be a line of reasoning that resonates well in Indonesia. Just two years ago, that country's minister of justice, Patrialis Akbar, was caught on video telling Al Jazeera that he would like the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists to go to Israel instead and bomb civilians there. His country's government would even give them some practical help. [Elder of Ziyon reported on this in 2010.] 

Writing in the Indonesian Bali Times, Richard Boughton's is one of the few voices that capture the illogic and hypocrisy that infect both media coverage and much public opinion about terrorism in general and this Indonesian case in particular:

There are right people to murder and wrong people to murder, and Umar is merely sorry he murdered the wrong people... He thought preferable victims might have been found in Israel or Palestine... We understand. We understand that Umar Patek is not sorry at all. We watch him speak with dispassionate composure, and spin an outrageous tale of absurd justification. No tear is shed, no groan of regret uttered. [After ten years on the run] someone told Umar that it would be a good idea to apologise at this point. Say you’re sorry. It plays well in the Indonesian courts. You might get out alive. You might get off with just 10 years or so. You might even get a slap on the wrist along with an order to behave. And so he forces out the words which should from the outset have forced themselves from the mouth of any sane or worthy human being. I’m sorry, he says. I’m really very sorry. 

Boughton knows that this sorry from a captured terrorist on trial for his life is meaningless, worthless. Sadly, some of the most influential media channels (and politicians) don't. And so terrorism continues and thrives. The war goes on.

Smiling, smiling, the whole lot of them are smiling: The terrorist Patek shakes hands with the entire team of government prosecutors except one [explanation here] at an adjournment of his trial earlier this year

The "pixie-faced" Patek is charged with being the man whose bomb caused
the Kuta Beach devastation of October 12, 2002

31-May-12: Quote of the Day/Week/Month: The US and its relation to Middle East Instability

Jordanian Salafist Moslems protesting [Image Source] . There's more about them here

Fearless and clear-eyed Arab journalist and analyst Khaled Abu Toameh has demonstrated the soundness of his political understanding repeatedly over the years. He has an essay ["Muslim Brotherhood Plotting To Take Over Jordan?"] that appeared a few hours ago on the website of the Gatestone Institute. We offer just two key lines from his critique:

Unless the US Administration stops flirting with Muslim Brotherhood, Jordan will be turned into a radical Islamic republic and a source of further instability in the Middle East... Many Arabs feel that President Barack Obama's endorsement of the Muslim Brotherhood has emboldened the Islamists and increased their appetite to drive moderate and secular rulers out of the Arab world.

Abu Toameh is speaking of forces at work with the potential to cause great harm. So far as most Americans are concerned, the ability to understand why this is happening is almost completely absent. We hope you will read his article and pass it along to your friends.

30-May-12: Not blunting the Iranian nuclear terrorism threat will have multiple consequences

The AP caption says this is Iranian "supreme leader", Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
 and the members of the "Experts Assembly" in Tehran [Image Source].
A living, actual nightmare: these are the people whose fingers
are on Iran's soon-to-be-nuclear button.

Chemi Shalev writing in yesterday's Haaretz: "Dennis Ross: Saudi King Vowed to Obtain Nuclear Bomb after Iran"

Former senior U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross confirmed Tuesday that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has explicitly warned the U.S. that if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will do so as well. "If they get nuclear weapons, we will get nuclear weapons," Abdullah told Ross in April 2009. Ross said he responded to the king's assertion with a lengthy appeal against nuclear proliferation, but after hearing him out, the king responded by repeating the same line. In February, the London Times quoted a "senior Saudi official" as saying that Riyadh would launch a "twin-track nuclear weapons program" should Tehran realize its ambition of obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Saudi threat is one of the prime factors motivating Washington's campaign to stop Tehran's nuclear program. 

An editorial entitled "Iran's Bid for Hegemony" in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Watan (translated from the Arabic) states their viewpoint plainly:

Quite simply, the Iranian nuclear program is proceeding as the leadership in Tehran wishes. It is based on the dream of reviving the Persian Empire and reinstating its control over the region. This agenda is based on territorial/confessional [Shiite] expansionism, digging up the past from its grave in the service of this expansionist policy. The Iranian project in the region is no longer a secret. Even if it assumes different forms and adopts various guises, such as "backing the resistance against Israel," it ultimately aims at ensuring Tehran's control over the so-called "Shiite Crescent." This is the prelude to taking over the rest of the region... [Al-Watan-Saudi Arabia, Middle East Mirror, May 29, 2012]

29-May-12: Terrorism from up close: low-intensity attacks continue

The rocks are rarely hurled in a vacuum

The chronology below picks up where we left off a week ago ["24-May-12: Terrorism from up close: the past few days"]. Like the earlier data, this is based on the Tayar Security Report, compiled by Yehudit Tayar.

Thursday May 24, 2012

• The village of El Arub, southwest of Bethlehem on the Bethlehem-to-Hebron road: A bottle is hurled at an IDF post
• Hawara, south of Shechem (aka Nablus): Rocks are thrown at Israeli vehicles. A bus is damaged.
• The vehicle of one of the Jewish residents of Hebron is blockaded on the main road between Kiryat Arba and Hebron. The driver is fortunately able to extricate herself from a potentially very harmful situation.
• The Jewish section of Hebron: A bottle is thrown at an Israeli bus
• Near El Fuar in the Southern Hebron Hills: A rock attack on an Israeli bus
• El Arub (again): Rocks are hurled at vehicles traveling on the Gush Etzion-Hebron arterial road
• Bet Umar, notorious site of a large number of rock throwing attacks: Additional such attacks directed at vehicles traveling the Gush Etzion-Hebron road
• The road between Turmus Aya and Shilo in the Benjamin region: One again, rock attacks on Israeli vehicles
• Kiryat Arba in the vicinity of the Palestinian Arab neighbourhood of Jebel Johar: A rock-throwing attack on the nearby IDF security post

Friday May 25, 2012

• Once more (see our previous report), Palestinian Arabs engaged in systematic throwing of rocks from speeding vehicles at Israeli vehicles and their drivers and passengers, an action calculated to produce death and maiming (of the kind for which several Palestinian Arabs are currently on trial for the murders of Asher Palmer and his year old son - see "25-Sep-11: "Only" rock throwers - but now a father and his infant son are dead"). This time, the attack took place near the Israeli community of Ofra in the Benjamin region. An IDF patrol searched for the perpetrators, but so far without success.

Sunday May 27, 2012 

• Hebron, near the IDF checkpost adjacent to the Tomb of the Patriarchs: A Palestinian Arab is apprehended with a large knife. He confesses to planning to attack and stab Israelis.
• Hebron near Police Square: A Palestinian Arab is apprehended by security forces in possession of a knife and suspected of planning a terrorist attack
• The Israeli community of Yitzhar in the Shomron (Samaria district): Palestinian Arabs start a fire in the community's fields. Fire fighters Take two hours to bring the blaze under control. While they are engaged in fire fighting, the authorities as well as IDF security forces come under attack from Palestinian Arabs, one of whom - brandishing a knife - is shot and immobilized by security personnel.
• Shuafat: Attacks by rocks and Molotov cocktails (firebombs) on security personnel.
• In the vicinity of the city of Modi'in, halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, five Molotov cocktails (firebombs) are hurled at a Border Police patrol close to the village of A-Tira
• Tapuah security checkpost: As reported here yesterday ("28-May-12: Tapuah Junction: Yet another suspect nabbed with pipe bombs on him"), a Palestinian Arab is caught and remanded to custody after three firebombs and three pipebombs are found hidden in his possession - we reported on this
• Hawara (again): An Israeli bus comes under rock attack
• Bet Umar, notorious site of a large number of rock throwing attacks: Another such attack is made on an Israeli civilian bus traveling the Gush Etzion-Hebron road

Monday May 28, 2012

• In the Israeli community of Kedumim, in the Shomron (Samaria district), there are multiple burglaries in the town's mobile-home neighborhood
• Kochav Yaakov: A suspected Palestinian Arab intruder penetrates the community, causing a state of high alert to go into effect. Previous such penetrations have had catastrophic outcomes.
• Tekoa, south of Jerusalem: There are reports that over Shabbat, Israeli anarchists and Palestinian Arabs conducted a violent demonstration at the entrance to the community
• Bet Umar: Yet another rock-hurling attack on an Israeli civilian bus traveling the Gush Etzion-Hebron road
• Around 5 this morning, on the Israel-Egypt border near Carmit, 10 illegal Chinese infiltrators accompanied by four armed people-smugglers are caught. Several people are injured during the arrests.
• South-west of Shechem (Nablus): A fire bomb is thrown at an IDF post at Tel Aras

Safe to say that almost without exception, these calculated and premeditated attacks - every one of which has the potential to take or damage lives - go unreported outside the immediate area, making it difficult to understand Israel's constant preparedness and vigilance.

28-May-12: Houla

A small city in Syria: Aftermath of the carnage in Houla,
and a certain prelude to more of the same

Let's sign a peace agreement with the Syrians. Let's allow them to place their military forces - once more - on our northern border. What could possibly go wrong?

"Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad al-Makdissi insisted the regime was "not at all" to blame for the massacre in Houla in central Homs province. Blaming "terrorists" for the killings, Makdissi said Damascus had opened an investigation, with results expected within three days. "Not one Syrian tank went in," he said... Despite the outcry, violence raged on, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reported at least 28 people killed across the country on Sunday, among them women and children. [AFP]

Is anyone other than Israelis paying real attention to the things we can learn from what Syrian Arabs are doing to Syrian Arabs?

The U.N. has verified that 92 people were killed [updated to 108, according to this source] within hours in the Syrian district of Houla, including at least 32 children, their mangled corpses laid out on a plastic mat, set apart from dozens of adult victims. Some of the children were in blood-soaked pajamas; others had their skulls ripped open. They were killed by artillery and tank shells, the U.N. said; Syrian activists claim that others were butchered with knives. The Syrian opposition blamed President Bashar Assad's regime. The government blamed "al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups." Syria's 15-month spiral into a broad civil war has seen many massacres, with many grisly grainy images of dead children, of entire families slaughtered standing as alleged evidence. Some have prompted international condemnation, sometimes in "the strongest possible terms," others have not. But the latest killings stand out — not least because they happened while U.N. monitors were in country, observing a tattered six-week-old cease-fire that seems to exist only on paper... Despite restrictions on media and aid organizations operating in Syria, the world knows what is happening there, it just doesn't know what to do about it... The U.N. stopped counting Syria's deaths months ago. NATO has repeatedly said it has no plans to intervene in the conflict. The U.N. Secretary-General has admitted that "at this time, we don't have any Plan B" for Syria. [TIME] 

The United Nations and human rights groups estimate that over 13,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March 2011 – 9,200 of them civilians. 

28-May-12: Tapuah Junction: Yet another suspect nabbed with pipe bombs on him

Israel's Border Police: Last line of defence against
terrorists yearning for their 72 virgins

The last time we posted here about suspected terrorists being apprehended the busy and strategic Tapuah Junction in Israel's Shomron (Samaria district) was less than two weeks ago. We wrote then that two Palestinian Arab men had been stopped by alert Border Police officers during Nakba Day and found to be carrying four pipe bombs, an improvised pistol and a large quantity of ammunition. Previous arrests and seizures in the area include: two men, 12 pipe bombs, a combat knife [January 8]; one man, multiple improvised explosive devices, three knives, 50 bullets [April 11]; two youths, with 5 pipe bombs, a gun, and ammunition [April 21]; two Arab men, 4 improvised bombs [April 24]; once more - two Arab men, 4 pipe bombs [April 28]; a youth, 3 pipe bombs [May 7].

Tonight there's another successful intercept. 

Around 9 o'clock tonight (Sunday - right after the termination of the Shavuot holiday), a suspected terrorist was stopped at the Tapuah security checkpoint, and found (according to this Hebrew report) to be in possession of three Molotov cocktails/firebombs as well as three pipe-bombs. Israel National News is reporting now that Tapuah Junction has been re-opened to traffic.

It's good to have luck on your side. But when even one of these jihadists gets through the security and manages to reach his target - ordinary people, ordinary places, just as long as they are Israelis or Jews - the price we pay is unbearably high. Being at war with terrorists calls for endless vigilance.

24-May-12: They're attacking the Jerusalem Light Rail again

The  Shuafat South ("refugee camp") stop of the Jerusalem light rail, in northern Jerusalem. Most of the rock throwing and stabbing has taken place within a short distance of this stop.

  
Passengers traveling on the Jerusalem Light Rail came under attack today (Thursday) by Palestinian Arabs from the capital's Beit Hanina neighborhood. Israel National News says they hurled rocks as the tram passed in Jerusalem's northern suburbs, very close to where we live. The Citipass consortium, the operator of the Jerusalem service under a thirty-year concession, says there are fortunately no injuries to travelers but plenty of worried and traumatized individuals. The windows, installed in anticipation of crude attacks from parts of the Jerusalem population, are designed to resist thrown rocks and other projectiles up to a certain specification. They crack, rather than smash, on impact when something is hurled at them. There was no interruption to train service today.

Jerusalemites are aware that there have been several previous attacks on the modernistic Jerusalem Light Rail since it started running officially less than six months ago (formally on December 1, 2011). In fact, the rocks and the attempted terrorization began even before the trams started operating officially: see our posts "11-Oct-11: Living with neighbours who want us all back to the stone age" and "6-Oct-11: Those rock throwing "youths" are proliferating". 

Significant attacks on the Light Rail happened in October (when a bus also came under rock attack) and December 2011. 

Then in mid-March 2012, a young woman of nineteen, doing her national service, was stabbed in an attempted murder as the tram passed through Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev neighbourhood, close to the site of today's attack. [See "15-Mar-12: Aftermath of today's Jerusalem stabbing attack"] Her assailant managed to inflict stab wounds to her hand and chest, mere centimeters from her heart. She is recovering, thank Heavens. The alleged attacker, one Muhamad Shuman, is currently being held in custody and awaiting criminal trial. Shortly after that stabbing, Palestinian Arab thugs attackers succeeded in cracking the glass of several windows on the train after hurling rocks at the trams, once again in the same northern Jerusalem neighbourhoods.

The Jerusalem Light Rail's sole route starts at Pisgat Ze’ev in the north of Jerusalem, through Shuafat - the bustling mostly Arab neighbourhood that some agenda-motivated news sources persist (misleadingly) in terming a refugee camp - see the picture above for a slice of reality; then along Highway 1, Yafo Road, across the Jerusalem Chords Bridge, and along Herzl Boulevard to Mt. Herzl. The route has 23 stops including one at Jerusalem’s central bus station.

24-May-12: A small part of what we're up against

Hezbullah recruits and their religious leaders: The de facto rulers
of Lebanon today [Image Source]

Further to our posting this past Monday ["21-May-12: What the Iranians really want"], Iran has an arsenal of 450 missiles in striking distance of Israel, Brig. Gen. Itay Baron, head of the IDF Military Intelligence research section, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday (Tuesday) according to Haaretz. 

Syria has 3,000 rockets and missiles with ranges of 70 to 700 km. While these are not very precise, said Baron, the Syrian inventory of surface-to-air Russian-made defense systems is technologically advanced. 

As for the terrorist forces on our northern border, Wikipedia says Hezbullah had 30,000 rockets pointed at Israel in 2006. Whether or not that was right, today according to the IDF - which has a considerably greater strategic interest in knowing such things than the Wikipedians do - the number is 60,000. This according to IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Naveh speaking at a conference in Zichron Yaakov. He also  said the dramatic growth in Hezbollah's arms holdings is part of its effort "to reach a situation where quantity is part of quality, and a quick blow at Israeli cities could produce a victory photo." Naveh spoke  as well about a different aspect of the military build-up on our borders - the still disintegrating Al-Assad regime that is holding onto control in Syria and its ongoing chemical warfare capabilities. Israel's defensive measures, unlike those of the New York Times and the Guardian, are based on believing their own assessments and getting prepared accordingly.

24-May-12: Terrorism from up close: the past few days

The chronology below picks up where we left off this past Monday ["21-May-12: This is what war by terrorism feels like from up close"]. Like the earlier data, this is based on the Tayar Security Report, compiled by Yehudit Tayar.

Monday May 21, 2012

• Undisclosed location north of Hebron: Israeli vehicles (and their drivers and passengers) pelted with rocks
• Negohot Junction, in the southern Hebron Hills area: Israeli vehicles attacked by rock-throwing Palestinian Arabs 
• Hebron: An IDF checkpost attacked by rock-throwing Palestinian Arabs
• The villages of Turmos Aya and Sen'jal:  Israeli vehicles (and their drivers and passengers) pelted with rocks by Palestinian Arabs
• The Israeli  community of Eli in the Binyamin region: Palestinian Arab residents of the village of Krayot vandalized and destroyed some of Eli's security equipment 
• Dir Abu Mishal: Two firebombs (Molotov cocktails) hurled at Israeli vehicles 
• Highway 446 near Shokba: Service personnel of the IDF apprehended a Palestinian Arab who placed rocks on the road to blockade it and to endangered Israeli travelers on the road.

Tuesday May 22, 2012

• The synagogue in the community of Tel-Zion in the Binyamin region is vandalized and violated, evidently by Palestinian Arabs. Religious items are stolen. A Torah scroll is destroyed.
• Near the Israeli community of Har Adar on Jerusalem's northern edge: A fire bomb (Molotov cocktail) and rocks are hurled at a Border Police patrol. A serviceman suffers an injury to his leg.
• Near Tekoa, south of Jerusalem in the Gush Etzion area: Two rock-throwing attacks on Israeli vehicles by Palestinian Arabs.
• The Gush Etzion-to-Hebron road, a major highway, near El Arub: Palestinian Arabs carry out yet another in a long and damaging series of rock-throwing attacks directed at Israeli vehicles and the people inside them 
• Har Gilo, a southern suburb of Jerusalem: An IDF post is attacked by Palestinian Arabs armed with fire-bombs (Molotov cocktails)
• Giti Avisher Junction, near Ariel in the Shomron (Samaria district): Palestinian Arabs carried out a rock-throwing attack on Israeli vehicles. One person is moderately injured.
• Near Negahot in the southern Hebron Hills area: Palestinian Arabs carry out firebomb (Molotov cocktail) attacks on passing Israeli vehicles

Wednesday May 23, 2012

• The vicinity of the Kissufim crossing on Israel's southern border with the Hams-controlled Gaza Strip: A shooting attack from the Hamas side of the fence results in an IDF officer and a soldier being wounded by fire. The two have moderate to medium injuries; they are evacuated to Soroka Hospital for emergency treatment. [More details at Haaretz.]
• From the Shabak, the Israeli Secret Service, it is reported that a number of Palestinian Arabs resident in the Hebron area were arrested and investigated for belonging to terrorist cells active in and around Hebron [Haaretz covered it here, and the Jerusalem Post here.] One cell laid explosive devices on the road near Zif Junction. A second planned the abduction of an Israeli resident (any Israeli) of the nearby community of Kiryat Arba. The cells are believed to be responsible for many of proliferating rock attacks on Road 60, the Gush Etzion-to-Hebron highway. The alleged head of the cell, Ma'ataz Kawasma, is a veteran guest of the Israeli prison system.
• Hawara, south of Nablus (Shechem in Hebrew). Palestinian Arabs hurled massive rocks at a passing Israeli vehicle. This mode of deliberate and murderous attack is similar to the one that caused the deaths of Asher Palmer and his year-old infant son Yonatan a year ago. [See "27-Jan-12: Rocks of reality? A postscript"]
• Hawara, south of Nablus (Shechem) again: A unit of the IDF apprehended a Palestinian Arab in possession of a knife and 6 explosive devices.

Thursday May 24, 2012 (today)

• Near Har Harif on Israel's border with Egypt: A Beduin Arab, apparently smuggling drugs across the border into Israel, was shot by an IDF patrol. He was evacuated to hospital for emergency treatment.

The day is far from over.

21-May-12: This is what war by terrorism feels like from up close

There have been hundreds of violent attacks on Israeli civilians as well as against IDF patrols, Border Police and civilians by Palestinian Arabs in the last few days. Almost none of this gets reported. The weapons of the terrorists in this asymmetrical warfare are cement blocks and rocks, fire-bombs and Molotov Cocktails. The intention is rarely to cause something as mild as a protest. People have been killed, and anyone observing the venom and - frequently - the degree of planning knows that lethal outcomes are very much part of the agenda of those with terrorism on their minds.

The incidents recounted below come from the reporting of Yehudit Tayar who receives and distributes field intelligence in real-time from the Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron first-responder organization and from other sources including the IDF.

Frdiay May 18, 2012

• Border Police serviceman suffered moderate injuries as a result of being hit by rocks hurled by Palestinian Arabs in the vicinity of the flashpoint village of Nabi Saleh. He was evacuated to Belinson Hospital for treatment.
• In the south of Israel, near Kibbutz Nahal Oz which abuts the Israel-Gaza border, IDF troops came under fire from the other side of the border [see Ynet's brief report]. 

Saturday May 19, 2012

• Several rock throwing attacks directed at security checkpoints on the edge of Jerusalem, near the community of Adam and at the edge of the Arab Shuafat neighbourhood. A Border Police serviceman suffered moderate injuries in the Shuafat attack.

Sunday May 20, 2012

• At the Gush Etzion Junction, a Palestinian Arab attempted to stab an IDF serviceman but managed only to get seriously injured from contact with the knife concealed in his clothing. [See our report: "20-May-12: Ongoing 'cycle' of violence, Jerusalem Day edition"]
• Israel's Secret Service together with the IDF and Israel Police arrested nine members of a terror gang in the Ramallah region who are alleged to have made multiple attempts to carry out kidnappings as part of an effort to extort further releases of incarcerated terrorists. [The Times of Israel report is here.]
• On the road between Efrat and Tekoa in the Gush Etzion region on Jerusalem's southern fringe, several Israeli vehicles came under rock attack. The rock throwers caused property damage and placed lives at risk.
• On Road 446 near Na'alin (also known as Ni'ilin), more rock attacks on Israeli vehicles causing shattered windshields and endangering the lives of the drivers and occupants.
• Shuafat security checkpost, on Jerusalem's northern edge: Palestinian Arabs hurled rocks at the security personnel. A policeman suffered moderate leg injuries.
• The community of Adam in Jerusalem's northern-eastern suburbs: Palestinian Arabs hurled blocks and rocks at Israeli vehicles causing substantial damage and endangering the lives of the people in the cars and trucks.
• Ofra, a community of 3,000 people north of Jerusalem: Rock attacks by Palestinian Arabs.
• On Route 443, the main highway running south into northern Jerusalem from Ben Gurion airport: rock attacks on vehicles near the city of Maccabim, halfway between Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv.

Monday May 21, 2012

• In Issawiya, East Jerusalem, Palestinian Arabs directed a hail of rocks at the Border Police post
• Tekoa in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem: Two separate rock-throwing attacks on Israeli vehicles, smashing windshields and threatening the drivers' and passengers' lives
• The notorious stretch of road between Bet Umar and El Arub on the Gush Etzion-Hebron highway: another round of vicious rock attacks
• In the Southern Hebron Hills: a violent demonstration at Mizpe Yair, two kilometers from the community of Sussia 
• The East Jerusalem neighbourhood of A-Tur: A Border Police patrol vehicle was attacked by dozens of Palestinian Arabs. Authorities arrested five of the rioters.

Whether or not you are familiar with the place names, what would be the response you would expect from the police and security personnel in your community if cement-block-equipped hoodlums set themselves up on the road next to your home, your school, your shopping mall?

The restraint of Israel's security services in the face of irresponsible, indiscriminate and deliberate violence is extraordinary. But inevitably shattered windscreens give way to shattered bones and shattered lives and then the restraint becomes even more counterproductive than it often appears to be in the current wave of malicious attacks.

21-May-12: What the Iranians really want

Army Day in Tehran 2010. Some prefer to see the guns, others
the roses [Image Source]

There is an active genre of Middle East political analysis comprised of opinion pieces published by Western experts with approximately zero familiarity with the Iranian language, the main purpose of which appears to be to demonstrate that the ayatollah-driven Iranian regime is no real danger to anyone and people who say differently are neocon Zionists.

In January, Robert Wright writing in The Atlantic ["Do Israeli Leaders Really Think Iran Is an Existential Threat?"] where he is a senior editor addressed the question of whether Iran's leaders actually "have set themselves a strategic goal of wiping Israel off the map" as alleged by an Israeli source. Here's the essence of his view, in his own words:

Actually, the Iranians aren't a nation whose leaders have set themselves that "strategic goal." They are a nation with a crackpot president who (a) isn't the country's supreme leader and doesn't have the power to order an attack on Israel; (b) did say "the occupying regime must be wiped off the map" (or "vanish from the page of time"--the translation is disputed); but (c) later said he was referring to eliminating the Zionist form of government, not the people living under it; and (d) said the way to achieve this was to give Palestinians the vote--and that if they opted for a two-state solution rather than a single non-Zionist state, that would be fine, too; (e) also said that Iran would never initiate military hostilities with Israel.

Andrew Sullivan's "Iran's "Photo-Shopped" Existential Threat" at the Daily Beast gets to approximately the same conclusion. Sullivan, Wright and numerous others are far from alone in the just-ignore-those-crackpots school. So why is it that from over here in Jerusalem, the Iranians and their threats seem so much more... well, frightening; also not so Photoshopped?

Let's concede before we go further that, yes, there is a significant degree of crackpot-ism about the government in Tehran and their public antics. In the past week, we have seen threats from Iran to sue Google for failing to include the name "Persian Gulf" in its maps. Ramin Mehmanparast, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, explains that "Omitting the name Persian Gulf is (like) playing with the feelings and realities of the Iranian nation".

Playing with the realities of another nation is never smart. Reuters is learning that now. The Iranian government took the international newsagency to court this morning. No charges have yet been publicised (since the Iranian legal system works in an Iranian, as opposed to Western, way) but AFP has suggested it involves "threatening Iran’s national security" and "propaganda against the regime".

Bearing in mind the Iranian regime routinely hangs people, this is no laughing matter. In fact, Parisa Hafezi who heads the Reuters bureau in Tehran was forced to hand in her Iranian passport in order to be released on bail pending the trial. Reuters senior management, surely understanding the price of incurring the ayatollian wrath, has already apologized and retracted the Reuters report that gave rise to the Iranian ire. And what was that? In a February 16, 2012 video report, Reuters followed a group of female ninjas training in the Iranian city of Karaj. The story’s original headline was “Thousands of female Ninjas train as Iran’s assassins”. Reuters changed the headline to “Three thousand women Ninjas train in Iran” and then it retracted the report altogether. Though Reuters did issue an apology, its global editor in chief, Stephen Adler, told the New York Times on March 29, 2012 that the headline was changed because it was “really bad”. Then he added “I don’t see factual errors in the story.”

We absolutely do understand why Reuters would want to say sorry for something that was not wrong in the first place. It has to do with believing that people who seize the passport of your key employee and suspend the Iranian activities of a high-profile global agency like Reuters are serious about wanting to hurt you. Al Arabiya helpfully points out that

Iran’s sensitivity over the way it is portrayed in Western media has become more acute in recent years, particularly since the coverage of mass protests in 2009 over a disputed re-election win by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Let's agree, then, that if you want to be accurate about what the Iranian regime thinks and does, it would be safer if you took their actual published words. Not translated by Google, not analyzed and repackaged by the Wall Street Journal, but from an Iranian source, with senior Iranian figures doing the speaking, and with the translation from the Iranian language into English being authorized, approved, copy/pasted directly from the Iranian source and officially rubber-stamped as "accurate".

On any view, Major General Seyed Hassan Firuzabadi (in the photo below) is a senior Iranian. His Wikipedia entry describes him as the absolute highest-level person in Iran's military: the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces for nearly a decade since November 2002. How high up in the hierarchy is he? "He is one of the closet to the Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei" says Wikipedia; they don't come higher than that in today's Iran. When Firuzabadi speaks, there is not going to be a handler running into the room saying his comments were taken out of context.

Firouzabadi: As Iran's supreme military commander in chief for a decade,
and a member of the innermost circle of the ayatollah-driven
regime, it's self-evident that he should be heard and believed

So here, according to the semi-official ("affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard Corps") Fars News website, is how the commander in chief of Iran summed up its Israel strategy on Sunday:

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi said threats and pressures cannot deter Iran from its revolutionary causes and ideals, and stressed that the Iranian nation will remain committed to the full annihilation of the Zionist regime of Israel to the end. Addressing a defense gathering here in Tehran on Sunday, General Firouzabadi said that nations should realize the threats and dangers posed by the Zionist regime of Israel. He reiterated the Iranian nation and Supreme Leader's emphasis on the necessity of support for the oppressed Palestinian nation and its causes, and noted, "The Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel." [Go here to absorb the full context of his speech.]

How refreshing it would be if Robert Wright over at The Atlantic were to acknowledge that there is no "disputed translation" here. Like us, he has enough information in front of him to comprehend that Iran is a grimly serious place, filled with deadly serious people armed to the teeth and ready to kill, and actively developing a nuclear weapons capability for years, even while the CIA and the National Security Agency were saying, as recently as their now-discredited 2007 report that it was not ["We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program"].

Today, and certainly since the November 2011 report of the IAEA, we know about Iran's detonator development, its multiple-point initiation of high explosives, its experiments involving nuclear payload integration into a missile delivery vehicle and much more of a deeply worrying and factual nature.

What is it about "full annihilation" that intelligent and analytical people of huge influence fail to understand?

20-May-12: Ongoing 'cycle' of violence, Jerusalem Day edition

Israelis cycling and having fun
in the 2010 Yom Yerushalayim 30 km ride [Image Source]

It's Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day. The day on which Israel-minded Jews celebrate (in both the secular and - at least for the Dati-Leumi Religious-Zionist stream to which we subscribe - the religious sense) the day on which the city holy to three Abrahamic faiths was re-united in 1967, following which it embarked upon a period of tremendous and unprecedented growth and restoration.

A little earlier today, a Palestinian Arab male approached the soldiers and police manning a checkpoint at the Gush Etzion Junction several kilometers south of Jerusalem and launched a personal and violent attack on them with the aid of a concealed knife held inside his shirt. Initial reports say he is now quite seriously injured as a result of the use of that same knife. Fortunately, the Israeli security personnel are all unhurt.   

The security checkpoint served to secure the annual Hebron-to-Jerusalem bike ride being held in honor of Jerusalem Day. Hundreds of happy cyclists took part today, as every year. [Some background on the ride is here, courtesy of Voices-Magazine.com, which is also the source for the 2010 photo above.]

The Palestinian Arab man received immediate medical treatment on the spot from an Israeli Magen David paramedic team. Later he was transferred to the Hadassah Ein Kerem medical center where hundreds of Palestinian Arab terrorists before him have received medical care after previous attacks on Israelis. Hadassah, among other Jerusalem-area hospitals has sadly accumulated a wealth of world-class experience in dealing with the special challenge of saving and healing the thousands of Israeli victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism who are brought to its emergency department. A CBS television Bob Simon segment ("An Island Of Sanity") dealt with this phenomenon three years ago.

The sheer beauty of reunited, flowering, flourishing, peaceful Jerusalem must drive the hatred-addled jihadist fanatics absolutely insane. Happy Yom Yerushalayim!

18-May-12: Another Shalit-for-terrorists terrorist is back in prison

Yet another of the 1,027 terrorists whose freedom from Israeli prison was extorted in October 2011 in the deal to release an Israeli hostage from Hamas captivity, was re-arrested today by Israeli forces. Though Israel has not yet identified him, PalToday, an Arabic source (hat tip Challah Hu Akbar), says his name is Arif KhaIid Yunis Fawakhiriya who was sentenced in 2002 to a term of 28 years for attempted murder and other terrorist offences.

There have been several such arrests in the last few months.

According to the Israeli government announcements made at the time of the Shalit transaction, terrorists who are re-offend and are recaptured will be sent back to prison to complete the terms to which they were originally sentenced.

16-May-12: Ten years late, the assault on financial corruption at the highest levels of Palestinian government may finally be going somewhere

When you comprehend the relationship between the Le Bristol Hotel ("a French
hotel of grandeur and luxury at its finest") and the Palestinian Arab political
elite, you are some way to appreciating the role that
European and American funding has played in this tragic conflict
for the past decade and longer. See what we wrote about this in 2006.

There are reports today that the Palestinian Authority has set its sights on the man who served as financial adviser to the arch-terrorist Arafat. 

Mohammed Rashid, widely described as "shadowy" is (to adopt the laconic language of today's Associated Press report) "suspected of transferring millions of dollars out of the Palestinian Investment Fund and setting up fake companies". But for anyone who tries to track the goings-on in Palestinian Arab official circles, there's almost always more there than meets the eye.

And there is no shortage of people you can describe as 'shadowy'. Challah Hu Akbar wrote yesterday ("Former Arafat Advisor Faces Corruption and Embezzlement Charges"), and in past months, about the fact that Mahmoud Abbas who heads the Palestinian Authority has been under criticism from this same Mohammed Rashid for some time. NPR and others say Rashid has been leveling allegations against Abbas, saying - but without elaborating - that he "made a huge mistake and must suffer the consequences". In fact Rashid is said to be preparing to publish hitherto unknown aspects of the "the circumstances of Abbas' rise to power".

That's also not such a new development. In "7-Dec-08: A surfeit of "moderation", we wrote that the PA "has, over the past few years, become less tolerant toward "unfriendly" journalists, especially Palestinian newsmen who report about financial corruption and abuse of human rights in PA-controlled areas."

For anyone paying attention, there's enough money washing around the Palestinian Arabs to warrant multiple rounds of investigations into corruption and embezzlement. That's been the case for at least a decade. We expressed our feelings on this in several bitter and pained appeals over the years. One that we published more than four years ago ("12-Jan-08: Open letter to the friends of our hostile neighbors") starts with these words:

To the leaders of War on Want, Christian Aid, World Vision, UNRWA and the long list of other non-governmental organizations purporting to work for the benefit of the Palestinian Arabs:
As parents of a child murdered in the name of jihad, we try to focus our energies on educating people about the dangers of jihadism and other forms of terror, while trying to stay out of politics. But it's hard for us to ignore your endless and frequently shrill criticisms of Israel and Israelis as the source of all evil in the lives of Palestinian Arabs... 
For decades, you have marketed an image of the Arabs on the other side of our borders as living lives rendered miserable because of us. You raise money from well-meaning churchgoers and university students in Europe, Australia, the United States, Canada and elsewhere on the premise that the absence of proper health facilities, decent education and adequate housing and industry are matters that need outside funds.
We don't seek to persuade you to share our outlook on what's going on in and around our country and our neighbourhood. That's politics. We do however demand that you begin to take public account of some of the less-known aspects of this conflict. And particularly that you internalize and respond to the matter of massive financial corruption among the leadership of the people you cast as pathetic, powerless and poor.  Financial aid to the Palestinian Arabs is a serious industry. One study says that between 1994 and 2004, the US (alone) provided the Palestinians with $1.3 billion, the EU $1.1 billion, and Japan $530 million. Lots of palms are greased as this cash works it way through the channels...

If these brocaded walls could talk: Le Bristol Hotel, Paris

We ended it with these lines:

If any of you has studied the full 2005 report of the EU's money watchdog, OLAF, dealing with Palestinian Arab misapplication of European aid funds, would you mind sharing it with us? The brief official summary of the report spoke rather cryptically of "consistent indications to support the hypothesis that... some of the assets of the PA may have been used by some individuals for other than the intended purposes." The full text of the report, as far as we know, has never been released. The report is frequently quoted as evidence that EU funds were not applied to Palestinian Arab terror, but we believe the exact opposite is the case; the fact that the report has never been released is disturbing, to say the least.We ask you to express concern - to be just a little worried - about this latest claim of another missing couple of billion dollars. Before you go back to your donors, tell them and us what steps you are taking to verify that past, present and future funding has been spent as you claimed it was spent. Tell them and us why it doesn't seem to matter that Fatah, an organization that openly engages directly and indirectly in terror right up until today and that has an unelected leadership, even has two billion dollars to lose.
Where do you imagine that money came from? And if you don't care to know, tell us and your supporters that too. [The source article is here.]

We could go on. Corruption and financial greed is at the very heart of the war of the Arabs, including the Palestinian Arabs, against Israel. A terribly great pity that this has been so overlooked for so long.

15-May-12: The men with the bombs and the pistols keep coming

Israeli Border Guard servicemen pose at the Kotel
in Jerusalem 

We have posted several reports in recent weeks about would-be terrorists being spotted and stopped at or very near  Tapuah Junction in the Shomron (Samaria District). The most recent of these was "7-May-12: Caught another would-be terrorist carrying pipe bombs". Tonight it's happened again.

Israel National News says two Palestinian Arab men were apprehended by alert Border Police officers during Nakba Day (Tuesday - today) after their conduct aroused suspicion. As with several other very similar recent incidents, the men's bags and clothing were searched, and they were found to be carrying four pipe bombs, an improvised pistol and a large quantity of ammunition. Sappers were called in to explode the pipe bombs safely, and the two Arabs are now in the hands of the security services for interrogation.

Tapuah Junction and its environs are becoming a focus for terrorist activity. Previous arrests and seizures in the area include:

• January 8: Two men, 12 pipe bombs, a combat knife
• April 11: One man, multiple improvised explosive devices, three knives, 50 bullets.
• April 21: Two youths, with 5 pipe bombs, a gun, and ammunition
• April 24: Two Arab men, 4 improvised bombs
• April 28: Two Arab men, 4 pipe bombs
• May 7: A youth, 3 pipe bombs

It hurts to think about the harm to be caused if one or two individuals from this stream of men with terror on their minds manage to slip through without being apprehended en route.

15-May-12: Their history, our history

64 years ago [Image Source]

It's May 15. On this day in 1948, the leadership of the Yishuv, the Jewish presence in Palestine, declared itself independent and announced the establishment of the State of Israel.

This year's anniversary celebrations in Israel have already been completed. Jews throughout the world, including here in Israel, mark the day according to the Hebrew lunar calendar: the 5th day of the month of Iyar which this year was April 26 and which was marked with great joy.

The Arab residents in the new state, as well as the Arab armies of all the surrounding countries (and some that were further away than that) had already begun waging a cruel and disproportionate war against the 600,000 Jews of Palestine during the months before the proclamation of Israel's independence.

A blog posting by Robert Werdine, "The Forgotten War" published a few days ago in the Times of Israel, will provide some surprises for people misled by the refashioned history of that period that has become the standard - but wrong - narrative. He reminds us of how bad things were for Palestine's Jews from November 29, 1947 when the United Nations voted to partition British Mandatory Palestine into a state for the Jews and yet another Arab state - to add to the two dozen already created during the twentieth century - for the Arabs.

From then until the official start of the War of Israel's Independence in May 1948, Yassir Arafat's kinsman Haj Amin Al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, along with the Arab High Committee that he controlled, and together with all the nations of the Arab League, waged full-scale war against Jewish Palestine. For this purpose, they had the armies they had set up inside Palestine. Werdine enumerates them as "the Arab Liberation Army for the League, the Arab Legion from Jordan, the Muslim Brothers from Egypt, and the Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas (“Army of the Holy War”) for the Mufti and the Palestinian AHC". They were engaged in a deliberate, well-publicized ideological and thoroughly military battle to destroy the Jewish settlements, to choke the highways and cut them off, and to hold the capital city Jerusalem hostage and besiege it and its thousands of Jewish residents. This they did for months. There was no Arab plan to create an Arab state in the wake of the British Mandate of Palestine - none. The goal that unified the Arab world was to destroy what the Jews had built and were building, and to do it not by blogging or petitions but by killing as many people as possible and expelling the rest (whatever that means). This is something the uninformed of 2012 need to know but do not.

That brings us to today, literally. This morning, our neighbours the Arab Palestinians of Gaza, have already managed to set the tone for the anniversary of the day they call Nakba (as in "Nakba Never Ceased", a short op ed that captures the spirit of the Arab version of events.)

Families in Israeli communities right across southern Israel were wakened around 6:30 am today to the frightening wail of the Color Red (Hebrew: Tzeva Adom) incoming rocket warning. The rocket, yet another in the growing Gazan arsenal of many thousands, was fired from the northern part of the Gaza Strip and exploded in an open area of the Shaar Hanegev region close to the southern Israeli city of Sderot (population: 24,000). Fortunately no injuries or serious damage are reported but that was not, never was, the intention of the men who daily place their lives at risk by firing them. They seek to create dead Jews as has been the custom of their communities for several generations.

It's a tense day here. In the words of an Israel National News report, "Israel's security services are expecting the worst and hoping for the best on Tuesday. Along the northern border, the military said it will not allow a repeat of last year’s Syrian infiltration into the Golan Heights. Soldiers also have been deployed along the Egyptian and Lebanese borders to prevent disturbances."


They have their history, and it brings them to massive deployment of missiles inside villages and mosques, and a culture that glorifies death, martyrdom, hatred of the Jew and of Jewish achievement, along with a deep and historically unprecedented collective memory of an event they call The Disaster. But while the State of Israel grows, develops and seeks its place in the world, the disaster that resonates in their schools and books is self-inflicted, self-perpetuating and completely self-limiting. They have wasted their future in order to endlessly relive their past.

Daniel Mandel in an oped in the Washington Times entitled Perverse Palestinian Pride captures the uselessness of it:

The very fact that naqba commemorations are held today is therefore instructive in a way few realize: It informs us that Palestinians have not admitted or assimilated the fact - as the Germans and Japanese have done - that they became victims as a direct result of their efforts to be perpetrators...

Finally, Robert Werbine's final paragraph puts it eloquently:

I am an American, am not Jewish, and have no religious or ancestral connection to the state of Israel... I am drawn to this period of the war, in particular, not only because it was a momentous event, but because it is a great epic story... There would have been no refugee crisis if there had been no war, and there would have been no war if the surrounding Arab states had not rejected the partition. From the moment it passed the General Assembly the Arab states have literally organized their whole polity around denying any Jewish sovereign state whatever its size, and to delegitimizing and destroying it when it was established. The free, vibrant, sixty-four-year-old state that exists today is an eloquent testimonial to the failure of these efforts.

14-May-12: Our Egyptian neighbours: Optimistic, pro-democracy, strongly Islamic, and (of course) increasingly negative to peaceful relations with you-know-which-neighbour

Tahrir Square, April 27, 2012: Veiled Egyptian woman
protestor. The original caption reads: "Radical Islamists
in Egypt dream of turning the most populous
Arab country into a religious state." [Image Source]

The Pew Global Attitudes Project released its 2012 poll results on Egypt some days ago.

Trying to find something encouraging in what it tells us about the Egyptians is a challenge. We're not statisticians, and still less experts on what makes Egypt tick. But the results, based on about 1,000 face-to-face interviews, point to some major internal contradictions. These seem to reflect a desire to have more democracy and Western-style economic achievements in their lives on the one hand, while at the same time yearning for a more Islam-dominated society on the other.

First, they know their economy is in dangerously bad shape. A mere 29% of Egyptians think their country's economic situation is good (it stood at 34% in 2011). But they're super optimistic; half of all Egyptians expect it to improve in the next 12 months.

How realistic is that? A survey in the Economist three months ago suggests not very:

In Egypt the public sector accounts for 40% of value-added outside agriculture—an unusually large share for a middle-income country. Such private firms as do exist tend to be large and closely connected to the state... Arab companies are globally uncompetitive. The Middle East accounts for less than 1% of world non-fuel exports, compared with 4% from Latin America (a region with a comparable population). Turkey exports five times as much as Egypt, which has a population of similar size.

EconomyWatch forecasts reduced tourism receipts, supply chain disruptions and other knock-on effects this year following the recent 'Arab Spring' uprising. Oxford Economics, interpreting the outcome in practical terms, says the negative direction of Egypt's economy means the country faces credit rating downgrades during 2012. Significant under-performance on Egypt's scale tends not to fix it itself quickly... and that's true even when the nation's frame of mind is so strikingly optimistic.

An astounding 83% say Egypt's religious leaders have a very good or somewhat good influence on the country. And about the military, who in effect run the country today via the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) fronted by Mohamed Tantawi, 75% feel it has a good influence. That's mainly the men. Among Egypt's women, 58% said the military’s influence was very good a year ago, but today it's down to 38%. That's half of the men-plus-women number.

The media - television, radio, newspapers, magazines - get amazingly high marks from all sectors of Egyptian society. Overall, 70% have a positive assessment. Compare this with the United States where a different Pew survey on US public attitudes to the media published in September 2011 found that 66% say news stories often are inaccurate; 77% think that news organizations tend to favor one side; and 80% say news organizations are often influenced by powerful people and organizations.

But not in Egypt, according to what the Egyptian public believes.

The Egyptian public also likes democracy - a lot. At least so they say. Two-thirds of all Egyptians believe democracy is preferable to any other form of government. But (and here we start to run into some puzzling bits) 60% want their laws to strictly follow the Koran. Note however that support for Koran-based law dropped by 12 percentage points among educated Egyptians (secondary school or college education) in the past year, while it's up by 10 percentage points in the same period among their uneducated fellow citizens.

This ambivalence about democracy-versus-Islam is reflected in one of the survey's key findings. Asked whether Saudi Arabia or Turkey serves as the better model for the role of religion in government, 61% of Egyptians say Saudi Arabia. A mere 17% choose Turkey. And among Egyptians who see a positive role for Islam in their country's politics, 71% choose the Saudi Arabia model.

So much for the 'good' news.

The Pew people left the parts about Egyptian opinion on the US and Israel to the final chapter of their report, perhaps because it makes for such challenging reading. Here's a summary:

• Overall Egyptian feelings about the U.S. and about President Barack H. Obama are overwhelmingly unfavorable. 
• His standing in Egyptian eyes has dropped steadily since 2009. Back then, 42% expressed confidence; 47% said not much or none at all. Now, in the highly influential 18-29 year-old cohort, only 24% have confidence in the US president, a full twenty points lower than a year ago.   
• Financial aid from the US, courtesy of American taxpayers, is viewed with utter disdain. 60% today see it as having a detrimental impact. For the record, US military aid to Egypt as of March 2012 [New York Times: "Once Imperiled, U.S. Aid to Egypt Is Restored"] stood at $1.2 Billion per year. Non-military aid to Egypt added a further quarter-billion dollars to that in 2010.
• Yet a majority would like Egypt's relations with the U.S. to stay about as close as they are today. 38% would like to see Egypt/US relations get "less close".
• Overall, 79% hold unfavorable attitudes toward the U.S. How many hold a favourable view? Just 19%.
• On the Israel question, which is the last item in the lengthy report, the language of the Pew report is precise and devastating: "Most Egyptians favor overturning the 1979 peace treaty in which Egypt became the first Arab country to formally recognize Israel. Roughly six-in-ten (61%) want to annul the treaty, up slightly from last year (54%). Just under a third (32%) want to maintain it. Opposition to the treaty has grown significantly over the last year among young people and the highly educated. Support for annulling the treaty has increased by 14 points among 18-29 year-olds and by 18 points among the college-educated."

Headed for presidential elections

Egypt is about to elect a president. A Reuters report today ["Egypt vote won't push the generals aside"] describes the political haggling among Egypt's Islamists, liberals, military generals, and assorted other politicians:

At stake in the Defense Ministry meeting... was who would write a new constitution and what powers would Mubarak's successor have. No clarity has emerged. When voting starts on May 23 and 24 in a presidential race that broadly pits Islamists against men who at one time or another served under Mubarak, Egyptians still won't know the next head of state's permanent job description.

Whatever his job entails, it's going to impact Israel, and it's not hard to detect the edginess on the Israeli side of the border, including recently announced troop reinforcements. Pre-election speeches by the leading Egyptian presidential candidates have struck a notably hostile tone regarding Israel, and the Pew results suggest the reason why. Whatever they may feel, the candidates know it makes electoral sense to beat up on Israel.

So we see (via this Egyptian media report) Abdul Moniem Abul Fotouh, the leading Islamist candidate, calling Israel a “racist state” and asserting that the 1979 peace treaty is “a national security threat” that should be revised. Amr Moussa, his opponent and former Arab League chief who served as foreign minister in the Mubarak regime, also wants the treaty with Israel changed but expresses it a touch more diplomatically: "Most of our people consider it an enemy, but the responsibility of the president is to deal with such things responsibly and not run after hot-headed slogans."

Ah, yes: responsible leadership. We can hardly wait.