Abbas remains "steadfast" on peace talks while terrorist "sleeper" units launched

...Uniquely in the world, this particular terrorist group operates within a society - that of the Palestinian Arabs - where it enjoys overwhelming support for its barbaric tactics. The evidence for this is fresh and absolutely irrefutable. What does their savagery have to do with resistance? Nothing.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
12 September '13..

The 9/11 commemorations are behind us, and with them the universal calls for learning lessons, never giving in to terrorists and so on. Today is the day after, and reality is back. The lessons were mostly never learned and the terrorists, far from having surrendered, grow increasingly active and brazen, and while this is not about chemical warfare, it's no less life threatening.

We wrote here just a week ago about the rising cacophony of Palestinian Arab voices decrying the 'peace' talks under way with Israel, declaring them a failure, futile, pointless and an act of treason on the part of any Arab taking part. (Click on "4-Sep-13: Futile and going nowhere: do we understand their peace strategy better now?" for a reminder.) Note how some of those doing the decrying are holders of high positions in the self-pampering elite that runs the Palestinian Authority.

Recall also, before reading the report in the following paragraph, that one man is the head of the Palestinian Authority and of the Palestine Liberation Organization and of Fatah.

(Continue)

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The Al Aqsa Brigades have been dismantled. On the other hand they haven't.

Elder of Ziyon..
23 August '13..





Back in January 2008:

A dozen Palestinian gunmen surrendered to Palestinian forces on Tuesday, and the top Palestinian security official said this means a violent West Bank militia, is now defunct. However, Israeli officials are skeptical of such claims, and say gunmen still pose a threat to Israel.

The gunmen who gave themselves up Tuesday are from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a violent offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

Al Aqsa was formed at the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000, and at its height had hundreds of members who carried out scores of shooting attacks against Israelis. Most recently, Al Aqsa was involved in the killing of two off-duty Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the West Bank last month.

In recent months, Abbas' security forces have tried to assert control in the West Bank, particularly in Nablus, the West Bank's second largest city and a former militia stronghold.

As part of the campaign, they have urged Al Aqsa gunmen to surrender their weapons, in exchange for a promise of amnesty from Israel and the prospect of jobs in the security services. Hundreds have so far taken up the offer, but holdouts have remained.

In Nablus, a small Al Aqsa splinter group, which called itself The Knights of the Night, was the last to surrender, Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh said Tuesday.

This is the last military group of Al Aqsa to hand over its weapons, Yehiyeh told The Associated Press. The Al Aqsa Brigades have been dismantled.

Five and a half years later, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades still maintains its webpage, and you can see its latest activities.

For example, they greeted one of their old comrades when he was one of those released by Israel as a "goodwill gesture."

(Continue)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out!

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The Wonderful Wings of Fatah

LOTL..
31 July '13..





The following wry comment appeared yesterday regarding Hezbollah's Wonderful Wings (Excellent!) by Douglas Murray

...It does appear that, unbeknownst to the "political wing," while its members were going about their respectable daily business, with absolutely no private army of their own, some of their colleagues were heading around the globe, committing massacres and terrorist attacks. This must be very embarrassing for them.

With little difficulty the same thought could be quite easily applied in the following piece from yesterday's Algemeiner -

In Effort to Embarrass Abbas as Peace Talks Begin, Fatah’s Military Wing Touts Weapons Capabilities Online
Zach Pontz JULY 30, 2013 10:15 AM

In an effort to embarrass Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as peace talks begin in earnest in Washington on Tuesday, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the unofficial terrorist wing of Abbas’s ruling political party, Fatah, released a series of truculent photos depicting an arsenal of guns, rockets and anti-tank missiles, Israel’s Channel 2 reported.

The photos were accompanied by a statement from the terrorist group that said: “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine, we will continue developing our own weapons to crush the enemy, wherever he is.” (Full article)

A gotta smile moment. Former Aqsa Martyrs Brigades members demand PA pay-raises

Khaled Abu Toameh..
JPost..
18 February '13..

Former members of Fatah’s armed wing, Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, demanded Sunday that the Palestinian Authority raise their salaries. The gunmen, who had been pardoned by Israel, said that the NIS 1,500 that each one of them receives from the PA was not enough.

They threatened to launch protests in the West Bank if the PA government did not increase their salaries.

Muhammad al-Ashkar, a spokesman for the group in Tulkarem, said that he and his friends would stage demonstrations if the PA government did not comply. He said that the Fatah members were also considering going on hunger-strike to demand an increase in their salaries.

Guess what? Fatah's Armed Gangs Are Back

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
15 January '13..

After keeping a low profile for the past few years, Fatah's armed gangs have resurfaced in the West Bank.

The reappearance of the masked gunmen could only mean one of two things: either the Palestinian Authority is really losing control, or that it is using the gunmen as a means of intimidating donor countries, especially the US and EU, into resuming financial aid to the Palestinian government in the West Bank.

Either way, the sudden reappearance of the masked gunmen, who are believed to be members of Fatah's armed wing, Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, could pave the way for a new round of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

The gunmen first took to the streets of the Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, carrying assault rifles and firing into the air. The gunmen then held a "press conference" in which they denounced the Palestinian Authority security forces for arresting some of their friends and confiscating their weapons.

Yet at the same time the gunmen heaped praise on Palestinian Authority President, and Fatah head, Mahmoud Abbas, saying they "fully supported" his policies.

Warning Abbas on Terror

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
10 January '13..

Mahmoud Abbas celebrated the start of the ninth year of his four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority in Cairo today by attending a summit with the leader of the rival Hamas group. Abbas was summoned to the meeting due to pressure from Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who is expected to help pressure Gulf nations to donate money to the perpetually bankrupt PA. The Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt has long sought to promote the idea of Palestinian unity, something that would strengthen the position of their Hamas allies. This worries Abbas, who also remains the head of the hopelessly incompetent and corrupt Fatah movement that runs the PA. But while there is little likelihood that this latest conclave between the two groups will lead to an actual merger and power sharing in the West Bank and Gaza, the signs are clear that they are moving closer to each other in other ways.

That was made plain by another and perhaps more significant event today. The Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade is the terrorist wing of Fatah and was responsible for many terrorist attacks on Israelis during the second intifada. It hasn’t been heard from much in recent years as Abbas played the moderate to the applause of Americans and left-wing Israelis. But the march by armed fighters belonging to the group in a refugee camp near Nablus was an ominous warning that the reports filtering out of the West Bank about plans for a third intifada by the PA may be more than rumors. This gives the lie to the claims made by both the Obama administration and Israeli President Shimon Peres on behalf of Abbas’s bona fides as a peacemaker. This is something the Obama administration ought to take into consideration before they launch another attempt to pressure Israel into concessions to jump-start peace talks.

Our partner, Fatah, also fought Israel in Pillar of Defense

Gaza-based armed groups tied to Abbas's Fatah party claim they fired 516 rockets at Israel during recent conflict.

PHOTO: REUTERS/MOHAMMED SALEM

Khaled Abu Toameh..
JPost..
24 November '12..

Several armed groups belonging to Fatah in the Gaza Strip claimed Saturday that they had also fired various types of rockets and missiles at Israel during Operation Pillar of Defense.

A spokesman for the groups, which are affiliated with Fatah’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade, told reporters that his men fired 516 rockets and missiles at Israel during the conflict.

The spokesman warned that the Fatah groups would “continue to defend the heroic Palestinian people against Israeli crimes and massacres.”

According to the spokesman, Fatah gunmen fought alongside members of other groups in the Gaza Strip during the recent escalation.

He urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to “head immediately to the Gaza Strip to put an end to the state of despicable state of division [between Hamas and Fatah].”

Roth - What the blood-soaked career of an "advisor on local government matters" tells about the 'moderate' PA leader's thinking

Esh-Kodesh Gilmore,
of blessed memory.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
05 January '12..

Esh-Kodesh Gilmore was 25, married for three years and the father of an angel-faced 18-month old daughter called Taliah (we have spent weekends together with the Gilmores). Esh-Kodesh worked as a part-time guard at the Bituach Leumi (national insurance/social security) branch in East Jerusalem, an office that provides benefits to an almost entirely-Arab clientele. He was working there when a man walked up to him and shot right into his neck at point-blank range around noon on October 30, 2000.

The terrorist was operating under the name "Martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Intifada". In fact, as a subsequent trial established, the planning and execution of the cold-blooded murder was done by men of Force 17. It's a so-called special operations unit under the command of Yasser Arafat and skilled in acts of terrorism, especially murder. At various times, it was been called the Palestinian Presidential Guard. The BBC reported at the time of Esh Kodesh's murder that Arafat "regards them as some of his most trusted security personnel."

The Tangled Narrative

Rick Richman
Commentary/Contentions
04 May '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/04/tangled-narrative/


Yesterday the Palestinian peace partner’s military wing announced it was in mourning about Osama bin Laden and had joined the “deather” movement:

The Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Brigades said Tuesday they were mourning the death of Osama bin Laden, following announcements Sunday that he had been killed in a US raid, [Palestinian News Agency] Ma’an reported. According to a statement received by Ma’an, the group said bin Laden’s death “won’t stop our Jihad mission against injustice and occupation,” and added that they doubt the veracity of claims that the al-Qaida leader was assassinated.

Someone must have recognized these were impolitic things to say in the on-going run-up to September, when the Palestinian Authority plans to ask the UN to recognize a Palestinian state. So Ma’an reported later in the day that the Al-Aqsa Brigades denied making the statement Ma’an had earlier reported:

The spokesman of Fatah’s military wing on Tuesday denied issuing a statement marking Osama bin Laden’s death. Abu Uday of the Al-Aqsa Brigades said the group did not and had no plans to comment because bin Laden’s death was unrelated to Palestine. He said a statement received by Ma’an’s Gaza City office must have been forged as the armed group “doesn’t know anything about it.”

Good to have the “armed group” clarify that. But here’s the more interesting question: how could the Al-Aqsa Brigades issue a statement, much less retract one—or even have a named “spokesman”—since the PA announced in 2007 and again in 2008 that the Al-Aqsa Brigades had been completely dismantled?

The Palestinian news agency forgot to adhere to the “narrative”—central to the fiction that the Palestinians have built the institutions of a state—that the Fatah terrorist group was “dismantled,” replaced by professional police. As the old saying goes, when you substitute a narrative for truth, it is often hard to keep the narrative straight.

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Much Mass Media Coverage of Israel-Palestinian Issues Is Propaganda, Not Journalism

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
20 March "11

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/03/much-mass-media-coverage-of-israel.html

So constant are the lies told in mass media coverage of Israel-Palestinian issues that it is hardly worthwhile to critique individual articles any more.

Following the horrendous murder of the Fogel family, a number of Internet—but not print—writers have pointed out that various mass media institutions have either not reported the killings at all, only minimally did so, didn't gives the ages of the children killed, or buried the story amidst a much longer explanation that the settlements are terrible and the settlers are bad people (who deserve it?).

Equally dismaying is the disinterest in getting right even the most basic facts. Consider this AP story, remembering that AP now provides most international coverage for almost all American newspapers today.

When you read something like this the conclusion is inescapable that the reporters involved are pushing a specific political agenda, deliberately twisting or leaving out material. Part of the evidence for this is that every distortion, mistake, and example of slanting is always entirely against Israel.

The article claims:

“Palestinian opposition to settlement construction on lands they want for a future state has brought negotiations to a virtual standstill over the past two years, with Palestinians refusing to negotiate directly with Israel as long as it persists.”

In fact, the Palestinian Authority walked out of talks in January 2009 over the Israel-Hamas war that began after Hamas abandoned the ceasefire and attacked Israel with a barrage of rockets and mortars. Construction was not an issue until President Barack Obama made it his central theme. Then, Israel froze construction on settlements for nine months yet during that period—until conveniently a few days before the end—the PA still refused to talk.

So it is Palestinian opposition to negotiations that has brought negotiations to a virtual standstill.

The phrase “settlement construction” is also misleading. Many (most?) readers probably believe that Israel is still building new settlements—I know this because people keep claiming this to me--something not true since 1993, before today's first-year college students were even born. The construction of apartments on existing settlements--which is the issue--is not the same thing as expanding the size of existing settlements or building completely new ones.

Finally, a minor point for some but one that made my blood boil, is this statement:

“The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a mostly defunct Palestinian militant group, took responsibility for the killings. But it was not clear if the group really was responsible because it frequently takes credit for attacks it didn't commit in a bid to raise its profile.”

So, even if the Brigades did take responsibility, the AP goes out of its way to assure us that they are probably innocent. Moreover, by not mentioning that the Brigades are an integral part of Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority, is dishonest. Reading about some unknown or “independent” terrorist group is not the same for a reader as being informed that terrorists who proudly said they murdered three infants are members of the same party as Palestinian Authority “president” Mahmoud Abbas.

And, of course, the Brigades are in no way “mostly defunct.” That is something merely made up in this article.

One reason this makes me angry is that I was just involved in a court case as a consultant. The Palestinian Authority, which was the defendant, claimed that it had nothing to do with the Brigades and thus in no way responsible for its terrorism. I researched this and came up with much proof to the contrary.

But the item I thought most cogent is this: If you go to the Brigades’ official site it says in Arabic that the Brigades are part of Fatah.

Not too hard to find out the truth, is it?

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Responsibility for shooting attack claimed (no great surprises here)

Arnold/Frimet Roth
This Ongoing War
27 September '10

While the head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas loudly professes his commitment to the search for peace with the Israelis (in some places and at some times except when he does not), his executive branch colleagues remain loyal to tried-and-tested methods of a different sort.

Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and the Al-Quds Squads of the Islamic Jihad later claimed joint responsibility for [last night's attack], claiming in a statement that the attack was carried out to mark the 15th anniversary of the killing of Fatah founder Fat'hi Shkaki. [Source1 and Source2]

(Read full post)

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Just diving

Arnold/Frimet Roth
This Ongoing War: A Blog
07 June '10

We haven't checked but the Melbourne Age is almost certainly not the only news medium that keeps spinning the report of Israel eliminating several Palestinian terrorists this morning as if it were about some innocent recreational skindivers getting unfairly caught up in the uncontrolled rage of a badly behaved neighourhood bully.

The Age article itself, written by Jerusalem-based Jason Koutsoukis, is basically accurate:

"THE naval commando unit involved in last week's bloody showdown with a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last night shot dead four Gaza militants it claimed were trying to slip into Israel by sea to mount a terror attack... An Israel Defence Forces statement said the latest attack occurred before dawn in waters near the centre of the Gaza Strip. "An Israel Navy force in the area of Nuseirat identified a squad of terrorists wearing diving suits on their way to perpetrate a terrorist attack,'' the statement said. ''The force fired and hit the terrorists.'' Israeli military sources said it was unclear what the men were planning to do, but intelligence indicated that the men had been working on an attack from the sea ''for quite a while''. An unnamed military official later told Israel Army radio that the attack was a morale boost for the elite Shayetet (Flotilla) 13 unit involved in last week's disastrous interception of the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara. 'This will be a shot in the arm for the commandos after the hard week they have been through,'' the official said. Palestinian news agencies reported that the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed wing of the Fatah movement, had confirmed that four members had been killed, with a fifth person missing. Al-Aqsa Brigades spokesman Abu al-Walid Jabri said the gunmen were on a training exercise near the Gaza coast when Israeli navy boats opened fire without warning."

As we said, Jason seems to have it down pretty right.

(Read full article)

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Answering Readers' Questions and Updates: Fatah and Turkey

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
31 January '10

1. Fatah, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan

Question: You describe Fatah hardliners as seeking a Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Why don't they want to take over Jordan also? And why is a similar change of mind impossible about a permanent peace with Israel?

Answer: Historically, the PLO and Fatah have not sought to overthrow Jordan and take it over. The exception is when they were overconfident during the 1968-1970 period and even then that was more a PFLP and DFLP idea than a Fatah one. While seeking revenge through the Black September terrorist group from 1970 to 1972, Fatah and the PLO have not worked actively to subvert Jordan, in part remembering the total defeat Jordan gave them in September 1970. Actually, the fact is that Hamas has largely displaced the PLO and many Palestinian Jordanians support the Muslim Brotherhood-related Islamic Action Front today. Jordan does worry about an independent Palestinian state but doesn't see Fatah as a direct threat today.

2. Fatah and the Al-Aqsa Brigade

Question The new Fatah charter refers to Al Asifa as its military wing. Is there a reason that Fatah seems to be abandoning Al Aqsa martyrs brigade? Or did Fatah itself use both names?

Answer: Al-Asifa has been the name of the PLO irregularforces (guerrilla/terrorist) since the 1960s. Al-Aqsa is not controlled by the Fatah Central Committee. One might call it a deniable terrorist force which is under the control of the West Bank local Fatah organization. Although the Western news media often falls for the trick, since Fatah has never tried to stop the group or disciplined any member for participating in it, al-Aqsa is clearly a Fatah group but, again, not necessarily one controlled from the top Fatah bureaucracy. Al-Aqsa was created by Marwan Barghouti, who is now a member of the Fatah Central Committee though in an Israeli prison for organizing the bloody second intifada--by his own admission--in 2000.

(Read full post)
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George Mitchell: “Fatah Believes in Nonviolence”

Noah Pollaak
Contentions/Commentary
10 January '10

One more item from Obama Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s appearance on the Charlie Rose show (transcript here). Mitchell said:

Well, that’s the principal difference between Fatah and Hamas. The Palestinian authority which is basically the Fatah party, believes in nonviolence and negotiation.

This is silly stuff. Fatah, of course, proudly maintains terrorist groups, such as the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades and the Tanzim militia, within the party structure. The gunmen who murdered an Israeli rabbi two weeks ago were not just members of Fatah but also on the Fatah payroll. Just last week, the heroically moderate president and prime minister of the PA could be seen publicly celebrating Fatah terrorists and acts of terrorism.

(Read full post)
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'Wanted' Palestinian fighter hands self in

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
04 January '10

(IDF, Good job. They've done their share)

www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=251803

Jenin – Ma'an – An operative affiliated with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's paramilitary wing, handed himself over to Israeli authorities on Sunday evening, Ma'an has learned.

Imad Tayih, 22, from the Al-Far'a Refugee Camp near Tubas, had been "wanted" by Israeli authorities for over a year and a half. During his time as a fugitive, Tayih survived targeted assassination attempts and was injured as a result on several occasions.

On Sunday evening, he gave himself up at the Salim military base in Nablus, according to his cousin Faris, who observed that Tayih had been receiving a high volume of telephone calls from Israeli intelligence threatening to kill him if he did not give himself up.

Faris explained that whenever his cousin would receive such a call, it was swiftly followed by attempts to ambush or abduct Tayih, adding that he had survived two assassination attempts and was injured nine times, recently including a critical gunshot wound to the spine. Unable to receive medical assistance and no longer able to bear the pain, Tayih handed himself in.

An Israeli military spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
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Security for Israel, By Israel

Rabbi Meir Chai Hy”d

JINSA
Report #: 950
28 December 09

[Note: at the Sunday funeral of the three men, thousands of Palestinians chanted anti-PA slogans, accusing the Palestinian Authority of "collusion" with Israel to arrest, disarm and kill Fatah military operatives. A largely unreported story is the unhappiness of Palestinians with the ruthlessness of the PA security forces in hunting down its internal enemies-Hamas, to be sure, but recalcitrant Fatah members and others as well. The United States and international "human rights" organizations have been completely and utterly silent about vicious abuses taking place inside the PA. It may be that the Palestinian public is reaching the limits of its patience with its own security force.]

On Thursday, three Palestinians murdered teacher and father of seven Rabbi Meir Chai in the West Bank. On Friday, Israeli forces surrounded the Nablus homes of the three suspects, all members of Fatah's al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, and demanded they surrender. Israeli intelligence had identified the men and cautioned that all three were armed. One came out holding his wife in front of him. The second refused to come out of his house, which was filled with family members. The third went to his attic and was shouting "Allah Akhbar" as the Israelis came upstairs. All three, but no others, were killed.

According to Ha'aretz, the Obama Administration, acting on complaints from the Palestinian Authority, requested that Israel "explain." The Palestinians had asked the United States to condemn the raid as a violation of Palestinian authority in Area A, saying Israel should have asked the PA security forces to arrest the three. American officials received both the intelligence information and the details of the operation, and thus far at least, the administration has declined to offer an opinion.

Which is wise, as there are bigger issues at play here.

(Read full report)
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Abbas turns 3 latest terrorists into Palestinian heroes

Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)
29 December 09

Rabbi Meir Avshalom Hai -- a 45-year old Israeli and father of seven children - was killed in a drive-by shooting last Thursday. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, part of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, took responsibility for the killing. On Friday night, Israeli forces located and killed three of the terrorists involved in the attack. The fourth surrendered to the PA police.

The response of the PA has been unequivocal support and backing for the terrorists. Since Friday, the leadership of the PA, the heads of Fatah, the heads of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and the PA-controlled media have continuously portrayed the killers as Palestinian heroes and Shahids -- holy Martyrs -- while describing Israel's killing of the three terrorists as "murder in cold blood" and "assassination."

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared the killers "Shahids" (holy Martyrs) and sent his personal emissary to visit the families:
"Secretary General of the Presidents Bureau, Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim, conveyed condolences on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas to the residents of Nablus and to the families of the three Shahids [Martyrs] for the Martyrdom of their sons, who were assassinated by Israeli occupation forces yesterday morning. He conveyed to the fighting families letters of condolences from the President [Abbas] and updated them as to [Abbas's] decision to declare them as Shahids [Martyrs] of the Palestinian revolution..."
Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim: "Without doubt, what the [Israeli] occupation authorities have carried out is a wild and barbaric act and a deliberate, malicious assassination in cold blood."
[PA TV (Fatah) News, Dec. 27, 2009]

(Read full article)
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Washington, not J'lem, needs to issue clarifications

Dan Diker
Opinion/JPost
28 December 09

The United States' recent request for a public clarification from National Security Adviser Uzi Arad following the IDF's killing of three wanted Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorists in Nablus is unusual and raises questions.

Arad's reported need to explain to his US counterparts the defensive nature of the IDF operation several days after the Iranian-backed terror cell's murder of Rabbi Meir Chai, a father of seven, seems exceptional. This IDF operation was no different than hundreds of other actions against Palestinian terror groups that have murdered well over 1,000 Israeli civilians since the Palestinian Authority launched the Aksa war of terror in 2000.

As a rule, the US has not asked Israel for public clarifications on antiterror operations. Clearly, close communications are important. There are multiple security and intelligence channels between Israel and its closest ally that have been and should be used to handle these types of security queries. The Israeli Embassy in Washington, the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, the US consulate in Jerusalem, military attaches and representatives of respective intelligence agencies are appropriate addresses.

But in this extraordinary case, the US demanded a public clarification on behalf of the PA. This clearly represents heightened US sensitivity to Palestinian protests over the IDF's "unjust" incursion into Area A of Judea and Samaria/the West Bank, where the PA has overall security responsibility, to net the Fatah-associated terror cell that resulted in its elimination.

THIS IS where it seems more appropriate that the US issue clarifications to Israel. At least one of the Aksa Brigades commanders - Annan Sabuh, who was found with two M16 automatic rifles and two other firearms - had been part of the amnesty program for former Fatah-affiliated terror group commanders and operatives that was predicated on turning in all weapons. The amnesty program was implemented in no small part at the behest of the United States and its security reform program, which began under Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton in 2005.

(Read full article)

The writer is director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs and a senior policy analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
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It's the Repression, Stupid

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
28 December 09

The Observer section of the Guardian website offers an innovative way to spin the weekend's story of violence in the West Bank. It starts just as you'd expect it to: Israel is shooting Palestinians, jeopardizing the cease fire and generally being its usual vicious self. Yes, there's a quick mention that the Israeli action in Nablus might be connected to the shooting of a settler, but the journalist races by that point in the fourth paragraph and never returns.

Then the fun begins. 14 of 20 paragraphs of the item report how Israel is clamping own on its own human rights organizations.

The shootings have come as Israeli human rights campaigners issued a stinging critique of how Israelis who opposed the war in Gaza have been treated by the state, claiming that they have been silenced, accused and vilified. In its annual report, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel states: "Instead of taking an honest look at its reflection, Israeli society and its institutions chose to smash the mirror."

I sometimes try to keep my language reasonable and civil. This line of argumentation, however, is so far beyond idiocy, that it can't be fudged. First, note that there's no news in the item: all the allegations are months old, and the threats of the politicians never led to any action, as any reasonable observer would have known in advance. Second, all these organizations (there are many dozens of them) have websites where they purvey their bile in English, even though the Israelis they're trying to educate prefer Hebrew; none of the websites is or has ever been censored in any way, nor could it be. Every one of these organizations can be found in the phone book (or its online version), and you can call them up, make an appointment and go visit them. They don't hide their addresses, as the Samizsdat publishers of the communist world once did. They routinely publish their opinions in the media....

(Read full post)
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Flare-Up of Violence

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
26 December 09

On Thursday Palestinian gunmen killed Meir Avishai Hai, 40, father of seven, in the northern West Bank. On Saturday IDF forces killed the three killers. What you make of this story depends upon who you are and what positions you held prior to the events, obviously. Yet it also works the other way: the kind of information you routinely take in impacts how you understand the story.

First, the NYT. Ethan Bronner, whom the Mondoweiss crowd has long since written off as hopelessly pro-Israel, puts all of what he sees as the essential elements in his first short paragraph, then gives two conflicting interpretations in the next two paragraphs, and then gives details about the events.

The Israeli military killed six Palestinians on Saturday, three in the West Bank whom it accused of killing a Jewish settler and three in Gaza who it said were crawling along the border wall planning an attack. It was the deadliest day in the conflict in nearly a year.
Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, called it “a sad day for Palestinians and their National Authority” and condemned the West Bank operation as an “assassination” and “an attempt to target the state of security and stability that the Palestinian Authority has been able to achieve.”
Maj. Peter Lerner, spokesman for Israel’s Central Command, which controls the West Bank, said that its forces had spent the past two days looking for the killers of the settler, Rabbi Meir Hai, a 45-year-old teacher and father of seven, who was shot dead on Thursday as he drove near his home in the settlement of Shavei Shomron.

The BBC's headline tells of Six Palestinians killed in West Bank, Gaza attacks. Who attacked? The headline doesn't say, and the short item wanders around the hill doing its best not to be clear about anything:

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