Israellycool

The Free Gaza tools announce their new “postal service to Gaza,” which includes their “Letters from the World Program.”

LETTERS FROM THE WORLD PROGRAM
If you do not know anyone in Gaza, but would like to get to know someone, we want to help you try and find a pen pal. This program is available to people of all ages and from all places in the world. We would especially like to encourage schools to participate in the Letters from the World Program.

Place your letter in an unsealed envelope, and address the envelope to the type of person you would like it to be delivered to (for example: “For an 8-year-old girl,” or “For a male high school student,” “For a teacher,” “For a fishermen,” etc…). Please include your email address if possible. Place the envelope in a larger envelope and mail it to:

Letters from the World
Free Gaza Movement
P.O. Box 5341
Beverly Hills, CA 90209-5341
USA

Homework for Israellycool readers: Send an envelope per the above instructions and address it to one of the following:

• “For a Hamas/Islamic Jihad terrorist”
• “For a terrorist masquerading as a UNRWA employee“
• “For a children’s television show celebrity“
• “For a Viagra smuggler“
• “For a Christian bookstore owner (if possible)”
• “For Gilad Shalit”

Remember our friend Anis, the morally and follically challenged tone-deaf Free Gaza tool?

Well, after threatening to sue Elder of Ziyon for his send-up of Anis’ lame song, he is continuing his war against free speech, as evidenced by this exchange in the comments to his song on YouTube:

obeyutu (6 days ago)

Freeing Gaza is a very good idea, but how do you propose getting rid of the Hamas leaders? It will be especially difficult as you oppose violence and Hamas frankly, espouses it with alacrity.

AnisinMainz (3 days ago)

Thank you for your comments. Please understand that I delete political discussions after some days from this page. It is not the place. Please refrain from hate speech and inciting expressions and comply with the YouTube Community Guidelines. Anis

In other words, Anis does not want “political discussion” in the comments to his extremely politicized song (feel free to compliment his vocals or the sex appeal of his female back-up singer, though). Furthermore, suggesting Hamas espouses violence is “hate speech and inciting expressions.”

Anus.

This picture sums up Lauren Booth and the rest of the so-called “human rights activists.”

Just a picture of a man with a rocket launcher. Nothing to see here, move along.

I am sure you are already aware of the fact that Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth is stuck in Gaza. She has certainly raised enough of a stink about it, and the mainstream media are more than willing to publish her complaints.

What really interests me about this story is not the fact this woman is Tony Blair’s sister-in-law. It is what she reveals about her mindset.

Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, who arrived in Gaza with a boatload of activists protesting an Israeli blockade last month, said Tuesday she was stranded because both Israel and Egypt had denied her entry.

Lauren Booth, sister of the former British prime minister’s wife Cherie, revealed her predicament as Blair visited the region to further Western-backed efforts to achieve a limited Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Booth was one of 44 foreign “Free Gaza” activists who set sail from Cyprus, docking in Gaza last month, and was one of 10 who remained when the others sailed back to Cyprus on Friday.

Israel allowed the activists to dock in Gaza on August 23 despite its blockade of the coastal territory since Hamas Islamists, who oppose Israel’s existence, seized control last year.

Booth said she has tried unsuccessfully over the past few days to leave through Gaza’s land crossings with Israel and Egypt.

“I tried through the proper channels, through the United Kingdom’s embassy, but I was told I was not allowed to come through,” she said after trying in vain to enter Israel.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman, Peter Lerner, confirmed Israel had denied Booth entry, saying there was a policy of refusing entry to anyone from Gaza who did not get there via Israel.

“There is no possibility to let in those people who entered by the sea. They cannot enter Israel,” Lerner said.

Egypt would not let Booth through its Rafah terminal with Gaza on Saturday. She was turned away along with two other activists, Booth said.

“We were all turned back by the Egyptians,” she said, adding that she had received no explanation but had “heard through contacts Egypt was under pressure from Israel to act that way.”

Israel has eased some restrictions on Gaza since an Egyptian-brokered truce in June that has largely stopped rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.

But land crossings have remained largely shut to some 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza.

Booth said diplomatic efforts were still being made to permit her to leave. “Thanks to Israel for letting us feel a real taste of Gazan life,” she added.

In other words, even though Egypt has also refused her passage, she refuses to apportion any “blame” to them, and will only blame Israel. If Egypt refuses, then they were obviously instructed to do so by Israel. And it is only Israel that has allowed her to “feel a real taste of Gazan life”, even though Egypt also shares a border with Gaza.

I have a strong feeling that Lauren Booth - and many, if not all, of her fellow Free Gaza tools - are more about hating Israel than loving the palestinians.

When the “Free Gaza” farce unfolded last week, a few of the members stayed behind. But they didn’t plan to stay quite this long.

On Sunday, some of them tried to enter Israel via the Erez crossing, claiming that they needed to accompany the many sick patients who do leave Gaza to be treated in Israel. They were denied.

So they decided to try to leave to Egypt via Rafah, along with the thousands of people who crossed over the past two days. They were denied.

It is curious why the people who wanted to show their support for Gazans are so eager to get out of there. Fortunately, they might have the opportunity to spend weeks or maybe even years to get much friendlier with the locals as their official pleas to leave Gaza are ignored.

So it’s really a win-win.

I showed on my blog that Islamic Jihad graduated a class of terrorists this weekend, and noted how much empty space is in Gaza to allow live-fire demonstrations in front of an audience.

Well, PIJ was not the only terror group to graduate a class of masked terrorists this weekend. So did Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades. As Ma’an puts it:

The fighters are part of the Brigades controlled by Fatah, the party which also controls the caretaker government in the West Bank. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is also a member of the party.

The general commander of the Al-Aqsa Brigades and leaders of the Consultation Council (senior leadership of the party who discuss Fatah policy) attended the graduation along with members of other Palestinian factions.

Trainees practiced military shows and skills such as storming buildings and kidnapping soldiers, and demonstrated the launch of rocket-propelled grenades for the ceremony audience.

Al-Aqsa Brigades asserted that the graduation of a class of fighters sends a clear message to Israel that resistance is still a valid choice for freeing Palestinian lands and the Al-Aqsa mosque.

If Al-Aqsa has the freedom to have a public graduation ceremony in Gaza, that means that Hamas is allowing their supposed “sworn enemies” to train militarily. The fact that “other factions” attended the ceremony shows that it is probably not only allowed, but encouraged.

Before the Hamas takeover of Gaza, joint terror attacks between Hamas and Fatah were not unusual.

And while Hamas has shown no compunction about cracking down on groups that show too much independence, Fatah is still allowed to operate freely in some cases.

It seems that while the political wings of Hamas and Fatah are still at odds - Hamas arrests Fatah teachers and civil servants at will - their military wings have no problems with each other, and probably cooperate (along with Islamic Jihad.) This idea is reinforced by the fact that Fatah in Gaza still gets weapons, and all weapons smuggling in Gaza goes through Hamas.

Moreover, Abbas - who is not only a “member” of Fatah but its leader - neither instructs Al Aqsa to attack Hamas nor does he tell them to put down their weapons; rather he is quite happy letting them operate as a terror group together with Hamas and PIJ aimed at fighting Israel while keeping them far enough for plausible deniability so he can get Israel to give him more unilateral concessions.

Just like Arafat.

Terror supporter Yvonne Ridley writes of the Ship of Fools entry into Gaza.

Well, you would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that I am writing to you today from Gaza.

Or none of the above. After all, this whole production did not exactly garner a huge deal of attention. At least not as much as the terror enablers would have liked, thanks to Israel’s smart gambit.

But you would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that Yvonne Ridley is a terror supporter.

I really was too overwhelmed yesterday to put pen to paper after the magnificent welcome I and my fellow peace activists from SS Liberty and SS Free Gaza received as we entered the port of Gaza … the first ships to sail in since 1967.

Yeah, a truly magnificent welcome.

But I really want to make one thing very clear to you here and now.

Israel did not give us permission to enter Gaza - the reality is they could NOT STOP us even if they tried.

JUST BECAUSE YOU TYPE SOMETHING IN UPPER CASE, DOES NOT MAKE IT ANY TRUER.

But thanks for admitting that Israel did not even try to stop you, even though you are now going to claim the exact opposite.

And I am sure you would be swimming with the fishes by now if Israel wanted it.

And believe me some of the tactics to scupper our historic voyage were unbelievable.

Believe you? Umm, that is not going to happen.

Some of us, our family and friends have received death threats by telephone, text and emails while the whole Free Gaza Movement was targetted by Zionists lawyers who tried to sink our mission beofre it even began.

We were accused of being a front for a Hamas operarted gun-running venture and even iran was accused of being party by supplying weapons.

Really? It sounds so implausible that a group of anti-Israel people who have no problem with Hamas - including at least some who openly support terror - would be working with Hamas and their backers in Iran, a country that shares your aims.

Then Israel Foreign Minister Zvipi Livni made a snide comment a few days ago saying she hoped we could all swim while the Naval Commander announced he was running military exercises off the coast of Gaza and had thrown a 35-mile wide exclusion zone around.

It’s Tzipi, not Zvipi. But in any event, who said she didn’t have a sense of humor?

It was psychological warfare but the Zionist scare tactics failed and driven by nothing more than people power and a couple of seaworthy engines the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty sailed into a tumultus welcome in Gaza.

You mean tumultuous, right? (I am having a hard time believing you are even an author, given your inability to spell).

It was one of those defining moments in history - a bit like the first brick of the Berlin Wall being dislodged by ordinary citizens sick of the injustices imposed in a world run by political bullies.

Yes. That is why your arrival was reported on the front page of every mainstream media outlet website and newspaper.

All I could hear ringing in my ears was “Free, Free, Free Gaza and Allahu Akbar.”

The emotion was unbelievable and the joy swept us all along on the crest of a gigantic Palestinian wave of delight and disbelief.

I get it..a wave of delight and disbelief. Fits in well with the water imagery.

You still can’t spell, though.

We have now smashed the medieval siege imposed by Israel but we will not stop.

Some siege. Israel is constantly allowing aid into Gaza, and Gazans to enter Israel for medical treatment. Not to mention Qassams.

Now we need to tear down the checkpoint and crossing at Rafah where so much humanitarian aid has arrived only to be refused entry.

You mean the checkpoint that helps prevent suicide bombers from entering Israel?

Oops, I forgot. You see them as sh*theads Shaheeds.

The Egyptian Government should hang its head in shame that a bunch of largely white, non-Muslim westerners smashed the brutal siege by sea to reach the Palestinians and now they must do the same.

There were a few weasel words from Abu Mazen on the day we arrived … why did the Palestinian leader take so long to send us a goodwill message? Was he waiting for the greenlight by his political masters in washington and Tel Aviv? ‘Fraid it was too little too late from a man who is doing his best to ignore the people of Gaza … shame, shame, shame on you!

And as for the words of goodwill from the Arab League - back them up with hard cash to make this whole Free Gaza Movement permanent so we can open a ferry between Larnaca and Gaza which will run regularly.

Yeah, I saw you are in desperate need of cash. If only I could find my wallet..

While the palestinians claim they do not have enough flour in Gaza, I am glad to see that not only do they have enough to subside on, but they even have extra for their recreational needs.

White flower (sic.), not explosives was packed in a plastic bottle and thrown towards Israeli soldiers by a 15-year-old Palestinian boy who turned up at the Huwwara checkpoint south of Nablus two weeks ago.

The boy, Ra’fat Obeid from the Askar refugee camp, was arrested by Israeli forces and taken into Israeli custody, and was released to Palestinian Authority (PA) police this week.

Details of the events are murky, and officials have bounced blame between poverty, Israel and internally divisive forces.

Details from Palestinian security sources say the Obeid told police that his friend had convinced him to take the bottles filled with flower to the Huwwara checkpoint and surrender himself to Israeli soldiers.

Sources told Ma’an’s Nablus correspondent that Obeid hoped that after his arrest his family would receive a small monthly sum of money from the Palestinian government in compensation for his loss to the family. The PA has a policy of supporting the families of those arrested by the Israeli army.

Security sources explained that Obeid was handed over to his family after they signed several pledges to Palestinian Security Services ensuring that the boy would not try the stunt again. They added, however, that they suspected there was a third party involved which had provided the boys with the flower-stuffed bottles and advised them on the time and place for the plan’s execution. Such a force, said Palestinian Security, was an attempt to corrupt the children of the area.

In other words, palestinian children are wasting flour - which they claim is in short supply - so they can receive money for being arrested. As Elder of Ziyon notes:

Which means that the world is funding the PA which takes a significant amount of its budget to effectively pay salaries to anyone who gets arrested, from terrorists to kids who want a free education in Israeli prison. (A WashPo article from 2006 says that the amount is $220 a month per prisoner, so families with lots of sons in prison can stand to make a pretty penny.)

Meanwhile, a Ma’an News article without the blaming of Israel is like Spain without the running of the bulls.

For his part, the Palestinian official accused Israeli intelligence agencies as being behind the incident. He said that it was a ploy to have vulnerable children arrested and to plant ideas and strategies into their heads.

Having already claimed that Qassams fired at Sderot were the actions of “collaborators with Israel”, Hamas are now trying a different approach. Namely the What Qassams? approach.

Islamic Hamas movement said in a statement that Sunday’s rocket attack from Gaza at southern Israel “is an Israeli untrue claim to justify closing Gaza border crossing points.”

The Hamas statement came after Israel Radio’s Arabic service reported that unknown Gaza militants fired a homemade rocket from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip at southern Israel, causing no damages or injuries. No one claimed responsibility for the rocket attack.

The radio quoted Israeli army officials as saying that Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, is fully responsible for Sunday’s rocket attack on southern Israel and might face adverse consequences.

“Announcing from time to time that rockets are still fired from Gaza at Israel, is just an untrue claim to justify keeping Gaza Strip border crossing points with Israel closed,” Hamas said in the statement sent to reporters.

Coming soon: Hamas claims the IDF is firing Qassams at Sderot.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the Gazan town of Mawassi, where a majority of residents want Israel to come back.

Three years have passed since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, and in that time the economy of this coastal territory of 1.4 million people has gone from bad to worse.

Gas and food shortages are now being compounded by cash shortages as tens of thousands of people were unable to withdraw money from banks on Monday.

Still, despite their economic hardships, most Gazans insist that they prefer life here without the Israelis.

But in Mawassi – a mixed ethnic Palestinian and Bedouin town that was completely isolated from the rest of Gaza inside a Jewish settlement enclave – it’s a different story.

“I want [the Israelis] to come back,” says Riyad al-Laham, an unemployed father of eight who worked in the area’s Jewish settlements for nearly 20 years. “All the Mawassi people used to work in the settlements and make good money. Now there is nothing to do. Even our own agricultural land is barren.”

Located in the middle of Gush Katif, the former block of Jewish settlements here, Mawassi fell within the security cordon the Israeli army threw around its citizens from 2002 to 2005, when attacks from the neighboring Palestinian town of Khan Yunis came almost daily.

During those years, the people of Mawassi continued to work in Gush Katif, mainly as farmhands in hundreds of greenhouses the Jewish settlers operated.

Mr. Laham and many others in Mawassi say they preferred the relative economic security of those days to the current destitution, even if they are now free from Israeli occupation.

“Freedom to go where?” Laham asks. “I have no fuel now for my car. Where can I go? Freedom is a slogan. Even for a donkey you need money – which I don’t have.”

Three years ago, before Israel withdrew, Mawassi was a town of fertile corn crops and greenhouses, which – like the ones in the Jewish settlements – grew cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and strawberries.

Now, in the ethnic Palestinian section of town, nearly half the land lies barren.

Only shells remain of many of the greenhouses that were stripped of valuable materials.

A city that fed itself with its produce and the money its men made from working with the settlers, Mawassi is now dependent on food handouts from the United Nations.

Like the rest of Gaza, its people lack cooking gas and petrol, even if they feel more secure without Israeli soldiers all around them.

In the Bedouin section of town, Salem al-Bahabsa sits with five of his 24 grandchildren in front of his chicken coop. Goats and sheep wander around the other parts of the Bedouin quarter, where people live mostly in tents with tin roofs.

“We are all now unemployed and depend on charity for food,” Mr. Bahabsa says. “My sons were farmers in the greenhouses. We worked in the settlements and had resources. Now, I don’t think I could survive without [the UN]…. Before was better.”

There are voices in Mawassi who disagree, including Laham’s brother, Iyad. Reclaiming their beachfront, which became the Jewish settlement of Shirat Hayam in 2001, and the ability to move around Gaza as they please, makes the quality of life here better even if there is no longer a market for their produce, Iyad says.

“It was dark days because of the occupation,” says Iyad, an employed English teacher and father of three. “Working is not everything. The checkpoints made our city a prison…. We can’t say the occupation days were better than today.”

But interviews in the village appear to indicate that Iayd’s point of view puts him in the minority.

One main reason that life is worse now, say many villagers, is the lack of attention paid to Mawassi by both the previous Fatah and current Hamas governments since the Israeli withdrawal.

The Israelis “used to take responsibility for us as occupiers,” Riyad Laham says. “Neither [Hamas nor Fatah] knocked on the doors to ask what we need. People are fed up…. We have become beggars.

“At 9 a.m. in every other country, everyone is at his desk doing his work,” Laham says. “Here, people are by the side of the road with their arms crossed together.”

Ma’an News reports:

New clown and puppet show gives relief to Gazan children

No, it’s not another Olmert-Abbas meeting.

Clowns and puppets are the instruments of the “Jad and Le’b” clown troupe performing for Gazan orphans in Jabalia, a Gaza City suburb. The group uses new techniques to engage children and provide a meaningful respite from what is too often daily misery.

The performers present plays with elaborate puppets which interact with the children; working to bring the kids into the world of the theatre.

Zouzou Sultan the group director and the maker of the puppets said that her group is specialized in providing entertainment to kids through puppet plays which deal in a meaningful way with the events of children’s lives, but at the same time are able to introduce joy and pleasure into their hearts.

Sultan added that the performers made all of the puppets and props by hand, and organized all of the elements of the show for Gaza’s orphans.

The group put on the plays with help from the Jabalia Charitable Society. The society’s chairman Mustafa Ali said that “Jad and Le’b” are active in the community and “engage perfectly with the kids by providing a variety of entertainment.” They also present similar shows for other private associations and kindergartens in the area.

Ali stressed the need for such entertainment for Palestinian children. Shows like “Jad and Le’b” provide kids with much needed recreational programs, he added. “These shows are needed,” he concluded, “to raise kids on good morals and with good education to increase the sense of belonging.”

Here’s hoping these morals and education are not like those taught by palestinian children’s favorites Farfur, Nahoul and Assud.

I’m also thinking they might want to change the name of one of the puppets.

In the wake of Friday night’s Gaza beach blast that killed 5 Hamasholes and a 4-year-old girl, Fatah has responded to Hamas’ accusations it was behind the attack by doing what any self-respecting palestinian terrorist organization would do.

Blame the Joooos!

Fatah parliamentarian Asharaf Juma on Saturday held Israel responsible for Gaza Beach explosion which resulted in the death of six Palestinians.

“I strongly condemn the blast, this is a crime against the Palestinian people, and I call for a national committee to investigate the incide,nt” Juma said in an exclusive interview with RNA.

He called for an immediate meeting between Fatah and Hamas lawmakers to discuss the chaos that erupted after the blast and to work on solving crisis between the two parties.

Of course, Fatah is having about as much trouble sticking to one story as Yasser Arafat had trouble staying away from little boys.

A Fatah-affiliated group called Al-Awdah claimed responsibility for Saturday’s explosion, but Fatah officials in Ramallah strongly denied responsibility and said the killings were part of a “settling of scores” among Hamas militiamen.