Palestinian men compete during a bodybuilding contest in Gaza City, Friday, Oct. 23, 2009. Approximately 20 men competed in the contest, and over 500 people attended the event. Although not the first of its kind to be held in the Gaza Strip, bodybuilding contests are rare in the Hamas controlled territory.

Emaciated.

Meanwhile, I suggest the Freddie Mercury lookalike on the left and especially the guy checking him out stay away from the Hamas religious police.

By “lip service”, I guess she means what the Obama administration is paying to the decades of Israeli concessions for peace, which have been met by nothing but increased terrorism.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:10PM: Funny, they don’t look Jewish.

Story here.

7:42PM: The Israeli media and numerous blogs are today reporting what I posted about last week – Iranian and Israeli officials reportedly met and engaged in serious discussions on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament last month. Needless to say, Iran is denying it.

5:30PM: Ma’an News has a report on the daughter of terror enabler Lauren Booth visiting Gaza for the first time. And while the whole article is infuriating, this section in particular struck me:

Eight-year-old Alexandra Darby, the niece of Quartet envoy Tony Blair, toured the West Bank this week on a bicycle, peddling an estimated 200 kilometers from Amman to Jerusalem.

Asked what she will tell her school friends about the Peace Cycle journey, Alex reflected, “I’ll tell them that the people here are very nice, not like they say in the newspapers.”

The West Bank is not a usual vacation site for most eight-year-olds. But, as mother, journalist and activist Lauren Booth explained, “She’s been asking me for the last five years why she can’t go to Palestine, and despite the fact that the Israelis can make it bloody trying to get in and out, the greeting here I knew would be so sensational for her that I didn’t have a reason not to bring her.”

Why doesn’t Alex think other kids get to come to Palestine? “Because, of course, the telly, which says Palestinians are not like us, that they are a revolting people, a violent people, a nasty people, it’s mad. In fact it’s the exact opposite, it’s the Israelis.”

In other words, this eight-year-old girl is stating Israelis are a “revolting, violent and nasty” people. Where do you think she gets this from?

Which goes to further prove that people like Booth are more anti-Israel than pro-palestinian.

Not that Booth’s brainwashing of her small children was not already apparent. You may recall I posted this video of her children here.

Incidentally, this is the same song quoted in the Ma’an article.

Getting nervous about the visit, Alex asks if we want to hear the song she will share with the children at the school.

“Are you ready?

Free my people Palestine – Sing it loud
We will never let you die – Sing it loud
Palestine West Bank Ramallah Gaza, this is for the child that is looking for an answer
I wish I could take your tears and turn them into laughter
Long live Palestine, Long live Gaza!”

Utterly brainwashed by her own mother.

Meanwhile, these vile views are not all that Booth Jr shares with her mother.

3:25PM: Bring out the flying pig, because The Independent – arguably the most anti-Israel daily in UK – has published an extraordinary article, which is mandatory reading for anyone genuinely interested in understanding the Middle East conflict.

But especially for those who aren’t (hat tip: Graeme).

It is a long article, but here are some of the more noteworthy passages:

It is a cynical but time-honoured practice in Middle Eastern politics: the statesmen who decry the political and humanitarian crisis of the approximately 3.9 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza ignore the plight of an estimated 4.6 million Palestinians who live in Arab countries. For decades, Arab governments have justified their decision to maintain millions of stateless Palestinians as refugees in squalid camps as a means of applying pressure to Israel. The refugee problem will be solved, they say, when Israel agrees to let the Palestinians have their own state.

—-

The inclusion of the descendants of Palestinian refugees as refugees in UNRWA’s mandate has no parallel in international humanitarian law and is responsible for the growth of the official numbers of Palestinian refugees in foreign countries from 711,000 to 4.6 million during decades when the number of ageing refugees from the 1948 Israeli war of independence in was in fact declining. UNRWA’s grant of refugee status to the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees according to the principle of patrilineal descent, with no limit on the generations that can obtain refugee status, has made it easy for host countries to flout their obligations under international law. According to Article 34 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, “The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees,” and must “make every effort to expedite naturalisation proceedings” – the opposite of what happened to the Palestinians in every Arab country in which they settled, save Jordan.

—-

After 60 years of failed wars, and failed peace, it is time to put politics aside and to insist that the basic rights of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries be respected – whether or not their children’s children return to Haifa anytime soon. While Saudi Arabia may not wish to host Israeli tourists, it can easily afford to integrate the estimated 240,000 Palestinian refugees who already live in the kingdom – just as Egypt, which has received close to $60bn in US aid, and has a population of 81 million, can grant legal rights to an estimated 70,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants. One can only imagine the outrage that the world community would rightly visit upon Israel if Israeli Arabs were subject to the vile discriminatory laws applied to Palestinians living in Arab countries. Surely, Palestinian Arabs can keep their own national dream alive in the countries where they were born, while also enjoying the freedom to work, vote and own property?

A practical solution to the crisis of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries will focus on Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, which together play host to approximately 3 million of the estimated 4.6 million Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and Gaza. While each of these countries has chosen different legal and political approaches to the 1948 refugees and their descendants, they share a political desire to sublimate the rights of Palestinian residents, treating them as unwanted guests or as tools to be used in pursuing wider political interests – but rarely as fully-fledged members of society. Lebanon, where Palestinians led by Yasser Arafat are widely blamed for having sparked the 1975 civil war, is the worst offender against international norms. Yet even in Jordan, which is in many ways a model for the humane treatment of a large refugee population, Palestinians today feel markedly less secure than they did two decades ago, or even five years ago.

—-

The fact that the living standard of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon has been deemed “catastrophic” by both UNRWA and by the Lebanese government can therefore be understood as a deliberate result of official state policy that is supported by all parties across Lebanon’s divided confessional spectrum. As a member of the Lebanese parliament, Ghassan Moukheiber, explained in an interview with the ICG, “our official policy is to maintain Palestinians in a vulnerable, precarious situation to diminish prospects for their naturalisation or permanent settlement”.

—-

For many of these refugees at the bottom of Jordan’s social and economic pecking order, life without papers means hiding from the police who constantly patrol their camp’s streets, being too poor to send any of your eight to 10 children to college, a lifetime of menial labour, and only a threadbare dream of returning to a homeland that most of them have never seen. There is strong suspicion of the state, but also of their neighbours, who are divided into “‘48 people” and “‘67 people”. “Some of the newcomers would give away Al Aqsa for a Jordanian identity card,” says Heba, a mother of eight, mentioning Islam’s celebrated mosque in Jerusalem, one of its holiest shrines.

“We’re Jordanians,” says her son, Mustapha, a slender, 20-year-old in a bright orange T-shirt emblazoned with meaningless words in unknown languages. “This is the best place in the world,” he says, pointing around the bare living room whose worn rugs and threadbare pillows cover the floor on which he and all his siblings sleep. “We would never leave here. But I’m loyal to my country, and I would like to visit it one day.”

He seems perplexed when asked which is his country – Jordan or Palestine. “We have no security here, but we are Jordanians,” replies Mustapha, who lounges on a mattress in a two-storey cement house down the road while one of his five daughters offers tiny glasses of steaming herbal tea and cardamom-scented coffee. “Everything I have is here. This house. My car. My job. What would I have in Nablus or Be’ersheba?” he declares. “My children know nothing but Jordan. And we will stay here.”

I’ve been making these points time and again on this blog, but the article’s publication in The Independent should expose these facts to more people, and especially to those who need them.

11:52AM: Sesame Street is set to go to Gaza, where the gang will talk about peaceful conflict resolution and promote self esteem for palestinians.

This represents bad news for Ernie and Bert.

8:28AM: Richard Goldstone in yet another interview with Al Jizz.

Note in particular:

• Goldstone repeating the untruth that the criticisms of his report do not go to the substance (to paraphrase Yoda, chopped liver we are?)
• Goldstone describing the Obama adminstration’s response to the report as “ambivalent” (he’s right)
• Goldstone referring to the case of palestinian children being deliberately shot as “indicating an unfortunate lack of discipline in the Israeli army,” and then responding to the interviewer’s question as to whether it is indicative of a lack of discipline or an issue of IDF policy by saying this is why there is the need for an investigation “to see where it comes from”, rather than whether or not the allegations of deliberate killings are true to begin with. In other words, he seems to be accepting the allegation of such an occurrence as fact, and defining the parameters of an investigation as determining why it happened, not if it happened.

6:05AM: Israel has reacted with caution to news that representatives of Iran, US, Russia and France accepted a draft agreement committing Iran to shipping 75 percent of its enriched uranium stockpile to Russia for further enrichment.

While both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry have made no comment on the development – saying it was premature to discuss – others have not been quite as mum.

The Iranian nuclear threat is “still alive and kicking,” a senior official in Jerusalem told Ynet in the wake of reports about a draft agreement between Tehran and global powers in respect to Iran’s nuclear program.

However, it appears Israeli officials are divided on the implications of the draft deal, with some claiming that it marks an initial achievement in the battle against Iran. Supporters of the deal claim that Iran’s nuclear efforts will be set back by a year or more should the agreement be approved.

However, other officials in Israel are concerned that the agreement will be tantamount to giving Iran the go-ahead for continuing its uranium enrichment efforts.

“The great fear is that this kind of agreement will make it appear that Iran is indeed showing a reconciliatory attitude, while it continues the basic enrichment of uranium in Natanz and in the secret site exposed in Qom through the West’s intelligence work,” one official said.

“The expected deal takes care of Iran’s openly available uranium which it enriches for seemingly civilian aims, while it continues to secretly enrich uranium for military aims,” he said.

Israel officials are also looking to Washington, which expressed satisfaction over the agreement being formulated, as it was reached via dialogue rather than threats. At this time, Jerusalem will refrain from an official response to the draft agreement.

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

Obama I say white
Clinton I say bite
You say shark I say Haniyeh
Jews were never my scene
And I don’t like scarf wars
You say Rolls I say Royce
Or other car of your choice
You say fun I say goat
I don’t believe in Jewish state
Palestine, how long we wait
All I wanna do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my
Bicycle races aren’t coming your way
Don’t forget all your duties oh yeah!
Fat bottomed girls won’t be riding today
So look out for the vice squad oh yeah
On your marks get set go
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race
Bicycle bicycle bicI want to ride my bicycle
Bicycle bicycle bicycle
Bicycle race

You say Abbas I say bought
You say Zahar I say wart
Goldstone I say war crime, man
I don’t like the President of America
Mannequin you say tease
Carter I say please
Dhimmi tax I say great
I don’t wanna be a candidate
For suicide or detonate
Cos all I want to do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

US President Barack Obama told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday that he was dissatisfied with their recent foot-dragging on getting Israeli-Palestinian talks restarted.

A senior White House source yesterday told Haaretz that “during the tripartite meeting Obama strongly expressed his impatience.”

The source said the meeting was “businesslike” but not cordial. Netanyahu and Abbas voiced their opinions but did not attack.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, National Security Adviser Uzi Arad and Netanyahu adviser Yitzhak Molcho also attended the 45-minute meeting. The American side included U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, envoy George Mitchell, U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones and Obama adviser Dennis Ross.

Obama scolded Netanyahu and Abbas. “We’ve had enough talks,” Obama said. “We need to end this conflict. There is a window of opportunity but it might shut.”

Obama made it clear during the meeting that he was interested in resuming the negotiations between the sides “about all outstanding issues” based on the talks and signed agreements since the beginning of the Oslo process 16 years ago.

“There’s an historical record of the entire past negotiations and there are principles,” he said.

“We won’t start the negotiations from scratch, we will not take the historical record and toss it aside. Nor will we wait for the perfect formula.”

He also said: “It’s difficult to disentangle ourselves from history but we must do so. The only reason to hold public office is to get things done. We all must take risks for peace.”

“We cannot continue the same pattern of taking tentative steps forward and then stepping back,” Obama told reporters as he sat down for the meeting.

“Success depends on all sides acting with a sense of urgency.”

The U.S. president said both sides must get formal peace negotiations back on track. “Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations,” Obama said. “It is time to move forward… Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:26PM: Here is what US President Barack Obama had to say about Middle East peace in his speech to the UN General Assembly.

For his part, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu praised the speech:

“I commend this important speech of Obama’s and his call to renew the peace process without preconditions. I commend his unequivocal support of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people,” he said.

Not so former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton.

11:00PM: Ynetnews reports:

Egypt’s culture minister on Wednesday blamed a conspiracy “cooked up in New York” by the world’s Jews for keeping him from becoming the next head of the UN’s agency for culture and education.

Farouk Hosny was defeated on Tuesday by Bulgarian diplomat Irina Bokova in a tight race for the position of UNESCO chair.

“It was clear by the end of the competition that there was a conspiracy against me,” Hosny told reporters at the airport upon his return from Paris.

“There are a group of the world’s Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position,” he said.

Yep. His defeat sounds like a real loss for culture and education.

7:00PM: David Harris, Executive Director, American Jewish Committee, writes of the Goldstone report’s “three strikes.”

Excerpt:

In fact, Mary Robinson, who, as a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wasn’t exactly known for her warm disposition toward Israel, turned down an offer to lead the Council’s investigation.

“Unfortunately, the Human Rights Council passed a resolution seeking a fact-finding mission to only look at what Israel has done, and I don’t think that’s a human rights approach,” Robinson said in March.

3:50PM: Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu, CNN interview Sept 22, 2009:

I think what is important is that we’re moving on to talk peace. And I hope to make peace.

Any time we have encountered an Arab leader who wanted to make peace, we made peace. [Egypt's] Anwar Sadat came. Menachem Begin of the Likud made peace.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in a letter to UN Security Council:

“Israel’s nuclear capabilities cannot evade world attention.”

Ain’t peace grand?

2:45PM: Today’s ‘Duh’ moment is brought to us by Israel’s Foreign Minister, courtesy of the Jerusalem Post.

11:45AM: Anti-Israeli blogger Richard Silverstein has been caught lying again.

By yours truly.

6:00AM: Welcome to Gaza, the world’s only “concentration camp” with coffee shops containing flat screen televisions

Palestinian watches US President Barack Obama, left, meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, on TV in a coffee shop in Gaza City, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009. The Israeli and Palestinian leaders shook hands at the start of their first face-to-face meeting Tuesday, hosted by Obama, but the small gesture was unlikely to translate into a quick resumption of peace talks. Netanyahu and Abbas remain far apart on key issues, including Israeli settlement expansion and the agenda of future talks. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

5:48AM: Say what you want about Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The man can speak.

The media reported that a letter written by IDF soldier Gilad Shalit just months after being taken captive by palestinian terrorists was released to them.

To my mother and father, brothers and friends, I send you Shalom.

My health is deteriorating daily, I am especially struggling emotionally and this is causing me much depression. I am waiting for this intolerable human nightmare to end and to be released from the closed and isolated prison, especially since my 20th birthday has gone by, which I had hoped we would celebrate together.

I appeal to my government, and especially Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and defense Minister Amir Peretz, to do everything in their power to release me as soon as possible because every day that goes by hurts me more, and to consent to the requests of mujahideen that detained me from within a tank near Kerem Abu Salem. I hope you will do everything so that I can celebrate Rosh Hashana and Sukkot at home.

The prisoner in the hands of the Palestinian mujahideen,

Gilad Shalit

Captured on 06.25.06

The contents of the letter looks very similar to that of the recorded message posted on the Hamas website a year after his abduction.

Meanwhile, the geniuses at Ynet posit that “in light of the many Arab phrases used [the letter] was probably dictated to the soldier by his captors.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:54PM: Wow.

A local district court in the West German city of Bochum fined a student 300 Euros on Wednesday for displaying an Israel flag at a demonstration organized by Muslim organizations against the IDF Operation Cast Lead in January. According to Der Westen, a regional paper in Bochum, the public prosecutor termed the Israeli flag as “provoking” within a special situation.

What are you willing to bet that if a Muslim displayed a palestinian flag at a pro-Israel protest, there would be no fine?

11:20PM: Yesterday, I (and a number of other bloggers) posted about anti-Israel HRW investigator Marc Garlasco, who has a thing for Nazi memorabilia.

HRW has left the following response in the comments sections of a number of blogs (not including Israellycool):

Several blogs and others critical of Human Rights Watch have suggested that Marc Garlasco, Human Rights Watch’s longtime senior military advisor, is a Nazi sympathizer because he collects German (as well as American) military memorabilia. This accusation is demonstrably false and fits into a campaign to deflect attention from Human Rights Watch’s rigorous and detailed reporting on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by the Israeli government. Garlasco has co-authored several of our reports on violations of the laws of war, including in Afghanistan, Georgia, and Iraq, as well as by Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

Garlasco has never held or expressed Nazi or anti-Semitic views.

Garlasco’s grandfather was conscripted into the German armed forces during the Second World War, like virtually all young German men at the time, and served as a radar operator on an anti-aircraft battery. He never joined the Nazi Party, and later became a dedicated pacifist. Meanwhile, Garlasco’s great-uncle was an American B-17 crewman, who survived many attacks by German anti-aircraft gunners.

Garlasco own family’s experience on both sides of the Second World War has led him to collect military items related to both sides, including American 8th Air Force memorabilia and German Air Force medals and other objects (not from the Nazi Party or the SS, as falsely alleged). Many military historians, and others with an academic interest in the Second World War, including former and active-duty US service members, collect memorabilia from that era.

Garlasco is the author of a monograph on the history of German Air Force and Army anti-aircraft medals and a contributor to websites that promote serious historical research into the Second World War (and which forbid hate speech). In the foreword he writes of telling his daughters that “the war was horrible and cruel, that Germany lost and for that we should be thankful.”

To imply that Garlasco’s collection is evidence of Nazi sympathies is not only absurd but an attempt to deflect attention from his deeply felt efforts to uphold the laws of war and minimize civilian suffering in wartime. These falsehoods are an affront to Garlasco and thousands of other serious military historians.

HRW are (deliberately?) missing the point. The question raised by his Nazi obsession is valid: is there a connection between his Israel bashing and his obsession with memorabilia  associated with Jew-hating mass-murderers?

Imagine for a second if someone claiming to be objective had a penchant for collecting IDF memorabilia. If this person came out repeatedly with reports favorable to Israel, wouldn’t people have reason to question their objectivity?

You also have to question how someone working for a human rights organization – and claiming to really care about people – can look at Nazi memorabilia and not feel repulsed.

These are valid questions, and HRW’s informal response is nowhere near adequate.

Meanwhile, here is a photo of Garlasco wearing an Iron Cross sweatshirt, which he posted on a forum.

The photo triggers the following comments:

Skip: Love the sweatshirt Mark. Not one I could wear here in germany though (well I could but it would be a lot of hassle)

Garlasco: Everyone thinks it is a biker shirt!

Skip: Yeh, were you come from but imagine walking around in Berlin with “das Eisene Kreuz” written across your cheat. Either you get beaten to pulp by a group of rampaging Turks or the police arrest you on suspicion of being a Nazi

8:30PM: Speaking about anti-Judaism reports, Ynet does the BBC proud with this one.

Twenty-four-year-old David Mansharov was stabbed to death overnight Wednesday during a brawl between yeshiva students in Netanya.

Two suspects, Avi Ben-Naim (22) and Yitzhak Hanuka (25), have been arrested in connection with the stabbing. The court extended their remand by eight days.

The victim and the suspects all studied and lived at Rabbi Amos Gueta’s yeshiva, located near the scene of the crime.

Officers who arrived at the scene at around 4:30 am found the victim laying in critical condition in an open area near residential buildings on Professor Shor Street in Netanya’s Neve Herzl neighborhood. He was evacuated to Laniado Hospital, where he was declared dead shortly after arrival.

A black kippah and a blunt object, which was apparently used to kill Mansharov, were found at the scene. Police apprehended the two suspects during a search of the area.

Investigators said the three yeshiva students are known to police, and estimated that the fight erupted following an ongoing argument over a halachic ruling.

Neighbors who witnessed the incident said they heard the suspected assailants yell, “What you did was not Jewish” in Mansharov’s direction.

The two suspects, police said, are exercising their right to remain silent.

Reading this report, one could be led to conclude that religious Jews are indeed violent and hypocritical.

Now for some context, courtesy of the Jerusalem Post.

A 23-year-old yeshiva student was stabbed to death in Netanya in the early hours of Wednesday morning by two other students, in what police say was a dispute over living quarters.

David Mensharov was assaulted by two men and stabbed repeatedly. He was seen by neighbors staggering in the street, and was rushed by paramedics to Netanya’s Laniado Hospital, where doctors pronounced his death.

Police have arrested two suspects, aged 22 and 35, in connection with the slaying.

The murder victim and the two suspects all attended the Kolel Yeshiva in the city, which takes in newly religious young people with a history of crime, as part of an effort to rehabilitate violent offenders.

The Prison Rehabilitation Authority helped pioneer a program under which well behaved offenders are released two-thirds into their prison sentences to centers around the country, such as religious learning centers.

“The background is a dispute over living space in their dorms,” a police source told The Jerusalem Post. “This dispute has been going on for two days. It turns out a previous fight broke out two days ago, but that was not reported to police,” the source added.

The source dismissed a Ynet report which claimed the fight was linked to a “Halachic disagreement.”

One suspect is known to police due to previous violent offences, the source said. “The murder victim was accused of behaving badly towards his attackers,” he added.

8:20PM: This BBC story on The rise of Israel’s military rabbis is one of the most nefarious attacks on Judaism I have seen from the BBC, even by their “lofty” standards (hat tip: Pisa).

Katya Adler’s (I am guessing she is Jewish, both from her name, and the fact a non-Jew would be less likely to get away with such a hatchet job on Judaism) effort to paint army Rabbis and religious soldiers as the Jewish equivalent of Islamic jihadis – is deeply troubling.

I think Melanie Phillips explains it well when she says:

But the really disgraceful element was Adler’s suggestion that that these rabbis were somehow the equivalent of Islamic jihadi fanatics who were transforming the mission of the IDF into ‘holy war’. Jewish religious belief, she implied, was the equivalent of the jihad. This appalling equation of course ignored the crucial difference between the jihad and the wars waged by the Israel Defence Force: that the jihad is aggressive and seeks to conquer, colonise, murder and enslave while the sole rationale for the IDF is to defend Israel against precisely such aggression.

Adler made this leap because to her, all orthodox Jewish religious observance is extreme, right-wing and aggressive; all settlers are orthodox and therefore extreme, right-wing and aggressive; thus all orthodox Jewish soldiers are settlers and therefore they are all extreme, right-wing and aggressive. Every aspect of that is tendentious, distorted, ignorant and bigoted.

The settlers believe the land was given to them by God, she charged. Well, they may well do so; but as Israel’s soldiers they are fighting to defend not the settlements but the State of Israel of which they are citizens and to which land they are fully and indisputably entitled under international law. Indeed, contrary to what she stated they are also entitled under international law to settle the disputed territories which are still the site of aggressive war waged against them; but that’s not in fact what they are in the IDF or were in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead to do.

You would never have known it from her report, but these religious soldiers were in Gaza not to conquer the Palestinians in accordance with their belief that Gaza was divinely given to them but to defend the State of Israel against rocket attack from Gaza – from where religious soldiers had actually been involved in the operation to remove the settlers in 2005.  Maybe some of these rabbis had issued leaflets which really were politically extreme. So what? To suggest that this represents all of orthodox Judaism is like suggesting that preachers handing out leaflets proclaiming the end of days is nigh are representative of mainstream Christianity. Far worse, Adler made the doubly appalling suggestion that the IDF had singled out Gazan infants and other civilians for ill-treatment – and that they had been encouraged to do so by the tenets of Jewish religious belief. Neither element, of course, was true.

Her report thus went much further than the usual BBC boilerplate bigotry against Israel. This was open bigotry against Judaism itself.

This bothers me, both as a religious Jew, and as someone who happens to know so many Orthodox soldiers doing their best to defend the country against the real Islamic jihadis. Fine young soldiers like Roi Klein (may his memory be blessed).

Major Roi Klein was a Golani brigade deputy commander. He was killed last Wednesday, in an ambush among the houses of Bint Jbail, a large village in southern Lebanon. Hezbullah terrorists killed eight soldiers, including Roi, and injured nearly two dozen.

There were two other soldiers next to Roi. A hand grenade was thrown at them and Roi shouted, “Grenade!” He then threw his body over it, sacrificing his life for the sake of his soldiers, who later attributed being alive to his act of selflessness.

In his last seconds of life, Roi mustered the strength to shout “Shema Yisroel” the prayer that Jews have prayed for centuries, declaring our belief in G-d and in a better world;

5:55PM: Welcome to Gaza, “the world’s largest concentration camp” in which people…own their own horses?

Palestinians walk out of the water after washing their horses in the Mediterranean Sea off the beach in Gaza City Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

I can’t help but being reminded of this classic Seinfeld moment.

5:40PM: Israeli Human Rights Group B’Tselem today released a new report finding  that during Operation Cast Lead, the IDF killed 1,387 Palestinians, the majority of whom (773) were non-combatants.

Today (Wed. Sept 9th) Israeli human rights group B’Tselem published its findings on the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. According to B’Tselem’s research, Israeli security forces killed 1,387 Palestinians during the course of the three-week operation. Of these, 773 did not take part in the hostilities, including 320 minors and 109 women over the age of 18. Of those killed, 330 took part in the hostilities, and 248 were Palestinian police officers, most of whom were killed in aerial bombings of police stations on the first day of the operation. For 36 people, B’Tselem could not determine whether they participated in the hostilities or not.

You can find the full report here.

This contradicts the results of an IDF investigation which found that there were 1,166 Palestinian casualties in the Gaza offensive, of which 709 were terror operatives affiliated with Hamas and other terror groups, and 295 were civilians.

The IDF has responded as follows:

“The B’Tselem report is not based on facts or on accurate statistics.  Furthermore, among its sources, B’Tselem officially states that it based its findings, on cross referencing statistics from investigations of Palestinian human rights groups and various Web sites and blogs, including those of the militant wings of terror organizations and that of the Palestinian Police,” the IDF spokesman’s office said.

“The discrepancy in the numbers is based on the fact that B’Tselem’s sources are organizations with a vested interest, and it does not have the tools, nor the intelligence capabilities with which it can within a necessary degree of confidence know the causes of death or the affiliations of these casualties.”

I have not had time to delve deeply into this, so I will point you to this response from NGO monitor.

NGO Monitor today noted the contradictory publications by B’tselem and Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), both claiming to provide accurate Palestinian casualty counts during the Gaza War earlier this year.  Although publicized as “comprehensive” and “complete” statistics, neither report is credible, and both reflect the underlying political motivations and bias of the organizations, as documented by NGO Monitor.  (B’tselem’s funders include the governments of UK, Norway, Switzerland and Ireland and the New Israel Fund; PCHR’s funders include EU and the governments of Norway, Ireland and Denmark)

NGO Monitor highlighted the following:

• Although both organizations claim to use meticulous research methods, their conclusions differ enormously.  PCHR claims 1,167 non-combatants were killed, B’tselem puts the figure at 773.
• The timing of these publications indicates an attempt to impact the findings of Judge Richard Goldstone’s UN investigation prior to the report’s imminent release.
• B’tselem adopted controversial International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) guidelines which use a highly disputed and unworkable definition of the standard for those “taking a direct part in hostilities”.  This means that people who are closely involved in Hamas’ offensive infrastructure are exempted. Many ICRC legal consultants withdrew support for these guidelines on this basis.
• Although B’tselem has improved its credibility compared to previous reports, by listing casualties’ affiliations to terrorist factions, these same individuals such as Hamas senior military leader Saeed Sayam are still not classified as combatants.
• PCHR’s definition of a “non-combatant” is even more problematic, and only includes those holding a weapon at the precise moment of death.  Consequently, PCHR classifies known terrorists as civilians, such as Hamas activist Nizar Rayan.
• PCHR’s consistently hostile agenda towards Israel, including promotion of anti-Israel boycotts, places its’ research in clear contravention of the International Bar Association’s London-Lund Guidelines on fact finding which demand unbiased investigators.

NGO Monitor’s President Prof Gerald Steinberg said, “These two conflicting reports again demonstrate that neither NGO produces accurate information regarding Palestinian casualties.  Instead, their publications are the continuation of ideologically motivated campaigns that use human rights as a weapon against Israel. The artificially narrow definition of combatants simply furthers this political agenda.

These publications are further examples of the central role played by political NGOs in the Goldstone “fact finding” inquiry.  PCHR and B’tselem have been involved at every step of the process, and if the Goldstone report simply repeats their claims, it will further demonstrate the counterproductive impact of biased NGO in the UN human rights framework.”

2:08PM: Anti-Israel academic Norman “Rat Fink” Finkelstein has quit the Gaza Freedom March coalition, endorsed by the likes of the ISM and CODEPINK. He explains his decision on his website.

Why I resigned from the Gaza Freedom March coalition:

The original consensus of the International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza was that we would limit our statement to a pair of uncontroversial, basic and complementary principles that would have the broadest possible appeal: the march to break the siege would be nonviolent and anchored in international law.  I agreed with this approach and consequent statement and decided to remove myself from the steering committee in order to invest my full energies in mobilizing for the march.  During the week beginning August 30, 2009 and in a matter of days an entirely new sectarian agenda dubbed “the political context” was foisted on those who originally signed on and worked tirelessly for three months.  Because it drags in contentious issues that–however precious to different constituencies–are wholly extraneous to the narrow but critical goal of breaking the siege this new agenda is gratuitously divisive and it is almost certain that it will drastically reduce the potential reach of our original appeal. It should perhaps be stressed that the point of dispute was not whether one personally supported a particular Palestinian right or strategy to end the occupation.   It was whether inclusion in the coalition’s statement of a particular right or strategy was necessary if it was both unrelated to the immediate objective of breaking the siege and dimmed the prospect of a truly mass demonstration.  In addition the tactics by which this new agenda was imposed do not bode well for the future of the coalition’s work and will likely move the coalition in an increasingly sectarian direction.  I joined the coalition because I believed that an unprecedented opportunity now exists to mobilize a broad public whereby we could make a substantive and not just symbolic contribution towards breaking the illegal and immoral siege of Gaza and, accordingly, realize a genuine and not just token gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza.  In its present political configuration I no longer believe the coalition can achieve such a goal.   Because I would loathe getting bogged down in a petty and squalid public brawl I will not comment further on this matter unless the sequence of events climaxing in my decision to resign are misrepresented by interested parties.  However I would be remiss in my moral obligations were I not humbly to apologize to those who, either coaxed by me or encouraged by my participation, gave selflessly of themselves to make the march a historic event and now feel aggrieved at the abrupt turn of events.  It can only be said in extenuation that I along with many others desperately fought to preserve the ecumenical vision that originally inspired the march but the obstacles thrown in our path ultimately proved insurmountable.

While this statement is rather obtuse, others perhaps provide more clarity regarding the Fink’s motivations.

(Finklestein said) we should not get into “ideological conversations about who is a Zionist.” What mattered was focusing on stances on torture and house demolitions. He also advised that Palestinians be “reasonable” and consider compensation instead of their full rights.

I challenged him on this point during Q&A in that opposing occupation without condemning Zionism is like opposing slavery without condemning white supremacy, and that we American taxpayers and participants in the genocide of Palestinians (whether intentionally or not) should have more humility than tell Arabs whether or not to discuss the ideology behind their dispossession. Otherwise, we would look like gatekeepers on the discourse.

And..

Finkelstein wanted to keep the message focused in terms of this specific campaign, not to ban people from opposing Zionism at all ever. And he wanted to adopt that focus so as to maximise the positive impact the campaign could make for the Palestinians in Gaza.

Is the Fink softening his stance? Or are his actions here motivated purely by pragmatism?

Either way, it speaks volumes for the Gaza Freedom March coalition that they are too radical for The Fink.

(hat tip: Old World New Ideas)

6:15AM: Another moment in self-defeating palestinian protest:

Local refugee camp committees in Nablus in the northern West Bank said on Tuesday they are planning more protests against the UN relief agency UNRWA for allegedly reducing services to West Bank refugees.

According to Ibrahim Saqr, coordinator of the Nablus committees, the protests will proceed as follows:

1- Closing UNRWA’s Nablus directorate office.
2- Closing the UNRWA warehouses.
3- Closing the welfare offices both the central and local branches.
4- Preventing movement of UNRWA vehicles into refugee camps.

Yeah, that’ll teach UNRWA.

The Arab League and Hamas both said that Arabs should not normalize ties with Israel as long as we don’t implement a ” settlement freeze.”

“It is impossible to speak of normalization when Israel rejects any significant measure,” Arab League chief Amr Moussa said at a joint news conference in Cairo with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

“Israel persists in its intransigent position and rejects every significant measure” concerning a freeze in settlement constructions, he said.

In case you hadn’t noticed, this is the first time the Arabs have spoken about a “settlement freeze,” and it certainly wasn’t included in any of the no’s of the the Khartoum Resolution. I also didn’t quite catch it in the Hamas charter.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

9:50PM: Biased caption of the day:

Israelis soldiers stand in formation in front of a torch during a ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of the 1929 riots in the West bank city of Hebron, Monday, Sept. 7, 2009. Jews lived and worshipped in Hebron for centuries but fled in 1929 after the city’s Arabs, angered by the increased Zionist presence in British-controlled Palestine, killed 67 Jews. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Well done AP, on trying to explain away the massacre of 67 Jews at the hands of Arab mobs, by portraying the Jews as occupiers. Reading this caption, it seems one is supposed to almost feel the Arab frustration.

If you want to know what really happened that fateful day 80 years ago, see here and here.

9:10PM: NGO Monitor has released “the first systematic study” on Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) activities in the Middle East over the past several years.

Publication coincides with the anticipated publication of the Goldstone committee’s Gaza report, and UN Human Rights Commissioner Pillay’s threat of  International Criminal Court (ICC) action. The Goldstone process closely echoes HRW’s agenda and faulty methodology, which are examined in NGO Monitor’s report.

NGO Monitor’s report of HRW’s Middle East activities from 2001 to 2009, with over 80 pages of case studies and analyses of HRW’s publications related to Israel, includes:

• Profiles of HRW’s Middle East division staff, led by ideologues with a history of pro-Palestinian activism, rather than human rights experts.  The division is headed by Sarah Leah Whitson (who actively supported the “Caterpillar” Israel boycott campaign, and led the HRW fundraising trip to Saudi Arabia). Similarly, deputy director Joe Stork, spent 20 years as a founder and editor of the radical anti-Zionist Middle East Report (MERIP), including participation in a “Zionism and Racism” conference in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, before joining HRW. Other in-depth profiles analyze the professional qualifications and biases of Executive Director Kenneth Roth, Reed Brody, Darryl Li, Nadia Barhoum and Lucy Mair.
• Methodological failures: HRW’s publications related to Israel, including the 2002 Jenin reports, the 2006 Lebanon war, and the flood of publications on Gaza, rely largely on claims from unreliable eyewitnesses, and local NGOs with limited or no credibility.  These reports consistently confuse speculation with fact, distort international law and omit evidence that does not support the predetermined conclusions. (In many cases, HRW ignored videos showing Hamas and Hezbollah use of human shields.) These practices systematically violate the NGO fact-finding guidelines of the International Bar Association.
• Comparative data showing the disproportionate emphasis on Israel:  This highlights HRW bias, and also diverts resources that should be focused on the oppressive regimes and absence of basic freedoms in other Middle East countries. Analysis of 2008 publications using a weighted quantitative methodology again shows HRW focused more attention on Israel than on Iran, Syria, Egypt, Jordan and others.
• HRW reports on Israel are focused on very narrow and artificial issues that strip the context of the conflict, and indict Israel from the beginning. This is demonstrated in HRW post-Gaza reports on white phosphorous, drones, and white flags, all based on unsupported Palestinian claims and speculation, while using terms like “war crimes” repeatedly.

These major flaws in HRW’s focus on Israel are also reflected in the activities of the Goldstone fact-finding mission on Gaza. Although Goldstone resigned as a Human Rights Watch board member after NGO Monitor noted a conflict of interest, his statements have strongly echoed and defended HRW’s bias, particularly in relation to the 2006 Lebanon War and over Gaza.

In parallel, HRW officials such as Kenneth Roth, have staunchly supported Goldstone, attacked the investigation’s critics, called for broad support of the investigation and reproached President Obama for neglecting to mention the commission in his Cairo address.

NGO Monitor’s President Prof Gerald Steinberg said “As shown by NGO Monitor’s unique in-depth analysis, HRW repeatedly applies unprofessional methodology in support of an anti-Israel bias.  Human rights values and research standards have been replaced by ideology. The evidence shows that the Middle East division of this powerful organization needs a full and systemic overhaul, to recover its moral foundation and relevance in promoting human rights, particularly in repressive regimes.

Furthermore, the UN human rights structure and the NGO community work in close coordination, and are mutually reinforcing.  Goldstone’s strong identification with Human Rights Watch forms the political foundation for his biased inquiry, while Pillay’s statement pushes the process further towards implementing HRW’s agenda”.

The study is available here.

Meanwhile, one-time Israellycool contributor Elder of Ziyon analyzes the pattern of bias in HRW’s “Precisely Wrong” report.

8:12PM: Palestine Today reports (auto-translated):

Gaza: Palestinian doctor out a pencil from the top baby rare, marathon surgery

Enable the surgeon nerves in the Shifa Hospital in Gaza, a doctor determined Kahil and his team of its doctors, anesthesia technicians, and nurses from a rare surgery in the infant Bakr Ghazal year-old son.

The baby deer was severely injured due to head into a pencil in the head, resulting in a deterioration in the degree of awareness and expand in the right eye pupil admitted to the intensive care unit and underwent the process successful.

This is disturbing all round: the idea of having a pencil lodged in your head, the quality of the auto-translation, and the picture accompanying the report:

That’s some one-year old.

7:20PM: Roseanne Barr continues to demonstrate the unfunny side of mental illness:

Did someone neglect to tell Madonna

that Netanyahu is a fascist and a war criminal, and that lighting shabbat candles with him would turn the stomachs of all jews who are interested in peace in israel and palestine??!!!!

Did someone neglect to tell Barr that she doesn’t know the first thing about what turns people stomachs, because if she did she wouldn’t be subjecting people to her offensiveness?

5:08PM: Separated at Birth? IAEA (potato) head Mohamed ElBaradei = fail

3:50PM: Quote of the day:

“Netanyahu’s policies are the policies of a small-time politician…The decision isn’t on the question of [settlement] construction. The decision is whether or not there will be two states here for two peoples, things that Kadima has already declared its support for..It’s not just that he doesn’t make fateful decisions, he doesn’t want to make them. He makes do with speeches and photo-ops.”

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, who clearly hates photo-ops.

12:06PM: Jane Fonda responds to claims she supports the destruction of Israel.

So– I wake up this morning to a barrage of emails giving me a link to a web posting that has been widely picked up. It says that Rabbi Hier at the Simon Wiesenthal Center (he and I were friends—I thought) claims I support the destruction of Israel because I signed (along with many other artists, historians, including eight Israelis, mostly filmmakers) a petition protesting the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to feature a celebratory “spotlight” on Tel Aviv. We understand that by doing this the festival has become, whether knowingly or not,  a participant in a cynical PR campaign to improve Israel’s image, make her appear less war-like. The Israeli Consul General said a year ago that Toronto would be the launch site of an extensive “Brand Israel” campaign. Artists and others of us who love Israel do not want art to be used to whitewash the tragedies committed against Palestinians, most recently in last winter’s terrible war in Gaza (1400 Palestinians dead, mostly civilians, many more wounded, and there are documented human rights violations) and the ongoing blockade of Gaza that is deepening a serious humanitarian crisis, wreaking havoc on the lives of innocent people, and preventing reconstruction in the aftermath of the attack.
The letter we signed did not —repeat: DID NOT–call for a boycott of any part of the Toronto Film Festival. In fact, many of the people who signed the letter are showing films there and many of the Israeli filmmakers that go to the festival show films critical of Israel. We protest the use of Tel Aviv to rebrand Israel. We are standing up for integrity of art, not censoring anyone. The letter certainly did not call for the destruction of Israel or call into question the legitimacy of Tel Aviv as a city. But In the year when Gaza happened there shouldn’t be a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv.

I have been to Israel many times. The first was in the early 1980s and it was love at first sight…for the country and for its people. I stayed in a Kibbutz with the great Israeli novelist, Amos Oz, and his family. I raised money for a senior center in Haifa, for a girl’s shelter in Jerusalem. I have spoken at the Hebrew University. I traveled into Lebanon with the Israeli army in 1981. I went deep into Russia in the  80s to secretly meet with Soviet Refusenik, Ida Nudel, after which I a national speaking tour in the U. S. to build support for letting Ida go to Israel where she now lives. In other words, I have been intimately involved with Israel over 3 decades. On almost every visit I also went into the West Bank, met with Palestinian artists, visited Palestinian refugee camps, drove through the Israeli settlements that encroach increasingly into Palestinian territory. I have seen suffering on both sides. It is out of love for Israel and all that it promised to be that I protest the use of art (which is meant to search for truth) in this branding campaign. The greatest “re-branding” of Israel would be to celebrate that country’s robust peace movement by allowing aid to be delivered to Gaza and stopping expansion of the settlements. That’s the way to show Israel’s commitment to peace, not a PR campaign. There will be no two-state solution unless this happens.

My response to Ms Fonda.

1. If Israel appears “war-like”, it is because she has constantly been defending herself since her inception in 1948. You are old enough to remember what happened in 1967, including the Arab statements threatening Israel with annihilation. But in case you were too busy protesting the Vietnam War at the time, I suggest you pick up any reputable history book and read for yourself. You may also learn that the Arabs attacked Israel on the eve of her independence, after having rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which would have seen the two-state solution you claim to support.
2. You stated as fact that 1400 Palestinians were killed in Operation Cast Lead, and these were “mostly civilians.” Where did you get this information? According to an IDF investigation, 1,166 palestinians were killed, with 709 belonging to terrorist organizations. And even if you are not willing to accept these figures, do you not accept the fact that Hamas terrorists were deliberately operating out of civilian areas?
3. You mention visiting palestinian refugee camps. Have you even questioned why these camps still exist? Why is it that Israel has absorbed Jewish people from all around the world,  yet the Arab world does not take in the palestinians for which they claim to care so much?
4. If “expansion of the settlements” is really the big issue, why did the Arab states attack Israel prior to the 1967 war, in which Israel captured these lands? Why was the PLO formed in 1964, three years earlier? Have you ever read the Hamas charter? The issue is, and has always been, the Arab refusal to accept Israel’s very existence.
5. Why is it that you question Israel’s commitment to peace, and not the palestinians, despite the fact the latter have met Israeli peace overtures with terrorism? Why do you question Israel’s commitment to peace and not the palestinians after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was met by palestinian rocket fire into Israeli population centers?

10:06AM: Over 73 aid trucks and 440,000 liters of fuel and gas are scheduled to cross into Gaza today.

We still haven’t quite mastered that whole genocide thing.

6:08AM: The leader of Gaza’s al Qaeda-inspired palestinian terrorist group Jaljalat revealed his men recently tried to assassinate former Jimmy Carter and Tony Blair.

Members of a group called Jund Ansar Allah surround their leader Abdel-Latif Moussa (3rd L) after Friday prayers in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip August 14, 2009. Islamist radicals from the Palestinian group called Jund Ansar Allah defied the Hamas rulers of Gaza on Friday by declaring an “Islamic emirate” in the territory and staging a defiant display of arms. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA POLITICS CONFLICT IMAGES OF THE DAY)

• Is that beard even real?
• He kind of looks like a cross between Santa Claus and Obi Wan ben Kenobi.
• I’m sure he is nothing like Santa Claus, although he might be one to give out sweets – after a suicide bombing.
• He’s got some serious protection there.

As it turns out, bodyguards are not much use when you decide to detonate your explosive vest.

Hamas security said Saturday that the leader of an Al-Qaida-inspired group in the Gaza Strip has been killed during a fierce gun battle that began on Friday.

Abdel-Latif Moussa, the leader of Jund Ansar Allah, was killed when fighting resumed with Hamas forces after dawn Saturday, Ihab Ghussein, a Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press.

He said Moussa detonated an explosives vest he was wearing during the fighting.

“The so-called Moussa has committed suicide…killing a mediator who had been sent to him to persuade him and his followers to hand themselves over to the government,” Ghussein said.

Meanwhile, karma’s a bitch.

Israel Radio on Friday quoted Palestinian reports saying that Abu-Jibril Shimali, a commander of the Hamas armed wing, was killed in the clashes.

The Iz a Din al-Kassam brigades that Shimali commanded orchestrated the kidnapping of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit.

But back to Abdel-Latif Moussa and Jund Ansar Allah, whom it seems were never really known for thinking things through.

Jund Ansar Allah first came to public attention in June after it claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to attack Israel from Gaza on horseback.

Update: More on the incident, including head Hamashole Ismail Haniyeh’s (predictable) accusation that Israel was somehow behind it.

The 57-year-old Gaza vendor Adnan Abu Beid was preoccupied with showing his watermelons, onions, fruits and vegetables at his little store in Sheja’eya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City to attract the purchasers to buy his merchandise.

But 20 years ago, Abu Beid’s customers were completely different. He used to run al-Nasser, the most famous and biggest movie house in downtown Gaza city, which had shut down as the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, erupted against Israel in December 1987.

After Israel signed Oslo accords with the Palestinians, when the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was established after the Israeli army withdrew from Gaza city, al-Nasser movie house was reopened for a few months, but later it was burned and destroyed by angry Islamic Hamas demonstrators in 1995.

Abu Beid says, although 20 years have passed, “I still keep a huge amount of film archives that are worth 1.5 million U.S. dollars.” He stores the film archives together with his watermelons and onions in a small upper floor in his little vegetable store.

He told Xinhua that his archives “are the only that remained after all the movie houses had either shut down, or been destroyed by Hamas activists during demonstrations in Gaza city in 1995.”

“After al-Nasser movie house was burned and destroyed, I hid my film archives and decided to become a vegetable vendor,” said Abu Beid.

Elderly Gaza population still remember when movie house business flourished during the period between 1960, when the Gaza Strip was under Egypt’s administration, and 1987, when the Palestinian Intifada erupted in the Palestinian territories.

“When I got engaged in 1965 in Gaza, I used to take my fiancee to the cinema,” said Abu Ahmed No’man, a 70-year-old Gaza resident, who has seven children and 20 grandchildren, and many of whom, born after 1987, have never been to a movie house.

Abu Beid said he used to bring films from Egypt, China, India, Israel, the United States and many other Arab countries into his cinema.

“I still remember, the situation in Gaza Strip was very good at that time, but now due to the bad economic situation in Gaza, it is hard to open a new movie house,” he added.

By 1994, after the PNA was established, there were nine movie houses in the Gaza Strip, which is now ruled by the Islamic Hamas movement that seized control of the impoverished and densely populated enclave in June 2007, and routed secular President Mahmoud Abbas’s security forces.

“I remember the movie houses of al-Nasser, al-Samer, al-Jalaa’ and Amer in Gaza City, al-Khadra and al-Hamra in the city of Khan Younis and three other movie houses in Rafah town,” said Abu Ahmed.

Famous Chinese and Indian films used to be shown in those movie houses, mainly in the 1970s. But most of the movie houses in Gaza have been closed down and turned into either places for people to throw rubbish or homes of stray dogs and cats. The deserted movie houses are full of mice and owls.

Just outside Amer movie house in Remal neighborhood in Gaza city, old remaining parts of Indian film ads are still stuck on the dirty wall of its front entrance, which was sealed by a built wall of bricks. Harmful grasses and plants grew up between the old destroyed seats.

The tickets window was also sealed off, which used to be busy during the nights of the weekends, where queues of fans stood outside to buy tickets for an old black-and-while Egyptian film in the early 1960s.

Palestinians, who consider themselves religiously conservative, believe that the movie houses circulate traditions that contradict with the traditions of the Palestinian society.

However, Abu Beid said, “nowadays, there is ignorance of movie houses and the contribution they could make in developing our culture.”

He went on saying that “many people who think about reopening movie houses in Gaza are afraid that it would be attacked, burned and destroyed.”

Radical Islamic groups have carried out in the last several months a series of attacks against internet cafes, coffee shops and other entertainment sites in the Gaza Strip, claiming that these places are used to spread immoral principles among the young Palestinian generations.

Ten days ago, Hamas produced its first two-hour film that talks about the life of one of its top militants who was killed in Gaza by Israeli soldiers in 1993. The scenario of the film, which is the first of its kind, was written by Hamas strongman in Gaza Mahmoud al-Zahar.

“I can reopen and operate al-Nasser movie house in Gaza, if Hamas government asks me to do so, but it seems that Hamas is not interested in reopening any of the closed movie houses,” said Abu Beid.

The minister of culture of Hamas government in Gaza Osama el- Eassawi conditioned the reopening of any of the closed Gaza movie houses with respecting the laws and the traditions of the Islamic society. “We support the art that respects the moral and religious traditions and cultures,” he said.

However, he denied that the spread of radical religious beliefs “is the main reason for closing the movie houses in the Gaza Strip, ” adding “there are economic problems due the deteriorated economic situation.”

“Movie houses are private sector and special associations. In case they apply for reopening, we will seriously consider their application if they show commitments to our conditions,” said the Hamas minister of culture.

So if anyone was truly interested in “freeing Gaza”, they certainly wouldn’t be cozying up to Hamas.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

1:16PM: UN investigator Richard Falk says the situation in Gaza reminds him of the Warsaw Ghetto. I guess that is why he is a UN investigator, and not a history professor.

9:10AM: A PA official has stated that Israel made a big mistake by ending the operation without overthrowing Hamas from power.

Now had Israel really committed genocide, war crimes and massacres against the palestinians, do you think we would be hearing such statements from PA officials? Surely, they would want the carnage to end.

6:10AM: Here’s head Hamashole honcho Khaled Mashaal talking of their “victory” over Israel.

6:02AM: According to a Fatah source, Hamas has murdered 10 Fatah members since the end of Operation Cast Lead. The UN, Amnesty International, Free Gaza, and Annie Lennox have accordingly all condemned Hamas.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

6:03PM: Reuters caption of the day:

A cleaver lies on the stomach of freshly slaughtered cow outside Husam Nasr’s butcher shop in Gaza January 22, 2009. Nasr said he would have been able to sell the meat of four cows each day before Israel’s 22-day war to end rocket attacks on its southern towns by Hamas Islamists who control the Gaza Strip. Half of Gaza’s 1.5 million people rely on food aid. They receive carbohydrates, fat and sugar but little fresh protein. Gaza is a fertile place, where fruit and vegetables grow well. There are chicken farms and flocks of sheep and goats, but no cattle-raising operations in the enclave.

Yeah, about growing fruit and vegetables in Gaza, you may want to remind yourselves about this.

5:28PM: Here is the original Italian report by Lorenzo Cremonesi, and here is the English auto-translation:

“So the boys of Hamas we have used as targets’
Gaza residents accuse the Islamic militants: “We prevented from leaving their houses and shooting from there”

GAZA – ‘Go, go out of here! Do you want the Israelis kill us all? You want to see die under the bombs our children? Taken away your weapons and missiles, “shouted many among the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip to Hamas militants and their allies of Islamic Jihad. The bravest were organized and had barred the doors to their yards, nailed to the boards of buildings, locked up as we go along the stairs to the roof higher. But for most of the guerrillas did not listen to anyone. Collaborators of Israel. Spies Fatah cowards. The soldiers of the holy war will punish. And in any case all will die, like us. Attacking the Jewish Zionists, we are all destined for paradise, you are not happy to die together? ” And so furious shouting, breaking down doors and windows, hid in the highest floors, in gardens, used ambulances, we barricavano near hospitals, schools, buildings Assembly.

In extreme cases fired against those who tried to block them the way to save their families, or beat wildly. “The Hamas militiamen tried to put to good cause Israelis. They were often children, 16 or 17 years, armed with machine pistol. They could not do anything against tanks and jets. They knew to be very weak. But they wanted disappearing on our houses and then to accuse of war crimes, claims Abu Issa, 42 years, resident in the neighborhood of Tel Awa. “Practically all the buildings highest in Gaza that have been hit by Israeli bombs, as Dogmoush, Andalous, Jawarah, Siussi and many others had on the roof ramps rocket launchers, or points of view of Hamas. Li had also placed near the big deposit UN then went up in flames. And the same goes for the villages along the border then more devastated by the fury of the crowds and punitive Zionists “, the echoes her cousin, Um Abdallah, 48 years. I use nicknames family. Provide details but well detailed. E ‘was difficult to collect such evidence. In general triumphs here fear Hamas and empire ideological taboos powered by a century of wars with the “Zionist enemy.”

Who tells a different version of the narrative set by the “muhamawa” (the resistance) is automatically a ‘amil, a collaborazionista and threatens their lives. It helps, however the recent fratricidal clashes between Hamas and PLO. If Israel had ol’Egitto allowed foreign journalists to enter would have been easier. Those spaces are often threatened by Hamas. “There is a new reality in the Middle East between Arab societies lack the cultural tradition of human rights. Was under the regime of Arafat that the press was censored and persecuted. Hamas is even worse, “says Eyad Sarraj, a well-known psychiatrist in Gaza city. And there is another fact that is emerging more and more evident by visiting clinics, hospitals and families of the victims of Israeli fire. In truth, the number appears much lower for almost 1300 deaths, in addition to about 5,000 injured, reported by the men of Hamas and repeated by the official UN and local Red Cross. “The deaths could not be more than 500 or 600. Mainly boys between 17 and 23 years recruited from the ranks of Hamas that has literally sent to the massacre, “says a doctor Shifah the hospital that will not necessarily be said, is to risk his life. One thing, however, also confirmed by local journalists: “We have already reported to the heads of Hamas. Why insist on inflating the numbers of victims? Strano, inter alia, that non-governmental organizations, including Westerners, the reporting without verification. In the end, the truth may come to light. It could be like in Jenin in 2002. Initially we spoke of 1,500 deaths. Then came out they were only 54, including at least 45 guerrillas who died fighting.

As we have arrived at these figures? “Take the case of the massacre of the family of Al Samoun neighborhood of Zeitun. When the bombs hit their houses have reported that 31 had died. And so there have been an officer of the Ministry of Health controlled by Hamas. But then, when the bodies were actually recovered, the sum total is doubled to 62 and so went to the calculation of total budgets, “says Masoda Al Samoun of 24 years. He adds an interesting detail: “To confuse the water we had put the Israeli special teams. Their men were disguised as guerrillas of Hamas, with a green bandana tied in front with the inscription usual: there is no other God besides Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet. It intrufolavano lanes in order to create chaos. We happen to shout them to leave, feared reprisals. Later we understood that they were Israelis. And ‘Just visit any hospital to understand that the accounts do not add up. Many beds are free all’Ospedale European Rafah, one of those who should be more involved in the victims of the “War of the tunnel” from Israel. The same goes for “Nasser” in Khan Yunis. Only 5 of 150 beds at the private Al-Amal are occupied. In Gaza city was evacuated the Wafa, built with donations “Islamic charities” of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf countries, and bombed by Israel and the end of December. The institute is known to be a stronghold of Hamas, were hospitalized here its fighters wounded in the civil war with Fatah in 2007. The others were at hand, Al Quds, which is bombarded the second half weeks of January.

He says this fact Magah to Rachmah, 25 years, inhabitant of a few dozen meters from the four major buildings in the complex health now seriously damaged. “The men of Hamas took refuge mainly in the building that houses the administrative offices of Al Quds. They used ambulances and forced ambulanzieri and nurses to remove their uniforms with symbols of paramedics, so could be confused and better to escape Israeli snipers. This has reduced a lot of the number of beds available in health institutions in Gaza. As well, the Shifah, the largest hospital in the city, remains a far cry from the record sold out. It seems to be rather densely occupied its groundwater. “Hamas had hidden there the cells and the emergency room for interrogation of prisoners of Fatah and the secular face of the left who were evacuated from the prison was bombed in Sarajevo, saying the militant Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It ‘was a war in this war between Fatah and Hamas. The local humanitarian organizations, mostly controlled dall’Olp tell of dozens of executions, cases of torture, kidnappings in the last three weeks’ perpetrated by Hamas. One of the most notorious cases is to Shakhura Achmad, 47 years old, resident of Khan Yunis, and brother Khaled, right-hand man of Mohammad Dahlan (former head of the security services of Yasser Arafat, now in exile) who was abducted on the orders of the Head the local secret police of Hamas, Abu Abdallah Al Kidra, and tortured, he would have torn his left eye, and then was killed January 15.

5:02PM:  Despite the Italian newspaper report mentioned in the last updates, the IDF has stood behind its estimate that between 1,100 to 1,200 people were killed in the fighting, more than two-thirds of which were Hamas members

3:32PM: Regarding the last update, the Italian reporter who published this is Lorenzo Cremonesi, who I previously mentioned regarding his report that in Gaza “One thing seems clear. There is no lack of food and there is no hunger.” As I mentioned in that post, he is reportedly known in Italy for is pro-palestinian writing.

Meanwhile, someone who should read this article is United Nations’ humanitarian chief John Holmes. Now there’s a name associated with inflated figures.

3:02PM: A physician at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital has admitted to an Italian newspaper that the casualty figures were inflated, and that ‘no more than 500 or 600′ palestinians were killed.

“The number of deceased stands at no more than 500 to 600. Most of them are youths between the ages of 17 to 23 who were recruited to the ranks of Hamas, who sent them to the slaughter,” according to the newspaper article.

The doctor wished to remain unidentified, out of fear for his life.

A Tal al-Hawa resident told the newspaper’s reporter, “Armed Hamas men sought out a good position for provoking the Israelis. There were mostly teenagers, aged 16 or 17, and armed. They couldn’t do a thing against a tank or a jet. They knew they are much weaker, but they fired at our houses so that they could blame Israel for war crimes.”

The reporter for the Italian newspaper also quoted reporters in the Strip who told of Hamas’ exaggerated figures, “We have already said to Hamas commanders – why do you insist on inflating the number of victims?”

These same reporters mentioned that the truth that will come out is likely to be similar to what occurred in Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin. “Then, there was first talk of 1,500 deaths. But then it turned out that there were only 54, 45 of which were armed men,” the Palestinian reporters told the Italian newspaper.

2:02PM: A Fatah minister has accused Hamas of hijacking Gaza aid trucks (as I reported the past few days). I wonder if UNRWA Spokesperson Christopher Gunness will now admit that this happened, rather than playing dumb.

1:28PM: Hmmm..

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday that the Israel Defense Forces’ operation in the Gaza Strip has generated renewed momentum in efforts to strike a deal for the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit, who was abducted by Gaza militants in a cross-border raid more than two years ago.

“The operation created a number of levers that can aid in the expedition of [Shalit's] return,” Olmert said. “This is what I said and I will not add to this, because this will not benefit his return. After Gilad returns home, it will be possible to tell the whole story, and then we will know who supported which position, who put pressure, and who asked what.”

12:00PM: Libyan leader lunatic Muammar Gaddafi is rehashing his ‘Isratine” one-state idea, and advocating that new US President Barack Obama should talk with Bin Laden.

“Terrorism is a dwarf not a giant. Osama bin laden is a person who can be given a chance to reform,” Gaddafi said through an interpreter.

Our friend Naqba was unavailable for comment.

9:46AM: Yet another example of the IDF’s efforts to minimize palestinian civilian casualties – and the resulting adverse impact on Israeli civilians.

Although the Israeli air force bombed the Phildelphi corridor along the border thousands of times during the course of the Cast Lead campaign, smugglers acknowledge that some tunnels running under the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip have remained in use, and were in operation even during the fighting. Contrary to media reports, the Israeli air force apparently did not use more powerful bunker-busting bombs to destroy the tunnels, rather than regular explosives. Tunnels lined with wood reinforcement have been especially resistant to air force bombing raids.

5:58AM: News conference or shampoo commercial?

5:50AM: There is now talk that Israel is softening its position in terms of the price it is willing to pay in order to secure the release of captured soldier Gilad Shalit.

So let’s get this straight. We prematurely end a war in which we had the enemy on the ropes, state that we achieved all of the war’s objectives, and then proceed to move towards the enemy’s demands.

Stupidity doesn’t even begin to describe it.