Palestinians - how much lower can they stoop?

There are people who argue that the Palestinians are very evil. OK they did support Hitler, they did introduce terrorism into the modern world, and they were the first to blow up airplanes. They were the first to directly and specifically target schoolchildren for their terrorist attacks (Maalot 1973), and they came up with real novelties like massacring athletes at the olympics, hijacking boats and throwing elderly wheelchair-bound passengers into the sea. They did give the world suicide bombers and they were also the first to use suicide bombers to maximise civilian casualties. They were also the first to use suicide bombers against such diverse targets as buses, restaurants, hospitals, and snooker halls. They were the first to use both women and children as suicide bombers and they even introduced to the world the granny suicide bomber. Oh and of course, while they were not the first to brainwash all their children they were the first who explicitly decided to brainwash all their children that there was no higher aim in life than to become a suicide bomber to murder Jews.

While they were also the first to use animals (such as donkeys) as unknowing suicide bombers, they have today claimed another unique first. They have inserted a 10kg bomb inside a lamb in order to carry out a terrorist attack. Read about it here along with today's attack against a kindergarten in Sderot. You certainly won't read about it in the Guardian.

"We can’t interfere in any way with a mosque unless they are shooting at us"

Western (i.e. civilised) fighting forces like the US, Brits, and Israelis just don't seem to understand that you cannot fight the Islamafascists with one hand tied behind your back. All over the Muslim world MUSLIMS are bombing mosques and mosques are used as the nerve centre for weapons caches and terrorist activity. Yet western forces have rules of engagement that forbid them to even enter a mosque. In Michael Totten's excellent report of his embedding with a group of US soldiers in Baghdad searching for a senior Al Quaeda operative includes the following dialoge (when four terrorists are spotted on the roof of a mosque):

“They have a little bunker up there,” he continued. “You can’t see it from here, but it has sand bags and sniper netting around it.”

“What are you going to do?” I said.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s a mosque.”

“They’re violating curfew,” I said, “and stalking us in the dark from a militarized mosque. And you aren’t going to do anything?”

“Our rules of engagement say we can’t interfere in any way with a mosque unless they are shooting at us,” he said.

We left our stalker with his “co-workers” and walked away.

And people wonder why the Americans aren't winning in Iraq!

Burka Brigade: incitement with anonymity

This protest in London yesterday was against the sentencing (for incitement to murder and race hate among other offences) of some Jihadists at a previous 'demonstration' outside the Danish embassy. There is clear incitement here also, but it seems the burka provides 'anonymity'. What is really significant about this is that none of the Danish embassy protesters were actually arrested at the demonstration itself. The police made a decision that it was in the public interest not to do so. Instead they were arrested some time later after the police identified the most serious offenders from photographic and video evidence of the protest. How do they intend to do the same for this mob? Why is it allowed?

A Tale of Two Sieges

Days after Hamas committed the despicable massacre of 32 elderly Jews celebrating the Passover feast on 27 March 2002 at the Park Hotel Netanya, Israeli forces sought out those responsible. When dozens of the most vicious Islamic terrorists (including 13 who had been directly involved in killing civilians) decided to hole themselves up in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem a few days later the whole world was outraged ---- at Israel for having the audacity to attempt to arrest the terrorists in a holy site. The day-by-day account on the BBC website makes clear their total sympathy for the terrorists. As the report itself notes on 20 April "The Greek Orthodox Church calls for international intervention to end the siege and says it holds Israel responsible." and on 2 May it reports "About a dozen international peace activists dash into the church under the Israeli guns, delivering supplies. They tell harrowing stories of conditions inside."

In fact the siege ended with all Palestinians being freed and the 13 most wanted being allowed to go to Cyprus, where they received a hero's welcome. The most serious damage done to the Church was later found to be caused by a fire deliberately started by the terrorists.

But international condemnation of Israel was, as usual unanimous.

Now fast forward to today's siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad Pakistan. Again dozens of Islamists were holed up. And a pretty nasty bunch they were too, although unlike the known killers in the case of the Palestinians in Bethlehem, the ones here appear to have been guilty only of mounting a political campaign to install Sharia law which at its most extreme involved some kidnappings (with those kidnapped being released fairly quickly). But compare both the Pakistani military response and the media response to it. No pussy footing around like the Israelis to ensure no-one was killed. A massive assault with tanks and multiple bombs resulting in many dozens dead despite many women and children being in the compound. And the media reaction? Total sympathy with the Pakistani military action such as on the very same BBC news website.

Anyone for a double standard?

When in doubt blame the Israelis

The Lebanese army continues to bombard the Palestinian 'refugee' camp at Nahr al Bared in Northern Lebanon. It did not take long for some of them to pin the blame on Israel even for this.

The report here is an interview with a woman looking after relatives who have fled the camp. It contains the following :

• She shows me the children's drawings from the past few days: a hotch-potch of damaged buildings and military hardware that already reveal signs of disturbance. " The children from Nahr al Bared are drawing from their experience of violence," she says. "But it's better for them to bring it out." Intriguingly, the pictures also feature Israeli rockets and military aircraft not part of the fighting at Nahr al Bared. "They are confused," explains Hoda. "They mix everything together because they see the news and they see what happens in Gaza."

Oh yes - I wonder why they get confused. I am sure it has nothing to do with the pathalogical anti-semitism and anti-Zionism which is force fed into every Palestinian from birth - even those who, like these, have never lived in the 'occupied territories' and who have never seen an Israeli in their lives.

Any friends going to Dubai?

Dubai not only welcomed Ahmadinejad yesterday but also gave him a platform to do his anti-Israel and anti-America thing in front of thousands of adoring fans. The friendly message below (found at the excellent Religion of Peace website) was displayed in Iran. Something for the thousands of British (and Jewish) tourists to think about as they relax in their 7-star hotels in Dubai.

Our friendly neighbours

A few things have caught my eye lately.

This video about Arabs' views of Jews is revealing; not only is the dialogue 'Borat-like' (except unfortunately this is real) but it even has a Borat look-alike presenter.

This interesting compilation video of Islamic indoctrination and abuse 0f children has some especially interesting Iranian cartoons for children. Whereas in 'western' goodies versus baddies cartoons the baddies die and the goodies live it is interesting to note that here not only do all the 'baddies' (Israelis) get killed but so too do all the 'goodies' (Palestinians). The message is quite clear: the goal of every Islamic child must be to die as a suicide bomber or in Jihad. Only by dying in this way do you go to heaven. The subtext presumably also is that Iran would be more than happy to sacrifice every one its citizens (and indeed every Muslim in the world) if it meant killing all the Jews. Not very comforting given their nuclear ambitions.

This article in the Catholic Herald suggests that our Islamic friends are prepared to be just as barbaric to Christians as they are to Jews - this reports on a baby being kidnapped, beheaded, and returned to its mother roasted and served on a bed of rice. Nice people.

This brilliant 'chat show' dialogue. It's a bit slow to load but bear with it.

This article by Noah Pollack about Lebanon is more upbeat but note his description of his flight from Amman to Beirut. The Jordanians are supposed to be 'peace partners' of Israel and they have full diplomatic relations but it appears that in practice they refuse to acknowledge that Israel even exists.

There is no such thing as a 'moderate' Palestinian

That Mahmoud Abbas is simply another Yasser Arafat in slightly more Western clothes is becoming more evident by the day. His recent pronouncement (in Arabic of course) imploring all Palestinians to turn their guns against Israelis, and his duplicity over the Eilat suicide bombing (which he condemned to the Western media, but which was carried out by members of his own Fatah organisation) are just two of many examples. I doubt if many people in the West (or even in Israel) realise that the constitution of the Fatah movement, which Abbas leads, still calls for the total annihilation of Israel (even I was under the impression that this had been removed from their constitution after the Oslo peace process). This document is every bit as chilling as the Hamas charter which assserts that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." For a really excellent article on this subject read this one by Andrew C. McCarthy.

And if you need any more evidence that the anti-Israel media obsession is fuelling anti-semitism then read about the latest survey on anti-semitic attacks on the UK. We already know that, despite the media's obsession about Islamaphobia, it is Jews who are four to five times more likely to be attacked than Muslims in the UK. Now it turns out that Muslims are responsible for a totally disproportionate number of attacks on Jews (Asians and Arabs account for 37% of all attacks even though they make up just 4% of the population).

The BBC supports Palestinian terrorist attack in Eilat

If you read the BBC report of yesterday's attack all the way through you will find that, not only do they justify the attack, but they also blatantly cover up the Palestinian reaction to it which was, as usual, overwhelmingly ecstatic. Their tactic of quoting only a Fatah spokesman, rather than a member of the government, Hamas, is especially interesting. I wonder if the next time there is a terrorist attack anywhere else in the world the BBC will only quote opposition parties? And if they wanted to quote a Fatah spokeman I wonder why they did not choose a member of the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade who are actually run by Fatah and their leader Mahmoud Abbas. Could it be because the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade planned the suicide bombing with Islamic Jihad (an announcement endorsing the attack can be seen on their web site, flanked by a portrait of Yasser Arafat), and actually said that they wanted to kill Israelis in order to help make a ceasfire between warring factions in Gaza (that's the Palestinians for you: Make peace by killing Jews)? Anyway, here is the self-explanatory complaint I have made to the BBC:

To the BBC:

This news item about the terrorist attack in Eilat, Israel yesterday (which killed three young Israelis in a bakery) contains a blatant factual error and displays anti-Israel bias. The report ends with the statement:

"The last suicide attack was at a Tel Aviv restaurant, killing 10 people. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in that time, mainly in the Gaza Strip. "

Apart from the fact that this statement appears to justify the terrorist attack, it happens to also be false. There have simply NOT been "Hundreds of Palestinians" killed by Israeli forces in that time. Approximately 150 Palestinians have been killed in that time by other Palestinians and a small number of Palestinian terrorists were killed by Israeli forces last summer and autumn after Hamas terrorists entered Israel and killed several soldiers before kidknapping another. There were also a number of Palestinians killed by two stray rockets - both of which were blamed on Israel but at least one of which has since been shown to have been a Palestinian bomb. In both cases Israeli fire was responding to incessant Qassam rocket attacks into Israel from Gaza, which have caused several deaths and much destruction (and which inevitably go unreported by the BBC).

I also find it incredible that your report emphasizes that a Palestinian spokesman, Yasser Abed Rabbo, condemned the killings but fails to mention the much more widespread praise (and even jubiliation) for the killings among the Palestinians. For example, why did the BBC choose to quote a Fatah spokeman rather than Hamas (who are after all the elected Government). Hamas have praised the attack, and welcomed it as an opportunity for rival factions in Gaza to concentrate their efforts on killing Jews rather than fellow Palestinians. The report also fails to mention the jubilation of the suicide bomber's family (as well as their knowledge that the attack was to take place). See, for example, this report

Edgar Davidson

Omar Bakri finally says something noteworthy

The odious Omar Bakri Mohammed has finally said something that is well worth paying attention to. In his interview in the Sunday Telegraph he says:

"When you start to ask Muslims to join your Army and your police you are making a grave mistake. That British Muslim who joins the police today will one day read the Koran and will have an awakening .... Those moderates are one day going to be practising Muslims. Now what happens if they are British police or in the Army and they have weapons? How much information do they have about you that they will use to serve the global struggle? ... They will revolt against the system if they have been failed by your foreign policy which is oppressive against Islam, or have been contacted by people who believe Britain is a domain of war."

The Police and Army are well advised to heed his warning instead of embarking on ludicrous attempts to recruit 'moderate Muslims' into the services, which inevitably end up backfiring like this and this.

Spot the difference

On 8 November 18 Palestinians were killed in Beit Hanoun Gaza when an Israeli artillary shell misfired into an apartment block. Although dozens of Qassam missiles had been fired from the immediate vacinity into Israel (and these had resulted in two civilian deaths and several injuries in Sderot in Israel) the Israelis apologised for the accident. Nevertheless the story was headline news on every media outlet for two days, and the screens were filled with the sight of dead and mourning Palestinians. The Israelis were not only condemned in the UN, but the UN has actually set up an international enquiry into what happened.

On 11 December 4 Palestinians including 3 children (aged between 6 and 10) of the intelligence officer Baha Balousheh (a loyalist of Abbas' Fatah movement) were killed deliberately in cold blood by Hamas gunmen in Gaza City. The story got barely any mention on any UK media outlet, and there were no screenings of dead and mourning Palestinians. There has been no condemnation of the Hamas Government and no mention of the event at the UN. At the moment (just 12 hours after the attack) the BBC News website has removed all references to the attack, although if you dig down you can find a video titled "three children killed in Gaza". The video makes no mention of the fact that Balousheh had been a long term target of Hamas. On the contrary the commentator tried ot make out that the whole thing was some kind of a 'mistake' and that nobody knows who is to blame (even leaving open the possibility it was the Israelis), while stating that Hamas has vigorously denied any involvement. At the same time the story fails to make it anywhere at all on the Google News website. You can just about still find it on the yahoo news website but the story there somehow manages to work the Israelis into the very first sentence by stating:

"By threatening to ignite a Palestinian civil war, the killing of three children on Monday has jeopardized Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's efforts to restart long-stalled peace talks"

so that uninformed readers would be led to believe that it must have been to do with the Israelis.

In this particular story you cannot blame Hamas for covering up and/or smokescreening what happened. The decisions here are all down to the western media editors, who are so ingrained in their hatred of Israel and sympathy to the Palestinians that they simply have to minimise every Palestinian atrocity while maximising any perceived wrong done by Israel. Put simply, if Palestinian children are deliberately massacred by other Palestinians (even when it is by the elected Government) then that is not of interest. But if the children were accidently killed by Israelis then all other news stops for 48 hours.

The Hezbollah vs. Israel conflict: A Letter to the Guardian

Let's see if the Guardian publishes the following letter from Tony Klinger:

Sirs,

It is now confirmed by the NYTimes which reports on a new study that states, without doubt, Hezbollah stored weapons in mosques, battled Israelis from inside empty schools, flew white flags while transporting missiles and launched rockets near UN monitoring posts.

As important, the study also provides proof that 650 out of the 1,084 people the Lebanese government has said were civilians killed in the conflict were in fact Hezbollah terrorists.

I therefore ask why your newspaper, so ready to condemn everything Israel did in that conflict, does not now acknowledge this condemnation was ill conceived, and misinformed.

The Case for Israel

I have been reading the Alan Dershowitz book "The Case for Israel". It is a very well written, and well researched set of arguments that specifically looks at the allegations made AGAINST Israel by its opponents. It occurred to me that it would be great if there was a short summary of the key points in the book that could be given to, say students on campus, who are generally ignorant of the issues but want to know more. The closest I could find was the text of a speech Dershowitz made about writing this book here. It is well worth reading.

Another article well worth reading is this one by Gregory Davis in FrontPage Magazine. It is about the "Religion of Peace" and it should be read by every Western politician.

One killed in Paris after violence against Israeli fans

This is very curious in many ways. Fans of Israeli side Hapoel Tel Aviv were subjected to vicious anti-semitic abuse during their victory at Paris St Germain last night. After the match PSG fans attacked Israeli fans and in the ensuing violence the police shot dead one of the attackers and injured others. Now, while I commend the police in taking firm action against anti-semitic thugs, I couldn't help but appreciate some of the irony in this story. In particular:

1. When the Israelis shoot and kill an armed Palestinian actually in the process of carrying out an attack intended to kill as many civilians as possible, they are condemned by the whole world for 'excessive and disproportionate force' - with the French usually leading the demands for censure at the UN.
   
2. Indeed, Israel's incredibly accurate targetting of a number of terrorists in the last couple of days has recieved not only widespread coverage but of course widespread condemnation. Yet the French killing an unarmed (albeit violent) thug has not got a mention anywhere outside of France and Israel.
3. If 150 anti-Muslim thugs had been attacking some Muslim football fans, purely because they were Muslims, the story would have been headline news throughout the world.

On a personal note the story does not surprise me at all. I've lived through (and attended) football matches in England all through the years of the most notorious violence; but the worst violence I've ever seen was at a game I attended between Paris St Germain and St Etienne in the 1980's (people who know me and who know their football will know why I would go to Paris to see such a game).

On a separate subject the 64-year-old Palestinian Grandma suicide bomber also curiously escaped the attention of the British media. Remember this when the Guardian and Independent next start screaming about Israelis firing on Palestinian women. Still, is it really surprising when the 'bright young journalists' of the British media are all students of the University system which attempts to brainwash them as described in depth in this story (note especially how this was all a Respect Party setup).

A Day of Grim News

The daily barrage of rocket attacks against Southern Israeli towns and cities continues unabated with en elderly lady killed today in Sderot and a young man having both legs blown off. And the media in the West continues to ignore it completely. Meanwhile Hizbullah has returned in force to the border, and the West has decided not just to appease Iran by letting it have the nuclear bomb, but also give it control over Iraq as well (and the sound of any western protests against Iran's daily calls for Israel's destruction is deafening in its silence). The Daily Mail reports that a leading Islamafascist has a senior position in the Home Office. Melanie Philips has an excellent, but sobering, analysis of things here.

Palestinian Women

The UK media were falling over themselves to condemn Israel for 'killing Palesinian women' in the last week. Headlines such as "Israelis kill women in mosque" were prominent. Of course the real story was somewhat different with the women answering Hamas calls to act as human shields for 60 terrorists who were inside the mosque. The fact that it appears that at most one woman was killed and that all the terrorists were allowed to escape among the women (with some actually dressed in women's clothes) did not of course make the headlines. And no doubt there would have been an international outcry if the Israelis had shot this 'unarmed Palestinian woman' before she detonated herself in front of them today. Much as I am sure in the future we will be hearing the media demanding the release of these 'innocent Palestinian women' who were part of a terrorist cell captured today. Still we can always be comforted that the hundreds of Palestinian schoolgirls protesting against Saddam Hussain's death sentence were unarmed as they cried out "Beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv".

While on the subject of Islamic women I was watching the film Independence day recently and I couldn't quite think who the Alien in the mothership reminded me of:





Alien












Woman in niqab

Political correctness in the cinema

Just got back from seeing Oliver Stone's film 'World Trade Centre'. It wasn't too bad, but there was a sickening politically correct sequence showing scenes of shocked people silently watching the towers collapse on TVs in different countries around the world. Except that the emphasis was almost entirely on what were clearly supposed to be Arab/Muslim countries, with Mullahs especially prominent. In case people have forgotten here is how the Palestinians really mourned the 9/11 victims and plenty of Muslims in the UK showed a similar reaction. Also relevant is that a few days ago in Holland muslim youths cheered during the film when the plane hit the tower.

More BBC insanity: Israelis portrayed as terrorists

I did not see the programme myself but the report about it here is truly frightening.

Policeman's refusal is further excuse to de-legitimise Israel

The story about the refusal by the Muslim policeman Alexander Omar Basha (who is part of the Police's diplomatic protection group) to do guard duty at the Israeli embassy is pretty appalling (especially given that senior officers were involved in the decision to grant him his wish). But what is even more depressing is the way it is being reported in the media. They are talking about his "moral stance against Israel's bombing of Lebanon". No attempt to balance such reporting by reminding people who started the war and which side was deliberately targetting civilians throughout. It is already the case that most people in the UK are completely unaware that Israel was attacked and that the physical and economic damage was enormous. It is just more of the gradual de-legitimisation of Israel. Especially concerning were the comments of "the UK's top talkshow host" Nick Ferrari, who completely disagreed with the decision to allow the policeman to be excused, but used the bizarre and offense analogy of how it would have been just as wrong for a policeman to refuse to guard the German embassy after the second world war. Note the subtle nazification of Israel in the analogy; but also note that Ferrari did not think for one minute of using a much more relevant analogy, such as policing the US embassy given its bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan (and they weren't even defending their homeland) or policing any number of Arab/Islamic embassies given their support for terrorist acts. Or even policing the Lebanon embassy given that country's hosting and support of the terrorist organisation that started the war and launched 4000 rockets against Israeli civilian targets.

Update on this: LBC News (the news version of the radio station Ferrari works for) were running the Jack Straw story about him asking women to remove their veils during face-to-face meetings. Their news presenters (i.e. people who are not even supposed to express an opinion) were speaking in incredulous terms saying things like "Jack Straw has obviously taken leave of his senses". Instead of ridiculing him for finally saying something useful, why is nobody asking serious questions like those concerning the security implications of allowing women to wear the veil (and hence completely avoid all normal identification measures). Also, Jack Straw is completely right - it is impossible to carry out a normal conversation with womebody you cannot see. It is also intimidating. Why is is allowed at all?

Report on Panel Debate: Israel and the Media

I attended an interesting Panel Debate last night hosted by the American European Institute at Norris Lea Synagogue. Panelists included Melanie Phillips, Louise Ellman MP and Eric Moonman. There was a lot of implicit criticism (from both the audience and some panelists) of how 'organised Jewry' failed to argue Israel's case effectively during the recent war. There was pressure on the representatives from both the Board of Deputies and the Zionist Federation to defend themselves against the accusation of doing nothing (with the exception of the ludicorously misconceived ‘JFS Rally’ which was deservedly ridiculed by just about everyone). For the ZF Eric Moonman muttered on about all the ‘behind the scenes work’ being done around the clock and also made a bizarre statement about how ‘quality’ newspapers like the Times did not publish biased or inaccurate articles (what planet is he living on - he should take a look at some of the cases like this that I have documented previously on this blog). But the most ridiculous comment of the night came from Vivian Wiseman of the Board of Deputies; when challenged to provide examples of specific things the Board had done to address the media assault on Israel he clearly struggled to think of one but then came up with a single example which, bizarrely, was the BBC interview with Smadar Haran. He did not say what ZF’s claimed role was, if any, in setting up the interview but he stated that this was an example of how they had helped Israel get its case across. He clearly was unaware that this turned out to be an example of exactly the opposite, namely the BBC cynically finding a way to ensure that the Hezbollah terrorists got their view across instead (as revealed on my blog and followed up by Honest Reporting)

Notwithstanding the fact that the ZF and Board of Deputies were confirmed to have been pretty useless during the War, the event suggested that there are a lot of people sufficiently angry at the media lies to be motivated now to do something about it. There were also some interesting anecdotes. Shmuel Ben Tovin told the story of a friend who wanted to book a holiday in Dubai and phoned the UAE embassy to ask if it was OK to bring his girlfriend who was black. The embassy person ridiculed his friend for even thinking that it might be a problem given their determination to make Dubai the number one holiday destination. But then the friend said that his girlfriend was a black Israeli originally from Ethiopia. At this point the Embassy person was silent before hanging up the phone.

Another interesting discussion point during the evening was the role now played by NGO’s like Christian Aid, Save the Children and War on Want in demonizing Israel. I believe there is actually something very simple people can do about this and it is related to Ben Tovin’s story. A lot of these charities ran campaigns during the war asking for money for the suffering refugees/children in Lebanon and Gaza. I rang all these charity hotlines to offer a donation on the condition that it went to the suffering/displaced children in Israel (incidentally the Red Cross was one notable exception in that they explicitly included Israel in their appeal). The responses I got were quite amazing. The people I spoke to were never hostile in any way but were simply ignorant. They had no idea that there were any people suffering in Israel during the war. Interestingly, although I always left my number for somebody more ‘senior’ to call me back to clarify why Israel was excluded from the Appeal I never got a single call back. The point I am making is that if 500 people made similar calls it might at least have an impact.