[All notes below by Tom Gross]

AL-HAYAT: JIMMY CARTER TO MEET HAMAS LEADER IN DAMASCUS

In what would be the highest-level meeting ever granted to the Islamic terror group that the free world is trying to isolate, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is planning to meet the head of Hamas later this month in Syria, according to a report in the London-based, Arab daily Al-Hayat.

When asked about the Al-Hayat report last night on Fox News, Carter’s press secretary, Deanna Congileo, did not deny that the former president would meet Hamas terror mastermind Khaled Meshal, possibly as early as next week. Meshal resides under the protection of the Syrian dictatorship in Damascus.

Meshal is responsible for coordinating the various parts of Hamas and for ordering many of its major terror attacks. Hamas is classified by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. It is responsible for dozens of deadly suicide bombings, and thousands of shooting and rocket attacks against civilians.

In case anyone needs reminding, Carter is the disastrous former American president whose misguided policies in the Middle East, specifically his abandonment of the shah of Iran, led to the Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979, predictably sparking off worldwide Iranian-backed Shia terrorism and in response, rival Saudi-backed Sunni terrorism, the results of which are continuing to be felt around the world today.

 

BAN KI-MOON CONDEMNS YESTERDAY’S TERROR ATTACK IN SOUTHERN ISRAEL

Adding to its toll of murder, Hamas shot dead two Israeli civilians and injured others yesterday, having crossed from Gaza on a mission to murder Israelis.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon swiftly and clearly condemned it as “a terrorist attack” (see here) but not so Jimmy Carter.

Carter has been accused by many of becoming a vehement anti-Zionist in recent years and some Jewish leaders have said that his choice of words in various interviews suggested that he has become an outright anti-Semite.

For more background, see previous dispatches on this list, including:
* Jimmy Carter “interceded on behalf of Nazi SS Guard” (& Saudis may ban Letter “X”) (Jan. 18, 2007)
* Hamas thanks Jimmy Carter, its “useful idiot” (July 25, 2007)

 

HAMAS TRYING TO ADD TO SUFFERING OF GAZANS

The Israelis murdered by Hamas (in a joint operation with Islamic Jihad) in yesterday’s attack at the Nahal Oz depot in southern Israel, were civilian contractors working to supply fuel to the Gaza Strip. This morning they were named as Lev Cherniak, 53, and Oleg Lipson, 37.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said: “Today’s attack proves yet again that the terrorists in Gaza not only attack Israelis, but also try to harm the civilian infrastructure that allows a normal way of life in the Gaza Strip. It is plain to see that the terrorists’ goal is to kill as many Israelis as possible while also undermining any example of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, such as occurs at the crossing points between Israel and Gaza.

“Israel transfers food, fuel, medicines, equipment and humanitarian supplies on a daily basis to the residents of the Gaza Strip. The terrorists who attacked the fuel terminal today are trying to harm this activity and thereby harm the lives and welfare of the residents of Gaza.”

 

MOTIVES BEHIND THE ATTACK ON THE NAHAL OZ CROSSING INTO GAZA

Israeli intelligence sources say that this was a well-planned and carefully timed attack by a heavily armed four-man terror squad. Only the rapid and effective response by the Israeli army prevented the attackers from abducting other Israeli civilians working at the site and bringing them back into Gaza.

By attacking the depot that supplies the population of Gaza with most of its fuel, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, probably acting on the orders of their Iranian paymasters, wanted to try and make conditions even worse for the population of Gaza.

Every week, the terminal delivers about 2.2 million liters of industrial fuel for Gaza City’s electrical power plant, 75,400 liters of gasoline and 800,000 liters of diesel fuel. Immediately prior to the attack, the latest delivery of European Union-funded fuel for Gaza’s main power station had just been completed.

Almost unreported by the western media, Hamas continues to shoot Qassam rockets into southern Israel, and sniper fire from Gaza into Israel last week almost killed an Israeli civil servant working for the Israeli minister of internal security, Avi Dichter.

Just on Tuesday (April 8) alone, by 4.30 pm Israel time, terrorists in Hamas-controlled Gaza fired 32 mortar bombs and three Qassam rockets at Israeli territory attempting to hit 127 Israeli humanitarian aid trucks, carrying medical equipment, diapers and basic food products being transferred from Israel to the Palestinian population in Gaza, via the Sufa and Kerem Shalom crossings. One 21-year-old Israeli was killed on Tuesday.

The Israeli government also continues to supply electricity to the population of Gaza from the Ashkelon power station, which Hamas has also been shelling with greater intensity in recent weeks.

Hamas continue to do everything in its power to create a false image of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza to gullible western journalists and diplomats.

Indeed, some papers, such as The Scotsman, this morning have the disgraceful headline on their website: Israel cuts fuel supply to Gaza.

 

12,400 GAZANS TREATED IN ISRAELI HOSPITALS

Contrary to the gross distortions propagated by (anti-Israeli) western “human rights” groups, Palestinians requiring medical treatment are also evacuated into Israel on a daily basis.

Since June 2007, more than 12,400 Gazans, including patients and accompanying individuals, passed through the Erez crossing from northern Gaza into Israel for medical treatment.

They continue to be treated in Israeli hospitals for various medical conditions at Israeli taxpayers expense. (Palestinians with less serious conditions are treated at medical clinics and hospitals in Gaza.)

 

“SINCE THE GAZA DISENGAGEMENT HAMAS HAS BUILT UP A FORCE OF 20,000”

A new report released today by an Israeli think tank says that Hizbullah’s success during 2006 war has made it a role model for Hamas. It warns that many Hamas operatives receive Iranian and Hizbullah training.

The report is by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITTC), some of the staff of which subscribe to this email list.

Titled “Hamas’s military buildup in the Gaza Strip,” the report marks the first comprehensive study to be published on the issue. The ITTC details the wide ranging activities being carried out by Hamas to increase and upgrade its arsenal, and train and recruit fighters in order to attack Israel. Hamas’s military buildup includes:

i) Increasing the size of its forces, which today are estimated at 20,000 armed operatives directly subordinate to Hamas;
ii) Reorganizing its forces into semi-military formations;
iii) Carrying out large-scale training operations both in Gaza and beyond, primarily in Iran and Syria;
iv) Supplying advanced weapons, especially improved rockets (which can reach Ashkelon and beyond) and advanced anti-tank weapons of the types used by Hizbullah (such as Konkurs and Sagger missiles);
v) Improving command and control of the forces deployed throughout the Strip;
vi) Preparing the ground for defense, including underground systems for fighting and concealment throughout the Strip;
vii) Developing powerful IEDs and placing them near roads (such as the Shawaz self-made EFP) and various locations where fighting against the IDF is expected.”

The full report, which outlines the structure of the Hamas military force in Gaza, naming commanders of its various brigades and the type of weapons it has succeeded in smuggling into Gaza, can be read by clicking on the pdf link here.

The ITTC is the semi-official public face of the Israeli intelligence community.

 

AL-QAEDA REITERATES PROMISE TO KILL MORE JEWS

In a “question-and-answer” session with supporters and sympathizers on an al Qaeda-run website last week, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, reiterated the group’s pledge to attack Jews both in Israel and around the world.

During a one-and-a-half hour audio response to the various questions, Zawahri stated, “We promise our Muslim brothers that we will do our best to harm Jews in Israel and the world over, with Allah’s help and according to his command.”

The terrorist leader reassured supporters that the global jihad is continuing apace, and explained that “the withdrawal from Iraq promised by US [Democratic] presidential candidates would see the new crusaders’ final defeat in Iraq and this would open the door for al-Qaeda to then concentrate attacks on Jews in Palestine [Israel].”

 

ISRAEL TO DENY UN OFFICIAL ENTRY FOR COMPARING ISRAEL TO NAZIS

The Israeli foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it will not allow the United Nations official appointed to investigate Israeli human rights to enter the country, after he stood by comments comparing Israelis to Nazis.

Richard Falk, who many have labeled an anti-Semite and a self-hating Jew, is scheduled to take up his post with the UN Human Rights Council in May, but the Israeli foreign ministry said it will deny Falk a visa to enter Israel, at least until a September meeting of the council.

At that meeting, Israel intends to ask the council to expand the envoy’s mission to include investigating Palestinian human rights abuses against Israelis. The mandate currently only allows him to monitor human rights violations by Israel.

“If Falk already believes Israel is like the Nazis, how fair will he be?” said a foreign ministry spokesman.

On Tuesday, Falk told the BBC that he stood by statements he made last summer saying there was no distinction between Israel and Nazi Germany. An Israeli spokesperson called Falk’s comments “repulsive.”

Falk is a professor emeritus at Princeton University. Over 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during World War II in an effort to liquidate all of Europe’s Jews, but apparently Falk doesn’t know this.

It seems to be no coincidence that it was in the wake of his hateful comments last summer that the UN chose this self-hating Jew to “investigate” Israel.

 

FIRST DEATH SENTENCE HANDED DOWN BY PALESTINIAN COURT

The Palestinian-run Ma’an news agency reported yesterday that a Palestinian military court in the northern West Bank city of Jenin has sentenced to death by firing squad a 23-year-old Palestinian man for the murder of a 21-year-old Palestinian man from Tulkarem. This is the first ever death sentence handed down by a Palestinian military court, according to Ma’an.

Halima Rmailat, the defendant’s aunt, told Ma’an that “Such a penalty is unprecedented in Palestine except against traitors and collaborators. My nephew shouldn’t therefore face death.”

 

PALESTINIAN CHILD KILLED AND HIS BROTHER WOUNDED BY PALESTINIAN MORTAR

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported yesterday on yet another instance of Palestinians dying as a result of what it called the “security chaos and proliferation of weapons, and the misuse of weapons by armed groups and Palestinian security personnel.”

A 4-year-old child was killed and his 8-year-old brother was injured when a mortar fired by Hamas or a related group fell near their house in al-Boreij in central Gaza.

Such deaths and injuries happen on a weekly, sometimes daily basis and these deaths are regularly added onto the overall “Palestinian casualty toll” wrongly giving the western and Arab public the idea that Israel killed them.

 

ESCAPE OF NINE MOROCCANS CONVICTED IN RELATION TO SUICIDE BOMBINGS

Nine Moroccans who were convicted of participation in suicide bombings aimed mainly at Jewish targets and Israeli tourists in Morocco in 2003, have miraculously escaped from jail. Guards found their cells at Kenitra, 40 km (25 miles) north of the capital, Rabat, empty on Monday morning. Most were serving life sentences for involvement in the Casablanca suicide bombings in 2003 that left 33 victims and 12 bombers dead. The vast majority of the victims were not Jews even though the bombers said Jews had been their targets.

 

LAST JEWISH HOMES IN YEMEN BOMBED AND LOOTED

Most Arab countries do not allow Jews to live in them. This is despite the fact that the lands which these Arab states now occupy have had Jewish communities living in them continuously for centuries before Islam was even founded. One of the few Arab countries which still allows a small Jewish community is Yemen.

Last week, reports Yemenite media, the rabbi of the Jewish community in Al-Salem, saw his residence go up in smoke. Other buildings owned by Jews were also targeted. The 67-member Jewish community had already fled the town following earlier al-Qaeda attacks and have been staying under guard in the tourist center in the capital Sanaa.

Around 400 Jews remain in Yemen. Tens of thousands of Yemenite Jews earlier fled to Israel.

 

ARAB REPRESENTATIVE TO ADDRESS JERUSALEM HOLOCAUST CONFERENCE

For the first time ever, a representative of an Arab country will address an international conference on the Holocaust in Jerusalem. Ahmed el-Abassi, Tunisia’s representative to the Palestinian Authority, will speak at the opening of a three-day conference to be held on April 28 at Jerusalem’s Yad Ben Zvi Institute, in conjunction with the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. The topic of the event will be the fate of North African Jews during World War II.

Israel and Tunisia do not have diplomatic relations.

Last year, a Tunisian was nominated as the first Arab to be honored as “Righteous among the Nations,” a title given to non-Jews who saved Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust. The Nazis hunted down Jews in the parts of north Africa they occupied in the war and many were transported to death camps in Poland.

* For more, see my dispatch: The Holocaust’s Arab heroes (Oct. 11, 2006)

 

MUSLIM SPARED SPEEDING BAN IN SCOTLAND SO HE CAN DRIVE BETWEEN HIS TWO WIVES

The latest from Britain, where Sharia law almost seems to be creeping in by the day.

The Daily Mail, one of Britain’s most influential newspapers, reports on Scottish restaurant owner Mohammed Anwar, who successfully persuaded a Scottish court that a driving ban would make it difficult for him to commute between his two wives and “fulfill his matrimonial duties.”

His lawyer told the court that Anwar has one wife in Motherwell and another in Glasgow (both are Scottish cities) and sleeps with them on alternate nights. Anwar is allowed up to four wives under his Muslim religion, but I didn’t know that British law apparently now permits this too.

Anwar had been caught driving at 64 mph in a 30 mph zone in Glasgow, fast enough to qualify for instant disqualification, and to kill someone. Anwar admitted the offense, but Scottish Court Sheriff John C. Morris accepted his plea not to be banned and allowed him to keep his license.

Lorna Jackson, from the British road safety charity Brake, called the decision “astonishing.”

 

MUSLIM SEX OFFENDERS IN UK COULD OPT OUT OF TREATMENT PROGRAM “BECAUSE IT’S AGAINST THEIR FAITH”

Days after a Muslim driver was let off a reckless speeding ban because he claimed that his Islamic faith dictated that he be allowed to continue to drive between his two wives in Scotland, the British press reports the following:

“Muslim sex attackers could be spared a prison treatment program because it is against their religion. Rapists, pedophiles and other dangerous sex attackers are expected to discuss their crimes with others during jail sessions designed to stop them reoffending.

“But Muslim inmates have complained they should not be made to undergo the Sex Offender Treatment Program group therapy.

“Now the Prison Service’s Muslim advisor, Ahtsham Ali, has said there is a “legitimate Islamic position” that criminals should not discuss their crimes with other people.

“An ‘urgent review’ has been ordered, and Muslims could be allowed to opt out of this part of the treatment – despite completing a full program often being a condition of release.

“The move has already sparked protests. Shadow Justice Secretary, Nick Herbert said: ‘It is one thing to make a dispensation for a prisoner’s faith when it comes to prayer and diet, but if a prisoner is unwilling to take part in rehabilitation they should be treated no differently to others.’”

British justice seems a little more lenient than Saudi then.*

(For more, see: Saudi Arabia: Halt Woman’s Execution for “Witchcraft” (No, this isn’t a joke) by Tom Gross, NRO, Feb. 15, 2008;
The NY Times and the Saudi gang-rape victim story: Better late than never, by Tom Gross, NRO, Nov. 26, 2007.)

 

“A MUSLIM BUS DRIVER TOLD STUNNED PASSENGERS TO GET OFF SO HE COULD PRAY”

More Sharia from Britain.

The British daily The Sun reports that a white Islamic convert amazed morning commuters on the number 81 bus in Langley, Berkshire, when he stopped the bus, asked them to get off, and rolled out his prayer mat in the aisle and knelt on the floor facing Mecca.

One passenger, who filmed the man on his cellphone, said: “He was clearly praying and chanting in Arabic.

“Eventually everyone started complaining. One woman said, ‘What the hell are you doing? I’m going to be late for work’.”