Israellycool

Down Under Punditry in the Middle East

Author Archive

Where Is The “Palestinian Aliyah” Movement?

Monday, May 12th, 2008

As Israel’s 60th anniversary passes, and the news media goes out of its way to contrast the past sixty years from the Israeli and Palestinian Arab perspectives, one question not being asked is: where is the ideological core of Palestinian Arab nationhood?

From following articles by Palestinian Arabs in the West decrying Israeli “crimes” and pretending to yearn for their land, one is struck by a simple fact: most if not all of them live, quite comfortably, outside “Palestine.” From universities in the US and the UK they rail about “justice” and the suffering of their people - but none of them seem to want to actually move to “Palestine.”

It’s not like it is so hard. Even if Israel limits immigration, there is no shortage of ways to get in from Jordan. Tens of thousands of opportunistic Jordanians did exactly that during the early Oslo years as it appeared that the economy in the West Bank was poised to leapfrog Jordan’s.

It is instructive to compare the early ideological Zionists, many of whom of whom risked their lives for a very uncertain future in Palestine (even before Herzl), and today’s “settlers” who do the same, with today’s ideological Palestinian Arab nationalists who are quite happy to pontificate from afar.

The lives of the early Zionists were no more secure in Palestine than in the West. It was far from clear that they would be able to build a homeland successfully. Yet they sacrificed themselves for an idea that they believed strongly in.

Similarly, there are hundreds of thousands of Jews - today’s pioneers - who choose to live across the Green Line. They build schools, clinics, farms, against the wishes of not only the Arab world but most of the West and sometimes even their own government. Yet they choose to stay, and more choose to move there. Even if you disagree with them you must admit that they have a strong ideological core that makes them want to move there.

But where are the Palestinian Arabs who grew up in the West? They stay in the West. The ideology of “return” is great to talk about, but not so important to live.

Palestinian Arabs have hijacked the terminology of the Jews (”Diaspora,” for example) but they have always suffered from a black hole at the center of their ideology: their most passionate nationalists were either terrorists or lived outside Palestine altogether, with no desire to build the land.

Of course they applaud and encourage the miserable Palestinian Arabs who live in the Middle East to have lots of children so the next generation will be even more miserable. They are in the forefront of screaming “Zionism=Nazi” in left-wing rags. But they simply do not put their money where their mouths are.

Because they really don’t care nearly as much about a Palestinian Arab state as they do about the destruction of a Jewish state.

Proud to be a Zionist (5768 Edition)

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

In prayers every morning Jews say a phrase praising G-d, describing Him as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית - He who continually renews the act of Creation. In other words, the Jewish concept of G-d has him in an active role keeping the universe running, and as such it is appropriate to praise Him.

It is a little hard to conceptualize this idea, that the very laws of physics, of the world turning and revolving around the sun is not automatic, but only occurs due to the constant will of G-d. But perhaps it is easier to understand this phrase if we apply it to the modern state of Israel.

Every single day that the Jewish state continues to exist cannot be explained adequately with historical or social or military reasons. Which means that we are witnessing a miracle every day.

The most recent years have been very hard for Zionists, as well as for religious Zionists. Some have been having a crisis of faith in Zionism, given the actions of the current government. Yet when we step back and look at the big picture, Israel remains something to be very proud of.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like - and possibly more than - any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF is conducting itself during the current war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, and murdered in cold blood. We may argue whether the IDF’s moral standards end up being counterproductive, but what other army could one even have this discussion about?

I am proud of how the IDF is performing doing the most difficult type of battle, urban warfare, while maintaining amazing professionalism under fire and minimizing its own casualties. I defy anyone to find any other nation who has performed as well — and as ethically — under similar circumstances as Israel has done during the current conflict.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war situation. Any other nation, again besides the US, would have imposed martial law to maintain peace.

I am proud of how the IDF responded to the terror attacks of the early days fo the intifada, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks down from 60 in 2002 down to a single attack in 2007. The enemy has not stopped trying, and if Israel hadn’t acted decisively things would look like Iraq today. For every “successful” attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous.

I am also proud of how ordinary Israelis responded to the dark days of 2002-2004. People who lost loved one created charities in their honor; responding to horror with amazing strength and selflessness.

I am proud that Israel will investigate any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keep trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the Palestinian people. And over the years of the “intifada” we can see that the number of civilians killed accidentally by Israel has gone down dramatically. I challenge anyone to find an example of a country that was as restrained under these circumstances as Israel has been.

I am proud that Israel takes steps to stop vigilante actions from its own citizens living in impossible conditions.

And, of course, I am proud of Israel’s many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, world class universities and culture. A tiny nation, under constant siege, with almost no natural resources besides breathtaking beauty, has used its brains - and strength - to build a modern success story. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming.

I am proud that the vast majority of Americans support Israel as I do, and that the rabid terror-lovers we see on the Internet are the aberration.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Right after the Jewish prayer phrase I quoted above is this one: ‘ מה רבו מעשיך ה , “How great are Your works, O G-d.” It is easy to find faults but in the big picture, the accomplishments are remarkable and need to be highlighted.

The word “Zionist” is not an epithet - it is a compliment.

More Reuters Propaganda for Palestinian Arabs

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Another one-sided story from Reuters, filled with half-truths:

While Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, Palestinian refugees mourn the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) when they lost their homeland.

Perhaps the word “refused” would be more accurate than “lost”?

Often ignored in Middle East peace talks, they cling to a “right of return”.

Ignored? They have been held up as the major issue by Arab leaders for sixty years!

Alia Shabati was 12 when she fled Jewish attacks on her village of Kabri, captured a few days after Israel’s creation….

The fate of Kabri was part of what Palestinians — and some Israeli scholars — say was systematic ethnic cleansing ordered by Zionist leaders to clear the way for the Jewish state.

Israel rejects this, saying the refugee problem resulted from a war launched by Palestinians opposed to the U.N. partition plan adopted on November 29, 1947, and by Arab states which invaded as soon as the British Mandate expired on May 15, 1948.

Notice that Reuters cannot say that any historians agree with the Israeli version of history. No, all historians in the Reuters universe agree with the “ethnic cleansing” slander - even “some Israeli scholars,” and the only people who cling to a narrative where Israel is not completely evil is the Israeli government itself.

The bias is stunning, if not unexpected.

Israel firmly opposes letting any refugees return to their original homes, on the grounds that this would effectively destroy the Jewish state by threatening its Jewish majority.

And possibly because the Arabs who left are the ones who want to see a genocide of Jews in the Middle East.

In recent years, camp conditions have worsened everywhere as UNRWA, the cash-strapped agency that helps Palestinian refugees, becomes less able to provide adequate health and education.

“Palestinian refugees now, more than at any time in the last 60 years, face a serious decline in services,” said Sayigh.

Any chance that Reuters will mention that the word “refugee” has a completely different meaning that is unique to Palestinian Arabs, that UNRWA created?

Another day, another piece of garbage masking as “journalism” from Reuters.

The First Refugees of the War of Independence Were Jews

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

We will be hearing a lot in the next couple of weeks about the “Nakba” and how hundreds of thousands of Arabs became refugees.

Probably the largest flight of Arabs occurred in Jaffa in April and May of 1948, and many websites have weepy articles about how the Jews drove the Arabs out of Jaffa, reducing its Arab population from 75,000 to less than 5,000.

What will not be mentioned is the fact that the first refugees from Jaffa were Jews.

In August, 1947, the Arabs started shooting at Jews in Jaffa. Since Jaffa was a predominantly Arab town, the lives of the Jews there were particularly precarious. Arab snipers shot from the minaret of a mosque in the Manshieh Quarter and forced 18 Jewish families to leave the city.

For three months, the families (except for the children) had to sleep outside, until accomodations were found for them in Tel Aviv.

The homes that belonged to the Jews were meanwhile occupied by Arabs.

From the Palestine Post:

Things quieted down in anticipation of the UN decision on partition, as the Palestinian Arabs used political means to make sure that the Jewish state would never come to fruition. But as soon as the UN voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab nations, the Arabs attacked immediately, and once again the Jews of Jaffa bore the brunt.

This time, about 5000 Jews (mostly Yemenites) lost their homes, and the Jewish authorities scrambled to find accommodations for them.

Meanwhile, the Jaffa Arabs who left in November and December of 1947 were hardly “refugees.” They were upper-class Arabs who could afford to move to Amman and Damascus and Beirut, in anticipation of a repeat of the 1936-9 riots when they moved as well. Like in 1936, they expected to move back to their houses after things died down. By no stretch of the imagination can these people be regarded as “refugees” even though they are counted as such today.

Their move away from Jaffa affected the rest of the residents, though, as they closed their businesses and unemployment skyrocketed in the coming months. This was one of the major factors behind the mass flight from Jaffa in April and May, 1948.

But the first ones to be forced to leave their homes were not Palestinian Arabs, but Palestinian Jews.

Algerians Naming Their Daughters “Gaza Strip”

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Firas Press reports that an Algerian town has started naming daughters “Gaza” in solidarity with Palestinian Arabs who live there.

Given the sewage problems there, let’s hope that the babies don’t suffer from severe diarrhea.

The Teacher Who Was a Bombmaker

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Last week we reported on an Islamic Jihad rocket-maker who was also a UNRWA employee.

Now, Reuters has an “exclusive”:

By day, Awad al-Qiq was a respected science teacher and headmaster at a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip. By night, Palestinian militants say, he built rockets for Islamic Jihad.

The Israeli air strike that killed the 33-year-old last week also laid bare his apparent double life and embarrassed a U.N. agency which has long had to rebuff Israeli accusations that it has aided and abetted guerrillas fighting the Jewish state.

In interviews with Reuters, students and colleagues, as well as U.N. officials, denied any knowledge of Qiq’s work with explosives. And his family denied he had any militant links at all, despite a profusion of Islamic Jihad posters at his home.

But militant leaders allied to the enclave’s ruling Hamas group hailed him as a martyr who led Islamic Jihad’s “engineering unit” — its bomb makers. They fired a salvo of improvised rockets into Israel in response to his death.

Qiq’s body was wrapped in an Islamic Jihad flag at his funeral, pictorial posters in his honour still bedeck his family home this week, and a handwritten notice posted on the metal gate at the entrance to the school declared that Qiq, “the chief leader of the engineering unit”, would now find “paradise”.

That poster was removed soon after Reuters visited the Rafah Prep Boys School, run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. Staff there said on Monday that UNRWA officials had told them not to discuss Qiq’s activities.

Spokesman Christopher Gunness said UNRWA, which spelled its teacher’s surname al-Geeg, was looking into the matter.

It is amazing that the UNRWA cannot confirm whether a person was an employee five days after the fact. (My email to them asking for confirmation has not been answered.) And it is obvious that this poster at the school was there for a number of days until reporters started asking questions.

Here is where Reuters shows how it takes Palestinian Arab lies at face value:

While many in Gaza are open about political allegiances, the threat of the kind of Israeli action that cost him his life on April 30 meant Qiq’s double role was kept very secret indeed.

Surrounded by Islamic Jihad mourning posters at the family home, his sister Naima insisted: “He’s only a teacher and head of the school. School was his life. He had no time to work with Islamic Jihad.” Other family members nodded in agreement.

At the school, a 17-year-old who gave his name as Shadi read a poster for his former teacher and said simply: “Nobody knew.”

How many 33-year old teachers would decorate their houses with heroic Islamic Jihad posters? His family knows what to say to the press, and they are ever-mindful of the UNRWA pension.

UNRWA Runs Out of Fuel - Guess Whose Fault It Is?

Monday, May 5th, 2008

Once again, the UNRWA in Gaza will have to curtail some of its operations due to a fuel shortage.

Whose fault is it?

AFP writes:

The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees is to suspend its food aid distribution in Gaza on Monday because of a lack of fuel caused by the Israeli blockade, a spokesman said on Sunday.

Sounds like Israel’s fault, right?

Reuters adds a little more info:

The United Nations is set to halt delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip on Monday because its vehicles have run out of fuel, a U.N. official said. Gaza has been facing a fuel shortage because of Israeli restrictions on supplies and a strike by Palestinian fuel distributors.

Slightly better , but go down a few more paragraphs to the end of the article and all of a sudden you learn a couple of tiny, salient facts:

An Israeli official said some diesel fuel intended for Gaza’s power station had passed through on Sunday, but the transfer was halted when militants attacked the Nahal Oz fuel depot on the Israeli side of the Gaza border with mortar bombs.

The official added that as well as diesel for electricity and cooking gas, Israel was prepared to transfer petrol and diesel for vehicles but he said Gazans were not able to take delivery.

The Gaza fuel association said it went on strike to protest over Israel’s supply limits which were cut back sharply after Palestinian militants attacked the Nahal Oz depot last month killing two Israeli civilians.

One would think that Gazans, supposedly so desperate for fuel, shooting mortars at their fuel suppliers would be somewhat more newsworthy than a throwaway paragraph at the end of a story implying Israel is withholding fuel to cause a humanitarian crisis. In fact, Israel tried to send the needed amounts over and were stopped by terrorists. Shouldn’t that be made clear in the lede?

But then again, AFP and Reuters might have a little bit of an agenda.

Arabs Reneging on Promised Pledges to Palestinians

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

From BBC:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed that pledges made at the Paris conference were for the Palestinian people, not the US.

“Clearly when you make a pledge you ought to fulfil it,” she said after the talks.

US officials say that of $717m promised by Arab League members, only $153m of Arab pledges have been delivered, all from three countries: Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Algeria.

Ms Rice was careful not to pinpoint individual Arab states for criticism.

It should be noted that Arab pledges only accounted for about 10% of the total pledges made at the donor conference, despite huge windfall oil profits and non-stop rhetoric about how important the Palestinian issue is to them.

Press reports of the conference show that Kuwait pledged $300 million at the time and has evidently not delivered a penny. Saudi Arabia pledged $500 million and the UAE $300 million, all over three years. I could find no reports of any pledges from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen or other Arab countries.

Which goes to show that Arab nations care less about their Palestinian brethren than the West does.

AP Still Getting its Facts Wrong

Monday, April 28th, 2008

It has been a few hours since Israel determined that the Gaza blast that killed most of a family was the result of a secondary explosion from targeted terrorists outside the house carrying munitions.

AP’s Ibrahim Barzak is now reporting Israel’s side of the story, but very skeptically:

In a statement, the military said explosives carried by the militants were detonated by an Israeli airstrike, and the blast from the explosives hit the house, not a tank shell, “and uninvolved civilians were hit.” Palestinians said the militants were at least 400 yards from the house and none of the fighters were killed near the structure.

But the most detailed Gaza based account of the events, from PCHR which blames Israel for the explosion, show that this last sentence is a lie:

At approximately 8:15, an IOF plane fired a rocket at a group of resistance members near Abdallah Azzam Mosque, southwest of Izbit Abd Rabbou, approximately 1000 meters away from the main area of the incursion. The rocket fell 10 meters away from the house of Ahmad Eid Hassan Abu Me’tiq, seriously injuring a resistance member. Less than a minute later two rockets were fired at the same area and landed at the door of the same house, killing another resistance member: Ibrahim Salem Suliman Hajouj (20). Shrapnel from the rockets destroyed the house door and spread inside the house. Meyasar Metliq Abu Me’tiq (40) and her 6 children were eating breakfast only 2 meters away from the door. The shrapnel killed four of the children immediately. The mother was seriously injured; and the other two children were moderately injured. The mother later died of her wounds. In addition, 10 bystanders were injured, some of them sustaining moderate to serious injuries.

The AP cannot do basic fact-checks to show that their Palestinian Arab sources are, simply, liars, and by quoting them credulously they make it appear that the evidence supports the Palestinian Arab story and not the Israeli version. They are doing a better job than the thousand-odd “news” stories that don’t even acknowledge Israel’s claims, but they still fail basic journalism principles.

Meanwhile, I cannot find any pictures of the house to see whether it looks like some shrapnel went through the door or if a major blast occurred right outside.

Revealing the UNRWA’s True Colors

Friday, April 25th, 2008

I mentioned on Wednesday in my blog that the UNRWA in the West Bank went on a planned 3 day strike - stopping food distribution and other services - in response to attacks and threats on UNRWA personnel by Palestinian Arabs.

And these events were not mentioned, as far as I could tell, on the UN or UNRWA websites (although their concurrent suspension activities in Gaza in response to fuel shortages were mentioned.)

Why does the supposedly neutral UNRWA go out of its way to mention anything that can be blamed on Israel and downplay things that Palestinian Arabs do to them?

I emailed the UNRWA three times - first to their public information office, then to their West Bank PR office, and finally to Christopher Gunness, who is also one of the UNRWA’s press liaisons:

Dear Mr. Gunness:

I read in Palestine Today Wednesday morning that UNRWA is closing its offices in the West Bank in protest from being forced to close earlier this month by protesters. I could not, however, find any press release from UNRWA concerning this, nor about the protests earlier this month reported in PNN.

Can you please comment on what is happening and any background information you might have? I originally sent the email to the main public information office 24 hours ago, and then to the West Bank PIO last night, but received no response.

Thank you,

Elder of Ziyon

Here is Gunness’ response in its entirety:

HI there,

There had been problems but these have now been avoided for the time being.

Chris

That’s it. Nothing specific, no confirmation of what I had mentioned, no pointers to any press releases I might have missed - nada.

To the UNRWA, violent attacks by the people they are meant to help are embarrassing events that should never be mentioned to the public because the UNRWA is emotionally invested in making sure that the Palestinian Arabs appear purely as victims and never - never - as being partially responsible for their own problems.

Their website contains megabytes of information about the 1948 “nakba” but to find out the real source of their problems nowadays one must decipher doublespeak that is buried deep within. For example:

With more than 9,000 people crammed into an area 650 meters by 200 meters, Neirab camp near Aleppo has a population density that sadly rivals Gaza. Most of the population lives in small one-room shelters. Depending on the time of day, these tiny rooms may serve as living rooms, salons or bedrooms.

Um Hashem, Neirab resident, outlines in gestures how six people can sleep in twelve square metres: four people lay sideways across the room. Meanwhile, Um Hashem lies lengthways, clutching her two-month-old son.

It has been close quarters in Neirab camp since the first Palestine refugees fled their homeland to Syria in 1948, where they were put up in abandoned WWII barracks. Originally, each barrack in the former British and French military base housed sixteen families. With successive generations the camp population increased, however the size of the camp has stayed the same. To address overcrowding, an infrastructural overhaul has become necessary.

In Phase I of the Neirab Rehabilitation Project, UNRWA built new shelters for Neirab refugees in the nearby camp of Ein el Tal, which does not suffer from the same overcrowding. This phase is drawing to a close with 300 families relocating to new shelters. Their decampment will provide additional space for the refugees still residing in Neirab.

Volker Schimmel, UNRWA Project Officer for the Neirab Rehabilitation Project, insists that although the living conditions of Palestine refugees in Neirab must be improved considerably, the project is not calling into question their right of return. “We want to allow Palestinians to live in dignity,” he states. “Choosing not to live in misery does not mean that they will forfeit their right of return.”

In English, this last paragraph means that any UNRWA attempts to build better housing for Palestinian Arabs in camps has been roadblocked for 60 years by “Arab leaders” who think that happier Palestinian Arabs may lead some of them to not want to destroy Israel quite as much, which reduces their usefulness considerably. The UNRWA doesn’t even try to pressure Arab governments to allow PalArabs to become citizens any more - they abandoned that decades ago, unlike the UNHCR, which is actually dedicated to reducing the number of refugees under its care.

The UNRWA might have its private frustrations with the Palestinian Arab leaders who fight tooth and nail against the welfare of real-life Palestinian Arabs, but it will only publicly blame Israel.

The Washington Post Acts Just Like Carter

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Once again, the Washington Post gives legitimacy to a mass-murdering terrorist, and it seems that they are doing it because of Jimmy Carter. Some lowlights:

Last week’s attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot should not surprise critics in the West. Palestinians are fighting a total war waged on us by a nation that mobilizes against our people with every means at its disposal — from its high-tech military to its economic stranglehold, from its falsified history to its judiciary that “legalizes” the infrastructure of apartheid. Resistance remains our only option. Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world’s largest open-air prison, can do no less.

He applauds the Arab murder of innocents and in the next breath compares Gazans who support the mass murder of Jews to Jews slated for genocide.

Our movement fights on because we cannot allow the foundational crime at the core of the Jewish state — the violent expulsion from our lands and villages that made us refugees — to slip out of world consciousness, forgotten or negotiated away. Judaism — which gave so much to human culture in the contributions of its ancient lawgivers and modern proponents of tikkun olam — has corrupted itself in the detour into Zionism, nationalism and apartheid.

So Jewish nationalism is evil, but Islamic nationalism - the core of Hamas’ existence, and orders of magnitude more violent by any yardstick - is just peachy. I love how he quotes “tikkun olam” as well, perhaps a nod to his ideological pals of the Jewish ultra-left.

A “peace process” with Palestinians cannot take even its first tiny step until Israel first withdraws to the borders of 1967; dismantles all settlements; removes all soldiers from Gaza and the West Bank; repudiates its illegal annexation of Jerusalem; releases all prisoners; and ends its blockade of our international borders, our coastline and our airspace permanently. This would provide the starting point for just negotiations and would lay the groundwork for the return of millions of refugees. Given what we have lost, it is the only basis by which we can start to be whole again.

While it is obvious that he is saying that Israel must be utterly destroyed before Hamas would consider stopping murdering Jews, it would be impolitic to write those words. This way he can sound a bit more peaceful.

And he signs off with a final threat:

As for the Israeli state and its Spartan culture of permanent war, it is all too vulnerable to time, fatigue and demographics: In the end, it is always a question of our children and those who come after us.

To have the leader of masked gangs dedicated to nothing but murder saying that the the State of Israel has a “culture of permanent war” is beyond parody. His demographic threat only points to the futility of Israel granting concession after concession.

To be fair, he WaPo also publishes a fairly good rebuttal to Zahar as well as a rebuke to Carter in their own editorial on the opposite page:

ON THE OPPOSITE page today we publish an article by the “foreign minister” of Hamas, Mahmoud al-Zahar, that drips with hatred for Israel, and with praise for former president Jimmy Carter. We believe Mr. Zahar’s words are worth publishing because they provide some clarity about the group he helps to lead, a group that Mr. Carter contends is worthy of being included in the Middle East peace process….

Mr. Zahar lauds Mr. Carter for the “welcome tonic” of saying that no peace process can succeed “unless we are sitting at the negotiating table and without any preconditions.” Yet Mr. Zahar has his own preconditions: Before any peace process can “take even its first tiny step,” he says, Israel must withdraw to the 1967 borders and evacuate Jerusalem while preparing for the “return of millions of refugees.” In fact, as Mr. Zahar makes clear, Hamas is not at all interested in a negotiated peace with the Jewish state, whose existence it refuses to accept: “Our fight to redress the material crimes of 1948 is scarcely begun,” he concludes.

In that fight, no act of terrorism is out of bounds for the Hamas leader, who endorses the group’s recent ambush of Israeli civilians working at a fuel depot that supplies Gaza. The “total war” of which he speaks was initiated and has been sustained by Hamas itself through its deliberate targeting of civilians, such as the residents of the Israeli town of Sderot, who suffer daily rocket attacks.

These facts would hardly need restating were it not for actors such as Mr. Carter, who portray Hamas as rational and reasonable.

Nevertheless, they could have written the same editorial without printing Zahar’s sickening words, where the realities of editorial space give Zahar’s genocidal hate the same legitimacy that Carter’s meetings do to Hamas. Jimmy also condemned rocket attacks, that hardly blunts the net effect of treating terrorists as respectful players, and the WaPo falls into the same trap.

And just like Carter congratulates himself on being so bold, so does the Washington Post.

Carter Wanted to Meet Islamic Jihad, Too

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Both Palestine Today and Palestine Press Agency report that Egyptian officials invited Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah to visit Cairo to meet Jimmy Carter but Shalah refused, saying that Carter is following an “American/Israeli agenda.” Shalah has been harshly critical of Khaled Meshaal’s planned meeting with Carter.

It would appear that Carter initiated this request to meet with the arch-terrorist. All of the reasons that Carter uses to justify meeting with Hamas - that Hamas has supposedly offered a truce, for example, or that most attacks are not initiated by Hamas - do not apply to Islamic Jihad, yet Carter apparently wants to give legitimacy to Islamic Jihad terrorists anyway.

Meanwhile, Carter plans to meet with a Hamas official in Ramallah and he has already laid a wreath at the grave of his fellow Nobel Prize winner, Yasir Arafat, a man responsible for the deaths of thousands of people who Carter admired greatly.

(cross-posted at EoZ)