Category Archives: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Hamas Leader Hammers Palestinians

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Can this be? A Hamasnik—a rather remarkable individual, at that—has had it with blaming Israel for what he sees around him in Gaza and the West Bank. PA Government Spokesman Dr. Ghazi Hamad writes the following in the PA daily Al-Ayyam:

“We are always afraid to speak honestly about our mistakes, as we have become accustomed to placing the blame on other factors. The anarchy, chaos, pointless murders, the plundering of lands, family feuds… what do all of these have to do with the occupation? We have always been accustomed to pinning our failures on others, and conspiratorial thinking is still widespread among us…”

“When you walk around in Gaza, you cannot help but avert your eyes from what you see: indescribable anarchy, policemen that nobody cares about, youth proudly carrying weapons, mourning tents set up in the middle of main streets, and from time to time you hear that so-and-so was murdered in the middle of the night, and the response comes quickly the next morning. Large families carry weapons in tribal wars against other families. Gaza has turned into a garbage dump, there is a stench, and sewage flows [in the streets]…â€?

“The government cannot do anything, the opposition [Fatah] looks on from the sidelines, engaged in internal bickering, and the president has no power… We are walking aimlessly in the streets. The reality in which we are living in Gaza can only be described as miserable and wretched, and as a failure in every sense of the word. We applauded the elections and the unique democratic experience, but in reality there has been a great step backwards. We spoke of national consensus, [but] it turned out to be like a leaf blowing in the wind…”

Well, well, Dr. Ghazi Hamad and Ilana Mercer are not that far apart on the matter of self-determinism, causality, and culpability. Read “Gaza Goes to the Dogs (of War),â€? “Reality On The Palestinian Ground,â€? “Qassam Rockets ‘R’ Us,â€? “Savage Society,” and then return to Hamad:

“It is strange that when a great effort was made to reopen the Rafah Crossing in order to make [life] easier for the residents, somebody fires a missile towards the crossing, or that when there is talk about the need for tahdiah [“calm”], somebody fires another missile… “I have asked myself: What does the resistance gain if the country is all chaos, replete with corruption, crime, and futile murder? Isn’t the building of the homeland part of resistance? Isn’t cleanliness, order, and respect for the law part of resistance? Isn’t strengthening social relations part of the policy of shortening the life of the occupation? We have lost the connection between the resistance and other aspects of life. There is an abyss between the resistance, politics and the people. That is why the people are scattered, with no unifying or organizing [hand]…â€?

Now that a bright Hamasnik has broken with their Israel-ate-my-homework philosophy of Palestinian failing, what oh what will Pat Buchanan, his American Conservatives and Charlie Reese do? The Counterpunch crop? Koffey Annan and the Eurabians? The libertarians who’ve toiled to refine the liberal root-causes rot, rejected by Hamas’ Hamad? What will they do? Declare a fatwa on the man?

My guess is that the Palestinians’ western enablers will ignore Hamad and dissolve into more high-flown banalities about blaming the victims—and by so doing, they’ll continue to maintain the philosophical scaffolding that immobilizes the Palestinians.

(A doff of the hat to Dr. Daniel Pipes for the link.)

The Plight that Never Shuts Up

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Palestinian Authority

An import from ‘liberated’ Iraq, hostage taking is an increasingly popular pastime in the Palestinian Authority. There are no aversive consequences such as, say, punishment. Opportunity costs are minimal too. If he were not terrorizing his captives, what would your garden-variety Palestinian thug be doing instead? Singing for his supper?
Mainstream media has ‘explained’ ad nauseam the vexing nuances of the ‘Palestinian problem.’ We know why jobs are unavailable in that otherwise economically viable anarcho-terrorist territory, why government consists of competing terrorist gangs (rather than only one), and why civil society, such as it is, canonizes killers. Israel; it’s all Israel’s fault!
Given this much-rehashed media consensus, I was surprised to hear Fox correspondent Steve Centanni and his colleague, photographer Olaf Wiig, lament that the Palestinian story was “underreported.”

In “The Plight that Never Shuts Up,” my latest weekly WorldNetDaily column, I refute the above fiction and tell how “world peace became tethered to the Palestinian cause.”

The Solomonic State Censors Speech

Free Speech, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Lebanon

Thanks to reader Dr. Frank Zavisca for sending a link to what appears to be an endorsement here of the arrest of “Javed Iqbal, suspected al-Manar TV agent,” for broadcasting al-Manar television from his home.

According to the New York Times, Iqbal’s

“house and storefront were raided by federal agents, and Mr. Iqbal charged with providing customers services that included satellite broadcasts of a television station controlled by Hezbollah — a violation of federal law.
Yesterday, Mr. Iqbal was arraigned in Federal District Court in Manhattan and was ordered held in $250,000 bail. The Hezbollah station, Al Manar — or ‘the beacon’ in Arabic — was designated a global terrorist entity by the United States Treasury Department in March of this year. Hezbollah was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department in 1997.”

Al-Manar, as footage provided by Michelle Malkin clearly demonstrates, is unadulterated, vicious propaganda — a one-stop shop for every anti-Semitic canard in the book. However, and as Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit notes, “There’s a pretty good argument that this sort of prosecution violates the First Amendment.”

Although “The Beacon” does appear to be far and away worse than MTV, reader Frank’s libertarian (American) instincts are alive and well: “If you believe in freedom of speech,” he writes, “you would have to support [the right to access this channel].”

The notion that government (often pressured by sectional interests) should decide what speech Americans access is offensive and un-American, although it’s in the best of European and Canadian traditions, where the state has long since adjudicated speech. That Americans have accepted government’s role in screening such subject matter is even more disturbing.

Compiled by Malkin for “Hot-Air,” the horrible segments al-Manar broadcasts are indeed atavistic — a medieval throwback. But it’s good for people to see this stuff for themselves.

Avi Jorisch, author of “Beacon of Hatred: Inside Hizballah’s al-Manar Television,” warns that “al-Manar’s programming puts American lives at risk, both in Iraq and elsewhere, and hinders the prospects for peace and stability throughout the region.” Jorisch wants Washington to “expand its efforts to alter or silence the station’s message.”

Most Americans will recognize al-Manar’s message for what it is. That we have a sizeable community in the US that believes or is open to this message — that Jews use Muslim children’s blood to make matzoth, or that Israel was behind 9/11 — is a separate matter, to be tackled through immigration policies, not by limiting American liberties.

From Bondage to Freedom

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Media, Middle East

Fox Correspondent Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were freed, after being held in Palestinian captivity for two weeks. Hostage taking is a developing industry in the PA, an import from “liberated” Iraq, it would seem. Better that than, say, working for a living.

I don’t mean to criticize the two men. They had to placate their captors. I fully understand and sympathize with that. I’m just not quite clear on the conclusions Centanni and Wiig drew from their harrowing ordeal:

Said Centanni: “the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kind-hearted,” a sentiment Wiig reiterated by expressing his fear that the plight of the Beauteous Ones would be left untold if such unlovely acts proliferated. (No such luck: the most rehashed story ever will continue to be rehashed, and the resolution of the so-called Palestinian problem tied to every treaty or agreement imaginable. I hear Pigmy tribes won’t parcel out a piece of rain forest without a promise that the plight of the Palestinian people be solved.)

Centanni related that they “were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint.” But incase viewers took issue with Centanni’s use of the word “forced,” or if they understood him to mean he would not have converted voluntarily, Centanni quickly qualified: “Don’t get me wrong here,” he told Fox. “I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns…”

Despite the oddly inverse conclusions the two freed media men drew from the experience, they hastily departed for Israel through the northern Erez border crossing. As the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.