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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The militant group Hamas said early Sunday morning that one of its members had been killed in an explosion along Gaza’s fence with Israel.

The Islamic group’s military wing said a man was killed, and another injured, during a holy mission. Such language is used when explosives meant for an attack on Israel explode prematurely.

The dead Hamas man was named as Osama al-Aftal.

The Israel Defense Forces issued a statement clarifying troops were not operating in the area at the time of the explosion early Sunday.

Call me religious, but here’s hoping to many more “holy missions.”

Meanwhile, despite the fact you’d think palestinian news agencies would be beaming with pride about such missions, blaming Israel seems to be an even holier mission, as evidenced by this Ma’an News account of the same incident.

Undercover Israeli forces killed a Palestinian fighter in the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, witnesses and medical sources said.

The dead body of 23-year-old Usama Al-Astal, a fighter with Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, was taken to a hospital in the city of Khan Younis.

Eyewitnesses told Ma’an’s reporter that Al-Astal was on lookout duty east of the town of Al-Qarara, when he noticed Israeli special forces entering the area. He immediately hurled a grenade towards the Israelis, who fired back, killing him and wounding three other fighters.

Update: Elder points out that the Hamas website uses an even better euphemism.

As Al Aqsa Intifada against the occupation assault on the Gaza Strip continues, Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades has its best men to be in the playground of death to defend their people from any attack by the enemy.

Actually, neither did I until Hamas MP Salem Salamah told us so.

Salem Salamah: There are companies established by the colonialists and occupiers – large companies with branches all over the world, like Pepsi, Pepsi Cola. This is a well-known company. Pepsi is an acronym. P-E-P-S-I – Pay Every Pence to Save Israel. Pay every pence – pence is one hundredth of a dollar – to save Israel. Pay every pence to save Israel. Shouldn’t the Muslims have a fund, a company, or a large project to save the Al-Aqsa Mosque?

I guess no-one told him about some of the other famous soft drink brands:

FANTA – F*ck ANTisemitic Arabs

SPRITE – Spend Pennies to Realize Israel’s Technical Edge

Now, Reuters has an “exclusive”:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas underwent an unannounced heart test at a Jordanian hospital on Thursday, adding new uncertainty to already troubled peace talks.

Aides to Abbas, 73, said he was doing well after a catheterization procedure they described as successful, and that he was expected to leave Jordan Hospital later in the day. Abbas is due to return to the West Bank on Friday, they said, adding that they expect him to return to work immediately after his arrival.

—-

Palestinian officials initially said Abbas underwent an angioplasty, a treatment to help open blocked arteries. But later, they said the procedure was only a catheterization to check for blockage. The Arabic word “castara” is used to describe both procedures.

One castaration coming up.

And speaking of a sense of humor..

Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Abbas, said he spoke to the Palestinian leader from the West Bank on Thursday afternoon. “He’s doing very very well. He’s in very high spirits. He even joked to me,” Erekat said.

Wow. That is impressive.

One person was killed and three were wounded Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike targeting a metal shop in Rafah, according to Palestinian security and medical sources.

Israel Defense Forces confirmed the airstrike.

The person killed was the deputy commander of the Islamic Jihad military wing, according to the Palestinian sources, who said he also served as a school headmaster at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school.

What’s the bet they’re using PA textbooks at that school?

And what’s UNRWA’s response to this?

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunnes said he could not immediately confirm that the person was employed by the United Nations, and added that staff members who bring politics into U.N. institutions are fired immediately for violating staff rules.

Because we all know the politics is the problem here, and not the fact he was a freakin’ terrorist.

Israel may have 200 nuclear warheads, but Hamas has 200,000 people who want to blow themselves up inside Israel, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said Tuesday.

No doubt Zahar is not counting himself in that figure of 200,000. After all, I doubt he would blow himself up, given he won’t even bring himself to undergo a simply procedure to have that ugly wart removed.

Besides, those suitcases stuffed with millions dollars in cash don’t just move themselves.

Zahar, who was speaking to supporters at the Islamic University in Gaza City, said Israel would pay a heavy price if it rejected the Egyptian initiative for truce with the Palestinians.

“If Israel says no, it will pay a heavy price,” he said. “We are a besieged people and we will have to use all our tools to defend ourselves against Israel.”

Zahar said he expected Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman to brief Israeli leaders next week on Cairo’s efforts to achieve a truce.

He said that once Israel accepted the Egyptian initiative, all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip would be reopened. “The issue of the truce initiative will be determined finally next week,” he added. “I believe Israel will accept the initiative, although it will try to drag its feet on some issues.”

The Hamas leader pointed out that his movement had accepted a cease-fire with Israel in 2005. “Hamas benefited from that truce and no one can deny this,” he said. “Even those who opposed the previous truce have admitted that it was useful.”

In other words, a combination of “accept our truce or else” with an admission that such truces benefit the terrorists. Our leadership would have to be pretty stupid to go along with that.

Here’s hoping they don’t anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, I’m not Gazan, but I live here, and I think, being Christian, that Hamas is so close-minded, hateful and showing how strong it is by killing civilians either Israelis or Palestinians, dont think Hamas killed Israelis only, but everyone in its way, and uses little kids (3-15 years old) as shields, being poor, the kids accept to risk their lives and lunch a rocket for just 10-20 shekels! Also, Hamas does NOT show the world what Palestinians really want, they want a country and a peace with Israel, cuz along with Israel, we would live hapily, but Hamas’s authority, rank and forces will be erased, which is not wanted by Hamas people, they want their ranks and money!