[All notes below by Tom Gross]

OMAR SHARIF JR: I’M GAY AND JEWISH

In an article for the April 2012 edition of the gay magazine The Advocate, Omar Sharif Jr., the grandson of the world’s best known Arab film star, Egyptian screen icon Omar Sharif, has revealed that he is not only gay but also that his mother is Jewish.

Omar Sharif is famed for starring in films such as the 1965 classic Doctor Zhivago.

Omar Sharif Jr., who holds a master’s degree in comparative politics and conflict studies from the London School of Economics, three months ago moved from Egypt to Los Angeles. His article from the new edition of The Advocate is posted in full further down this dispatch. In it he discusses the fate of Egypt since President Mubarak was ousted last year. He says:

“I write this article in fear. Fear for my country, fear for my family, and fear for myself. My parents will be shocked to read it, surely preferring I stay in the shadows and keep silent, at least for the time being. But I can’t.

“Last January, I left Egypt with a heavy heart. I traveled to America, leaving behind my family, friends, and compatriots who were in the midst of embarking on a heroic journey toward self-determination…

“The vision for a freer, more equal Egypt – a vision that many young patriots gave their lives to see realized in Tahrir Square – has been hijacked. The full spectrum of equal and human rights are now wedge issues used by both the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces and the Islamist parties, when they should be regarded as universal truths.”

On his own identity, he says: “Will being Egyptian, half Jewish, and gay forever remain mutually exclusive identities? Are they identities to be hidden?”

Omar Sharif Sn., star of the 1965 classic Doctor Zhivago

GALLUP: EGYPTIANS WANT FEWER TIES TO AMERICA, CLOSER TIES TO TURKEY AND IRAN

Through his incoherent foreign policy, President Obama appears to be “losing Egypt” according to several leading foreign policy experts.

In an extensive new poll for Gallup, the majority of Egyptians (56%) now see close relations between Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, and the U.S. as “a bad thing”, up sharply from 40% in the previous poll conducted three months earlier.

Slightly more than one-quarter (28%) say having close relations with the U.S. is a good thing. Most Egyptians instead say they prefer closer relations with increasingly Islamist Turkey (60% good, 19% bad) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (41% good 38% bad thing). Neither Turkey, nor Iran are Arab, of course, and Arabs have traditionally been at odds with Turks and Persians.

Gallup chief pollsters Ahmed Younis and Mohamed Younis write: “The surge in Egyptian negativity documented by Gallup surveys coincides with a difficult period in U.S.-Egyptian relations. At about the same time as the survey was conducted, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces closed a series of high-profile American and Egyptian non-governmental organizations (NGOs).”

BUT HALF OF EGYPTIANS WANT THE PEACE TREATY WITH ISRAEL TO CONTINUE

Perhaps surprisingly, however, the percentage of Egyptians who view their country’s peace treaty with Israel as a good thing continues to exceed the percentage who say it is a bad thing, according to the Gallup poll.

Nearly half of Egyptians surveyed (48%) said the Israel-Egypt peace treaty is a good thing – consistent with opinion through most of the post-Hosni Mubarak era.

The full Gallup poll data is here

JEWISH GROUPS REPELLED BY USE OF HITLER IN TURKISH SHAMPOO AD

In what Jewish groups are saying is an increasing number of anti-Jewish broadcasts in both programs and adverts on Turkish TV and radio, a Turkish company has been promoting Hitler as a “real man” in a shampoo advertisement.

“Here it is, a real man’s shampoo, Biomen,” says the ad, while showing archive footage of Hitler.

About 20,000 Jews still live in Turkey, mainly in Istanbul, a city of about 14 million Muslims. Most are descendants of Sephardim who escaped the Spanish Inquisition and found refuge in the Ottoman Empire some 500 years ago.

In the past, Turkey was justifiably proud of its history as a haven for Jews, in comparison with other European countries, but since Prime Minister Erdogan came to power a decade ago, his government has presided over and encouraged an increasingly anti-Semitic atmosphere.

To the mystification of many foreign policy observers, U.S. President Barack Obama continues to grow even closer to the radical Erdogan government.

REMINDER: ERDOGAN, PROUD 2010 WINNER OF THE GADDAFI PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

For those in the West who may have forgotten who Erdogan is, here is a reminder. This is a November 2010 report from Agence France Presse:

Erdogan will be awarded the Kadhafi Human Rights Prize
Turkish PM to receive Libyan rights award
Fri Nov 26, 2010

news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101126/wl_mideast_afp/turkeylibyadiplomacy

ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Libya next week to receive a human rights prize dedicated to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, his office said on Friday.

Erdogan will receive the Kadhafi International Prize for Human Rights on Wednesday at a ceremony in Tripoli, where he would also attend, as a guest, an Africa-EU summit, the statement said.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela are among the previous recipients of the prize.

ISRAELI-MADE PROCESSOR RESPONSIBLE FOR 40% OF INTEL’S 2011 GLOBAL SALES

Intel, the world’s biggest maker of computer chips, continues to rely increasingly on Israeli engineering for its processors which power many if not most of the world’s computers.

Intel has four research and development centers in Israel, and also manufactures products in plants in the Israeli towns of Kiryat Gat and Jerusalem. It is the largest private sector employer in Israel, and the country’s biggest single exporter of high technology.

The company announced a few days ago that last year its Israeli branch was responsible for an incredible 40 percent of its global sales.

75 different kinds of Ultrabook computer designs now rely on Israeli-produced know-how, as do many smart phones and tablet computers.

Microsoft, Google and other high-tech giants have long had R&D plans in Israel and Apple is now reported to be opening an R&D center in Israel too.

It is not surprising that anti-Israeli activists calling on people to boycott Israel have not had much success.

MOSSAD DUBAI ASSASSINATION FILM ROLE FOR BAR REFAELI

The alleged assassination of a top Hamas bomb and rocket smuggler in a Dubai hotel in January 2010 is to be retold on the big screen with the help of Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli (pictured above).

The death of Mahmoud al Mabhouh has been widely attributed to the Israeli intelligence agency the Mossad.

No one has ever been caught for the assassination. Among past dispatches on this, please see: In global hunt for Dubai “hit men,” the trail goes cold.

***

I attach one article below.

[All notes above by Tom Gross]

[All notes below by Tom Gross]

MEDIA REPORTING LIES ABOUT GAZA CHILDREN DEATHS IN RELATION TO TOULOUSE MURDERS

I was criticized by several commentators for saying over the last two days that my instincts led me to think that the perpetrator of the French Jewish school shootings was more likely an extreme Islamist anti-Semite than a neo-Nazi. (I was also criticized by various people when I said in the initial aftermath after the Norwegian massacres last summer that this sounded like the work of a far-right madman and not that of an Islamist extremist.)

It seemed that the Toulouse murderer had killed French Muslim soldiers precisely as a warning to other Muslims not to “betray” their people and serve in the French armed forces in Afghanistan.

The three part-nature of his attacks over the last week, the cold blooded way in which the young Jewish children were murdered (pulling 7-year-old Miriam Monsonego by the hair around the school yard before then calmly taking out a second gun and executing her) and the fact the murderer filmed the attack – all these pointed to the way al-Qaeda and other extremist internet videos encourage Islamist terrorists to kill Jewish and other infidels, especially Muslim “collaborators”.

French intelligence should be congratulated on pursuing the possibility of an Islamist link and their apprehension this morning of a suspect of Algerian origin in relation to the Toulouse murders (although questions must be asked why, since they have been tracking him since last Thursday’s shooting of the French Muslim soldiers, they didn’t do more to stop him killing Jewish children on Monday).

The suspect, who is currently in a stand-off with police, has admitted having been trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. French intelligence has confirmed he was previously arrested in Afghanistan in 2010.

Many international media have this morning been claiming that the suspect was motivated by “Israel’s killing of children in Gaza earlier this month”.

However, Israel didn’t kill any children in Gaza this month. Israel only hit armed Islamic Jihad adult operatives, most of whom were launching missiles into Israel at the time Israel identified and hit them.

But the same irresponsible Western media reported – wrongly – that Israel had killed Palestinian children in Gaza this month, when it hadn’t. Not for the first time, Western journalists were taken in by Palestinian propagandists in Gaza.

Please see this link for the way the media was duped: www.idfblog.com/2012/03/12/photos-gaza-aerial-strikes-proven-false/

A further Palestinian claim that another Palestinian child (Adham Abu Selmiya) had been killed by an Israeli air strike at a Gaza funeral of an Islamic Jihad leader this month was subsequently acknowledged by his own parents, and other eye witnesses as false; the death was a result of gunfire unleashed at the funeral.

Agence France Presse (AFP) has now admitted that it was misinformed by its Palestinian sources about the reasons for Adham Abu Selmiya’s death and Israel had nothing to do with it. Other Western news outlets have not admitted that – yet again – they unfairly accused Israel of doing something it didn’t do.

In my opinion, highly irresponsible and inflammatory reporting about Jews and Israel in the Western media is one of the causes of recent increased anti-Semitism among many western Muslims and others.

For more, see:

www.tomgrossmedia.com/LeMonde.htm

and: www.tomgrossmedia.com/IlanHalimi.html

Only last month The Guardian in Britain ran a very nasty news report attacking the British government’s decision to help the British Jewish community pay for increased security guards at Jewish schools in Britain.

***

Further down this dispatch, I attach an editorial from this morning by the online British publication The Commentator, which says:

“It is now clear that the killer was motivated by the same kind of lies about Israeli actions in Gaza that have been peddled and therefore legitimized for years by Muslim leaders in France and across Europe.

“Let us be clear. There has not been one single instance, ever, of the Israeli military deliberately targeting Palestinian children in a school in Gaza. Palestinian children have died in the overall conflict of course. But even that indirect responsibility lies with the people who have started all the wars, namely Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas.”

FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER SPEAKS IN HEBREW AT THE END OF HIS REMARKS AT THIS MORNING’S FUNERALS

The funerals of the four Jewish victims are taking place in Jerusalem as I write. Thousands of Israelis have attended, filing past three small shrouded bodies and one adult-sized one. All four victims were dual French-Israeli citizens. The children were aged 3, 6 and 7 (although some media in the West have avoided giving the ages of the victims).

The mother of Miriam Monsonego, aged 7, has collapsed and is now receiving medical attention.

The widow of the adult victim, Jonathan Sandler, having already lost her husband and two small children, and who is currently pregnant with her third, has said she has decided not to return to France and will stay in Israel.

A closed-door memorial ceremony attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy was held at Charles de Gaulle Airport before the flight departed Paris.

Among those speaking at this morning’s funerals in Jerusalem is French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, who accompanied the coffins from France. He told the mourners that “anti-Semitism negates the values of France” and was “intolerable.”

“Attacks on French Jews are not just attacks on the Jewish community, but on millions of French citizens who cannot tolerate such behavior.”

“Your children are being laid to rest in Israel,” he said, “but their memories will be cherished in the land where they were born, in France.”

“May their souls be bound to the souls of the living,” Juppe said, in Hebrew, at the end of his eulogy.

EU CHIEF ASHTON APOLOGIZES, AFTER CALLS FOR HER TO RESIGN OVER HER TOULOUSE SHOOTING REMARKS

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Baroness Catherine Ashton yesterday said she “unreservedly” condemned the murders at a French Jewish school on Monday and insisted she drew “no parallel” between the shooting in Toulouse and “the situation in Gaza.”

At an event in Brussels on Monday organized by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Ashton compared the murders of the children at a French Jewish school earlier that day to the deaths of teenagers in a fatal coach crash in Switzerland the week before, and “what is happening in Gaza.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had said Ashton’s comments were “not appropriate and I hope that she will re-examine and reverse them.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and opposition Kadima leader Tzipi Livni also criticized Ashton for her remarks.

Other Israeli and French political leaders went further calling on Ashton to resign if she refused to “unreservedly condemn” the murders of young French Jewish children.

Yesterday she issued a statement saying: “I condemn unreservedly the terrible murders in Toulouse. I extend my sympathies to the families and friends of the victims, to the people of France and to the Jewish community.”

She is also reported to have called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later to personally apologize for her earlier remarks.

Ashton has long been criticized for her role in the “Middle East Quartet” for painting the Palestinians only as victims and the Israelis exclusively as oppressors, rather than taking a balanced approach.

UN CANCELS APPEARANCE BY HAMAS LEADER IN GENEVA

The United Nations canceled an appearance by a Hamas leader at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

Ismail al-Ashqar, a senior Hamas commander who has on several occasions made remarks sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, was barred from entering the Human Rights Council meeting and was asked to leave the UN compound in Geneva, after reports of intensive pressure by some Western governments not to allow “a terrorist leader” to enter.

The Human Rights Council on Monday considered five resolutions criticizing only one country (Israel), including four resolutions submitted by Palestine though no such state exists.

For more on the UN Human Rights Council, please see my article of last week.

PALESTINIAN PRISONERS PREVENTED FROM GOING ON HUNGER STRIKE (BUT NOT BY ISRAEL)

Palestinian militants being held by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, who sought to emulate an Islamic Jihad leader held by Israel who recently succeeded in winning his early release by staging a 66-day hunger strike (which won him much sympathy by far Left Israeli groups who then persuaded Western NGOs to turn him into an international cause célèbre) have found that their Palestinian jailers are not as accommodating as the Israelis were.

Palestinian media have reported that four Palestinian Islamist prisoners who tried to go on hunger strike in recent days were severely beaten by their Palestinian jailers and had their beards shaved, before being force-fed.

IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF EGYPT’S TOURIST TRADE?

In the latest of a series of such incidents, gunmen kidnapped two Brazilian female tourists travelling through Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Sunday.

The gunmen, who are believed to be Bedouin, stopped a bus carrying a group of tourists on their way to St. Catherine’s Monastery and apprehended the two Brazilian women.

Last month, two American women were kidnapped (Egyptian authorities then negotiated their release). And a group of 20 Chinese cement factory workers were also kidnapped last month and later released.

“IRANIAN MILITARY ADVISERS OPERATING IN PALESTINIAN GAZA AND EGYPTIAN SINAI”

The Israeli liberal daily Ha’aretz reports that Iranian military advisers are operating in the Gaza Strip and in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, helping to assemble rocket-launching systems used to attack Israeli towns and villages.

The paper reports that the Iranians are helping train and arm the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad group, which has continued to fire rockets over the border even after a ceasefire with Israel was announced last week following four days of fighting.

In recent months Hamas has distanced itself slightly from Iran. It refused to back Iran’s call to support the Syrian government suppress a largely Sunni uprising in Syria and instead has sought to build closer ties with the Turkish government and with several Sunni Gulf states, while Iran increases its links with Islamic Jihad.

BBC SAYS IRANIAN GOVERNMENT BEHIND COORDINATED CYBER ATTACK

The outgoing BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said in a speech at Britain’s Royal Television Society that the government of Iran appears to be behind last week’s massive cyber assault on the BBC. Hackers penetrated BBC Persian TV while the BBC’s London office was inundated with automatic phone calls and the company’s satellite feeds into Iran were also jammed.

The BBC says that its Persian TV service is now viewed by six million people in Iran.

IRANIAN GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO ALLOW CEREMONY FOR IRANIAN OSCAR WINNER

The Iranian authorities refused to allow a ceremony honoring Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi upon his return home from America. His film, “A Separation,” won the Oscar for best foreign film last month, beating the two other favorites, an Israeli film and a Polish film about the Holocaust (the brilliant “In Darkness”, based on “In the sewers of Lvov”. For more on Lvov and this book, please see here.)

The Iranian authorities are said to be unhappy that “A Separation” included scenes discussing gender inequality and the desire by many Iranians to leave the country.

***

I attach two articles below, both of which were written by subscribers to this list.

-- Tom Gross

THE MOST REMARKABLY BRAVE PEOPLE

The true face of ‘human rights’
By Tom Gross, in Geneva
The National Post (Canada)
March 16, 2012

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/03/16/tom-gross-the-true-face-of-human-rights-at-the-un/

I have spent the past few days in Geneva with some of the most remarkably brave people one is ever likely to meet. All have suffered horrendously for calling for freedoms in their countries – the kind of freedoms that people elsewhere take for granted.

But none of them were invited to Geneva by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the UN’s most prominent body that is supposed to deal with human rights, which is meeting here in annual session.

This is the organization behind the infamous and now discredited “Goldstone report” on Gaza. This is the organization that in 2009 praised Sri Lanka’s human rights record shortly after that country’s military had killed more than 40,000 Tamil civilians.

On Monday, I sat in on this year’s UNHRC debate, and listened to the Syrian ambassador – with a straight face and with no gasps of disapproval from other delegates – tell the chamber that it was really Israelis who were behind the ongoing violence in Syria. And I heard delegates from Cuba, Syria, Belarus, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and elsewhere praise the Iranian government’s human rights record. (In fact, in addition to a litany of other abuses, Iran carried out the highest number of executions of any country in the world last year, for such “crimes” as being homosexual, or being a member of the Baha’i faith – though it is true that some other countries’ delegates did condemn Syria and Iran strongly for other matters.) This week, the UNHRC also adopted a report heaping praise on the Qaddafi regime’s human rights record.

The human rights ambassadors engaged in this activity while sitting under the newly painted ceiling art of the council chamber – a remarkably unimpressive piece that the UN says cost $23-million – money that the UN might have used to, say, feed starving children in Africa.

Just outside the entrance to the chamber, two pieces of art, from the time before its renovation, remain. On one, the plaque reads “A statue of Maat, ancient goddess of truth and justice”; it was donated by Egypt’s Mubarak regime. On the other, it says “A statue of Nemesis, Goddess of justice, donated by the Syrian government.”

Just down the road from the UN, another human-rights summit took place the following day – one where actual human rights heroes were present. That summit was organized by UN Watch, and a coalition of 20 other human-rights groups, from Tibet to Uganda.

Among the speakers were Chinese dissidents Ren Wanding, who during more than 10 years in prison produced a two-volume attack on the Chinese government painstakingly written on toilet paper; and Yang Jianli, who was released from jail in 2007, and who in 2010 was asked by the jailed Liu Xiaobo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on his behalf.

Also speaking were Joo-il Kim and Song Ju Kim, who endured a living hell in North Korea before risking their lives to escape. And Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, who survived 20 years in prisons in Castro’s Cuba, where he was severely tortured and had his bones broken on many occasions. He was finally released last year and immediately expelled from Cuba. He has now taken refuge in Spain.

Then there was Zimbabwean activist Jestina Mukoko, who was imprisoned and tortured for calling for democracy in her country. And Burmese activist Zoya Phan, a member of the Karen minority, which has undergone virtual genocide in recent decades. In addition, there were other brave democracy campaigners from Vietnam, Tibet, Pakistan and elsewhere.

Egyptian pro-democracy campaigner Maikel Nabil Sanad, left, with Tom Gross, right

I chaired the final session, which was on the Middle East. Impassioned speeches were given by Maikel Nabil, a young Egyptian veterinary student released seven weeks ago after enduring 302 days in a Cairo prison. For much of this time, he was held in solidarity confinement in a one-meter square space. In other periods, he was packed into a cell with 50 common criminals who were bribed by the guards to beat him. Maikel’s crime? After President Mubarak’s ousting last year, he dared to ask the Egyptian military to cede power too, and wrote blog posts calling for Egyptian society to treat women, gays and Jews with respect. In jail, Maikel went on a hunger strike for 80 days and almost died. But none of this broke him, and on his release on January 24 he waved a “V for victory” sign to waiting supporters.

Also on the panel was Ebrahim Mehtari who, for daring to oppose Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2009 presidential bid in his native Iran, was thrown into prison, raped, tortured, and left for dead on the side of a road. Ebrahim’s life is still at risk, since he is one of the few who speak out about the widespread use of sexual torture in Iranian prisons.

Ebrahim Mehtari: “My torturers deserve pity”

Finally, there was 20-year-old Hadeel Kouki, who had been studying English literature in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Caught trying to bring medical supplies to children injured in one of her government’s barbaric and indiscriminate bombardments of civilians last year, she was imprisoned for eight weeks. During that time, she was subjected to electric shocks and repeatedly raped by prison guards. She asked me to tell the world the name of the guard she says was her chief rapist: Abdul Hakeem Abdullatif.

Upon her release, Hadeel managed to escape across the border to Turkey. She has now been offered political asylum by a Western country. I won’t name that country since Syrian thugs – who see her as a particular threat because she is a Christian standing up against the regime when Syria’s Christian leadership are still backing Assad – sent her messages only last week, warning that “we will catch up with you wherever you are and throw acid all over your beautiful face”.

American and Canadian embassy staff came to UN Watch’s alternative Geneva human rights summit. But where were the other ambassadors? Does the UN care about human rights? Or does it prefer to be in league with the criminals of the world?

(Tom Gross is a former Middle East correspondent of the London Sunday Telegraph.)

* Thanks to all those who have written about and recommended this article to their readers, including law professor Alan Dershowitz, historian Amanda Foreman, former U.S. presidential speechwriter David Frum at The Daily Beast, and Canadian government minister Jason Kenney.

Update: For another of my pieces on the UN’s failure to address human rights issues, see:

* The speakers were never meant to live and tell their stories

[All notes below by Tom Gross]

BARRAGE OF ROCKETS, 93% INTERCEPTION RATE

While most of the international media has not bothered to report on this, since last night over 135 rockets have been fired at Israel by the Gaza-based terrorist groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Other rockets are continuing to rain down on cities throughout southern Israel as I write.

Although at least two have hit Israeli towns, injuring one Israeli civilian severely, the others have been met with a remarkable success rate by the Israeli-developed cutting-edge Iron Dome system in which Israeli defensive missiles intercept incoming Palestinian attack missiles.

The Iron Dome analyzes the incoming missile’s trajectory and only intercepts missiles and rockets heading to populated areas, disregarding those that are heading towards fields and empty land.

Of the first hundred launched from Gaza in the last 24 hours, 29 of the incoming rockets were heading towards Israeli population centers. 27 of them have been intercepted by the Iron Dome: a success rate of 93%.

Here are some clips of these interceptions filmed by private individuals in Israel and posted on YouTube in recent hours:

The rocket interception is at 0:45 seconds:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNNUmiJ5QvI
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDpAPlwaqaM

The rocket interception is at 0:19 seconds:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMs6SFS4ECY
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DujSrCiVDPQ

The rocket interception is at: 1:03 minutes:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjOOrXdoMps

The rocket interception is at 2:40 minutes:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuwHW-Nn3jQ

The rocket interception is at 1:35 minutes:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9KZ5KHL4Kk

With rockets continuing to fall on Israel, authorities in Beersheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Netivot, Kiryat Gat, Ofakim, Beer Tuvia, Yavne and Gedera have announced that all schools will be closed tomorrow.

So far the Israeli airforce has managed to identify and kill several Palestinian terrorists as they were launching rockets. No Palestinian civilians have been harmed.

Several Israelis have been taken to medical centers to receive treatment for shock and anxiety.

LIBYANS THANK BRITAIN FOR RIDDING THEM OF GADDAFI

For those who haven’t seen it yet, below is a shocking video filmed 12 days ago of an unidentified group of Libyans entering the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Benghazi and shattering headstones of British and allied servicemen who fought in North African desert campaigns against the Nazis during World War II.

The Jewish headstones are treated with particular disrespect.

OECD SAYS ISRAEL IS THE WORLD’S 2ND MOST EDUCATED COUNTRY

A new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has found that Israel is the second most educated country in the world.

The OECD “Education at a Glance” report shows that 45 percent of the Israeli population has a post-secondary education. Israel is known for its technological prowess and high number of high-tech, medical and other breakthroughs.

The OECD listed the 10 most educated countries in the world in the following order:

1. Canada
2. Israel
3. Japan
4. The United States
5. New Zealand
6. South Korea
7. Norway
8. The United Kingdom
9. Australia
10. Finland

PRESIDENT PERES LAUNCHES HIS NEW FACEBOOK PAGE TOGETHER WITH MARK ZUCKERBERG

In the U.S. last week, Israeli President Shimon Peres, together with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, launched the President’s new international Facebook page at a festive event at Facebook’s world headquarters in Silicon Valley.

Peres told Zuckerberg that he launched the page in order to connect to new audiences. “When I say new and large audiences, I mean first and foremost citizens of Iran, Syria and the Arab world. I’d be very happy to be their friend and offer them full access to me. Neither the Iranians nor Syrians are enemies of ours, but rather the extremist leadership of these peoples,” Peres said.

Peres told Zuckerberg, “Your success is amazing, especially at your young age. I am grateful for what you’ve done and created. Facebook has broken down barriers between nations and between people. Facebook has given freedom and the opportunity of expression to citizens of the world making connections that to now have seemed impossible.”

Zuckerberg laughed when the President said, “We used to be the people of the Book, now we are the people of Facebook”.

Peres’ Facebook page can be accessed at: www.facebook.com/PresidentPeres

Zuckerberg told Peres that he would accept his invitation to visit Israel and was greatly looking forward to the trip.

HUFFINGTON POST NAMES TEL AVIV A TOP BEACH CITY

Tel Aviv’s beachfront has been named one of “The Eight Best Party Beaches” in the world by The Huffington Post.

The other seven on the list are: Ibiza, Spain; Zanzibar, Tanzania; Koh Phangan, Thailand; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Surfer’s Paradise, Australia; Boracay, the Philippines and South Beach, Miami, USA.

As reported previously on this website, in recent months Tel Aviv has also been voted “the world’s best gay city” by the world’s leading gay website, “one of the world’s most creative cities” by Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper (the others being London, Sydney, Stockholm and Shanghai) and in 2010, the Lonely Planet named Tel Aviv one of its top three cities for the year.

SUPPORT FOR NETANYAHU AT ALL-TIME HIGH IN ISRAEL DESPITE DISAGREEMENTS WITH OBAMA

A new poll conducted by Ha’aretz, a leading Israeli newspaper, indicates that support in Israel for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reached an all-time high despite constant media criticism of Netanyahu and his less than perfect relations with President Obama.

According to Ha’aretz, if an election were held today, Netanyahu’s Likud party would gain as many as 37 out of 120 possible parliamentary seats while the parties seen as its natural political partners would swell the next Netanyahu coalition to as many as 74 seats. (At present Likud holds 27 seats.)

NETANYAHU’S LIGHTER SIDE

In an attempt to demonstrate his lighter side, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu posted to his official Facebook page a spoof video of his talk at the AIPAC policy conference in Washington this week.

The take-off poked fun at Netanyahu’s comment about Iran’s nuclear program: “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then what is it? That’s right, it’s a duck. But this duck is a nuclear duck.”

This spoof has been watched 100,000 times on YouTube since it was created two days ago:

[All notes above by Tom Gross]

This dispatch contains three articles concerning three groups in Israel that are sometimes maligned or not given fair treatment: Israeli Ethiopians, non-Jewish African migrants, and ultra-orthodox Jews.

For those of you who don’t have time to read the articles in full, I have prepared extracts first, followed by the full articles.

-- Tom Gross

ARTICLE EXTRACTS

ISRAELI ELITES WERE QUICK TO SUPPORT THE SOCIAL JUSTICE PROTESTS, SO WHY NOT THE ETHIOPIAN ONES?

Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Elad Uzan, a research student and leader of an Ethiopian Israeli youth advocacy group, says:

Why is it that the Israeli media, which hastened to defend the dignity of a Nigerian cleaning woman and described in great detail an Eritrean mother’s longing for her child, refrains from publishing passionate and moving editorials on the plight of the Ethiopian Israeli community? Why is it that when it comes to displaying similar solidarity with tens of thousands of loyal Israeli citizens, their voices suddenly turn silent?

Perhaps the answer to this question lies in the slogan chanted by the crowd at last week’s demonstration: “I stand here to remind those who have forgotten: Ashkenazi Jew, Sephardic Jew, Ethiopian Jew – we are all brothers!” Could it be that the central message of the Ethiopian community – national pride and strong Jewish values – have caused the media to avoid the issue?

To explain this phenomenon one must put it in historical context: Ethiopian Jewish immigration was driven primarily by passionate Zionism. There is concrete evidence of Ethiopian Jewish attempts to make aliya (on foot) to Jerusalem in 1860, well before Herzl’s political Zionism and decades before the First Zionist Congress. Call it “black Zionism.” …

The Ethiopian Israeli community protests out of a genuine demand for Jewish solidarity, as sons and daughters of the Jewish nation, in the nation-state of the Jewish people. Their demands are motivated not only by the international and universal values that are the focus of the Israeli media, but also by national, Jewish values, which the Israeli media often snubs…

This fealty to Jewish values has led them to be perceived as the “enemy” by those who claim to be proponents of the universalist view, which is particularly wary of national values and which has a strong hold on the media.

This doesn’t mean that the Israeli media sees the Ethiopian community as a literal “enemy,” but given the fact that the base demand for equality is rooted in national-Jewish values, the Israeli media simply does not see the Ethiopian community as an ally in promoting the universal perspective….

A PROPER LEGAL PROCESS IS NEEDED TO HELP GENUINE AFRICAN ASYLUM SEEKERS TO ISRAEL

Dan Kosky, a political consultant and longtime subscriber to this email list, writes in The Times of Israel:

Last week, the dubious distinction of housing one of the world’s largest detention facilities moved one step closer towards reality for Israel. The National Council for Construction and Planning gave its approval for the construction of a huge detention center in the South, slated to house up to 11,000 African migrants expected to enter the country in the coming months. Prime Minister Netanyahu has boasted that construction of the mega-facility is a decisive action, proving that “this Government, unlike its predecessors, acts.” In reality, though, it is nothing more than an expensive cosmetic quick-fix. Although the detention camp may move the problem of African migration out of sight, it avoids any real solution for a community which keeps on growing.

There are an estimated 40-50,000 Africans currently residing in Israel, mainly from war-torn Sudan and Eritrea. With around 2,000 clambering across Israel’s southern border with Egypt each month, the flow of migrants shows little sign of slowing. Few dispute that this is an untenable situation. Clearly no country, Israel included, is obliged to open its borders and accept all-comers. On the other hand, Interior Minister Eli Yishai’s claim that all Africans in Israel are opportunistic workers, that none deserve asylum and that every “last of the infiltrators return to their countries” is equally ludicrous... Prime Minister Netanyahu has rightly emphasized that refugees fleeing for their lives must be afforded protection in Israel…

Voluntary organizations report that the application procedure is highly inefficient, typically lasting years. For Eritreans and Sudanese, who comprise the bulk of Africans in Israel, the prospect of asylum is made virtually impossible by the fact that they are granted ‘temporary protection’, by virtue of their nationality. This grants them a safeguard against deportation, but no other rights…

The reality is that the brand new shiny detention complex will be nothing more than an expensive facade (at an estimated cost of NIS 250 million to the taxpayer). Far from resolving the issue of African migration, it will merely shift the problem out of public view deep into the desert. Out of public sight, out of the public mind, or so the government likely hopes…

The flawed mindset which currently views the plight of Africans as a zero sum game where all must stay or all must go, must be replaced with a real attempt to identify and afford rights to refugees. A robust system to efficiently process asylum applications is desperately needed, where refuge can be granted to those who require it and economic opportunists rejected…

CHANGE IS COMING TO A COMMUNITY DEFINED BY ITS REJECTION OF CHANGE

Professor Gil Troy, a subscriber to this email list, writes in the American magazine The New Republic:

The demonizing of Israel, dismissing the democratic Jewish state as a right-wing, religious, racist project, continues. The latest storyline describes ultra-Orthodox Israelis – known in Hebrew as haredim – as medieval Neanderthals rapidly converting Israel into an Iran-style theocracy. This popular caricature encourages those liberals seeking excuses to stop supporting Israel. The appalling images of bearded, black-hatted zealots spitting on eight-year-olds, forcing women to the back of public buses, and parading their children with yellow stars in protest, are all being read as tea leaves predicting Israel’s imminent degeneration into Haredistan. But what if the opposite is true? Haredi rampages seem more like impotent attempts to build a firewall against modernity than harbingers of conquest.

Change is coming to a community defined by its rejection of change. Haredim are joining Israeli society. Haredi vocational programs are proliferating, as government generosity wanes. Over 3000 haredi soldiers have now served in Israel’s army, including a combat-ready unit. Many haredi women, who increasingly are highly educated and working, are demanding more respect while continuing to maintain gender distinctions. The debate about television and internet usage is intensifying, as modern popular culture seeps into the society, which is not hermetically sealed.

While haredi triumphalists emphasize their high birthrate, the outflow of the last two centuries since the Enlightenment continues. Though statistics are elusive, communal anxiety abounds about the apostates. Most haredim, while denying the hemorrhaging, have close relatives who are no longer haredi. The deserters are numerous enough to have inspired a television drama series: Simanei She’eilah (question marks), which tracks the stories of haredi runaways living in a Tel Aviv halfway house, debuted last year.

The Zaka organization provides the most dramatic – and inspiring – example of haredi engagement with Israeli society. Zaka became famous during the second intifada, dispatching ultra-Orthodox crews who cleaned up the spilled blood and pieces of flesh strewn about after bombings. … A Zaka team in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake worked through the Sabbath, saving lives… Yad Eliezer established soup kitchens and distributed relief supplies during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, while Yad Sarah’s nationwide network assists the disabled, the elderly, and the housebound.

In the popular media, in both Israel and abroad, images of rock-throwing, gender-segregating, yellow-star-wearing extremists obscure these good works – and a more accurate picture…

Haredim – and their leaders – are, of course, partly responsible for the broad anger against them. Many lack civic spirit. Few serve in the army. The separation of women often entails inequality. Their politicians exploit Israel’s fragmented coalition-governing system. A culture of lawlessness has grown in many communities, and their holier-than-thou attitude toward fellow citizens rankles.

Nevertheless, even in Bet Shemesh, the town where the haredi men spat on the eight-year-old schoolgirl, the true story is more complex than headlines suggest. “Haredi residents are furious at the recent developments and resent that they are being blamed for the acts of a tiny minority,” the haredi paper, HaModia reported…

In Bet Shemesh and elsewhere, the fight often pits ultra-Orthodox against modern Orthodox, not necessarily religious versus secular. Rachel Azaria is a young activist who surprised everyone by winning a seat on Jerusalem’s City Council in the last election. She has fought gender segregation on buses and the banning of female images from bus ads, while working to make the Western Wall welcoming to all visitors and not the world’s largest outdoor haredi synagogue. A religious woman, the mother of three young children, Azaria insists she is not anti-haredi, and that many haredim have encouraged her. “I am the address for haredim,” she explains, “because I am willing to get my hands dirty.” She adds: “I want to affirm to the haredim that they are a part of us – we are all here to stay.” …

[Note by Tom Gross]

I attach four articles on a variety of subjects.

Many of you are very busy so I have prepared summaries first for those of you who don’t have time to read the articles in full

SUMMARIES

HAMAS CRITICIZES EGYPT FOR BLOCKING OIL SUPPLIES

Hamas’s Prime Minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, has blamed Egypt for causing a power crisis that has triggered lengthy blackouts, exposing the tensions between Hamas and the new government in Cairo.

The outages in Gaza started in mid-February, leaving households with just six hours of electricity a day.

Crucial fuel supplies that feed Gaza’s sole power plant were unexpectedly cut and Egypt has told Hamas that in future it should import its oil through legal channels – namely the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossing.

Hamas is struggling to overcome unprecedented internal divisions over efforts to overcome a deep rift between itself and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party runs the West Bank.

The reconciliation efforts have been partly brokered by Egypt and Cairo may have turned off the fuel taps to put pressure on a highly hesitant Hamas to accept the proposed unity accord.

HATRED OF ISRAEL TRUMPS TREATING SICK PALESTINIANS

The fact that thousands of Palestinian patients receive medical treatment in Israeli hospitals each year did not stop Palestinians from voicing opposition to a visit by Israeli physicians to Ramallah last week. The physicians visited the Palestine Medical Compound and another clinic to learn about the Palestinians’ medical services in the West Bank.

Their presence in Ramallah drew furious reactions from some Palestinian doctors and nurses. Fatah activists in Ramallah denounced the tour as a form of “normalization” with Israel. They reminded the Palestinian Authority that its leaders had repeatedly urged Palestinians to resist all forms of “normalization” with Israel.

The Palestinian fury over the visit of the Israeli medical team to Ramallah is a sign of increased radicalization among Palestinians. It is also a severe blow to those Israelis and Palestinians who continue to talk about coexistence and peace between the two sides.

Despite receiving billions of dollars in Western aid, the Palestinian Authority has siphoned off the money and not invested enough in improving medical services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past two decades, many Palestinians continue to rely on Israel for proper medical treatment.

Some of the Palestinian’s top leaders, including ministers and the former mufti of Jerusalem, were among tens of thousands of Palestinians who underwent life-saving surgery in Israeli hospitals over the past two decades.

Scores of Palestinian physicians receive training in Israeli hospitals every year and many even seek the assistance of their Israeli colleagues in treating patients who are admitted to Palestinian hospitals.

“FOR A WHILE, SYRIA BELONGED TO MY MOTHER”

Philip Boyes (the former speechwriter for Jerzy Buzek, who served as president of the European Parliament from 2010-12) writes (in summary):

… For a while, Syria belonged to my mother, Farida Kuligowska, who studied at Damascus University in the 1970s and later returned as a journalist in the early ‘80s. She was shy, flaxen-haired and fluent in Arabic…

The other day, on the anniversary of my mother’s passing, I was rummaging through a box brimming with tourist knick-knacks and my mother’s photos of people in flared jeans and sequined jackets, when I found a bulky book of newspaper clippings from her time in the Middle East. Stuffed between the yellowed pages were her student letters to her anxious father in Warsaw, scribbled notes for a book, and the articles she wrote later as a roving reporter in and around Syria for Polityka, a Polish weekly.

The letters … paint a vivid picture of Hafez’s Damascus. My mother lived close to what the locals called Hanging Square, the place that had until recently been used to string up supposed traitors and spies…

Why was my mother instinctively skeptical of Assad père? Her inheritance surely had something to do with it. She was born in Cairo to Polish parents. Her mother was a Polish Jew who spent the war wading through Warsaw’s sewers as a partisan. Her father was a pre-war socialist who became Poland’s ambassador to Egypt in 1946.

My grandparents named her Farida – Arabic for “unique” – in honor of Queen Farida, the wife of Egypt’s King Farouk... That Jewishness stayed a family secret for decades, not just to allow my grandfather to function as an envoy in the Arab world but also to shield his wife, a Holocaust survivor and onetime staunch believer in socialism, from subsequent anti-Semitic purges in Poland.

Belief, disillusion and concealment: These were the undercurrents in socialist Poland as they were in socialist Syria… I just wish my mother were around to see Bashar get his just deserts.

THE HYPOCRISY OF HANAN ASHRAWI

Jordanian-based Palestinian journalist Ramzi Abu Hadid writes (in summary):

Has Ashrawi, the self-declared human rights advocate, never heard of the thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who try to infiltrate into Israel every morning in search of work and a better life?

Prominent PLO spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi is demanding that the international community declare Israel an “Apartheid State.” Her demand was included in a statement she published in Ramallah this week: she accused Israel of incitement against Arabs and of violating international laws.

How come she never mentions the incitement of Palestinians against Israelis in the Palestinian government-issued textbooks, or in the schools and summer camps named after terrorists, or in the government-controlled TV stations which just last week again glorified terrorists with video celebrations again and again of the tenth anniversary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that over the years has killed dozens of Israelis, including many children?

How come Ashrawi never mentions that in Saudi Arabia there is not only gender apartheid – in which women have virtually no rights and are kept as virtual prisoners, unable to travel without the permission of a male guardian or relative, even if he is a child or retarded or mentally defective – but also that there are separate roads marked for Muslims to drive on and for non-Muslims to drive on? You are not even allowed to bring a Bible into the country. How come those acts are not “Apartheid”?

How come Ashrawi never mentions that here in Jordan the government has been trying to strip thousands of us Palestinians of our Jordanian citizenship – a move Israel never made against its Christians and Muslims…

Does Hanan Ashrawi really care about Palestinians, or is she just being paid by Europeans and Western NGOs to keep bashing the region’s only democratic country, which, though admittedly not perfect, still tries harder than any other to treat all of its people with decency and equality?

[Summaries above by Tom Gross]

(You can comment on this dispatch here: www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia. Please first press “Like” on that page.)

FULL ARTICLES

HAMAS BLAMES POWER CRISIS ON EGYPT IN RARE RIFT

Hamas blames power crisis on Egypt in rare rift
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Reuters
March 3, 2012

GAZA (Reuters) - Gaza’s top political leader blamed Egypt on Friday for causing a power crisis that has triggered lengthy blackouts in the Palestinian enclave, laying bare tensions between his Islamist group Hamas and Cairo.

The outages started in mid-February, leaving households with just six hours of electricity a day, provoking widespread criticism within the territory of Hamas, which governs Gaza.

Looking to deflect the anger, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told supporters that Egypt controlled the flow of fuel into Gaza and suggested the authorities in Cairo should have done more to help following the downfall of former president Hosni Mubarak.

“Is it reasonable that Gaza remains without electricity a year after the revolution in Egypt?” Haniyeh said in a weekly address, accusing Cairo of trying to force Gazans to accept their energy supplies via arch foe Israel.

“Is it reasonable that Gaza remains blockaded a year after the dismissal of the tyrant (Mubarak) regime?” he said.

There was no immediate comment from Egypt.

Crucial fuel supplies that feed Gaza’s sole power plant were unexpectedly cut last month and Egypt has told Hamas that in future it should import its oil through legal channels – namely the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossing.

Officials have indicated that Egypt was angry that Hamas was smuggling in subsidised fuel intended for the Egyptian people. Haniyeh said he could not agree to shift imports via Kerem Shalom because they would be too costly and vulnerable.

Haniyeh said Egypt wanted Gazans to pay $1 a litre for fuel in future – more than what they paid for smuggled diesel. Hamas used to tax the oil that came in from the tunnels, but goods entering Gaza via Israel is taxed by its rival, the Palestinian Authority (PA), thereby jeopardising Hamas finances.

“There is also a security problem. If someone fired a bullet three kilometers away from Kerem Shalom, the Israelis would close the crossing and prevent the entry of fuel,” Haniyeh said.

Hamas has not renounced violence and militants in the enclave regularly fire missiles at Israel.

The power crisis has come at a bad time for Hamas, which is struggling to overcome unprecedented internal divisions over efforts to overcome a deep rift between itself and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose PA body runs the West Bank.

The reconciliation efforts have been partly brokered by Egypt and some newspaper commentators have suggested that Cairo turned off the fuel taps to put pressure on a highly hesitant Hamas to accept the proposed unity accord.

Without mentioning Egypt by name, Haniyeh appeared to give credence to the speculation. “Some parties want to continue to pressure Gaza, Hamas and the government, believing they can get concessions,” he said, adding: “Neither electricity nor anything else will push Gaza people make any concession.”

With the situation deadlocked, Haniyeh said Gaza might be able to get fuel for free from Algeria or Iran.

THE HATE BUSINESS

The Hate Business
by Khaled Abu Toameh
Stonegate Institute
March 2, 2012

The fact that thousands of Palestinian patients receive medical treatment in Israeli hospitals each year did not stop Palestinians from voicing opposition to a visit by Israeli physicians to Ramallah last week.

The Israeli physicians arrived in Ramallah as part of a tour that was organized by the Palestinian Authority.

The physicians visited the Palestine Medical Compound and another clinic to learn about the Palestinians’ medical services in the West Bank.

The presence of the physicians in Ramallah drew furious reactions from the workers at the medical compound and many Palestinians, including the Western-backed Fatah faction headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

Some doctors and nurses claimed that the physicians were in fact Israeli army officers. Palestinian media outlets quoted “eyewitnesses” as saying that the army vehicles and soldiers accompanied the Israeli doctors during the tour. Attempts by the Palestinian Ministry of Health to explain that the visitors were not army officers have thus far fall fallen on deaf ears.

Fatah activists in Ramallah denounced the tour as a form of “normalization” with Israel. They reminded the Palestinian Authority that its leaders had repeatedly urged Palestinians to resist all forms of “normalization” with Israel.

The Palestinian fury over the visit of the Israeli medical team to Ramallah is a sign of increased radicalization among Palestinians. It is also a severe blow to those Israelis and Palestinians who continue to talk about coexistence and peace between the two sides.

If anyone stands to lose from boycotting Israeli physicians it is the Palestinians themselves.

Because the Palestinian Authority has not invested enough in improving medical services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past two decades, many Palestinians continue to rely on Israel for proper medical treatment.

Some of the Palestinian’s top leaders, including ministers and the former mufti of Jerusalem, were among tens of thousands of Palestinians who underwent life-saving surgery in Israeli hospitals over the past two decades.

Scores of Palestinian physicians receive training in Israeli hospitals every year and many even seek the assistance of their Israeli colleagues in treating patients who are admitted to Palestinian hospitals. Some Palestinians sold their homes and lands to be able to cover the expenses of being admitted to an Israeli hospital.

But instead of welcoming Palestinian-Israeli cooperation in the medical field, some Palestinians are calling for boycotting those who are trying to save the lives of their own patients.

The Palestinian Minister of Health, Fathi Abu Mughli, is now facing sharp criticism for permitting the Israelis to visit the medical center. Some Palestinians have gone as far as calling on the Palestinian government to bring him to trial for his “crime.”
But to his credit, Abu Mughli has come out in defense of the visit, arguing that he did not advocate a boycott of Israeli physicians and medical services. The minister explained that it would be foolish of Palestinians to boycott Israeli doctors and hospitals at a time when many Palestinian patients are being treated in Israel.

Palestinians who are opposed to “normalization” with Israeli physicians are the victims of years of indoctrination and messages of hate emanating from their leaders and media. And some Palestinians have become so enriched by hatred that it it would not pay for them to stop.

WHAT MY MOTHER KNEW ABOUT THE ASSADS

What my mother knew about the Assads
The experience of Eastern Europe teaches that sooner or later a despot’s mask always slips.
By Philip Boyes
The Wall Street Journal (European edition)
March 6, 2012

I often wonder what my mother, who died in 2002, would have made of Syria today: the bloodshed, the butchery, the brutality of Bashar Assad’s regime depicted in grainy cell-phone videos on YouTube. A country torn at the seams.

For a while, Syria belonged to my mother, Farida Kuligowska, who studied at Damascus University in the 1970s and later returned as a journalist in the early ‘80s. She was shy, flaxen-haired and fluent in Arabic.

I like to think she would have seen through Bashar Assad long before these dark days, and balked at his pretense of being a reformer. She certainly had her doubts about Hafez, Bashar’s father, even at a time when he was America’s darling. After the 1973 war, Henry Kissinger visited Assad Sr. 13 times, believing that the cunning peasant-leader could be the most trusted Arab partner of the U.S.

The other day, on the anniversary of my mother’s passing, I was rummaging through a box brimming with tourist knick-knacks and my mother’s photos of people in flared jeans and sequined jackets, when I found a bulky book of newspaper clippings from her time in the Middle East. Stuffed between the yellowed pages were her student letters to her anxious father in Warsaw, scribbled notes for a book, and the articles she wrote later as a roving reporter in and around Syria for Polityka, a Polish weekly.

The letters set her father’s mind to rest – there was a war brewing, after all. But they also paint a vivid picture of Hafez’s Damascus. My mother lived close to what the locals called Hanging Square, the place that had until recently been used to string up supposed traitors and spies. The rents were cheaper there, but even so, Polish students had to share cramped digs to make ends meet. Soldiers in khaki were everywhere, a reminder that before Hafez, Syria had witnessed coup after coup.

In the months after the 1973 war, Damascus was a dark place. The Israelis had hit the main power plant, so all of the lights were kept dimmed. My mother reported that faces would emerge out of the evening gloom as a painterly chiaroscuro. Unlike the bustling capitals of Cairo and Beirut, the streets would empty of cars by 9 p.m.

Yet Hafez Assad’s Damascus retained a sheen of glamour, and enough metropolitan flair to make outsiders believe that Assad was on the way toward making his people richer and happier. My mother wrote home about the fashionable boutiques on Kasar Street, well beyond her shoestring budget. She longed to hang out in the Piccadilly, the place to see and be seen. It had been renamed Cordoba due to a ban on English names, and the city’s murals depicting 18th-century London had been plastered over on the orders of a Baathist official, but it retained its allure as a society hangout.

All of this was part of Hafez Assad’s confidence trickery, the illusion that Baathist dictatorship could have a smiling, youthful face. His 1973 constitution, for instance, guaranteed women’s “equal status in society.” Assad boosted investment in infrastructure, the health sector and education. My mother’s dissertation analyzed these education reforms and was broadly supportive, but soon enough she was no longer giving Assad the benefit of doubt.

And indeed, by 1982 Hafez was massacring tens of thousands of Sunnis in Hama. My mother was back in Poland by then, her country ruled by generals but mercifully massacre-free. Assad’s killings barely made the heavily censored newspapers, but she had known that sooner or later the mask would slip.

Why was my mother instinctively skeptical of Assad père? Her inheritance surely had something to do with it. She was born in Cairo to Polish parents. Her mother was a Polish Jew who spent the war wading through Warsaw’s sewers as a partisan. Her father was a pre-war socialist who became Poland’s ambassador to Egypt in 1946.

My grandparents named her Farida – Arabic for “unique” – in honor of Queen Farida, the wife of Egypt’s King Farouk. Her father asked King Farouk in person for permission to name his daughter after Her Majesty, and made sure that the king did not find out that his wife was Jewish. That Jewishness stayed a family secret for decades, not just to allow my grandfather to function as an envoy in the Arab world but also to shield his wife, a Holocaust survivor and onetime staunch believer in socialism, from subsequent anti-Semitic purges in Poland.

Belief, disillusion and concealment: These were the undercurrents in socialist Poland as they were in socialist Syria. And just as these resentments all at once erupted into cataclysm in Eastern Europe more than two decades ago, they are surfacing spectacularly in Syria today. In the case of the Assads, it’s like father, like son. Bashar – an ophthalmologist trained in the West, his wife hailed by Vogue as “a rose of the desert” – came to power promising a Damascus Spring. Instead he has delivered artillery attacks on civilians.

Only fools take despots at face value. I just wish my mother were around to see Bashar get his just deserts.

THE “APARTHEID STATE” THAT MINORITIES KEEP STRUGGLING TO GET INTO

The “Apartheid State” that minorities keep struggling to get into
By Ramzi Abu Hadid
Stonegate Institute
March 1, 2012

Prominent PLO spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi is demanding that the international community declare Israel an “Apartheid State.” Her demand was included in a statement she published in Ramallah this week: she accused Israel of incitement against Arabs and of violating international laws.

How come she never mentions the incitement of Palestinians against Israelis in the Palestinian government-issued textbooks, or in the schools and summer camps named after terrorists, or in the government-controlled TV stations which just last week again glorified terrorists with video celebrations again and again of the tenth anniversary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that over the years has killed dozens of Israelis, including many children?

How come Ashrawi never mentions that in Saudi Arabia there is not only gender apartheid – in which women have virtually no rights and are kept as virtual prisoners, unable to travel without the permission of a male guardian or relative, even if he is a child or retarded or mentally defective – but also that there are separate roads marked for Muslims to drive on and for non-Muslims to drive on? You are not even allowed to bring a Bible into the country. How come those acts are not “Apartheid”?

How come Ashrawi never mentions that here in Jordan the government has been trying to strip thousands of us Palestinians of our Jordanian citizenship – a move Israel never made against its Christians and Muslims.

As an Arab Christian, Ashrawi would have done better if she had chosen to focus on the plight of her fellow Christians in the Palestinian territories, many of whom continue to complain about persecution and harassment from Muslims.

Has Ashrawi, the self-declared human right rights advocate, never heard of thousands of the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who try to infiltrate into Israel every morning in search of work and a better life?

Why has it become the dream of many Arab Christians and Muslims to emigrate to the “Apartheid State”? Is it possible that all these people are uninformed? Or do they really know the truth about Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East? In Egypt, Syria, and Iran, for example, government officials put journalists in jail, but Israel is the only country in the region where one small journalist nobody has ever heard of can put a government official in jail.

In the past few decades, many Christian families from Bethlehem and even the Gaza Strip have moved to live in Israel because they feel safer in the “Apartheid State” than they do among their Muslim “brothers”.

Has Ashrawi ever asked herself how come dozens of Christians and Muslims from neighboring Arab countries and Africa try to infiltrate the border into Israel every day, or how come so many of her fellow Christians want to live in the “Apartheid State”?

Is Ashrawi aware of the fact that while Christians are being persecuted and slaughtered in the Arab world and Africa, the Jewish state remains the safest place for them to live? Is she aware that the Christian population in Israel is on the rise while in the Arab and Islamic world it is dwindling – and even faster in places such as Nigeria, Egypt and the Sudan where Muslims are slaughtering Christians?

What has Ashrawi done to promote the rights of women and freedom of speech under Hamas and Fatah?

On the same day that she issued her appeal to the international community, a Palestinian court in the West Bank sentenced a man to only five years in prison for murdering his sister. And on the same day also, Palestinian policemen raided a university campus near Ramallah and threatened peaceful protesters and reporters.

Tens of thousands of Arabs and Muslims have put their lives at risk by crossing the border into Israel from Egypt, where border guards often open fire at women and children.

Does Hanan Ashrawi really care about Palestinians, or is she just being paid by Europeans and Western NGOs to keep bashing the region’s only democratic country, which, though admittedly not perfect, still tries harder than any other to treat all of its people with decency and equality?

[All notes below by Tom Gross]

U.S. AND ISRAELI LEADERS MEET TODAY ON IRAN

U.S. President Obama holds talks with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the White House today. Despite considerable media speculation about friction between the two governments, there is likely to be a serious set of discussions about planning and tactics to try and prevent Iran building nuclear weapons.

Yesterday, President Obama gave a speech at the annual conference of the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC in Washington in which he tried to persuade his audience that stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear arsenal is as much an American policy as it is an Israeli one.

Many in Israel, however, don’t believe Obama is serious about this issue and will fail to act before Iran’s nuclear program is so well fortified and buried underground that it will become impossible to destroy from the air.

(For more recent background, please see: Weakness invites war (& “The coming attack on Iran”)

Supporters of Israel noted that Obama’s speech yesterday corrected some of the notions they considered offensive in his landmark Cairo speech of June 2009. For example, yesterday Obama referred to Israel as “the historic homeland of the Jewish people.”

Leading candidates to run against Obama on behalf of the Republican Party in the November elections criticized him yesterday. After Obama’s speech, Mitt Romney said at a campaign stop near Atlanta, “If Barack Obama gets re-elected, Iran will have a nuclear weapon, and the world will change if that’s the case.”

Speaking on CNN, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, said of the president’s Iran strategy: “We’re being played for fools. Israel is such a small country; it is so compact that two or three nuclear weapons would be equivalent to a second Holocaust.”

“HE DIDN’T QUITE HAVE A FULL GRASP OF WHAT THE FULL REGION LOOKS LIKE”

I attach a full transcript of Obama’s speech below.

For those who prefer to watch it on video, the official White House video is here:

www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2012/03/04/president-obama-2012-aipac-policy-conference

For an alternative view of Obama’s record on Israel, here is a new 30 minute film, titled “Daylight: The story of Obama and Israel”:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wbH5KVPrPo

This film is quite partisan against Obama, but several valid points are made in it.

“He didn’t quite have a full grasp of what the full region looks like,” leading Middle East expert Lee Smith says in the film. “This is not how you treat an ally.”

FORMER NEW YORK TIMES MIDEAST BUREAU CHIEF SPEAKS FOR ‘OCCUPY AIPAC’

Former New York Times Jerusalem correspondent Chris Hedges was one of several anti-Israel speakers at the “Occupy AIPAC” conference held this weekend in Washington to coincide with the AIPAC conference.

www.occupyaipac.org/summit/schedule2012/

Occupy AIPAC describes itself as “a coalition effort led by CODEPINK: Women for Peace and endorsed by Occupy Wall Street, Occupy DC, and over 130 organizations.”

***

I wrote the following about Hedges in a piece published in 2003:

www.tomgrossmedia.com/NewYorkTimes.htm

Another former Times correspondent, Chris Hedges (he was the Mideast bureau chief for the Times from 1991-95), is also continuing to make wild accusations against Israel. For instance, he wrote (Harper’s magazine, October 2001) that he has seen children shot in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Sarajevo, and mothers with infants lined up and massacred in Algeria, but that until going to Gaza he had “never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.”

We have only Hedges’s word for this claim, which was furiously rejected by the Israeli army (although Hedges doesn’t mention this in his piece). No other journalist in Gaza – and there are plenty of them – claims to have seen what Hedges does. Nevertheless, Harper’s was so impressed by the quote that they flagged it in very large type on the flap attached to the cover of the magazine, and National Public Radio was so excited that they invited Hedges to repeat his allegations on the air (“Fresh Air,” October 30, 2001). Of course, the Times can’t be held accountable for an article that appeared elsewhere, but one nevertheless has to wonder how balanced the reporters it assigns to the Middle East are.

HAMAS’ MILITARY WING PUBLICIZES OCCUPY AIPAC

On their website, here:

www.qassam.ps/news-5442-Occupy_AIPAC_to_Protest_Netanyahus_US_Visit.html

ISRAEL ASKS RED CROSS TO DELIVER ISRAELI HUMANITARIAN AID TO SYRIAN CIVILIANS

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced this morning that Israel has contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent and asked for their help in transferring Israeli humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians.

Lieberman said “The Jewish State cannot sit by and do nothing while these atrocities are taking place in a neighboring state and people are losing their entire world. Even though Israel cannot intervene in events occurring in a country with which it does not have diplomatic relations, it is nevertheless our moral duty to extend humanitarian aid and inspire the world to put an end to the slaughter.”