[All notes below by Tom Gross]

HAMAS THANKS JIMMY CARTER, ITS “USEFUL IDIOT”

While much of the rest of the world is shunning Hamas for the murderous organization that it is, and ever more Palestinians (according to Palestinian opinion polls*) are despairing at its increasingly repressive rule in Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya on Sunday thanked former U.S. President Jimmy Carter “for his intervention in the Palestinian domestic crisis.”

Carter had spoken out on behalf of Hamas against the secular Fatah party at the very time that Hamas thugs were throwing Fatah members to their deaths from Gaza rooftops last month.

Haniya’s comments were passed on during a meeting with Carter Center director Scott Caster at Haniya’s office in Gaza City, according to the Palestinian-run Ma’an news agency.

Kayhan, one of the most hardline Iranian government dailies, which supports Iran’s Holocaust-denying president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had also previously endorsed Carter’s pro-Hamas comments.

* (For polls showing a drop in Hamas’s support among Gazans, see item 5 here.)

(The first article below reports that funds transferred by Israel to the Palestinian Authority have been used to “fill the bank account of former Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya.”)

 

PALESTINIAN ROCKET SMASHES THROUGH BABY’S CRIB

Virtually unreported outside Israel, attacks on Israeli civilians continue almost every day. For example a rocket fired from Gaza yesterday afternoon hit a baby’s crib. The baby was on the other side of the room at the time but was still injured by flying shrapnel. Her mother and grandmother also required medical treatment for shock at Barzilai hospital.

The target was a kibbutz near Ashkelon – in other words while some western newspapers are full of “sensation stories” warning of a “humanitarian” crisis in Gaza and claiming that Gaza is a “gigantic prison” from which nothing is getting in and out, Hamas is in fact continuing to bring ever more costly and sophisticated weaponry in.

Several other Qassam rockets have been launched at Israel in recent days, and at least one other woman was injured as a result.

Some of those few media outlets that report this use the word “claim”: “Israel claims that rockets fired from Gaza…” It is puzzling why they do this since Islamic Jihad’s Gaza branch have proudly claimed responsibility for the attacks.

 

DOZENS WOUNDED IN HAMAS-FATAH CLASHES AT AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY

Also virtually unreported yesterday evening or today in Western media are the vicious clashes that occurred yesterday afternoon between supporters of Hamas and Fatah on the campus of An-Najah University near the West Bank city of Nablus.

According to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency, the clashes involved hundreds of students, dozens were injured, and some are said to be in a critical condition. Chairs, computers, classroom equipment, metal and wooden objects and fists were used, as well as guns. At least one student was shot in the head, several were shot in their legs, and others received severe beatings.

Both pistols and Kalashnikov assault rifles were used during the fighting, which was described as one of the worst ever on a Palestinian campus in the West Bank.

The university’s administration has temporarily closed the campus, the largest on the West Bank. University President Rami Hamdallah said Hamas students had been responsible for starting the fighting.

Another West Bank university, Bir Zeit, was also closed down earlier this month following severe violence between Hamas and Fatah supporters.

Many western academics were no doubt too busy organizing their boycotts of Israel to notice what is happening on Palestinian universities (which incidentally Israel built for the Palestinians during the more peaceful initial years after the Six Day War).

And of course even though the BBC has near hourly reports on how awful Israel is, it didn’t mention these clashes even once in any of its many reports on the Middle East on its website yesterday and today.

 

HAMAS ASKS IRNA TO OPEN BRANCH OFFICE IN GAZA

Hamas’s ambassador to Teheran, Abu Osama Abdolmoti, on Sunday called on the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) to open a branch office in Gaza.

In a meeting with IRNA Chief Jalal Fayyazi, Abdolmoti “thanked IRNA for reflecting the heroic resistance of the oppressed Palestinian nation and informing the world of their innocence.”

He said “IRNA’s support for Hamas would encourage the group to ceaselessly continue its campaign against the occupiers.”

IRNA is one of the propaganda tools of the Iranian regime.

In a separate development, gunmen stormed the offices of a senior Fatah lawmaker in Gaza on Monday, wounding several office workers, Reuters reported.

 

THREE SISTERS STABBED TO DEATH IN GAZA

This news was barely reported.

That’s because the sisters – 16-year-old Nahed Hija, 19-year-old Suha and 22-year-old Lina – were not killed by Israel but were murdered by fellow Palestinians, probably in some perverse Islamic “honor killing.”

They were found dead on Monday, each with multiple stab wounds. In February, three unrelated woman were killed within a 24-hour period in the Gaza Strip. At the time, there were concerns that vigilante “Islamic morality” groups were behind the murders.

 

CANADA ANNOUNCES RESUMPTION OF DIRECT AID TO PALESTINIAN GOVERNMENT

Canada announced yesterday that it is resuming the granting of direct aid to the Palestinian Authority after it suspended aid in 2006 following Hamas’s formation of a government.

Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement: “Given the commitment of the new Palestinian government to renounce violence, recognition of Israel and commitment to agreements signed previously, including opportunities to move the peace process forward, Canada will offer assistance to the new Palestinian government.”

MacKay said the money would be “tracked” to make sure it wasn’t misused.

Canada was the first country to announce the suspension of direct aid to the Palestinian government in 2006 after the victory of Hamas in the legislative elections.

Senior Hamas leader and former Palestinian Authority foreign minister Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahhar yesterday unveiled a number of documents seized last month from the PA security apparatuses which he said implicated a number of former PA officials and Fatah leaders in embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from PA money. He said Fatah had “stolen the international aid money meant for the Palestinian people.”

 

NEW FATAH TERROR GROUP “TO TARGET ISRAEL”

Sources tell me that radicals from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party have in the past few days organized a new terrorist cell in the northern West Bank to commit attacks against Israel. The group will be called the Abu Ammar Brigades.

The move comes a few days after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert granted an amnesty to the senior leadership of Fatah’s declared military wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, after they signed a document pledging to refrain from terrorism.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has carried out dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians since it was established by Yasser Arafat after he launched his Intifada in the fall of 2000.

Arafat was also widely known among Palestinians as Abu Ammar, and the new terror group is apparently named in his “honor”.

 

PRESIDENTIAL GUARD ATTACKS BARGHOUTI’S CHILDREN

Palestinian security forces in Ramallah assaulted the children of former Fatah Secretary-General Marwan Barghouti, the Al-Hayat al-Jadida newspaper reported yesterday.

The Palestinian Authority launched an investigation into the alleged attack on Monday night of Qassam and Ruba Barghouti by members of Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard.

The incident is said to have taken place when a Presidential Guard patrol stopped Ruba Barghouti’s car as she was driving home from the Bir Zeit University.

Rafik al-Husseini, Abbas’s chief of staff, visited the family home later on Monday night and promised a thorough, speedy, inquiry into the matter.

Marwan Barghouti is serving multiple life terms in Israel for the murder of Israeli civilians and of a Greek monk who was mistaken for an orthodox Jew. In spite of this some in the international community and on the Israeli left have suggested that Barghouti should be released and enter Palestinian politics. A few in the media have even compared him to Nelson Mandela, which is of course a grave insult to Mandela.

-- Tom Gross

[Note by Tom Gross]

I attach items written by myself for the National Review in recent days. These can also be accessed at the National Review website.

EXTRA LINK TO VIEW

Imagine...

 

“BUSH IS NOT GOING TO LEAVE OFFICE WITH IRAN STILL IN LIMBO”

(July 16, 2007)

According to the Qatari daily Al-Watan, Iran has let it be known that it has missiles capable of reaching 600 targets in Israel, which it says it would use if Iran is attacked by the United States. The Arabic link is here. (The article was not published by the paper in English.)

Meanwhile, the balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favor of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the British paper The Guardian reports today:

“The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: ‘Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.’”

Vice President Dick Cheney, who has long favored the possible use of military action against Iran, has apparently won the president’s support over Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, both of whom are said to oppose considering military action against Iran.

 

NOT SO PEACEFUL NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

(July 13, 2007)

Following up on the item about Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner turned-would-be George Bush killer Betty Williams, one should remember that some Nobel Peace Prize winners have actually ordered the murder of representatives of the American government.

 

ITALIAN AMBASSADOR TREATS WOUNDED TROOPS TO MEDITERRANEAN HOSPITALITY

(July 17, 2007)

It is rare that one comes across a story about European generosity to American troops, so this piece, from the American Forces Press Service, provides a welcome change to all those negative stories about European attitudes to America.

Too bad it hasn’t appeared in the mainstream media. Here are some highlights:

WASHINGTON – A busload of wounded service members [many with limbs amputated] brought their appetites to the Italian Embassy here July 13 as the ambassador and his staff transformed the building into Washington’s most authentic Italian restaurant.

Italian Ambassador Giovanni Castellaneta hosted them for an evening of dinner and entertainment ... Guests dined on world-class Italian cuisine – lasagna, prosciutto and melon and salami skewers among the offerings – all prepared by the ambassador’s personal chef and served buffet-style.

... Tenor Sgt. 1st Class Antonio Guiliano, a member of the Army Band, presented a vocal performance in pitch-perfect acoustics. As he sang, musical notes composed by Puccini bounced off embassy walls adorned with Renaissance-era paintings and Etruscan artifacts...

 

FOR ONCE, AN ARTICLE IN THE LIBERAL PRESS TELLS IT AS IT IS: “ARABS PILE INTO DARFUR TO TAKE LAND ‘CLEANSED’ BY JANJAWEED”

(July 18, 2007)

For four years now, the left-liberal media has strenuously avoided mentioning that the perpetrators of the genocidal ethnic cleansing against the indigenous non-Arab population of Darfur are Arabs.

Papers like the New York Times and the Guardian and networks like the BBC and CNN have gone out of their way to ignore or downplay the fact that Arabs are behind the genocide. Of course, they wouldn’t dream of obscuring the facts like this if any other group were behind the attacks on Black Africans (Serbs, Israelis, Americans, or Europeans, for example).

This piece in the normally glaringly anti-western newspaper the Independent of London (the paper of which the notorious Robert Fisk is one of the chief foreign correspondents) therefore stands out:

Arabs from Chad and Niger are crossing into Darfur in “unprecedented” numbers, prompting claims that the Sudanese government is trying systematically to repopulate the war- ravaged region.

An internal UN report, obtained by The Independent, shows that up to 30,000 Arabs have crossed the border in the past two months. Most arrived with all their belongings and large flocks. They were greeted by Sudanese Arabs who took them to empty villages cleared by government and janjaweed forces.

One UN official said the process “appeared to have been well planned”. The official continued: “This movement is very large.”

Just to be clear, before the attacks started in 2003, Darfur was home to seven million people, mainly from three African tribes, Fur, Marsalit, and Zargahwa. Darfur literally means “Land of the Fur.” Some 2.5 million have now been forced to flee after attacks by Arab militia backed by Sudanese troops and warplanes. At least 200,000 non-Arabs have been killed and countless women and young girls raped.

The 22-member-state Arab League has done its best at the UN and other international bodies to ensure nothing is done to stop these crimes.

Where are the demonstrations by the so-called Western human-rights groups outside the offices of the Arab League?

** For more on the way left-liberal media has avoided mentioning who the perpetrators of the crimes in Darfur are, see the relevant paragraphs here.

** and this piece “Silence on the Arab Street” by Kamel Labidi, a courageous Tunisian journalist, which is the sixth item here.

 

THE BBC AND THE ARAB LEAGUE: JOINTLY SILENT ON DARFUR

(July 19, 2007)

Updating my earlier story on how the BBC and the Arab League together cover up what is going on in Darfur, I just watched the BBC program “HardTalk” in which presenter Stephen Sackur interviews – for almost 30 minutes – Amre Moussa, Secretary General of the Arab League.

Sackur didn’t ask Moussa about Darfur once, and instead just concentrated on allowing him to bash Israel. What a surprise.

(The BBC likes its anti-Israel programs, of which there are many, and the 30-minute interview with Moussa has now been broadcast seven times in the last 24 hours.)

Meanwhile, the BBC has just apologized and ordered an internal enquiry after it was caught repeatedly lying in its entertainment programs – see here and here. But when is it going to apologize for all the lying it does in its news and current affairs programs?

 

POLICEMAN JAILED FOR 16 YEARS FOR RAPING HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR

(July 15, 2007)

The Haifa District Court in Israel today sentenced Ahmed Hindawi, a 23-year-old Arab-Israeli policeman, to 16 and a half years in prison for raping and sodomizing a 70-year-old Holocaust survivor:

Hindawi had been driving along a highway north of Haifa, he noticed the victim walking along the side of the road. He stopped the car and demanded she enter the vehicle. The victim refused and crossed over to the other side of the road. Hindawi then exited his car and grabbed her, throwing her over the railing on the side of the road. The woman tried to push Hindawi off, but he struck her on the head until she released her grip on the railing. He then pulled her into a thorny bush and raped her.

Hindawi then urinated on her in order to humiliate her, and left her there with injuries all over her body.

His victim, who had rebuilt her life in Israel after surviving the Holocaust, is now a mental and physical wreck, according to the judge.

Hindawi’s short sentence – 16 years – was apparently based on the fact he had made a full confession and pleaded guilty. Nevertheless this utterly despicable crime surely deserved a life sentence. (There is no death penalty in Israel.)

 

HAS RED KEN MET HIS MATCH?

(July 13, 2007)

My friend and former colleague, Boris Johnson, former editor of Britain’s Spectator magazine and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph, is to challenge the truly awful “Red” Ken Livingstone for the position of Mayor of London.

The highly charismatic Boris, who is also a Conservative MP, is expected to electrify the race and pose the most serious challenge to Livingstone’s hopes of winning a third term.

Livingstone has made many enemies as mayor, not least through his anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism.

Among other things, Livingstone reacted to an entirely inoffensive question from a Jewish reporter for the local London paper the Evening Standard by telling him he was like a Nazi concentration camp guard; called the American ambassador to London, Robert Tuttle, a “chiselling little crook”; and told two British Jewish businessmen (who are not of Iranian origin) “go back to Iran” and live “under the ayatollahs.”

Many Londoners think it is Livingstone who is the “chiselling little crook” and will be hoping for a Boris victory.

 

HAS PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD MET HIS MATCH?

(July 13, 2007)

Following up my earlier post today on the Mayor of London, “Has Red Ken met his match?,” we now have to ask whether the former Mayor of Teheran (President Ahmadinejad) has met his match?

Maybe it is a scene for Oliver Stone’s new movie?

 

UK CONSERVATIVES TO MAKE SERIOUS EFFORT TO OUST “RED KEN”

(July 16, 2007)

Following up my posting from Friday morning, “Has Red Ken met his match? ” within the last hour Boris Johnson has officially declared himself to be a candidate for mayor of London.

He used today’s edition of the British capital’s main newspaper, the Evening Standard, to officially announce his candidacy.

To add to what I wrote previously on Livingstone: at the same time as repeatedly calling for a boycott of Israeli companies, Livingstone has just signed a contract with a Chinese firm to take over one of London’s rail networks. China has brutally occupied Tibet since 1950, and is a key arms supplier to the Arab tribes committing genocide against the indigenous non-Arab African population in the Darfur region of Sudan. Not that the far Leftist London mayor would care about that.

 

WHICH MAJOR NEWSPAPER WILL BE THE FIRST TO KILL ITS PRINT EDITION?

(July 14, 2007)

Which major American newspaper will be the first to throw up its hands and say “Stop the Press! We’re only publishing online”?

Jon Fine of BusinessWeek is predicting that the San Francisco Chronicle may be the first to dispense with the paper, the presses, the trucks, and the mail rooms. He gives it another 18 to 24 months to survive as a printed product.

 

GIULIANI’S GIRLS GO HEAD TO HEAD WITH OBAMA’S GIRLS ON YOUTUBE

(July 16, 2007)

First, Temple University senior Leah Kauffman’s risqué video “I Got a Crush on Obama,” generated over 2.3 million views on YouTube.

Now, having seen the pro-Obama video featured in serious media like The Economist (“It is hard to envisage any other candidate inspiring anything similar,” opined the lofty weekly), Rudy’s girls are fighting back with their joint release today (with Obama’s girls) of a Giuliani v. Obama “political debate song” on YouTube.

 

OPRAH WINFREY IS THE LATEST OBAMA GIRL

(July 18, 2007)

The girls of the YouTube videos may need to step aside. The most important “Obama girl” is now likely to be talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who has announced she is to hold a fundraiser for Democratic hopeful Barack Obama at her palatial home near Santa Barbara, California, on September 8.

Obama already has the support of Hollywood moguls David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Winfrey’s fundraiser will be a chance for him to gain even more California showbiz money. Forbes magazine estimates that Winfrey is worth $1.5 billion. Obama has so far raised over $58 million for his White House bid.

Links in the item above:

-- Tom Gross

[All notes below by Tom Gross]

FATAH TERRORISTS SUPPOSEDLY RENOUNCE USE OF VIOLENCE

Scores of Fatah gunmen in the West Bank have signed a pledge renouncing attacks against Israel in return for an Israeli promise to stop pursuing them.

The Israeli government led by Ehud Olmert is to grant amnesty to 178 wanted members of Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who will then join the official Palestinian security forces, and Israel will remove them from its lists of wanted terrorists, according to an agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has carried out scores of suicide and other deadly attacks on Israeli civilians since Yasser Arafat established the group in 2000.

The Israeli cabinet committee headed by Olmert also officially announced this morning that it will release 256 Fatah prisoners this coming Friday, July 20.

The list of those to be freed is said to include Abdelrahim Malluh, the deputy leader of the terror group that murdered the Israeli tourism minister at the Jerusalem Hyatt hotel in October 2001.

 

ORGANIZERS OF MA’ALOT SCHOOL MASSACRE ALLOWED TO ROAM FREE

And in a further concession, Israel agreed to Abbas’ request to allow Nayef Hawatmeh to return to the West Bank without being arrested. Hawatmeh heads the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a PLO faction best known for seizing a school in the northern Israeli town of Ma’alot in 1974, and then massacring 24 Israelis there, 22 of them young schoolchildren – some thrown out of school windows by Hawatmeh’s group.

Media reports of Olmert’s presumed agreement to allow Hawatmeh not to be arrested have been met with outrage in Israel. Hawatmeh has until now never expressed remorse for his deeds.

Israelis are shocked at the number of known perpetrators of terror who are being “let off” while Israel’s captive soldier remains in Palestinian hands.

The editorial of Israel’s most popular newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, noted that the vast majority of terrorists who were released in previous exchange deals returned to their old ways despite signing pledges not to do so. The paper urges against a return to “the illusions of Oslo,” and advocates having as little to do with Palestinian affairs as possible.

For more criticism of the deal, see the first article below, titled “Back to the Oslo illusion”.

 

PALESTINIANS GIVEN YET ANOTHER CHANCE. WILL THEY TAKE IT?

The Jerusalem Post discusses the risks Israel is taking in exchange for the chance of peace with the Palestinians. “Ultimately, the Palestinians must decide if they want the state they claim to have been fighting for, or not. If so, they will have to begin waging peace rather than war, and will have to focus inward on building, rather than outward on attacking. As usual, all of us will lose if they make the wrong choice.”

In a televised speech yesterday, U.S. President George Bush announced the holding of an international conference this fall as part of a renewed drive for peace in the Middle East. And he said that the U.S. would be providing $190 million of aid for the Palestinians in the 2007 fiscal year, which ends on 30 September, and also specified that the U.S. would be making a contribution of $80 million for the Palestinian security services. Olmert’s spokeswoman welcomed this.

Washington is hoping to persuade Arab nations without diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to attend the conference.

 

LIKUD’S POPULARITY RISES IN ISRAEL

In the latest poll conducted for Ha’aretz, the support for the Kadima-Labor center-left coalition in Israel is falling again, and the opposition Likud party led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would surpass the 30-seat mark if elections were held today.

 

HAMAS’S SUPPORT DROPS IN GAZA

A phone survey of 408 randomly selected adult Palestinians in the Gaza Strip conducted between 10-12 July by Near East Consulting, shows a fall in support for Hamas in Gaza since the group seized power last month.

Although Palestinians said there was now less street crime, 56% of Gazans said that since Hamas took power, they felt unable to voice their opinion freely in public and 69% of Gazans said that the way Hamas had taken control last month was wrong.

63% of Gazans said they most trusted Fatah’s Abu Mazen (President Abbas) while 37% said they most trusted Hamas’s leader in Gaza Ismail Haniya.

If elections were held today, 45% of Gazans would vote for Fatah, and 22% would vote for Hamas, with the rest saying they would refuse to support either faction.

Strikingly, if Fatah reformed itself, 60% of Hamas supporters in Gaza said they would then support Fatah.

 

TERRORIST CONVICTED FOR PREPARATION OF SUICIDE BELT IN HOSPITAL

It is not only in Britain that terror attacks are being formulated in hospitals.

Yesterday Palestinian terrorist Murad Abu Rob was convicted in Israel under terrorism laws for the preparation of a suicide belt in a Nablus hospital as part of a suicide car bombing in March last year that killed four Israeli civilians in Kedumim.

Abu Rob had prepared the suicide belt, complete with screws and nails to maximize injuries to the victims, at a hospital in Nablus and transported the belt to the suicide bomber. In addition, Abu Rob together with other operatives produced the film of the suicide bomber prior to the attack. Abu Rob also housed the terror operative for a week before the attack took place. The sentencing hearing will take place on September 9, 2007.

No doubt President Abbas will campaign, and the international media will soon write, sympathetic stories demanding Abu Rob’s release.

 

“4,000 BRITISH CITIZENS OR RESIDENTS TRAINED AT TERROR CAMPS”

Up to 4,000 Islamic extremists have attended terrorist training camps in Afghanistan or on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border before returning to Britain, many in the pre 9/11 period, reported the Sunday Telegraph, citing security sources.

Concerns over “sleeper cells” have been heightened since the failed “doctors’ plot” attacks in London and Glasgow two weeks ago.

Terrorists who are believed to have trained in Afghanistan include Richard Reid, from Bromley, Kent, and Saajid Badat, from Gloucester, who were both jailed for plotting to blow up aircraft with shoe bombs.

Andrew Rowe, a Londoner of Jamaican origin serving 15 years for terrorist offences, trained at one such camp in Afghanistan.

Dhiren Barot, brought up in London and now serving 30 years for plotting a “dirty bomb” attack in Britain, trained in either Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Others believed to have trained in Pakistan include Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the July 7, 2005 London transport bombers; Muktar Said Ibrahim, the leader of the failed July 21 transport bomb plot, and most members of the “Operation Crevice” plot to blow up nightclubs or shopping centers with fertilizer bombs.

It was only last year that the British introduced counter-terrorism laws making it illegal to attend a terrorist training camp.

 

HAMAS CONTINUES TO FIRE ROCKETS AT ISRAEL…

Virtually unmentioned in the European and North American media, Hamas is continuing to fire Kassam rockets at Israeli civilians. Three hit Israel yesterday evening, including one that destroyed part of a residential home in Sderot. No casualties have been reported although several people have been treated for shock.

 

... BUT ISRAELI HUMANITARIAN AID KEEPS FLOWING

Contrary to false reports in several prominent western media, the Israeli army is continuing its efforts to help the humanitarian needs in the Gaza Strip. In the latest aid on Sunday:

* Approximately 8880 tons of food, medical supplies, dairy products, flour, sugar, reproductive eggs, rice, cooking oil, straw and animal feed, raw food materials and construction supplies, were delivered to Gaza across the Sufa Crossing.

* Approximately 1050 tons of food, medical supplies, dairy products, meat products, fruit, cooking oil and reproductive eggs were delivered across the Kerem Shalom Crossing.

* Approximately 4180 tons of wheat seed were delivered across the Karni Crossing.

 

EGYPTIAN AL-QAEDA CHIEF “FLEES TO GAZA”

Agence France Presse, citing the Egyptian independent daily Al Masry Al Youm, reported that the head of al-Qaeda in Egypt, Khaled Mahmoud Ahmed, has fled the country for the protection of the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

In recent days, Cairo’s metro system has been on high alert after a bomb threat against one of the stations, with bomb squads and sniffer dogs deployed and metal detectors installed at stations.

 

OTHER AL-QAEDA RELATED ATTACKS IN RECENT DAYS

Suicide bombers killed more than 50 people in three attacks in Pakistan at the weekend, after Islamic extremists called for holy war following a deadly army raid on a pro-Taliban mosque in Islamabad, which resulted in over 100 deaths.

On Sunday, the Algerian army halted an attack by around 50 al-Qaeda radicals on police stations and killed four in the troubled north eastern Kabylie region, the El Watan and Liberte dailies reported.

There were a number of bomb attacks on civilians in Iraq, including two car bombs which killed at least 80 people in a busy commercial area in the northern city of Kirkuk yesterday. Among other buildings, the blast destroyed the offices for the Kurdish Olympic committee. (Will the IOC condemn this? For more on the double standards in sport, see Football killing fields: International soccer singles out Israel.)

Also yesterday, a bomb rocked a market in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing several civilians.

In Lebanon yesterday, the death toll for the number of Lebanese soldiers killed in the battle for the Nahr Al-Barid camp with al-Qaeda inspired fighters reached 100.

A new al-Qaeda videotape posted Sunday on a radical website featured a short, undated clip of a weary-looking Osama bin Laden praising martyrdom. Bin Laden glorified those who die in the name of jihad saying even the Prophet Muhammad “had been wishing to be a martyr.”

Bin Laden was last heard from in a July 1, 2006 audiotape in which he voiced support for the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and warned nations not to send troops to fight the Islamic regime that had recently seized power in Somalia.

 

“THEY DON’T NEED MORE GUNS, MILITIAS AND FORCE 17s”

Attached as the second item below is a piece by Khaled Abu Toameh, titled “What to do now about the Palestinian Authority?”

Abu Toameh – who is a Palestinian journalist born in Tulkarem in the West Bank (and a longtime subscriber to this email list) – says the “Palestinians need good governance, better media, freedom and democracy, and to rebuild their civil institutions. They don’t need more guns, militias, and Force 17s. This is what I hear in the Palestinian street.”

He concludes: “The Palestinians need to get their act together and find a way to resolve their problems, and then Israel can talk with them. But under the current circumstances, if I was Israel I wouldn’t pull out from one inch of land because there is no strong and reliable partner on the other side.”

Abu Toameh’s piece below is based on his presentation at the Institute for Contemporary Affairs in Jerusalem on May 24, 2007 – before the Hamas takeover of Gaza in mid-June.

For more on Abu Toameh see When was the last time you saw Khaled Abu Toameh interviewed on BBC or CNN? (Jan. 4, 2006).

-- Tom Gross

[Note by Tom Gross]

“THE WAR ON BRITAIN’S JEWS?” NOW ON YOUTUBE

The Richard Littlejohn program titled “The War On Britain’s Jews?,” which aired on British TV on Monday night and was featured in Monday’s dispatch, can now be seen online in six parts.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Due to the nature of YouTube, these links may be taken down in the coming days. If you intend to watch it I would advise watching it as soon as possible.

To remind readers, the BBC shelved this program when they heard it would focus on British anti-Semitism, and it was instead shown on Channel 4.

ANTI-SEMITES ON BRITISH LEFT ATTACK PROGRAM’S PRESENTER

While some mainstream reviewers in the British media welcomed Littlejohn’s program, some on the left were extremely nasty about it. No doubt they felt uncomfortable having their anti-Semitism pointed out to them and tried to change the subject. One reviewer in the Guardian for example, started talking about “Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinians” – an interesting remark given the fact he was meant to be writing about British anti-Semitism – and called the subject of anti-Semitism “tedious”.

On British radio, George Galloway, MP dismissed the program by saying: “Richard Littlejohn is a driveling guttersnipe who long ago fell out of the gutter into the sewer. This man is a moron.”

As Littlejohn (a leading British journalist, and a long-time subscriber to this email list) is finding out, when non-Jews condemn anti-Semitism, they can themselves become the target of anti-Semites.

One of the problems is that the mainstream media just don’t report many anti-Semitic attacks in the UK, which are only mentioned in the Jewish media. For example, a British ultra-orthodox Jew was thrown into a river in north London by a gang making anti-Semitic remarks two weeks ago. They smashed his glasses on the ground before doing so, so that he wouldn’t be able to see clearly once in the water. He was rescued by a couple that walked past shortly after.

Still, anti-Semitism in Britain remains below that of other countries. For example, in Ukraine yesterday, there were three anti-Semitic attacks in a single day. No serious injuries were sustained.

* The latest prominent international personalities to sign a petition condemning the proposed British academic boycott of Israel are the Dalai Lama and Mikhail Gorbachev.

* The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday passed a resolution criticizing the proposed British academic boycott of Israel. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D- Pennsylvania) is the resolution’s prime sponsor.

PFLP CHIEF: “ARAFAT DIED OF AIDS”

Ahmad Jibril, Secretary-General of the PFLP General Command, told Lebanon’s Al-Manar TV on July 5, 2007 that Yasser Arafat died of AIDS.

“To be honest, the French gave us the medical report that stated that the cause of Abu Ammar’s death was AIDS,” Jibril said. (Arafat’s nomme de guerre was Abu Ammar.)

Click here for more on Arafat.

200 SUICIDE BOMB VESTS CAPTURED IN TRUCK FROM SYRIA

Somewhere in Syria, there’s a factory mass-producing suicide bomb vests.

The Associated Press reports that Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf confirmed that 200 explosive belts were captured in a truck crossing into Iraq from Syria yesterday. There is no doubt they were designed to murder as many ordinary Iraqis as possible.

Today marks the first anniversary of Hizbullah’s attack on Israel that triggered last summer’s Hizbullah-Israel war.

We know that Syria is also resupplying weapons (some originating in Iran) to Hizbullah as fast at it can so they can once again be aimed at civilians throughout northern Israel.

ISRAELI PEACE ACTIVISTS HANG SYRIAN FLAGS BY THE KNESSET

Activists from Israel’s “Peace Now” group hung dozens of Syrian and Israeli flags across the entrance of western Jerusalem on Tuesday – from the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road to the Knesset (Parliament) building. The demonstration was part of a campaign to pressure Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government to open talks with the Assad dictatorship in Syria.

Organizers said that they would also hold a rally today in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel to mark one year since the start of the Hizbullah-Israel War and to call for political negotiations as the best way to ensure security for Israel’s northern towns, which were hardest hit by Hizbullah rockets during the 34-day war.

In related news, Olmert said in an interview with the Saudi-owned, Dubai-based al-Arabiya news channel that he has sent messages to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asking him to restart the negotiations and that he is ready to meet him anywhere Assad chooses.

ISRAELI WEBSITES CLOSE DOWN TO MARK YEAR SINCE IDF SOLDIERS ABDUCTED

Israel’s major websites shut down for five minutes at 9.05 this morning, to mark the exact hour at which two Israel Defense Forces soldiers were kidnapped last year.

The homepage of each site was replaced with a message reading “This soldier cannot be found,” a play on the standard Internet error message “This page cannot be found.”

In London next Monday (at 6.30 pm), British Jews (noting the enormous coverage afforded the now released Alan Johnston and contrasting it with the almost complete lack of coverage about Israel’s kidnap victims) are planning to hold a demonstration outside the Syrian Embassy in Belgrave Square. Syria and Iran are the de facto controllers of Hamas and Hizbullah, the two kidnap organizations.

They are also protesting other Israelis missing and believe held by Syria or Iran – including Ron Arad, Zachary Baumel, Yehuda Katz, Zvi Feldman, and Guy Hever whom they say “the international community have allowed to virtually disappear into oblivion. For their families, not knowing what happened to their loved ones is a daily nightmare.”

* In its annual report last week, the BBC acknowledged that they received more than 5,000 complaints from UK viewers objecting to their bias against Israel in their coverage of last year’s war, and complaining that the BBC had breached its legal obligation to report impartially. The BBC report admitted “we did not give our audiences enough information about Hizbullah and its aims.” This was the largest number of formal complaints about any single subject the BBC has ever received.

ARAB LEAGUE ENVOYS POSTPONE ISRAEL VISIT

What would have been the first ever official visit to Israel by Arab League envoys has been postponed, Egyptian and Israeli officials said.

The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan had been scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other officials today. The visit may proceed later this month instead.

The Arab League has softened its hardline stance toward Israel in recent months in efforts to counter a growing Islamic fundamentalist threat in the Middle East, as represented by Iran and al-Qaeda.

LAST REFUGEES START FLEEING LEBANON BATTLE CAMP

The Lebanese army is moving in hard in what it says is its final assault on Islamic extremists holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon. According to news reports from Lebanon this morning, between five and 10 shells were slamming into the camp every minute and heavy machine gun fire could be heard.

The differences between this and Israel’s 2002 operation in Jenin is that the Lebanese army are trying to kill as many people as possible, whereas in Jenin Israel tried to capture and disarm militants, the government of Lebanon is keeping CNN and others away from filming what is going on, CNN and other stations are not mentioning the lack of media access, and the Islamic extremists in the north Lebanon camp (unlike those in Jenin) are not responsible for murdering hundreds of men, women and children in dozens of suicide attacks.

Lebanese troops have been battling the radicals at Nahr al-Bared camp for nearly eight weeks now. Several thousand Palestinians remain trapped in the camp but the BBC and CNN don’t seem too interested in their fate.

Humanitarian organizations have been unable to deliver supplies into the camp since June 20, forcing remaining residents to scavenge for food and water in abandoned houses.

For more on Jenin, see here.

LEADER OF GROUP HOLDING RED MOSQUE KILLED BY PAKISTANI FORCES

The Pakistani government says Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the leader of the group that took over Islamabad’s Red Mosque last Tuesday, was killed when Pakistani troops stormed the mosque. Pakistan says it has killed about 80 Islamic fighters there. The true number is believed to be higher. Many women and children are believed to have been trapped inside or held as hostages.

The western media’s coverage of this siege has been completely different to its highly sympathetic coverage of Islamic militants holed up in Bethlehem’s Church of The Nativity in 2002 – and Israel didn’t storm the church and kill anyone. (Following European Union pressure, it allowed all the Palestinian militants to go free save for the 13 most wanted killers who were instead allowed to resettle in EU countries.)

ISRAEL ALLOWS FRUIT, VEGETABLES INTO GAZA

Contrary to reports in some prominent western media, Israel is allowing supplies into Hamas-controlled Gaza. For example, yesterday the Israeli army delivered trucks carrying 300 tons of fruit and vegetables, including bananas, apricots, plums and avocados, into Gaza.

Meanwhile, Hamas continues firing rockets into southern Israel.

Also, in an ambush this morning, Hamas killed one Israeli soldier (a 21-year-old a dog-handler) and injured two others.

Egyptian officials said there is no chance that Fatah and Hamas will resume talks any time soon. On Tuesday Egypt deployed hundreds of reinforcements for its forces along its border with Gaza.

The European Union will donate a further 80 million euros ($110 million) in aid to the Palestinians, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said yesterday. The European Union has already given the Palestinians hundreds of millions of euros in the last few months. The EU says it will try to ensure none reaches Hamas.

PALESTINIAN “COLLABORATOR” BRUTALLY TORTURED IN HAMAS PRISON

Khaled Abu Toameh reports today that “A Palestinian man detained by Islamic Jihad members in the Gaza Strip last week on suspicion of ‘collaboration’ with Israel has been found dead in a Hamas-controlled prison.”

According to an unnamed Palestinian journalist, the supposed “collaborator” Fadel Duhmush, was handed over to Hamas a few days after he was captured by Islamic Jihad. The journalist added that “I heard from people who saw the body that he had been brutally tortured in the Hamas prison.”

The body has been transferred to Shifa Hospital because the victim’s family refused to bury him out of fear for their lives.

-- Tom Gross

[Note by Tom Gross]

I attach items written by myself for the National Review in recent days (and one item by Melanie Phillips.) (These can also be accessed at the National Review website.)

I am glad to report that these items are increasingly being linked to by various mainstream media around the world. For example, here’s The Times of London’s world web round-up yesterday.

 

AMERICAN “RACHEL CORRIE” JUDGE COMPARES ISRAEL TO NAZIS

(July 10, 2007)

The death of the pro-Hamas American activist Rachel Corrie in Gaza in 2003 is continuing to stir controversy.

The latest comes from American judge Michael Hawkins (of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) who yesterday in court outrageously compared Israel to Nazi Germany:

Judge Michael Hawkins asked Justice Department lawyer Robert Loeb to consider the hypothetical case of a U.S. oven manufacturer during World War II: “If the company continued selling ovens to Germany, knowing they were being used to kill Jews, would there be legal grounds to go after the company?” he asked.

Don’t believe much of the rest of the AP piece linked to above either, about what AP refers to as the “peace” activist Corrie. Instead, see the photos of Corrie, Corrie’s parents, and the child victims of those arms smugglers Corrie did so much to defend, at the foot of this page.

 

AFP SURPRISED AFTER SARKOZY CALLS HIZBULLAH TERRORISTS

(July 10, 2007)

The Paris-based international news agency Agence France Presse has been taken aback by the fact that new President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday called Hizbullah a “terrorist group.”

“Questioned as to whether the president had described Lebanon’s Hizbullah as ‘terrorist,’ as Jewish organization officials escorting the families claimed, Elysee spokesman David Martinon said: ‘Yes,’” say a shocked AFP at the top of a story which is meant to be about developments in the Middle East.

Sarkozy’s approach to terrorists is certainly different to that of his predecessor Jacques Chirac. See, for example, the final photo here.

 

STONED TO DEATH IN IRAN

(July 10, 2007)

Jafar Kiani, from the village of Aghche Kand in Qazvin province, was buried up to his waist, after which the crowd hurled stones at him until he was dead.

No this isn’t a scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

It happened. Today. In Iran. Under the regime’s Islamic law.

The woman with whom Kiani (may he rest in peace) supposedly committed adultery is also waiting to be stoned to death.

It will be even more horrific for her. Under the Islamic punishment of stoning, a male victim is buried up to his waist with his hands tied behind his back, whereas a female is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried.

And the Iranian regime still has its defenders in the West.

 

IRANIAN REGIME FOLLOWING 2008 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN WITH INTEREST

(July 12, 2007)

The Iranian state media this morning headlines Hillary Clinton’s call to bring the troops home.

Meanwhile President Ahmadinejad says that centrifuge installation will continue.

 

ALAN JOHNSTON UPDATE: BBC FINALLY ADMITS TO HAVING RELATIONS WITH HAMAS

(July 10, 2007)

That Hamas and the BBC have close relations isn’t exactly a revelation. See here and here, for example.

But finally the BBC, the world’s biggest broadcaster, has itself admitted to being in touch with Hamas – the group that unlike other Islamic terror groups, has made a habit of deliberately targeting children (in school buses, bat mitzvah birthday parties, pizzerias filled with kids and so on).

A senior BBC executive has confirmed that the BBC held private meetings with Hamas – whose gunmen usually wear ski masks to hide their identity – in the days leading up to the release of reporter Alan Johnston.

In a new posting on the blog of the BBC News website, BBC Middle East bureau editor Simon Wilson confirms that he held meetings with Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus to discuss Johnston’s fate. In his piece, titled “The Joy of Alan,” Wilson hints he was ordered to do so by more senior officials at the BBC.

Wilson also reveals that he and several colleagues were nearly kidnapped themselves on one of their outings to Gaza:

“One grim day, a group of masked and armed men apparently looking for a hostage turned up 20 minutes after one of my colleagues had just left a building in Gaza City. Shortly afterwards, a contact in a western intelligence service gave us chilling and compelling evidence that our every move was being followed by a car full of armed gang members.”

The BBC isn’t the only organization apparently now cooperating with Hamas. Yesterday in an interview with Italy’s RAI TV, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Gaza’s Hamas rulers were forging ever-closer ties with al-Qaeda and inviting al-Qaeda operatives to enter Gaza. “Thanks to the support of Hamas, al-Qaeda is entering Gaza,” Abbas said.

Would Wilson and other BBC officials also now like to comment on this report in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida – especially located by my sources in Gaza – that Jaysh Al-Islam (the so-called Army of Islam group who were holding Johnston) received $5 million and a million Kalashnikov rifle bullets in the deal to release Johnston?

I think British TV license-payers are entitled to know what is done with their money.

 

MELANIE PHILLIPS ON THE BBC

By Melanie Phillips
July 9, 2007

www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1577

The BBC’s Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, reporting on the aftermath of Alan Johnston’s release (in which he placed Hamas’s stated, documented and constantly reiterated genocidal intentions in metaphorical quote marks by saying merely that this was what ‘Israel believes’), gushed thus:

“To get the mood in Gaza, I rang the BBC’s excellent Fayed Abu Shamala, our senior journalist there. No-one worked harder to get Alan Johnston out. He gave a vivid account of the last few days in Gaza, which I think is worth quoting at length. … Israel may not like it, but there are signs that some people in influential positions in the West are changing their view of Hamas after everything it did to release Alan Johnston.”

According to Tom Gross in 2004, however, ‘the BBC’s excellent’ Fayed abu Shamala is actually rather close to Hamas:

“Some of the foreign BBC staff are quite open about their sympathies for Hamas. The senior BBC Arabic Service correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Fayad Abu Shamala, told a Hamas rally on May 6, 2001, (attended by the then Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin) that journalists and media organizations in Gaza, including the BBC, are ‘waging the campaign [of resistance/terror against Israel] shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people.’ The best the BBC could do in response to requests from Israel that they distance themselves from these remarks at the time, was to issue a statement saying, ‘Fayad’s remarks were made in a private capacity. His reports have always matched the best standards of balance required by the BBC.’ Indeed, today, three years later, the BBC is continuing to use Abu Shamala as much as ever. He was, for example, one of the BBC reporters in Gaza last month, who contributed to the BBC’s highly slanted reporting (on both the BBC English and Arabic services) of Israel’s operation to root out Hamas bomb-makers in Rafah in the southern Gaza.”

Abu Shamala was by Johnston’s side when he came out of Gaza. Shouldn’t the BBC acknowledge that their ‘excellent’ senior Arabic service correspondent in Gaza who reports on Hamas is a close associate of Hamas? Indeed, shouldn’t the BBC’s senior Arabic correspondent in Gaza have no such affiliation at all? Or to put it another way, why should the British TV licence-fee payer subsidise a Hamas supporter broadcasting propaganda about Hamas under the guise of objectivity and detachment?

Hello, BBC trustees? Anyone still actually alive in there?

 

JANE FELIX-BROWNE, A 51-YEAR-OLD GRANDMOTHER AND PARISH COUNCILLOR FROM CHESHIRE. ENGLAND, MARRIES OSAMA BIN LADEN’S 27-YEAR-OLD SON

(July 11, 2007)

Yes, it’s true, according to today’s Times of London:

A British woman has married a son of Osama bin Laden after a holiday romance and is to apply for a visa so that he can visit Britain.

Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year-old grandmother and parish councillor from Cheshire, has until now kept her marriage to Omar Ossama bin Laden, 27, secret from everyone apart from her immediate family and close friends. But she has now agreed to speak about her relationship with bin Laden’s fourth eldest son.

“It would be nice if, like any other married woman, I could stand up and say this is my husband and this is his name, but I have to be realistic about things,” she told The Times. “I hope people don’t judge me too harshly. I married the son, not the father.”

… “I just married the man I met and fell in love with – to me he is just Omar. He is the most beautiful person I have ever met. His heart is pure, he is pious, quiet, a true gentleman, and he is my best friend.”

Mrs Felix-Browne, who has been married five times previously, met the young bin Laden in Egypt in September. They were married in Islamic ceremonies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

She was aware before her marriage that her new husband already had another wife and a two-year-old child. “I haven’t seen her but I have spoken to her for about an hour on the telephone,” she said. “She is fine about it.”

Osama Bin Laden has at least 17 children.

[All notes below by Tom Gross]

I attach some of the items written by myself for the National Review website in recent days. Not all are about the Middle East.

 

MAMMA MIA! IT’S “TONY BLAIR: THE MUSICAL!”

(July 8, 2007)

He’s only been out of office for a week and already we are expecting “Tony Blair: The Musical!” later this month.

It debuts July 18 at the York Theatre Royal.

Will it win any Tonys?

 

JIHADI HUMOR AT ITS SICKEST

(July 8, 2007)

Kafeel Ahmed, the young Indian Muslim who burnt most of his skin off last weekend while trying to murder passengers at Glasgow International Airport, had told his family:

“I am involved in a large-scale confidential project. It is about global warming. I cannot reveal the details.”

 

AL-QAEDA HAVE INFILTRATED THE BRITISH POLICE, SAYS UK PRESS

(July 7, 2007)

While investigations are still under way about the British doctor’s plot – as many as 45 Muslim doctors and medical staff are involved according to the Daily Telegraph – al-Qaeda supporting extremists have infiltrated the U.K. police too, according to a report in today’s Daily Mail.

The paper says it has seen a secret dossier drawn up by MI5 which has so far identified eight police officers and civilian police staff suspected of links to extremist groups including al-Qaeda. Some are believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

The Mail adds: “Astonishingly, many of the alleged jihadists have not been sacked because – it is claimed – police do not have the ‘legal power’ to dismiss them: We can also reveal that one suspected jihadist officer working in the South East has been allowed to keep his job despite being caught circulating Internet images of beheadings and roadside bombings in Iraq. He is said to have argued that he was trying to ‘enhance’ debate about the war.”

Meanwhile, I wonder whether the British National Health Service, employer of most of the medical terror suspects, now regrets these kind of ads they put up on the NHS website:

“There are numerous careers in over 70 professions within the NHS – this means there is something for everyone. The NHS is also anxious to reflect the local population it serves. To this end, it actively encourages applicants from a range of backgrounds, regardless of gender, age, religion or race, to apply for jobs. Applications are particularly welcome from professionally qualified Healthcare staff from outside the UK.”

It seems like al Qaeda have been reading the NHS website.

 

SYRIA INTENSIFIES INTERNET CRACKDOWN AND ALSO BLOCKS HOTMAIL

(July 9, 2007)

Syria has stepped up its muzzling of the Internet, blocking access to websites critical of the Assad regime, including some run by the more moderate Arab dailies, a human-rights group said yesterday.

The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said that sites blocked by firewalls within Syria include the Saudi-owned, pan-Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat (The Middle East), and the Beirut newspaper Al Mustaqbal (The Future), owned by the family of the murdered former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Popular e-mail provider Hotmail has also been blocked, the group said.

The crackdown comes ahead of possible conflict feared in Lebanon following next week’s U.N. Security Council decision on whether to station international monitors on the Lebanese-Syrian border to crack down on the transport of arms by Syria and Iran to Hizbullah, and a UN discussion on the inquiry into the assassination of Hariri.

 

ISRAELI GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES PERSIAN-LANGUAGE WEBSITE TO COUNTERACT IRANIAN LIES

(July 9, 2007)

The Iranian government’s English language propaganda website IRIB today carries another interview with a leading Holocaust revisionist*, this time the despicable Mark Weber. (* Link removed because we don’t want to publicize this dangerous “article”.)

Meanwhile as part of its effort to bring the truth to the Iranian public, the Israeli Foreign Ministry today launched a Persian-language website. The site went live at noon local time. Named Hamdami – which in Persian means “camaraderie” – it is located at: https://hamdami.com.

The Israeli government said it is an attempt to counteract the “hateful, distorted and deceptive information by the Iranian regime.”

 

IS JOGGING RIGHT-WING?

(July 6, 2007)

Apparently so, according to the French (though trying telling that to Presidents Carter, Clinton and others).

In Paris, what has come to be known as “Le jogging du Président” is getting “Speedy Sarko” in trouble.

The Times of London reports:

“President Sarkozy has fallen foul of intellectuals and critics who see his passion for jogging as un-French, right-wing and even a ploy to brainwash his citizens. Attacks on Mr Sarkozy’s pastime, which he has made a symbol of his presidency, began on the internet as soon as he bounded up the steps of the Elysée Palace in shorts when he took office in May. The grumbling has now moved to television and the press.

‘Is jogging right wing?’ wondered Libération, the left-wing newspaper. Alain Finkelkraut, a celebrated philosopher, begged Mr Sarkozy on France 2, the main state television channel, to abandon his ‘undignified’ pursuit. He should take up walking, like Socrates, Arthur Rimbaud, the poet, and other great men, said Mr Finkelkraut.

‘Western civilisation, in its best sense, was born with the promenade. Walking is a sensitive, spiritual act. Jogging is management of the body. The jogger says I am in control. It has nothing to do with meditation.’”

What really irks Sarko’s critics though is that he wore his favorite NYPD T-shirt when out jogging at recent European summits in Belgium and Germany and he says he is looking forward to doing so again at a bonding jog with José Socrates, the Prime Minister of Portugal, which took over the European Union presidency this week.

[UPDATE: The Washington Post and several other papers followed this lead in the days after the above item was posted in the National Review media blog, and ran similar stories.]

 

MICHAEL MOORE INVITED TO SHOW SICKO IN TEHERAN

(July 5, 2007)

The Iranian Mehr News Agency reported on July 2 that Michael Moore has been invited to Iran for a screening of his new film Sicko at the Teheran documentary film festival. The festival is set to take place from October 15-19. Mehr’s story was in Persian, but can also be read in English here.

If Moore is lucky he might get to meet the biggest sicko of them all, President Ahmadinejad.

 

OLIVER STONE TO MAKE A FILM ON AHMADINEJAD?

(July 5, 2007)

While Michael Moore may soon get to meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it seems that Oliver Stone is trying to make a docudrama about him.

The Iranian Mehr news agency reports that Ahmadinejad has refused a request by Stone to cooperate. Mehdi Kalhor, the Iranian President’s media advisor, stated that Stone is “part of the Great Satan.”

Stone may go ahead in any case. But he has already made a film called Natural Born Killers, so he will have to think of another title.

 

“ALAN JOHNSTON CALLED HAMAS SUPREME LEADER KHALED MESHAL IN DAMASCUS TO THANK HIM IN PERSON”

(July 5, 2007)

My contacts in Gaza have directed me to a report today on the influential Hamas website, Palestine-info, stating that freed BBC reporter Alan Johnston called Hamas supreme leader Khaled Meshal in Damascus to thank him in person. The call was made yesterday evening when Johnston was at the British consulate in east Jerusalem, according to the report.

Hamas is credited with freeing Johnston, though Fatah claims the whole thing was staged by Hamas and Johnston’s Islamist kidnappers to fool gullible western diplomats. (Hamas has long collaborated with the Army of Islam, the “institutional” name taken on by the bandit Dughmush clan who were holding Johnston. For example, Hamas used the Dughmush gunmen as contract killers against Fatah when murdering Mousa Arafat and others.)

Hamas received many accolades yesterday from the British government and others, only two weeks after the Islamic terror group was throwing fellow Palestinians to their deaths from Gaza rooftops.

Even though by British law, the publicly-funded BBC has an obligation to be objective, Johnston, like many others at the BBC, is known for his pro-Palestinian views.

In his almost hour-long press conference at the British consulate in east Jerusalem yesterday, Johnston went out of his way to thank almost everyone – he named Hamas, Fatah, the Palestinian people, the BBC, the UK Foreign Office, international journalists, the European Union and the UN, among others – but noticeably avoided thanking the government of Israel, who had been aiding the British in all kinds of ways behind the scenes to secure his release.

He also brushed aside questions about the young Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit who is still being held by Hamas in Gaza. By contrast others, such as German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, specifically called for Shalit to be let go when welcoming Johnston’s release.

This afternoon, Johnston paid a courtesy visit to Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

[Note by Tom Gross]

THE BBC REFUSED TO SHOW THIS FILM

I attach an article by Richard Littlejohn, who is one of Britain’s best-known newspaper commentators. (He is formerly lead columnist for the Sun, Britain’s best-selling daily paper, and is now a star columnist for the highly influential mid-market paper, the Daily Mail.)

The article previews a TV documentary that Littlejohn has made and will be broadcast tonight.

Littlejohn was originally asked to make the program by the BBC, but when the BBC found out that Littlejohn (who is not Jewish) had decided to concentrate on the sharp rise in British anti-Semitism, and moreover point out that this was coming overwhelmingly from the left allied with Muslim extremists, the BBC buried the project.

Britain’s Channel 4 (to their credit, since Channel 4 news also veers leftwards) has, however, decided to broadcast the program (8 pm local time).

BRITAIN OF GEO-STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE

Although the vast majority of recipients on this email list don’t live in the UK, it is worth reading his piece since for various geo-strategic reasons Britain is a particularly important country in the fight for global freedom and democracy.

Littlejohn is a long-time subscriber to this email list, as are most of the people he mentions in his article. He brings together several themes already familiar to recipients of this list, but it is noteworthy that such an influential journalist has done so in such a prominent way.

The comments on the Daily Mail website from ordinary members of the British public (as opposed to the leftist elites who dominate the British media, academia and much of the foreign policy-making establishment) are encouraging.

“SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN TO ME!”

I have yet to see the program, but two other British journalist friends of mine (neither of whom, for the record, are Jewish) have told me the following:

Chas Newkey-Burden: “I have seen an advance screening of Littlejohn’s program and even for those well-versed in the rise of anti-Semitism in Britain, it is required viewing. I’ve never witnessed such a thorough, courageous and eloquent indictment of anti-Jew hatred in modern Britain – from far-right bully-boys and Muslim extremists to dinner-party left-wingers.”

Julie Burchill: “A few months back a Sunday Times columnist claimed that ‘Muslims are the new Jews.’ On this showing, it’s far more to the point that Islamists are the new Nazis – and the leftist bully-boys of Britain who back them are the new Mosleyites. As Jessica Mitford said of the original Mosley and her sister who married him ‘Throw them in jail, throw away the key and let them rot.’ Sounds like a plan to me!”

* For more from Newkey-Burden see The Six Day Phwoar (Israel: A new gay icon?) (Jan.8, 2007).
* For more on Burchill see Julie Burchill follow-up; and ‘Great Britain stands indicted’ (Dec. 2, 2004).
* For more from Littlejohn, see:
Senior British politician steps up attacks on “Jewish cabal” (May 6, 2003), and
“Evening, infidels! Here is the news from the BBC...” (Oct. 18, 2006).

NOW THE TRANSPORT UNION VOTES TO BOYCOTT ISRAEL

Not uncoincidentally, Britain’s 800,000-member Transport and General Workers’ Union has become the latest British union (following the Journalists union, the University teachers’ union, and the Public Services union UNISON) to call for a boycott of Israeli-made products based on what the TGWU termed the “crimes of Israel.”

I need hardly point out that they haven’t called for the boycott of any other country and indeed continue to help fuel the British “occupation” of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Falklands, Gibraltar, Kosovo, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Diego Garcia, Belize, Brunei and various other parts of Africa and Asia. (The British embassy in Israel issued a response this morning saying “the British government opposes boycotts of any kind.”)

THE TERRORIST WHO BECAME A LONDON TRAFFIC WARDEN

Also today, The Daily Mail reveals that a terrorist jailed for his involvement in a bomb attack on the Paris Metro – which killed eight people and wounded 80 – has been working as a traffic cop in England.

Mustapha Boutarfa, 32, was arrested by Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad in 1996 and extradited from Britain to France two years later. He stood trial for his auxiliary role in the 1995 attack on the St Michel station by a notorious Islamic militant group and was given a two-year prison sentence.

But after his release, Boutarfa, who held dual French and Algerian nationality, managed to get back into the UK with his wife and children – and secured the job as a parking attendant in Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey.

-- Tom Gross

I attach three items posted by myself today on the National Review website concerning the release early this morning of kidnapped BBC reporter Alan Johnston. For previous dispatches on Johnston, please see here.

 

ABBAS AIDE SAYS RESCUE OF ALAN JOHNSTON WAS STAGED

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

Ha’aretz reports:

A senior aide to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday that the release of BBC reporter Alan Johnston in the Gaza Strip was “a movie” staged by Hamas, who took credit for securing the release.

Yasser Abed Rabbo said that Hamas’ release of the Briton, held in Gaza for nearly four months by the custody of militant group Army of Islam, had been staged, as the two groups were in league with each other. He said Hamas staged the rescue in order to “appear as if [Hamas] respects international law.”

“We’re watching a movie, where the thieves in Gaza fall out and one of them claims to be honest and brave, and the other is the bad guy. This Hamas game fools no one,” Rabbo said…

 

HAMAS SCORES A PROPAGANDA VICTORY AND THE BRITISH FALL FOR IT

[Note by Tom Gross]

We can all be extremely pleased that BBC journalist Alan Johnston has been released safe and well after being held hostage for over 3 and half months in the Gaza Strip.

Less heartening is that David Miliband, the new British Foreign Secretary (minister) who only assumed office last Friday, in virtually his first public statement in the job, has gone out of his way to praise Hamas:

“I fully acknowledge the crucial role Hamas have played in securing this happy outcome,” Miliband said this morning.

The BBC has also been featuring interviewees all morning that praise Hamas.

* This is the same Hamas who only two weeks ago were throwing fellow Palestinians from Gaza rooftops and dismembering the bodies of others they had murdered.

* This is the same Hamas which are world leaders in the art of the Islamist suicide bomb, an “art” which almost killed unknown numbers in Britain this past weekend.

The Guardian, never a newspaper to shy away from giving Hamas plenty of publicity and taking their statements at face value, quotes Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas “foreign minister,” this morning as saying:

“Every kidnapping, every illegal behavior, we will fight with all our force, the force of law, the force of moral principles.”

Yet it is Hamas who have been holding 20-year-old kidnapped Israeli Gilad Shalit in a hole in the ground ringed by explosives in a densely populated area of Gaza City for over a year now.

When interviewing Hamas spokesmen this morning about Johnston’s release, the anchors for CNN International and for the British network Sky News at least had the professionalism to ask them if they would now release the young Shalit. The BBC interviewers didn’t even mention Shalit but instead kept on repeating (wrongly) that Johnston was the longest held captive in Gaza. But then anyone who actually wants objective and accurate information about the Middle East long ago stopped relying on the BBC.

 

ANYONE FOR JUSTICE?

[Note by Tom Gross]

Unlike the BBC and the British government, The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has been forthright in calling on the:

“Palestinian authorities to see that those responsible are located and swiftly brought to justice. As long as those who abduct journalists continue to enjoy impunity, journalists will remain increasingly vulnerable to future attacks.”

At least 16 journalists have been abducted in the Gaza Strip since 2004. None of those responsible for abducting journalists have been brought to justice.

Meanwhile the BBC website is quoting Johnston as saying:

“I was in Gaza for three years, and I know very well what Palestinian culture is, and the extraordinary warmth and hospitality – especially of Gaza. I knew that the handful of people that kidnapped me were a complete aberration – something completely other. My memories of Gaza will be very much of the best kind, despite what happened to me.”

[Note by Tom Gross]

DOCTORS AS TERRORISTS IS NOTHING NEW

(By Tom Gross, National Review, July 2, 2007)

After the revelation that two of the terror suspects arrested in Britain over the weekend are doctors, much nonsense is being spouted by “experts” on British television saying that for terrorists to be educated and middle class is “virtually unprecedented” and that the average terrorist is motivated by such things as “poverty,” “opposition to Zionism,” and so on.

In fact many, possibly most, terrorists and suicide bombers have been educated and middle class – just like many leading communists and Nazis were.

Among several of the more prominent terrorist doctors of recent years:

* Dr Abdel al-Rantissi (who succeed Sheikh Yassin as leader of Hamas): He studied pediatric medicine and genetics at Egypt’s Alexandria University, graduating first in his class and was a certified physician.

* Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri (the No. 2 in Al Qaeda). He studied behavior, psychology and pharmacology at Cairo University, graduating in 1974, and earning a Masters degree in surgery in 1978.

* Dr. George Habash, founder of the notorious PFLP, which gained world notoriety after a string of high-profile airplane hijackings and mass murders.

UPDATE: IT’S NOW SEVEN DOCTORS OF DEATH

Since this item was published, it has now been revealed that the total number of doctors involved in the UK terror plot is seven. For more details, see the article from today’s Daily Telegraph, whish is the first article below in the Full Articles section.

HAMAS TV: WE HAVE “PROOF OF HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN FATAH OFFICIALS”

(By Tom Gross, National Review, July 2, 2007)

The Hamas-Fatah power struggle has moved from the street to the TV.

The rival Palestinian factions are now engaged in a war of words through their respective media. A Fatah-run TV station has condemned Hamas’ “dark coup” in the Gaza Strip and Hamas’ al-Aqsa TV says the organization “liberated” Gaza from “Fatah occupation.”

The Hamas network added that they have “proof of homosexual relations between Fatah officials.” For more see the Yediot Ahronot article attached in the full articles section.

Meanwhile, a prominent Palestinian journalist from Gaza has sought political asylum in Norway. Seif al-Din Shahin, the correspondent for the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel, has fled Gaza together with his family, after receiving death threats. (Fifth article attached below.)

A campaign is also apparently being waged by Fatah against Al-Arabiya’s rival, Al-Jazeera. Fatah leaders have called for closing down the Al-Jazeera offices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, accusing the Qatari-owned TV station of serving as “a mouthpiece for Hamas” and other radical Islamic groups.

“Al-Jazeera is openly biased in favor of Hamas,” said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Fatah figure. “This station must be banned from working in the Palestinian territories.”

(The above item has been linked to by several prominent commentators including Andrew Sullivan.)

DID IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM LEAD TO MURDER?

(By Tom Gross, National Review, June 30, 2007)

The former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, Zvi Zamir, has said that reports by irresponsible Israeli journalists about Dr. Ashraf Marwan, the Egyptian Mossad agent who tipped Israel off about the pending outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, may have led to his death.

Marwan, 63, was found dead outside his home in London’s upscale Mayfair neighborhood on Wednesday. Scotland Yard has opened an investigation into his mysterious death, which they have called “suspicious”.

As son-in-law of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abd el-Nasser, Marwan was one of the best-connected agents Israel has ever had in Egypt. Nasser had made him a roving ambassador after which Marwan began dabbling on his own in arms deals. By the time of his death last week, Marwan had reportedly become a billionaire.

His tip-off to the Mossad is credited with helping spare Israel’s destruction after the surprise attack by several Arab armies on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Marwan was first identified as an Israeli agent by the Vanity Fair writer Harold Bloom in his book “Eve of Destruction,” in 2004. But Blum’s allegations were confirmed in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz two weeks ago following a libel case between two former Mossad agents, and then reprinted in Arab media after that.

“I have no doubt that reports published about him in Israel caused his death,” Zamir said yesterday. “There will also now be serious concerns about our ability to recruit quality sources in the future,” the spymaster added.

Marwan’s friends are blaming “Egyptian elements” for his death.

(For more, see the Ha’aretz article attached below.)

IN WHAT MANY ARE CALLING A FINAL ACT OF SPITE, BBC CUT OFF BLAIR’S FINAL SPEECH

(By Tom Gross, National Review, June 29, 2007)

Attacking him to the last, the BBC cut off British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s final speech to the House of Commons on Wednesday. The BBC – which as a state-funded organization is meant to be impartial – has never forgiven Blair for Iraq. No wonder Blair recently called the British media a “feral beast”.

(For more, see the Guardian article in the full articles section.)

MRS MURDOCH TAKES THE WHEEL AT MYSPACE CHINA

(By Tom Gross, National Review, June 29, 2007)

Wendi Deng, the Chinese wife of Rupert Murdoch, appears for the first time to have been elevated to an official post within News Corp.: chief of strategy for MySpace’s China operation, reports Forbes magazine. (Article attached below.)

The new role would provide the 39-year-old Deng with her first chance to prove her mettle in the succession battle with Murdoch’s children for control of the sprawling family-run media empire.

Critics fear Murdoch may be quick to submit to the wishes of Chinese authorities if he acquires The Wall Street Journal, the same way he has cooperated with China’s heavy Internet censorship to obtain the relatively fast launch of MySpace China.

RATINGS BOON – PARIS HILTON TRIPLES LARRY KING’S AUDIENCE

(By Tom Gross, National Review, June 29, 2007)

“Larry King tripled his audience by lobbing softball questions at a vacant-looking Paris Hilton on Wednesday. After which, the son of Gloria Vanderbilt more than doubled his usual Anderson Cooper 360 crowd with his neo-ironic performance of a journalist holding his nose and whining about having to analyze King’s interview with the privileged child of a gillionaire,” writes Lisa de Moraes in the Washington Post.

(The Washington Post article is the final full article attached below.)

-- Tom Gross

[Note by Tom Gross]

This dispatch is a follow up to Chai Shalom, 13, suffered from cerebral palsy... (& Israel rescues Gazan baby).

ANOTHER JORDANIAN GRADUATE IN ISRAEL

While European and some American journalists continue to malign Israel, and many British academics are being urged to take part in a blanket boycott, Arab students from neighboring countries such as Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority continue to quietly study at Israeli universities.

For example, Dana Rassas, a young Jordanian woman, graduated last week with a Masters degree from Ben Gurion University in southern Israel.

Rassas, a Jordanian-Palestinian, was trained by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura in the Negev, and then went on to study the Israeli water desalination program at the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies at BGU. She will now become active in trying to solve Jordan’s water problems.

If the boycotters had their way, her studies might not have been possible. For more, see the first full article below.

NOBEL LAUREATES OPPOSING AN ACADEMIC BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

Meanwhile, an increasing number of senior university figures are joining the 24 Nobel Prize winners (from Elfriede Jelinek, the Austrian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, to Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, the eminent winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics) who have harshly criticized the proposed British boycott.

Among recent anti-boycott statements:

* Statement by Concordia University President, Claude Lajeunesse, “concerning the proposed boycott of Israeli universities by the United Kingdom’s University and College Union (UCU)”.

* Statement by Tom Traves, President and Vice-Chancellor, Dalhousie University: “An open exchange of ideas.”

* Statement by UC President Robert C. Dynes “in response to British faculty union’s proposed action against Israeli universities”.

* UNESCO’s Japanese director-general Koïchiro Matsuura expresses concern over British boycott of Israeli academics.

* Thousands of academics join Nobel Prize winners and 15 university presidents (including Rajendra Prasad, Rector of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) in criticizing the British boycott.

INTERNATIONAL AID: SOME OF THIS WEEK’S EXAMPLES

Every week, as unreported in western media, Israel continues with a program of international aid unequalled by any other country Israel’s size in the world.

Here are four examples (among many) from the last week: aiding Iraqis, operating on Sudanese refugees, sending relief planes to Cyprus and providing employment to refugees from Darfur. (With thanks to Shachar Zahavi and Michael Horesh for some of this information.)

ISRAEL SENDS AID TO CYPRUS TO PUT OUT FIRES

At the request of the government of Cyprus, Israel sent two fire-extinguishing airplanes and 33 tons of fire extinguishing materials on Thursday morning (June 28, 2007) to assist in extinguishing fires that broke out in the Troodos Mountains last week.

The relief team, which included seven personnel, among them fire fighters and physicians, have been working alongside local officials to contain the fire during the weekend.

The forest fire that broke out in the Troodos Mountains threatened villages, homes, churches and summer camps. The villages of Pelendri, Saitas, Trimiklini, Kato Amiantos and Dimes have been evacuated.

According to the Forest Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, the fire was caused by high-tension cables of the Cyprus Electricity Authority.

IRAQI WOMAN PROVIDED CATHETERIZATION IN ISRAELI HOSPITAL

The online news media Walla reports that a 30-year-old Iraqi woman last week arrived at Rambam hospital in Haifa for catheterization.

The woman’s identity cannot be revealed due to security concerns for her family in Iraq. She lives in an insurgent stronghold there.

The Iraqi woman was able to reach Israel with the help of “Shevet Achim,” a Christian organization that assists citizens from Arab countries to be treated in Israeli hospitals. This program is meant to improve Israeli-Arab relations.

During the catheterization, which was preformed by Dr. Avraham Lurber, a hole in her heart was repaired and next week the woman will be able to return to her family in Iraq.

ISRAEL TO PROVIDE EYE TREATMENT FOR SUDANESE REFUGEES IN KENYA

The Israel Foreign Ministry’s Center for International Cooperation (MASHAV) has sent experts to Nairobi where they are assisting Sudanese refugees residing in Kakuma refugee camp in Northern Kenya.

The Kakuma camp, near the town of Kakuma, is located in Kenya on the road to Sudan, west of Lake Turkana and about 50 kilometers from the Sudanese border. The camp, which has been in existence for 15 years, holds about 75,000 people, mostly South Sudanese refugees.

Dr. Yosef Baratz, MASHAV’s project coordinator in Africa, has set up a temporary eye clinic in the camp with equipment supplied by Israel. The clinic will enable Israeli eye doctors (who are due to arrive there today, July 2) to operate on dozens of patients there. The physicians will also provide consultation to local doctors.

The second and final article below reports how refugees from Darfur who crossed into Israel from Egypt (which rejected them) are being incorporated into Israeli society, albeit by the private sector.

-- Tom Gross