 Eleven Palestinian human rights groups have asked Hamas to conduct a credible internal investigation into allegations it committed war crimes during last winter's war with Israel. UN investigator Richard Goldstone has said he believes both Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers committed war crimes during Israel's offensive in Gaza. Goldstone said Israel used excessive force and Hamas terrorized Israeli civilians with indiscriminate rocket attacks. The UN General Assembly adopted Goldstone's findings and gave both sides until Febuary 5 to investigate. Neither has done so. Israel and Hamas deny the allegations. Shahwan Jabareen of the Palestinian group al-Haq said that Hamas told him it would investigate, but that he has not seen serious steps. JPost
 THE man who disrupted a flight as it was leaving Miami by saying he wanted "to kill all the Jews" has been charged with threats against a public servant. He's also been charged with disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest without violence, NBC Miami reported today. Passenger Mansour Mohammad Asad said "I'm a Palestinian and want to kill all the Jews," and had to be removed by officers from the plane, according to police reports Northwest Airlines Flight 2485 returned to the gate after Asad's disruption, where he and three companions were taken into custody by officers. The three other men have since been released. It was reported that Asad, 43, struggled during his removal and had to be tasered. He is said to have threatened officers, used racial slurs, and was reportedly chanting in a foreign language. After the inccident, the Transportation Security Administration released a statement saying, "While Northwest Airlines Flight 2485 taxied prior to departure from Miami International Airport (MIA), a passenger was heard making inappropriate remarks and acting disruptively. Local law enforcement and TSA met the aircraft upon its return and all passengers were deplaned. "The passenger and three travel companions are being questioned by Miami-Dade County police. The aircraft, bound for Detroit Wayne County International Airport (DTW), was swept with negative results and has been cleared for departure." The Australian
 As hands are wrung in the aftermath of the near-tragedy on a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit, a conversation from London's Heathrow airport in 1986 comes to mind. It consisted of an El Al security agent quizzing Ann-Marie Doreen Murphy, a 32-year-old recent arrival in London from Sallynoggin, Ireland. While working as a chambermaid at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, Murphy met Nizar al-Hindawi, a far-leftist Palestinian who impregnated her. After instructing her to "get rid of the thing," he abruptly changed his tune and insisted on immediate marriage in "the Holy Land". He also insisted on their travelling separately. Murphy, later described by the prosecutor as a "simple, unsophisticated Irish lass and a Catholic," accepted unquestioningly Hindawi's arrangements for her to fly to Israel on El Al on April 17.
She also accepted a wheeled suitcase with a false bottom containing nearly 2kg of Semtex, a powerful plastic explosive, and she agreed to be coached by him to answer questions posed by airport security. "What is the purpose of your trip to Israel?" Recalling Hindawi's instructions, Murphy answered, "For a vacation." "Are you married, Miss Murphy?" "No." "Travelling alone?" "Yes." "Is this your first trip abroad?" "Yes." "Do you have relatives in Israel?" "No." "Are you going to meet someone in Israel?" "No. "Has your vacation been planned for a long time?" "No." "Where will you stay while you're in Israel?" "The Tel Aviv Hilton." "How much money do you have with you?" "Fifty pounds." The Hilton at that time costing at least pound stg. 70 a night, he asked: "Do you have a credit card?" "Oh, yes," she replied, showing him an ID for cashing cheques. That did it, and the agent sent her bag for additional inspection, where the bombing apparatus was discovered. Had El Al followed the usual Western security procedures, 375 lives would surely have been lost somewhere over Austria. The bombing plot came to light, in other words, through a non-technical intervention, relying on conversation, perception, common sense, and (yes) profiling. The agent focused on the passenger, not the weaponry. Israeli counter-terrorism takes passengers' identities into account; accordingly, Arabs endure an especially tough inspection. "In Israel, security comes first," David Harris of the American Jewish Committee explains. Obvious as this sounds, over-confidence, political correctness, and legal liability render such an approach impossible anywhere else in the West. In the US, for example, one month after 9/11, the Department of Transportation issued guidelines forbidding its personnel from generalising "about the propensity of members of any racial, ethnic, religious, or national origin group to engage in unlawful activity." (Wear a hijab, I semi-jokingly advise women wanting to avoid secondary screening at airport security.) Worse yet, consider the panicky Mickey-Mouse and embarrassing steps the US Transportation Security Administration implemented hours after the Detroit bombing attempt: no crew announcements "concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks," and disabling all passenger communications services. During a flight's final hour, passengers may not stand up, access carry-on baggage, nor "have any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on the lap". Some crews went yet further, keeping cabin lights on throughout the night while turning off the in-flight entertainment, prohibiting all electronic devices, and, during the final hour, requiring passengers to keep hands visible and neither eat nor drink. Things got so bad, the Associated Press reports, "A demand by one flight attendant that no one could read anything elicited gasps of disbelief and howls of laughter." Widely criticised for these Clousseau-like measures, TSA eventually decided to add "enhanced screening" for travellers passing through or originating from 14 "countries of interest" as though one's choice of departure airport indicates a propensity for suicide bombing. The TSA engages in "security theatre" bumbling pretend-steps that treat all passengers equally rather than risk offending anyone by focusing, say, on religion. The alternative approach is Israelification, defined by Toronto's Star newspaper as "a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death". Which do we want, theatrics or safety? Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org ) director of the Middle East Forum and Taube fellow at the Hoover Institution, has super-elite status at two airlines. The Australian
 Apparently the man is a Palestinian (DE).
A Muslim man attacked a Chabad rabbi Saturday night as he was conducting the annual ceremony to light the public Chanukah menorah in Stefenfaltz Square in the city of Vienna, Austria.
The attacker hurled himself at Rabbi Dov Gruzman, principal of the city’s Jewish school run by the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic movement, and began punching him, a local resident told Arutz Sheva.
As the rabbi tried to hold off his attacker, the Muslim suddenly bit his victim, severing part of his finger in the process.
The Muslim was caught and arrested by police, and was held for questioning. The rabbi was evacuated to the hospital where doctors rushed to reattach his finger.
Gruzman told Arutz Sheva that the Muslim had raced towards the entrance at the beginning of the ceremony and began to curse the Jews who were there and the Jewish people in general.
“I tried to hold him off, to keep him away from the entrance and he bit me really hard, and that’s how he injured me,” he said.
(more)
Source: Israel National News (English), h/t JIHAD I MALMÖ With thanks to Islam in Europe
 A delegation of Israelis from the West Bank on Sunday brought copies of the Koran to the Palestinian village of Yasuf, where two days earlier a mosque was torched and vandalized allegedly at the hand of angry settlers.
The delegation from the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, led by peace activist Rabbi Menachem Froman, met the village elders at a nearby checkpoint after being held up for several hours by the Israel Defense Forces.
The delegation said they brought the Muslim holy books to show their condemnation for the attack and to replace those burnt by vandals.
Security officials say they fear that the torching of a mosque near Nablus on Friday could lead to reprisal attacks by Palestinians on Jews. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel's security services to find the people behind the arson, which Jewish extremists are suspected of perpetrating.
Immediately after the attack on the mosque at the village of Yasuf, Palestinian residents scuffled with members of the Border Police, a few of whom were lightly wounded. Several Palestinians were also hurt.
The arson prompted army and Border Police commanders to increase their presence in the Nablus area to prevent further attacks by Jewish extremists and reprisals by Palestinians. Security sources said such reprisals were a concern because the arson attack offended Palestinians' religious sentiments.
"The attack on the mosque was a dangerous provocation that could cause a further and unnecessary conflagration," one security official said.
Israel Defense Forces officers in the West Bank say that some settlers may escalate their opposition to the temporary freeze on settlement construction by targeting the Palestinian population - the "price tag" policy.
Attacks like the arson have provoked similar attacks by Palestinians, which the Shin Bet security service calls "popular attacks." These include acts that require little planning like stabbings, stone throwing and the hurling of Molotov cocktails.
The assailants - whose acts drew condemnations from U.S., Palestinian, Israeli and settler leaders - entered Yasuf before dawn Friday, according to the police.
They burned prayer carpets and a book stand containing Muslim holy texts, and left graffiti on the floor reading "Price tag - greetings from Effi." The vandals escaped. Police officials said they had no definite leads. The Shin Bet declined to discuss the investigation.
"We condemn this attack in the strongest terms and call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice," the U.S. State Department said.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has condemned the act as a bid to thwart the peace process with the Palestinians. "This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government's efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel's future," he said on Friday.
President Shimon Peres urged officials to do "everything in their power to bring to justice" the people behind the attack, which he said ran contrary to Israel's fundamental values.
"The government, the security forces and the law-enforcement institutions must take every measure, with the utmost urgency, to find the perpetrators and put them on trial in accordance with the gravity of the acts," Peres said in a statement.
According to opposition leader Tzipi Livni in a speech in Herzliya on Friday, "while a human rights march goes on in Tel Aviv, in Samaria extremist elements set fire to a mosque in a severe, despicable act of provocation."
In a statement yesterday, the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, added that the "profanation of the mosque and the torching of copies of the Koran found in it, and the spraying of racist graffiti on the mosque's walls against Islam and Muslims represent blatant aggression against the sanctity of sacred places."
Danny Dayan, who heads the Yesha Council of settlements, said the vandalism was "a wrong and foolish act." He added that "whoever did this does not wish for the good of the settlements in Judea and Samaria."
But far-right activist Itamar Ben-Gvir said that "Netanyahu must freeze these racist edicts to calm the atmosphere."
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) added that "those who wish to wipe out the Jewish people must not expect us to identify with their symbols and centers of incitement. I ran out of condemnations when the synagogues at Gush Katif were burned."
 A shopkeeper from Bethlehem who was branded a terrorist in Sacha Baron Cohen's film Bruno is seeking $110m (£67.5m) in damages. Ayman Abu Aita is suing Baron Cohen, US talk show host David Letterman and others for libel and slander according to a lawsuit filed in the District of Columbia federal court last week. The actor and comic Baron Cohen plays a gay Austrian fashion journalist in the film, which was released in the UK in July. Keen to become what he calls "the most famous Austrian since Hitler," Bruno travels to the middle east, and in a short interview with Abu Aita, asks to be kidnapped in an attempt to become famous. A caption labels Abu Aita as a member of the militant al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the armed wing of the Fatah movement. He is a member of the board of the Holy Land trust, a non-profit organisation that works on Palestinian community-building. Cohen was interviewed on David Letterman's talkshow in the US, and said finding a "terrorist" to interview for the movie took several months and some help from a CIA contact. He said he had feared for his safety during the interview with Abu Aita, which he claimed took place at a secret location. According to the lawsuit, however, the interview with Abu Aita took place at a hotel chosen by Cohen in a part of the West Bank that was under Israeli military control. The film's distributor, NBC Universal, and the director, Larry Charles, are also named in the proceedings. Abu Aita case is that before the film he "enjoyed a good reputation for honesty and a peaceable nature" in his community. His lawyers write that any accusations or insinuations that Abu Aita is or ever was associated with the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, or any other terrorist activity, is "utterly false and untrue." His US lawyer, Joseph Peter Drennan, said Abu Aita was never offered a release to sign to appear in the film. "This is an important lawsuit because it is about the dignity of a specific person. It is about his reputation, about his standing in the community." Drennan said he expects a hearing in late January. Hatem Abu Ahmad, Abu Aita's Arab-Israeli lawyer, said Baron Cohen made millions "on the back of my client." His 2006 film Borat also attracted lawsuits, including one for $30m from two residents of the Romanian hamlet where Borat's "home town" scenes were filmed. Most of the cases were thrown out. Guardian
 ANKARA, - Turkish government's course of policy in the Israeli-Palestinian war has heightened expectations in the Arab world that Turkey should assume a more effective role in solving conflicts in the Middle East, results of a survey has shown.
The survey on 'Turkey Perception in the Middle East' was conducted by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation in seven Arab countries among 2006 interviewees in July.
The survey - as Anatolia news agency reports - showed a growing awareness for Turkey in the Arab world after 2002 when the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party came to power as 79% of all participants and 89% of the interviewed Palestinians had said Turkey should engage in mediation efforts.
Over 75% of the interviewees said they had a positive view on Turkey and 80% of them said Turkey "treated the Arab countries well." "The elaboration of Turkey's foreign policy toward the Middle East especially during the AK Party government has created an awareness for Turkey among the people in the region," said Prof. Meliha Altunisik from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara.
Altunisik said Turkey was perceived as "a constructive country that contributes to stability and its role in the region has been boosted in a constructive way. This is a very positive result."
The Turkish scholar said the recent lifting of visa requirement between Turkey and Syria had also contributed much to the positive perception.
 A Palestinian whose brother was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier. An Israeli mother who lost a son to a Palestinian sniper. Brought together by a bereavement group, with members from both sides of the conflict, they are now spreading a message of peace.
ByRachel Shabi
Nobody could doubt the friendship between them. As they speak together in public they exchange ideas and support. On stage, he gives her hand a reassuring squeeze during tough moments.
Her eyes sparkle with admiration as his powerful words generate ripples of applause throughout the audience. They share the headset for a simultaneous translation device – an earpiece each – when caught short.
Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad come across as close, trusting friends. But according to the political narrative of their region, they should be the worst of enemies. Robi Damelin is a 65-year-old Israeli whose son David was killed by a Palestinian sniper seven years ago, while he was serving military reserve duty in the occupied West Bank. The 37-year old Palestinian Ali Abu Awwad lost his elder brother Yousef in 2000, when an Israeli soldier shot him in the head just outside the family’s home village near Hebron.
Now the two speak together all over the world, to the media and to parliaments, at public events and in schools, synagogues and mosques.
They are united in their message, calling for reconciliation between their two sides, which have for decades been locked in a brutal, deadly conflict. Read more at The National
 Shiraz Maher is a courageous British Muslim of moral integrity who supports Israel’s right to defend itself against annihilation.
In Standpoint magazine’s blog, he writes an extremely sharp article -- marking the fall of the Berlin wall -- which lists the many ‘security walls’ in the Muslim world but which are totally ignored in the frenzy over Israel’s separation fence: Built in response to the Palestinian intifada which claimed more than 900 lives since September 2000, the fence has dramatically halted the number of terrorist attacks inside the country. Excuse the pun -- but from the wall-to-wall coverage it received you could be mistaken for thinking that Israel's decision to defend itself in this was unprecedented.
Yet, not only is this wrong but, ironically, a lot of the physical barriers currently in place are located in the ‘Muslim world’. These include Saudi v Yemen: Yet, parts of the Saudi barrier stand inside the demilitarised zone, violating the 2000 agreement and infuriating Yemen... A prominent leader of the Wayilah tribe which occupies the disputed area explains: ‘The barrier has hindered grazing and free movement by many tribesmen. The tribesmen have the right to be free, but the barrier is taking away their freedom’, Iran v Pakistan: The opposition leader of Balochistan's Provincial Assembly, Kachkol Ali, has bitterly opposed the wall saying his people were never consulted about it and that it cuts off families from one another and Morocco v Sarhawi separatists: Much of the wall is lined with barbed wire and landmines, which is something it shares in common with parts of the Pakistan-Indian border (particularly in Kashmir). Maher comments: I’m hoping to join the next occupation of lecture theatres at universities around the country to protest against this insufferable outrage.
I can hear it now: ‘Viva, Viva, Balochistina!’... Ultimately, my point is the same as the one I made earlier in the year when the Gaza conflict took place: where is the ‘fairness' and ‘consistency' that Islamists and their leftist cheerleaders continually complain about? And why this one-track obsession with everything Israeli? Cue Steve Bell’s offensive cartoon in the Guardian which drew an analogy between the Berlin Wall and – you guessed it. The ever-more invaluable CiF Watch has spotted an intriguing congruence between this Guardian cartoon and another which made an identical point -- and which was published in the neo-Nazi Stormfront.
A propos, CiF Watch has also conducted an enterprising poll to see whether readers could distinguish between the enlightened comments published on Comment is free and Stormfront. Actually, the style of writing and language makes the distinction quite clear, but even so the point remains. A game for all the family to play to while away these long winter evenings, as we all wait for Iran to get its genocide bomb. Source: Melanie Phillips
 THE army major accused of massacring up to 13 fellow US soldiers and wounding 31 others during a shooting rampage is being held in custody and reportedly in a stable condition after being shot multiple times. The gunman's condition came as a surprise after military officials first reported that he was among the dead following a quick response by military police at the massive US military base. Malik Nadal Hasan, 39, a military psychiatrist, was believed to be unhappy about recent orders to serve in Iraq. General Bob Cone has confirmed that the major launched a sudden attack using two handguns in a heavily populated medical checkup area at the Soldier Readiness Centre at Fort Hood. One of the handguns was a semi-automatic weapon, enabling rapid fire before a female soldier returned fire. The woman had already been wounded when she ended Malik's shooting spree. General Cone did not rule out terrorism as a motive, but said that the evidence did not indicate that it was linked to terrorism. Asked if the major was in danger of dying, he said: "I would say his death is not imminent."
Hasan, a US Muslim of Palestinian origin who joined the military against his parents' wishes, also battled harassment based on his "Middle Eastern ethnicity,'' according to his cousin Nader Hasan, and was seeking to leave the military.
"He hired a military attorney to try to have the issue resolved, pay back the government, to get out of the military. He was at the end of trying everything,'' Hasan told Fox News.
While living in Washington DC, he attended prayers at a local Muslim community center at least once a day, seven days a week, according to Maryland imam Faizul Khan.
Khan, a former imam at the center, told The Washington Post that Hasan was "very devout,'' and asked him various religious questions.
"But there was nothing extremist in his questions. He never showed any frustration... He never showed any... wish for vengeance on anybody,'' Khan said.
A former colleague of Hasan's disagreed, saying the Army major had expressed a desire to see Muslims "fight against the aggressor.''
"He said, maybe the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor, at first we thought he was talking about how Muslims should stand up and help the armed forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but apparently that wasn't the case,'' Colonel Terry Lee told Fox News. Source: The Australian
 CAIRO — The Palestinian president says he will set Jan. 24 as the date for presidential and legislative elections, despite objections from his rivals in the Hamas militant group. Mahmoud Abbas told journalists in Cairo Tuesday that he will set the date in a decree on Sunday. Hamas is seeking to delay the election. Hamas won the 2005 legislative election and two years later expelled security forces loyal to Abbas from the Gaza Strip in a bloody conflict. That left Abbas in control of a rival, Western-backed government in the West Bank. Egyptian-mediated talks meant to reconcile the two sides and clear the way for a new election to end the power struggle have foundered. Abbas said he's open to changing the election date if a deal is reached. Source: FoxNews
 By Richard Landes Judge Richard Goldstone has presented his report on Gaza and, among other recommendations, suggested that Israel conduct its own inquiry.
Israeli government officials, assuming he meant an investigation like his into Israel's misdeeds, declined, noting that that they have and continue to investigate their army's behavior on a constant basis. But after reading most of the report, another possibility presents itself.
It rapidly becomes clear to any reader not driven by a thirst for "dirt" on Israel, that Goldstone's work represents a new low in the tragically deteriorating world of international justice.
It fails on every count, from its handling of evidence, to its legal reasoning, to its unstated but pervasive assumptions of Israeli guilt and Palestinian innocence, to its astonishing conclusion (from someone who knows the gruesome details of Bosnia and Rwanda), that Israeli behavior was so bad it might well constitute "crimes against humanity." Read more here,,,, Source: JPost The writer teaches history at Boston University, blogs at the Augean Stables (http://www.theaugeanstables.com ) and the Second Draft (http://www.seconddraft.org), and has just launched a new collective website: Understanding the Goldstone Report (http://www.goldstonereport.org ). The internet version of this article contains numerous links.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
David Littman to the International Community: The Truth Shall Set You Free.......
Mr.David Littman: "Stop listening to lies and start listening to the truth" The Tundra Tabloids' dear friend and colleague, David Littman, spells out in the following article, the central issues in regards to the Arab-Israel conflict. Mr.Littman explains the need for the international community to return to these facts to help address the ending of the conflict. One can't expect a reasonable solution to the conflict without admitting the historical facts that have led to the present day situation. The Arab myth and propaganda machine has been allowed to twist the historical record beyond all recognition, without any criticism from the international community as a whole. The IC has allowed such blatant revisionism to go uncecked, that one warped and factually challenged claim after the other, are allowed to become a part of the historical narrative no matter how ludicrous it may be. No one challenged Arafat's laughable claim that the Arabs are in fact related to the ancient Philistines, with the hopes of pinning their claim that they (the fakestinians) have been there for over 3000 years, which actually served to undermine their Arab ethnicity. The extinct Philistines were an Aegeatic people that migrated to the levant before the Children of Israel first stepped into the region. The Truth About the Mideast Fourteen fundamental facts about Israel and Palestine.
By David G. Littman It's time to look back on 14 fundamental geographical, historical, and diplomatic facts from the last century relating to the Middle East. These basic facts and figures were stressed in recent statements to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and its subcommission, to the surprise of representatives of both states and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). 1) After World War I Great Britain accepted the 1922 Mandate for Palestine, and then — with League of Nations approval — used its article 25 to create two distinct entities within the Mandate-designated area. Read All here: http://tundratabloid.blogspot.com/2009/09/david-littman-to-international.html H/T Pamela Geller
 Arab journalist Jihad el-Khazen has written a column asserting that the Palestine-Israeli dispute "only be resolved through war." War is the "only logical end" to the problem "unless a nuclear terrorist attack happens before that, and kills both the killers and the victims," according to el-Khazen. The writer further calls the Israeli government "Zio-Nazis" and claims that "the Jews can lay no legitimate claims whatsoever to the land of Palestine." Unfortunately, these inflammatory statements do not spring from the fevered imagination of an Arab blogger, or the anonymous ravings of an Arabic chatroom denizen. Jihad el-Khazen is an influential writer a Middle Eastern magazine listed as one of the world's 100 most influential Arabs. El Khazen's screed appeared in al-Hayat, a Saudi financed London based publication, which the New York Times describes as "regarded as by far and away the best and most intensely read Arab newspaper." In a 2003 essay on how Arab journalists "whitewash terrorism," Matthew Levitt singled out el-Khazen as "The prime example of this state of denial and intellectual atrophy… With people like this feeding the Mideastern denial frenzy, it's no wonder the Arab street has responded with such hostility to Western efforts to expose international terrorist activities, even after September 11." Read more ...Source: IPT BlogJihad el-Khazen
Latest recipient of the Evil Dumbass Award
By Aaron Klein JERUSALEM – The Jewish temples never existed, and Jews have no historic connection to Jerusalem, declared chief Palestinian justice Sheik Taysir Tamimi today. Tamimi condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for stressing in Europe this week the long Jewish connection to Jerusalem. Tamimi claimed "all Jewish rabbis and extremist organizations" as well as Netanyahu are lying when they state Jerusalem was a historically Jewish city. He called such claims "baseless and untrue." "Jerusalem is an Arab and Islamic city and it always has been so," he said. Read more ...Source: WNDTaysir Tamimi
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
 By Ron Prosor Earlier this month, Hamas launched a devastating bombardment of rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire against a mosque in Rafah. The attack killed at least 22 Palestinians, including an 11-year-old girl. Over 100 more were injured and the mosque, which belonged to a rival Islamist faction, the Jund Ansar Allah, was left riddled with bullets. The adjacent building was destroyed. Yet Hamas's disregard for the sanctity of a house of worship, and its contempt for the lives of neighbouring civilians, is unlikely to be the subject of any probing reports from Human Rights Watch. It is no surprise to see Hamas brutalising the Palestinian population as it tightens its vice-like grip over Gaza. After all, it seized control of the territory in a bloody coup against the Palestinian Authority in June 2007, murdering rivals and hurling PA officials from the rooftops. Subsequently, it has ruthlessly and violently crushed any potential challenge to its power, whether from the Palestinian nationalists of Fatah, or from rival terrorist groups within the Islamist fold. Meanwhile, it has imposed Gaza's rapid descent into fanatical freefall. As it hounded out the Palestinian Authority, Hamas opened Gaza's floodgates to a tsunami of extremism. Extremism breeds extremism, and the rise of rival Jihadist groups is a problem of Hamas's own making. Yet when it perceives such groups as a threat, or when ideological differences exist, it demonstrates its own barbaric methods of conflict resolution and law enforcement. Read more ...Source: Telegraph
 By Yoram Ettinger The idea that a Palestinian state can lead to enduring peace in the Middle East has become a diplomatic obsession for American policy makers. Bringing such a state into being has become the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail. In fact, however, a Palestinian state would not only fail to bring peace and stability to the region, but would make it an even more dangerous place than it already is. And ironically, given its adamant backing for a government that would have been led by Yasser Arafat and now would be headed by Abu Mazen, U.S. support for the creation of “Palestine,” which would immediately ally itself with and become a client of rivals and enemies of America such as Iran, would harm American, Israeli, and even Arab interests. The history of the PLO's Abu Mazen – who is hailed by the US administration as a peaceful leader – tells us something important about the likely character of a Palestinian state. As a graduate of Moscow University (Ph.D. thesis: Holocaust Denial) and a beneficiary of KGB training, he managed the logistics of the Munich Massacre of eleven Israeli athletes in 1972. He was the architect of PLO ties with ruthless communist regimes until 1989 and, since 1993, a series of PLO accords with Hamas. In 1950, 1966 and 1970, he was forced to flee Egypt, Syria and Jordan, respectively, for subversive activities. During the 1970s and 1980s he participated in PLO attempts to topple the Christian regime in Beirut, which resulted in the 1976 Syrian invasion of Lebanon and a series of civil wars, causing close to 200,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees. As Yasser Arafat’s confidante and first deputy for over fifty years until Arafat's death, Abu Mazen is one of the engineers of contemporary Palestinian hate education, which has become a production line for terrorists. In 1990, he collaborated with Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, despite the Gulf country’s unique hospitality to 400,000 PLO-affiliated Palestinians. Read more ...Source: FPM
 A Palestinian writer is calling out what he sees as a double standard among Arabs and Muslims. Little, if any, outrage or condemnation is expressed when Palestinians kill other Palestinians in political fighting, as has happened at least 700 times since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. But if Palestinians die from Israeli actions, even in response to a terrorist attack, the outrage can last years, writes Ahmad Abu Matar, who lives in Sweden. The Middle East Media Research Institute has posted a translation of most of Abu Matar's essay here. The murder of a Muslim woman in Germany provides a contemporary example. "What about the hundreds of murders perpetrated every month in the Arab countries under the false pretext of 'preserving [family] honor?' In most of these cases, a young woman is murdered by her brother or some other [male] relative. He declares it openly, and the women of the neighborhood, as well as the victim's family, greet him with sweets and cries of joy. Who writes or demonstrates against this [phenomenon]? Autopsies have revealed that over 95% of the girls murdered this way are virgins, which means that there was no 'violated honor' to cry over [in the first place]." The identity of the murderer shouldn't matter, Abu Matar argues. Someone was killed. He also cites a series of examples of Arab and Muslim states seizing and occupying the land of other countries, in some cases that continue today. Yet there's no outcry against those occupations. Many Arabs, including Palestinians, supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein when his army took over Kuwait in 1991. Even the Persian Gulf saw Iran occupy three islands of the United Arab Emirates in 1971, but "Nobody ever mentions them." In fact, some Arabs defend Iran as more cultured and advanced. "Using the same skewed logic, someone could make the unpatriotic claim that Israel – advanced, cultured and democratic – has a greater claim to Palestine than the struggling Palestinian people, who cause themselves more casualties than the [Israeli] occupation causes them. This, despite the fact that, according to common sense and international law, occupation is occupation, regardless of the identity and [cultural] level of the people whose land has been occupied." It's a provocative and bold article that should generate discussion. Source: IPT BlogArabs & Muslims re. Palestinians
Latest recipients of the World-Class Hypocrite Award
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Eleven Palestinian human rights groups have asked Hamas to conduct a credible internal investigation into allegations it committed war crimes during last winter's war with Israel.
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