We're a little over an hour away from this week's Omri Ceren Show, courtesy of One Jerusalem Radio. This week's episode - to which you can tune in live via either the main show page or the episode page - will revolve around Obama's ongoing diplomatic broadside against Israel. Since it's already paying dividends in the form of maximalist Palestinian demands backed by riotous Palestinian violence, we might as well discuss the overwhelming evidence that it was obviously premeditated and blisteringly hypocritical. That it will also set the peace process back by boxing in Abbas - again - is probably also worth mentioning. As always the decision-making process is as important as the decision, since apparently the people advising the President are either being ignored out of pique or being listened to out of ignorance.

On the TOCS technical/housekeeping side: I'm slowly getting caught up on remastering old episodes and working through old interviews. I've eliminated much of the choppiness from the first month of episodes, which you can now revisit here. The full 38 minute interview with Larry Greenfield, highlights of which aired last week, is now available on the One Jerusalem Audio page. Look out in the coming weeks for more reedited old episodes and more full versions of past interviews.

Anyway, today's official blurb:

Omri covers the Obama administration's diplomatic broadside against Israel. From Biden's initial "condemnation" over a minor mishap to Clinton's aggressive tirade against Netanyahu - to President Obama's personal orders to do both - the last week has brought the US-Israeli special relationship to the breaking point. Meanwhile anti-Israel partisans have unleashed a flurry of articles insisting that the US should scale back its support for Israel, some adopting almost classically antisemitic terms. Dan Diker calls in to provide an insider perspective on how the Israeli government is working to repair the crisis and minimize its damage.

All in all this hasn't been the best week the US-Israeli special relationship. But at least the crisis wasn't all totally predictable during the campaign!

References:
* Double Standards And Non-Standards [Omri Ceren Show]
* The Crisis [Halevi / TNR]
* Compare And Contrast: Israeli And Syrian "Insults" To Clinton [MR]
* Maybe Obama Deserved That Nobel Peace Prize After All [MR]
* Confirmed: US-Israeli Alliance Plummets Into "Historic Crisis," Obama Triggers Worst Relations Since Carter [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Jewish Politics
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy

David Gerstman sent me this IHT op-ed a few days ago, along with an acerbic comment about how photographs posted on MR the week before had pre-relegated it to the "utter anti-Israel bullshit" pile (my language, not David's). The author is Michael Martin, foreign minister of the multicultural paradise that is Ireland:

Last week I visited Gaza... to see for myself the impact of a blockade that has now been imposed on the people of Gaza for some two-and-a-half years and to meet with the courageous and dedicated staff of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), including its director of operations, Irishman John Ging... the deprivations and hardships resulting from the blockade were all too evident. Visiting an UNRWA food distribution center, I could see for myself the despair and suffering etched in the faces of those who queued for the most basic rations of rice, milk powder and sunflower oil... UNRWA is encountering increasing levels of abject poverty where people basically do not have enough food, even with their meager food allocations, to live.

The tragedy of Gaza is that it is fast in danger of becoming a tolerated humanitarian crisis... One can imagine how hard it is not to give in to despair and hopelessness... what was most impressive and heartening during my visit was the resilience and incredible dignity of ordinary people. In particular, I want to mention two young girls whom I met during a visit to the UNRWA girls' preparatory school in Rafah... I was similarly struck by what I heard from a business group at the Karni industrial park. This group of predominantly young businessmen and women graphically described the devastation that has been wrought on the private sector in Gaza, an economy that is now only operating at some 10-15 percent of capacity.

In no particular order: Gaza's economy has been booming for years, the "no food" canard is especially dishonest, pretending that Hamas allows Gaza women to have business careers is risible, the Gaza private sector is financially overwhelmed by Hamas and Fatah public employers using Iranian and US funds, the UN has at times imposed its own blockade on Gaza, and whatever humanitarian crisis does exist is deliberately manufactured by Hamas. But that's not what we're here to discuss.

What we're here to discuss is how the Canadians - who as a nation have never met an anti-Israel NGO they didn't want to subsidize - have cut off UNRWA's funding because it's a cesspool of incitement and corruption. The Obama administration? Exactly the opposite:

Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Eric P. Schwartz welcomed Filippo Grandi, recently appointed Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), to Washington DC on March 11, 2010, and announced that the U.S. will make an additional planned contribution of $55 million to UNRWA. The United States is UNRWA's largest donor. The announced contribution of $55 million includes $30 million to UNRWA's General Fund, which provides core services to Palestinian refugees across the region, and $25 million to UNRWA's Emergency Appeal for the West Bank and Gaza. This additional funding will bring total U.S contributions to UNRWA thus far in Fiscal Year 2010 to $95 million. In 2009, the United States provided more than $267 million to UNRWA.

UNRWA's 60th birthday party in 2009 - yes, they're now caring for 5th generation "refugees" - became a major fund raising event. Not enough! The UN says they need $100 million more for this year. And really, how can you not give them additional money? In between covering up Hamas's aid supply hijacking and fabricating Israeli attacks on schools - well, they get things done:

Compare...

Washington refused to endorse British claims to over the Falkland Islands yesterday... Despite Britain's close alliance with the US, the Obama Administration is determined not to be drawn into the issue. It has also declined to back Britain's claim that oil exploration near the islands is sanctioned by international law, saying that the dispute is strictly a bilateral issue... a State Department spokesman told The Times. "The US recognises de facto UK administration of the islands but takes no position on the sovereignty claims of either party."

... and contrast...

The Obama administration criticized Israel Wednesday for designating two shrines on Palestinian territory as national heritage sites... Underscoring those difficulties, the State Department on Wednesday sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for adding two shrines in the West Bank to Israel's list of national heritage sites... State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the administration viewed the move as "provocative" and unhelpful to the goal of getting the two sides back to the table.

The Palestinians have sovereignty over Jewish holy sites in the West Bank - which they've historically desecrated and destroyed - but the UK has no sovereignty over the Falklands. Nice to see the White House responding to increasingly public UK concerns that "Obama has it in for Britain." Overflowing with nuance and agility, is this government.

Add this to Obama's early snub of Brazil, which included misspelling Silva's name and was later repaid in the form of Brazilian backing for Ahmadinejad. But presumably Argentina now owes us a favor, so we've got that in our pocket in case they ever magically become the largest country in South America or a nuclear-armed European NATO ally.

Just out of curiosity, if Obama was trying to detonate all of the US's traditional alliances - what would he be doing differently?

References and related after the jump...

Too bad...

A multi-branch team of PA agents found an Arab-driven car carrying 20,000 shekels' worth of cleaning products several days ago. The "contraband" was manufactured in the Jewish community of Karnei Shomron... and was therefore promptly confiscated and destroyed... PA police, tax officials, customs agents, and PA Preventive Security personnel banded together to carry out a recent PA Finance Ministry decision... The destruction operation was described in the PA as a "Palestinian national moral obligation" in safeguarding PA "interests and its economy."

... they really could have used those supplies for that shiny new Palestinian city they're building:

The construction of the new Palestinian city Rawabi, north of Ramallah, is proceeding... Israel is not obstructing the progress of this important project. Israel has repeatedly declared that it views economic peace as an essential stage on the path to political peace... Improvement of living standards there will assist in lowering the value of violence, will encourage moderation, will allow the incremental building of confidence and will portend a horizon of hope.

The factory which produced the goods, by the by, was owned by Israeli-Arabs who just happened to be located in a Jewish community. Which means that these tools are now destroying goods that were produced by Arabs living in West Bank territory that the Palestinians claim for... Arabs.

No word yet on whether Prime Minister Fayyad - the ne plus ultra of Palestinian moderation, the one the State Department holds up us the linchpin of Palestinian good governance - showed up this time to burn the Jewish goods. He was certainly there last time:

Your tax dollars at work (h/t: Doris).

References:
* PA Agents Destroy 20,000 Shekels' Worth of Jewish Products [A7]
* Summary of editorials from the Hebrew press [Yisrael Hayom via MFA]
* U.S. warns it won't recognize PA unity gov't sans Fayyad [Ha'aretz]
* Fayyad helps burn settlement products [YNet]
* Obama Bundles $200 Million Palestinian Aid Into Emergency Iraq/Afghanistan Supplemental [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Palestinians
* Israeli-Arab Peace Process
* Israel

It'll be interesting to watch the guy who proved so critical to Iranian nuclearization...

The poor management of the crisis with Iran has to be attributed largely to [ElBaradei]. The Egyptian diplomat is responsible for his organization's placatory approach toward the Iranian nuclear program. For almost a decade, starting in 1992, the agency inspectors did not notice that Iran had a secret nuclear program that violated its international commitments. Even when the agency had the information, in 2002... ElBaradei ignored it and made every possible effort to undermine its reliability. He intervened repeatedly to distort his inspectors' reports on Iran's nuclear sites, and he made sure that the IAEA's periodic reports about Iran would be camouflaged in diplomatic gibberish. Time and again they repeated the phrase that "no proof was found" that Iran's nuclear program had military aspects, even though they were blatantly obvious. ElBaradei was opposed to sanctioning Iran, not to mention military action, and repeatedly attempted to conduct a dialogue with Tehran in order to reach a compromise.

... take control of Tehran's most powerful Arab rival. From a certain perspective it almost seems like the basis for a kind of de facto anti-Western alliance:

Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, is awaited in Cairo as police warn his supporters not to mark the homecoming of a would-be electoral challenger to President Hosni Mubarak. ElBaradei, who is expected to fly home on Friday, has repeatedly called for democratic change in Egypt since stepping down as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in November. On the eve of his return, he reaffirmed his determination to "do everything I can for Egypt to advance toward democracy and economic and social progress."

When he wasn't busy denying Iranian weaponization - here he is calling highly enriched Iranian uranium "of little significance" - he was perennially promising to "pin down" deals with the mullahs. When his summits fell through, as they inevitably did, he delayed Western responses by asserting that Iran was still considering offers. And in the twilight of his term - when it was clear that Iran was intent on weaponization and that negotiations were a cover - he continued deriding even non-military solutions because sanctions "really don't resolve issues." From "no problem" to "no solution" in just a few years.

Though you know who really does merit close IAEA scrutiny, per this tool? Israel. Because someone hatched a feverish tale that the IDF used uranium against Gazans, so of course that had to be probed. And not only are Israelis a bigger threat than North Korea - another country that got nukes under ElBaradei's watch - they're actually the number one threat in the Middle East. Not Iran, which is actively engaged in undermining the stability of the Egyptian government. Israel.

Should ElBaradei become President, those kinds of geopolitical delusions probably won't be a problem. The Middle East is a pretty forgiving region. You can afford to indulge in the occasional fantasy.

Speaking of the region, he's also pledging to open up Gaza. That's an extremely popular position domestically and it fits in addition to fitting the rest of his political inclinations would be an extremely popular campaign platform. Sure it would be an invaluable boost to Hamas, facilitating their contacts with Iran and giving them an endless supply of goods to siphon off for military purposes (think of all the medicine grenades!) But he's a humanitarian. You don't hate humanitarianism, do you?

Regardless. He's pretty popular in Egypt right now. He hopes - and I'm quoting - "to be an instrument for change." So this is probably going to become a thing.

References and related after the jump...

I'm trying to find the anti-Israel angle here, ala that Cast Lead HuffPo comment "the narcotic is one thing the Israeli occupiers will allow to get smuggled thru the blockade. No accident, I am sure. Tear down the Apartheid Wall, you Israeli criminals!!" (sic)

Maybe Israel hasn't bombed Hamas's smuggling tunnels because they want to flood Gaza with so many goods that the Palestinians become decadent, neglecting their glorious resistance. Or maybe it's a plot to get them to sink their money into foodstuffs and luxury products, draining resources away from the glorious resistance. It definitely has something to do with the glorious resistance.

Anyway, this is exactly what Auschwitz was like:

Owners of the smuggling tunnels bordering the Gaza Strip and Egypt have been suffering from financial problems due to their tunnels' inactivity, according to Palestinian sources. The reason, it turns out, actually stems from the overall success of smuggling tunnels in Gaza. Hamas has recently set up 'legal' tunnels, which... are used to bring in merchandise intended for sale in markets, such as food products and home appliances. Palestinians believe that the overflow of goods caused a complete smuggling standstill in dozens of underground channels...

The increase in merchandise in Gaza made prices sharply decrease, which seriously reduced the earnings from the 'illegal' smuggling industry... Under Hamas rule, hundreds of underground channels have been dug between Gaza and Egypt. The recent increase in smuggled goods in Gaza caused many factories to renew activity. Overall, if judging by the two most smuggled products - gasoline and cement - tunnel activity has actually caused Gaza to experience an economic reawakening.

"Economic reawakening" is only part of the story. Another part is that, between their tunnels and their Iranian-funded military, Hamas has become the second largest employer in the Gaza Strip (the PA, which pays its employees with the help of Obama's largess on behalf of US taxpayers, is number one). No word on whether Goldstone headscarves are Hamas-sanctioned products, but given these cretins' affinity for his blood libel they at the very least look the other way.

Anyway, I can't remember where I found these pictures. I'd guess either Carl or Elder. They were originally posted to PalToday last November (Google Translate). Again - it looks exactly like a Nazi death camp. The similarities are so eerie that you can't help but marvel at the level-headed objectivity of those "Jews = Nazis" smears so favored by the Islamic world and the Western left.

On one hand, yeah we're losing to a bunch of clowns. On the other hand, admirable message discipline. These tools can't decide on their media strategy for the West - "are we genocidal fanatics who can't be stopped or peace loving victims who must be cared for" - but give them a cloying anti-American fantasy with overtly sexualized blue cat people and they'll focus on it like a laser.

You'll have to go over to the Telegraph for the full picture gallery, but I recommend to your attention pictures #4 and #8. On Zombietime's definitive taxonomy of fauxtography they fall under numero tres, "photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring." I can see an argument for why they might be examples of numero dos, "photographing scenes staged by [the Palestinians] and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events." But honestly I don't think these tools have the wherewithal to frame a shot.

Anyway, here are the Avatar reviews from the single greatest film critic of our generation. If you have some time you should make a point of checking out the rest of the reviews on Red Letter Media. If you don't have a couple hours to spare I wouldn't click through though, since you'll have wasted a couple hours and you didn't have them to spare. You will never be the same. Also, content warning:

H/t goes to SP. Again.

References:
* Filmmaker: You Know Who's A Lot Like Avatar's Na'vi? The Palestinians. [MR]
* Palestinians dressed as the Na'vi from the film Avatar stage a protest against Israel's separation barrier [Telegraph]
* Media Fauxtography Now In Full Swing [MR]
* Reviews [Red Letter Media]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Palestinians
* Media Bias
* Anti-Israel Journalism

Stan Shivell and I have been IM'ing back and forth about what Iran's February 11 saber rattling. is all about. It's the 31st anniversary of the Islamic takeover and both the government and the opposition will be out in force. But there's also this other element - and the Iranians do this periodically - where they attach some kind of mystical significance to a day and predict "surprises" and "demises" and so on. Probably as good a time as any to look at how a regional war between Israel and Iran might play out.

Ergo today's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show, going on the air at 6:30pm. As always you can tune in live via either the episode page or the main Omri Ceren Show page. Chat room available, phone lines open, etc. Segments in the queue: the calculations and capabilities of Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Egypt. This crap about Apaches will also come up. I've been trying to chase the story down a little bit and it turns out to be pointedly different than original press reports implied.

Dan Diker joins the show for three full segments today. We'll go over the specifics of recent Israeli/Syrian relations before moving into how the Syrian military would get dragged into a regional war. Even measured by the amount of game Diker usually brings to these discussions, there's just a ton of information in each section. Two specific things for which to keep an ear out: the significance of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal specifically in the context of peace talks and the degree to which Iran can impose its will on Damascus's behavior.

References:
* Clenched With A Weird Feb 11th Deadline For The "Demise Of Capitalism" And America [Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched?]
* What Would A Middle East War Look Like? [One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show]
* Wonderful: Obama Blocking Apache Sales To Israel, "Dismayed" At Use During Cast Lead [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Syria
* Iran

There's an Al Jazeera expose at the bottom of the post, outlining the massive indigenous weapons industry that Hamas is running in the middle of the "world's largest concentration camp" (because that's exactly how Auschwitz was - lots of spare missiles and raw materials just lying around!) They're back to mass weapons production, which as a sheer matter of statistics means a bump in "work accidents." And in the Sinai the Egyptians are literally tripping over huge weapons caches.

And - ust as they were doing on the eve of Cast Lead - Hamas is back to strutting around about taking on the IDF:

One year after Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip, the spokesman for Hamas' armed wing said this week that the Islamist group would not shirk away from a new battle with Israel... Israel has said the brigades, which some observers estimate have 25,000 fighters, have been seeking with Syrian and Iranian help to upgrade their rocket capabilities and put the Israeli heartland and the commercial capital of Tel Aviv within range. Abu Ubaida said Hamas had no choice but to improve its arsenal.

Rocket barrages are again routine, having escalated from the merely sporadic attacks that Hamas launched at the end of 2009 in violation of the ceasefire. Why not? They fired on Israeli civilians 29 out of 35 consecutive days, and the Obama administration responded by demanding Israeli security concessions. Plus - if nothing else - they've got all of these rockets and missiles just piling up in the living room. They've got to do something with them:

If only Israel would lift the siege on Gaza! The way things are right now, Hamas is limited to using their VIP tunnels - electricity and telephones included - to smuggle food, missile materials, and anything else they want up to and including cars. The sheer scope of the humanitarian crisis is well-nigh overwhelming.

References and related after the jump...

Availing themselves of blatant vote rigging, the Fatah "Old Guard" reasserted themselves last August, reaffirmed terrorism as a strategy, and formally rolling back the peace process. Or, per the AP's Mohammed Daragmeh, "new Fatah leadership boosts Mideast peace efforts" in contrast to "a reluctant Israel."

Given that they're neither new nor particularly peace-boosting, it makes sense that Fatah leaders would still be wallowing in decades of financial corruption. Here to explain is whistle-blower Fahmi Shabaneh, who likely will not be with us much longer:

A senior Palestinian official who in recent days has confirmed the large-scale corruption in the Palestinian Authority that most long suspected said he doesn't expect to be alive much longer... Fahmi Shabaneh [was] until recently the head of the anti-corruption unit in the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence Service... [he] revealed that most of the senior Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) officials who came from Tunis when the Palestinian Authority was established in 1993 have for years siphoned off taxes and foreign aid and today have millions of dollars stashed away and own extravagant palaces at home and abroad... he realized that all the money he returned to the PA's coffers was only being stolen by someone different.

That's a little hard to square with any of the official anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian narratives. It turns out that the West Bank's economy is being stifled by something other than Israeli security measures. It seems that the Palestinians are less than ready for a state. And as for Fatah's civic institutions and how they'll stem Hamas's encroachment into the West Bank - these revelations certainly don't help.

In fairness, not all international assistance makes its way into private bank accounts. There's definitely a good chunk of UK money that's gone to fund systematic torture by Fatah operatives. So let's be careful about exaggerating the scope of the corruption.

References and related after the jump...

Note the time change. We're going on the air 30 minutes early today for scheduling reasons, which gives you just enough time to get comfortable and tune in. Everything else - from where you can find the show to the structure of the segments - should be familiar. You can listen live either via the main Omri Ceren Show page or through the page for today's episode. As always the phone lines will be open and the chat room will be available for questions and comments.

The bulk of today's program revolves around anti-Israel media bias and propaganda. You'd think being the global leader on Haiti would be a public diplomacy boon, but it turns out not so much. Ditto for investigating alleged IDF misdeeds. Ditto for trying to make concessions to West Bank Palestinians. Ditto for minimizing Hamas's exploitation for human shields in Gaza. Instead those either become reasons to attack Israel or - at the very least - they embolden anti-Israel partisans by signaling uncertainty and weakness.

Today's Diker segments deal specifically with the two controversial Israeli investigations into Cast Lead. The first investigation is the one that the IDF just concluded, with its results being handed over to the UN. The second probe is the one that Netanyahu is considering, which would involve another huge and hostile inquiry into the behavior of Israeli soldiers operating under almost impossible conditions. There's a point during the second part of today's interview that's pretty much required listening, where Diker very calmly and very systematically explains the precise degree to which another investigation would be a total disaster.

References:
* The Omri Ceren Show [Blog Talk Radio]
* Incoherent Success [Omri Ceren Show]
* Israel to UN: We launched 150 investigations following Gaza op [YNet]
* Israel 'war crime' probe urged [The Age]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Anti-Israel Journalism
* Cast Lead

The Palestinians also - apparently - need to attack and expel Jews like the Na'vi attacked and expelled humans. Which is probably the first time an antisemite has ever acknowledged that Jews should be treated as humans, but whatever:

This week, a screening of "Avatar" erupted into a small ruckus in a suburb when one moviegoer loudly announced that the Palestinians should learn from this movie what to do to the Jews, causing a commotion and angering others in the audience. The opinionated moviegoer was Juliano Mer-Khamis. Born in Nazereth to a Jewish mother and Arab father, he is an accomplished actor of many years, a filmmaker as well as a political activist who is very outspoken against the occupation... "No one dares to make the real analogy. 'Avatar' is one of the bravest films made. It portrays the occupation, but people aren't making the analogy. Many would like to be like the blue people but don't understand the meaning..."

I'm actually more offended by that "Avatar is the bravest film ever" crap than by the explicit call to violence. Sure genocidal mass murder is unseemly. But to pretend that some vast pro-American Hollywood groundswell is going to threaten James Cameron's career for making the highest-grossing movie of all time - that's just insulting.

Since this is MR's first and probably last Avatar-related post: come on now. I don't know why the Onion even bothers caricaturing maudlin liberals. It's funny. But reality's just better at this game (h/t: SP).

References:
* ISRAEL: 'Avatar' and the Palestinian blues [LAT]
* Audiences experience 'Avatar' blues [CNN]
* Onion Tries, Fails To Capture Full Absurdity Of Post-Election Obama Cultists (Plus: They're "Sitting At Phone" Asking "What Do You Want Me To Do Next"?) [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Stupid
* Palestinians
* Media Bias

This story won't get international play until there's an incident between Gaza fishermen and the Israeli Navy, but apparently Hamas has found a new set of Palestinian human shields. Those explosive-filled barrels that have been washing ashore in Israel are coming from Hamas boats disguised as fishing vessels, all but guaranteeing a miscalculation that will drag in Palestinian civilians:

Barrels filled with explosives sent by terror organizations from Gaza are putting Palestinian fishermen in danger, a senior Navy official estimated Tuesday following the discovery of explosive devices off Israel's southern shores... "The terror organizations often use innocent-looking fishing boats in order to carry out attacks, making things very difficult for us. On the one hand, we would like to allow Palestinian fishery, but on the other hand, it's our duty to thwart attacks. This leads to serious inner conflicts."

And when Palestinian fishermen do get tangled up in an Israeli anti-terror operation, you can be quite sure that Israel will get the blame. Because per the rules codified by the Goldstone Report, normal reasoning like "the people who use human shields are responsible for their deaths" doesn't apply when the Jewish State is defending its civilians.

Of course Israel will end up getting demonized for this even without a live fire incident. If Hamas is going to use Gaza fishing to turn the Mediterranean into a minefield, Israel will have to restrict Gaza fishing to prevent the Mediterranean from being turned into a minefield. The headlines about Israelis starving Gazans will follow shortly thereafter, just like they did after Israel shut down the border crossings that Hamas kept spraying with gunfire. Those headlines were false back then and will be false the next time around. But whatever.

Hamas is only throwing explosives off fishing boats because they can't launch attacks out of Gaza any other way. The security fence that surrounds their little terror statelet has limited them to a grand total of one successful suicide bomber in the last few years. All of which is weird because the foreign policy experts who tried to block Israel's West Bank security barrier assured us that fences don't work.

References:
* Militants pledge to float more bombs toward Israel [WaPo]
* IDF source: Gaza fishermen in danger [YNet]
* Deputy IDF chief: Terror groups facing difficulties [YNet]
* Main terrorist attacks carried out at Gaza Strip crossings [Israel MFA]
* Gaza's Booming Economy - Underground Mall System, Hundreds Of Supermarkets, Latest Fashions (Plus: New Gaza Tunnel Wasn't For Smuggling) [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy
* Israel
* Palestinians

Original: Kudos to whatever seething, obsessive anti-Israel organization managed to sneak this in under the radar. Drip drip drip delegitimization of the Jewish State is after all the strategy du jour. But seriously? This is what we're doing now?

Apparently someone has convinced Yahoo to go into their News Weather data, erase "Ariel, Israel" as a valid location, and replace it "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories." The 20,000 residents from Ariel, where the relevant weather station is built, apparently don't deserve their own weather. Yahoo has decreed that it belongs to the residents of Jenin, which is 25 miles north and 850 feet lower. It's absurd that this kind of petty crap even has to be addressed, but inasmuch as it's part and parcel of a broad-based replacement geography campaign it's unfortunately not trivial.

Someone should ask Yahoo if there's a list somewhere: which Israeli cities are Israelis allowed to keep, which do the Palestinians deign to let them share, which are entirely Palestinian, and which are simply unworthy of existing? Because given how they've gone out of their way to divide up Weather Channel data - more on that in a sec - apparently Israel's capital, the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, and the city of Ariel are all in play.

As near as I can tell it was Reut Cohen who first reported that something was up. I've put the screencaps I reference at the end of this post for readability purposes:

Last night he called me to tell me that Ariel, Israel, which is an Israeli town near Jordan's west border, had been renamed... Rather than seeing the weather for Ariel [on Yahoo's weather widget], he saw "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories" listed in its stead... It is unclear why the change was made, but it is clear that those who deny the right of Israel to exist consistently refer to all of Israel -- not just Ariel, Israel -- as occupied territories... It's this sort of blatant political revisionism of renaming Israeli cities that we are up against... When it comes to historic revisionism, the so-called myth of tolerance and acceptance of Middle Eastern Jewry is a perfect example of history re-written to suit the agenda of Arab Nationalists and/or Islamic Totalitarian organizations.

Here's where things get weird. Yahoo's weather widget just takes data from Yahoo's Weather site, which in turn gets its information from The Weather Channel. If you use The Weather Channel's weather.com to check what's going on in "Ariel, Israel" you get data from the weather station that - not coincidentally - is in Ariel. The Weather Channel doesn't have any data for "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories," which makes sense since Jenin doesn't have a weather station. [1]

The results are exactly the opposite on Yahoo Weather. There's nothing available for "Ariel, Israel." So if you're one of the 20,000 Israelis who live there, sorry. But there is a location named "Jenin, Occupied Palestinian Territories," which is what they're calling the data that is actually coming from Ariel.[2]

Again: "Ariel, Israel" has been delisted as a real place and replaced by "Jenin, Palestinian Occupied Territories." That would be bad enough. But it's particularly absurd when the "Jenin" data is coming from a station that's in a city Yahoo refuses to provide the weather for. They're just intercepting the data and retagging the "name" field, so the Palestinians can feel included or justified or something.

Given that the State of the Union is the worst political ritual evuh - to say nothing of tonight's likely content - we figure you'll be wanting an alternative about 30 minutes after Jesus Cicero starts talking. Ergo tonight's episode of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show, which will be kicking off at exactly 6:30pm PST / 9:30 EST. You can tune in live to call in, participate in the chat room, or just listen.

The only caveat is that I'll be playing my own version of the SOTU drinking game for the half-hour before the show, where instead of looking for specific phrases like "let me be clear" or "make no mistake" I just take a shot whenever Obama is obnoxiously condescending. Odds of tonight's show happening at all: middling.

More seriously, segments in the queue: health care, the administration's latest Iran spin, and whatever had happened in the SOTU as of 6:30pm. The WH just sent out an email preview, promising that Obama will detail - among other things - how he has "restored America's alliances and standing in the world... [and] restored our standing and leadership around the world." Since that's the opposite of true in Latin America and Britain and Eastern Europe and China and Russia and Israel and Japan, I'm really interested to know what he's going to say.

Dan Diker will join the show, as he always does, to lend a note of actual expertise. This week he'll be talking about Fatah/Hamas tensions, which have now reached the point where the PA is asking the EU not to engage their Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza. On the international stage Hamas is playing the old game where they say one thing to the West and then another in Arabic. Meanwhile there are signs that Fatah is playing an even more brazen double-game, accepting US security assistance while seeking rapprochement with Iran. Dan picks those controversies apart, explaining what's going on beneath the surface across various Palestinian factions and sub-factions.

References and related after the jump...

In fairness it was probably their parents and grandparents who consummated millennia of Catholic antisemitism by turning over Jews to Nazis, denying supplies to Warsaw Ghetto smugglers, pretending that Auschwitz didn't exist, and so on. But still:

Knesset members visiting Poland for ceremonies marking International Holocaust Day were surprised to see ads against Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni in the city of Krakow on Tuesday evening. Posters hung not far from the Israeli lawmakers' hotel read in English, "Wanted for war crimes," offering the public an award of 10,000 euro in exchange for information on Barak or Livni's expected arrival in Europe... "After 65 years, we once again realize that being right is not enough," said MK Hasson. "We must remember this ahead of the next challenges, like Holocaust deniers, Holocaust cursers and different kinds of anti-Semites."

I especially like the part where they offered rewards for any information on where the Jewish delegation could be found and captured. Cultural traditions are important and it's heartwarming to see that some fin de siecle Polish rituals managed to survive the long night of Communism. And yes, of course Hamas is directly coordinating the "progressive" overseas persecution of Israeli leaders:

The British newspaper The Times spoke with Diya al-Din Madhoun, who heads the Hamas committee set up to coordinate the campaign, in Jerusalem. About a week ago, an arrest warrant was issued against Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni, who served as foreign minister during Operation Cast Lead. It seemed as if the effort to put Israeli leaders on trial was continuing full force ahead. Madhoun told the Times, "All the political and military leaders of the occupation in our sights", although he did not specify its future targets. "This has absolutely become our policy," he said.

There's a joke to be made about how this generation's genocidal lunatics are working with last generation's genocidal lunatics, but I don't really have a punchline for it because it's true.

References:
* Livni, Barak 'wanted for war crimes' in Poland [YNet]
* Hamas admits masterminding arrest warrants of Israelis abroad [YNet]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* European Antisemitism
* Global Antisemitism
* Europe

Original: The problem with writing hagiographic paeans to the indefatigable spirit of anti-Israel resistance is that sometimes you reveal a little too much. Example: this 2,000+ word contribution, from anti-Israel partisan and Palestinian mouthpiece Amira Hass, documenting the repeatedly thwarted attempts of Code Pink and their Gaza Freedom March ilk to enter Gaza from Egypt.

There's all kinds of stuff about how the protesters spontaneously coordinated with each other: "direct democracy in action," "without secrets, without orders from on high, without hierarchies," "a message of militant pacifism and feminism," "popular, non-hierarchical action and its ability to bring about change," and so on. The daughter of Jews murdered at Auschwitz makes an appearance. So does a Nelson Mandella banner. There's a actually a section labeled "Jewish Mother," within which there's a quote about how 80% of the protesters were Jewish (Hass graciously allows that 80% "is probably an exaggeration").

And then there's the part about how Hamas controlled the GFM down to the very last detail, the better to demonize Israel from within the strict confines of their pathological anti-woman bigotry. You have to read into the middle of the article to find the relevant passage - it's buried just above a description of how Gaza children get nightmares because of Israel - but some might call it evidence of active international collaboration:

The American feminist and peace group Codepink signed on, and [the GFM] gradually spread to other countries.... [But] "From the outset, Hamas set conditions: No more than 5,000 marchers, no approaching the wall and the fence, how to make speeches, how long the speeches should be, who will make speeches. In short, Hamas hijacked the initiative from us and we gave in." Hamas, or its Popular Committee, brought 200 or 300 marchers. The march turned into nothing more than a ritual, an opportunity for Hamas cabinet ministers to get decent media coverage in the company of Western demonstrators... There were no Palestinian women among the marchers - a slap to the many feminist organizers and participants, both women and men... Their variegation and the transparency of their behavior did not suit the military discipline the official hosts tried to impose.

Of course media outlets still largely treated the GFM as a grassroots pro-Palestinian protest, neglecting the more straightforward "Hamas media stunt" angle. They didn't go as far as lefty outlets - "Gaza Freedom March challenges Israeli siege" or "Collective world consciousness stirring Gaza protest" - but they didn't exactly rush to document Code Pink's de facto terrorist collaboration.

Not that Code Pink is particularly choosy about the fascists and thugs to whom they make themselves available. But there's something particularly unseemly about ostensible feminists shamelessly marching in a gender-apartheid protest. If journalists were wary about mixing it up with the left they could even have pursued an Egypt vs. Hamas vs. Europe geopolitical angle, with protesters' faked visas "providing a window" into the "convoluted dynamics" stymieing "efforts to bring peace to the Middle East." But not so much.

Eh. They probably just ran out of time (h/t: Kerry H)

Update: The original version of this post incorrectly identified anti-Israel partisan and Palestinian mouthpiece Akiva Eldar. That was incorrect. The article was in fact written by anti-Israel partisan and Palestinian mouthpiece Amira Hass. I can't imagine how I came to mix the two up.

References and previously after the jump...

I haven't had a chance to post about the gigantic steel wall that Egypt is quietly building along their Gaza border, though it sounds even even more apartheidrific than the one that Saudi Arabia built - for which they also didn't catch any international flack. Diker unpacked the hypocrisy on an Omri Ceren Show episode at the end of December, so if you're interested in background that's the place to go. Apparently only Israel, which is uniquely subject to terrorist attacks as a genocidal tactic, deserves criticism for their defensive barriers.

In any case Hamas can't understand why - if the world is so anxious to condemn Israel's Gaza closure - Egypt's role is passing without much global notice. Domestic and regional opinion has been running strongly negative but the UN isn't exactly rushing to pass anti-Cairo resolutions. Curious, that:

Hamas on Monday sharply criticized Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak's defense of his country's expanded fortifications on its border with the Gaza Strip... "Mubarak's remarks defending the steel wall are an address on the blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri told reporters in Gaza City. The Egyptian president's statements "contradict his earlier remarks that he would not allow the starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza," al-Masri accused. On Sunday Mubarak marked the national annual Police Day holiday by declaring: "Fortifications along our eastern border are a work of Egyptian sovereignty, and we refuse to enter into a debate with anyone [about them]."

You do have to admire Hamas's consistency. They opened fire on Egyptian civilians and their snipers murdered an Egyptian soldier. They instigated riots across the country. And then - when the Egyptians responded as they were bound to respond - Hamas whined about victimization. Because of course they did.

References and related after the jump...

Compare...

A meeting between US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, aimed at restarting the peace progress with the Palestinians, saw 'interesting' ideas raised, the Israeli leader said Sunday. 'I heard several interesting ideas to renew the process. We are systematically interested in doing this ... and if the Palestinians will express a similar readiness, we will find ourselves in the midst of a political process, something which is important to us and to them,' Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

... and contrast:

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell was meeting... after apparently failing to budge Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas toward negotiations during their talks on Friday. Mitchell met with Abbas in Ramallah for about three hours, but failed to get him to drop his insistence that Israel declare a complete construction freeze in the West Bank, including in east Jerusalem, before resuming negotiations... A statement released from the Prime Minister's Office said that the Netanyahu government... "has consistently called for the immediate resumption of talks without preconditions. The fact that talks have not taken place until now was clearly at the responsibility of the Palestinian side that has placed new unrealistic preconditions, preventing the resumption of talks."

Of course Abbas can't drop his East Jerusalem precondition, since the Obama administration painted him into a corner by demanding it themselves. So he's placed in the absurd position of demanding up front all the Israeli concessions that are supposed to be negotiated later. Since that's embarrassingly nonsensical, he ends up ruefully suggesting that maybe the US can negotiate with Israel in the Palestinians' place. That wouldn't placate the Arab world or the perpetually seething Palestinian street - Israeli concessions would be met with conspiracy theories about US/Israeli plots to cede the absolute minimum - but at least it's internally coherent. "We'll begin negotiations only Israel starts at the end" - less so.

Stephen Walt, by the by, thinks that Mitchell should resign. Apparently Obama played Mitchell for a fool by promising to pressure Israel and then backtracking because of the all-powerful Israel Lobby (quote: "I suppose I ought to be grateful to have my thesis vindicated in such striking fashion, but there's too much human misery involved.") Of course Obama actually imposed unprecedented pressure on the Jewish State only to have it harden Palestinian demands and make the peace process impossible. But whatever. Walt has been dismantled for his feverish rent-a-validator antisemitism even by lefty Chas Freeman supporters. He spent decades positing a geopolitical metaphysics where nation-states unerringly pursue their self-interest, expect apparently where American Jews and the Christians they've corrupted sully said metaphysical perfection. How original

References and related after the jump...

I'll be broadcasting One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show live from London at 2:30am this morning, putting us in the show's normal 6:30pm PST / 9:30pm EST time slot. After that I get to fly back to Los Angeles, with all the accompanying normal broadcast times and 40 degree temperature bumps that the trip promises.

I've been assured that the tech connectivity problems - the ones that made last week's show cut in and out - have been fixed. That means you'll be able to listen and participate in realtime as you normally would via either the episode page or the show page. Afterward I'll download and remaster any old choppy episodes, reupload everything, and post a notice.

In the meantime tonight's show promises to be a particularly timely one. Dan Diker's must-read 6,000 word article unpacking the Palestinians' unilateral strategy - which he'll be previewing and contextualizing tonight - just went live a little while ago:

The Palestinian "Kosovo strategy" contains several major implications for Israel. First, the Palestinian delegitimization of Israel in the interim poses a strategic threat. The Palestinian state-building process has succeeded in painting Israel as a pariah state, while the hidden foreign policy agenda of the PA and PLO leaderships is to drive a wedge between Israel and the United States. Although unlikely, if the Palestinians win international endorsement of sovereignty along the 1967 lines, Israel will become persona non grata anywhere east of the "green line," including in many central neighborhoods within its own capital city, Jerusalem, that have been developed since the 1967 war.

After going over the basics of the report we'll get into some background, with Dan giving a few "yes, but..." pushbacks to my "the whole clusterfark is Obama's fault" arguments. Also in the queue: how WH fickleness is undermining US influence in theaters as far-flung as Iran, Eurasia, and West Asia. Smart power!

References:
* The Unsteady, Unreliable Horse [Blog Talk Radio]
* The Palestinians' Unilateral "Kosovo Strategy": Implications for the PA and Israel
* Past Anti-Israel Diplomacy Makes Obama's New Peace Push "Doomed From The Outset" Because Of Inflated Palestinian Expectations [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Israel
* Foreign Policy Experts

On one side of the vaunted Palestinian territories, Hamas absolutely refuses to negotiate with Israel, thereby confirming every single thing they've ever said. On the other side Fatah can't handle their own terrorists let alone go after Hamas or Islamic Jihad infiltrators. It's an open question whether they even want to any more:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday spurned a new US effort to revive Mideast peace talks, sticking to his position that he will not resume negotiations unless Israel freezes settlement construction. With Abbas digging in, an upcoming diplomatic mission by US Mideast envoy George Mitchell could be doomed from the outset... the US has failed to get Israel to halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands the Palestinians want for their state... Abbas said on Tuesday he will not resume talks under the current conditions... "We won't agree to resume negotiations without a full settlement freeze, especially in Jerusalem, for a certain period." The Obama administration has recently suggested bypassing the settlement issue by getting the two sides to discuss the borders of a Palestinian state. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that by focusing on the endgame, such talks would defuse the problem of settlements.

Yeah, listen. If the US didn't want the Palestinians to focus on settlements they shouldn't have functionally forced the Palestinians to focus on settlements. Abbas had always been willing to negotiate in the face of ongoing Israeli settlement construction, both during the Bush years and during the first months of the Obama administration. Then State and the WH - bragging all the while about publicly slapping around Netanyahu - launched their anti-Israel diplomatic offensive last spring. Among the demands: a full construction freeze. No playgrounds or supermarkets for Jews, not even in Israel's capital. Abbas had to follow along lest he appear less pro-Palestinian than the US President.

In the most generous scenario this was a misguided attempt to move the goalposts, bleeding the Israelis on concessions. More likely the WH actually believed the self-deceiving propaganda of ostensibly pro-Israel groups like J-Street - duly funneled into the Oval Office via a special someone - that the Israeli public is much further left than the last election would indicate. Anti-Israel foreign policy experts like Walt even supplied polling data on the question. You can't argue with science!

The hope was to use settlements as a wedge issue to peel Israeli citizens away from the government, creating a win-win for anti-Israel diplomats. If Netanyahu caved then Obama would see his stock rise in the Arab world, this per the predictions of foreign policy analysts like Marc Lynch. If Netanyahu resisted then he would be toppled via popular disapproval and - by assumption - the next Israeli government would reflect the Israeli public's pro-concessions position.

As will inevitably happen with plans based on pseudo-sophisticated fantasies, the entire stunt backfired and Obama managed to alienate Israel and harden Palestinian demands. Smart power!

References and related after the jump...

The awesome thing is that the two statements came out on the exact same day, a nicely pointed illustration of the differences between Israel and its partner in peace. Netanyahu proposed a reinvigorated peace summit in Egypt, and promptly got his answer:

The secular Fatah movement led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Thursday vowed to step up its struggle against the Israeli occupation with demonstrations and diplomacy. "Our programme emphasises the importance of a two-track approach, with the first being the escalation of the popular struggle to resist occupation," the movement said in a statement. The group said it would model the struggle on the weekly demonstrations in two West Bank towns, Bilin and Nilin, where residents hurl rocks and protest against the expansion of Israel's controversial separation barrier. Fatah, which marks the 45th anniversary of the start of its armed struggle on Friday, also vowed to "increase movement on the international level to pursue Israel, to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law."

The really elegant part is how they bundled together (a) threats of Palestinian violence and (b) international efforts to delegitimize Israeli self-defense in the face of Palestinian violence ("to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law"). Only Israel's Arab enemies could be so confidently brazen about crowing that they'll attack Israeli civilians and then whine about Israeli retaliation. Of course only Israel's Arab enemies are justified in that brazen confidence, so it's hard to blame them. The organizations behind the sentiment - Human Rights Watch, the UN committees who back Goldstone and his ilk, etc. - they might on the other hand be worthy of mild disapprobation.

Meanwhile - just should Abbas consider trying to reciprocate Israeli gestures - Palestinian civilians and Fatah soldiers want him to know there's more than enough violence to go around:

The killing of the three Fatah operatives in Nablus by the IDF over the weekend could trigger a third intifada, Fatah officials warned on Sunday. But the new intifada, they said, would be different from the first two - this time it would be directed against the Palestinian Authority. During the funerals of the three men, all veteran members and leaders of Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, thousands of Palestinians chanted slogans accusing the PA of collusion with Israel and calling for an end to security coordination with Israel and the dismantling of the PA.

Nothing that a couple square miles of Israeli territory can't solve. Because that's what this is about. Right? Right.

And lest you think no one could be so obliviously stupid, here's Barry Rubin's recent article to disillusion you. The phrase "pressures Israel" appears in the headline, after which the post continues at length and in detail. Turns out the Obama administration might well be exactly that obliviously stupid.

References:
* Israel's Netanyahu proposes Egypt peace summit [Reuters]
* Fatah vows to escalate struggle against occupation [AFP]
* Fatah warns of intifada against PA [JPost]
* The Palestinian Authority Sets its New Strategy: Tempts Obama Administration with Instant Peace if it Pressures Israel [Rubin Report]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Palestinians
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy
* Israeli-Arab Peace Process

The full headline - describing the counterterrorism raid against the murderers of Meir Chai - is "3 Fatah activists killed in Israeli raid." It got picked up by WaPo with exactly that wording and by FOX News as "Israeli Troops Kill 3 Palestinian Activists." FOX has since changed their headline - Google cache has the original - to highlight the three additional Palestinians killed trying to infiltrate from Gaza.

Original AP story:

Israeli soldiers on Saturday shot dead three Palestinians who the military says were involved in a roadside ambush that killed an Israeli settler earlier in the week. The operation in the West Bank city of Nablus targeted three activists of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. Palestinian witnesses said troops, many of them masked, opened fire while storming the homes of the men.

"Many of them masked," of course, is exactly the kind of detail that experienced anti-Israel agitators like Mohammed Daraghmeh - 5 years and running - know to include. Mere anti-Israel hobbyists take note. It's not enough to write biased headlines and throw in caveats like "the military says." You've also got to make Israeli Jews look dark and menacing.

One of the terrorists tried to use his wife as human shield during the raid. But for the skill of the IDF the headlines would have been about the poor wife and mother who got murdered by Israeli stormtroopers. Cf. the human shields who barricade themselves inside Hamas strongholds. Or in Reuters's parlance, "protesters."

References and related after the jump...

I'm about to start uploading the clips for this evening's very special holiday edition of One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show. In acknowledgment of the season we've scheduled even more optimism and cheer than usual, starting with a segment about the religiously-driven return of polygamy to the UK and Chechnya. Suffice to say that it's not because fundamentalist Methodists are sweeping across the region. From there things only get better with segments about the newest additions to Iran's arsenal, Hamas's Islamization of the Gaza Strip, and of course this nonsense. Per the usual routine you can tune in live to ask questions and participate in the chatroom, or you can grab the podcast afterward directly from the episode archive.

In between Dan Diker will join the show, this week to talk about how Egypt and Saudi Arabia are reacting to Iran's growing regional assertiveness. Small example of the pool balls bouncing off each other just on the issue of Egyptian/Israeli relations: Arab nationalism 101 is that you use Israel as a scapegoat to funnel internal dissent outward but in the Middle East the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Now plant that enemy's proxy in Gaza right between Egypt and Israel, boosting the incentive for government-to-government cooperation even though Egyptians would turn against Mubarak if he publicly colluded Egypt's "Gazan brothers and sisters."

Now add in a weird dynamic where Israel and Egypt usually compete for functionally zero-sum US ties, except they're both so frustrated with the US stance on Iran that they might close the triangle and cooperate to undermine Iran - except the Obama administration would oppose that, putting them in a position where they're blocking rapprochement between two ostensible allies. Terrific.

I already linked to this April article yesterday in the context of Hamas as an outpost of political Islam but let me link it again as prep for today's Diker segment:

In the last week, Egypt has moved against Iran and its allies in the Arab world. Cairo arrested a Hizballah cell that was preparing terrorist operations on Egyptian soil, organized a campaign against Hamas weapons and money smugglers in the Sinai Peninsula, and stepped up efforts to displace Qatar -- an Iranian sympathizer -- as a mediator on Sudan, Lebanon, and other inter-Arab issues. It remains to be seen whether this policy shift will become a sustained part of a grand strategy to restore Egypt's leadership among Arab states or, instead, a more-defensive approach designed to parry previous humiliations from Iran's allies. It is apparent, however, that Cairo is sending a signal to Washington that the "nuclear file" is not the only -- or even the most urgent -- aspect of the Iranian threat.

The US went to Egypt and said "we're really committed to helping you out with this Israel thing," and the Egyptians responded by insisting that they pay attention to Iran. If for no other reason, you should tune in today to hear what happened when the Bush and Obama White Houses tried the same stunt with Saudi Arabia.

References:
* Obligatory Post About New Organ Harvesting Story That Provides "No Evidence" For Organ Harvesting Libel (UPDATED) [MR]
* Arab Countries In Iran's Middle East [Omri Ceren Show]
* Media Outlets Shocked To Find Hamas Imposing Islam, Digging Up Dead Christians Because They "Pollute The Earth" [MR]
* Egypt's Campaign against Iran Sends Washington a Signal [Washington Institute]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Egypt
* Saudi Arabia

And I was so sure that - per this characteristic Times of London description from last December - "Gaza is a secular society where people listen to pop music, watch TV and many women walk the streets unveiled." I was even considering acceding to the headline's demand that I "adjust my distorted image of Hamas." And now I find out they're a pack of political Islamists driven by a fetishistic obsession with the unclean flesh of their Christian enemies. Who knew:

"Hamas digs up the bodies of Christians from Christian burial sites in the Gaza Strip claiming that they pollute the earth," said Reverend Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International (OFWI), who will head a delegation of human rights activists, members of parliament from Canada and religious personalities. During their visit to Israel the delegation will hold a conference on human rights and persecuted minorities at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. The conference will provide new statistics on the persecution of minorities in Muslim countries.

Hamas has also recently banned women from dancing, imposed a conservative dress code on professional women and schoolgirls, and now there's even a "Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" security force.

That story about the new dress code for professional women, by the by, comes from the Guardian and includes the line "for the first time since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections... the group is trying to Islamise Gazan society." Now that's very much not true. But even if it was, it still wouldn't justify the slack jawed naivete of international apologists.

In 2006 Hamas ran and won on a platform "of implementing Islamic law in the Palestinian territories" as a replacement for Arab nationalism. As soon as they took over they began promoting global Islamic supremacy, to be achieved through the annihilation of Jews, via schoolbooks and mosque sermons and TV shows about child martyrs. So it seems like maybe - just maybe - Islamization was on the horizon. Though in fairness, they might just have been joking about all that.

References and related after the jump...

Lots of new MR-related audio sprinkled around the Internet this morning. Parts 2 and 3 of my appearance on BEDROCK With Larry Greenfield have been posted and can be found here and here respectively. The podcast is broadcast weekly by the Claremont Institute, and I gave a longer overview of Larry and of the show when Part 1 went up (plus a reminder of what kind dishonest tools staff the NJDC). These new segments are a bit more policy-oriented, ranging from what we used to call the sociology of the academy in Part 2 - liberal academics and their academic liberalism - all the way into Middle East diplomacy and the Iran Lobby in Part 3. The academic discussion includes a good deal of mass communication theory and political philosophy, getting into some interesting stuff that rarely makes its way into MR or into The Omri Ceren Show.

Speaking of One Jerusalem's TOCS, the most recent episode with Dan Diker and Noam Bedein had some pretty critical stuff. Israel hasn't been this militarily besieged since May 1967 and it hasn't been this diplomatically vulnerable since the modern rebirth of the Jewish State. Given that, Diker's rundown of what's driving the UK's branding of Jewish goods from the West Bank - something we unpacked at length - comes pretty close to necessary listening.

The highlights I played from my interview with Noam spoke to global deligitimization in a less direct way: Palestinians have been firing rockets at Israeli schoolchildren walking to school for more than half a decade, but the only group doing sustained media outreach on the issue is a 7-employee NGO. There's a reason why we spend so much time talking about public diplomacy on the show. More importantly, you'll definitely want to check out the full 30 minute interview that got posted exclusively to the top of One Jerusalem's audio page. As always it had sections that never made it on the air. One section is about Noam's experiences with liberal American Jewish groups. It's exactly what you'd expect, in the sense that it's much, much worse than what you'd expect.

References and related after the jump...

References:
* Bedrock: Omri Ceren Interview, Part 2 [BEDROCK With Larry Greenfield]
* Bedrock: Omri Ceren Interview, Part 3 [BEDROCK With Larry Greenfield]
* Omri On Larry Greenfield's Claremont Institute BEDROCK Podcast, Part I [MR]
* NJDC Tool Aaron Keyak Helpfully Illustrates How Liberal Activists Sneeringly Cocoon Themselves In Asinine Arguments And Dishonest Smears [MR]
* The "Iran Lobby" Moves Into The White House [MR]
* http://www.onejerusalem.org/audio.php
* Noam Bedein - Sderot In An Era Of Hamas War Crimes [Omri Ceren Show]
* One Jerusalem Radio Audio [Official Site]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Israel
* Academia

Hamas is promising to get involved in an Israeli/Iranian war - an inevitable Israeli/Iranian war - by blanketing millions of Israeli civilians with rockets. That's not exactly surprising given that they're functionally a wing of the Iranian military, armed in precisely the way the international community promised would never happen if Israel evacuated Gaza and called off Cast Lead. Now they can destroy Israel's airport and they can knock down Tel Aviv's skyscrapers. Risks for peace!

And when Hamas does get involved you'll still see Israel get blamed for "drawing them into the conflict." So just in advance, let's all be clear that these lunatics are already sufficiently motivated to commit mass genocide:

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said that gaining control of the Gaza Strip was "just a step toward liberating all of Palestine." "This movement liberated the Gaza Strip with the help of the militant factions," said Haniyeh... "Brothers and sisters, we will not be satisfied with Gaza," he declared. "Hamas looks toward the whole of Palestine."... Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters thronged downtown Gaza City... Gaza was decked out in Islamic green, with Hamas flags fluttering from rooftops, lampposts and cars. Some parents dressed small children in combat fatigues and green Hamas headbands.

That follows similar statements from November and October and September and so on. But maybe they're just kidding about that, and a couple more Israeli concessions would empower whatever fictional "moderate camp" our foreign policy establishment has invented this week. Could be!

The Palestinian child abuse thing was a nice touch on the genocidal festivities, I thought. It was a little too routine for my taste - via Elder, here are 100,000 Hamas kids being brainwashed to kill Jews - but still a nice touch:

700 summer camps, for children and teenagers, operated this summer by terror organizations along the Gaza Strip - operating under the slogan - A "Victory for Gaza - The Glory of Jerusalem". The camps are operated by the Hamas in order to encourage the next generation of this organization.... 100 thousand children and teenagers participated in Hamas camps this year. The budget of these camps is estimated to be 2 Million Dollars. The youths were guided by 1,500 counselors that went through special training courses. A marketing campaign of the Al-Aqsa channel of the Hamas and a special internet site encouraged participation of children in these camps.

And I thought Gaza was awash in breaking poverty, bereft of even the resources to purchase basic necessities. Weird.

References and related after the jump...

It's that time of the week again. One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show, 6:30pm PST, streamed live from Blog Talk Radio. Head over there after the show starts for a chance to ask questions in the chat room or get on the air. The podcast will be available immediately afterward, though of course it's much less fun.

This week's interview is with Noam Bedein, the founder and director of the Sderot Media Center. I've been pushing them on you guys for at least a couple years. The SMC is the only NGO doing consistent media work on the ground in Sderot, which is in turn the only city on the planet where civilians are constantly targeted by rocket barrages (so much much for Israel's vaunted military superiority, which is supposed to be the basis of "risks for peace").

So singular is the SMC, that they were the ones called upon to provide evidence and testimony to the Goldstone Commission about Hamas's war crimes. None of that made it into the UN resolution - and it was never going to, which is why the Israeli government rightly refused to cooperate with Goldstone's kangaroo court - but it's good that an NGO was there to make sure that Goldstone couldn't claim official ignorance. Noam will update listeners on the situation in the Negev, where schoolchildren are again under Palestinian rocket fire, and talk about his organization's role in bringing that to public attention.

As always Dan Diker joins in at the beginning of the show, if only to make sure that there's some expert saying something. Major topics: the Israeli/UK rift - which as of this morning required the British Prime Minister to clarify that UK policy recognizes that Israelis are people too - and Iran's global proliferation network. There's also a segment on the myth of linkage that I'd really like to get to - we'll see if we have time.

Money line from the UK segment, bearing in mind that it takes a lot to get Diker using strong language about anything, let alone about diplomacy itself: today Britain is "leading the charge to uproot and delegitimze the Jewish State." That's a week after Sweden tried to divide the ancient capital of the Jewish people. Bold!

References:
* Noam Bedein - Sderot In An Era Of Hamas War Crimes [Omri Ceren Show]
* Noam Bedein, the founder and director of the Sderot Media Center. [MR]
* Brown: Livni welcome in UK any time [JPost]
* Obama: We Must Achieve Peace By Forcing Israel To Give Up Jerusalem And Open Its Borders [MR]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Cast Lead
* Britain

One Jerusalem Radio's Omri Ceren Show goes on the air at 2pm PST today. Head over to the main Blog Talk Radio site to chat with other listeners, submit questions, and get on the air live. Last week's show had a discussion that began in the chat room and eventually ended up on the air, moving from Bill Clinton's specific trip to Israel to the general shamelessness of US liberals who undermine Israeli leaders then ask for Israelis' trust. This week: more of that, plus extra doses of despair. Happy Thanksgiving!

Today's show will be the last before we switch up formats. Based on your input we're moving the show to later in the day and running longer. Tune into today's for more details on those changes, plus the full results of the "how should TOCS change" poll that you voted on.

Also on the agenda for today: expert-level pessimism on a large scale, courtesy of Dan Diker of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs. Have you heard that a deal on Shalit may be close or that it'll be anything but a disaster? Sorry. Thinking that that Israeli/Turkish relationship is on the mend? Don't get your hopes up. Down on unilateral Palestinian diplomatic gambits or worried about Iran? Not enough.

In between I'll be talking about Obama's latest excuses for Iranian foot-dragging, about his Bow Mocked 'Round The World, about new levels of United Nations mendacity, and about European antisemitism. Hating Jews is fun again on the Continent.

References:
* The Omri Ceren Show [MR]
* The Omri Ceren Show - Martin Sherman Wrap Up, Changes To The Show (POLL!) [MR]
* Israel awaiting Hamas chief response on Shalit deal [Ha'aretz]
* Resuming the Turkish track [Ha'aretz]
* Crisis in the Palestinian Authority [Right Side News]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Israel News and Coverage
* Anti-Israel Diplomacy

I know. Despite the security assurances swirling around Israel's decision to call off Cast Lead. I mean, sure the international community made identical assurances in the context of Israel's original withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. And sure those first assurances were provided with an extra exclamation point, where Palestinian shelling was understood to justify massive Israeli retaliation. And certainly the shameless historical revisionism that greeted Israel's defensive war proved all that to be empty.

But gosh darn it this time I really believed. Bummer:

Smuggling into the Gaza Strip from Egypt beneath the Philadelphi Corridor has returned to the busy levels that prevailed before Operation Cast Lead last winter, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Estimates of how many tunnels are now functioning range from several hundred to 1,000, although the most authoritative figures indicate that between 350 and 500 are currently operating. The IDF claimed to have destroyed about 300 tunnels during Cast Lead. Israel has long asserted that the Egyptians could put an end to the entire smuggling industry within 24 hours if they wanted to, using military obstructions along the length of the Philadelphi Corridor.

Not to worry. It's not like all those weapons are staying in Gaza. There are Israeli civilians to bomb after all:

A Qassam rocket was launched from the northern Gaza Strip and has apparently fallen in an open area in the Shaar Hanegev Regional Council. There were no reports of injury or damage. A Color Red siren was sounded before the rocket landed.

Ditto for February and March and April and May and June and July and August and September and October. Mortars and small weapons fire are also back in play, and of course the kidnapping attempts started again immediately.

None of which is surprising since Gaza residents - for all the coverage they get about wanting to live normal lives - have never stopped supporting war crimes against Israelis. Something to think about the next time the State Department ritualistically intones that Gazans are "being held hostage" by unpopular Hamas forces.

Israel will object to the international community. That objection will be ignored. Then the IAF will have to launch one of their periodic anti-tunnel bombing raids. That's how it's been since the end of Cast Lead, as far back as March: rocket fire that eventually hit a synagogue, followed by a complaint to the UN, followed by nothing, followed by the inevitable. And when it happens again I have no doubt that the international community will react with exactly the self-reflection and fairness that we've all come to expect.

References and related after the jump...

I just wrapped up this week's recorded interview with Prof. Richard Landes - he of Augean Stables, Second Draft, and soon to be Goldstonereport.org fame - the sum total of which ran almost 40 minutes. Cutting it down to a dozen minutes for the show was interesting, and you'll be hearing "make sure you check out the full interview" more than a couple times tomorrow. There's some stuff about the violent intimidation of journalists, and how that causes them to overcompensate even when they're out of Palestinian territory, that didn't make the final cut. You'll want to download the full interview after tomorrow's show just for that part.

Speaking of which, let this be your official reminder to tune into The Omri Ceren Show's Blog Talk Radio page tomorrow at 2pm. Remember that's the only way to hear it live and get your chance to get on the air. The podcast gets posted to MR's sidebar widget afterward but the show is only streamed from the Blog Talk Radio site.

In addition to interview highlights, show topics will include: Hezbollah's latest moves in Lebanon, the White House's stupefyingly dumb decision to go to war with Fox News, and whatever excuse the Obama administration will be making up Wednesday morning for their failed Iran strategy. As always, much joy and celebration will be had by all.

References:
* Augean Stables
* The Second Draft
* The Goldstone Report
* The Omri Ceren Show on Blog Talk Radio [Blog Talk Radio]
* Obama's dumb war with Fox News [WaPo]

Previously:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* The Omri Ceren Show At 11am PST Today - Dore Gold On The Rise Of Nuclear Iran
* The Omri Ceren Show - Ledeen Wrap Up And Exclusive Full-Length Interview

Lots of people are saying Obama's done nothing to promote global peace. Certainly, the refrain goes, he hadn't done anything by day 12 of his Presidency, which is when he was nominated to share in the same glory as Yasser Arafat and Iranian stooge Mohamed ElBaradei. I think that's just so unfair.

If you believe - as I do - that continued Israeli territorial concessions in the context of ongoing Palestinian intransigence are a recipe for war, you have to concede Obama's got at least some case. Before he came along the Israeli electorate was inclined to support further peace gestures. Palestinian leaders were willing to sit across the table from Israeli negotiators and offer unenforceable intangible promises in exchange for tangible land - promises Israeli diplomats were loath to reject.

Just two years ago the Bush administration - by pushing on Israeli leaders slowly without alarming the Israeli public - managed to stage Annapolis. It was predicted by secular Israeli centrists to be a total disaster for the Jewish State. It turned out merely to be a substantial disaster. That's the drip drip drip method you have to use if you want to get Israelis to buy into one bad diplomatic deal after another.

Instead last Spring the Obama White House decided to kind of sort of spectacularly detonate the US-Israel alliance. They leaked to everyone that they were going to kick Netanyahu's ass and ordered Israel to come up with a peace plan by July. Somehow that managed to backfire. I'm not sure if it was because Obama telegraphed his sellout on Arab TV or because Mitchell announced that America would push for the "Israel has to commit suicide" Saudi Initiative or because pipsqueak State Department officials publicly reveled in slapping around a sitting Prime Minister. But somehow Israeli officials got the distinct impression that Obama really didn't like them.

And just to keep things topical, yes Obama's counterproductive anti-Israel moves began before that crucial twelfth Presidential day. On the eve of the inauguration he promised to make a point of investigating Cast Lead literally on Day 1. Because why would Israel get nervous about promises to "address" their self-defense against Hamas?

It was Obama's weird demand for a total Israeli settlement freeze, though, that was really inspired. Netanyahu was willing to commit to offering the Palestinians statehood. So something else had to be found so Obama could pick a fight with Israel and build some anti-Israel cred in the Arab world. Settlements seemed like a good target since someone in Obama's inner circle really thought they could be used as a wedge issue with the Israeli electorate.

Sure the utterly shameless bait and switch on Bush's "settlement blocs" promises was particularly ill advised, given that Israel needs to believe in US security assurances to take "risks for peace." Sure it turned Israelis against Obama, united them behind Netanyahu, and even brought Ehud Olmert out of retirement to support the Israeli right that defeated him. Sure average Israelis started urging their leaders to reject Obama's demands, which Israel subsequently and loudly did on Jerusalem. And sure the situation became so grim that ostensibly pro-Israel liberal American Jews started openly whining that Israelis are spoiled (because that's persuasive!)

But it was the dustup's effect on the Palestinians that was really magical.

Another in an unending list of reminders about the insane hypocrisy of anti-Israel feminist activists, almost all of whom reflexively bring a "gender lens" to bear on every other domestic and international controversy. Immigration? Gender. Toy stores? Gender. Health care? Definitely gender. But the Israeli-Arab conflict? Well, in that context you have to be very careful to weigh the "legitimate grievances of the Palestinians" against their Islamist-driven pathological opposition to women's rights.

So while Israel just gave the world the first female Nobel Chemistry laureate in 45 years...

Yonath, 70, is the fourth woman to win the Nobel chemistry prize and the first since 1964, when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin of Britain received the award. "I'm really, really happy," Yonath said. "I thought it was wonderful when the discovery came. It was a series of discoveries. ... We still don't know every, everything, but we progressed a lot." Ribosomes are crucial to life because they produce the proteins that control the chemistry of plants, animals and humans. Working separately, the three laureates used a method called X-ray crystallography to pinpoint the positions of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome.

... Hamas has been obsessing about the corrosive un-Islamic influence of women who ride motorcycles:

The Hamas government has banned women from riding motorcycles in the Gaza Strip, saying the move was in keeping with "Arab traditions." The decision to ban women from riding motorcycles was published by the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the movement's security forces in the Gaza Strip. The decision is seen in the context of Hamas's efforts to enforce strict Islamic teachings in the area. Two months ago, a Hamas judge issued an order requiring all women who appear in court to wear the hijab.

This lines up nicely with Hamas's recent ban on women laughing or talking in public. The double ban - the addition of laughter - was a nice touch. I think most people long ago gave up any hope that the left's opposition of Israel would ever be rational. But is it too much to ask for then to be consistent?

It's important to remember, though, that women are oppressed in Muslim societies not because of Islam but because of oil. So go the insights of political science professor Michael Ross, a very sophisticated UCLA scholar who actually has a paper on this subject. So but for the Gaza Strip's massive oil wealth, we can presume none of this would be happening.

References and previously after the jump...

On the eve of the Palestinian unity government that will finally allow Obama to backslide on his promise not to deal with Hamas, a little reminder of exactly the kind of genocidal cretins our government will be talking to:

You have to appreciate the headline on the Jerusalem Post writeup though - "Hamas children's TV program again calls for the 'slaughter of Jews'":

All Jews must be "erased from our land," Nassur, a stuffed bear... explained to a child who called in to a September 22 show. "We want to slaughter them, Saraa, so they will be expelled from our land... we'll have to [do it] by slaughter."... "Generally the program also transmits good messages to kids like drinking milk or asking parents permission to do something, but we also find these very problematic messages like the call to kill Jews," she said.

And that's just this specific show. It doesn't even cover Hamas stage productions like "Jews Drink the Blood of Muslims to Please Their God":

The investigation's mandate was so structurally one-sided that Mary Robinson - the woman who oversaw the Durban I hatefest - avoided it lest she grant it her imprimatur. First the UN picked a time window that excluded the Palestinian rocket attacks which led to the war. Then, just in case any Palestinian war crime slipped through, they precluded the investigators from looking into much except "Israeli war crimes."

Goldstone took the job anyway, bringing his reputation and his Judaism to bear on legitimizing the predetermined anti-Israel slander. He actually invoked his personal views on the Holocaust as a reason to take the report seriously. Apparently the trauma of historical anti-Jewish persecution - totally forbidden as a reason for supporting Israel - is a laudatory ethical basis for trashing it. Cue sneering anti-Israel partisan Stephen Walt:

It was disappointing that the Obama administration felt it had to denounce the report within days of its release, despite Goldstone's impeccable credentials (former member of South Africa's Constitutional Court and chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Bosnia and Rwanda) and his strong Zionist convictions. Israeli PM Netanyahu hasn't been doing Obama any favors of late, and the release of the report would have been a golden opportunity for Obama to play a little hardball and remind him that stiffing your principal patron has a price.

Elder of Ziyon has been compiling a seemingly unending list of Goldstone inaccuracies. He's currently on #18 and probably has at least a dozen to go (not exactly a surprise since the report has to make biased and untrue libels seem objective and tenable, which isn't straightforward).

His post about how "the Mission found no evidence that members of Palestinian armed groups engaged in combat in civilian dress" is as brutal as Israel Matzav's post is thorough. Israel Matzav's goes on for pages and pages, with photographs and videos specifically debunking Goldstone paragraph by paragraph. It's a really impressive take down, though in all honesty it's probably kind of a gimme.

More entertaining: Elder's discovery that Goldstone uncritically relied on a Palestinian who thinks Israel is infecting Gaza with sex gum.

And as far as structural bias is concerned - time window, mandate, etc - the recent post about how Goldstone condemned the Gaza blockade but excluded the reasons for it is to the point. There was no way to make the investigation fair. There was only a way to make it seem fair, which is what Goldstone tried and is trying to do. And now his daughter wants Israel to thank him for it:

Had Richard Goldstone not served as the head of the UN inquiry into the Gaza war, the accusations against Israel would have been harsher, Goldstone's daughter, Nicole, said... "My father took on this job because he thought he is doing the best thing for peace, for everyone, and also for Israel," Nicole Goldstone told Army Radio.... "It wasn't easy [for him]," Nicole Goldstone said. "My father did not expect to see and hear what he saw and heard." Nicole Goldstone, who currently lives in Canada with her family, spoke of her great love for Israel. "Every time I dream of returning to the country or that my son will one day immigrate there," she told Army Radio.

I don't know why she would want her son to move to such an ostensibly horrible place. But I'm beginning to see why Diaspora Jews felt the need to invent the word chutzpa.

References and previously after the jump...

UPDATE: I've published a critical followup to this post, both because I've gotten specific emails accusing Garlasco of being a Stormfront.org contributor (100% not true) and because there's a general risk that this controversy is becoming one about him personally (misses the point). He's a guy who has a lot of inchoate sensibilities when it comes to Jews and the Jewish State, and there's obviously something going on that's consistently tilting his reports in an anti-Israel direction. If he was just incompetent then 50% of his mistakes would favor Israel.

He should never have been tasked with producing reports about the Middle East, if for no other reason than there's something moving him other than level-headed analysis. It's not straightforward and its not vulgar, but it's obviously doing work.

But this isn't about him as an individual. It's about HRW's institutional culture, where people couldn't tell that something was amiss because everyone holds the same opinions he does. His anti-Israel biases are literally institutionalized in that organization. As I said at the bottom of this post, this is their mess as much or more than it is his. More elaboration at the followup.

ORIGINAL: There are two Marc Garlascos on the Internet. One is a top human rights investigator who, having joined Human Rights Watch after several years with the Pentagon, has become known for his shrill attacks on Israel. The other is a Marc Garlasco who's obsessed with the color and pageantry of Nazism, has published a detailed 430 page book on Nazi war paraphernalia, and participates in forums for Nazi souvenir collectors.

Both Marc Garlascos were born on September 4, 1970. Both have Ernst as their middle name. Both live in New York, NY. Both have a maternal grandfather who fought for the Nazis. I've put links and screenshots on all this after the jump, and you can click through for full-sized versions. It's hard to escape the conclusion that both Marc Garlascos are the same person.

Bloggers and activists concerned about Israel have been baffled and frustrated by the first Garlasco almost since he joined HRW. On his public photography site he posts gratuitous Palestinian and Lebanese death porn in between galleries of cute Western-looking kids playing soccer (no link - keeping his kids out of it). He provides a seemingly never-ending stream of interviews to all kinds of outlets, where he spins tales about ostensible Israeli atrocities. The only problem is that many of these tales - per Soccer Dad and IsraPundit and Elder of Ziyon and NGO Monitor and CAMERA and LGF - are biased and inaccurate. That doesn't stop Garlasco from putting them into the kind of HRW reports that make their way into international anti-Israel condemnations and academic anti-Israel dissertations.

Then there's the second Marc Garlasco, who I caught wind of from Elder of Ziyon. Elder had just finished tearing apart another one of HRW Garlasco's anti-Israel reports when he found the Amazon profile of collector Garlasco. This Garlasco's Amazon book reviews show a nearly obsessive knowledge of Nazi-era Luftwaffe Flak and Army Flak. A little more searching revealed that he's written a gigantic book on the subject that retails for over $100. He regularly participates in forums about Nazi medals under the handle Flak 88, where he posts galleries of his prizes and admires what others have managed to collect. On those forums he uses the email marc@garlasco.com, which points to a family genealogy site he set up in 2002.

If both Garlascos are the same, Human Rights Watch almost certainly knows about his creepy hobby. It took me less than an hour on Google to confirm Elder's hunch to my satisfaction, and not much longer to lock the whole thing down. There's even an Amazon widget displaying Garlasco's book at the bottom of his Huffington Post article, though that may be automatically generated. The book might even be listed on his CV because, after all, none of this is illegal. Just potentially unseemly.

The collector Marc Garlasco certainly doesn't keep his day job secret from his fellow memorabilia collectors. There are at least two public references to his life as an HRW investigator on the forums. In one thread he posts dozens upon dozens of pictures from his collection at the end of 2007, which he describes as having been a "very lucky" year. A friend responds "Jeez Louise!! I had no idea HRW paid the big bucks!!" In another thread he comments on a badge and gushes "I would kill for that - WOW!" A friend responds "now now, HRW boy, don't go overboard!"

So we have to assume he's not leading a double life and that his employers know about his extracurriculars. If so we can also safely assume they've investigated the numerous demonstrable errors in his anti-Israel writeups. They presumably concluded that his apologism for antisemitic genocidal Hamas lunatics is unrelated to his obsession with antisemitic genocidal Nazi lunatics. That would be interesting to hear.

If Garlasco has been less than forthright about what he does in his off-time - and if HRW hasn't taken an hour to Google him and figure it out for themselves - that would be interesting in a different way.

Either way, someone needs to explain why he keeps getting sent to the Middle East to write debunked report after debunked report, lest people suspect that he has an unseemly motive for his consistently anti-Israel errors.

Bouthaina Shaaban is a Syrian Minister, a Warwick PhD, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and was once awarded the Arab League's "Most Distinguished Woman in a Governmental Position" Award, something I'm assuming they rotate among their two or three eligible contestants. She's also kind of an antisemitic cretin, and this week she's particularly excited about that excerable Swedish blood libel:

The investigative report written by Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom... about Israeli occupation forces killing Palestinians with the objective of stealing their organs raised a political and media storm in Israel meant to cover up a horrible crime perpetrated for years... [in 1992] Palestinians started to witness a sharp rise in the number of young Palestinians disappearing and of bodies of Palestinians killed by occupation forces being returned with organs like hearts, kidneys, livers and eyes missing...

Bostrom writes. "On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it... I traveled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza... who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed. One example that I encountered on this eerie trip was the young stone-thrower Bilal Ahmed Ghanam".

Of course those same Palestinian families have reported that they told Bostrom no such thing. And of course the editor of Bostrom's paper, the venerable Aftonbladet, also admits that there's no evidence of organ theft.

None of that matters: conspiracy theories do their persuasive work not by achieving mainstream public acceptance but by bringing something into the realm of acceptable public debate. Done and done.

Shaaban then elaborates on her antisemitic fantasy, breathlessly recounting lurid details that would have made the Nazis roll their eyes. The line "it was clear that Bilal's body was slit from his abdomen up to his chin" is particularly striking, though you won't want to miss her full paragraph about an impromptu Israeli torture scene. It involves IDF soldiers shooting the victim in his limbs and his stomach before dragging him through a field. How that left his organs sufficiently intact for transplant remains unclear, though it's obviously not an operation beyond the means of diabolical Zionist Jew medicine.

The constant repetition of expertise, the whiff of slightly-too-specific details, and the hint of overcompensation in words like "definitely" and "clear" - those are all part and parcel of conspiracy rhetoric. But those verbal tics plus the gruesome obsession with imagined Jewish atrocities is a combination rarely found in such perfect form outside the Arab world. Pay particular attention to how the usual threads of conspiracism - expertise, details, overcompensation - get seamlessly woven into the rest of this feverish antisemitic tapestry:

The latest in a series. It's a perfect topic: a glimpse into how the other side thinks, an appreciation for what they're willing to say out loud, and - most importantly - easy content for me. Since we're a couple weeks away from the total insanity that will break out over the Goldstone Report - this is the report that will blame Israel for the civilian deaths caused by Hamas's use of human shields - how about we start with one of that organization's more charming contributions:

Deleted comment:

haychex: ahh well, what are you going to do.. when they're right, they're right.. zionism is terrorism and Israel has no place in the UN.

And here's Hezbollah - Iran's other human-shield adoring regional proxy - moving around the missiles the UN has ostensibly ensured they don't have:

Rejected bon mot from that video:

J4archae: Hezbollah should acquire nuclear weapons and eliminate fcukng zionist scum jews off the face of earth.

No worries though. He's just talking about the genocide of Zionist Jews. So no antisemitism there.

References:
* Right of Reply: Isolating Israel through language of human rights [JPost]
* HRW: "No Basis" For Claims That Hezbollah Used Human Shields. MR: What About All The Photos And Videos [Video] [MR]

Previously:
* We Get Mail - Irony Impaired UC Irvine Liberals Are Stupid
* Today's Nuked YouTube Comments From MR's Iranian Anti-Semitism Post
* We Get Mail - Pro-Holocaust YouTube Cretin Edition

Typical fare from these cretins, though there's probably something to be said for how naturally he expects UN resources to flow according to his pathological demands. It makes perfect sense - the UN already funds Hamas's terrorist and military operations and feeds laughingly false Hamas propaganda to international media outlets - but the combination of unblinking entitlement and hysterical venom is still a little unsettling.

Anyway, your tax dollars at work:

Hamas spiritual leader Younis al-Astal lashed out after hearing that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the main U.N. body aiding Palestinian refugees, planned to introduce lessons about the Holocaust to Gaza students. Adding the Holocaust to the curriculum would amount to "marketing a lie and spreading it," al-Astal wrote in a statement. "I do not exaggerate when I say this issue is a war crime, because of how it serves the Zionist colonizers and deals with their hypocrisy and lies," he wrote...

UNRWA provides education, health care and welfare services to more than half of Gaza's 1.4 million people. Spokesman Chris Gunness said a final decision has not been made about the Holocaust course for Gaza schools. "While the Holocaust is currently not included on the basis of age appropriateness, all elements (of the curriculum) remain under review and under evolution," he said. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri also objected to including what he referred to as the "so-called Holocaust" in the lesson plan.

Obligatory links about how the Arab world can't decide between celebrating or denying the Holocaust here and here. And just to change things up a little, here's a link to top Sunni clerics praising the Holocaust while insisting it didn't go far enough - a nice combination of celebration and minimization.

A fun question to take you out of the post, albeit one implying some vexing legal consequences: what do Hamas and Facebook have in common?

References and previously after the jump...

There's a certain asymmetry in the international demonization of Israel. Organizations like Human Rights Watch get to make things up out of whole cloth but Israel has to spend precious resources and months of time disproving the charges. By the time the nonsense is debunked the news cycle is long gone. Plus nobody publishes "turns out, Israel didn't commit war crimes after all" articles. Plus anti-Israel academics just repeat the myths anyway since they can just footnote the original report.

Example: in 2006 HRW put out a report saying that Israel took potshots at Lebanese civilians waving white flags. It was dutifully picked up by the usual anti-Israel outlets. Of course the report was crap - Israel produced documents and videotapes showing that the "civilians" waving white flags were Hezbollah soldiers launching missiles. But as of 2008 the report is still being cited in academic dissertations under headings like "8.1.1 Possible war crimes committed by Israel."

Last week HRW put out a report pointing out that, yes, Hamas did in fact try to kill Israeli civilians. Rather than let that simmer for a while - or not, as Google News might indicate - they quickly published a brand new "Israel shot at civilians waving white flags" report. Because this way they can say "we release reports on both sides" - which is what they did in their Lebanon "white flags" report - without bringing up how their anti-Israel reports are (a) more numerous, (b) mostly false, and (c) timed to starve any anti-Hezbollah or anti-Hamas reports of coverage.

Money line from the summary of the new report, helpfully bolded on their website so media outlets know exactly what repetitious anti-Israel trope to quote and amplify:

In the 11 killings documented in this report, Human Rights Watch found no evidence that the civilian victims were used by Palestinian fighters as human shields or were shot in the crossfire between opposing forces. The civilian victims were in plain view and posed no apparent security threat.

This is the same organization that also stated - flat out - that there was no evidence that civilians were used by Hezbollah fighters as human shields. Of course there was the photographic evidence and the video evidence and how Nasrallah explicitly bragged about using human shields - but whatever. And in Gaza there's the photographic evidence and the video evidence and how Hamas explicitly bragged about using human shields...

The director says he has real hopes of screening it at Cannes. Wouldn't that just be too perfect?

The audience in the Gaza Strip clapped and cheered as the actor delivered the movie's most memorable line - "To kill Israeli soldiers is to worship God". Imad Aqel, which premiered at the weekend, is the first feature film produced by the Islamist Hamas movement and the title is the name of a Palestinian militant whom Israel held accountable for the deaths of 13 soldiers and settlers. In accordance with strict Muslim tradition, men and women sat in separate sections of the theatre to view what Hamas officials termed the "Cinema of Resistance", referring to what it describes as a fight against Israeli occupation. The movie is Hamas's latest foray into the mass media - it owns a satellite TV channel, a radio station and several newspapers.

Dude. They've got a "Cinema of Resistance." Why don't we have a Cinema of Resistance? How are people ever going to take us seriously if we don't have a Cinema of Resistance?

Do you think the theater ever airs this footage of Hamas marrying off 450 prepubescent girls? Maybe in the trailers or something, like they used to do with the news during WWII?

Isn't it nice to know that Hamas has the money for public weddings and cinematic agitprop? I wonder how they managed to free it up. And even have enough time left over to coerce all the women in Gaza to wear headscarves.

In the interest of modesty, you see.

UPDATE (8:45am) - MR reader DD writes in:

I think the "marrying off 400 pre-pubescent girls" thing has been debunked as a misunderstanding... it's important not to accuse Hamas of things they didn't do, especially as they often do worse things than that, and their raison d'etre is to do far worse still.

A few minutes of searching after the post that I should have done before the post, and yup:

I was there at the Wedding ceremony. We filmed the event. These young girls are NOT the brides. The brides are among the 5,000 or so audience. Where is your proof they are child brides. It is a cultural thing among the conservative Gazans to do things this way. It is grossly unfair to portray ordinary Gazan men in this way. Hamas does enough terrible things to write about without having to resort to making things up. The girls are having fun drssing up. Its been like that for years. Tim Marshall. Sky News. Gaza.

Which is not to say that there aren't institutionalized child marriages in the Shiite and Sunni world. It's just that in this case Gazan men were marrying women who were presumably too womany to stand on stage with them and so had to substitute creepy little girls in makeup and bridal outfits instead.

None of which justifies me not checking more closely into a too-bad-to-be-true unsubtitled video. Apologies.

References:
* Director of Hamas feature film hopes it will air at Cannes Film Festival [JPost]
* Hamas goes to the movies [Independent]
* Hamas sponsors mass wedding for little girls [Israel Matzav]
* Savages: Hamas Broadcasts Cartoon Mocking Shalit (UPDATED And BUMPED: Obama Wants Another $400m Next Year, Full Text Of Waxman Email Added) [MR]
* Hamas to compel Gaza women to wear head scarves [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* New Data Confirms Old Data: Blaming Israel For Gaza's Medical Collapse Is A Vicious Lie
* Hamas: If Israel Doesn't Surrender We'll Blah Blah Blah
* Hamas Bombs Another Israeli School (Plus: What's Their Next "Surprise"?)

Billions of dollars in overall aid, over a billion specifically for Hamas, plus a seemingly unending supply of military training and gear to Fatah. This is what it buys us:

Palestinian leaders warned Arab states on Monday that any effort to normalise ties with Israel at the urging of President Barack Obama would deal a damaging blow to the quest for statehood. The dispute over Israel's role in the Middle East emerged as Fatah, the dominant faction in Palestinian politics, prepared to stage its first congress since a meeting in exile in 1989... "Normalisation of Israel's ties with Arab countries before the occupation ends in the Palestinian areas is the last thing that the Palestinians should have to experience," said Abu El-Izz Dajani, a former PLO ambassador who is running for a post in the Fatah leadership. "It is as dangerous as the Nakba, as dangerous as the 1967 seizure of the West Bank and Jerusalem."

This is really surprising. Because after they went out of their way to insist that they weren't pressuring Hamas to recognize Israel, I thought for sure they were in favor of recognizing Israel:

In "Dahlan to Hamas: Never recognize Israel," March 17, The Jerusalem Post reported that "former Fatah security commander Muhammad Dahlan ... called on Hamas not to recognize Israel's right to exist, pointing out that Fatah had never recognized it." Speaking on Palestinian Authority TV, Dahlan said reports that Fatah demanded Hamas recognize Israel as a precondition for a Palestinian unity government were "misleading." "They [Hamas] say that Fatah has asked them to recognize Israel's right to exist and this is a big deception. For the one thousandth time, I want to reaffirm that we are not asking Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist. Rather, we are asking Hamas not to do so because Fatah never recognized Israel's right to exist .... We acknowledge that the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] did recognize Israel's right to exist, but we are not bound by it as a resistance [terrorist] faction."

That was a couple weeks after they took credit for murdering two Israelis as part of an open campaign of armed escalation. Quoth the Philadelphia Bulletin: "Fatah Terrorizes While Undergoing US Military Training."

Best. Peace process. Ever.

References and previously after the jump...

Not content with collectively bragging about their upcoming "No Seriously, We Want To Wipe Out Israel" conference, the oh-so-moderate leaders of Fatah are also granting individual interviews:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Hatem Abd Al-Qader, former Palestinian Authority minister for Jerusalem affairs. The interview aired on Al-Quds TV on July 13, 2009.

Hatem Abd Al-Qader: "We must generate a contrived separation between the Fatah movement and the PA. The Fatah movement, as an organization, as a national enterprise, and as a liberation movement, must be detached from the PA, and must have its own platform, agenda, and strategy, which are based on the principles of Fatah... [it must have] its own resistance as well."...

Hatem Abd Al-Qader: "The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are still the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Perhaps, due to local political circumstances, the Brigades' operations have been disrupted. But let me tell you: the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are out there, and they are ready to respond to the call of the Fatah movement in any future confrontation with Israel... [Fatah] is still a national liberation movement, which relies on resistance, as well as on politics.... whoever thinks that it is possible to reach peace with the Israelis in light of the present circumstances and the [political] constellation in Israel is definitely deluding himself.

Remember when Reuters journalist Atef Sa'ad "reported" that the Palestinians were meeting their Road Map obligations - and that Israel was not - because Fatah had totally dismantled the Al Aqsa Brigades? I wonder if that will come up the next time CAMERA calls him out for being a terrorist propagandist.

Presumably the nuanced take on this is that the Palestinians, sensing the US is about to "deliver" Israel, want to be able to claim a military victory for the history books. That was one of the long-running tropes during the Arafat years, with the upshot always being that the Israelis should roll with the humiliating punches: the Palestinians weren't really genocidal, they just wanted to kill a few last Jews before the timer ran out. Since it worked so well during the Oslo years it's nice to see the argument making a return.

Or it could be that when intransigent genocidal lunatics say things they actually kind of mean them:

With Fatah, ruler of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the PLO - in effect, Israel's Palestinian negotiating partner - planning to hold a rare congress to determine the group's future, it's a good time to examine its leadership, the Fatah Central Committee. Two important facts leap out at you: the high degree of both age and intransigence among those who lead the Palestinian movement. A generational struggle cannot be postponed forever, but the younger cohort may be even more radical. Almost all the members have been on the committee for more than 20 years; the last one was added in 1995. All are over age 65.

Why are Fatah's leaders so rarely discussed? Because to do so immediately shows there isn't going to be any comprehensive peace agreement in this generation and that the designation of Fatah as "moderate" rests on a rather broad definition of that word. PLO and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, 74 years old, is no dictator able to order around the other leaders. Even if he wanted to make a compromise deal - which he doesn't - he couldn't deliver his own purported followers, much less his Hamas rivals.

Nothing a little Hope and Change can't solve, I'm sure.

References:
* "Moderate" Palestinians Hold Conference, Demand Endless Warfare Against Israel [MR]
* Former PA Minister Hatem Abd Al-Qader: Fatah Should "Reactivate the Option of Resistance" [MEMRI]
* Fatah Security Chief: "There Is No Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Any More" Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades: "Yes There Is" [MR]
* UPDATED: September 27, 2004--Reuters: News Agency or PR Firm for Terrorists? [CAMERA]
* The Region: Fatah's power structure spells trouble for peace with Israel [JPost]

Previously:
* Palestinian Terrorists Hiding In West Bank Hospitals (Plus: Fatah Not So Much With The Anti-Terrorism Thing)
* Obama: A Fatah-Hamas Unity Government Is The Best Of Both Worlds!
* Fatah Moderates Respond To Billions In Aid By Stressing Unity With Terrorists

As of this morning: Iran is holding three American civilians, Saudi Arabia says that they won't make any gestures toward Israel, Syria is insisting on a series of non-starters as preconditions for talks, the oh-so-moderate Fatah party is about to harden their party line to match Obama's anti-Israel stance, and Hamas is threatening to boycott Palestinian unity talks because of whatever today's pretext is.

At least the US didn't spend the week pressuring Israel in an attempt to curry favor with the Arab and Muslim world:

The US demand for an Israeli settlement freeze remains unchanged, Mideast envoy George Mitchell told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at his Ramallah headquarters on Monday evening, according to Palestinian official Saaeb Erekat, who took part in the talks. "Mitchell told Abbas that contrary to what has been said in the mass media there is no agreement with the Israeli side on anything," Erekat told reporters. Another Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge Mitchell's comments to Palestinian leaders, said the US envoy reported that while there had been some progress in his talks with the Israelis on the issue, gaps remain.

Good. Because creating unreasonable expectations on one side and historically unprecedented distrust on the other is the way to move negotiations forward. Smart power!

References and previously after the jump...

References:
* Iran confirms detaining three US hikers [JPost]
* Saudi FM: No gestures toward Israel [JPost]
* Assad: Golan issue non-negotiable [YNet]
* 'Fatah conference to harden party line' [JPost]
* Obama's Anti-Israel Posture Undermining The Peace Process, Hardening Palestinian Demands [MR]
* Hamas threatens to boycott Cairo talks [JPost]
* 'US settlement-halt demand unchanged' [JPost]

Previously:
* Former Peace Process Diplomats To Obama: Renewed Peace Process Guaranteed To Fail
* Obama Alienates The Israeli Left: "He Has Spoken About Us But Not To Us"
* NYT: Israel Is Kind Of Undermining Obama's Diplomacy, Isn't It?

They want to be very, very clear about this whole "we'll never recognize Israel" thing. Personally I'm surprised. They seemed so hopey and changey to me:

As the Fatah movement prepares for its upcoming leadership convention, a senior group member says the event will be used to display Fatah's commitment to the armed struggle against Israel. Preparations for the convention, scheduled for August 4, are in full force at this time. During a series of preliminary meetings ahead of the event, senior Fatah official Rafik al-Natsheh said that the group will not be recognizing Israel.

'We will maintain the resistance option in all its forms and we will not recognize Israel," he said. "Not only don't we demand that anyone recognize Israel; we don't recognize Israel ourselves. However, the Palestinian Authority government is required to do it, or else it will not be able to serve the Palestinian people." "I am certain that we will hinder all the traitors who wish to remove the resistance option from the movement's charter," Natsheh added.

Amazing that the meeting that Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat took with Iranian thugs did nothing to temper the Palestinians' genocidal ambitions. And note the part about how they're only kidding about recognizing Israel because it "serves the Palestinian people." It's almost like how pro-Israel conservatives characterize their intentions, isn't it?

I can't wait to see what they do with those armored vehicles that Russia sent them. I doubt they'll actually use them against Israel. They already have so many US weapons that Abbas and Keith Dayton, the US general in charge of training and arming the Palestinians, have suggested might be turned on Israeli civilians. Why would they want to use Russian gear too?

Now I'm curious though: does anybody know if "armed struggle until the total annihilation of the Jewish State" falls under the "legitimate Palestinian aspirations" that the Obama administration says it "won't abandon?" I mean, these are the top leaders of the moderate Fatah party, Israel's partner in peace.

References and previously after the jump...

References:
* Senior Fatah official: We won't recognize Israel [YNet]
* Palestinian Negotiator In 1st Mtg With Iran Foreign Minister [Dow Jones Newswire]
* Report: Russia to send 50 armored vehicles to Palestinian Authority [Ha'aretz]
* Abbas: Good Chance We'll Use Our US Security Assistance To Go Back To Killing Israelis [MR]
* US Gen. Arming And Training Palestinian Troops: You Know, They Might Attack Israel [MR]
* 'U.S. won't abandon legitimate Palestinian aspirations' [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* UN Palestinian Stooge: "It's Obvious" That Israeli Attack Violated 48-Hour Truce That No One Knew About Until Now
* Summer Camp Funtime For Palestinian Kids - Getting Brainwashed, Learning How To Launch Qassams (Plus: New Anti-Rocket Lasers)
* Obama's Anti-Israel Posture Undermining The Peace Process, Hardening Palestinian Demands

Remember when the left insisted that the West Bank security fence would never ever work? The condescending pseudo-sophistication was exquisite, punctuated with not a few clicked tongues and exaggerated eyerolls: the Palestinians would use ladders, they could go around, they might dig under. And yet from the first meter of the fence in 2002, the more it was built the less suicide bombers got through.

Now some might argue that the bombings dwindled because economic conditions in the West Bank improved, alleviating some of the poverty that ostensibly causes Palestinians to murder Israeli gradeschoolers. But that's not an argument available to hysterical anti-fence leftists since their entire point is that the dreaded "apartheid wall" restricts Palestinian travel, commerce, and economic development. And yet suicide bombings undeniably dwindled.

Now West Bank Palestinians have been forced into admitting what leftists insisted was impossible: the presence of the barrier, which Israel spent enormous resources constructing, made their terror war impossible. So naturally they want the whole thing torn down. Luckily they've got a guy sitting in the Oval Office who once the fence a counterproductive "wall between two nations."

But Netanyahu is having none of it:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel has no intention of dismantling the West Bank separation fence, which he called "a critical component of Israel's security." "The separation fence will remain in place and will not be dismantled," Netanyahu told Knesset members. Media reports in Israel on Wednesday indicated that the Palestinian Authority had relayed to U.S. President Barack Obama a demand that the fence be removed since the security situation in the West Bank had improved. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters he had approached the United States on the issue. "The Israelis know that the wall adds to the complexities. It's part of the problem and not part of the solution," he said.

I like how they're now going to Obama with all of their unreasonable demands. It's like novels where the favorite brat of a sadistic headmaster keeps using his access to the teacher to torment other children. Except in this case it's a geopolitical farce that's destabilizing one of the most dangerous hotpots on the planet. Except for that.

References:
* 3 Out Of 4 US Jews Voting For Guy Who Wants Israel To Dismantle Security Fence
* Netanyahu: Israel won't dismantle West Bank fence [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* UN Report On Security Fence Predictable In Every Way: Aggressively Contradictory, Blames Israel
* Israel Might Help Russia Build Security Fence - Most. Ironic. Aid. Ever.
* Jews Now Being Blamed by Media for Harassing Nonexistent, Modern-Day Joseph and Mary

At first I was hopeful that academics could at least use Obama's Middle East peacemaking for textbook chapters like "how not to conduct negotiations." Then I realized that case studies are only really useful when there are one or two notable features and everything else is held constant. When you're Obama and you've repeatedly screwed up in ways unimaginable only a few months ago - that's just plain useless.

Ehud Olmert, April 2008:

It was clear from day one to Abbas, Rice and Bush that construction would continue in population concentrations - the areas mentioned in Bush's 2004 letter... I say this again today: Beitar Illit will be built, Gush Etzion will be built; there will be construction in Pisgat Ze'ev and in the Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem. It's clear that these areas will remain under Israeli control in any future settlement.

Despite this oh-so-outrageous-outrage, the Palestinians kept negotiating. They negotiated so much that they actually started bragging about the progress they were making. And why not? Everyone's assumed for a long time that Israel has a free hand in the West Bank areas that will remain Israeli in any future deal.

Then Obama decided to deploy some of his smart power.

First he went out of his way to overturn past Us assurances about the settlement blocs. Above and beyond destroying all trust that any ally could ever have in US guarantees, the weird move also had the upshot of causing the Palestinians to incoproate that into their negotiating stance:

Abbas [restated] the PLO's expectations of a complete return to pre-1967 borders, the right of return of Palestinians to Israel proper, and Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, and in addition demanded a complete freeze of construction in the Jewish communities strewn around the West Bank. Toameh said that the Palestinians, like Netanyahu, were looking to buy time."I think they know that nothing is going to come out of these talks and they see the clash between Netanyahu and Obama," he said, adding that the Palestinians secretly hoped their position might increase pressure by the Obama administration on Israel.

That new total freeze precondition was given as the excuse for rejecting Netanyahu's offer to resume peace negotiations.

Then Obama - having demanded a freeze on all settlement construction - upended decades of implicit understandings and declared that East Jerusalem is a settlement just like any other. Which is to say, construction in East Jerusalem had to be frozen as well. This was pure imperial whimsy on Obama's part. The State Department doesn't even count East Jerusalem neighborhoods when they tabulate settlements. He basically made it up.

The Palestinians reacted - surprise - by adopting that the demand as a precondition:

Hamas is back to firing rockets at Israeli civilians and unleashing RPG missiles and mortar shells at Israeli troops. I wonder if there's anything they're concerned about. Hmm...

The power struggle in Iran sparked by the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is weakening the country's ability to back Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as Iraqi militants. The main coordinator of support to these groups has been Iran's Revolutionary Guards, whose Basij militia played a role in suppressing demonstrations against last month's election results. With the country still divided over the election, the Guards will focus on keeping their patron Ahmadinejad in office, said Jeremy Binnie, an analyst at Jane's Defence Weekly in London. "Their head guys would presumably at this stage be more worried about domestic opposition than they would be about regional scheming," Binnie said.

Hamas leaders have also tightened their grip on Gaza. They've been steadily gaining in popularity for months and they don't have to worry about domestic upkeep any more, courtesy of Obama's billion dollar Gaza stimulus. Anything that the stimulus doesn't cover is undoubtedly made up for by the suitcases of cash their "diplomats" bring back from their regular jaunts outside the Gaza Strip.

So they've had time to pursue more mundane tasks like systematically purging political opponents, routinely engaging in round after round of public executions.

They've also stepped up their control of day to day life in the Strip. They've opened up a Hamas-affiliated bank. They've demanded that all weddings be coordinated with the police. They've even cut PA salaries to pay for Korans, which I think is nice given how they've been promising for years to make sharia a source of legislation. This way people can know in advance which specific micro-fascist decrees the government is likely to pass.

So while Hamas is probably a little concerned about Iran taking its eye off the genocidal anti-Israel ball, they're not exactly teetering on the edge of collapse. Which is a problem for the peace process given the "they're intransigent genocidal fanatics" thing.

I wonder if that's the message that Carter delivered to Obama. Or that Malley discussed with Obama. I hope so because I've been told it's very important to be reality-based when formulating policy.

References and previously after the jump...

In fairness, Aaron Klein insists that Ayman Abu Aita is only kind of a terrorist leader because he's been a good source for Klein's WND or something:

A "terrorist leader" interviewed in the just-released hit movie "Bruno" is fuming mad, telling WND the film mislabels him and that the movie's star, Sasha Baron Cohen, conducted the interview under false pretenses... Aita also slammed Baron Cohen as a "big liar" who "made up stories" when describing to CBS's David Letterman last week the way he met Aita at an undisclosed location. Aita said he is pursuing legal action against Baron Cohen. "[Baron Cohen] said this was a film going to help the Palestinian cause," Aita told WND. "When I heard (four days ago) what this film was about I really didn't believe it."... Aita, however, is not exactly a terrorist. At least not anymore.

I don't know. Aita was a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, and the EU. He's been known to threaten that "one bullet will be enough" to instigate Palestinian mass violence. He helped run a Palestinian non-profit that Joseph Farah tagged for rationalizing terrorism and peddling anti-Semitic tropes. And I'm pretty sure he's the one in this story covering up the persecution of Palestinian Christians.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying, enjoy:

On top of everything else, Sasha Baron Cohen was born an Orthodox Jew and speaks fluent Hebrew. Can you imagine the sheer stones this must have taken?

References:
* 'Terrorist leader' threatens to sue 'Bruno' movie [WND]
* HLT elects a new Board of Directors [HLT]
* Anti-Israel humanitarian organization [Discover The Networks]
* Klein: Terrorists to descend on Jesus' birthplace. Muslim jihadists to congregate at site of rampant Christian persecution [Real Barack Obama]

Previously:
* Fatah Security Chief: "There Is No Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Any More" Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades: "Yes There Is"
* Media Consensus Forming: Israeli West Bank Ops Violate Gaza Ceasefire (Plus: Palestinians Shot West Bank Israelis On Day 2)
* Oh, So The Al-Aqsa Terrorist Brigade Is Loyal To Abbas After All?

As far as I know, British security assistance to the Palestinians - which began while Fatah was ramping up a suicide war and has been turned against the IDF by Palestinian soldiers - continues apace. Not so much for the weapons Israel used in its defensive operation against Hamas:

Britain has slapped a partial arms embargo on Israel, refusing to supply replacement parts and other equipment for Sa'ar 4.5 gunships because they participated in Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Britain's Foreign Office informed Israel's embassy in London of the sanctions a few days ago. The embassy, in a classified telegram to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, said the decision stemmed from heavy pressure by both members of Parliament and human rights organizations... The British said the embargo was imposed because these ships participated in Operation Cast Lead. In so doing, the British claimed, they violated the security agreements between Britain and Israel, which specify what uses may be made of British equipment.

I love the logic underlying this trick: "We'll sell you weapons but you can't use them against people who attack you."

It's the same logic that Obama uses when he demands that Israel take risks for peace - because who would dare threaten the territorial integrity of a nuclear-armed state - and then pressures Israel on its nuclear deterrent. It's not a particularly effective argument and it undermines Middle East stability by encouraging Arab intransigence. But at least it's also dishonest!

References:
* Britain Offers Security Assistance to Palestinian Authority [VOA]
* EXCLUSIVE-Palestinians to get basic flak jackets, ending row [Reuters]
* U.K. hits Israel with partial arms sanctions over Cast Lead [Ha'aretz]
* No Kidding: Obama To Pressure Israel On Its Nuclear Deterrent [MR]
* Abbas: Olmert Offered Us The West Bank And The Right Of Return, But It Wasn't Good Enough [MR]

Previously:
* Anti-Israel Partisans Set New Record For Decades-Old Trick Of Brazenly Rewriting History, Blaming Israel
* Britain Letting Distaste For Jewish State Get In the Way Of Not Having A Nuclear War In the Middle East
* Britain Down On UK-Israeli Ties, Pretty Psyched About Nuke-Building Terrorist Supporting Syrian Regime

Via Palestinian Media Watch, thoroughly charming:

It would be unfair to suggest that Hamas was only able to produce this filth because of the nearly one billion dollars that Obama has dumped into Gaza. They would have produced it even if the administration hadn't freed up their funds. But it's still nice of them to be so publicly appreciative.

Anyway, here's the background on the video:

In a special broadcast of the Hamas TV children's program "Tomorrow's Pioneers", the two young children of female suicide terrorist Reem Riyashi were invited to the TV studio to watch a video re-enactment of their mother's suicide bombing in 2004, which killed four Israelis. [Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), July 3, 2009]

"[Our guests are] the children of the Shahida [Martyr] Reem Riyashi."
(Children in Hamas studio are shown video reenactment of terrorist Reem Riyashi preparing for suicide bombing in front of daughter; singer asks in the daughter's name:)
"Mommy, what are you carrying in your arms instead of me?"
(Reem prepares bomb.)
"A toy or a present for me?"
(Mother hides bomb.)
"Comb back quickly, Mommy."
(Camera on children watching reenactment.)
"Instead of me you carried a bomb in your hands. Only now, I know what was more precious than us."
(Reenactment of encounter with Israeli soldiers and suicide bombing.)
(In the studio:) "These are the children of the Shahida [Martyr], the heroic Jihad fighter who sacrificed all that she had for her homeland. She cared less about her own flesh and blood, and for their sake, she sacrificed [herself] for Allah."
(Child host:) "We say to the occupier that we will continue in the footsteps of the Shahida [Martyr], the Jihad fighter Reem Riyashi, until we liberate our homeland from your hands, usurper."

After the jump, another Hamas TV children's clip recorded and translated by PMW. I'd describe it, but I don't want to give away the surprise:

Original (July 8 12:05pm) - Another in a seemingly endless line of public sadism, reflecting the personal, pathological delight these savages take in torturing Shalit and his family:

Hamas' al-Aqsa Television introduced a propaganda cartoon about kidnapped IDF corporal Gilad Shalit: "Hamas launched a propaganda cartoon of Gilad Shalit on Monday, playing it repeatedly on its Al Aksa television station, as well as on internet forums. In the film an unshaven Shalit is calling for his mother when visited in his cell by a Gaza boy who tells him that Israel does not care about him." Of course, you won't hear anyone pointing out why this sadistic cartoon violates the Geneva Convention. Is Hamas trying to tell us about their future plans? Or are they just trying to torture Shalit and his family some more?

In other news the Obama administration is delivering the remainder of the $900 million Gaza stimulus in the near future. That way Hamas can divert a full $900 million of their own money into their eliminationist war instead of wasting it on things like infrastructure. If that's not enough they can just confiscate the aid itself, beating plowshares into swords. Or, as the case may be, turning ambulances into military vehicles:

"The [Palestinian] Health Ministry stated yesterday that Hamas militias had raided 46 ambulances, donated by Arab states during the recent aggression on the Gaza Strip, of the medical equipment that they contained... and used them as military vehicles to arrest civilians, after painting [the ambulances] black.

A reader forwarded me an email that she got from Waxman's office about the outrage:

As a lefty Arab media expert commented on Twitter, the fact that Al Jazeera itself hasn't made a big deal out of this is telling. The deafening silence from the rest of the media and the bulk of the human rights community is also a little revelatory.

Make sure you catch what the Al Jazeera crew was investigating when the Palestinians stopped them:

Recently, a Palestinian TV crew was stopped at a checkpoint in the West Bank, where soldiers confiscated a tape and erased its content. This incident, hardly received any coverage in the mainstream media in the US and Europe. The reason? The perpetrators were not IDF soldiers, but Palestinian Authority security officers. And the checkpoint did not belong to the IDF; it was, in fact, a Palestinian checkpoint.

The story of the detention of the TV crew - which, by the way, belonged to Al-Jazeera and the erasure of the footage did not make it to the mainstream media even after Reporters Without Borders... issued a statement strongly condemning the assault on the freedom of the media... Walid Omari, the head of the Qatar-based satellite TV station's operations in the West Bank, told Reporters Without Borders that his crew was preparing a report on the death of a detainee at the Palestinian Authority detention center in Hebron that might have been the result of torture.

"We were the only ones to investigate this case and we did it despite strong pressure from the Palestinian Authority," Omari said. Al Jazeera's Hebron correspondent went with a cameraman to the victim's home in the village of Dura, where they interviewed the family and filmed the body.

Just so everyone's on the same page: journalists were accosted at a checkpoint while trying to investigate the murder of prisoners in the West Bank. And yet somehow neither of those things has aroused the passions of the international human rights community, though that same community regular wrings its hands at the mere existence of Israeli checkpoints. It's almost as if human rights activists have a different motivation for going after Israel and use fabricated atrocities as pretexts.

In fairness, not all of them are pathologically obsessed with imagined Jewish transgressions. Some are just corrupt and greedy.

And in any case, it's nice to see that hundreds of millions that we're pouring into Palestinian security assistance is having the predicted ameliorative effect on the West Bank.

References:
* How To Help the Palestinians [Toameh]
* Human Rights Watch Holds Saudi Fundraiser, Promises To Demonize Israel [MR]
*US Gen. Arming And Training Palestinian Troops: You Know, They Might Attack Israel [MR]

Previously:
* Obama's Decision To Join UN Human Rights Council Buys Zero Cooperation On North Korea
* Global Outrage As Sri Lanka Puts Down Terrorist Separatists, Kills Tamil Tiger Leader
* United Nations: Iran's Murder Of Peaceful Protesters Raises "Troubling Questions"

Courtesy of the American Jewish Committee, a bit of a review on the day when Obama's handpicked peace process czar is meeting with Barak as a lead-up to bringing down the hammer on the US-Israel alliance:

Instead of accepting a state or using the land that Israel evacuated for institution-building, the Palestinians responded with a decade of cradle-to-grave brainwashing. This video goes back to 2007. Two years later things have unbelievably gotten worse:

Oh well. Obama's new round of pressure on Israel - you can build schools for your kids there but not there, you can build add patios to your houses here but not here - will fix everything.

References:
* Barak optimistic after meeting US Mideast envoy Mitchell [JPost]
* Obama Gearing Up To Present Ultimatum To Israel, Detonate US-Israel Alliance [MR]
* Adorable! Palestinian Kindergarteners Graduate, Do "Victory Dance" Around IDF Bodies. [MR]

Previously:
* Just A Reminder: Arab Media Is A Cesspool Of Genocidal Anti-Semitic Incitement
* Palestinians Shut Down Generator To Create Gaza Humanitarian Crisis, UN Blames Israel
* Palestinians Mourn Genocidal Lunatic, "Founder" Of Palestinian Cause (Plus: Ditto For Israeli-Arab MKs)

Celebrations were already in full swing last April:

Hamas militants painted murals of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit and missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad Wednesday night in the Jabalyah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The graffiti portrays Shalit as he looks in 2009 next to a mock-up of how the soldier will look after another 30 years in captivity, his hair grey and his face beset by wrinkles... During a rally held four months ago to mark the 21st anniversary of the founding of Hamas, the Islamic group performed a skit where an operative dressed in an IDF uniform mimicked Shalit, portraying the soldier complaining in Hebrew about how he "misses mommy and daddy."

That rally, which had all the feel of a primitive tribe marching into battle with the heads of prisoners on stakes, happened just a few weeks before Operation Cast Lead. The subsequent ceasefire was called prematurely so as not to disturb The One's ascension, with Shalit still in Palestinian hands. Negotiations to free him over the next few months broke down because of Hamas:

The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Tuesday that Turkey has ceased trying to broker a deal for the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit due to excessive Hamas demands, Israel Radio said. The newspaper based the report on comments by diplomatic sources. The sources were also quoted as saying that Israel's "weakness" and lack of support for its efforts had led Turkey to pull out of the negotiations. They said Hamas' excessive demands had also triggered Turkey's decision to pull out of the negotiations, Al-Watan reported.

Bringing us to this filthbag:

As Israel prepares to mark the three-year anniversary of the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, Ynet has learned that in Gaza the date will mark the wedding of Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) spokesman Abu Mujahid. The PRC is one of the organizations responsible for Shalit's capture, and Abu Mujahid told Ynet he had chosen to marry on its anniversary. He said he wanted his first day as a married man to be "as blessed as the day in which the kidnapping was carried out, when Allah saw our success and victory". Abu Mujahid said the capture was a historic day for the Palestinian people. "I wanted my wedding day to be joyous and mark the third anniversary of the operation's success and victory," he said.

Linking a wedding to the kidnapping and psychological torture of teenagers - these are definitely a group of people ready to lead a state.

References:
* Hamas murals depict abducted IDF soldier Shalit in 30 years [Ha'aretz]
* Hamas Mocks Shalit During Gigantic Rally: "I Miss My Mom And Dad" [MR]
* WND: Obama Pressured Israel To Declare Ceasefire [MR]
* Turkey 'quit Shalit talks due to Hamas demands' [Ha'aretz]
* PRC leader to marry on third anniversary of Shalit capture [YNet]

Previously:
* Hamas Savages Publicly Mock Shalit Again
* Abbas: Hamas Will Free Shalit Soon. Hamas: No We Won't.
* Gilad Shalit Is Alive, Forced To Say That Hamas Is Letting Him Die (Updated: Shas Leader Calls For Direct Prisoner Talks With Hamas)

No word on whether they particularly appreciate the the FBI's outreach to Hamas-linked groups or if it has something to do with the downward spiral of the US-Israeli alliance or if they just have a general warming feeling:

The leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas says he welcomes President Barack Obama's new approach to the Middle East, but is waiting to see action. In a televised speech Thursday, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal pointedly avoided any mention of the recent turmoil in Iran, even though Hamas is backed by the Tehran regime. Hamas, which controls Gaza, has increasingly tried to reach out to the Obama administration in recent weeks. The militants are trying to bring an end to an international boycott of Hamas and a two-year border closure of Gaza.

This is developing into something of a pattern: Jimmy Carter holds a tete-a-tete with some intransigent, genocidal lunatics and assures them that the world has changed. He then announces that they're softening, an observation that is quickly contravened by (a) said lunatics' explicit public denunciations and (b) said lunatics' behavior. Instead they harden their negotiating stances. That's what happened with Assad and it's what's happening with Hamas. But they want to be very clear that they nonetheless appreciate the outreach and would welcome more!

He's been making himself useful to them for years, from accusing Israel of apartheid to lying about the history of U.S. policy towards Hamas to insisting on national television that the group can be trusted to literally embracing their scumbag leadership and finally to blithely asserting here that Hamas's leaders "want peace," based on what evidence I can scarcely imagine... Oh, and he also wants them taken off the State Department's terror list, naturally.

Even better: it looks like the EU is going to drop the conditions on Hamas that they promised they would never drop. An elegant bait and switch: Israel is given assurances that they can take risks for peace because if the Palestinians become more violent the EU will support Israel; Israel takes those risks and the Palestinians become more violent exactly as predicted; the EU waits a while and then abrogates its assurances. And people wonder why Netanyahu is loathe to accept security guarantees.

References and previously after the jump...

In case you can't make it out, those children on the left are carrying a model of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Presumably the Hamas cretins in charge of this brainwashing were worried that the eliminationist undertones might be too subtle. Which begs the question: was this held at a UN-funded educational center or at one of the ones that the Europeans have poured millions into:

The society is headed by Muhammad Abd al-Jawad Fura, a preacher who serves as a PIJ leader in the Gaza Strip. On June 3, 2009, a website associated with the PIJ (Pal Today) published photographs from a graduation ceremony display of kindergarten children organized by the Dar al-Huda society (kindergartens are the society's main focus of activity). The ceremony was held at Rashad al-Shawa Center in Gaza City. A show put on during the ceremony (similarly to activities held in Hamas-associated kindergartens in recent years) featured kindergarten children dressed in uniform and carrying (obviously plastic) arms confronting and killing IDF soldiers.

There are a bunch more child abuse pictures are after the jump. They were all proudly published in Al-Fateh, Hamas's Britain-based children's newspaper. The kids staged a gun battle, faked a kidnapping, and some, dressed like IDF soldiers, pretended to kill Palestinian children. Proud family members beamed on from the audience. It was like a school production of Cinderella. Only genocidal.

The photos come courtesy of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, which has six months worth of this filth plus a backgrounder on the paper's Syrian Muslim Brotherhood editor-in-chief. You should click through, if only to take a gander at the wide variety of blood libel cartoons getting fed to Palestinian and Western Muslim children.

Apparently that's a crime of the same order as selling land to Jews. That the boy was killed by his own uncle adds a stomach-turning dose of tribalism to this atrocity:

Relatives of the 15-year-old Palestinian boy who was murdered by members of his family last week on suspicion of "collaboration" with Israel have called on the Palestinian Authority to impose the death penalty on the culprits. The boy, Raed Sawalha, from the village of Hijjah in the Kalkilya district, was brutally tortured before being hanged. His body was discovered on Wednesday in a warehouse belonging to his family. His father, Wael, had locked him inside the warehouse after villagers claimed that they had seen the boy "chatting" with a Border Police soldier. The father told police that he only sought to "discipline" his son and did not know that other members of the family, including his own brother, would assault him and kill him... [T]he uncle has confessed to the murder. He told police investigators that he "lost his temper" when some boys in the village told him that his nephew had waved to a Border Police soldier as he drove by... Adnan Damiri, spokesman for the PA security forces in the West Bank, said that a number of the victim's relatives have also been arrested on suspicion of aiding the main suspect.

This is clearly a society ready for a state, having developed a robust civic sphere that eschews violent mob rule. They also seem pretty close to coming to terms with the existence of Israel and Israelis, so we've all got that going for us too.

References:
* US-Funded Racist Apartheid Government Will Execute Man Who Sold Land To Enemy Religion [MR]
* Relatives of boy slain as 'collaborator' seek death penalty for family members who killed him [JPost]

Previously:
* I Don't See Any Way That This Could Go Poorly
* Fatah Pretty Psyched About Getting To Run Gaza Again (Plus: Anti-Israel Diplomacy Journalists Kind Of Mailing It In)
* Palestinians Parch Themselves, Blame Israel

Begin with a West Bank population that, by the admission of the Palestinian President, is living "a good life." Then build up totally unrealistic expectations about a near-term state and arm them to the teeth as if those expectations were realistic.

Now turn around to the Israelis and say "well, it's true that when we were selling you on this plan we breezily assured you that Palestinian soldiers would never turn our weapons on Israelis - but you never know:"

Beyond Obama's timeline, over the past week, two other developments made it apparent that regardless of what Iran does, the Obama administration will not revise its policy of... weakening Israel rather than on stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons... US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton, who is responsible for training Palestinian military forces in Jordan, indicated that if Israel does not surrender Judea and Samaria within two years, the Palestinian forces he and his fellow American officers are now training at a cost of more than $300 million could begin killing Israelis. Assuming the veracity of Yediot's report, even more unsettling than Dayton's certainty that within a short period of time these US-trained forces could commence murdering Israelis, is his seeming equanimity in the face of the known consequences of his actions.

The stuff about Dayton is more or less true, though that's been obvious for a long time. But Glick is wrong to imply that this is an Obama policy. Giving security assistance to Fatah ideologues, who are supposed to use their weapons against fanatical but ideologically akin Hamas soldiers - that's a State Department and Pentagon project going back to the Bush administration.

Ditto for arming the Lebanese army, which is supposed to be taking on Hezbollah. Rice pushed that through during her time at State. If you've been nervously waiting for the announcement that the US assistance is getting turned against Israel, you can relax now. I wonder how soon US generals will be telling Israel to make territorial concessions to the Lebanese, lest US-trained and armed LAF soldiers regretfully forget that they're not supposed to target Israelis.

Back in Gaza and the West Bank, only Hamas has openly used hundreds of tons of captured US explosives against Israel. As of January 2009 they still hadn't run out. As far as US-trained Fatah soldiers go, they've only been caught training Hamas soldiers after their President threatened to return to armed struggle.

It's almost difficult to believe that the Israelis don't take US security assurances seriously any more.

References and previously after the jump...

So Netanyahu gave a highly anticipated address where he took the unprecedented step of endorsing a two-state solution. It was hailed by Obama - not the least prominent international advocate of a Palestinian state - as an crucial confidence building measure, "a step forward."

In response the US-backed Palestinians in charge of the West Bank said that they are going back to war...

Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah on Sunday expressed outrage and shock over... Netanyahu's call for the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state and his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The officials... also warned that Netanyahu's policies would trigger a new intifada. Some of Abbas's top advisors accused Netanyahu of "burying the peace process" and said the ball was now in the court of US President Barack Obama.

... and the Iran-backed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip launched rockets at Israeli civilians:

A Kassam rocket fired by Gaza terrorists hit the Ashkelon Beach region on Sunday afternoon. No one was wounded and no damage was reported. The attack came hours after an explosive device was detonated near IDF troops patrolling the Gaza border fence... According to the IDF, approximately 670 Kassam rockets, mortar shells and Grad missiles had been fired at Israel since the beginning of 2009.

At times like this, when it seems clear that Obama is trying to be "even-handed" between a pro-peace side and an anti-peace side, it's important to remember the nuanced insights of foreign policy experts like Stephen Walt:

It is often said that Israel lacks a "partner for peace," but so do the Palestinians. So if the Obama administration is serious about settling this conflict, it will have to exert real pressure on both sides.

I think it's unfair to compare political science to phrenology, as some conservative critics have done. Phrenologists were at least sensitive to evidence.

References:
* Israel PM calls for demilitarized Palestinian state [CNN]
* Obama: PM's speech an important step [JPost]
* PA: Netanyahu has buried peace process [JPost]
* Kassam hits Ashkelon Beach region [JPost]
* An unconvincing defense [Walt]

Previously:
* Pro-Obama Jewish Groups Soliciting Creepy "Pledges" To Help Obama Detonate The US-Israel Alliance
* Carter To Palestinians: I Wish I Knew How To Quit You
* This Week In Gaza - Israel Completes Fuel Pipeline, Hamas Attacks Another Charity

This is just like how it used to happen in Auschwitz. The Nazis would work constantly to get humanitarian supplies to the inmates:

On, June 11, 2009, an Israeli construction team finished its work on a new pipeline for the transfer of fuel and natural gas from Israel to the Gaza Strip. The decision to build the pipeline was made in accordance with decisions made by the Israeli Government, following security assessments and as a result of the coordination between the Civil Administration and the Palestinian side. The construction was performed by both Israeli and Palestinian construction crews. The IDF will continue to work in order to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

... and then the Jewish prisoners would rush to confiscate them from dozens and dozens of global and local charities:

Quoting the Mezan Center for Human Rights, [the Palestine Press Agency] says that medical aid given by international organizations to the charity (possibly called the Society for the Rehabilitation of Disabled People) were meant to be distributed to some 2000 needy Gazans. Hamas gunmen took over the aid and its distribution. Since Hamas took over Gaza, it has been methodically taking over institutions - medical, political, educational and charitable.

There were also attacks by Jewish soldiers on Nazi patrols every few days, facilitated by explosives smuggled in via hundreds of new tunnels. And little known fact: Auschwitz had a glittering and crowded beach. The Jewish children used to play and play, until called home to do homework assigned by the teachers at their internationally-funded schools and universities.

I'm kind of beginning to think that the people who demonize Israelis are motivated by something other than level-headed analysis.

References and previously after the jump...

I was going to use my usual template for the Hamas ceasefire offer that got floated last week: three excitable MSM stories about how Hamas will pretend to be less genocidal for a while, following by a quote from a Hamas minister "clarifying" said willingness. But I've been busy grading finals and speeches so I didn't have time to get to it. And wouldn't you know it, too late:

The three shells that hit the Negev marked a recent upsurge in border violence after a two-week lull. The shells exploded in the Sha'ar Hanegev region, causing neither casualties nor damage. The attack came one day after the New York Times published an interview with Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal, whose Islamist group controls Gaza, in which he said gunmen in the coastal strip had unilaterally ceased cross border attacks.

Well they've got to do something with that gigantic new arsenal they're smuggling into Gaza in preparation for the next war that they're ostensibly not going to fight:

A report by the Institute for National Security Studies asserted that Hamas's military, despite sustaining its harshest blow, was not crippled by Israel during the 22-day war in January 2008. The report said hundreds of Hamas soldiers have gone to Iran, Lebanon and Syria for advanced training in light arms, explosives and other military skills. "It cannot be ruled out that the next round of warfare is closer than ever,"

In other news, does anyone have an update on Obama's ongoing efforts to do an end-run around his campaign promise not to engage or fund Hamas? I thought he'd have the deal closed by March, but apparently the "unity government" pretext that State was going to use fell through.

The last time I checked, liberal foreign policy experts were insisting that "Obama deserves credit for bravery in putting forth a plan which will inevitably be portrayed as benefiting Hamas." I only mention that because "inevitably be portrayed" is a really terrific phrase. It's more subtle than Samantha Power's smirking reference to "a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import," but it still manages to remind sophisticated readers whose side they're supposed to be on. Elegant.

Anyway, Hamas on Obama: we really like his "new language."

References and previously after the jump...

I was going to ask whether the Palestinians will be using their US-supplied guns and bullets for the execution. But apparently the sentence is death by hanging, so that doesn't work:

A Palestinian Authority military court on Tuesday sentenced a Hevron Arab to death by hanging for the crime of selling land to Jews in Judea and Samaria, the Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency reported. The three-member judicial panel heard the case last week and handed down its verdict and conviction on Tuesday. Dozens of Arabs have been executed in the past for collaborating with Israel by selling land to Jews, but the court's ruling is the first time the PA officially has handed down a guilty verdict of treason for the crime... Seven Arabs were executed in the [1996]... More executions took place the following years, and one Arab, Mohammed Abu al-Hawa, was tortured and murdered in 2006 for allegedly selling an apartment building in Jerusalem to Jews.

State Department press releases routinely - and proudly - point out that the US is "the single largest national donor to the Palestinian people." And while it's true that a lot of it ends up in Hamas's coffers via USAID and UNRWA, isn't it nice to know that some of it is getting to these pathological West Bank bigots:

The United States plans to expand a program to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces in the occupied West Bank, the general in charge of training and equipping them said Monday. "We have plans to train at least three more battalions before this time next year," Lieutenant General Keith Dayton told Reuters. Each battalion has about 500 members.

In unrelated news, sophistication-enamored NYT tool Roger Cohen just published another column accusing Israel of being a racist apartheid state. This time it's ostensibly because Israelis only let Jews use West Bank roads, a statement that would still be straightforwardly false even if it wasn't particularly ironic given the PA's court-enforced anti-Jewish policies.

But it does reinforce the anti-Israel narrative that Cohen and his friends in the informal Iran Lobby have been pushing. So there's that.

References and previously after the jump...

Neither of these are new, although for some strange reason neither came up at Durban II. The first video - the denial side of the pathological Islamist Holocaust coin - was actually broadcast on Hamas TV on last year's Holocaust Remembrance Day:

And on the other side of the coin, insanely creepy embrace:

Note how preoccupied this filthbag is with the concept of humiliation. Even as scenes of mass murder roll by, he thrills most of all to the degradation involved - a Jewish woman forced to kiss a Nazi guard's hand, a Jewish man weeping in despair.

The filthbag is Egyptian Cleric Amin Al-Ansari, and the money line is "this is what we hope will happen but, Allah willing, at the hand of the Muslims":

At times like this, I like to remember what anti-Israel hacks like Avraham Burg publish in anti-Israel outlets like the LA-Times: Jews really need to get over the Holocaust.

References:
* Pure Nazism: Muslim cleric celebrates the Holocaust on Egyptian TV [Hot Air]
* Holocaust's unholy hold [LAT]

Previously:
* We Get Mail - Pro-Holocaust YouTube Cretin Edition
* Over 100 Iranians Condemn Iran's Holocaust Denial Conference
* NYT Coverage Of Iranian Holocaust Conference: Not Amused

Hey, remember that time when the Democrats had a Presidential candidate who attended a church for 20 years that supported Hamas, who had advisers meeting with Hamas and urging him to engage Hamas, and who endorsed the 2006 Hamas election? And remember how the Jewish left insisted that supporters of the US-Israel alliance were wallowing in paranoia because Obama was "a stalwart enemy of Hamas?"

MR, Feb. 27, 2009:

At least Obama didn't stack his administration with anti-Israel hacks like all those voters filled with "Obama paranoia" said he would. I'd say we're about a month away from a climbdown on his oh-so-nuanced election promise not to engage Hamas, with a Palestinian unity government providing the thin pretext.

Chicago Tribune, April 26, 2009:

he Obama administration... has opened the door, if only slightly, to engagement with the militant group Hamas. The Palestinian group is designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization and under law may not receive federal aid. But the administration has asked Congress for minor changes in U.S. law that would permit aid to continue flowing to Palestinians in the unlikely event that Hamas-backed officials become part of a unified Palestinian government.

I was a month off, though it fairness to me I couldn't have expected Obama to blatantly pour funds into Hamas coffers beforehand, undercutting their incentive to move even an inch during unity talks. The best part is how the Obama administration is actually pushing Fatah into a unity government. Which means that the Obama administration is actually trying to create their own pretexts for funding Hamas.

Just for fun, here's a link about the left's disingenuous anti-Palin smear, saying she supports Hamas. Not like Obama, who is "a stalwart enemy of Hamas."

As always, I'm not really upset by the actual policy. Of course I would prefer it if the US President wasn't funding the genocidal anti-American enemies of a democratic ally, after 15 years of administrations which promised to support Israel if American-initiated "risks for peace" didn't pay off. But what do you expect? And I'm not even surprised by the left's bad faith on this, given how pervasive it is on issues as huge as torture and as petty as flu funding.

Of course he did:

President Obama released his FY 2009 supplemental request... asking for $83.4 billion to fund ongoing military, diplomatic and foreign assistance activities... There are programs included in this supplemental request that could otherwise be funded in the base budget. Some of the major items requested in this supplemental are long-term acquisition programs that are not directly related to ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan...
* $600 million to purchase four new F-22 fighter jets;
* $400 million for a new Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund;
* $3.6 billion to train and equip Afghanistan Security Forces;
* $806.2 million to upgrade the U.S. diplomatic facilities in Pakistan; and
* $200 million for budget support to the Palestinian Authority.

Nothing like hiding $200 million's worth of de facto Hamas funding in an "emergency funding for our troops" request that's insulated from political opposition. Although it couldn't have been that well insulated since the original request was for $800 million. Still - fingers crossed that they pick up the slack in the regular budget, right?

I'm not sure exactly what these funds are earmarked for. They could be going to Gaza infrastructure, freeing up Hamas to move more money into attacks and war crimes. Or they could be going to Fatah weapons, getting hardware into the region so that Hamas can get it sooner rather than later. Either way, at least we know that boosting Hamas is now officially shovel-ready.

Less shovel-ready: offensive and defensive military cooperation with Israel. F-22 projects employed 95,000 Americans and boosted American and Israeli offensive capabilities. They were - at worst - nowhere near as inefficient as the rest of the stimulus black hole. But whatever. The Palestinians will probably put the money to better yes.

And it's not like Israel will be needing any offensive capabilities, since they're cooperating with the US to develop next-generation Arrow-3 interceptors. Except not:

Israel's Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile may be one of the first victims of U.S. President Barack Obama's defense spending cuts. Ynet, the Web site of the respected Tel Aviv daily Yediot Aharonot, reported Monday that U.S. funding for the Arrow-3 program is likely to be eliminated... Ynet reported that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a strong enthusiast for the Arrow-3 program, recently met with a delegation of visiting U.S. senators and congressmen; following that meeting, he briefed a private meeting of his Labor Party, in which he warned of the pressures to kill the Arrow-3.

It's fine though because Israel doesn't face a missile threat. Nor if it faced such a threat would it need access to home grown anti-missile technologies. In the absolute worst case the Israelis can always count on the White House to support them on critical national defense issues.

Well, unless the Israelis want support for an operation against Iran's genocidal mullahs. Then they're out of luck.

References and previously after the jump...

GOP members are still trying to pull UNRWA's funding, pending some answers on the whole "they materially and diplomatically support terrorists" thing. They won't succeed but still - A for effort.

This is the organization that simultaneously admitted that Hamas was manufacturing the fuel crisis and blamed Israel anyway. Because Hamas's actions, you see, were really well-intentioned:

Gaza's main fuel distributor is holding back one million litres of fuel, UN figures showed on Monday a day after Israel claimed Hamas was stage-managing a crisis in the Palestinian territory. However, a UN official who requested anonymity said that the current stocks of fuel and industrial gasoline stored in Gaza are sufficient for only several days. "The general petroleum association refuses to distribute in protest of the lack of supply of fuel by Israel," he said. The Palestinian General Petroleum Corporation is responsible for the distribution of fuel across the Hamas-run territory, where the union of petrol station owners went on strike several days ago in protest at the fuel cuts.

So maybe they're not the most objective adjudicators when it comes to humanitarian crises. Ten of thousands of liters of fuel were mishandled by Gaza Palestinians and blew up - and it was Israel's fault that there was no fuel. More broadly, Hamas has impoverished the entire Gaza Strip:

One way is to just say that the 'Palestinians' are lying. While that's possible, I doubt that they could succeed in holding the world's attention for such a long time if they were lying outright. Moreover, if they were really starving because of Israel's blockade, wouldn't measures like releasing millions of shekels into Gaza - as Israel did last week - at least allow them to buy life's necessities that (as we all know) are being 'smuggled' in through the tunnels from Rafah under the watchful eyes of the Egyptians? I think I may have figured out the truth, and it may surprise some of you. You see, there are Gazans who are starving. But Israel's not to blame. Their leadership is to blame... There is money in Gaza. There are goods available for purchase in Gaza. The problem is that the money is all in the hands of the Hamas thugs. The average person has none.

How dumb can "it's Israel's fault" scapegoating get? This dumb:

Hey, remember that time when the US gave the Palestinians $900 million on the promise that Palestinian PM Fayyad would make sure none of the money got to terrorists? Opps:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday asked his prime minister, Salaam Fayad, to stay in office pending the results of reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah over the formation of a unity government. The request came shortly after Fayad submitted his resignation to Abbas, saying he wanted to pave the way for the success of the Hamas-Fatah discussions that are expected to resume in Cairo later this week. In a letter to Abbas, Fayad said that his resignation would go into effect as soon as a unity government is formed, but no later than the end of March. Fayad's resignation came as a surprise to Abbas and the PA leadership, a PA official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post. He pointed out that although Fayad had in the past talked about the possibility of stepping down, "in recent weeks there were no indications whatsoever that he was planning to resign."

Actually it's been known for a while that Fayyad would soon be resigning. The PA kept up the pretense of his commitment just long enough to secure billions in international assistance.

Whatever. It's not like the aid wasn't explicitly being sent to terrorists already:

The first press release following the donors conference announced that the PLO will give an extra bonus of to known terrorists: "An extra 800 shekels (190 US dollars) will be added to the stipend's given to Palestinians in Israeli prisons this month, Head of Palestinian Prisoner Society in Nablus Ra'ed Amer confirmed on Tuesday. Each prisoner receives 1000 shekels (238 US dollars) per month, plus an extra 300 shekels (71 US dollars) if they are married, and an extra 50 shekels (12 US dollars) for each child. The stipend is paid by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) each month... Amer explained that the increase was made following the instructions of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas." Yes, every terrorist in an Israeli jail - people who drove suicide bombers to blow up women and children, people who ordered "martyrdom operations," people who attacked any Jew they could find - gets thousands of dollars annually from the cash-strapped PA, which of course gets its money from successful donors conferences like yesterday's. Every year they get about $16 million, assuming an average of $300 per prisoner per month. And in February alone, they get an additional $855,000.

How long before someone publishes an article saying that Fayyad quit because he was disgusted with Israeli settlments? Not Jimmy Carter nausea-level disgusted. But still disgusted enough so that his resignation can be blamed on Israel.

References:
* Fayad quits to enable Fatah-Hamas unity [JPost]
* Analysis: Fayad's control over PA's finances put him on a collision course with Fatah [JPost]
* The Gaza money immediately goes to terrorists [Elder]
* Fayyad: World must act to halt West Bank settlement growth [Ha'aretz]
* Carter "Nauseated" By Jewish Settlements [MR]

Previously:
* PA Police Getting More Than $5 Billion In New Aid To Use Against Israeli Civilians, Lose To Hamas
* Moronic Former Israeli Defense Minister: You Know What Would Be Really Cool? Foreign Peacekeepers In Gaza.
* Another New (Palestinian) Political Party

The ICC bit the bullet and issued an arrest warrant against Al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and being an all around lunatic. Not included in the indictment was a description of how he's also a terrorist-boosting, sharia-imposing Islamist:

Beyond the genocide and mass murder that Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has presided over in his 20 years in office, it is important to remember what al-Bashir is: a radical Islamist imposing the type of sharia law and carrying out policies that most Islamists approve of. While the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir for Darfur... that genocide was only one in a long series of actions taken in the name of Islam that have caused us all great harm... When he seized power in 1989 he did so as a self-proclaimed Islamist, in the company of Hassan al-Turabi... The regime of al-Bashir is not an "ordinary" criminal regime, such as that of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or Charles Taylor in Liberia. Rather, it is a theologically-motivated regime that provided some of the important theological and financial support for radical Islamist movements around the world. Al-Bashir and al-Turabi hosted not only al Qaeda, but Hamas, Hezbollah, whose members were able to enter without visas in order to foster revolutionary solidarity and networks. Sudan, under al Bashir, became an Islamist terrorist Disneyland, where all could mix and mingle. The imposition of sharia law, the war against non-Muslims in the south, and the Darfur genocide, are all follow-ons to those years.

Not to worry though. Al-Bashir is still getting the recognition he deserves from Iran and Hamas:

Iran and the Palestinian militant group Hamas showed their support for Sudan's president Friday, sending top officials to the Sudanese capital and denouncing the international warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes in Darfur. Their visit came as the United Nations human rights group warned that Sudan's expulsion of 13 aid organizations from Darfur could also constitute a war crime. Sudan took the step in retaliation after the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court issued a warrant against President Omar al-Bashir on Wednesday... Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, arrived in Khartoum along with Moussa Abu Marzouk, the No. 2 figure in Hamas' Damascus-based leadership. Larijani told reporters at the airport that the ICC's arrest warrant is an insult. Also in their delegation were Syrian Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Abrash and representatives from other Palestinian militant factions. Iran and Hamas have been long time allies of al-Bashir, whose government is dominated by Muslim fundamentalists and military officers.

I don't think he's particularly worried. It's not like the ICC is going to swoop in and get him in the next few months. By the time anyone gets around to trying to enforce the warrant, in fact, he'll already be comfortably ensconced under an Iranian nuclear umbrella.

Oh well. At least the ICC - to which Obama is considering committing the US - will still be able to go after Israel.

References:
* The Hague issues arrest warrant for Sudan's Bashir for war crimes [Ha'aretz]
* Why The Al Bashir Arrest Warrant is Important [Douglas Farah]
* Iran, Hamas dispatch solidarity missions to Sudan president [Ha'aretz]
* Obama to commit to the ICC? [Hot Air]
* International Criminal Court Gearing Up For Most Shameless Anti-Israel Legal Decision Evuh [MR]

Previously:
* If Anti-Zionism Isn't Supposed to Be Anti-Semitism, Someone Should Probably Tell the Anti-Zionists
* Islamist Sudanese Students Demand End To Gaza Lockdown, Existence Of USA
* Sudan Preventing Reporters From Conveying True Extent Of Teddy Bear Riots

Four and a half billion dollars that Hamas can transfer from infrastructure development to launching rockets at Israeli schools and hospitals:

Palestinian officials from rival factions welcomed pledges of more than $4.4 billion to rebuild the war-torn Gaza Strip that were made at the donors conference held in Sharm e-Sheikh on Monday. "We appreciate this very much, and we hope it can be transferred into reality in an expeditious fashion so we can see the reconstruction of Gaza begin immediately," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told The Jerusalem Post. Earlier on Monday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told reporters in Gaza that the group welcomed "any Arab and international effort to rebuild what the occupation destroyed," calling the reconstruction process "a humane and moral" one.

And no of course Israel didn't do 4.4billion in damage. In fact new eyewitness reports says that they didn't do much damage to civilian infrastructure at all:

What I saw was that there had been precision attacks made on all of Hamas' infrastructure. Does UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticize the surgical destruction of the explosives cache in the Imad Akhel Mosque, of the National Forces compound, of the Shi Jaya police station, of the Ministry of Prisoners?... THERE WERE empty beds at Shifa Hospital and a threatening atmosphere... Terrorized Gazans used doublespeak when they told me most of the alleged 5,500 wounded were being treated in Egypt and Jordan. They want it known that the figure is a lie, and showed me that the wounded weren't in Gaza. No evidence exists of their presence in foreign hospitals, or of how they might have gotten there... Gazans contradicted allegations that Israel had murderously attacked civilians. They told me again and again that both civilians and Hamas fighters had evacuated safely from areas of Hamas activity in response to Israeli telephone calls, leaflets and megaphone warnings.

No worries though, because Clinton says that only $300 million of the $900 million US contribution will be going to Gaza. Hamas will have to join a unity government before Abbas gives them the rest of the money:

Saudi Arabia has been calling for a Palestinian unity government. Same thing with Egypt and the US. So why not?

Palestinian rival groups Fatah and Hamas held a series of "ice-breaking" meetings ahead of wider reconciliation talks aimed at repairing the gaping rift between the two groups, members said Wednesday. The discussions, mediated by Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, focused on releasing detainees and ending the negative media campaigns each side is waging against the other. Hamas politburo member Izzat Rashaq said the idea was to create a positive atmosphere between the two groups. Azzam al-Ahmed, of Fatah delegation, described the talks as "very positive, deep and tackled all issues of conflict," and expressed hope they would end "the state of divisions."

The only holdout is Hamas, who refuses to pretend to recognize Israel. That's a dealbreaker for Abbas, who doesn't have that luxury:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday any unity government with Hamas would have to agree to a two-state solution with Israel, a demand quickly rejected by his Islamist rivals. The disagreement could hamper Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks aimed at ending a schism between the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, where Abbas's Fatah faction holds sway. "We are moving in steady steps towards ... a national unity government that abides by our known commitments, which include the two-state vision and the signed (peace) commitments," Abbas said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

This is the same thing they told Clinton a few days ago. And - honestly - why should they change? Sure they're denying Obama the pretext that he needs to backslide on his "no Hamas" promises. But the rest of the world will cave soon enough. Liberals in Britain and the US are already pushing for direct talks. European diplomats are only a little behind. Besides - it's not like the international community won't be spending the next few months pouring billions of dollars into Gaza.

Oh - and Hamas wants you to know that they won't really be moderating even if they do join a unity government. Just in case you were confused.

References and previously after the jump...

Surprise!

In a swift about face from her views as New York's senator, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now hammering Israel over its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. As First Lady, Clinton raised eyebrows when she kissed Suha Arafat. Since she was then seeking a Senate seat the resulting brouhaha caused her to "re-think" her positions. "I'm a very strong supporter of Israel," Clinton said back in February 2000. On Thursday, as Secretary of State she had yet another about face in the form of angry messages demanding Israel speed up aid to Gaza. Jewish leaders are furious... Clinton's decision to hammer Israel comes as the Clintons and President Barack Obama are planning to give the Palestinians $900 million toward the rebuilding of Gaza in the wake of the Israeli offensive that was sparked by Hamas rocket fire.

At least Obama didn't stack his administration with anti-Israel hacks like all those voters filled with "Obama paranoia" said he would. I'd say we're about a month away from a climbdown on his oh-so-nuanced election promise not to engage Hamas, with a Palestinian unity government providing the thin pretext.

But at least he's committed to preventing Iranian nuclearization. "Contain" means the same thing as "prevent," right?

References:
* Jewish Leaders Blast Clinton Over Israel Criticism [CBS]
* Obama Shill Tells Jews To Get Over Their "Obama Paranoia" [MR]
* Obama Publicly Endorses Netanyahu-Lieberman Right Wing Coalition! [Daled Amos]
* Obama's Iran strategy [LAT]

Previously:
* No Kidding: Obama To Pressure Israel On Its Nuclear Deterrent
* Israeli Officials: Hey, Do You Think That Maybe Obama's Going To Detonate The US-Israel Relationship?
* WaPo: Israeli Voters Are Kind Of Undermining Obama's Diplomacy, Aren't They?

Take an Iranian regime that refers to the rockets they supply as "resistance rockets." Add a genocidal religious ideology that erodes any longterm deterrent. Mix in the plurality of Gazans who favor continued rocket attacks on Israeli civilians...

08) What is your attitude to the firing of rockets at present on Israel from Gaza?
18.5% 1. Strongly favour
20.8% 2. Favour
33.5% 3. Undecided
14.3% 4. Oppose
12.9% 5. Strongly oppose

... and somehow you end up with a situation where Palestinian soldiers are firing more and more rockets at Israeli civilians in southern Israel:

South under fire, again: A rocket landed in south Ashkelon around 10 pm Saturday, prompting residents to take cover in secured rooms. The rocket attack was preceded by a warning siren activated in the southern section of the city. No injuries or damages were reported in the attack... Earlier in the evening, two mortar shells were fired at Israel from Gaza , after Katyusha rockets exploded in the north earlier in the day. The mortar shells apparently landed in Shaar HaNegev Regional Council. No injuries or damage were reported, and security forces were seeking to pin-point the landing sites. Amid talk of a materializing ceasefire in Gaza, terror organizations have continued to pelt Israel with rockets in recent weeks.

These follow the 50+ rockets that they've launched since the end of Cast Lead. Perhaps feeling a little left out, Israel's enemies to the north also got into the action over the weekend:

A Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon Saturday morning landed near a home in Israel's western Galilee region. Three members of the family residing in the home sustained mild injuries in the attack, and two more suffered from shock. The wounded were treated by Magen David Adom paramedics and then evacuated to a hospital in Nahariya. The structure was damaged. Security sources in Lebanon said a second Katyusha landed in Lebanese territory. They said the rocket fire emanated from the area of Mansouri, south of Tyre, and that Israel responded by firing at least six artillery shells into southern Lebanon.

No doubt UNIFIL will spring to action and place its peacekeepers on high alert. Again. And no doubt Israel will announce that Hezbollah is responsible for the rocket fire. Again. Nasrallah seems genuinely intent on testing his own boasts about destroying the IDF in the next war that Iran and its proxies start. I really hope Bibi knows what he's doing.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Palestinian soldiers also fired rockets at Israeli troops yesterday:

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Sunday fired two mortar rounds at Israel Defense Forces soldiers near the border, Israel Radio reported. A Qassam rocket hit the western Negev earlier on Sunday. There were no casualties or damages reported in either incident on Sunday. On Saturday, a rocket struck Ashkelon, a day after Gaza militants fired 10 mortar shells and a Qassam rocket into the western Negev on Friday. IDF troops operating in the Kissufim area identified the source of the rocket fire and opened fire in the direction of the launchers across the border.

Best. Ceasefire. Ever.

References and previously after the jump...

They don't actually say that the animals were deliberately killed by Israeli soldiers, mostly on account of how that would make no sense. That's just their plain implication:

Hundreds of Palestinian schoolchildren used to come to the Gaza Zoo every week, but not now. Tanks rolled through the area during the Israeli offensive. Much of the zoo was badly damaged, most of the animals died. Cage after cage lies empty. Ostrich feathers are strewn close to a crater in the ground, beside the mangled steel bars of what was the birds' pen. The remains of a camel lie inside its former enclosure. "Some were killed in air strikes," says the zoo's manager, Emad Qassim, "but some of the animals were shot dead." "Thank God our two lions survived, but we used to have over 400 animals and birds, now there are just 10 left." Many of the animals died of starvation. The zookeepers say that for more than two weeks, Zeitoun, the southern suburb of Gaza City where the zoo is located, was simply too dangerous to access because of the presence of troops and tanks.

Before we get to anything else: what happened sucks. Full stop. Those poor animals were trembling in locked cages, terrified out of their minds by the nearby explosions. No one was around to take care of them. They were starving and confused. That just sucks.

But it's a lie to imply that the area was too dangerous to access. Israel's daily 3 hour ceasefires were implemented precisely to make sure that civilians could get critical business done. And it's dishonest to imply that the animals were killed by Israeli troops. The Israelis were the ones who carefully de-mined the park after Hamas soldiers turned it into a booby-trapped warzone:

As for the idyllic "Palestinian schoolchildren used to come to the Gaza Zoo every week" - come on:

That's before we get to the part of the BBC article entitled "Perseverance and trauma." No it's not about the Israeli civilians who stoically coped with rocket barrages for eight years. It's about the Gaza archaeological museum, which has existed for about a year.

Almost difficult to understand why the BBC has spent over 200,000 pounds of taxpayer money in their ongoing battle to suppress the Balen report detailing their anti-Israel bias. In fairness to them - and as BBC head Mark Thompson explained - they have to be pro-Islam.

Less sarcastically, I'm genuinely glad to hear that the Gaza zoo recovered the lions that had been kidnapped by Gaza criminal gangs. Small mercies I guess.

References and previously after the jump...

Actually that's an exaggeration. It's only a little more than $900 million:

The United States plans to pledge more than $900 million to help rebuild Gaza after Israel's offensive against Hamas and strengthen the Palestinian Authority, a U.S. official said on Monday. The money will be channeled through UN and other bodies and will not be distributed via the militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to make the announcement next week at a Gaza donors conference in Egypt. The March 2 donors conference in Sharm el-Sheikh resort aims to raise humanitarian and rebuilding funds for Gaza after Israel's offensive against Hamas at the end of last year. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed during the campaign, according to Gaza officials, as were 13 Israelis.

Old Reuters boilerplate: "About 1,300 Palestinians were killed during the campaign, about two-thirds of which were civilians..."

New Reuters boilerplate: "About 1,300 Palestinians were killed during the campaign, according to Gaza officials..."

And people say that there's no upshot to thoroughly debunking the credulous pro-Hamas propaganda published by Western media outlets. Look how much more straightforward and honest they're being!

Anyway, one billion US dollars are going to UNRWA for infrastructure. I would point out that this is effectively a backdoor subsidy for Hamas since normally they'd have to spend some of their money being effective civil administrators. This way they can use all their resources for weapons and war-fighting. But since the money is going to UNRWA it's actually a direct subsidy for Hamas.

References:
* 'U.S. plans to pledge $900 million for Gaza' [Ha'aretz]
* Gaza Body Count: Were We Duped? [TIME]
* Obligator