Following are excerpts from speeches by Arab Islamic leaders expressing solidarity with Gaza, which aired on Al-Manar and Al-Aqsa TV, December 3 and 5, 2008.

Sheik Himam Sa’id, Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan: Oh noble Gaza, raise your head high. You have made the Muslims raise their heads high. And you, people of Hebron – you are now waging a war against the Jews. You are well-versed in this. We saw how, on a day in 1929, you slaughtered the Jews in Hebron. Today, slaughter them on the land of Hebron. Kill them in Palestine. Arise, oh people of Palestine, all the people of Palestine – arise in defense of your Al-Aqsa Mosque, arise in defense of Nablus and Hebron. Arise and face the [PA] Preventive Security forces. Fear them not, for they are rabbits. They are wolves, so fear them not, oh lions.

Now the Jews are rabbits and the palestinians are lions? I thought the palestinians actually liked rabbits, and were not so keen on lions.

Footage shows settler executing Palestinians in Hebron

A Zionist human rights organization released footage documenting a Zionist settler shooting two members of a Palestinian family on Thursday in Hebron.

B’Tselem provided the footage, which was originally filmed by Palestinian resident of Hebron Jamal Abu-Sa’ifan following the eviction of the new settlement on Thursday afternoon. Settlers attacked the nearby house of the Abu-Se’ifan family and during ensuing clashes, a settler fired his handgun at 40-year-old Hosni Abu-Se’ifan, who was shot in the chest and is in stable condition. His father, 65-year-old Abd al-Hai Abu-Sa’ifan, was moderately wounded in the arm. The two were taken to a Hebron hospital.

Not much of an execution when the victims live to see another day.

Then again, it won’t be the first time.

Palestinian armed groups denounce Hebron settler attacks

Two Palestinian armed groups denounced settler attacks on the West Bank city of Hebron’s residents on Thursday.

Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Brigades, as well as the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), warned that they would respond to settler attacks on Palestinians and expressed sorrow “for not supporting Hebron residents,” according to a statement from Al-Aqsa.

Not to be confused with the good type of (lethal) violence which they pledge to continue.

Meanwhile, the PRC said in a statement that settler attacks amount to “an ethnic cleansing” in Hebron and that such actions “will escalate the Intifada, making the resistance stronger.

• The situation frustrates me
• I simply don’t have the time nor patience
• The incentive to do otherwise is low since I am still hardly getting any comments

Quite simply, neither the forced evacuation of the house in Hebron, nor the violence and vandalism of some of the residents fill me with pride.

I have stumbled across the following image and there is a major issue with the description.
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Detail.aspx?axd…
Go to that link, the comment says “Jewish settlers scrawled bad words on the walls of a mosque… The settlers scrawled ‘Mohammed is a pig’ and ‘Death to the Arabs’ on the front of a mosque”
Clearly, your Hebrew is extremely rusty, because what is written on the wall is actually a quote from the Jewish Bible, aka the Tanach. Please update this on your website. As a trusted media outlet you should maintain a higher level of integrity. Please respond to this with your answer so I know it was received. I sure hope this was a mistake and not intentional. Pleaser note that I am NOT saying what happened is okay at all, in fact I condemn it, however you still have the responsibility to accurately report on the situation.

Seth reports he received the following response:

Hello

Thank you for your recent email. We are correcting our captioning for the images in question.

Thanks again,

Vincent Formanek
Getty Images
1-800-IMAGERY

vincent.formanek@gettyimages.com

Seth posted this comment 7 hours ago, which means Getty Images has had over 7 hours to correct the caption. Yet as of the time of this post, the misleading caption remains.

I wouldn’t have thought correcting a caption would be such a time consuming process.

Then again, I wouldn’t have thought the media’s job was to report events any which way they like.

Israeli soldiers use white paint to cover graffiti after Jewish settlers scrawled bad words on the walls of a mosque in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on November 20, 2008. Jewish settlers angry at an Israeli court order for their eviction from a house in Hebron desecrated a mosque and tombs in the flashpoint West Bank City before dawn today, witnesses said. The settlers scrawled “Mohammed is a pig” and “Death to the Arabs” on the front of a mosque and drew the Israeli emblem, the Star of David, on several gravestones in a Muslim cemetery, the witnesses said.

For the record, the “bad words” seem to be Hebrew for “Do not fear, Emmanuel, House of Jacob…” Sounds like a quotation from the Tanach, but I am not sure. The last two words are hard to make out, but they do not seem to be insults or referring to Mohammed.

Furthermore, out of all the photos showing the graffiti, I cannot spot one which shows the offending words comparing Mohammed to an oinker, or saying “Death to Arabs.” Just saying.

(For the record, if it turns out that Jewish residents of Hebron are responsible for this graffiti, I unequivocally condemn their actions. Spraying graffiti on a mosque is not right, no matter what the content of the words. It is also really stupid).

Update: Elder fills in some of the blanks in a mail:

It is a partial quote from the end of Alenu (that no one says) putting two verses together.

אל-תירא, מפחד פתאום;    ומשואת רשעים, כי תבוא  from Mishlei (Proverbs 3:25)
עֻצוּ עֵצָה, וְתֻפָר; דַּבְּרוּ דָבָר וְלֹא יָקוּם, כִּי עִמָּנוּ אֵ-ל from Yeshaya (Isaiah 8:10)

Update: Commenter Shy Guy fills in the remaining blanks:

The 2nd scrawling might say “Beit Ya’akov Lechu V’neilcha” (”House of Jacob, go forth and we shall proceed”) – Isaiah 2:5, whose acronym is “BILU”, the original Zionist movement’s name.

Jewish settlers beat up Palestinian boy near Hebron

Bilal Daana was attacked by a group of settlers near the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron. They beat him up and threw stones at him, the Palestinian medics said.

The boy was taken by Israeli soldiers to a checkpoint at the entrance to Hebron from where he was transferred to the local Al-Ahli hospital.

The incident was the latest in a surge of settler attacks on Palestinians, peace activists and Israeli soldiers since the authorities dismantled a settlement outpost near Hebron last month.

In other words, the headline and last paragraph convey what is essentially an allegation by palestinian medics as fact.

Interestingly enough, not all of the palestinian media outlets are reporting this incident, including Ramattan News and WAFA.

Meanwhile, here is how the palestinian Ma’an News reports it:

Israeli settlers wounded six-year-old Palestinian Bilal Da’na from Hebron after pelting the young boy with stones near the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, Palestinian sources in Hebron said.

Notice the difference between this version and the AFP version?

In the AFP version, the palestinian medics claimed that the “settlers” “beat him up and threw stones at him,” whereas the Ma’an version mentions only “pelting..with stones.” Which is it? Surely if the “settlers” had really beat up the child, the palestinian media would have mentioned this.

Sounds to me like the palestinian medics elaborated for the sake of the international media. And the international media were more than willing to report their version as fact.

Time may tell whether or not this palestinian boy was indeed injured by Jewish residents of Kiryat Arba. What is clear, though, is once again, the mainstream media are not reporting fairly or accurately.

Customs seizes tons of expired animal therapy products in Hebron

Palestinian Authority (PA) customs officers said Friday that the department seized five tons of expired drugs and other medical supplies for animals in Hebron.

Commander Wael Anati told Ma’an that officers discovered the expired supplies after raiding the house of a “suspected veterinarian.”

“On the basis of the information that we have from intelligence we broke into the house of the suspected veterinarian and seized quantities of expired animal drugs and forged documents,” he said.

Anati also warned traders not to deal in expired products under penalty of jail terms, and for locals to exercise caution when buying products in the markets.

Which begs the question: what on earth are “animal therapy products?”

Don’t get me wrong. I can fully understand why animals in the PA areas would need therapy. I just didn’t know such products existed, and that there was such a market for them in Hebron.

The irony (?!) is more animals in the PA areas would likely require therapy now that they have to contend with expired therapy products and “suspected veterinarians.”

I guess you learn something new every day, especially from the palestinian news outlets.