WikiLeaks supports Israel....

A good analysis of the WikiLeaks so far...

1.While the Israelis are deeply concerned about Iran’s march toward a nuclear program, it is in fact the Arabs who are begging the United States to “take out” Iranian installations through military force, with one United Arab Emirates official even proposing a ground invasion. Calling Iran “evil,” King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly urged the United States to “cut off the head of the snake” by attacking Iranian nuclear installations.

2. It is not just Israeli leaders who believe Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is reminiscent of Hitler; U.S. officials think so too, as do Arab leaders, who use the Hitler analogy to warn against the dangers of appeasing Iran.

3. North Korea, an isolated country that enjoys substantial diplomatic and economic backing from China, is supplying Iran with advanced ballistic missile systems that would allow an Iranian nuclear warhead to hit Tel Aviv—or Moscow—with a substantial degree of accuracy. Taken in concert with the North Korean-built nuclear reactor in Syria, it would appear that North Korea—acting with the knowledge and perhaps direct encouragement of China—is playing a significant and deliberate role in the proliferation of nuclear equipment and ballistic delivery systems in the Middle East.

4. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not a model Middle Eastern leader who has found the right admixture of religious enthusiasm and democracy, as U.S. government officials often like to suggest in public, but “an exceptionally dangerous” Islamist. U.S. diplomats have concluded that Erdogan’s anti-Israel rhetoric is not premised on domestic Turkish electioneering or larger geo-strategic concerns but rather on a personal, visceral hatred of Israel.

5. Tehran has used the cover of the ostensibly independent Iranian Red Crescent—a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, whose pledge of neutrality allows it access to war zones—to smuggle weapons and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force into Lebanon during the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, and into Iraq, to fight against U.S. soldiers.

6. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman are more worried about Hamas than about Israel and are staunchly opposed to the expansion of Iranian influence in the region.

7. The Amir of Qatar is a dubious ally, who plays Washington and Tehran off each other. “The Amir closed the meeting by offering that based on 30 years of experience with the Iranians, they will give you 100 words. Trust only one of the 100.”

8. America’s Arab allies do not believe that the Barack Obama Administration can separate Syria from Iran through any foreseeable combination of carrots and sticks. According to one cable, the UAE’s Sheik Mohamed Bin Zayed “showed no confidence that Syria could be separated from the Iranian camp” and quoted him directly as saying “If you want my opinion … I think not.” He advised that Syria would continue hedging on key regional issues (Iran, support for Hezbollah, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process) for the foreseeable future.

If these cables make many on the right look prescient, or at least in touch with reality, it is hardly a surprise that their domestic U.S. rivals are trying to spin the Wikileaks cables to their own advantage. For instance, leftwing academic specialists on the Middle East who have argued that the peace process is the key issue in the region and that the Gulf Arab states do not want the United States or Israel to bomb Iran are nonetheless celebrating the Wikileaks documents, even as their argument is now vitiated. Some university professors claim that their analysis is better than those of Washington’s Arab allies anyway. The New York Times is trying to make the case that in the wake of George W. Bush’s mismanagement the Obama Administration has managed to build a strong sanctions regime against Iran that includes Russia and China. Unfortunately, the cables prove only that Russian envoys are working to frustrate the U.S. effort by selling the Iranian position to the Arabs.

An incredible escape from Iran....

A human interest story from the WikiLeaks material...

A 75-year-old Los Angeles dentist, held against his will in Iran for seven months, made an extraordinary escape on horseback, the secret WikiLeaks cables revealed.

Hossein Ghanbarzadeh Vahedi, an American of Iranian descent whose sons rep popular Persian pop singers, had his passport confiscated in May 2008 when he arrived at the Tehran airport to visit the graves of his parents.

After seven months of daily appeals to the revolutionary courts, Vahedi decided to escape.

He paid two drug smugglers $7,500 to be his guides, mounted a horse and made the harrowing three-day journey that included a 14-hour overnight ride across the freezing mountains of northwestern Iran into Turkey.

Vahedi, who is on heart medications, trained for weeks by climbing in the hills north of Tehran.

The old man planned everything well except his wardrobe. At points during the zero-degree ride, "the escorts had to physically hug him to keep him warm," the cable says.

Vahedi showed up at the U.S. Consulate in Ankara on Friday, Jan. 9, 2009, asking for help getting home.

"Although suffering some aches and pains, he appeared to be in good health," diplomatic staff wrote with some wonder in a February 2009 cable.

"Although visibly shaken, Vahedi said he had no major physical problems, but he did break down a few times when explaining his ordeal."

The Turks initially tried to return Vahedi to Iran, but changed their minds under pressure from the U.S. Embassy.

He flew home four days later.

When will environmentalists grow up???

Margaret Wente asks an important question...

Mercifully, nobody will pay attention to the climate conference at Cancun next week, where a much-reduced group of delegates will go through the motions. The delusional dream of global action to combat climate change is dead. Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme is dead. Chicago’s carbon-trading market is dead. The European Union’s supposed reduction in carbon emissions has been exposed as a giant fraud. (The EU is actually responsible for 40 per cent more CO2 today than it was in 1990, if you count the goods and services it consumed as opposed to the ones that it produced.) Public interest in climate change has plunged, and the media have radically reduced their climate coverage.

The biggest loser is the environmental movement. For years, its activists neglected almost everything but climate change. They behaved as if they’d cornered the market on wisdom, truth and certainty, and they demonized anyone who dared to disagree. They got a fabulous free ride from politicians and the media, who parroted their claims like Sunday-school children reciting Scripture. No interest group in modern times has been so free from skepticism, scrutiny or simple accountability as the environmental establishment.

Before they were sucked into the giant vortex of global warming, environmentalists did useful things. They protested against massive Third World dams that would ruin both natural and human habitats. They warned about invasive species and diseases that could tear through our forests and wreck our water systems. They fought for national parks and greenbelts and protected areas. They talked about the big things too – such as how the world could feed another three billion people without destroying all the rain forests and running out of water. They believed in conservation – conserving this beautiful planet of ours from the worst of human despoliation – rather than false claims to scientific certainty about the future, unenforceable treaties and radical utopian social reform.

“How high a price must the world pay for green folly?” asked the thinker Walter Russell Mead. “How many years will be lost, how much credibility forfeited, how much money wasted before we have an environmental movement that has the intellectual rigour, political wisdom and mature, sober judgment needed to address the great issues we face?”

The answer is too high, too many and too much. Please grow up, people. You have important work to do.

Kenyan PM says Gays should be arrested....

Why aren't gay leaders organizing protests outside Kenyan embassies???

The prime minister of Kenya says that gay men and lesbians should be arrested.

Raila Odinga made the remarks at a rally on Sunday in the Nairobi slum of Kibera.

“Any man found engaging in sexual activities with another man should be arrested,” he said, according to AFP.

“Even women found engaging in sexual activities will be arrested.”

Mr Odinga said that because a census showed an equal split of men and woman, there was “no need” for homosexuality.

“This kind of behaviour will not be tolerated in this country. Men or women found engaging in those acts deserve to be arrested and will be arrested,” he said to a cheering crowd.

WikiLeaks vindicates Israel...

Everybody agrees that Iran is a huge problem...

Based on the trove of diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks on Sunday, the United States is clearly listening to and recording what Middle Eastern leaders have to say about Iran. The question left unanswered is what the US is willing to do about it.

For years now, top Israeli political and defense leaders have warned the world that a nuclear Iran is not just a threat to the Jewish state but is a threat to the entire region.

“If only we could say publicly what we hear behind closed doors,” Israeli officials would comment, following off-record talks they held with Arab leaders throughout the Middle East.

Well, now they can. According to one cable published by WikiLeaks on Sunday, Saudi King Abdullah “frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons program” and to cut off the head of the snake.

According to another cable, King Hamad of Bahrain, a country with a majority Shi’ite population, urged in a meeting with former CENTCOM commander Gen.

David Petraeus that action be taken to terminate Iran’s nuclear program.

“That program must be stopped,” Hamad said, according to the cable. “The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.”

Jordan, another country that voiced concern, is uncomfortable with the possibility that a nuclear Iran would provide an umbrella for opposition groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt is also challenged by Iran’s continued nuclear development, as shown by the conviction in April of 26 men who were spying for Hizbullah and plotting attacks in Egypt.

From an Israeli perspective, therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that WikiLeaks may have done the country a service on Sunday. By presenting the Arab leaders as more extreme in their remarks than Israeli leaders, the cables show the dissonance in the region and the danger involved in allowing Iran to continue with its nuclear program.

Iran abuses Red Crescent.....

From the WikiLeaks...proof that Iran sends its agents overseas for no good...

An Iranian with detailed knowledge of the country's Red Crescent - the Islamic version of the Red Cross - says the government is using it as a cover for its agents in Iran, Lebanon and elsewhere around the Middle East, and to smuggle weapons. This is a serious allegation, in breach of Red Crescent's strict neutrality

From Music to Murder....

Terrorism applauded at UN Human Rights Council...

How can you not cheer?

Thanks to Vlad Tepes for sending this to me...

Can the Palestinians make peace????

Bret Stephens is fast becoming a regular must-read...

So what is the core of the problem? Consider the predicament faced by a Palestinian named Walid Husayin from the West Bank city of Qalqilya. Mr. Husayin, 26, is suspected of being the blogger known as Waleed al-Husseini and author of an essay, posted on the Proud Atheist Web site (proud-a.blogspot.com), titled "Why I Left Islam."

The pseudonymous Husseini makes no bones about his opposition to religions generally, which he says "compete with each other in terms of stupidity." But nothing seems to exercise his indignation more than the religion he used to call his own. Islam, he writes, is "an authoritarian religion that does not respect the individual's freedom of choice, which is easily noticeable from its barbaric verdicts such as stoning the adulterous, pushing homosexuals off a cliff and killing the apostates for daring to express a different viewpoint."

And that's just Husseini getting started. The essay proceeds by way of a series of questions, such as "Is Islam a religion of tolerance?" Answer: "The sacred texts of Islam also encourage blatant war and conquest of new territories." What about equality? "Islam has legitimized slavery, reinforced the gap between social classes and allowed stealing from the infidels." Women's rights? "I have a mother, a sister and a lover and I cannot stand for them to be humiliated and stigmatized in this bone-chilling way." The prophet? "A sex maniac" who "was no different than barbaric thugs who slaughtered, robbed and raped women." And so on.

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This being the Arab world, it should come as no surprise that Mr. Husayin has spent the past 24 days in detention, that he has been forbidden from receiving visitors or speaking to a lawyer, that he faces a potential life sentence, and that people in Qalqilya have called for him to be burned alive.

The systematic violation of Palestinian rights by Palestinian officials is an old story, as is the increasingly Islamist tilt of what was once supposed to be a relatively secular, progressive society. Whatever might be said in favor of freedom for Palestine, there has been to date precious little freedom in Palestine, whether in the Hamas-controlled statelet of Gaza or in the parts of the West Bank under Fatah's dominion.

That's a problem. It's also a problem that when the Associated Press covered Mr. Husayin's ordeal, reporter Diaa Hadid offered that "the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is among the more religiously liberal Arab governments in the region," and that "Husayin's high public profile and prickly style . . . left authorities no choice but to take action."

How nice to see AP reporters sticking up for free expression. Indeed, the consistent willingness of Western news organizations to downplay stories about Palestinian illiberalism and thuggery goes far to explain why so much of the world misdiagnoses the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Settlements are a convenient alibi: They foster the illusion that the conflict can be resolved by Israeli territorial concessions alone. But if that were true, Gaza would have turned peaceful the moment settlements were withdrawn five years ago. The opposite happened.

Why did Gaza become more violent, internally as well as toward Israel and Egypt, the moment it was rid of Israelis? That's the central question, and one too few observers seem willing to address for fear of where the answer might lead. Yet it ought to be self-evident. The culture of Palestinian illiberalism gave rise to the discontents that brought about civil war and then Hamas's swift rise to power. Hamas is theologically committed to Israel's destruction. That commitment is politically popular: It shapes, and limits, what even the most progressive Palestinian leaders might be willing to concede to Israel in any deal. The result is what we now have: Negotiations that are going nowhere, at an increasingly heavy price for all parties, including the United States.

Some Iranian parliamentarians move against Ahmadinejad....

Nice to see some dissent...

Iran's parliament revealed it planned to impeach President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but refrained under orders from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, exposing a deepening division within the regime.

Lawmakers also launched a new petition to bring a debate on the president's impeachment, conservative newspapers reported Monday.

The reports of challenges to Mr. Ahmadinejad were intended as retorts to a powerful body of clerics that urged Mr. Khamenei to curb the parliament's authority and give greater clout to the president.

In a report released Sunday and discussed in parliament Monday, four prominent lawmakers laid out the most extensive public criticism of Mr. Ahmadinejad to date.

Farnaz Fassihi talks about the move by Iran's parliament, later blocked by the nation's supreme leader, to impeach President Ahmadinejad.

They accused him and his government of 14 counts of violating the law, often by acting without the approval of the legislature. Charges include illegally importing gasoline and oil, failing to provide budgetary transparency and withdrawing millions of dollars from Iran's foreign reserve fund without getting parliament's approval.

"The president and his cabinet must be held accountable in front of the parliament," the report stated. "A lack of transparency and the accumulation of legal violations by the government is harming the regime."

Ezra Levant - Elizabeth May debate - Part one...

Ezra Levant - Elisabeth May debate Pt. 1 from Vlad Tepes on Vimeo.

George Galloway and his merry band of fascists...

Important piece by Terry Glavin in today's National Post on George Galloway and his merry band of fascists...

It’s a royal headache, and you’d have to sift through CIDA’s voluminous “West Bank and Gaza” files to see for yourself how much Canadians are spending on aid and development in Gaza, but a cursory review reveals that among the Gaza-specific expenditures Canadians are currently supporting is a $4.1 million contribution to a UNICEF-run project for kids and an $8 million food-aid package for Gaza administered by the UN Relief and Works Agency, which appears to be on top of a $3 million food-aid contribution to Gaza through the UN and $1 million in food aid to Gaza through the Red Cross that Ottawa announced last January.

This, all by itself, should sufficiently expose the lie that Galloway’s Canadian activists tell about their aims to “break the seige” on Gaza. It should give you at least a clue as to what Galloway’s current Canadian tour is really all about. Despite his claims to the contrary, Galloway provides material, objective and propaganda support to Hamas, the worst tormentors of the Palestinian people. That is what his interventions in Palestine are for. It is what the various Gaza Flotilla spectacles are about, too.

The Foundation for Human Rights & Humanitarian Relief (IHH), the Turkish charity that partnered with the Cyprus-based Free Gaza Movement to launch last summer’s flotilla, is openly affiliated with Hamas. It is also part of an umbrella coalition headed by Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who says suicide bombing is wrong except when it targets Israelis, and even pregnant Israeli women are fair game. The flotilla’s other big sponsor was the Perdana Global Peace Organization. Its founder and guiding light is Malaysian strongman Mahathir Mohamad, who most recently asserted that European Jews “had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom. . . Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world.”

Galloway and the Hamas support network in Canada will tell you that 1. dealing with Hamas is necessary because 2. Hamas is the elected government in Gaza and 3. every aid agency must go through Hamas to provide humanitarian relief to Gaza’s Palestinians. That’s three lies right there. Here’s Galloway saying these very things to the CBC’s George Stroumboulopolis just last week. Galloway will sometimes slightly amend his self-exculpation by asserting that these are the reasons why he gave bags of cash to Ismail Haniya, the Prime Minister of Gaza (video here, with Galloway in his own words). This is also a lie.

The truth is that you don’t have to give bags of money to Hamas to provide humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza (there’s UNRWA, the Red Cross, UNICEF, etc.), Hamas is not the elected government of Gaza, and it is not true that humanitarian agencies have to give over to Hamas in order to operate in Gaza. Ismail Haniya is not the Prime Minister of Gaza, unless you want to airbrush from history the fact that Haniya was dismissed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas more than three years ago. You will also want to ignore the fact that Hamas then led a putsch that smothered Palestinian democracy in its crade by seizing Gaza and turning it into a statelet sponsored mainly by the Khomeinist police-state run from Tehran. Ignore as well if you like this Arab World for Research and Development poll undertaken last month which shows that Hamas enjoys the support of 12.8 per cent of the people of Gaza (.pdf).

Galloway and his friends have been allowed to get away with their dissembling not just because of the idiocy of certain currents on the “Left” in this country but also because of the laziness and self-serving purposes of Canada’s news media. Run blaring headlines proclaiming something as “fact” just once when it was really just Galloway’s own propaganda and you’re not likely to declare to your readers, ‘Sorry, but this two-bit blackshirt and his friends actually hoodwinked us.’ In a sadly typical and error-riddled account of a recent Galloway speech from just the other day, the reader is treated to the bowdlerism that Ottawa banned Galloway from entering Canada last year but the ruling was “overturned by a Federal court judge.” That is Galloway propaganda. The opposite is true. The judge found that Galloway was not banned and that there was no ruling for him to overturn, and consequently, Galloway’s lawyers had their claim dismissed.

“Liar” is a very serious word. So is “fascist,” and to allow that word to be reduced to an epithet is to allow the meaning of words to be so diminished as to utterly occlude our understanding of political phenomena and to render analysis to the level of name-calling. This is exactly how the same elements of the self-professed “Left” in Canada that serve as Galloway’s bag-carriers have reduced the perfectly respectable word “Zionist” to a mere pejorative, a term of abuse. I won’t be resorting to that sort of thing here. To situate the politics of George Galloway and his sundry Canadian public-relations handlers and campus venue-arrangers in the fascist category, one should have evidence, and mean what one says. I mean it. Here’s the evidence.

When I say Galloway provides material and objective support to Hamas, I mean the role he plays generally, but I also mean very specifically what George Galloway himself said he was doing, in his own words, when he handed Hamas those bags of cash. By “Hamas,” I mean that organization known to Arabic speakers as Harakat al-Muqāwamat al-Islāmiyyah, which can be translated as the “Islamic Resistance Movement” in Palestine. Hamas is an organization characterized by the classic tendencies of European fascism and animated by the precise traits of contemporary Islamist fascism.

Hamas is an antisemitic, political and paramilitary movement. It is violently opposed to liberal democracy. Hamas makes reference to the classic antisemitic fiction known as the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion in its very charter. Hamas suppresses dissent by violence and the threat of violence and looks forward to a “pure” future when its imagined homeland is cleansed of any religious, political or cultural challenge to its own version of a totalitarian Islamist hegemony. Hamas is the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Amin el-Husseini was slaughtering Jews and non-Islamist Arabs in Palestine in the 1930s, long before the state of Israel was born, with arms provided by the National Socialist German Workers Party, known to most of us as “the Nazis.”

In place of the Third Reich, Hamas nowadays is sponsored mainly by the Khomeinist tyranny in Iran, a regime that displays all the usual Euro-fascist and Islamist-fascist hallmarks, and which employs Galloway as a propaganda agent in his capacity as a celebrity presenter for the regime’s Press TV. Here’s Galloway on his Press TV show, powdering the nose of the holocaust-denying Khomeinist thug Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

To be fair, you’d have to look long and hard to find a tyranny or a fascist dictator of the Islamist or the Baathist kind upon whose boots Galloway has not slobbered. The Taliban “are not an enemy to me,” Galloway has admitted. Here he is sucking up to the clerical-fascist Hezbollah: “I glorify the leader of Hizbollah, Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.” Here he is lavishing praise upon Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein: “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.” On Syria’s Baathist dictatorship: “Syria is lucky to have Bashar Al-Assad as her president.”

Galloway’s fascist rap sheet goes on and on like this, so we can stop right about here. But before we leave Galloway’s admiration of the Syrian regime entirely, his particular affection for the most outwardly and unapologetically fascist faction in Syria’s ruling coalition has a specific Canadian connection. It was four years ago this month that Galloway came all the way to Canada to attend a celebration of the 74th anniversary of the founding of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in Ottawa. The SSNP has its own distinctive swastika, its own Nazi-style uniforms and an anthem that’s sung to the tune of Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles. These are the people George Galloway likes to party with.

If you don’t get it by now and you still fancy yourself to be all progressive and leftish when you go and give Galloway the standing ovations he craves, there’s no hope for you. If you read this and get it and continue to have truck or trade with Galloway and the cult he’s built around himself in this country, then you are my enemy, and all I will say to you for now is: Hey, nice boots.

PA says Jews have no right to Western Wall...

This follow my blog post from yesterday about the Palestinians objecting to improvement to the Wall.

The Western Wall belongs to Muslims and is an integral part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Haram al-Sharif [the Noble Sanctuary], according to an official paper published on Monday by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information in Ramallah.

The paper, which has been presented as a “study,” was prepared by Al-Mutawakel Taha, a senior official with the PA Ministry of Information to “refute” Jews’ claim to the Western Wall.

In the past, PA leaders and officials had also denied Jews’ right to the Kotel, insisting that the Temple Mount had never stood in the area.

The new paper claims that the Western Wall, or Al-Buraq Wall as it is known to Muslims, constitutes Waqf property owned by an Algerian-Moroccan Muslim family.

It claims that there isn’t one stone in the wall that belongs to the era of King Solomon.

The “study” also found that the path next to the Wailing Wall was never a public road, but was established only for the use of Muslims living in the area or making their way toward the mosques on the Temple Mount.

“The Zionist occupation falsely and unjustly claims that it owns this wall which it calls the Western Wall or Kotel,” Taha, who is also a renowned Palestinian poet and writer, wrote in his project. “The Al-Buraq Wall is in fact the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

He added that the Jews had never used the site for worship until the Balfour Declaration of 1917. “This wall was never part of the so-called Temple Mount, but Muslim tolerance allowed the Jews to stand in front of it and weep over its destruction,” he wrote.

An anti-semitic speech from Hamas...

Some highlights...

1. Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar has recently given an anti-Semitic speech shown live on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV (November 5, 2010).

2. In the speech, Mahmoud al-Zahar reiterated the thesis appearing in his book (see Appendix II) according to which “Jews have no future between nations”. Al-Zahar extensively covered the history of the murder and expulsion of the Jews from various European countries, claiming that they had been driven out as a result of their despicable qualities (murder, theft, betrayal, etc.). He then went on to “prove” that the elimination of the State of Israel and the expulsion of the Jews “from the entire territory of Palestine” are necessitated by reality, and that the Jews will one day be driven out, “Allah willing”.

3. In his speech, Mahmoud al-Zahar presented a pseudo-historic portrayal of the history of the expulsion of the Jews from various countries, showing understanding for the crimes committed against the Jews throughout history and ascribing the expulsions to the Jews’ crimes and loathsome qualities. For example:

a. Pharaoh drove the Jews out of Egypt “because they spilled the blood of the Egyptians and conspired against them with their enemies”, and after they abandoned their religion following Joseph’s death.

b. In 1253 the French expelled the Jews for “sucking the blood of the French, spilling their blood, slaughtering them, stealing their possessions, and conspiring against them…”

c. In 1280 the Englishmen slaughtered the Jews and expelled them because they exposed their crimes—“sucking their [i.e., the Englishmen’s] blood and stealing their property…”

4. Mahmoud al-Zahar goes on to list numerous other countries from which the Jews were expelled: France (one more time), Hungary, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Holland, Spain, Russia, and Germany. According to Mahmoud al-Zahar, “the series of expulsions [of the Jews from the various countries] continue to this day”.

5. At the end of that “historic” review, Al-Zahar presents the lesson and conclusions for his audience to consider: “The expulsion will come, Allah willing, from Palestine, from the entire territory of Palestine, Allah willing. We are no less strong or honorable as the peoples who expelled and uprooted them. We are about to expel them. We have learned our lesson. You have no place among us and [Jews] have no future between nations. You are about to disappear, and we are about to emerge victorious.”

Oil and Gas Aplenty....

The end of Peak Oil!

THREE summers ago, the world’s supertankers were racing across the oceans as fast as they could to deliver oil to markets growing increasingly thirsty for energy. Americans were grumbling about paying as much as $4 a gallon for gasoline, as the price of crude oil leapt to $147 a barrel. Natural gas prices were vaulting too, sending home electricity bills soaring.

A book making the rounds at the time, “Twilight in the Desert,” by Matthew R. Simmons, seemed to sum up the conventional wisdom: the age of cheap, plentiful oil and gas was over. “Sooner or later, the worldwide use of oil must peak,” the book concluded, “because oil, like the other two fossil fuels, coal and natural gas, is nonrenewable.”

But no sooner did the demand-and-supply equation shift out of kilter than it swung back into something more palatable and familiar. Just as it seemed that the world was running on fumes, giant oil fields were discovered off the coasts of Brazil and Africa, and Canadian oil sands projects expanded so fast, they now provide North America with more oil than Saudi Arabia. In addition, the United States has increased domestic oil production for the first time in a generation.

Meanwhile, another wave of natural gas drilling has taken off in shale rock fields across the United States, and more shale gas drilling is just beginning in Europe and Asia. Add to that an increase in liquefied natural gas export terminals around the world that connected gas, which once had to be flared off, to the world market, and gas prices have plummeted.

Energy experts now predict decades of residential and commercial power at reasonable prices. Simply put, the world of energy has once again been turned upside down.

“Oil and gas will continue to be pillars for global energy supply for decades to come,” said James Burkhard, a managing director of IHS CERA, an energy consulting firm. “The competitiveness of oil and gas and the scale at which they are produced mean that there are no readily available substitutes in either one year or 20 years.”

Hezbollah tied to Hariri's murder...

Hey, someone at the CBC actually did some work...

UN investigators and a Lebanese police officer have unearthed evidence implicating Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, according to an investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp published Sunday.

The report by CBC News details a months-long investigation which links Hezbollah to the Hariri murder, and faults the United Nations for having key information on the case which it failed to pursue further.
Rafik Hariri and Nasrallah

According to the report, the UN International Independent Investigation Commission's findings are based on an extensive examination of Lebanese phone records.

According to a phone analysis by Lebanese and UN investigators, the records suggest that Hezbollah officials were in frequent contact with the owners of the cell phones that were allegedly used to coordinate the bomb detonation that killed Hariri.

According to the Washington Post, the revelations are likely to add to speculations that a UN prosecutor plans to indict members of Hezbollah by the end of the year.

The CBC report also points to errors done by the United Nations, such as misplacing the Lebanese phone records which allegedly identify the phones used by Hariri's killers – a crucial piece of evidence in the investigation. The report also faults the UN committee for the inadequate security provided for a key Lebanese officer who was killed after he helped the UN crack the case.

When expediency becomes principle....

Harper towers above Obama....

Not long ago, relatively few Jews around the world could name Canada’s prime minister. Today, there are many hundreds who, though they did not know his name just weeks ago, now do.

That is because the text and YouTube version of Stephen Harper’s extraordinary speech at a recent Canadian Conference on Anti-Semitism have gone viral, making their way onto Facebook and countless websites and parking themselves in thousands of in-boxes. In the speech, Harper made clear that he, unlike many, understands that the new anti-Israel rhetoric now taking the world by storm is nothing more than anti-Semitism repackaged.

As Harper noted, “Harnessing disparate anti- Semitic, anti-American and anti-Western ideologies, [the attack on Israel’s legitimacy] targets the Jewish people by targeting the Jewish homeland, Israel, as the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses, perversely, the language of human rights to do so.”

Harper understands that mere hand-wringing will not suffice, that it is, in fact, an abdication of responsibility. “We must be relentless in exposing this new anti-Semitism for what it is.Of course, like any country, Israel may be subjected to fair criticism... But when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack – is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand.”

And then Harper demonstrated what it means to be a leader: “As long as I am prime minister...Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost.”

Canada will take a stand, whatever the cost. What a breath of fresh air, especially when compared with the dazzling display of “expediency over principle” that is the now acknowledged position of Washington.

THERE ARE still conflicting accounts of what exactly Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton offered Binyamin Netanyahu in exchange for a 90-day extension of the building freeze. But many news sources, including Haaretz, claimed that the Obama administration promised not only F-35s, but increased pressure on Teheran to cease its quest for a nuclear weapon and an American commitment to fighting the growing assault on Israel’s very legitimacy – as long as Bibi cooperates.

That alleged offer makes several things clear.

First, it constitutes a tacit admission by the American administration that it has not applied anywhere near the kind of pressure on Iran that it could, if it only wanted to. Even though an Iranian nuclear weapon would put six million Jews (an “interesting” number, to be sure) in the crosshairs of a hate-mongering maniac, the US has thus far decided not to be serious about stopping Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. All that talk about Washington’s iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has been just that.

Even more distressing, however, is the suggestion that, in exchange for the building freeze, Washington would now commit to fighting the delegitimization of Israel. Obama and Clinton have every right to try to horse-trade Netanyahu into a freeze, if they so wish. They can make the airplanes contingent upon Netanyahu’s restarting the freeze, and can legitimately apply many other conditions. That is how the game is played (though one still wonders what’s been demanded of the Palestinians).

The Palestinians object to improvements at the Wailing Wall....

The won't even concede that the Wall is part of Israel...

The Palestinian Authority slammed a Sunday cabinet decision to allot NIS 85 million to a development project for the Western Wall over the next five years, AFP reported.

Ghassan Hatib, a PA spokesperson reportedly said: "Israel does not have permission to make changes in the occupied territories, especially in Jerusalem."

"This move is preventing us from reaching an agreement, because any solution must include Jerusalem," Hatib added.

The project will upgrade physical and transportation infrastructure at the site, provide access to new archeological findings, and run educational programs for soldiers and students.

The approved plan is a continuation of another five year project that began at the site in 2004 and, according to a statement put out after Sunday's cabinet meeting, led to a phenomenal growth in the number of visitors to the Wall, from two million annually before the project began to eight million visitors in 2009. The Wall is the most visited site in the country.

The continuation of the development project will be managed by the Prime Minister's Office and carried out by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, with the funds coming from the interior, transportation, tourism, public security, defense and education ministries, as well as from the Israel Lands Authority.

"The Western Wall is the Jewish people's most important heritage site," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said during the cabinet discussion where the project was approved. "We are obligated to develop and preserve it so it can continue to be a focus for visitors and a source of inspiration for millions of visitors, tourists and children and adults from Israel and around the world."

Why does Ontario want more trade with Syria???

Another blood libel...

Add this one to the long list of blood libels...

Dutch media this month published articles accusing Ariel Sharon of murdering Palestinian children in Lebanon. Former officials who worked with Sharon said the publications were false. The Israeli foreign ministry called the claim "a modern blood libel."

The claim first appeared in the Volkskrant, the third largest paper in the Netherlands, in an interview with the well-known Dutch-Jewish director George Sluizer. According to Sluizer, 78, he witnessed Sharon killing two Palestinian toddlers with a pistol in 1982 near the refugee camp Sabra-Shatilla while filming a documentary there.

“I met Sharon and saw him kill two children before my eyes,” said Sluizer, who lives in Amsterdam. Sluizer has made several documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but is best known for directing The Vanishing with Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland in 1992.

Sluizer repeated the accusation in an interview for Vrij Nederland, an intellectual magazine, published on November 13 ahead of a screening of his film at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. “Sharon shot two children like you shoot rabbits, in front of my eyes,” he said.

The children, according to Sluizer, “were toddlers, two or three years old. He shot them from a distance of 10 meters with a pistol that he carried. I was very close to him.” Sluizer added he thought this happened in November, when Sharon was Israel’s minister of defense, but he was not sure of the month.

His account was published in a special Volkskrant supplement for the film festival, which opened on Wednesday. The festival featured Sluizer’s fourth and most recent film about Israel, in which he is filmed telling a Sharon effigy that he wished Sharon would have died at Auschwitz.

Sharon’s successor as defense minister, Moshe Arens, said Sluizer’s account was “a lie.” According to Arens, “Sharon would never shoot a child and he was not in Lebanon in November of 1982. Thirdly, protocol prohibits ministers from wearing weapons. As civilians they are not allowed to carry firearms.”

Amram Mitzna, former chairman of the Israeli Labor Party who served under Sharon as head of the Syrian front during the First Lebanon War, called Sluizer’s account “total nonsense.” Mitzna added: “I attacked Sharon politically over his decisions, but Sharon would never do a thing like that. It’s completely ridiculous.”

Yossef Levy, senior spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called Sluizer's account a "crude and disgraceful lie. It is hard to believe that any reasonable person would take seriously this kind of modern blood libel, which is not supported by a single shred of evidence."

Arafat's Legacy...

An article by Khaled Abu Toameh....

Six years have passed since the death of Yasser Arafat and it does not seem that many Palestinians really miss the man.

The number of Palestinians who show up at public rallies to commemorate Arafat has actually been declining year after year.

Arafat, as far as disillusioned Palestinian are concerned, should be remembered as a leader who led his people from one disaster to another.

He died in November 2004, leaving behind scorched earth and tremendous suffering and pain.

Even some of his former confidants admit that he was a ruthless man who did not hesitate to kill anyone who dared to challenge him or draw a cartoon making fun of him.

In Jordan, Arafat brought disaster on his people when he tried to create a state-within-a-state, forcing the Jordanians to massacre thousands of Palestinians in what is known as Black September.

Arafat and his supporters then went to Lebanon, where this time he did succeed in creating a state-within-a-state and played a major role in the Lebanese civil war, which resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians.

Most Arab countries refused to receive Arafat and the PLO after they were forced by Israel to leave Lebanon in 1982. Tunis was the only country that agreed to temporarily host the PLO leadership.

Another disaster that befell the Palestinians during Arafat's era was the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the Gulf countries in the early 1990s -- an expulsion for which Arafat was directly and personally responsible. His public support for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait had turned most of the Arab countries against the "ungrateful" Palestinians.

After the signing of the Oslo Accords, Arafat established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip a corrupt regime that repressed Palestinians and deprived them of international aid.

Arafat also brought with him to the West Bank and Gaza Strip anarchy and lawlessness. Under his authority, dozens of armed militias and gangs emerged, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which flourished under him.

Are the weapons of Hamas and Hezbollah being upgraded???

I'd like to know more details about this..if true, this is very serious..

Officials and analysts said Iran and its allies in the Middle East have converted their unguided rockets into guided weapons. They said the conversion has transformed the rocket arsenals of Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran and Syria from what was termed a terror threat to a military threat.

"We are facing a significant leap in the projectile capability," Brig. Gen. Doron Gavish, chief of the Air Defense Command, said.

At an aerospace conference on Nov. 15, Gavish and leading defense executives and analysts asserted that Iran was converting its Scud-based missile and rocket arsenal into precision weapons. They said the effort was facilitated by the availability of navigation and guidance systems based on the U.S.-based Global Positioning System and Glonass, the Russian acronym for GLObal NAvigation Satellite System.

"The enemy has achieved aerial supremacy without even having aircraft," Uzi Rubin, former head of the Israel Missile Defense Organization, said.

Rubin, regarded as a leading consultant on ballistic missiles, cited Iran's new rockets, which have been exported to Hizbullah and Syria. He said Iran's Fateh-110 rocket, with an enhanced range of 300 kilometers, has become fully-guided.

"There is guidance from launch, maybe throughout the entire flight," Rubin said.

As a result, officials and analysts said, Iran's new rockets could have a circle error of probability of up to 200 meters at a range of 90 kilometers. They said this would enable Hizbullah and Syria to strike Israeli critical facilities with dozens rather than hundreds of rockets.

Syria was also said to have been enhancing its Scud-D ballistic missile, tipped with a chemical warhead. Rubin said Syria, with technology from Iran and its allies, was believed to have reduced the Scud-D's circle error of probability from several kilometers to several hundred meters.

Rubin said Hizbullah and Syria have accumulated 13,000 missiles and rockets that could hit targets from Israel's northern border to the southern city of Beersheba. Of those weapons, he said, 1,500 warheads could strike the Tel Aviv area. Hamas has also acquired rockets with a range to hit Tel Aviv.

"This is a revolution," Rubin said.

PA TV: The Jews killed Arafat...

More incitement on PA Television...

Let's welcome Galloway to Canada...

What is the capital of Israel???

Watch until the end...

Hamas rockets can now reach Tel Aviv...

Alarming news, if true.

A senior Israeli intelligence official warned Sunday that Hamas rulers in the Gaza Strip have rockets that can travel 80 kilometers (50 miles) — a longer range than previously reported, which would put the coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv within range of its launchers.

The official blamed Egypt, saying it was not doing enough to stem smuggling through a network of tunnels along the relatively short border between its Sinai desert and the Palestinian territory. An Egyptian security official reached for comment maintained that Egypt was combating the smuggling successfully.

The Israeli intelligence official said that Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, is "making very big efforts to build up their military capabilities ... building up their rocket capabilities in the Gaza Strip, and all this is happening because of one important thing: the smuggling of weapons through Egypt to the Gaza Strip."

Free Thinking Film Festival 2010 Opens on Friday Night...

Hope you can make it!

The Ladies in White...

November 11th

November 11st is an important day. It's time for all of us to remember the incredible sacrifices made by our veterans in the cause of freedom. And, our soldiers are still making sacrifices in Afghanistan.

While we all remember these sacrifices, let us also try to remember that many people around the world - today - desire and want the same freedom we now enjoy. The values that we cherish - freedom of speech, assembly, religion, etc. - are universal values, not just Canadian

Stephen Harper at Anti-Semitsm conference in Ottawa...

Indictments near in Hariria probe in Lebanon....

This is going to be a big test for Obama...

The United Nations-backed court investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is moving to indict between two and six members of the militant group Hezbollah by year-end, according to people briefed on the tribunal's work, stoking fears of renewed sectarian strife in the Middle East country.

The U.S. has scrambled to bolster support for the tribunal and the pro-Western government of Lebanon in the face of threats of violence from Hezbollah if the indictments are handed down.

Among those being looked at in the U.N. probe, according to the people briefed on it, is Mustafa Badreddine, a senior Hezbollah military commander and brother-in-law of Imad Mugniyah, who was among the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most-wanted men before his death nearly three years ago.

Mr. Mugniyah is alleged by U.S. officials to have overseen a string of terrorist attacks against American interests in the 1980s, including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241 servicemen. Mr. Mugniyah, who was killed in a 2008 car bombing in Damascus, Syria, is also believed by U.N. investigators to have played a role, along with his brother-in-law, in the car bombing in downtown Beirut that killed Mr. Hariri and 22 others, according to the people briefed on the probe.

The rising tensions inside Lebanon have significantly undercut the Obama administration's efforts to mend relations with Syria, among the suspects in Mr. Hariri's murder. The U.S. has coveted better ties with Damascus, both to stabilize Lebanon and underpin the broader Arab-Israeli peace process. Washington has also hoped to weaken Syria's military alliance with Iran.

In recent months, however, Syrian officials have called for the ending of the U.N. tribunal. And U.S. officials have publicly charged Damascus with transferring increasingly sophisticated missiles to Hezbollah.

Al-Qaeda sewed bombs inside of dogs in Iraq....

Just when you thought you've heard everything....

See Spot explode!

Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq tried to unleash deadly terror in the skies by deploying a pair of kamikaze canines on a US-bound plane, a French newspaper reports.

The diabolical plot failed because the bombs were so badly stitched inside the poor pooches that they died, said the respected Paris daily Le Figaro.

"This case illustrates the determination of al Qaeda militants, who are trying to circumvent terrorism controls by any means," French criminologist Christophe Naudin, an aviation security expert, told the newspaper.

YEMEN MANHUNT

The plot unfolded two years ago, when al Qaeda bomb makers grabbed the two stray dogs off the street and surgically implanted powerful explosives and detonators in each.

The dogs were then placed in kennel carriers and sent to the Baghdad airport for a flight to the US. Le Figaro didn't say what city they were headed for.

It's not unusual for dogs to fly from Iraq to the US. Several animal-rescue groups work to give Iraqi dogs new US homes, and US soldiers have also adopted pooches there.

It's believed al Qaeda planned for the dogs to explode in flight.

But before the dogs were put aboard their plane, US soldiers working in the airport's cargo area noticed they had died -- and soon discovered the bombs stitched inside them.

Does Hezbollah have attack aircraft??

Israeli report says that Iran has given them UAVs and attack aircraft...

Hezbollah has obtained a complete aerial array from Iran, including an attack aircraft and several unmanned aerial vehicles, Channel 10 quoted the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa on Saturday.

According to sources close to the Hezbollah military leadership, Hezbollah has at least three different kinds of UAVs and an Iranian aircraft that could reach long distances and attack specific targets on the ground.

Hamas leader says Jews to be expelled from 'Palestine'...

Well, our crimes are immense...

The Jews will soon be expelled from Palestine that same way they were kicked out by France, Britain, Belgium, Russia and Germany, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said over the weekend.

“The only nation that received the Jews after they were expelled was the Islamic nation, which protected them and looked after them,” Zahar said in a speech in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip over the weekend.

“But they have no place here amongst us because of their crimes. They will soon be expelled from here and we will pray at the Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].”

Zahar claimed that Jews were expelled in the past “because they betrayed, stole and corrupted these countries.”

One week to go to the Free Thinking Film Festival...

Only one more week to go to the First Annual Free Thinking Film Festival!

A brutal attack in Jerusalem...

Will this even make the news tonight???

Three students from the central city of Givatayim and their Australian friend will never forget their nightly drive to Jerusalem's city center. The three, who picked up the young woman from the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus, almost paid with their lives after taking a wrong turn.
"There were four of us in the car, and we planned to sit in a quiet pub on Ben-Yehuda Street and talk," the driver, Assaf Ben-Ari, told Ynet on Friday morning. "There were no signs, and since we don't live in the area we didn't know how to turn back. We took a right turn on one of the curves and found ourselves on a one-way road in an unfamiliar area."

Shortly afterwards the four began feeling discomfort, which was soon replaced with real fear.

"After driving for a minute, we saw a 12-year-old boy walking on the side of the road. We explained to him that we lose our way and asked how to get to Ben-Yehuda Street. He said in an Arabic accent that he didn't speak Hebrew and called someone. That's when I began realizing that something was wrong," Assaf recounted.

As he and his friends were waiting, Assaf noticed that all the store signs in the area were in Arabic. "An older person arrived and he and the kid began laughing at us. They told us to continue driving on the same road, while the older one was on the phone and simply sent us into a well-planned ambush."

'Look of murder in their eyes'

The group had no choice and continued driving according to the instructions, and found themselves in the heart of the neighborhood of Issawiya. They decided to turn back, but were shocked to discover that the road had been blocked.

"I don't know how they managed, but only two minutes later they set up a barrier which included a barbed-wire fence, chairs, and iron pipes. We were in shock. We suddenly heard an explosion sound in the back, and saw the boy and the adult who we spoke to throwing bricks at us."

'It was like a nightmare' (Photo: Assaf Ben-Ari)

The car's rear windowpane was smashed, and young men began coming out of the neighborhood houses and throwing stones at the vehicle. The driver began speeding into the center of Issawiya.

"My friend contacted the police, and after we managed to get away I stopped and contemplated what to do. I had never encountered such a situation of helplessness without any preparation, and with friends and a terrified tourist," Assaf said.
Meanwhile, "the entire neighborhood woke up and dozens of young men gathered next to us and waited for us with sticks and stones. I considered escaping from the vehicle or even hiding until the police arrived, but I knew we wouldn't stand a chance if they found us outside the car. Several minutes later we were surrounded, and I realized that I must drive my car into the barrier if I want to get out of here alive."

At that moment, he began driving fast while being hit with stones and iron pipes from all directions. "I pressed the gas pedal with all my might, and simply drove into the barrier at 110 kilometers an hour. The barbed-wire fence was caught under the wheels and dragged along. There were sparks in the air."
 
Part of barbed-wire fence in improvised barrier (Photo: Assaf Ben-Ari)

After crossing the first barrier, the group was shocked to discover a second trap. "Several meters ahead they placed a row of taxis attached to each other in order to prevent us from passing. Luckily, we managed to get through a small gap between the pavement and the wall, a moment before another taxi arrived to close us in."

At the same time, three Border Guard jeeps arrived in the area and ensured that there were no injuries. According to the police, "The fighters dispersed the rioters and the matter has been handed over to the minority department."
"It was like entering a nightmare. They had a look of murder in their eyes," the driver said after the incident. "Had we stayed there one more minute we wouldn't be alive anymore. It wasn't just an attempt to stone us, but an intentional desire to lynch us only several meters way from the university."

Now here's a bad idea - muslim indoctrination for PA security forces...

This doesn't sound smart to me....

PA sources said security chiefs were discussing with the Interior Ministry the prospect of bringing in Muslim clerics to indoctrinate the 25,000 members of the security forces. They said the chiefs were seeking a means to bolster discipline within the police and security forces.

"We hope to bring Muslim sheiks for education and indoctrination," a source said.

Are the Iranians building two new nucelar sites???

The Israeli head of military intelligence says they are...

Yadlin also disclosed that Israel had detected the Iranians laying the groundwork for two new nuclear sites – but did not reveal their locations.

“Iran is the greatest threat to Israel and to the well-being of the entire region,” he said.

And in an ominous note, Yadlin informed the committee that Iran already had enough uranium enriched to 20 percent to make one nuclear bomb – and before long, enough for two nuclear devices.

“Iran’s progression towards a bomb is slower than they had hoped for,” advised the general. “They are running into quite a few problems. But Iran is also taking radical action regarding the transfer of money, technology, weapons and intelligence.”

Yadlin pointed out that with 3,000 to 4,000 centrifuges in operation, Iran could very easily make the leap from civilian-grade enriched uranium to the higher enrichment required for building a nuclear explosive device.

Tel Aviv - The San Francisco of the Middle East...

The lonely planet rates it highly...

Tel Aviv is among the world's top 10 cities for 2011 listed by the popular Lonely Planet travel guide website.Lonely Planet puts Tel Aviv in third place behind Tangier, Morocco, in second and New York in first.

"Tel Aviv is the total flipside of Jerusalem, a modern Sin City on the sea rather than an ancient Holy City on a hill," Lonely Planet writes of of Tel Aviv. "Hedonism is the one religion that unites its inhabitants. There are more bars than synagogues, God is a DJ and everyone’s body is a temple.

"Yet, scratch underneath the surface and Tel Aviv, or TLV, reveals itself as a truly diverse 21st-century Mediterranean hub. By far the most international city in Israel, Tel Aviv is also home to a large gay community, a kind of San Francisco in the Middle East. Thanks to its university and museums, it is also the greenhouse for Israel’s growing art, film and music scenes."

The other cities on the list are Wellington, New Zealand; Valencia, Spain; Iquitos, Peru; Ghent, Belgium; Delhi, India; Newcastle, England; and Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Israel pleads with UN not to build school near Hamas Arms base...

And, what are the odds the UN will listen???

Israel's Defense Ministry is pleading with the UN agency UNRWA not to build a new school for Palestinian children next to a Hamas military installation in southern Gaza.

In recent weeks, the Israeli defense ministry, which coordinates materiel entering Gaza from Israel, has approved 70 international projects – including the renovation of a sewage treatment plant, the construction of 151 housing units and eight new schools. (Gaza needs new schools because it has one of the highest birth rates in the world, combined with a low infant mortality rate due to the excellent health facilities Israel helped build there before the Israeli withdrawal in 2005.)

Whereas the Israeli Defense Ministry says it fully supports plans by the United Nations Relief and Work Agency to build new schools, it says that to build a school adjacent to a Hamas military installation would be "shocking and highly irresponsible."

"Israel attaches great importance to the UNRWA education system in Gaza and will continue to cooperate and assist as much as possible in helping UNRWA," one senior Israeli official said. "But we will not help Hamas use schools and turn the people of Gaza into human shields."

The open racism of the future state of Palestine...

Why does everybody let Abbas get away with racist comments???

During a meeting with the Egyptian press in Cairo at the beginning of August, Mahmud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, and the man on whom the United States and Europe have placed all of their hopes for peace, revealed what was at the back of his mind with regard to the Jews and the nature of the regime he plans to set up in the future State of Palestine. The official demands of the Palestinians for a settlement are known: Israel’s agreement in advance to withdraw to the borders of 1967, a freeze of construction in the territories including Jerusalem, the division of this city, including the Old City, which must become part of the Palestinian Authority, the solution of the problem of the “refugees” in conformance with Arab demands and Resolution 194 of the General Assembly of the U.N.).


When considering the possibility that a third force, such as NATO, could be given the responsibility of overseeing the implementation of the planned agreement, Mahmud Abbas imposed a condition: that there should not be a single Jewish soldier and any Israeli. “I am ready to accept a third party which supervises the implementation of the agreement, NATO forces for example, but I will not accept the presence of Jews in these forces or a [single] Israeli on the Land of Palestine.”


Is such a demand tainted with antisemitism? It should not come as a shock, if we remember that Mahmud Abbas defended his doctoral thesis which was based on Holocaust denial at a school for political indoctrination in the Soviet Union.


Some may see a polemical and ideological expression in the term “racist,” but Mahmud Abbas’ demand with regard to NATO leaves no doubt in this respect. What does it really mean when he demands that the European states, members of NATO, exclude their Jewish citizens from the ranks of their forces? Can one imagine such a situation and the juridical mechanisms that these states would have to activate in order to separate the Jews from their citizens? As it happens, Mahmud Abbas does not help them by defining the criteria of who is a Jew: religious law, ethnic origins, the father, the mother, the grandfather? It is all the more remarkable that Saudi Arabia, during the Gulf War in 1990-1992, permitted American Jewish soldiers to serve with the American forces on its territory, a land which, according to the Koran, is sacred and should not shelter any non-Moslem. In all of these cases, it is not a question of Israelis, but of Jews, and one knows that the Arabs, in their immense majority do not make a distinction. “Yahoud” [Jew], in this region, designates without hesitation “The Israeli.” What Abbas says about Jews, he says about Israelis, as we have seen, and he demands that the Europeans, so attentive to his wishes, that they accept his conditions.