European money fuels Palestinian terror, says EU lawmaker

"A member of the European Union parliament this week criticized the practice of pouring European funds into the Palestinian Authority, insisting that it was only perpetuating the conflict by creating a welfare state.

Writing in London's Daily Telegraph, MP Daniel Hannan noted that "a welfare state is…the perfect terrorist habitat." He insisted that there is a direct connection between the fact that the Palestinians "receive more assistance, per capita, than any other people on Earth, and live in one of its most violent spaces."

Hannan said that as long as the Palestinians "remain trapped in the squalor of dependency," they will be left free to formulate and act upon violent ideologies instead of building their own economic future.

In addition to being politically foolish, Hannan also explained that EU financial aid to a Palestinian Authority that includes, and is in fact dominated by, Hamas is illegal.

"Many of the PA's officials are Hamas militants, whose salaries are being paid while they serve their sentences in Israeli jails," Hannan noted. "Under Brussels rules, funding such an organization is a criminal offense."

The EU has given the Palestinian Authority $500 million this year, and recently approved an additional $80 million."

Source: Israel Today

Daniel Hannan blog

Why one never thinks of the 870,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries

Source: Contra a corrente blog

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", George Santayana

"The 870,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries in the 1940s and 1950s similarly settled quietly in the United States, Europe and Israel. They aren’t out there blowing up Iraqi, Moroccan and Algerian embassies or airplanes, which is why you probably never think about them.

The list of people who were displaced by the events of World War II and decolonization is endless. The only group that anyone pays attention to is the Palestinians. If the Palestinians were to stop blowing up airplanes and pizza shops people would stop paying attention.

Arab leaders don’t care about non-violent Palestinians. As noted earlier, if you were an Arab leader there is no reason to care about your own subjects, much less members of very distant tribes. The only Arab nation that has offered Palestinians citizenship is Jordan; a Palestinian family that has lived in Egypt or Saudi Arabia for several generations will still be aliens with no right to permanent residence. Thus there are more than 4 million people officially classified as Palestinians refugees despite the fact that the final British census before the 1948 war found only about one million people of all religions living in Palestine. The primary agency for these stateless souls is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). If you visit their web site, you’ll see that the United States and European nations provide almost all of the funding. Historically in fact the western nations provided 100 percent of the funding for UNRWA, but in recent years Saudi Arabia has been shamed into chipping in. For 2002 the Saudis contributed $5.8 million, compared to a U.S. contribution of $120 million and Britain’s $30 million. Most Arab countries contribute less than the cost of a new Mercedes automobile.

Violent Palestinians, by contrast, have no trouble getting support from fellow Arabs. In April 2002 the Saudi state television network ran a telethon that raised more than $100 million to aid the families of the Palestinians suicide bombers. Iraqi, which contributes nothing to UNRWA, has been donating roughly $10 million per year to the families of suicide bombers. Iran, another state that contributes nothing to UNRWA, sends weapons and money to anti-Israel groups such as Hezbollah and Yasser Arafat’s army, most notably a 50-ton shipment of rockets and plastic explosives in January 2002 (notable because it was in violation of the agreements that Arafat had signed and because it was discovered and intercepted by the Israel Navy)."

From Philip Greenspun's essay "Israel" in Those Who Forget The Past by Ron Rosenbaum (Random House 2004)

Newspaper article on Beslan ignores Maalot school massacre

Source: UPJF
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Another illuminating example of slipshod journalism and short memories..

A reader of the French daily Directsoir complained that an article (Sept. 3) on the 2004 Beslan school massacre wrongly claimed that it was the first in history involving children being taken hostage and killed by terrorists. In fact, there was a precedent which the article does not mention : the Maalot school massacre perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists thirty years before.

The Beslan school massacre - 2004.

334 dead, including 186 children.

"It was the first day of classes. (...) That all changed when a group of armed Chechen separatists and Islamic fundamentalists took more than 1,200 school children and adults hostage on September 1, 2004, at School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania. Little did the children and parents know what the next 56 hours would bring... " Read more here.
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The Maalot school massacre - 1974

"The Ma'alot massacre was a school massacre in Ma'alot, Israel, that occurred on May 15, 1974.

On this date, the 26th anniversary of Israeli independence, three Arabs subsequently identified as members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), a faction affiliated with the PLO, broke into the high school in Ma'alot, a community in northern Israel, where a group of 100 14-16 year olds were sleeping on the floor after a day spent hiking.

The Arabs had infiltrated into Israel from Lebanon dressed as Israeli soldiers. They first attacked a van bringing Arab women home from work, killing two women and wounding one. They then infiltrated the town of Ma'alot and took over a local school, immediately killing a security guard, a student, and one other person. Some students managed to escape by jumping out of a window, but 90 or so students and some teachers were held as hostages.

The hostage-takers presented their demands the next morning: release 23 Arab militants from Israeli prisons, or they would kill the students. The deadline was set at 6:00 p.m. the same day.

The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, met in an emergency session, and by 3:00 p.m. a decision was reached to negotiate, but the terrorists refused a request for more time.

At 5:45 p.m., a unit of the elite Golani Brigade stormed the building. The hostage-takers were killed in the assault, along with 20 students and one Israeli soldier. Reports vary as to the exact circumstances of the killings. Some reports say that the hostage-takers detonated their grenades and shot the children. All told, 26 victims were killed and 71 were wounded.

The names of the 21 students who died during the assault: Ilana Turgeman, Rachel Aputa, Yocheved Mazoz, Sarah Ben-Shim'on, Yona Sabag, Yafa Cohen. Shoshana Cohen, Michal Sitrok, Malka Amrosy, Aviva Saada, Yocheved Diyi, Yaakov Levi, Yaakov Kabla, Rina Cohen, Ilana Ne'eman, Sarah Madar, Tamar Dahan, Sarah Soper, Lili Morad, David Madar, Yehudit Madar."

Violence explained in Palestinians' own words

Source: Contra a corrente blog
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", George Santayana

"It may be a mistake to look too deep into Palestinian poverty for the roots of Palestinian violence. For most violent Palestinians we need not conjecture as to the motivation for their violence because they’ve explained it in their own words. Here is an excerpt from the Palestinian National Charter, July 1-17, 1968:

"Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit. [Note that this would include the present-day country Jordan, 70 percent of the land of the original British Palestine, split off and handed to Emir Abdullah in 1923.]

Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.

Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war.

The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations; particularly the right to self-determination."

Hamas has a web site where they explain their goals:

"Hamas is a Jihadi movement in the broad sense of the word Jihad. It is part of the Islamic awakening movement and upholds that this awakening is the road which will lead to the liberation of Palestine form the river to the sea.

[Settlement with the State of Israel] should not be allowed to happen because the land of the Palestine is a blessed Islamic land that has been usurped by the Zionists; and Jihad has become a duty for Muslims to restore it and expel their occupiers out of their land."

Hezbollah also has a web site where they explain their objectives:

"Because Hezbollah’s ideological ideals sees no legitimacy for the existence of "Israel" a matter that elevates the contradictions to the level of existence. And the conflict becomes one of legitimacy that is based on religious ideals… And that is why we also find the slogan of the liberation of Jerusalem rooted deeply in the ideals of Hezbollah. Another of its ideals is the establishment of an Islamic Government…

Hezbollah also used one of its own special types of resistance against the Zionist enemy that is the suicide attacks. These attacks dealt great losses to the enemy on all thinkable levels such as militarily and mentally. The attacks also raised the moral across the whole Islamic nation…

Hezbollah also sees itself committed in introducing the true picture of Islam, the Islam that is logical. Committed to introduce the civilized Islam to humanity."

Note that if we take seriously the words of the Palestinian fighters, we can ignore 99 percent of the journalism and punditry to which we are exposed. The guys with the guns have explained very clearly why they are fighting and under what conditions they will lay down their arms. Their reasons for fighting and their conditions for peace have nothing to do with day-to-day events."

From Philip Greenspun's essay "Israel" in Those Who Forget The Past by Ron Rosenbaum (Random House 2004)

Former Italian President: We Signed Pact With Terrorists

Here we have Aldo Moro, a highly respected European politician, secretly signing a "non-belligerence pact" with terrorist groups intent on the destruction of Israel, while cynically blaming Israel all along for the violence. Democratic countries' past engagement with terrorists helps explain present-day European attitudes towards Israel.

Source: Arutz Sheva

"In a letter appearing in the weekend edition of the respected Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga revealed that the government of Italy agreed to allow Arab terrorist groups freedom of movement in the country in exchange for immunity from attacks in Italy.

Cossiga wrote that the government of the late Prime Minister Aldo Moro reached a "secret non-belligerence pact between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance organizations, including terrorist groups," in the 1970s. According to the former president, it was Moro himself who designed the terms of the agreement with the foreign Arab terrorists. Ironically, Moro later met his death at the hands of homegrown Italian terrorists, the Red Brigades, in 1978.

"The terms of the agreement were that the Palestinian organizations could even maintain armed bases of operation in the country, and they had freedom of entry and exit without being subject to normal police controls, because they were 'handled' by the secret services," Cossiga explained.

As Interior Minister, Cossiga said that he learned PLO members in Italy had diplomatic immunity as representatives of the Arab League. When he became alarmed by the heavy weapons defenses installed around the homes of PLO members living in Rome, the guards were persuaded to switch to light arms.

Cossiga was later elected president of Italy from 1985-1992 and is today a senator-for-life in the Italian legislature.

In his letter, the former Italian president also linked the Arab terrorist groups of the 1970s with the Italian far-left. According to Cossiga, he received a telegram from the head of an anti-Israel terrorist group headquartered at the time in Beirut requesting the return of one of their surface-to-air missiles that had gone missing. The missile was intercepted by Italian police while being "driven on the streets by a well-known ideologue of the extra-parliamentary left!" Cossiga wrote.

In an article in Corriere della Sera the week before Cossiga's admission, a former leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) also claimed that his terror group and the Italian leadership had reached an accord protecting Italy from attack in exchange for Italian non-interference in PFLP activities in Italy. The former PFLP boss, Bassam Abu Sharif, later became a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and personal advisor to the late terrorist leader Yasser Arafat.

While there were several terrorist attacks on targets in Italy in the years following the alleged "protection" deal, most of them could be traced to Abu Nidal's terrorist organization. Abu Nidal rejected the authority of the PLO leadership and many of his attacks, including those in Rome, were assassinations of PLO figures and other Arab diplomats."

Related:
Italy's ex-president admits terror deal

Belgian newspaper journalist held by Hezbollah in Beirut

Imagine the uproar that such a blatant act of intimidation against a journalist would have caused had it happened in Israel.

French freelance journalist David Hury tells in an article in the Belgian daily Le Soir how he was detained and intimidated by Hezbollah supporters. Hury was taking photographs at the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold, when he was stopped. He was questioned about his private life, professional activities and was forced to disclose his e-mail box password. His ordeal lasted six hours.

Both Reporters Without Borders and Le Soir issued statements about the incident.

As an aside, it is ironic that Hezbollah treated this badly a journalist on assignment for Le Soir whose coverage of Israel is notoriously hostile... but maybe not enough to Hezbollah's liking.

- Belgian newspaper Le Soir claims that Israel prefers Western immigrants
- Belgian newspaper Le Soir shows picture of bodies of Palestinian children
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Israel battles Spanish arrest warrants, by Ksenia Svetlova

Terrorists never let up and use any opportunity - in this case the legal system of a Western democracy - to advance their cause. What is happening in Spain confirms that Europe has become their favourite ground to wage opportunistic "legal combats". In this instance, the Spanish Government seems to be taking steps to avoid a Spanish re-play of the shambles caused in Belgium by the ludicrously unlimited law of universal jurisdiction. It is nonetheless worrying that they have been able to get this far.

Source: The Jerusalem Post

"Israel is battling hard to overturn a Spanish court's decision to issue arrest warrants against six current and former politicians and senior military officials, a source in the Attorney-General's Office told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Late last month, Audiencia Nacional, the National Court of Spain (the highest Spanish judicial council), issued arrest warrants against the six - Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Doron Almog, Moshe Ya'alon, Dan Halutz, Giora Eiland and Mike Herzog - accepting a petition from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights that suggested they were guilty of war crimes in the Gaza Strip during the summer of 2002.

At that time, Ben-Eliezer was serving as a defense minister; Ya'alon was IDF chief of General Staff; Eiland headed the National Security Council; Halutz was commander of the IAF, Almog was OC Southern Command and Herzog was a senior Defense Ministry official.

The plaintiffs claimed that Ben-Eliezer personally oversaw the killing of Hamas commander Salah Shehadeh, a Palestinian terror chief who was responsible for killing of dozens of Israelis, in which 14 civilians also died. Israel subsequently apologized for the civilian deaths.

The Foreign Ministry has said only that the matter is being taken care of. However, the Post has learned from a source in the Attorney-General's Office that active negotiations between Madrid and Jerusalem are taking place to overturn the warrants.

This is not the first time that PCHR has filed suit against high-ranking Israeli military commanders, but if the court's decision is not reversed it will set a disturbing precedent in international law, said Ofer Zalzberg, co-chairman of YIFC (Young Israeli Forum for Cooperation), an organization that promotes relations between Israel and the European Union.

Zalzberg recalled a 2005 incident in which Almog, travelling to London to raise funds for handicapped children, stayed in his plane upon arrival in London rather than risk arrest. Shortly thereafter, a British warrant for his arrest was revoked. (...)

Almog told the Post that he believes the warrants issued against him, first by the British and now by Spanish courts, are not directed at him personally, but at Israel and its right to defend itself.

"Some elements with very clear motives and intentions use these lawsuits as a weapon against Israel. The combat between Israel and terrorists continues on different scenes, and the legal scene is just one of them," he said. "I don't think the decision of the Spanish court indicates a crisis in Israel-EU relations, but it seems that these elements exploit the law in these countries to act against the State of Israel.""
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Condolence messages to the Regev and Goldwasser families

"Written by Anglican Friends of Israel

Send a condolence message to the Regev and Goldwasser families: Two years after they were captured and killed by Hizbollah, the bodies of IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser were returned to Israel last week. The families are sitting shiva (mourning period) until today, Wednesday 23 July, and the Jewish Agency has arranged to deliver any condolence messages we send directly to the two families.

To send a condolence letter via the internet click here. Letters can also be sent via fax to +972 2 620 2708 or by email to mailto:solidarity@jafi.org"

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Ex-hostage Ingrid Betancourt calls for Gilad Shalit's release

"Former French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt, who was freed earlier this month along with 14 other hostages after being held by the Farc rebels in Colombia, called Sunday for the release of all those still held hostage in the world and displayed a large photo of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who was kidnapped near Gaza by Palestinians two years ago.

Shalit has dual French and Israeli citizenship.

Several thousand people gathered for a concert at the Trocadéro near the Eiffel Tower in Paris to take part in one of a series of demonstrations around the world to protest the kidnappings by the Colombian marxist guerrillas.

During the Paris event, Betancourt spoke out for other prisoners held throughout the world, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest in her native Myanmar, and Gilad Shalit.

She held a large sign with Shalit's photo. The sign read, "Gilad Shalit, kidnapped since June 2006."

"We want freedom for everyone," said Betancourt, drawing loud applause from the crowd, many of whom chanted the Spanish word for freedom "Libertad!"."

Source: EJP

Muslim organization threatens legal action against Harry's Place blog

This is an article by Jonny Paul in TJP:

"The head of a leading UK Muslim organization is threatening legal action against a popular blog for posting a statement made by him in which he allegedly used the phrase "evil Jew".

The blog Harry's Place said that in an address made in Arabic to Al-Jazeera at last month's Salute to Israel parade in London's Trafalgar Square, Mohammed Sawalha, president of the British Muslim Initiative (BMI) and founder of the annual Islam Expo, a four-day event enhancing understanding of Islam in Britain, had said: "We, the Arab and Islamic community, gather here today to express our resentment at the celebrations by the Jewish community and the [evil Jew/Jewish evil] in Britain." The speech was reported on Harry's Place, which claimed Al-Jazeera had changed the controversial word appearing in its original report, translated as "evil or "baneful" by the blog, to "lobby" some time later.

Harry's Place said that Sawalha was a key figure in the Muslim Brotherhood and the BBC identifies him as a senior Hamas activist. He is also a trustee of the North London Mosque, formerly the controversial Finsbury Park Mosque - frequented by Al-Qaeda operatives including "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui.

Denying the allegation, BMI issued a press release which it posed in the comments section of the blog entry, and Al-Jazeera reporter Medyan Dairieh who also appears in the thread, insisted that Sawalha had spoken of the "Jewish lobby".

Describing Sawalha as a promoter of "community relations and cultural dialogue" and objecting to him being demonized as a "Jew-hater", the BMI accused Harry's Place of "deliberately skewing the word "lobby".

In response, Harry's Place said: "I do not know Mr Sawalha. However, if he is a senior Hamas activist, and a supporter of that organization, I cannot imagine he has anything positive to contribute to 'community relations.' Moreover, it is very unlikely that any British court would regard it as defamatory to describe a Hamas activist as a racist. Hamas is a proudly racist and genocidal terrorist organization."Former Muslim Association of Britain president Anas Altikriti then wrote to the editors of Harry's Place stating that Sawalha comments "contained a fundamental factual error".

"Therefore, we trust that you will withdraw the said piece with immediate effect and post an explanation of what had taken place, particularly now that some commentators, including Melanie Phillips [here and here], seem to have copied your quote, including the error aforementioned and used it for their own purposes. If this is not done immediately, we will have to pursue legal measures."

Last week, lawyers representing Sawalha wrote to the editors of Harry's Place threatening legal action. In the letter, London-based lawyers Dean and Dean insisted that their client had not made the alleged comments.

"We have received confirmation from Arab language experts that the Arabic word for 'lobby' was simply misspelled, resulting in a nonsensical word which meant nothing; least of all 'evil'," the letter said.

"What in fact was said in place of the words 'evil/noxious' was 'lobby'. Al-Jazeera immediately corrected the typing error when it was noticed and the Web site reflects this," it added.

The letter went on to say that unless the posting was removed and an apology published, action on grounds of defamation would be issued.

Harry's Place has denied the posting is defamatory and have said that they intend to defend the claim "vigorously"."

Support Harry’s Place Blogburst

Lebanon: barbaric unity around Samir Kuntar

Editorial in TJP:

"Putting decades of vicious sectarian, political and personality differences aside, Lebanon's body politic came together Wednesday night in a heartfelt display of national unity: Samir Kuntar had been brought home.

After a nearly 30-year absence, there he stood before the frantic multitude, this progeny of Lebanon - whose road to manhood took him from out-of-control juvenile delinquent to adolescent child-killer to unremorseful mature terrorist - in army fatigues, waving the Lebanese and Hizbullah flags, arm outstretched in the Hizbullah salute, a manic glint in his eyes. A true son of his country.

In a flash, the face of the new Lebanon was unmasked. As celebratory music helped work the crowd into a frenzy, and with Kuntar and several other released terrorists on stage as props, the real "hero" and personification of that new Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, emerged for a few moments - his first appearance since January. The Druse-born Kuntar impulsively kissed his beaming hero. Nasrallah did not reciprocate.

"The age of defeats is gone, and the age of victories has come. This people, this nation gave a great and clear image today to its friends and enemies that it cannot be defeated," Nasrallah told the jubilant crowd.

He was then whisked away by bodyguards to a hiding place from which he delivered the rest of his address, broadcast over a gigantic screen set up in the south Beirut square where the welcoming ceremonies were held.

"One of the greatest fortunes is that the unity government welcomed the freed prisoners," Nasrallah declared.

A while earlier the red carpet had been rolled out at Beirut International Airport, as warlords and politicians from rival factions welcomed Kuntar and the other released gunmen as national heroes.

Druse leader Walid Jumblatt proudly recalled that his father, Kamal (assassinated by Syria), had been in the vanguard of Lebanon's Palestinian cause. Christian Maronite president Michael Aoun [Michel Sleiman ?] cited Lebanese unity in the struggle against the Jewish state and commitment to "the return of the Palestinians to their land." Nabih Berri, speaker of the Lebanese parliament and boss of the Shi'ite Amal movement, was there, as was "pro-American" Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, a Sunni Muslim.

Rounding out the delegation were the Sunni majority leader of parliament, Saad Hariri (whose father was also assassinated by Syria) and Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun. They put aside their own differences and their disputes with Nasrallah to give each of the returning "militants" a hug and a kiss.

A vital lesson Israeli strategists must draw from this nauseating display of perverted unity: Lebanon and Hizbullah are one. If, heaven forbid, there is another war, the IDF must wage it with ferocity - not on Hizbullah's terms, but across the Lebanese battlefield. (...)

Now that Lebanon and Hizbullah have apparently melded, the self-defeating legacy of IDF inhibition must end. At the start of the Second Lebanon War, former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz warned bombastically that Israel would "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years" if Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were not returned.

No one took him seriously - Israel would never punish "good Lebanon" for the crimes of "bad Hizbullah." The IAF limited itself to mostly targeting Islamist strongholds. But if Lebanon and Hizbullah are now one, Israel needs a radically revised strategy for winning a war on Lebanese soil.

Artificial distinctions between "Lebanese" and "Hizbullah" targets were swept away by Wednesday's display of barbaric unity. Lebanon was revealed in its hostile unanimity. If new conflict comes, Israel must internalize that unanimity of hate-filled purpose, and defeat it decisively."

Kuntar's photo via Israelly Cool: Separated at Birth: Heil Kuntar Edition