Spivak - First hand account: The day I found the the Eiffel Tower in Ramallah - crossing Qalandia checkpoint, cellphones and US Aid

Rhonda Spivak..
WinnipegJewishReview.com..
13 January '12..
H/T David Bedein





It was August 1, 2011 the first day of Ramadan. I had made plans to meet George (not his real name) a tall blonde blue eyed German who was living in Ramallah at 4 o’clock on the Palestinian side of the Qalandia checkpoint.

I knew from having been to the checkpoint before that the Israeli security fence wasn’t placed at Qalandia by accident. I have heard Israelis over the years talk about how Jerusalem has always had a small airport, called Orot. It turns out that this is where Qalandia is. The route of the Israeli security fence which was put up under then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was designed to ensure that the Orot airport which services Jerusalem would be included on the Israeli side of the security fence. The idea of giving the PA an airport from which to potentially target Jerusalem and the rest of Israel was never in the cards, neither under Sharon, nor any other Israeli Prime Minister. If anything, I have heard Israelis say how thankful they are that they didn’t give the Palestinians in Gaza an airport, which would have enabled Hamas to create untold havoc via the skies.

If and when there is a Palestinian state in the West bank and Gaza, it remains to be seen where Israel would potentially agree to the building of a Palestinian airport , but I wouldn’t expect it to be built anywhere near Jerusalem, including Qalandia.

I found a cab driver outside a hotel near East Jerusalem and asked him to take me to Ramallah..

The driver Mahmoud (not his real name) an Arab form East Jerusalem, realized I was Jewish.

WaPo tackles riddle of Palestinians' 'strange quiet' amid Arab upheavals -- and gets it wrong

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
06 March '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/wapo_tackles_riddle_of_palesti.html

In the March 5 edition of the Washington Post, Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg treks over to Ramallah to try to find out why, amid widespread turmoil in the Arab world, Palestinians have not mounted massive protests against their leaders. ("Where the 'rage' is strangely quiet -- For Palestinians, calm amid the surrounding storm" page A7).

Unfortunately, he gets it wrong.

In interviews with Palestinians in Ramallah, Greenberg finds various explanations for why Palestinians have not taken to the streets to dislodge Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party in the West Bank, or Hamas in Gaza -- some show more interest in promoting Fatah-Hamas unity, Abbas is not seen as an autocratic ruler (really?), there's a bit of free expression in the West Bank, also a higher living standard than in neighboring Arab countries.

But the bottom-line response to the riddle of why Abbas appears unchallenged boils down to a single, transcending complaint in Greenbergs's piece -- The problem is not with the Palestinian leadership, but with the Israeli "occupation."

Greenberg starts out by quoting Abed Jabalah, an appliance store owner in Ramallah, as telling him: "We are not happy. No one is happy. But the president and prime minister are doing their best. We are under occupation. We are not a state. The things we demand of our government we know it can't do because of the Israelis. Our revolution should be against Israel first."

And Greenberg wraps it all up in the final paragraph of his story with a quote from Abu Helal, who works in youth programs sponsored by a non-profit group: "We have no regime to topple. Israel controls it all. Our basic problem is the occupation."

Which, of course, begs the real question. If Israeli "occupation" is the real offender, why is there nevertheless quiet on the Palestinian front? Greenberg, on the basis of his own article, fails to ask the right question -- why aren't West Bank Palestinians demonstrating en masse against Israel? Never mind their feelings about Abbas, since his governance apparently is not what they're really beefing about.

Had Greenberg delved into that riddle, he might have found that many Palestinians, while inveighing against Israeli "occupation," actually lead more satisfactory lives under Israeli rule than under Fatah or Hamas rule. And they often tend to act accordingly.

Anti-Israel rhetoric aside, Greenberg might have found telling evidence that this is so by reporting on what happened when Israel built its security barrier along the West Bank to prevent terrorist attacks and, in the process, sliced a bit into remote sections of eastern Jerusalem, leaving some Arab neighborhoods on the Palestinian side of the fence. Anticipating that the barrier eventually might become a border between Israel and a Palestinian state, Arab residents of these Jerusalem neighborhoods began to move out -- and bought homes in more central Jerusalem neighborhoods on the Israeli side.

While Palestinian public parlance against "occupation" has become commonplace, more determinative of their real attitudes is where Palestinians prefer to settle down when confronted with the prospect of ending up on the "wrong" side -- the Palestinian side.

Another bit of significant evidence, also overlooked by Greenberg, is the latest monthly Peace Index Poll by a Tel Aviv University think tank in conjunction with the Israeli Democratic Institute. Taken toward the end of February, the poll asked Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs about the likelihood of anti-government eruptions in Israel. After all, Arabs comprise 20 percent of Israel's population. Yet, they're totally ignored by Greenberg.

Why aren't they emulating Arab mass protests elsewhere? The answer: 56 percent of Israeli Arabs see no point in staging street revolts because they already live in a democracy or view their personal situations as quite good. The rest tend to be apathetic or skeptical, seeing no purpose in mass demonstrations.

Too bad that Greenberg contented himself with reporting Palestinian slogans against Israeli "occupation" instead of reporting on the real lives Palestinians and Israeli Arabs lead and the real choices they make.

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MTV romanticizes Arabs stealing Israeli cars

Elder of Ziyon
15 December '10

MTV, in a show called "The Vice Guide to Everything," goes to Ramallah to watch Palestinian Arabs steal an Israeli car and go drag racing.

The show is set up for the viewers to identify with the thieves.

From Israel Today via Israel Unity Coalition:

The episode, titled “Ramallah Racing,” opens with the host’s narration stating that “since legally importing car parts is such a hassle, some enterprising young Palestinians came up with a clever alternative – sneak into Israel, steal a nice car, then drive it back into the West Bank and chop it up for parts.”

Viewers are then introduced to “Adam,” a Palestinian man who claims he no longer actively steals cars, but has volunteered to demonstrate how it’s done.

Adam asks the understanding host, “Someone who steals our land, why shouldn’t we steal his car?”

Adam is then shown smashing the window of an Israeli vehicle and struggling to break into the steering column. The show’s host helps Adam to break the column’s covering and start the car. The two then race away while giving approving nods to one another.

(Read full "MTV romanticizes Arabs stealing Israeli cars")

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Meet The NEW Open Air Prison: The West Bank!

Daled Amos
05 October '10

Competition for Biggest Open-Air Prison In The Middle East must be heating up. Just ask Professor Ibrahim Abu Jaber

The West Bank has become a divided prison. In days before I could not believe the situation of Palestinian cities had become so hellish, so intolerable, these scattered prisons in a small, divided land. Now between settlements on the hills and strategic sites and the geographic network of connections to ensure easy passage between them, Palestinians must move using primitive methods across long distances.”

The good professor obviously doesn't get out much--and he apparently doesn't read the Travel Section of The New York Times either. If he did, Abu Jaber would know that Ramallah Attracts a Cosmopolitan Crowd

Though Yasser Arafat’s floodlit tomb loomed nearby, no one was talking about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at Snowbar. They were too focused on the music.

(Read full post)

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The Palestinian Authority: Silencing the Opposition

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
27 August '10

As the Palestinian Authority is about to launch direct talks with Israel in Washington, its Western-trained security forces are preparing to silence the voices of political opponents and critics.

The crackdown is seen as a blow to all those who were hoping that the Palestinian Authority, whose survival is dependent on American and European taxpayers' money, would be different from the rest of the Arab world's repressive and autocratic regimes.

While it's true that the Palestinian Authority has been successful over the past few years in improving the economy in the territories under its control in the West Bank - largely thanks to generous donations from the West and an easing of Israeli security measures - the Palestinians are nevertheless far from achieving democracy and a free media.

What happened in Ramallah this week should serve as an alarm bell to those who are pouring billions of dollars on this authority without insisting on real political and financial reforms, democracy and transparency.

Dozens of undercover Palestinian policemen and intelligence officers stormed a hall where political activists were preparing to hold a press conference to denounce the Palestinian Authority's decision to negotiate with Israel unconditionally.

Just as the press conference was about to begin, the intruders started shouting slogans in support of Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction. Then they started beating and threatening participants, forcing the organizers to call off the conference.

When the organizers tried to launch an impromptu street march to protest against the assault and the US-sponsored peace talks, they were dispersed by force by another group of policemen under the pretext that they were part of an "illegal gathering."

Two cameramen working for the Ramallah-based private Al-Watan TV station were beaten by Palestinian intelligence officers who also confiscated their tapes.

(Read full article)

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How Do You Impose Peace?

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
08 April '10

This report explains the latest Palestinian celebration of terrorism:

The future Palestinian Authority presidential compound will be built along a street named for an infamous Hamas arch-terrorist, Channel 10 reported on Wednesday.

The Ramallah street was named for notorious Hamas suicide bomb mastermind Yihyeh Ayyash, also known as the “engineer,” who was the architect of multiple attacks, including a 1994 bombing of a Tel Aviv bus, which killed 20 people, and injured dozens.

Ayyash was killed in 1996 in what was most likely an Israeli assassination, after his cell phone exploded in his Beit Lahia home, in the Gaza Strip.

Last time, the Palestinians pulled this – naming a square in Ramallah for terrorist Dalal al-Mughrabi, who killed 38 Israelis — Hillary Clinton tried to pass it off as the doing of Hamas, despite ample evidence that the PA joined in the festivities. It’s going to be even harder for the Obami to make excuses for the PA this time:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement in response to the naming, saying it was an “outrageous glorification of terrorism by the Palestinian Authority.”

“Right next to a Presidential compound in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority has named a street after a terrorist who murdered hundreds of innocent Israeli men, women and children,” the statement said, adding that “the world must forcefully condemn this official Palestinian incitement for terrorism and against peace.”

So does the Obama team manage to get out a simple declaratory sentence this time — “We condemn this behavior,” for example?

(Read full post)
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Hamas hangs on

Hamas has done well to survive but it is threatened by rivalry among Islamists


Economist.com
31 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

AFTER four gruelling years under siege, the Gazans—and the Islamist movement, Hamas, that governs them—are still managing against the odds to survive. Some even prosper. The tunnels that snake under Gaza’s border with Egypt have multiplied so fast that supply sometimes exceeds demand. So stiff is commercial competition that tunnel-diggers complain that their work is no longer profitable. As a British parliamentary report recently noted, Israel officially allows Gaza to import only 73 of more than 4,000 items that are available in the strip. The rest is home-made—or acquired illicitly. For instance, cement, which cost 300 Israeli shekels ($80) a sack two years ago, has dropped almost tenfold in price, precipitating a spate of building for the first time since Israel’s attack a year ago reduced 4,000 houses to ruins. And eyewitnesses say that flashy 4x4 vehicles can actually drive through tunnels built from shipping containers.

Israel’s siege still causes misery. Yet some economists say the strip is growing faster than the West Bank run by Hamas’s rival Palestinian Authority (PA), albeit from a far lower base. The petrol pumped into Gaza by underground pipes and hoses from Egypt costs a third of what it does in Ramallah, the Palestinians’ West Bank capital, where Israel supplies it. Free health care is more widely available in Gaza. Imports travel faster through the tunnels than via Israel’s thickets of bureaucracy. The web of Israeli checkpoints that still impedes Palestinian movements and commerce on the West Bank is absent in Gaza.

As well as lower prices, Gazans benefit from civil-service payrolls. Several outfits pump cash into the strip’s economy: the local Hamas government; the UN, which employs 10,000 Gazans; and Salam Fayyad’s West Bank government, which is the largest employer of all. Payments to Hamas and its connected tunnel-operators boost the economy too. A car-dealer bringing in a new Hyundai saloon through the tunnels stands to make a profit of $13,000.

Above ground things look better, too. In the 14 months since the war ended, Hamas has swept up much of the wreckage. The Islamic University, bombed by Israel’s aircraft, sparkles again. New cafés have opened across Gaza City. Power cuts dog Gazan life, but Hamas profits from the taxes it collects on the fuel that powers a noisy surfeit of generators. America recently imposed sanctions on the main Hamas-owned bank, but the informal hawala banking system that straddles the border keeps the strip solvent. Whereas Gaza was once plugged into Western economies, the siege has forced it to find other financial moorings. So confident is Hamas that it can survive without the PA’s banking system that it has just, for the first time, sent its police to raid a bank that had obeyed a PA order preventing a Hamas-run charity from having access to deposits.

(Read full article)
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[Includes barefaced lie covering up PA] Secretary of State Clinton's Remarks at the 2010 AIPAC Policy Conference

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
23 March '10

[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

"When a Hamas-controlled municipality glorifies violence and renames a square after a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis, it insults the families on both sides who have lost loves ones over the years in this conflict."

Pop quiz.

What square was recently renamed after a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis?

Answer: A square in Ramallah was named after the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi.

And who controls the Ramallah municipality?

Answer: Fatah.

Bonus question: Why does Clinton attribute the incident to Hamas?

Answer:: How do you spell cognitive dissonance?]

==============================

(Applause.)

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington Convention Center

Washington, DC

March 22, 2010
www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/03/138722.htm

Thank you. Thank you for that welcome. And it is wonderful to be back at AIPAC with so many good friends. I saw a number of them backstage before coming out, and I can assure you that I received a lot of advice.(Laughter.) I know I always do when I see my friends from AIPAC. And I want to thank Lee Rosenberg for that introduction. And congratulations, Rosy; you're going to be a terrific president. (Applause.

(Read full speech)
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Why glorify the murderers?

By Ron Kehrmann, Yossi Mendelevich and Yossi Zur
Los Angeles Times
17 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

Vice President Joe Biden took umbrage last week when Israel announced during his visit that it had approved new housing construction in East Jerusalem. But another contentious incident that took place during Biden's visit got far less scrutiny.

March 11 marked the 32nd anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel's history, and this year the Palestinian Authority decided to honor the 19-year-old leader of the attack, Dalal Mughrabi, by naming a square in a town outside Ramallah after her. The commemoration was scheduled for the anniversary.

The official ceremony was ultimately canceled to avoid antagonizing Biden during his visit, but the square was nevertheless named for Mughrabi, and several dozen Palestinian students from President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement gathered in her honor for an unofficial dedication.

So what was the deed that deserved this commemoration? On a Saturday in March 1978, the squad of Palestinian terrorists led by Mughrabi entered Israel by boat from Lebanon and made their way to the main road between Haifa and Tel Aviv. By day's end, they had murdered 38 innocent men, women and children.

The first person Mughrabi and her gang of terrorists encountered was Gale Rubin, an American photojournalist taking photos of birds near the beach. They killed her and continued on their deadly path.

(Read full article)
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Peace Plans and Palestinian Politics

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
10 March '10

Writing in the widely circulated Israeli newspaper Yisrael Hayom (“Israel Today”), Israeli journalist Dan Margalit reviews the prospects for the new peace process. The article is in Hebrew, but is summarized by the Israel Foreign Ministry:

The author recalls that in 2000, at Camp David, “Ehud Barak agreed to discuss the division of Jerusalem and the Palestinians fled the negotiations,” and adds that “In 2009, Ehud Olmert even offered to soften on the principle against ‘the right of return’ and again they fled.” The paper speculates that “In the current round, Israel is in a more complex position. Benjamin Netanyahu cannot offer Abu Mazen what came up in Ehud Olmert’s plan and if Ramallah rejected the previous move, what will it accept now?” The author notes that the Palestinians will, apparently, proffer a plan of their own in the hope that an Israeli rejection will draw the Obama administration to their side.

Presenting a plan they know Israel will not accept — to generate a condemnation of Israel for not accepting it – would be, in the weird world of the peace process, a step forward: at least the Palestinians would be proffering a plan. The last three times Israel offered the Palestinians a state – at Camp David, in the Clinton Parameters, and in the Olmert offer – the Palestinians rejected the offer without making a counterproposal.

If the process plays out as Margalit predicts, here is one way to determine the seriousness of the Palestinians’ plan: will they release it to their public before July 17? July 17 is the date set for local elections in the West Bank – coincidentally (or maybe not) a week after the four-month period the Palestinians have set for the new indirect talks.

(Read full post)
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IDF violence against Arab women?

REUTERS PICTURES 1 DAY AGO

A Palestinian woman tries to grab the weapon of an Israeli soldier in the West Bank village of Nabi Salih, near Ramallah, January 22, 2010.

Elder of Ziyon
23 January '10

Palestine Today has a photo essay purporting to show how violently IDF soldiers handle Arab women protesters. The article itself says:

Clashes erupted on Monday between Palestinian youths and Israeli soldiers in Nabi Saleh village near Ramallah in the West Bank, where there was a violent demonstration and youths pelted Israeli soldiers with stones, Israeli soldiers responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

The young Palestinians scuffled with Israeli soldiers, and were was violently assaulted by Israeli soldiers and who arrested some of them.

The following images show the brutality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian women:

Even the article admits that the violence was started by the protesters, not by the IDF. Even so, it claims that the soldiers were cruelly assaulting PalArab women.

(Read full post)
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