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Amjad Awad, one of those arrested for the Itamar murders

The IDF has arrested the two perpetrators of the vicious slaughter at Itamar, and several accomplices. The murderers are members of the Progressive Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the second largest (after Fatah) faction of the PLO, which the Oslo accords recognize as the ‘sole legitimate representative of the ‘Palestinian people’, and from which was constituted the Palestinian National Authority (PA). The PA plans to declare a state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem with UN sanction this September.

The murderers came from the nearby Arab village of Awarta:

The suspects have been named as Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, an 18-year-old high school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19 [cousins], both from the West Bank village of Awarta, located 2 kilometers south of the settlement of Itamar…

The suspects have confessed to the stabbings and re-enacted the murders, security forces said on Sunday. According to Army Radio, they did not express remorse for their crimes.

Both men are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) terror group and received significant assistance from family members and friends after the attack, security forces added.

The suspects planned the stabbings days ahead of time. On the night of March 11, after unsuccessful attempts to obtain firearms from a local PFLP representative in their village, the two set out toward Itamar on foot, armed with knives, a wirecutter and masks to cover their faces.

After walking one kilometer, they cut the wire fence that surrounds Itamar, climbed through a forest and over a hilltop, and reached a row of homes. The suspects at first entered a home adjacent to the Fogel residence, but found that nobody was home. They stole an M-16 rifle from the home, ammunition and body armor, before walking on.

“They saw children sleeping in the home, and entered the Fogel family residence,” the IDF said. Immediately after entering the home, the youths set their knives on two young brothers sleeping in their beds, 4-year-old Elad and 11-year-old Yoav.

They then entered the parents’ bedroom, where they launched a knife attack on Ehud and Ruth Fogel. The parents fought back, attempting to fend off the attackers, but died of their stab wounds during the struggle.

The two then left the house. One of the suspects returned and stabbed the three-month-old baby Hadas to death in her crib after she began crying.

According to Israel Radio, Amjad said that he was unaware that there were two other children in the house, and that if he had known, he would have stabbed them as well.

After completing the slaughter, the suspects walked back to the village and told Hakim’s uncle, PFLP member Salah Adin Awad, what they had done. Salah hid their firearms and instructed them to burn their clothes, which were covered in blood. — Jerusalem Post

The murderers were identified by DNA evidence left in the struggle with Ruth and Ehud Fogel. During the investigation, there were numerous complaints from village residents and also from the PA as well as left-wing Israeli groups that their rights were being violated.

How did the murders become familiar with Itamar? At least one of them had been there:

Hakim Awad, 18, was permitted to enter Itamar along with other PA Arabs in order to harvest olives.

The IDF Civil Administration allowed PA Arabs from the nearby village of Awarta to harvest olives within Itamar that they claimed belonged to their village, despite concerns voiced by Itamar residents, who expressed fear that some PA Arabs could use the opportunity to learn the layout of the town in order to plan an attack.

Residents of Itamar even said they would be willing to pick the olives themselves, and deliver them to residents of Awarta, rather than open their town to potentially hostile PA residents. However, Civil Administration officials insisted that Awarta residents not only be given possession of the olives in question, but be allowed to harvest the produce themselves…

The IDF and the Civil Administration face pressure each year from the PA and the foreign and Israeli left to allow Arabs to harvest olives freely, regardless of security concerns. Many far-left groups, among them the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Rabbis for Human Rights, hold annual “olive harvest” events aimed at forcing Israel to allow PA Arabs to enter Israeli land during the harvest.  — Israel National News

More information is at The Muqata and Israel Matzav. Israel Matzav also has a recording in which a PA minister reiterates the PA demand to ‘release all Palestinian prisoners’ — specifically including these suspects — regardless of the charges against them, because of their ‘right to resist occupation’.

The ‘alleged’ (yeah, right) murderers grew up under the Palestinian Authority regime of Yasser Arafat, and breathed the atmosphere of racist hatred promulgated in PA media, schools, textbooks, mosques, camps, etc. ever since 1993. Note that even though Mahmoud Abbas and other PA officials have promised to stop the hateful incitement to murder in the official media and educational system, they have not done so.

Think about what it would take to make your average 18-year old capable of slitting a baby’s throat — and think about the premeditation, the adults that helped them, and the whole town, many of whose inhabitants are related, that knew about it. Think also about the megalomania that informs Palestinian Arab culture, which permits them to complain about violation of their rights in these circumstances. Think about their assertion of a ‘right to resist occupation’ which includes butchering Jewish children.

Understand that these are the people that want to be given control of a highly strategic area next to Israel’s major population centers, while refusing to agree that a Jewish state has a right to exist and to end all claims against it in a ‘peace’ agreement.

Many have suggested that a death penalty be instituted for particularly vicious terrorism, and I agree.

Some have also suggested that village of Awarta should be razed to the ground. I have another idea: just convert it into an institution for the incarceration of the criminally insane. Unfortunately, it isn’t big enough to hold the one-third of Palestinian Arabs who approve of the murders.

Update [1117 PDT]: Daniel Viflic,the 16-year-old boy who was wounded in the Hamas antitank missile attack on a school bus near Gaza last week, has died. May Hashem revenge his blood, and the Fogels’ and all the rest of the victims of the ‘Palestinian cause’.

Update [22 April 0949 PDT]: Corrected identification of photo to Amjad, not Hakim, Awad.

Technorati Tags: Itamar, Fogel Family murders, Awarta, Amjad Awad, Palestinian Arabs, Israel, terrorism

Sarah Leah Whitson, the Human Rights Watch official who raised funds for her organization by blasting Israel in uber-racist, slavery-tolerating Saudi Arabia, has made one of the most odious analogies possible. She writes,

Israeli President Shimon Peres visited Washington earlier this month, hot on the heels of an announcement that Israeli authorities had approved yet more housing units for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. In a week when the U.S. paused to recall the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, President Peres might have considered King’s message — an end to segregation — and why such a system of racial inequality remains in place in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Back in 1968, when Dr. King was murdered, the debate about discrimination was live and real. Most governments have long since stopped trying to justify separating people based on race or national origin, whether for ostensible security concerns, like the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, or plain old bigotry, like the Jim Crow laws of the American south.

Yet in the areas of the Occupied Palestinian Territories where Israel has moved almost half a million Jewish “settlers,” not only do Israeli laws and policies strictly segregate Jews from Palestinians, they deliberately deprive Palestinians of the most basic needs, in many cases forcing them out of their communities.

If Whitson is suggesting that the ‘Palestinian cause’ is anything like the civil rights movement in America — clearly she is — she is living in an alternate universe.

Civil rights workers did not fire antitank missiles at school buses, nor did they slit the throats of babies and children. American blacks did not blow themselves up at holiday celebrations, and Mexican and Canadian ones did not launch rockets into American towns and cities.

In fact, try as I might, the only way that Dr. M. L. King and Ismail Haniyya are alike is that they both say they are struggling for their people’s rights. Of course, Dr. King actually was, whereas Haniyya is a racist, genocidal antisemite who wants to wipe out the Jews in Israel and take their country. King indeed represented an oppressed racial minority that was discriminated against in law and custom, while Haniyya is supported by the considerable resources of the Arab world and Iran in his murderous cause. If the analogy makes sense at all, Jewish Israelis are the ones discriminated against in the Middle East and in the broader international community.

But Whitson isn’t interested in reality — as she wasn’t interested in the very real human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia — she is interested in pushing buttons.

So she claims that Israel maintains a system of ‘racial inequality’, when the concept of race has nothing to do with relations between Jews and Arabs, who are genetically closer to each other than to non-Jewish Europeans. Of course she doesn’t have to use the word ‘race’, she could claim that there was a system of cultural or linguistic discrimination. But that wouldn’t push the button.

Whitson refers numerous times to the ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’. What are these territories? They are part of the lands that were set aside by the League of Nations for a “Jewish National Home” after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI. Various Arab states were also created at the same time, but this was the only area specifically designated for Jewish settlement. These territories were never ‘Palestinian’. They are not ‘occupied’ by Israel, since there was no sovereign authority there since the end of the Mandate — they are at most ‘disputed’, and an argument can be made that if any party ought to control them, it’s Israel, the representative of the Jewish people.

She continues,

With little regard for the blatant racial inequality of its policies, the Israeli government provides Jewish settlements with water, electricity, housing, schools, hospitals and roads, while it severely restricts access to these necessities to Palestinian communities under its control.

Race doesn’t have anything to do with it. The territories are not part of Israel. Israel doesn’t have to ‘provide’ anything — there is a Palestinian Authority (PA) which gets enormous sums of money from the West and which governs the areas of Judea and Samaria (Areas A and B) which contain more than 90% of the Arab population. Arabs connected with the corrupt PA have well-paying positions or lucrative business concessions. They live in large villas, much more elaborate than the housing found in Israeli settlements.

Whitson, by the way, refers to the “the 60 percent of the West Bank known as ‘Area C’ where Israel has complete control without mentioning that Area C contains only 4% of the Arab population! The rest is mostly uninhabited desert and mountainous areas, along with the Israeli settlements of course.

In 1967, only 20% of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria was connected to a water system — now 90% are connected to Israel’s national water grid. Even Gaza, ruled by the bellicose Hamas, receives most of its water and electricity from Israel. This leads to ironic situations, such as the time Hamas snipers shot and wounded an Israel Electric Company worker who was climbing a tower near the border. And it is upsetting to know that the factories that make the Qassam rockets fired at Israel are powered by Israeli electricity.

A particularly pernicious accusation is that Israel has built ‘apartheid roads’ on which Arabs are not permitted to drive. What is actually the case is that Jewish residents were subjected to frequent deadly drive-by shooting attacks on certain roads — in August of last year four people were killed in a single incident — and so the Israeli authorities chose to close the off-ramps to the Arab villages in the area. Arabs, both Israeli Arabs and residents of the territories do drive on the roads — again, there is nothing racist involved, unless it is the racist murderers who shoot at vehicles containing Jews.

Israeli hospitals routinely treat patients from the territories and Eastern Jerusalem. During the Gaza war, the Palestinian Authority stopped paying for its patients on the grounds that the Jews were ‘making propaganda’ by treating them. There is no separation between Jewish and Arab patients, and in fact even wounded terrorists are treated.

Whitson goes on:

Israel’s security justifications fall far short of the strict and narrow limits on differential treatment permitted under international law between people of different ethnicities or national origins. A state should never apply such measures categorically against an entire group and must limit them to specific individuals who pose a threat.

One of the security measures that Whitson and others find to be unacceptable profiling are the checkpoints, which do present an inconvenience for the entire Palestinian Arab population. But almost every day, potential terrorists are stopped at the checkpoints with weapons or explosives. How would it be possible to do this without everyone passing through the checkpoint? Should security personnel only check “specific individuals who pose a threat?” How would they know who the are?

The fact is that Israel is at war, and many of those fighting against it are embedded in the Palestinian Arab population. You cannot understand the relationship of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs outside the context of this war, and you cannot understand the Israeli-Palestinian part of it outside the context of the broader war — whose goal is the elimination of Israel — that has been prosecuted by the Arab world (and now Iran) since the beginning of the state.

Pretending that this is a question of civil rights, that there is ‘racial discrimination’, completely falsifies and distorts this reality.

But it’s great for pushing buttons.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW

Vittorio Arrigoni

OK, so Yet Another Terror Organization (YATO) in Gaza, this one called called “Monotheism and Holy War,” has kidnapped an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist, an Italian named Vittorio Arrigoni. (h/t Elder of Ziyon)

It turns out that Arrigoni is a passionate hater of Israel, who even criticized a French official for expressing solidarity with … Gilad Shalit!

Here’s a Google translation of Arrigoni’s comments in his blog on January 21, 2011:

Michele Alliot-Marie, French Foreign Minister, yesterday in Israel during a press conference expressed [her] solidarity with the soldier Gilad Shalit, the only Israeli prisoner in the hands of the Palestinians.

Despite the French minister knows very well that Shalit was taken prisoner during an Israeli attack on Gaza border [false — Hamas operatives tunneled under the border and attacked an Israeli base — ed] (and thus is a prisoner of war), it seems yesterday alongside the parents of the soldier spoke of a “war crime” is attributable Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Silence on the obvious and real daily Israeli crimes in Gaza.

By virtue of [her] statements and those of  [her] silence before the drama of occupied Palestine today via the Erez crossing and entering the Strip, Michele Alliot-Marie has found a well-deserved reception from relatives of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners (many women and children) detained illegally and tortured every day in Israeli jails.

For more ironic links to his anti-Israel work, plus a quite chilling video of a beaten Arrigoni displayed to the world (with background music), see the post by Elder of Ziyon here.

The kidnappers are apparently demanding that Hamas release the leader of their group, or they will kill the Italian. One wonders why they didn’t kidnap a Hamas member. Maybe they feel that Arrigoni is such a big asset to Hamas that he’s worth more than some flunky. Or maybe they’re expecting ransom from the Italian government.

Elder of Ziyon also noticed that some ‘activists’ are already blaming Israel.

Every time you think that Palestinian Arabs can’t be more violent, cruel, or just crazy, something happens to show you that you were wrong.

Did you ever meet a crazy person or group, and realize that you should stay as far away from them as possible? That if you didn’t, their craziness would become part of your life, too? This is what has happened with the Palestinian Arabs — and their supporters. The rest of the world has let them into its life, and boy, are they sorry.

Update [2028 PDT]: It’s being reliably reported that Arrigoni has been found, dead. I guess they didn’t want to wait for the ransom.

Technorati Tags: Palestinian Arabs, Vittorio Arrigoni, ISM, Hamas

In September of 1982, Lebanese Christian ‘Phalange’ leader and President-elect Bachir Gemayel was assassinated, most likely on Syrian orders. Believing that the PLO was responsible, Christian militias entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, and massacred a number (estimates vary widely, but it is probably in the hundreds) of residents.

Israeli soldiers were nearby, but did not intervene. An commission (the Kahan Commission) was appointed to investigate the affair, and concluded that while the IDF did not take part in the massacre, it was ‘indirectly responsible’ — officers should have known what was happening and taken action to stop it. Ariel Sharon was held personally responsible, and ultimately forced to resign as Defense Minister.

It appears that the US now has its own Sabra/Shatila massacre to contend with.

Last Friday, Iraqi troops raided a settlement north of Baghdad populated by members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), killing at least 30.

Iran’s FARS news agency calls them a ‘criminal’, ‘terrorist’ group which is supported by the US.

Jubin Afshar describes what happened over the weekend:

Since last week the Iranian dissidents have been warning of an imminent attack. On Friday, thousands of Iraqi forces stormed the camp with armored vehicles and breached its protective fencing, killing and wounding many. There are reports of shelling of civilian residences in the camp and looting of areas overrun by Iraqi forces…

There are reports that US forces in nearby Baquba, who are tasked with monitoring security in Ashraf and intervening if necessary, did not respond to appeals for help at the camp. This all occurred during the visit to Iraq by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates…

Robert Gates was quoted by AFP to have “called for restraint” but mentioned that the US military would not have any role but to provide medical assistance, essentially remaining passive while a lethal attack was being carried out against a defenseless civilian population.

There is no doubt that the PMOI was at one time an armed militia. But even the Iranians admit that they are now unarmed:

Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) General Hossein Salami had underlined that the [PMOI] which has committed numerous crimes against the Iranian nation should be dissolved immediately.

“The disarmament of the Monafeqin (i.e. Hypocrites, as [PMOI] members are called in Iran) is not an important issue but the main issue is the existence of the grouplet which should be dissolved,” General Salami reiterated on Sunday. — FARS

This is not the first time Iraqi forces have attacked the PMOI refugees:

The attack is reminiscent of a similar brutal attack in July 2009, simultaneous with the uprisings in Iran, which resulted in the death of 11 dissidents. That attack resulted in widespread international condemnation of the Iraqi regime which has moved increasingly close to Iran’s rulers. — Jubin Afshar

Interestingly, the PMOI is classified as a foreign terrorist organization by only two countries in the world: the US and Iran. In another article, Afshar discusses the difficulties the organization is experiencing in getting the designation removed here in the US:

The State Department branded PMOI … as an FTO in 1997 in what a former administration official described as a goodwill gesture to the Iranian government. A policy that stemmed from a naïve reading of Iran and based the FTO designation on politically expedient foreign policy goals rather than facts, the PMOI contends.

Afshar is an apologist for the PMOI, so he doesn’t discuss its somewhat unsavory history in detail.

The PMOI has a violent past including assassinations of officials of the Shah’s regime — and American technicians working on defense projects in Iran in that period. The State Department also says that they ‘supported’ the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran.

After the Shah fell, the Khomeinists soon turned on them, and in 1982 the PMOI fled to Iraq where they were protected by Saddam Hussein. From Iraq, they carried out attacks against Iranian regime targets, and they also helped Saddam put down Shiite and Kurdish rebellions. In 2000 they even carried out a mortar attack on the offices of the Supreme Leader and the President in Tehran. In return, Saddam gave them money and weapons.

The alliance of convenience with Saddam Hussein caused big problems for the PMOI with the present Shiite-dominated regime in Iraq, and the US still considered it a terrorist organization and even bombed its camps at the beginning of the Iraq war. But

When American forces arrived at Camp Ashraf shortly after the fall of Baghdad, the MEK fighters offered no resistance and agreed to disarm. Their tanks, armored personnel carriers, and heavy artillery were confiscated. MEK fighters also agreed not to attack private and public properties in Iraq. In return, Camp Ashraf was put under the protection of Coalition forces and was shielded from the turmoil experienced elsewhere in Iraq…

Subsequent to the ceasefire agreement, US officials launched a review of Camp Ashraf residents to determine if they should be prosecuted for terrorism. American authorities also worked closely with their French counterparts to investigate the MEK’s support of terrorism. Later, in July 2004, the US military designated MEK fighters in Iraq as “protected persons” consistent with the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention. — Gawdat Baghat: United States-Iranian Relations: The Terrorism Challenge

Now, as the American presence in Iraq is drawing to a close, apparently the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki, with the encouragement of Tehran, intends to settle accounts. But there are good reasons — in addition to our obligation to this now-unarmed group — why the US should not stand by and allow this to happen:

First, the [PMOI’s] terrorist attacks against American targets ceased almost three decades ago. Most of these attacks took place when the Shah was in power or shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Since then, the [PMOI] has focused its attacks on Iranian targets. Even attacks on Iran apparently have come to a halt. The last [PMOI] terrorist attack was on an Iranian village close to the border with Iraq in 2003.

Second, western, Arab, and Israeli intelligence services have long appreciated the [PMOI] for its sources deep inside Iran. The [PMOI] provided useful intelligence data in 2002 when it held a press conference in Washington and revealed the existence of a secret uranium enrichment facility in the Iranian city of Natanz. The IAEA later confirmed the claim. This revelation has proven crucial in strengthening the international nonproliferation position in the ongoing confrontation related to Iran’s nuclear program.  — Baghat

The PMOI claims to have renounced terrorism, and to support democracy, religious and ethnic tolerance, etc.

Some points:

1. The al-Maliki regime is clearly moving closer to Iran. When US forces leave, it’s hard to imagine any other future for Iraq except as a satellite of Iran. The fate of the residents of Camp Ashraf doesn’t look promising.
2. Although our administration takes pains to hide this fact, the US is presently being confronted by Iran in a struggle for control of the Middle East and its vital resources. Why then does the US appear to take Iran’s side against dissidents that could be our allies in this struggle?

Technorati Tags: Iran

Remember the Iranian bomb? We don’t hear much about it from our president these days, but

Iran is proclaiming significant gains in its nuclear program, progress that Western officials and experts say could effectively erase setbacks from recent cyber attacks and shorten the timeline for acquiring nuclear weapons.

Scientists from Iran’s atomic energy program, in announcements over the past three days, said they have successfully tested advanced centrifuges for enriching uranium and are less than a month away from starting the country’s first commercial nuclear reactor. The announcements, linked to the observance of “nuclear technology day” in Tehran, underscore recent assessments by intelligence officials and Western nuclear experts suggesting that Iran is preparing to speed up its production of enriched uranium. — Washington Post

I guess the ‘biting sanctions’ were more or less toothless, and the tough talk about nothing being off the table was just that — talk.

Indeed, almost any criticism of Iran coming from the White House has been muted recently, despite the violent suppression of demonstrations (several demonstrators were killed in February), and multiple attempts to ship massive amounts of weapons to Hizballah.

Our administration has been also particularly easy on the Iranian ally/satellite regime in Syria, where hundreds of anti-regime protesters have been shot.

And it hasn’t stuck up for traditional US allies, either. Barry Rubin writes,

In an unprecedented statement, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC, consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) has condemned Iran for trying to overthrow them. Tehran has been at it since 1979 but this is the first time that these countries have been so bold…

Meanwhile, Iran is threatening Saudi Arabia, which the Iranian parliament’s foreign affairs and national security committee said, “should know it’s better not to play with fire in the sensitive region of the Persian Gulf.”

The Saudi government responded that this was an “irresponsible” statement containing “void allegations and blatant offense against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” And, said the Saudi version of parliament, Iran’s position “fuels sectarianism,” a codeword for pitting Shias against Sunni Muslims. Iran must “stop these hostile policies and respect the rules of good neighbourliness … so as to preserve the security and stability in this region which is key for the entire world.”

The GCC’s secretary-general, Abdullatif al-Zayani, … condemned “Iran’s meddling in the internal affairs of GCC countries” that “threatened security and stability in the region.”

Where is U.S. policy in all of this? Nowhere at all. It is not siding with the GCC. At best, the United States is neutral between the two sides. Such a position is a terrible mistake.  The new development is that the U.S. government has stopped criticizing Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. But it hasn’t started helping them.

If Washington doesn’t support the GCC against Iran, who will? And the expansion of Iranian influence–on the eve of Tehran getting nuclear weapons–is catastrophic for U.S. interests.

On the other hand, the US did take sides against Egypt’s Mubarak, the other pillar of opposition to Iran in the Mideast.

What I want to know is this: it sounds absurd to say that the US has taken a turn toward Iran and away from its former friends, Israel and the conservative Sunni regimes. But the old saying “if it walks like a duck, etc.” seems to apply here.

Is American policy becoming pro-Iranian?

Technorati Tags: Iran, Obama Administration