Has cooperation between Israel and the PA virtually eliminated the terrorist threat in the northern West Bank?

Yes, according to Haaretz. Read here: West Bank most-wanted terrorist list has dwindled to almost nil

Seattle's deceptive anti-Israel referendum

A coalition of Seattle activists calling itself Seattle Divest from War and Occupation (SDWO) is petitioning to get an anti-Israel divestment referendum on November's ballot and they are attempting to deceive voters in the process. The referendum's sweeping anti-Israel provisions are concealed both in the text of the petition and in the statements of its supporters, both of which highlight its other provisions calling for divestment in companies profiting from the war in Iraq. The anti-Iraq War provisions of Initiative 97 are touted in its title ("DIVEST FROM WAR Initiative") which is printed in a large font headline above a description of the referendum in smaller print. The full text of the referendum appears on a separate page which appears after the petition's signature page, potentially deceiving voters who don't read all the way through to see the less popular anti-Israel language. (View a PDF of the petition here.)

The fact that the proposal's authors have chosen to link the potentially popular anti-war proposal to the less popular anti-Israel one raises questions as to their priorities. Are they more interested in promoting an anti-Zionist agenda than they are in ending the war? If not, what practical reason do they have to link the two issues making passage of the anti-war provisions less likely? Why don't they give voters the option of signing separate petitions, one concerning Israel, the other Iraq? Why do they conceal the anti-Israel provisions of this referendum within the Trojan Horse of the anti-Iraq-war provisions?

In addition to attempting to conceal its anti-Israel provisions, SDWO have also lied about how sweeping they would be. Some supporters of the referendum (read here) have implied that it would target only companies providing military equipment used in the West Bank and Gaza. Some have even claimed that the bill would only effect Halliburton and Caterpillar. This is patently false. Here's a quote from the proposed referendum:

The city of Seattle shall not invest its employees’ retirement funds in ...(c) corporations that provide direct material support for activities of the Israeli government within the occupied and besieged territories of West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights (and) (d) corporations with a presence (including but not limited to offices, manufacturing plants, franchises, and significant trade ties) in Israeli settlements in the occupied territories of West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights.

Please note the vagueness of the term "presence". The referendum pointedly does not limit the word "presence" to "offices, manufacturing plants, franchises, and significant trade ties". In fact, it does not define the limits of the term "presence" at all. A law with language that vague would provide bureaucrats with arbitrary power with respect to deciding which corporations to punish. In effect, any corporation doing business in Israel could be deemed by the administrators of the pension fund to be "present" by dint of some connection to the areas specified and subject to divestment.

Although the Seattle divestment proponents like to cite arms manufacturers as their targets (except Boeing, see below), in fact, this measure would mostly effect corporations doing business in completely non-military fields such as software, retail, agriculture, banking and pharmaceuticals, many of which employ and serve Arabs as well as Jews. Corporations specifically targeted by previous divestment initiatives include: Ahava, Boston Scientific, Domino's Pizza, GM, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, International Paper, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, Lehmann Brothers, Lucent, McDonald's, Merck, Motorola, Pizza Hut, Teva, Texas Instruments and Volvo. Under the terms of Initiative 97, all of these corporations would be subject to divestment. Corporations which operate under contract with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, such as Caterpillar and Cement Roadstone would be subject to divestment as well.

In fact, this measure is so vaguely written that it could actually apply to corporations doing business with relief agencies providing services to Palestinians insofar as they act in concert with the Israeli government or provide services to Israelis. It could also apply to the corporations whose equipment is used to provide fuel or even water to Palestinians if Israelis also used that fuel or water in the regions named in the law. Many of the potentially effected corporations actually employ Palestinians and/or provide Palestinians with goods and services.

The literature produced by the New England United Methodist Conference (NEUMC), the group which spearheaded the anti-Israel divestment movement in the U.S. and provided the model the others follow, is helpful in understanding exactly how broad the intentions of the divestment movement really are, and why the provisions of Initiative 97 are so vague. (Read here and here) Take Blockbuster Video as an example. The NEUMC goes so far as to target Blockbuster for punishment because it

has kiosks in illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. These settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Companies providing services to these settlements, which violate international law, contribute to their growth and appeal for Israelis. They make it harder to withdraw Israelis from the occupied territories, an essential step for any lasting peace agreement with Palestinians.

"(O)ccupied Palestinian land" in this instance refers to places such as French Hill (a neighborhood in Jerusalem), Maaele Adumim and Ariel. Just how video kiosks interfere with lasting peace is unclear. The theory seems to be that Israelis with access to DVDs are less likely to leave.

The fact that completely harmless commercial activity such as this has been specifically targeted by the divestment movement would seem to portend that, if Seattle were to implement this measure, the definition of "presence" would be very broad indeed. Any business whose goods or services are sold to or even used by Israelis beyond the pre-1967 "Green Line", including within Jerusalem, could be subject to divestment.

In fact, the inclusion of "East Jerusalem" in this measure also broadens the referendum's scope beyond any practicable definition. Jerusalem has effectively been unified for 41 years, since Israel removed that city's barbed wire barricades and walls which were erected by the Jordanians in 1948. Targeting a business with a "presence" on a particular block or in a particular neighborhood would be completely unworkable. Would the pizza delivery guy have to consult a 1967 map of Jerusalem to determine if he was subjecting Pizza Hut to divestment? Would he have to ask if the recipient of the pizza were Arab or Jew? And if an Arab and a Jew shared the pizza...

The measure would even punish commercial activity in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. If a publicly traded corporation produces religious articles such as siddurim, tallitot, or kipot used at the Western Wall, it would be subject to divestment.

Here's the bottom line: any corporation whose goods or services are used in Israel could be subject to divestment under this measure, depending on the interpretation of its vague language.

Local Impact

This measure has local implications specific to Seattle voters concerned about local businesses, complicating matters for its advocates. Seattle-based corporations such as Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks could be subject to punitive divestment, and the divestment people are anxious to spin this aspect every which way but loose. The Seattle Post Intelligencer has reported that the measure's backers claim that the measure would somehow not effect Boeing, although they don't explain why not (read here, fourth paragraph). A local pro-divestment activist named Richard Silverstein has claimed (here, in the last sentence) that Boeing would be exempt because, in his words, "the company is not involved in any commercial enterprises in the settlements". However, both the NEUMC (here) and the Seattle Palestine Solidarity Committee (here) specifically name Boeing as subject to divestment because it supplies aircraft used by Israel in the Palestinian territories. Boeing also does business with the Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems (ESLT) (read here) which would fall under the "direct material support" provision of the referendum. Yet Silverstein and the referendum's unnamed "backers" maintain that Boeing's business in Israel somehow wouldn't be considered either "direct material support" or a "presence" under the referendum.

In fact, not only would Boeing's military presence fall under the aegis of this measure, such innocuous activities as Microsoft's sales, user support or training programs in the areas specified in the referendum would subject that Seattle-based corporation to divestment as well. Furthermore, Microsoft acquires several Israeli startups every year and has R & D facilities in Haifa (read here) and Herliya (read here). If the referendum passes, it would remain to be determined by whoever would determine such matters whether these operations have a "presence" in the relevant areas. Transportation or other programs for employees living in the targeted areas, subcontracts with other businesses, or contracts with the Israeli government might well open the door to Seattle being forced to divest its Microsoft stock under the broad terms of Initiative 97.

Even Starbucks, which does not have any stores in Israel (read here), might be subject to the measure, based on their "presence" as a funder of various Jewish and Zionist charities. In fact, anti-Israel activists have specifically targeted Starbucks for a boycott because of the support of its CEO Howard Schultz for Israel (read here and here). The boycott Starbucks movement has produced virulent anti-Semitic propaganda such as this. If Initiative 97 passes, Seattle's pension fund administrators may be forced to rule on whether charitable donations to Jewish institutions in Jerusalem constitute a "presence".

Seattle has relatively few Jews and little connection to Israel, but SDWO has attempted to capitalize on one local connection. The Seattle area was the home of Rachel Corrie, the Palestine Solidarity Movement activist killed by a Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza. SDWO has played on this connection, blaming the Caterpillar corporation for Corrie's death and going so far as to claim that Initiative 97 would only mandate divestment in two companies: Halliburton and Caterpillar.

One local connection to anti-Israel terrorism took place just two years ago in 2006 when the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle (located in the 36th LD) was the subject of a horrible terrorist attack by a Muslim proclaiming opposition to Israel (read here and here). Six women were shot in that attack, including one who was 17 weeks pregnant. One of the victims died.

The Referendum's Sponsors

Initiative 97's organizational sponsors (listed here) have a history of opposing Israel's existence, supporting a "one-state solution" and advocating complete boycott of Israel. Some of them have even come out in favor of suicide bombing and terrorism. This advocacy is not at all reflected in the literature they've published in support of the petition or on the petition itself.

One of the initiative's main sponsors is the Seattle Green Party, and one of the main endorsers is the Washington State Green Party. The Washington State Greens, like the U.S. Green Party, has a history of anti-Israel activism in addition to it's better known pacificism, anti-globalization and environmentalism. With respect to the presidential election, the Washington Greens voted for Cynthia McKinney, who is now the Green Party's presumptive presidential nominee (read here and here). (McKinney is still listed as a Democrat, not a Green, on the SDWO website, here.) McKinney, who has built her political career largely around her opposition to Israel, recently advocated the "Palestinian right of return" (a code word for a "one state solution") in a speech to an anti-Israel rally at the UN on the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding (read here: "Cynthia McKinney on Israel: ‘Not in my name’"). McKinney has formally endorsed the Seattle divestment referendum and promotes it on her website, albeit in deceptive terms. Her website states that the referendum "would block the city from investing its pension funds in corporations that benefit from the Iraq war, or from certain other Middle East military occupations." (Read here.)

The Greens elsewhere advocate a complete boycott of Israel in more open terms. In November 2005, a resolution (read here) of the national Green Party called for:

"civil society institutions and organizations around the world to implement a comprehensive divestment and boycott program (i.e. against Israel). Further, the party calls on all governments to support this program and to implement state level boycotts."

The U.S. Green Party is apparently extremely ambitious with respect to their influence on "all world governments".

In October, 2007, the U.S. Green Party again called for a complete "economic boycott", as well as an end to aid for Israel (read here). They made similar calls for a complete boycott in March 2008 (read here) and, in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary, here.

Considering the Green Party's history as the spoiler in the 2000 presidential election, one can only speculate as to their motivation in Seattle in 2008. A ballot measure such as this would almost certainly attract the attention of Republicans who would seek to tie it both to the Obama campaign and Washington State Democratic candidates.

Initiative 97 is also sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). This group has made the divestment movement their focus, especially with respect to groups such as the United Methodist and Presbyterian churches. Divestment advocates frequently cite Jewish Voice for Peace to counter charges that opposition to Israel is rooted in anti-Semitism (read here and here and this pdf). JVP, like the Green Party, goes so far as to call for a complete boycott of Israel (read here), a position which they do not generally reveal in their pro-divestment advocacy. They also recently sponsored a "Nakba" commemoration on the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel (read here). Liat Weingart, one of the groups leaders, recently lobbied the United Methodists to divest their pension funds from Israel. In the course of her speech to the United Methodist General Conference, she said “(i)f you haven’t been accused of anti-Semitism yet, you haven’t been doing the work of Justice.” The audience reportedly "gasped and laughed". (At that same conference, the Methodist Federation for Social Action voted against resolutions opposing anti-Semitism and calling for human rights in Muslim nations.) (Read here.) The Methodists, to their credit, ultimately voted against divestment and in support of the measures opposing anti-Semitism and for human rights.

Another of Initiative 97's sponsors, Palestine Solidarity Committee, Seattle, actively opposes a two state solution and opposes Israel's existence (read here), stating

We demand ...establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital toward the establishment of a secular democratic state in historic Palestine.

Nothing on the SDWO website or in the pro-referemdum literature indicates this sponsor's opposition to the existence of Israel.

Similarly opposed to Israel's existence is Initiative 97 sponsor ANSWER. (Read about ANSWER here.) That group's record of opposition to Israel's existence is simply too extensive to cover in this forum. Suffice it to say that their extremism on this issue even got them on the fighting side of such anti-war groups as United for Peace and Justice and the War Resisters League (two groups notably absent from the list of sponsors of Initiative 97). (Read here and here.)

Fight within local Democratic Party

One of the petition's main sponsors, Amy Hagopian, is actively campaigning to win the measure the Democratic Party's endorsement in Washington's 36th Legislative District. Hagopian, who is listed on the SDWO website as being unaffiliated to a political party (read here), is also attempting to get the Democratic Party to provide workers to gather signatures for the petition. If she succeeds in getting the local Democratic Party to approve her proposals, this would certainly be fodder for the Republicans in the upcoming presidential election. It would inevitably be tied to Obama. Whatever the ultimate fate of the petition, the actions of Democrats in this small legislative district in Washington State may have national importance.

The voters in the 36th LD tend to vote to the left. Seattle's Jewish population, and its awareness about Israel, is relatively low. Support for Israel in this sort of area is frequently portrayed as intrinsically neoconservative, pro-Likud or pro-Bush. The idea of progressive Zionism is a bit of a foreign concept there. The liberal voters of the 36th LD, who are being currently being lobbied quite intensely by the divestment advocates, would seem fertile ground for support for Initiative 97. On the other hand, local opponents of the measure are organizing to oppose supporting the measure and they're putting up a good fight to tying the Democratic Party to such an extreme anti-Israel measure.

Now the good news

A coalition of Jewish groups has filed suit to prevent the measure from reaching the ballot. In the first phase of the litigation, which dealt with the deceptive language of the petition, the judge decided that the language was "unclear" but not "misleading". He also decided that, while the language of the petition should be clarified, the signatures to the earlier, unclear version should still be counted in order to protect the rights of those who signed. My question concerning that is what about the rights of those who signed based on unclear language, but would not have signed has the meaning of the petition been plain?

Now here's the good part: an upcoming phase of the litigation deals with the question of whether the resolution would be enforceable even if it were to be placed on the ballot and approved. Seattle's pension funds are administered by a board which, while appointed by the City Council, operates independently of the council. This board is not subject to referendums, City Council resolutions, executive orders by the Mayor, etc. Under the statute which established the Pension Fund board, when deciding where to invest its funds, the board can consider only factors relating to the performance of its investments. The divestment advocates, for their resolution to pass judicial muster for their resolution, will have to prove that the broad range of companies which the referendum covers will actually have perform poorly as investments. In other words, they need to prove that stock in companies like Microsoft or Pizza Hut (both of which qualify for divestment under the plain language meaning of the referendum) will lose value as the result of their business with the State of Israel or in the specified geographic area. According to Robert Jacobs of Stand With Us Northwest, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the divestment advocates may find this extremely difficult to prove.

The Seattle City Attorney, which sided with the divestment advocates in the first phase of the litigation involving the deceptive language of the petition, has joined with the petition opponents in this phase of the litigation, further improving the odds that this referendum won't be on the November ballot. The question of what damage the divestment movement will do to the Democratic Party in the process remains to be seen.

British attorney Anthony Julius, has said with respect to the British academic union's Israel boycott resolution: "Going for a boycott is gesture politics in the first place but a resolution that comes close but avoids actually spelling it out is a gesture wrapped up in a gesture - it's nothing more than a bad smell." (Read here.) This is equally true of Seattle's deceptive divestment initiative. It just doesn't pass the smell test.

The Forward's May 21 report on Seattle's anti-Israel referendum is an excellent backgrounder: "Seattle Activists Try To Put Divestment Measure on City Ballot (by Rebecca Spence).


[As an aside on another issue: in researching the Washington State Greens for this story, I was surprised to discover the extent to which they promote "9/11 truth" conspiracy theories. I have a post on that subject here, cross-posted here. Cynthia McKinney has made "9/11 truth" a main plank of her platform (read here).]

THIS ARTICLE IS CROSS POSTED AT DAILY KOS (READ HERE)

West Bank pollution threatening Israeli groundwater

from Haaretz

_{By Zafrir Rinat}

For several years now, a white river has run through the Hebron Hills. The color comes from pollution - waste from a sawmill near Hebron. And according to a recent Israeli-Palestinian study, pollution from this river and others like it is threatening the groundwater inside Israel, and is impeding attempts to rehabilitate Israel's rivers.

Israel has tried to deal with the problem by collecting and purifying the waste at the Green Line, the boundary between Israel and the West Bank. But that is insufficient, because much pollution enters the groundwater in the West Bank and spreads to Israel underground.

The two-year study was conducted by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, the Blaustein Institute for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University and the Palestinian Water and Environmental Development Organization. It focused on the Alexander River, which runs from Nablus to the Mediterranean north of Netanya, and the Basor River, which runs from near Hebron to the Gaza Strip. Major investments have been made in rehabilitating both rivers in recent years, including by establishing waste treatment plants along them.

However, the study found, the Basor is now full of both municipal waste and toxins emitted by the stone- and leather-working industries around Hebron. It estimated that anywhere from 45 to 90 percent of the pollution seeps into the ground before the river reaches the Israeli treatment plant, thereby endangering the groundwater. Moreover, some of this underground waste then reenters the river downstream of the treatment plant.

The study found that faulty sewage systems in Israel also pollute the river.

While the Alexander River has improved substantially, the study said, it still is being polluted by municipal waste and the olive oil industries around Nablus and Tul Karm, as well as various sources within Israel, such as fertilizer and insecticides from nearby farms. In this case, too, about half of the pollution on the Palestinian side seeps into the groundwater before reaching the Green Line.

Amos Brandeis, chief planner of the project to rehabilitate the Alexander, noted that the German government plans to build waste treatment plants for Nablus and Tul Karm, but they will not be operational for several years. He also noted that the amount of municipal waste on the Palestinian side has grown, due to population growth and because many more houses have been connected to the sewage system in recent years - and this system flows directly into the river, rather than to a treatment plant.

Hydrologists Lior Assaf and Hila Ackerman of the Arava Institute said that more could also be done on the Israeli side - for instance, said Assaf, "planting buffer zones of vegetation along the river banks, which would help prevent pollution from entering the river."

Professor Alon Tal of the Blaustein Institute, in his summary of the research, noted that Israelis and Palestinians had managed to work together to reduce pollution despite the political tensions. "Nevertheless, what has been done to date is only the first stage," he wrote.

(via Solomonia)

Palestinian claims just don't add up...

from B'NAI ELIM: "Palestinian Arab Math" by Lee Kaplan:

Since 1993, the world has been the victim of the biggest welfare scam in history.
I'm referring specifically to the Arab League's and Gamal Nasser's creation of
of a "Palestinian" Arab nationality to justify the unremitting attacks on the Jewish state of Israel.

Billions of dollars in aid money have been given to the "Palestinians", yet they are still
dispossessed and poor, or so they say, and victims of the "greatest genocide" in history by the Jews of Israel. You hear this constantly in America on college campuses, and now even in mainstream media, particularly by those lovely folks in the International Solidarity Movement.

Most Israelis know about the "festering wound" of Arabs who were displaced by the War of Independence in 1948. Many were put into refugee camps after the war by other Arabs to sit until the Jews would be driven into the sea at a later date. Still, others among the Arabs made lives for themselves but still claimed they were "refugees," and, by 1964, the official front of the PLO was organized under the Egyptian, Yasser Arafat, to organize the movement even further.

Arafat was a whiz at Palestinian math. He got all the Arab League to give separate passports to "Palestinians" and to not let them assimilate, and, for good measure, he got them to make every "Palestinian" tithe to Arafat's PLO. After all, when Palestinian mathematics makes numbers appear and disappear at random, more welfare money is always needed by the leadership that spends it on themselves.

And, organize he did; creating liaisons with the Soviet Union's KGB, training worldwide terrorists also brought in money, and UN and American foreign aid money that came in was invested wisely and developed into what British intelligence has claimed is a daily profit margin of $5 million (US) per day even today. At the height of the Oslo Peace Process, the PLO was getting $155 million dollars a month from the US, the UN, the EU and the Arab League not to mention private NGO funding for the 3.2 million Arabs who lived in the West Bank and Gaza. But by Palestinian mathematics, that wasn't enough to create a country. Nope, not nearly enough.

Palestinian Arabs have their own unique sense of mathematics. It isn't limited to just how much money they actually have to make peace and feed their people, it's
also based on their need to complain about how they are suffering to keep the welfare scam going.

Oh, yes. And they need more money to buy more guns and other weapons.

Dennis Ross, who negotiated at Oslo for the US with the Palestinian leadership, once picked up a flyer handed out by "Palestinians" and members of the ISM at UC Berkeley that said Barak only offered 93% of the West Bank and Gaza and that Arafat had to walk away. Ross explained they were offered 100% of the territory discussed, 97% outright, and 3% in a land swap to guarantee Israel's security. Today, if you look at maps distributed by the "Palestinian-led" International Solidarity Movement on US campuses and in US churches, the Israelis have really offered only 34% of Judea and Samaria and the Palestinians don't even count Gaza. You see, they say it's still occupied because the Israelis control the borders to prevent the importation of those guns.

Those poor, poor Palestinians just have problems with math—except when it comes to stealing money. Suha Arafat had a great grasp of math when Arafat succumbed to AIDS. And we of the world should all take comfort that our tax dollars and foreign aid money was well used by the Palestinians after his death. But, you know, somehow it's never enough according to Palestinian math. Hamas, since taking over the Palestinian Authority was receiving more foreign aid to the PA then ever before, but they screamed they had none. Abbas needed 86 million dollars for guns because according to Palestinian math he had only five bullets per terrorist (in that case Israel met his needs without questioning his math as did President Bush who also has t rouble with math).

Census totals by the PA itself revealed they were wrong about the actual numbers of Palestinian Arabs in the territories anyway, and that the number may have been one million over the mark to request additional aid money. Go on the Internet and read how there are 4 million, no wait, 5 million, no wait, 7 million, no wait, TEN million Palestinian…NO WAIT! ELEVEN MILLION Palestinian refugees worldwide who must be allowed unconditionally to return to their "homes" in what was once "Pal estine," but is now Israel.

Pay up with those welfare payments or we'll kill you, too, is an absolute theory in Palestinian math.

Of course, the normal Malthusian paradigm of increasing populations in the world can be easily unproven by Palestinian math as blatantly false, even in the Palestinian Authority. As the Palestinians undergo "genocide" by the Israelis, somehow their population only increases while the population of Israel decreases slightly or remains steady. Even if the population density of Gaza is no worse than that of San Francisco, Palestinian world renowned leaders like Saeb Erekat can claim that Gaza has "the most crowded living conditions in the entire world."

Poor Saeb, a victim of Palestinian math, no longer appears on national US television after he mathematically explained the town Jenin stood no more after its people had been wiped from the map by the IDF. It seems only 58 Arabs were killed, 48 armed terrorists along with 23 Israeli soldiers. His niece, Noura, has taken over with Palestinian math as an aid to Dennis Kucinich in Congress where she continues the proud tradition of Palestinian Arab math..

But the best example of Palestinian math is the Palestinians unswerving claim to all the land of Israel. Visit the website www.palestineremembered.com . Here you can see a prime example of Palestinian math at its best. Take, for example, the Israeli community of Qiryat-Gat in the Negev. Allegedly, by Palestinian mathematics standards there were 5,400 Arabs who lived in the same spot in 1948 that was called Al-Faluja. But Palestinian math now claims there are 33,000 Palestinian refugees from that village who must return. And that's only one village, mind you.

Maybe we Americans should start grabbing up property and land in Europe, and Asia, because many of us were driven out of those locales, too, due to wars and there are over 220 million of us today who should have the non-negotiable right to return. Think about it, we could take Paris, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo and the UN might even help us and give us all that aid money while we work on the scheme. Maybe there is something to Palestinian math. Hmmm…

The only math worse than Palestinian math is US and Israeli math. In the US we can't figure out that by funding the Arabs with more dollars they will use them against us one day, so we keep throwing greater numbers at them. Israeli math is even worse, since we can't figure out then each time a Jew is murdered as part of the result of Palestinian math it results in a subtraction of the Jewish population worldwide. Israeli math only understands diminishing returns whereas Palestinian math only allows for growth at the expense of Israeli mathematic paradigms.

It all just doesn't add up, does it

The Unpeaceful Rest of Mohammed Al-Dura

from the Columbia Journalism Review: The Unpeaceful Rest of Mohammed Al-Dura

By Gal Beckerman

No single event was responsible for igniting the Second Intifada, which began seven years ago and effectively killed off the “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians. Or, rather, there are specific causes for why violence erupted in the occupied Palestinian territories and in the cafes and markets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but the reasons depend more on who you’re talking to than on what actually happened—either it was Ariel Sharon’s inflammatory visit to the Temple Mount or Yasser Arafat’s scheming that provided the first push.

Regardless, once the killing began there was one media event that, indisputably and instantaneously, fanned the flames and primed the Palestinian people and the wider Arab world for confrontation: the televised death of twelve-year-old Mohammed al-Dura.

The fifty-nine seconds of edited footage, aired on France 2, was repeated thousands of times on September 30, 2000 and in the days and weeks that followed. A young boy and his father at the Netzarim crossing in the Gaza strip are caught in the crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian police and gunmen. The child cowers behind his father who tries to protect him with his arm — a still image that has been reproduced over and over again on posters and postage stamps - and then in the last series of frames he is slumped over, dead. Al-Dura became the Palestinian martyr, a symbol of Israel’s ruthlessness, its disregard for innocent life, the life of a defenseless boy.

The Israeli Army initially took responsibility for the death. But in the years since, a cottage industry of both conspiracy theorists and honest researchers have questioned whether al-Dura really was killed by an Israeli bullet or even - and this, until recently, was mostly the provenance of conspiracy theorists - the whole event was staged as Palestinian propaganda (or “Pallywood,” as one obsessive has described it). James Fallows, the respected correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, had the most thorough examination of all sides in a June 2003 article. The conclusion he came to, as he reiterated on his blog yesterday, was this:

I ended up arguing in my article that the ‘official’ version of the event could not be true. Based on the known locations of the boy, his father, the Israeli Defense Force troops in the area, and various barriers, walls, and other impediments, the IDF soldiers simply could not have shot the child in the way most news accounts said they had done…. I became fully convinced by the negative case (IDF was innocent). But I did not think there was enough evidence for the even more damning positive indictment (person or persons unknown staged a fake death — or perhaps even a real death, for ‘blood libel’ purposes).

Fallows felt the need to remind readers of his conclusion because there has lately been a flurry of news surrounding the al-Dura case. As Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet political prisoner and Israeli politician, pointed out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed yesterday, French courts ruled last year in favor of France 2 in a defamation suit that it had initiated against Philippe Karsenty, a self-proclaimed media watchdog. Karsenty had called for the firing of the channel’s Jerusalem bureau chief and its news director for allegedly covering up the true story behind the al-Dura footage. France 2 won it’s case and the courts ordered Karsenty to pay a fine for insulting the two journalists with his accusations. Last month, Karsenty appealed the ruling, and the decision on the appeal is pending. Sharansky was writing as a way of pressing the Israeli government, which had been reluctant to step into the fray over the past seven years, to make a definitive statement on what really happened on September 30, 2000.

France 2 itself is largely to blame for the fact that this controversy refuses to die. The initial news report on al-Dura’s shooting was based on video shot by a sole Palestinian cameraman, Talal Abu Rahmeh. He collected twenty-seven minutes of raw footage that was edited down to the infamous fifty-nine seconds. Though numerous legitimate researchers have demanded to see the unedited video, France 2 has consistently refused. The one time it did air the additional twenty-seven minutes for a panel of three French journalists, this jury concluded, according to Sharansky, that full footage included “blatantly staged scenes of Palestinians being shot by Israeli forces, and that France 2’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief Charles Enderlin had lied to conceal that fact.”

Possibly in response to Sharansky’s op-ed, the Israeli government, through the director of its press office, announced today that it too had come to the conclusion that, “the events of that day were essentially staged by the network’s cameraman in Gaza, Mr. Tilal Abu-Rehama.”

The story might be settled soon, though. As part of Karsenty’s appeal, judges in the appeals court last week ordered France 2 to show them the full twenty-seven-minutes of footage in November.

This is good news, if only to clear up an episode that has inflamed passions on both sides. Israel may be moving too fast by asserting that the killing was staged. But it is telling, as Fallows points out, that those trying to prove foul play “seem more fervent about turning up all available evidence and getting to the bottom of things than their antagonists do,” though he does add that he’s “skeptical that large-scale conspiracies can be pulled off — and kept secret for seven years, which is how long it has been since the original event.”

I tend to trust Fallows in this. I imagine the tapes will probably show that the Israeli soldiers did not kill the boy, and that the cause of his death was either unclear or the result of a Palestinian bullet. Either way, it should be pretty obvious that when you’re dealing with such murkiness, the best thing to do is throw as much light as possible on the story. It just seems strange that it has taken two court cases to force France 2 to do just that.

Hamas asks Jimmy Carter to mediate with Fatah

from Maan News Agency

Deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday stated his approval of the intervention of former US President Jimmy Carter in the Palestinian domestic crisis.

Haniyeh's comments were made during a meeting with director of the Carter Centre in the West Bank, Scott Caster, in Haniyeh's office in Gaza City.

Caster conveyed to Haniyeh Carter's willingness to mediate in the domestic Palestinian dispute.

Jeff Weintraub: "Nobody saw it coming" (Condoleezza Rice)

A number of people have noticed this little gem by George Will from a pundit roundtable on the ABC TV show "This Week with George Stephanopoulos":

When, against the urgings of the Israelis, we pressed for the elections that overthrew Fatah, who we were backing and put in Hamas, Condoleezza Rice said nobody saw it coming. Those four words are the epitaph of this administration.

Too true. Other people may see disasters coming up, but they never do.

Fatah's Torture Chamber

read it here: ''Hamas Opens Doors of Notorious Prison: A Visit to Fatah's Torture Chamber'' -- SPIEGEL ONLINE

Daniel Pipes: So much for the argument that Israel is the root of all problems for the Palestinians

Two-state solution finally works | Opinion | The Australian

Hamas gunmen hunt down Fatah rivals in Gaza strip - World - Taranaki Daily News

Read the Reuters story here...

It's payback time in Gaza, where victorious Hamas gunmen dragged the body of one of their main Fatah opponents through a refugee camp on Thursday.

Hamas' armed wing said it had "executed" leading Fatah militant Samih al-Madhoun, who had previously broadcast a pledge to kill all members of the Islamist movement.

Several security officers loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' secular Fatah faction were fleeing Gaza City as Islamist Hamas death squads roamed the streets. Ninety-nine Palestinian policemen loyal to the Fatah movement fled to Egypt on Thursday an Egyptian security official said.

The policemen were border guards at Rafah and entered Egypt through the Rafah border post, the main crossing point between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, said the official, who asked not to be named.

For the moment they are in the custody of Egyptian security forces, he added. Forty policemen fled from Gaza to Egypt on Wednesday but the Egyptian authorities sent them back to Gaza later in the day.

A Hamas source said Madhoun, who had topped the group's wanted list of Abbas loyalists and had spearheaded Fatah's fight against Hamas, was shot six times in the chest.

Witnesses said Hamas supporters paraded his body through the streets of Nusseirat refugee camp.

At least 30 people were killed as Hamas routed Fatah in the Gaza Strip capturing most major security compounds from Abbas' forces throughout the coastal territory. After the battles, Hamas men hunted down their foes, blowing up their houses and taking over buildings used by Fatah-run civilian organisations, witnesses said.

"That's him, kill him," shouted a masked gunman after identifying a member of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Hamas gunmen shot dead another Fatah man they said was wanted for killing one of their comrades a few weeks ago.

One Fatah member, who called himself Ahmed, said Hamas gunmen had killed eight of his friends: "I escaped by a miracle. Hamas is carrying out an execution campaign against us."

Hamas militants swept through Gaza City neighbourhoods, searching residential buildings for Fatah loyalists. One Hamas source said the hunt was to eliminate "collaborators", not to exact revenge.

"Those marked for death are only those who massacred our civilians and our fighters. Those who are to be killed are those who helped the Zionist enemy against us," he said.

Hamas gunmen deployed near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to the south and the Israeli-manned ErezAA crossing in the north to prevent any Fatah officials from escaping.

"Qassam Brigades are now chasing Tawfiq Abu Khoussa. . ..We heard that Mansour Shalayel is hiding in Mushtaha building," cried a voice on an open Hamas radio wave-band.

"We will allow no traitor to leave the Strip," a spokesman for Hamas' armed wing said.

Some Fatah gunmen retaliated in the West Bank, shooting and wounding a Hamas man near Ramallah and seizing Hamas supporters in the towns of Jenin and Nablus. They stormed a Hamas office in Nablus and hurled computers out of the window.

Even businesses believed to be owned by Hamas supporters were targeted by angry crowds in the West Bank.

In Gaza, Hamas leaders and Muslim clerics issued edicts over the group's radio and television stations describing the battle as "a war between Islam and non-believers".

"Whoever killed will be killed," said top Hamas official Nizar Rayyan.

"There is no Fatah any more, there is no dialogue with Fatah any more. It is only the rifle between us and them," he added.

Many ordinary Palestinians feared Hamas would embark on widespread reprisals after years of enmity with Fatah.

"We are afraid of a Hamas campaign to eliminate the Fatah presence," said Gaza teacher Ali Hamdoun. "I see no solution, only more bloodshed to come."

Carter: US should stop favoring Fatah over Hamas

from the Jerusalem Post:

"The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former US President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was 'criminal.'"

Carter went on to laud the Hamas victory as fair, democratic and legal. He had no comment on their violent coup d'etat in Gaza, their attacks on Israeli border guards (attacks that effectively cut Gaza residents off from food and fuel supplies) or their firing on unarmed peace demonstrators (two were killed) over the weekend. Read about his friends in Hamas here.

OUR "FRIENDS", FATAH, THREATEN TERRORIST ATTACK IN U.S.

Internet Haganah::OSINT

Remember folks, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is the military wing...

...of the "moderate" Fatah movement.





Aksa threatens to attack targets abroad

The London-based Arab newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi reported on Friday that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades have threatened to carry out terror attacks on targets abroad if the international PA boycott is not lifted, Israel Radio reported.

According to the report, the Fatah-affiliated group said in a statement that its members would act against the US and any other country cooperating in the boycott.

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