The FresnoZionism Quote of the Week award goes to blogger Barry Rubin again:
One can almost imagine the Saudi king’s memo book:
Monday: Bash Israel
Tuesday: Israel destroys Iran nuclear facilities. Whew!
Wednesday: Bash Israel
Technorati Tags: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Barry Rubin
The NY Times has published a piece today which tells the truth about Gaza: the inhabitants are getting screwed by both Hamas and Fatah — and by the Palestinian Arab culture of hatred and death. Of course the headline reads
Trapped by Gaza Blockade, Locked in Despair
and of course we all know whose fault that is.
But let’s see what they are despairing about. It’s not what the Hamasniks and “Free Gaza” dupes tell you:
There are plenty of things to buy in Gaza; goods are brought over the border or smuggled through the tunnels with Egypt. That is not the problem.
In fact, talk about food and people here get angry because it implies that their struggle is over subsistence rather than quality of life. The issue is not hunger. It is idleness, uncertainty and despair.
Any discussion of Gaza’s travails is part of a charged political debate. No humanitarian crisis? That is an Israeli talking point, people here will say, aimed at making the world forget Israel’s misdeeds. Palestinians trapped with no future? They are worse off in Lebanon, others respond, where their “Arab brothers†bar them from buying property and working in most professions.
No, the problem is something else. For example there is a severe shortage of electricity in the middle of a hot summer. Almost all the electricity is generated by Israel. But
As if the Palestinian people did not have enough trouble, they have not one government but two, the Fatah-dominated one in the West Bank city of Ramallah and the Hamas one here. The antagonism between them offers a depth of rivalry and rage that shows no sign of abating.
Its latest victim is electricity for Gaza, part [most — ed.] of which is supplied by Israel and paid for by the West Bank government, which is partly reimbursed by Hamas. But the West Bank says that Hamas is not paying enough so it has held off paying Israel, which has halted delivery.
Now keep in mind that the “West Bank” government is financed primarily by the US, and to a lesser extent by other Western democracies — that’s your taxes, people. The Palestinian Arabs in general receive by far more international aid per capita than any other group, including aid to the Palestinian Authority (the PA — the “West Bank” government referred to by the Times) and the huge amounts spent by UNRWA on the so-called ‘refugees’.
Hamas, the antisemitic and terrorist group that controls Gaza, also gets funds from Iran. But they (correctly) think the PA is a bunch of thieves:
“They are lining their pockets and they are part of the siege,†asserted Dr. Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader and a surgeon, speaking of the West Bank government. “There will be no reconciliation.â€
Even the head of UNRWA — who certainly can be called a pro-Arab partisan at the very least — gets something right for once:
John Ging, who heads the Gaza office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as U.N.R.W.A., says the latest electricity problem “is a sad reflection of the divide on the Palestinian side.â€
He added, “They have no credibility in demanding anything from anybody if they show such disregard for the plight of their own people.â€
Disregard for their own people? So what else is new, John?
But if you think that maybe the people who elected Hamas (15 out of the Gaza Strip’s 24 seats in the PA parliament went to Hamas in the 2006 election) have learned anything, you’re wrong:
People here seem increasingly unable to imagine a political solution to their ills. Ask Gazans how to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — two states? One state? — and the answer is mostly a reflexive call to drive Israel out.
“Hamas and Fatah are two sides of the same coin,†Ramzi, a public school teacher from the city of Rafah, said in a widely expressed sentiment. “All the land is ours. We should turn the Jews into refugees and then let the international community take care of them.â€
Things were better before the blockade, because Gazans were able to enter Israel and work there.
Jamil Mahsan, 62, is a member of a dying breed. He worked for 35 years in Israel and believes in two states.
“There are two peoples in Palestine, not just one, and each deserves its rights,†he said, sitting in his son’s house. He used to attend the weddings of his Israeli co-workers. He had friendships in Israel. Today nobody here does…
The young men sitting by the beach contemplating their lives were representative of the new Gaza. They have started a company to design advertisements, and they write and produce small plays…
“Our play does not mean we hate Israel,†said Abdel Qader Ismail, 24, a former employee of the military intelligence service, with no trace of irony. “We believe in Israel’s right to exist, but not on the land of Palestine. In France or in Russia, but not in Palestine. This is our home.â€
The Palestinian Arabs have made their bed. Now they are lying in it.
The IDF has just announced the results of its investigation of the events that took place when Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara on May 31. Note that this is the internal military investigation — there will still be a formal Israeli inquiry, the Turkel Commission, which will include foreign observers.
Maj. Gen (res.) Giora Eiland’s briefing included the following (paraphrased by a member of the IDF Spokesperson staff who was present):
There were at least 4 incidents where Mavi Marmara passengers shot at IDF soldiers. There is good reason to believe that the first incident of live fire shooting on the ship was by passengers of the Mavi Marmara.
A senior IDF official said that the first incident of live fire occurred when the second commando who landed on the deck was shot with a gun that had been taken either from him or the previous soldier. Another soldier was shot in the knee by a weapon which was not IDF issue. Shell casings from non-IDF weapons were also found on the deck.
He also said that three soldiers, all injured, were taken hostage and taken to a lower deck. Two of them managed to escape, jumping into the sea where they were picked up. The third was very seriously injured, and he was rescued by other soldiers.
According to the official, all the soldiers who fired their weapons did so because they were in life-threatening situations.
I don’t expect to hear this on NPR or read it in an AP report in my local newspaper.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Free Gaza flotilla, Mavi Marmara, IDF, Giora Eiland
A couple of weeks ago “US PR firm paid to demonize Israel” became by far the most popular post ever on this blog, with over 2400 hits within a couple of days. I understand it was distributed by various email lists as well.
Based on information developed by The Israel Project, it described the role of Fenton Communications, a PR firm specializing in liberal causes (MoveOn.org was a client) in supporting the Free Gaza flotilla.
Fenton has apparently decided that it can’t take the heat:
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A U.S. public relations firm said it will not renew its contract with a pro-Palestinian group that helped to organize the flotilla that aimed to breach Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The announcement from Fenton Communications, which specializes in PR for not-for-profit groups, followed The Israel Project’s distribution of a news release publicizing Fenton’s representation of Fakhoora on June 23.
The release noted Fakhoora’s role in helping to organize the flotilla of six aid ships…
According to its website, Fakhoora is a campaign to help improve education for children in Gaza. The organization is supported by the second wife of the emir of Qatar, whose office paid Fenton to represent Fakhoora from March 1 to Aug. 31.
Fenton distributed materials on the Fakhoora’s website, such as a “flotilla action alert,†and helped spread the organization’s message through social networking sites such as Facebook.
The Fakhoora website developed by Fenton was slick, attractive and state-of-the-art, with links to Twitter and an active, well-developed Facebook page. The focus on education did not obscure the message, which was to demonize Israel and support the aims of Hamas.
Fenton’s mistake was probably to provide too much information with its Foreign Agent Registration form. Live and learn.
Technorati Tags: Fenton Communications, Israel, Free Gaza flotilla
Barry Rubin recently posted an article on the Obama-Israel relationship here. He makes some good points, but what caught my attention was an offhand remark:
By the way, note that the Los Angeles Times has still not released the video of Obama speaking at a Palestinian meeting. Why not? Surely if his speech was so banal there would be no reason to withhold that evidence. We know about Reverend Wright and a lot more as well. But if the policy in the White House had been different, no one would be dwelling on that now.
What video?
The event in question was a 2003 going-away party for Obama’s friend, Rashid Khalidi. In an April 2008 article, the LA Times described it thus:
CHICAGO — It was a celebration of Palestinian culture — a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.
A special tribute came from Khalidi’s friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.
His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table,” but around “this entire world.” …
And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor’s going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.
Their belief is not drawn from Obama’s speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.
At Khalidi’s 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, “then you will never see a day of peace.” …
Among other community events, Obama in 1998 attended a speech by Edward Said, the late Columbia University professor and a leading intellectual in the Palestinian movement. According to a news account of the speech, Said called that day for a nonviolent campaign “against settlements, against Israeli apartheid.”
The use of such language to describe Israel’s policies has drawn vehement objection from Israel’s defenders in the United States. A photo on the pro-Palestinian website the Electronic Intifada [see below — ed] shows Obama and his wife, Michelle, engaged in conversation at the dinner table with Said, and later listening to Said’s keynote address. Obama had taken an English class from Said as an undergraduate at Columbia University…
At Khalidi’s going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. “You will not have a better senator under any circumstances,” Khalidi said.
The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times. (my emphasis)
In October 2008, a mini-media furor erupted. The McCain campaign demanded a copy of the video, but the Times refused, with editor Russ Stanton claiming that “it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it…”
The Times claimed that it had done its duty to inform the public by describing the party in the original article. But while the article transcribes some militant anti-Israel statements made by others, Obama’s remarks as quoted are scrubbed clean of any political content. Only his opinion of Mona Khalidi’s cooking remains.
Can we believe that he made no comments whatever about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his speech? Even the Times doesn’t assert that. Conservative bloggers (see also here) and commentators demanded that the Times at least release a full transcript of Obama’s words at the event, but the Times refused — even though such a transcript would not violate its promise to its source any more than the original article did.
The election is long over, and Bill O’Reilly et al seem to have forgotten about the tape. But the question of Barack Obama’s intentions in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian issue burns even brighter today than it did in 2008. Obama has been called everything from a staunch friend of Israel to an anti-Zionist who has made a secret agreement with the Saudi king to “deliver Israel”.
Obama’s remarks to pro-Israel audiences have been made public. Now it’s time to find out what he says to his Palestinian friends.
It’s time for the LA Times to release a transcript of Barack Obama’s remarks at the 2003 meeting, or adequately document the agreement which prevents it from doing so — if there is one, which I doubt.
Michelle and Barack Obama with Edward Said and his wife Mariam at a 1998 event in Chicago -- from Electronic Intifada.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Obama, Rashid Khalidi, LA Times
