Finally, some pressure on Syria?

According to the New York Times,pressure might finally be applied on Syria:

Russia, an important ally of Syria, signaled new support for possible Security Council action, Syrian democracy activists received a warm welcome in Washington, Italy withdrew its ambassador to Damascus, and the top United Nations rights official warned Syria that “the world is watching.” 

Of course, watching is not the same as acting, but the fact that Russia may support sanctions is.second development.

Blogged from my Android

#Flotilla2 Leader: It's Not About Humanitarian Aid

We want to break the siege and the flotilla is not about expanding the drip of humanitarian aid to Gaza. the flotilla.

Flotilla leader


I guess that would explain why while they are so intent on breaking the Gaza blockade, the Flotilla is in no hurry to actually get aid to Gaza:

Organizers of the flotilla seeking to break Israel’s blockade over the Gaza Strip on Sunday rejected an offer by Athens to allow Greek Navy ships to transfer the humanitarian aid they had planned to bring with them to Gaza on their behalf.

As far as the comment about the "drip" of aid going into Gaza, that is a very appropriate description--if we are discussing what the Flotilla claims to bring, in comparison with what Israel brings into Gaza every day. 

Blogged from my Android

Hezbollah Had A Really Bad Week

David Schenker writes at The National Review writes that Hezbollah had a really bad week:

depreciation in the group’s reputation that started in 2008, when the organization invaded and occupied Beirut, turning the weapons of “the resistance” on the Lebanese people.

...More recently, in an ironic twist, Hezbollah— which at one time was known as the “Party of the Oppressed”—has emerged as the strongest regional l backer of Syria’s murderous Assad regime.

Read the whole thing

Blogged from my Android

12 Human Rights Groups Refuse To Demand Gilad Shalit's Release

12 "human rights"  groups get together on the 5th anniversary of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit--but HRW and friends are not demanding Shalit's release. Yes, Shalit should be able to contact famiy. Yes, he should have access to the Red Cross. But there is no mention of the thousands of rockets fired by the terrorist group Hamas which is the context of the kidnapping.

Noah Pollak notes that the moral outrage of the self-proclaimed defender of international law has its limits--and its threshold is when Israel is the victim:

Yet here these same champions of international law have lost their voices, and their outrage, when it comes to making what should be the easiest of judgments: That it is against international law to raid a sovereign state for the purpose of abducting its citizens, that Shalit’s imprisonment is barbaric and utterly without legitimacy, and that Hamas must release him immediately.  

 Does anyone doubt why these 12 groups have suddenly lost their voice?

Blogged from my Android

Michael Totten Takes You To Hebron

The myriads of observers, pundits, politicians, dreamers, visionaries and true believers who all know for a certainty that dividing Jerusalem is the key to peace in the Middle East need urgently to visit Hebron.”

Historian Yaacov Lozowick quoted by Michael Totten

---

Michael Totten has written another of his signature in-depth pieces--this time about  his visit to Hebron.

His tour guide was Eve Harow, who does not live in Hebron:

Sometimes I feel like I’m living inside a horror film. One of the most insulting things you can say is that I’m against peace because I’m a settler. I live here. I have seven children and three grandchildren, and if there isn’t peace then I’m the big loser. It’s the little people who pay the price. It’s the little people who go to war, and it’s the little people who get buried.”

Much of Totten's post recounts his interview with David Wilder, spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron.

When Totten asks if the reason for living in Hebron is to maintain access to the "Tomb of the Patriarchs", Wilder responds:

“That’s certainly a primary reason,” David said. “Hebron is the first Jewish city in Israel. This is where Abraham came 3700 years ago. He lived here. All the patriarchs and matriarchs lived here. King David started the Kingdom of Israel here before he went up to exceptions, Jews have always been living here. The last time there were no back in 1100 when the Crusaders threw all the Jews out and replaced them with Christians. The Christians have since been replaced with Arabs. But otherwise there were always Jews here. This community is part of a chain that goes all the way back to the beginning of Judaism.”

...“We share control of the building with Palestinians,” David said, “but they tell us straight up that if they can throw us out of here that they won’t let us back in the tomb of our patriarchs. They say it’s a mosque and that only Muslims should pray there even though it was built by King Herod, who was a Jew. If we don’t stay here, none of us will even be able to visit.”

Totten writes that Jews and Arabs get along differently in different areas in Israel:



Jews and Arabs famously get along well in the Israeli city of Haifa. They live in the same neighborhoods, on the same streets, and in the same apartment buildings. They eat at the same restaurants, attend the same schools, work for the same companies, and drink beer in the same pubs. They can get along. Haifa is proof.

Iraelis and Palestinians don’t mix much in Jerusalem, but they get along reasonably well for the most part in the places where they do overlap, such as are civil if less warm than between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs in Haifa.

In Hebron, though, they’re like anti-matter and matter.

Wilder explains that Hebron was not always like that:

“When we came back in 1967,” he said,“we had reasonable relations between business relationships, personal relationships. We could walk around the city unarmed and there were no problems. Things weren’t all lovey- dovey, but people got along. Things started to change in a bad way during the first Intifada in the late 1980s. The PLO began rounding up Arabs who were seen talking to Jews and accusing them of being collaborators, so pretty soon  the Arabs stopped talking to us.”

And that is how things stand now.

 Read Michael Totten's entire post. 

Blogged from my Android

Why Can't Hamas And Fatah Just Get Along?

Looks like there is still no love lost as  Hamas accuses Fatah of hatching "a plot to materialize the wishes and aspirations of the US and the Zionist regime" 

A senior leader of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, lambasted the Fatah movement for pursuing the failed experiences of the past which created a wide gap among the different Palestinian groups.

"The Fatah movement has opted for deception and intrigues after signing the national reconciliation agreement and seeks to bypass the Constitution," Younus al-Astal told FNA on Sunday.

He criticized Fatah's proposal for the members of the government to take their oath before the Head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, instead of the parliament, and said this means that Fatah is still moving on the same old wrong way.

Astal cautioned that the Fatah movement has hatched a plot to materialize the wishes and aspirations of the US and the Zionist regime, and said they seek to persuade us to desist from resistance and recognize the Zionist regime, but this is a wish which will never come true. [emphasis added] 

Hamas and Fatah--why can't Palestinian terrorists just get along?

But at least Obama got his answer.

At AIPAC, Obama said it was up to Hamas to answer the question how Israel could negotiate with a group that does not recognize its right to exist.

Hamas's answer: Drop dead.

Hat tip: IMRA

Blogged from my Android  

Egypt's New Buddy, Iran, Has Been Spying On Them

In the midst of the budding friendship between Egypt and Iran, Egypt has expelled an Iranian diplomat for spying:

Egypt is expelling an Iranian diplomat who was briefly detained and questioned on charges of illegally gathering intelligence for Tehran, security officials said.

Qassem al Husseini, the diplomat, was arrested on Saturday in his Cairo home, after the Egyptian intelligence tracked his movements, Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin reported.

Husseini was charged with attempting to set up spy rings in Egypt and other Arab countries.

One puzzle remains:

He was released after a two-hour detention, Haydar Moslehi, Iran's intelligence minister, said on Sunday, according to Iranian state television's website. Moslehi also said that Egyptian authorities apologised for the incident - though he did not elaborate.

Since Egypt went ahead with the expulsion and Iran is not explaining, it's unlikely the whole thing was just one big misunderstanding.

Hope Egypt enjoys their new friends.

Blogged from my   Android

Palestinian Rhetoric Can Get Redundant

I appreciate that these guys want to imitate the West in terms of rhetoric--though little else--but Palestinian statements like this are just redundant:

..."We are standing today at the threshold of national unity, we hope that national interests will overcome personal and factional interests Ash-Sheqaqi said in a statement. 

Has anyone noticed that the "national", personal, and factional interests of these Arabs are all the same: the destruction of Israel?

Everything the Palestinians are today derives from that hatred/envy of Israel--yet they still can't get along with each other.


Blogged from my Android

Obama's Speech: Assad Gets Ultimatum, Hamas Gets Homework

In his speech today, Obama again reiterated his new policy vis-a-vis Syria:

President Assad now has a choice: he can lead that transition (to democracy), or get out of the way.

Krauthammer is not impressed with the idea of Assad as reformer:

Syria's Assad leading a transition to democracy? This is bizarre and appalling. Assad has made all-out war on his people — shooting, arresting, executing, even using artillery against cities.  Yet Obama is still holding out the olive branch when, if anything, he should be declaring Assad as illegitimate as Qaddafi. Clearly, some habits of engagement/appeasement die hard.

In fact, that habit of engagement/appeasement makes another appearance in that very same speech.

On the topic of Israel-Palestine peace, Obama declares:

Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection.

Krauthammer's description of Assad--shooting, arresting, executing, even using artillery against cities--certainly applies to Hamas as well.  Nevertheless,Obama does not flinch from claiming that Hamas (recognized by the US as a terrorist organization), and Fatah which has joined the terrorist group, are Israel's partners in peace.

That only make sense. If Obama can suggest that a murderous ruler can lead reform, surely a group of terrorists that target children are fit to be Israel's peace partners.

There is one difference. Assad is given a choice: either be part of the new wave of reform--or leave.

No such ultimatum is giiven to Hamas and Fatah. Instead, though Obama acknowledges the question of how can Israel  negotiate with Hamas when they don't recognize Israel's right to exist--instead of giving them an ultimatum, Obama gives the terrorists a homework assignment:

In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question.

And if they don't? What is Obama going to do -- give them detention?

So if you think Obama is letting Assad get away with murder  in comparison to Gaddafy, just look at how Hamas is being foisted upon Israel as peace partners.

Blogged from my Android.

Norway: 'Palestine' Ready To Join Syria And Iran On World Stage!

Omri Ceren describes how the West continues to be determined to create another failed Middle East state

The Palestinians don’t have a constitution, they don’t have an independent judiciary, and they don’t have a free press; they can’t hold elections and their President is seven years into his four-year term; their educational system is a cesspool of primitive and savage anti- Jewish bigotry.

But according to Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store—speaking on behalf of donors and echoing the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN— they’re “above the threshold of a functioning state.”    

Actually, what we have here is a high threshold for dishonesty.

Read the whole thing

Blogged from my Android

 

Numbers To Call To Report Syrian #basharcrimes

Tweeted from SyriaTracker

To report crimes in #Syria, you can call and leave a message to either +16504194196 or +390662207294 or +442033184514"

--

Blogged from my Android  

Muqata vs Leftist Media Sloppiness

Joe Settler debunks some typical knee-jerk journalism from the left:

Someone pointed out to me an article in one of the Jewish Lefty rags.

In the article they were calling Israel a racist, discriminatory country.

Their proof? Because only 2,198 out of the 196,000 college and university students currently studying in Israel were Ethiopian Jews – a mere 1.12%(from an article in Yisrael Hayom, not a lefty paper by the way).

Something bothered me about the way that information was being portrayed, so I did a little research on Wikipedia.  

Needless to say, the facts reveal the opposite of what the paper claims. 

Read the whole thing. 

Nakba Day Activities: Terrorism And Infiltration

Oleh Girl has update on the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv  

Second person arrested in Tel Aviv terrorist attack that stretched over 2 kilometers and in which 15 different vehicles were crashed into. Terrorists tried to drive into school but the schoolyard gate they crashed into held.

Meanwhile, Syria--desperate for distractions from its murder of it people--is allowing Syrians to infiltrate into Israel.

The IDF reports Rioters Reach Village of Majdal Shams :

 

A short while ago thousands of Syrian civilians breached the Israel-Syria border near the Israeli village of Majdal Shams.

IDF forces fired warning shots in order to prevent the violent rioters from illegally infiltrating Israeli territory. A number of rioters have infiltrated and are violently rioting in the village. From initial reports there are dozens of injured that are receiving medical care in a nearby hospital.

This is unlike Egypt, which cancelled plans for a solidarity march to Gaza. 

Blogged from my Android

Fatah Admits It Does Not Recognize Israel

Challah Hu Akbar on Twitter writes Fatah Official: Fatah & Hamas Share Stance on Not Recognizing Israel

In his post  Fatah Official: Fatah & Hamas Share Stance on Not Recognizing Israel , he quotes a Fatah official who is very emphatic on this point:

"No one in Fatah and Hamas movements recognizes Israel," Abdullah Abdullah told FNA, asked if the so-called Fatah- Israel peace talks would continue, given Hamas's opposition to the process.

This not only raises the question whether Fatah ever recognized Israel -- it raises the question whether the Palestinian Authority meets the 3 requirements Hamas is supposed to meet:

o Recognize Israel

o Eschew terrorism (Abbas has never stopped inciting hatred against Israel)

o Accept all agreements with Israel (joining with Hamas is not the optimal way to fulfill the first step of the Roadmap and disarm terrorists)  

Of course, we can rely on the pro-Palestinian apologists to claim that Fatah actually recognizes Israel, supports the two-state solution and who knows what else.

It's time to judge these two by their actions and by the fact the their statements made to the Muslim media.


Blogged from my Android 



  

The UN Arab Rights Council

Based on the following AP article, it does seem a more accurate name for the group, considering how they see their job:

Several members of the U.N.'s top human rights body are pressing for an emergency meeting to examine the government crackdowns against popular protests that have swept the Middle East and North Africa, Western diplomats said Wednesday.

The countries, from Latin America, Europe, North America and Asia, are trying to collect 16 signatures necessary to force a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council next week, the diplomats said.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, which was underlined by the innocuous title proposed for the meeting — "Promotion and protection of human rights in the context of recent peaceful protests."

When It Involves Israel, "Peace Activists" Ignore Inconvenient International Law

We've barely begun to see the reactions to the apparent resolution of bad blood beteen Hamas and Fatah. With that comes the prospect of a Haza/West Bank come September--a prospect firing some imaginations .

One reaction I thought interesting comes from Americans for Prace Now President and CEO Debra DeLee. She believes that Palestinian Reconciliation Deal is an Opportunity for Obama. Watch her brush aside any concern for the Hamas dedication to Israel's destruction--let alone the firing of rockets at civilian targets:

Palestinian Army, Joseph's Tomb--And Dayton's Warning

Israel Matzav wrote a couple of years ago that Gen. Dayton warned that the US-trained Palestinian police could become an anti-Israel army:

In her weekly JPost column - moved up Thursday because of the holiday - Caroline Glick reports that US General Keith Dayton (pictured), who is training the ' Palestinian police force,' believe that 'police force' will become an army that will attack Israel in the event tha Israel does not give the 'Palestinians' what they want.  

Read the whole thing. 

Today's incident makes it imperative that the US investment in training these Arab forces be re-evaluated. 

Let's Have An 'International Read From The Koran Day' (2 Updates)

After 2 days of Rosh HaShanah and then Shabbos, I can now take a look and see how the world conducted itself in my absence. Looks like Terry Jones decided on the right thing and did not go ahead with the Koran-burning.

One thing he might consider instead is this suggestion from Robert Spencer:

As such, it would be better to read aloud from the Qur'an for all to hear believers, the second-class status of women, cruel and unusual punishments, and open-ended calls to warfare in order to impose Islamic law.  [hat tip: Mike Krikorian]

Visiting At The Hospital

My father fell and fractured his hip--and his arm.

I'll be here most of the day.

Though I can blog off of my droid, I will instead follow the sage advice of Dirty Harry who once said, "A blogger has got to know his limitations."

Have a Good Shabbos.

Posted from my Droid via Blogaway

Would You Sell A Nuclear Reactor To An Accused War Criminal? Iran Would

Meet Sudanese president al-Bashir, accused war criminal, who just last month was charged by the International Criminal Court with three counts of genocide.

The warrant issued last week alleges that the Sudanese government, using the national armed forces, police and the Janjaweed militia [BBC backgrounder], targeted ethnic groups for extermination that were believed to be close to armed opposition groups in Darfur as part of a counter-insurgency strategy, and that as commander-in-chief of Sudanese forces, Bashir "played an essential role in [its] coordinati[on]."

(Did I mention that those 3 counts of genocide were in addition to seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity that were filed against al-Bashir in March 2009?)

But that was last month--this month he has been generously offered nuclear technology by Iran.