Israellycool

Our favorite palestinian protester is back - with a new shirt, but an old hairstyle.

“Yeah, so I’ve gone back to a goatee. You got a problem with that?”

Are you palestinian and have a desire to enter Israel to perpetrate a terrorist attack or just to enjoy yourself?

Not to worry! Just bribe your local doctor to fast-track the process.

Palestinians from Gaza bribed local doctors to declare that they were seriously ill and required treatment in Israel, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) charged on Monday.

“Recently there has been an increase in the exploitation of Israel’s humanitarian policy by way of fraudulent medical permits in return for bribes to doctors in the Gaza Strip,” a Shin Bet spokesman told The Jerusalem Post. “This, plus the requests of terrorist activists to enter Israel for medical treatment, increases the danger to state security.

The statement came in response to the latest allegations by Physicians for Human Rights, which charged that since the beginning of April, the Shin Bet has been preventing 12 new cancer patients from receiving life-saving treatment in Israel (which I blogged about here - ed). In addition to these 12, the Shin Bet had for several weeks been preventing dozens more, including cancer and heart patients, from passing through Israel on their way to treatment in Jordan and Egypt.

And you don’t need a medical permit - fraudulent or otherwise - to tell you that this exploitation of Israel’s humanitarian policy is sick.

What is even sicker is this is not in the least bit surprising.

After a meeting with palestinian officials, former US president Jimmy Carter notices a palestinian-fired Qassam.

“Man, those babies really can fly!”

The International Solidarity Movement reports the killing of a palestinian teenager, definitively as the work of “settlers.”

At 3pm on Wednesday, 16th April, the mutilated body of 15 year old Hammad Nidar Khadatbh was found in lands of the illegal Israeli settlement of Al-Hamra by his father, who was out searching for his missing son.

Hammad had left the house at 9am on Tuesday, 15th April to work on the family’s land, located near the stolen agricultural lands of the settlement. As the second eldest son, he was picking cucumbers for the family rather than going to school, to help with the income of his struggling family. At evening he failed to return home, and so his father and other family members immediately went searching for him. They found nothing. They set out again the next day, Wednesday, and found his body in a place they had searched the day before - clearly dumped overnight.

Hammad’s body was naked, bloated, and tortured. His neck was broken, and his face had been smashed in with rocks. One finger had been cut off and there were multiple holes in his torso, seemingly made by a sharp, round implement - something like a pen, his family explained. An Israeli police officer who arrived on the scene to investigate the incident confirmed that Hammad had been murdered, but made no comment as to by whom. Hammad’s body was immediately taken to the coroner in Jerusalem, but the report on the exact cause of his death will not be available for another week.

After speaking to many people in the area, it was established that Hammad had tried to return home via the Al-Hamra (Arabic for “red area”) checkpoint, but was refused passage through as being only 15 years old, he had no identification (IDs are only issued to Palestinians aged 16 years and over). It appears that Hammad was then forced to walk around the long way home, and was taken at this point on Tuesday night.

Given the location of the body - on settlement lands and near an Israeli-only apartheid road - the family are convinced that Hammad was killed by settlers from the Al-Hamra settlement. His father explained that his son was only a young boy, and had no enemies. Also, he explained, there are no Palestinians in that area, only settlers from the agricultural settlement.

The 11500 residents of the village of Beit Furiq, located near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, have regular problems with the illegal settlements near their village. Approximately three years ago a 78 year old man, Mohammad Abu Oday, was killed when settlers from Itamar settlement destroyed his head with large rocks. Another young man was also shot dead by settlers, and five others have been injured whilst attempting to pick their olives. Residents advise that these attacks happen when Palestinians go to lands that are anywhere near to settlements, occurring every couple of years.

Interestingly, these attacks elicit no repercussions on the settlers by the Israeli military such as are inflicted upon Palestinian villages in similar, or even lesser situations. The village of Beita, for example, was shut down for four days last week, with massive roadblocks installed on every road to the village, and residents arrested for attempting to leave after a shooting occurred near an Israeli-only road in which no one was injured.

Hammad was buried at 3pm on Thursday 17th April, and is survived by his parents and seven siblings.

Given what I know about the people commonly and derogatorily referred to as “settlers”, I find it hard to believe the boy was murdered by them. This is especially true, given what I know about the palestinians and the numerous senseless murders they perpetrate against each other (leaving aside what they do to us).

But there’s more reason to believe that something is fishy about the report. Take this Ma’an news report of the same murder:

A Palestinian boy from the northern West bank village of Beit Fureik near Nablus was found dead on Wednesday afternoon near the Israeli settlement of Al-Hamra.

15-year-old Hamid Khatatba had been missing for tor two days before his body was found, his cousin told Ma’an. The boy was employed as an agricultural worker in the Jordan Valley northeast of Nablus.

His cousin accused Israeli settlers of the killing, pointing out that the boy’s neck was broken and there were signs of torture and blood on the body. He also highlighted that the Israeli authorities have refused to hand over Hamid’s body to his family.

In the chronologically earlier Ma’an report, the cousin mentions a broken neck, signs of torture and blood, while in the later report published on the ISM site, family members mention many more injuries (the bloated and tortured body, broken neck, face smashed in with rocks, finger cut off, and multiple holes in his torso). Now I think it is safe to assume that the cousin quoted in Ma’an would have made it his business to mention all of the injuries, given the propaganda value in doing so. So you have to ask why the family members quoted in the subsequent report mention many other injuries. I smell the stench of fabrication.

Another interesting inconsistency is the cousin’s claim in the Ma’an report that “the Israeli authorities have refused to hand over Hamid’s body to his family,” while the subsequent article states that the report on the exact cause of his death will not be available for another week, mentioning no such difficulties with Israeli authorities.

In any event, I think it is fair to say that this piece constitutes a libel against the Jews living in the area, considering there is no evidence whatsoever that the boy was murdered by them. And the ISM, in bringing this report (which also appears on countless anti-Israel sites) is once again showing it is much more an anti-Israel movement than a pro-palestinian one.

From the makers of Ambiguous Explosion and Mysterious Explosion comes the latest in work accident tomfoolery: Vague Blast.

Three Palestinians were killed and four others injured in a vague blast on Sunday in the Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza strip, Palestinian medics said.

The Spokesman for the Israeli army claimed no responsibility for the Jabaliya blast.

Eyewitnesses said that they heard three consequent explosions in the home of Hasan al-Mtaweq, a leader of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades.

Posters of late leader Yasser Arafat are seen in the background as Palestinian men gather in a coffee shop to play cards and smoke in the West Bank refugee camp of Jalazoun near Ramallah, Saturday, April 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

Coyote Hyena Ugly?

Guess who.

Yep, that our friend Hairstyle Man, and we’ve seen him wearing that shirt before.

But I’m not complaining. After all, at least he’s wearing a shirt.

Ha’aretz reports:

Israel Defense Forces troops killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy and two militants in a cross-border raid into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Friday, Hamas and medical officials said. Medical officials said the boy sustained bullet wounds in the head and chest during an exchange of fire near the refugee camp of Bureij in central Gaza.

A 12-year-old boy killed in an exchange of gunfire between the IDF and palestinian terrorists..must be the IDF’s fault, right?

Palestinian children look at militants taking position in Gaza City. Israel warned on Thursday it will retaliate against Hamas, blaming the Palestinian Islamist group for a deadly explosion of violence in the Gaza Strip that followed a month of relative calm. (AFP/Mohammed Abed)

I think it’s pretty clear who’s responsible. It’s a shame the very media who publish pictures like the above assign the blame to Israel, and people too readily swallow it up.

Palestinians celebrate the “Lettuce” festival in the West Bank village of Artas, near Bethlehem, April 10, 2008. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun (WEST BANK)

As in “Lettuce kill as many Jews as possible.”

But seriously, I’m guessing those lettuce were not grown in Gaza greenhouses.

In one of the more bizarre sideshows ever seen in the Middle East, last week Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri scolded Hamas for shooting at Israel “with the blessed Qassam rockets which don’t differentiate between a child and an adult, and moreover, perhaps [don’t differentiate] between the Jews and the Arabs and Muslims working in those colonies or in the streets and markets of Occupied Palestine, even though the Shari’ah forbids their killing.”

Now, Hamas had to defend itself against Al-Qaeda’s charges of wanton terror (and breaking Sharia law), and it came out with an even crazier statement:

Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Saturday denied it aims at killing Israeli children and women by the rocket it fires from Gaza Strip.

“Hamas doesn’t mean to kill children by its rockets,” spokesman Ismail Radwan told reporters in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. His remarks were in response to al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader Aymanal-Zawahiri who said Hamas’ random rockets kill Jews women and children in violation of Islam law.

But Radwan added that “the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians may involve some killings of children,” blaming the Israeli army on “deliberately killing children, women and destroying houses and mosques.”

Yes, Hamas with a straight face is claiming that their Qassam rockets are not aimed at random women and children of Sderot and other Negev communities. They just have really, really, really bad aim. All those kindergartens and schools that got hit must have caused great anguish among the leaders of Hamas.

Can’t you just feel the rage?

A Palestinian protester eats an ice-cream and uses a sling shot at Israeli soldiers during a protest against Israel’s security fence in the West Bank village of Bilin April 4, 2008. REUTERS/Baz Ratner (WEST BANK)

And the popsicle of violence continues..

Update: Brian is also amused.

I smell a “work” accident.

Two people were injured in a mysterious explosion*, east of the town of Al-Qarara in the southern the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources announced on Friday morning.

The sources told Ma’an that the injured were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis where one of them is said to be in a serious condition.

You know what’s coming next, don’t you?

It is believed the explosion was caused by an object left behind by invading Israeli forces.

But of course.

* not to be confused with an ambiguous explosion, which is something different entirely.