27-Nov-06: Today Would Have Been Our Daughter's 21st Birthday

Our daughter Malki was born twenty-one years ago today on 27th November 1985 in Melbourne, Australia. Her life ended in the center of Jerusalem on 9th August 2001 when a Hamas barbarian exploded his guitar case inside one of the city's most popular and crowded restaurants, Sbarro.

We hope you will take a moment to remember Malki's beautiful life by paying a visit to the website of the foundation that bears her name. It does a good deal of practical work for families from all parts of Israeli society who care at home for a disabled child. The website address is www.kerenmalki.org

Malki's mother wrote the short essay below soon after the murder:

How can I compress my Malki's fifteen years into a mere few words? How can I sing her praises without sounding hyperbolic? And, the greatest challenge, how can I endure the pain that this will undoubtedly bring? While the task seems daunting, I will attempt it nonetheless.

Since a Palestinian Arab suicide bomber snuffed out her life on August 9th, talking about my Malki is all there is left for me to do for her. And helping her was something I so enjoyed.

The opportunities were usually limited; she was a very independent girl. I used to tell friends that she was "fifteen going on eighteen." Malki handled all her school and teacher problems on her own. Shopped for her clothes without me. Conducted a very active social life at Horev Girls school and in her youth movement, Ezra. During her last two years, she was rarely at home. So I had to look hard for ways to lend her a hand. A lift by car to her flute lesson now and again to save her the short walk. A quick dash in my car to hand her the lunch she made but forgotten on the kitchen counter. A pretty new blouse I thought might grab her. A few packets of her favorite gum. Small gestures.

But the help she gave me was always on a grand scale, in ways that truly mattered. I could count on Malki to calm down her eight year-old sister who has a tendency to become irate or rebellious. Taking her into her bedroom, they'd chat a while; this would somehow win her over. Malki would then proudly present me with a cooperative little girl eager to brush her teeth, finish her homework or do whatever it was I'd been insisting upon in vain. When I would collapse on the couch after an exhausting day, Malki appeared at my side with my pillow and blanket, and gently settled me down.

She never missed a chance to compliment me when I dressed up for a simcha or wore a new outfit. When my husband would phone home from one of his overseas business trips, Malki would first ask him how he was feeling and how his meetings were panning out. Only then would she enquire about the items she'd asked him to buy her. (I, on the other hand, would launch pell-mell into my long shopping list, along with a litany of the woes I was enduring on the home front by myself.) If she were spending some time downtown, she would call home and offer to do errands for me, aware that I rarely get out of the house.

Then there was her unique relationship with Haya-Elisheva, our youngest child, now six-and-a-half, who suffers from global and profound retardation as well as an extreme epilepsy condition called Lennox-Gastaut. Early on, when Haya was hospitalized, Malki spent many hours at her side, relieving me or simply keeping me company. She was only eleven at the time but once alerted me to the fact that a nurse had hooked Haya up to the wrong IV drip. On another occasion she was the first to notice a croupy cough that turned out to need antibiotics.

As a result of her competence, I grew to lean on her - perhaps more than I should have. In one of several diaries she left behind, she confessed that she would be happy if we had put Haya away in an institution-though to me she insisted that she preferred to keep her at home.

Despite the challenges, Malki was well-balanced enough to develop into a wholesome, active teen-ager. Her ability to see the bright side of things, to concentrate on the "half-fullness of the cup" became her trademark.

Many of her close friends have written to tell us how Malki constantly inspired them to fight despondence, be happy, utilize every moment for fun but worthwhile activities. She achieved this in a variety of ways. One was the cards she sent to her friends: birthdays, holidays, returns from vacations, a disappointment, whatever. On the cover, an artistic decoration alongside an apt poem or quotation she had read somewhere that had touched her. On the back - a personal, original note.

Another was the intense, empathetic heart-to-heart talks she had with her friends. In her diaries, these are often mentioned as the highlights of her day.

Yet a third medium of uplifting was music, an area in which she was multi-talented. She studied recorder and flute for some ten years and acquired impressive skill in both. When her school or youth movement organized some event she never failed to contribute with either solo or group performances. At mid and end-of-year concerts of the neighborhood conservatory where she took lessons, Malki's playing always reduced me to tears of nachat. She also taught herself to play guitar and, I've been told, would lug it around practically everywhere, and strike up group sing-a-longs at every opportunity - even on the school bus. Needless to say, the songs she and her friends sang were what are dubbed here "shirei neshama" - songs of the soul.

Once Haya's condition stabilized somewhat and I leaned on Malki's help in that area a lot less, I made a great effort to "normalize" our family life as much as possible. Malki's contacts with Haya were more pleasurable, and her love unadulterated. On those rare occasions when she was home relaxing, Malki would sit Haya in her lap on an armchair. At night, she often took her into her bed and slept beside her. She became the only other family member capable of feeding Haya and relieved me thus from time to time.

Her relationship with Haya did not satisfy her urge to help those less fortunate than herself. She exhibited an amazing sensitivity to all kinds of disabled people. One summer she helped a local single mother with her profoundly disabled child suffering from the degenerative Canavan's Disease. His limited responses were hardly noticed by others but elicited enthusiasm from my Mali (the name we used inside the family).

At school, she gravitated towards the group of learning-disabled girls who study in a separate but parallel class. She developed genuine friendships with them and urged her teachers to include those girls more frequently in joint activities with the other students.

Two weeks before her death, Malki volunteered with a girlfriend at a sports camp located in the Galilee (arranged by the Etgarim organization) for disabled children. During the five days they were there assisting the counselors, Malki's gentle, caring way touched everyone. Many of the people associated with Etgarim travelled long distances to comfort us during the Shiva - one trekked all the way from Kiryat Shmona at Israel's northernmost edge and back in one day, a four hour drive each way-and related incredible stories to us about Malki.

One of the counsellors who had supervised her remembered the farewell chat he had conducted with the volunteers the night before their return home. When he asked each of the volunteers to stand up and tell the group what they viewed as the most important feature of their stint, they all emphasized the importance of and satisfaction gained from giving to others. Malki was the last one to speak. We were told that she was the only one who spoke of what she had gained - of the happiness she had experienced in working with the children.

Nearly a year before she was murdered, Malki and her friends, at the behest of their youth movement leader, wrote personal letters addressed to G-d, in which they expressed their prayers and requests for the upcoming Jewish New Year. They submitted them to her in sealed envelopes, the intention being to open and read them aloud the following year. The madricha (leader) brought us Malki's sealed letter during the Shiva. Arnold, my husband has not yet managed to bring himself to read it but, despite a torrent of tears, I did. In it, Malki prayed for success in school and in her youth movement as a counselor (which she was to become several months later). She added the hope that our family would remain close and supportive of one another. Her request for Haya was particularly striking: not for a miracle, a cure or even a dramatic improvement. Ever modest, she asked that Haya learn to somehow convey to us which of our actions please and which disturb her. In the final line of Malki's letter, in small script because the page had already been filled, I read: "…and that I'll be alive and that the Messiah should come".

People have told us that our precious memories will eventually bring comfort. But at this point that seems impossible. I cannot conjure up even one of those I have mentioned without crying over the tragic loss that has befallen us, her friends, and the many others she surely would have helped had she been allowed to live out her life to its full course.

Frimet Roth
Jerusalem (October 2001)

In her memory, we would be glad if you would listen to a song Malki wrote in the last year of her life. The words and the music are hers; the spirit is the indomitable spirit of the Jewish people. Malki's Song in MP3 form is downloadable from here.

25-Nov-06: Memo to "Refugee" Camp Manager: Words Kill

Earlier this week, UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Karen Koning AbuZayd said this:

“I fully recognize the right and responsibility of Israel to protect its citizens, and its legitimate concern about the home-made rockets fired from Gaza. But for humanitarian agencies such as UNRWA it is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with the aftermath of such military operations without questioning their justification, their proportionality and their effects.”

We have a suggestion for Mrs. Koning AbuZayd: If you're going to question the justification, proportionality and effects of the Israeli "aftermath", perhaps it's time to question whether your use of the expression "home-made rockets" makes sense.

Could this be simple naivete on Mrs Konig AbuZayd's part? Not likely since she's perfectly aware of the number of rockets fired from within and near the camps she manages.

Far more likely, it's a conscious attempt at diminishing the dangers of this particular aspect of Palestinian terror. After all, insisting as long and as consistently as UNRWA does, that terror attacks on Israelis are trivial is part of a strategy to delegitimize Israel's acts of self-defence. The intended result: more Israeli deaths.

While we're at it, here's some background about UNRWA for those wondering how many other refugee agencies are operated by the United Nations.

• The United Nations deals with the world's refugees with a single agency ­, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees­. But the Palestinian refugees have their very own agency ­ - UNRWA ­ - with a particular mission.
• UNRWA was founded in 1949. Since that time, it has consistently abused its mandate and become a tool of terror. UNRWA has an annual $400 million budget (which includes $90 million from the U.S.) This compares with the $881 million budget for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
  
• Some 23,000 UNRWA employees care for an estimated 3.9 million Arab “refugees,” compared with an UNHCR staff of 5,000 to manage relief for nearly 20 million other refugees in the world today.
• UNRWA's primary mission has never been to help the Palestinians deal with the reality of the post-1948 world. Resettling the Palestinians was never, and is not, the point. No UNRWA camp has ever shut down.
• UNRWA exists to keep the Palestinians alive exactly where they are. This serves, for those interested in such convoluted and sick logic, as the justification for continued conflict with Israel.
• Does UNRWA employ terrorists? Maybe. "I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime... we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another." That's a statement by Peter Hansen, UNRWA's head speaking in 2004. (Hamas is the terror organization that claimed responsibility for a massacre in the Sbarro restaurant in the centre of Jerusalem where our fifteen year-old daughter was murdered in 2001.)
• UNRWA employees have been filmed using UN ambulances and other equipment to transport armed terrorists, bombs and other weapons.
• UNRWA retirement benefits include a fund whose assets now total some $10 billion. No other UN agency has such a fund.

23-Nov-06: Israel Under Fire - Only You'd Never Figure That Out From The Reports

For far, far too long, the media have reported the daily bombardments of southern Israel - if they have reported on them at all - as being attacks on Sderot.

Since most Israelis have never visited Sderot, and most non-Israelis don't have a clue where Sderot is or what it looks like, this has serious implications.

It amounts to a total delegitimization of the suffering of ordinary Israelis in the face of the extraordinary ongoing war waged by the Palestinian government against Israel and Israelis.

Even within Israel, there's a reluctance to face up to the true implications. After all, it's only Sderot under attack. We can tolerate that, but just don't let those Arabs dare to attack our centre, our cities, our whatever.

The fact is - it's Israel under attack, not (only) Sderot. It's Israelis under attack, and the intention is to cause civilian deaths and injury. There is no strategic plan beyond this, because civilian deaths and injury are enough when you're a terrorist. In fact, they are the whole purpose.

An analogy that comes to mind is an American administration saying to its people: "Never mind, the enemy have only attacked far-off Pearl Harbour. We don't really need to let this ruin our parade."

The Palestinian Arabs don't hide what they're doing. They don't deny it. They do however rely on the in-built apathy of people living far from where the rockets fall to allow them to get on with their barbarism. That apathy costs lives.

The headline-writers, and the policy makers as well, are playing into the hands of the terrorists.

The unusually sensitive article below comes from today's Haaretz.

As officials stay away from funeral of eighth Qassam victim, relatives ask: 'Why doesn't anyone visit us?'

By Mijal Grinberg

The only public figure from City Hall, the Knesset or the government who attended the funeral of Sderot Qassam victim Yaakov Yaakobov yesterday was Yisrael Beiteinu MK Robert Ilatov. Municipal officials say they didn't attend because intermediaries asked them not to. Yaakobov's sister-in-law, Zilpa, denies such a request was made, saying the pain is too great for anyone to have asked.

All day Tuesday, the family, immigrants from the Caucasus, maintained a vigil by Yaakobov's bedside in Soroka's intensive care unit. Throughout the day, relatives repeated the question "Why doesn't anyone come to us? From City Hall? The government?"

"If he were Moroccan, they would be here," Yaakobov's son said through his tears, summarizing the sense that no one cares.

8:20 A.M.. School buses pick kids up all over town, a rocket lands in the parking lot of Sderot's Gil elementary school, slightly damaging the building. A few shock victims are evacuated a little later. Teachers union chair David Manzur was on a previously scheduled visit to the site. "I don't think the state knows what's going on here," he says.

10:30 A.M.. Two people are standing at the entrance to the Off Kor meat-packing plant, looking at the site of yesterday's rocket strike. "Poor things," one mumbles. "Lost friend," another sighs. Few of Yaakobov's friends speak Hebrew. They sweep the floor quietly, everything around them is burnt. They try to wash down the area with a hose. Shift boss Meir Kakoun mumbles, "Everything is from God, from the heavens."

11:00 A.M.. On the quad at Sapir College, the students organize a protest. It is difficult for them to explain what they are protesting. Many are wearing red shirts, a reference to the "Color Red" alert sounded when a Qassam is fired. The shirts say, "The South is Israel too." They want someone to recognize their distress, as well as reinforce buildings at the college and provide counseling.

Sapir has students from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. Among the organizers of the demonstration are Ethiopians and Russians, united under the color red. Bedouin student Hanni takes the stage to speak. "We hear the cries and pain of women and children on both sides every day. We want a solution of peace and hope." His words are greeted by applause. Every once in a while, people look toward the sky. This many people together is a little scary. The demonstration ends with a reading from Psalms and singing of the national anthem, as well as a promise to continue to organize and take action.

1 P.M. The Sderot cemetery is crowded already, mostly with immigrants from the Caucasus. Almost no one speaks Hebrew and the only words that are understandable are "Olmert" and "Peretz," which are accompanied by angry faces and sharp hand gestures. The women congregate on one side and the men on the other. The women's cries shatter the air; someone pours water on them to calm them.

The unassuming Ilatov is the only official in attendance. The rabbi addresses the crowd in Hebrew. "We are the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world," he tells them. "And what good does that do us?" The body is taken away and the heart-wrenching cries grow louder. Yaakobov's wife Purim falls on the ground and is taken away in an ambulance. She's not the first.

Downtown, between the big candy store and Itzik's falafel stand, there are huge black puddles on the sidewalk, the remnants of yesterday's burning tires. Yesterday, local business owners were furious. "[Arcadi] Gaydamak ruined our livelihoods," they yelled, about all the people who left town and lowered their turnover. When the police arrested two of them for the tire burning, the demonstration came to a quick end. The evening bar mitzvah, which had received a great deal of media coverage, calmed matters down. "Arcadi called," celebrant Itzik recounted. "He said he would take all the kids to Eilat, the saint."

The Yaakobov family had already begun the mourning preparations specific to their ethnicity. Long white tables are spread out and set up. Everyone comes to provide support to the mourners.

"It is important to hold those who suffer and not let go," they explain. "This is why the community is strong." They don't hide the pain of their feeling of abandonment, however. "Why could all the Knesset members come here yesterday for the bar mitzvah, but they can't come for us?" they ask.

17-Nov-06: Indonesia Shows the Way in Fearlessly Combatting Religion-Based Terror

The world's largest Islamic nation is demonstrating, by its uncompromising actions, precisely where it stands on the global scourge of religion-based lethal hatred, otherwise known as terror.

For some reason, the report below has gotten very little media coverage even though it's already twenty-four hours old at this point. Why is this?

Islamic terrorists set free

Mark Dunn and Shannon McRae (The Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia) - November 17, 2006 12:00am
ALMOST 60 jailed Islamic extremists linked to such atrocities as the Bali bombings have been set free. They include 14 terrorists who have been quietly released in the past two months. Many of those who walked free in October and this month had at least two months cut from their sentences under Indonesia's justice system. They were convicted on charges linked to the two Bali bombings, attacks on the Australian Embassy and Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, and other atrocities.
The latest releases, and that in June of Jemaah Islamiah's spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir, have outraged families who lost loved ones in the 2002 and 2005 Bali terrorist strikes. Dozens more had been arrested by Indonesian police, often with the help of Australian authorities, and held for just days or weeks before being freed for lack of evidence. Those questioned but freed include Jemaah Islamiah member Bambang Tutuko, who was believed to have been trained in bomb making under the notorious Dr Azahari Husin. He was held for just one day in September 2003.
Australian survivors of the attacks were shocked last night to learn those responsible had escaped justice. "They've probably been in jail for maybe a couple of years. That's not enough. They're accessories to murder, they played a part in killing 202 people," said Melbourne man Dale Atkin, who suffered severe burns in the Sari Club bombing in 2002. Other survivors feared those set free could be plotting more terrorist attacks.
"While they're alive they've still got the opportunity to plan these attacks," said Leanne Woodgate, who escaped death when she fled Paddy's bar.
More than 200 prisoners are in Indonesian jails as a result of terrorism-related offences. But the dozens already released had been arrested for connections to the Bali, Australian Embassy and Marriott bombings, terror-linked weapons offences and a string of Christmas Eve church bombings in 2000. Others had harboured known terrorists who were being hunted for the 2002 Kuta attacks that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Among those freed in the past two months are:
SIROJUL Munir bin Achmad Asumi, convicted of providing money and harbouring terrorists after the Bali bombings, given a two-month remission on a five-year sentence.
GUN GUN Rusman Gunawan, jailed for involvement in JI's al-Ghuraba cell and document fraud. Also linked to financing the 2003 Marriott blast, which killed 12. Released at the end of Ramadan.
MUHAJIR bin Amin, Sukastopo bin Kartomiarjo and Eko Hadi Prasetyo bin Sukastopo, arrested in 2003 for helping hide Bali bomber Ali Imron in Kalimantan – each received a two-month sentence reduction.
MUHAMMAD Rusi bin Salim, KOMPAK member, also concealed the whereabouts of Imron while he was on the run.
PURYANTO, alias Pak De, helped hide Imron and fellow bomber Mubarok – later received a two-month remission.
ABDUL Haer, Mujahidin KOMPAK member arrested in 2003 in connection with attacks in Poso, sentenced to four years but released early.
ARMAN, Andang, Hamdan, Syafri and Hendra Yadi, also Mujahidin KOMPAK members arrested for the Poso attack, released this month.
Freed earlier were JI member Dedi Mulyadi, who was involved in the Christmas 2000 bombings in Java and released in 2004. Firmansyah, alias Edi Harun, was also freed after about two years' jail for helping hide Imron. And like JI leader Bashir who was controversially freed after 2 1/2 years, Abu Jibril, a close associate of Bashir and a primary recruiter for the group, was held for less than 3 1/2 years. Originally detained in Malaysia, Jibril was sentenced to 5 1/2 months for immigration and forgery but authorities could not lay terrorism charges. Dozens of other suspected militants were also picked up but were unable to be prosecuted because of lack of evidence. They include Dahlan, aka Leo, a JI member and trained bomb-maker who was held for a week.

When the Kuta Beach massacre happened on 12th October 2002, this same newspaper - the Melbourne Herald-Sun - contacted us and asked that we write a first-person response, an open letter to the families of the victims. Like most of the victims of Bali massacre, our daughter Malki was also an Australian-born victim of vicious terrorists acting in the name of Islam. She had been murdered a year earlier.

Our article was duly submitted, but was never published in the pages of that Melbourne newspaper. It was, however, subsequently printed in several other places. The paper's editor at the time never responded to our several emails asking for an explanation.

As the Indonesian government shows, people can be a bit strange when terror is on the agenda.

Amrozi bin Nurhasyim (pictured above), one of the Moslem terrorists convicted of the Bali (Kuta beach) massacre, showed zero remorse in his trial. "I am very happy," he said "because they attack Muslims and are inhumane." His only regret was that he wished "there were more American casualties". Seven Americans died in the tragedy, along with 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians, 23 Britons, nine Swedes, six Germans, four Dutch nationals, and others. In all, people from 21 countries were killed.

17-Nov-06: How Effective is the "Apartheid" Security Fence? This Palestinian Knows

For the past three years, we have personally taken active roles as private individuals in speaking out against the foolish inaccuracies peddled in the brand-name media about the security barrier between Israel and the areas occupied by the Palestinian Authority.

We spoke in The Hague when the International Court of Justice presumed to rule on the legitimacy of Israel's fence building. We addressed political leaders who came to Israel to see for themselves and we spoke to visiting United Nations officials who did not really want to see for themselves (since they already knew everything they needed to know) but were somehow snookered (with notable lack of enthusiasm) into meeting Israeli victims of terror. We spoke - by invitation - to visiting journalists on their various 48 hour "in depth" flying visits to the scenes of Israel's "crimes". We write, speak, demonstrate and keep peppering away as best we can to make a simple point. Simple, that is, to people who have an open mind on the absolute right of Israelis to protect their children, homes and society.

The point: the security fence is a defensive measure which brings no happiness to anyone, least of all to Israelis, and the inconvenience and disruption which the extraordinarily expensive construction delivers to the lives of Palestinian Arabs is trivial, trivial, compared with the price paid by families like ours - the injury and death of loved ones at the hands of Palestinian Arab barbarians. The fence is the least of several evils. It saves innocent lives on both sides, every hour, every day. The way we see things, anyone in doubt on this suffers from a profound case of self-imposed moral blindness.

Have we had an impact? Not really. Perhaps because we were speaking English and Hebrew. Now let's pay attention to someone who takes a different tack.

Ramadan Shalah is not exactly a household name in this part of the world, but his occasional utterances are noted by the media. When we speak of Palestinian Arab barbarians, the dapper Ramadan Shallah, one of the numerous terror suits residing in the democratic paradise of Syria, is the sort of barbarian we have in mind. The man stands at the head of a gang of thugs called PIJ - Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Variously called Sallah, Salah and Shalah, he has been on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list since February 24, 2006. During the Jewish festival of Passover earlier this year, his colleagues carried out a deadly "strategic" attack on an occupied Zionist felafel stand in Tel-Aviv. Nine people including the teenage nephew of friends in our neighbourhood died.

Shallah's cowardly gutter-dwellers also tried claiming credit for the 2001 massacre of restaurant patrons in Jerusalem in August 2001. Unfortunately for them, their blood-lust had to take a back seat to Hamas that day because it turned out their purported involvement in the Sbarro bombing was pure public relations , an exercise in jihadist fantasy without a factual basis. PIJ have actually carried more terror murders than Hamas over the years. In 2005, during a period the media called quiet and "relatively free of acts of terrorism", Shallah's PIJ carried out five lethal bombing attacks within Israel, and two more in 2006.

We know these things because the August 9, 2001 massacre took the life of our fifteen year old daughter.

If slick, sick, well-funded global terrorism has a face, it's Ramadan Shallah's face. That face appeared on the television station operated by Lebanon's curse, Hizbullah, less than a week ago. On 11th November 2006, Ramadan Salah scored a long televised interview on Al-Manar, an especially vile media outlet based in Lebanon and funded since 1991 by the revolution-minded Iranian mullahs. We don't watch Al-Manar. Nor do we recommend that anyone else tunes in to it. But the analysts at one of Israel's ever-vigilant anti-terror groups do and did. Their report, online here, includes streaming video of Ramadan Shallah's contribution to a greater, more-in-depth understanding of what the Israeli security barrier is about. According to Shallah, a man who knows from terror:

• Israel's security fence was and is important obstacle to the terror organizations. (He calls them resistance groups so we'll paraphrase.)
• The bombing of Israeli civilians is the Palestinian people's “strategic choice”.
  
• Palestine terrorism is meant to “create a balance of force and deterrence” in the campaign against a superior enemy.
• The jihadist terror organizations have every intention of continuing these bombing attacks on ordinary Israeli civilians.
• The timing and the possibility of implementing these terror attacks from Judea and Samaria (which is not the name he gives to the region) depend on certain external factors. “For example,” he said, “there is the separation fence, which is an obstacle to the resistance. If it were not there the situation would be entirely different.”
• The last few years have witnessed a reduction in the number of terror bombings. Among other factors, this is due to the still-incomplete construction of Israel's security fence. [Our note: try to find a journalist from a brand-name media outlet who will admit this.]
  
• Though people from PIJ and other similar "resistance" groups continue to search for the security fence's weak spots, the security fence hampers their attempts to slip their bombers into Israel.

To view the hatred-filled interview, click here. And to hear PIJ's front man speak about his organization's vision of a better future for his brothers and sisters, about his plans for a Palestinian state with democratic institutions and healthy, well-educated children, click here...

Sorry, don't bother clicking on that last link. There's no link there because it's a sort of joke. There is no such vision. There is no such plan. There is no such hope. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is entirely dedicated to hatred, to racist crimes, to killing and maiming for terror's sake.

Don't you just wish you had people like Ramadan Salah on your television screen?

11-Nov-06: So... Just How Broke Are The Palestinian Arabs, Really?

An excellent analysis by the Jerusalem Post's Evelyn Gordon does what mainstream papers and other media channels avoid doing like the plague: look closely at where Palestinian Arab resources are coming from and going to.

In asking how broke the Palestinians really are, she's taken open-source information in much the same way as the outstanding Funding for Peace Coalition have done for several years. No special insights are needed. No subscription-only information sources. No highly-placed leaks and no forensic investigations. It's all there, ladies and gentlemen, for those who care to look. For the tiny, unintimidated handful who are to look, that is.

She acknowledges the almost daily reports of a growing humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian Authority. This seems logical, she concedes. European and other donors shut down the foreign aid tap to the Palestinians after a Hamas government took over earlier this year. And since aid from the west - not, Heaven forbid, from Arab sources - has long provided most of the PA's budget, this was bad news.

As a result, the PA is broke, unable to deal with its people's needs.

Not.

The PA, as the JPost article points out, has simply chosen to use its funds for purposes other than the welfare of the Palestinians. For instance, more than twenty tons of explosives have been detected by the Israelis being smuggled into Gaza so far this year. Plus militarily significant and highly sophisticated antitank and antiaircraft missiles. While much of this has gone straight into Hamas warehouses, the terror groups connected to Fatah, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's party, have not missed out.

"The purchase price for this materiel, including the cost of smuggling it into the Gaza, could have been used to cover the unpaid salaries of thousands of PA employees - but Hamas and Fatah would both rather buy arms than feed their people. And as long as this is true, giving either group more money would be futile."

As we pointed out back in June, the Hamas government and its fellow-traveler media friends, were shedding tears all over about their inability to pay salaries to the vastly bloated ranks of PA employees. Then they announced an increase in the PA's payroll - 5,400 new employees added to the ranks of Hamas "security personnel". For 5,400 Hamas gunmen, there was a budget, and salaries. Teachers, doctors, social workers, nurses - these were shown an empty Palestinian treasury though its doubtful they bought these lies as readily as Western reporters did.

Then there's the matter of western aid. Unlike almost every other report on this subject until now, the JPost points out that funding to the Palestinians by the European Union - for years, the PA's principal source of handouts - has increased this year. John Vinocur of the International Herald Tribune says the EU's own records show $814 million being given to the Palestinians between January and October 2006, "more than it would in a normal year."

Some went to Abbas, some to NGOs, some directly to PA employees through a so-called "Hamas bypass". Bottom line: while claiming to observe a boycott of the Palestinian pro-terror regime, the EU has increased rather than decreased its contributions. We're not suggesting this increased funding went to humanitarian purposes - because we don't know. We do know that claims of a humanitarian crisis are a propaganda lie.

Then there's the matter of how effective the government of the Palestinian Arabs has been in stopping terror. the JPost puts it this way:

For years, the West has maintained that Abbas, unlike Hamas, wants to fight terror, but is incapable of doing so. Yet in fact, Abbas's forces have demonstrated exceptional proficiency in handling certain types of attacks - namely, those directed at Western journalists and aid workers. Over the past year, there have been numerous kidnappings of foreigners. Just last week, for instance, a Spanish aid worker was kidnapped in Gaza; the week before, an AP photographer was kidnapped there; two weeks before that, an American aid worker was kidnapped in Nablus. In every such kidnapping, however, the victims have been released unharmed, usually within 24 hours. And in every single case, this has been due to PA intervention - usually by Abbas's office. This begs an obvious question: How is it that Abbas's security forces are so quickly able to locate and free kidnapped Westerners, but are completely incapable of dealing with any other type of terrorist activity? Even during Abbas's 14 months in sole control of the PA, from January 2005 to March 2006, his forces failed to arrest so much as a single one of the terrorists who have launched Qassam rockets into Israel from Gaza every day since disengagement. Nor were anti-Israel terrorists of any other stripe - bomb-makers, gunmen, kidnappers - ever arrested, even when Israeli intelligence gave him information on which to act. The conclusion is obvious: Abbas's forces are quite capable of taking action when he wishes them to do so, and in the case of Western journalists and aid workers, he does. He knows that these journalists and aid workers are largely responsible for generating Western sympathy for the Palestinian cause, and it is therefore important to him that they keep coming. And since this would be less likely if they risked torture or death at the hands of kidnappers, he makes sure that kidnapped Westerners are rescued quickly and unharmed. But Abbas has no interest whatsoever in fighting anti-Israel terror, because that would be unpopular with his own public: As one September poll found, 63 percent of Palestinians support bombarding Israeli cities with rockets, 57 percent support suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and 75 percent favor kidnapping Israeli soldiers. Yet neither can he openly advocate such attacks, since that could lead to the West boycotting him like it does Hamas. The obvious solution is to plead helplessness and rely on a gullible West to swallow this plea.

Western gullibility is one of the safest bets there is, and entire careers, not to mention political and propaganda campaigns, have been built around it. This is not a victimless crime, unfortunately. For as Evelyn Gordon points out:

"If the PA can enjoy Western diplomatic and material support even without amending its behavior, it will have no incentive to change. And without change, neither the conflict nor Palestinian misery will end."

Palestinian misery - amazing how much it troubles us Israelis, and how little it bothers the Palestinian kleptocracy.

10-Nov-06: Behold - The British Ostrich

We don't wish the British any harm. But anyone with even a partial sense of the scale of war preparations taking place in every corner of the world where Islamic ist radicals are based must read today's BBC report (below) with a deep sigh. The British are facing mortal terrorist threats to every part of their kingdom, having already tasted blood on their streets, buses and subway carriages. Yet they speak, even now, of "threats", of "dangers", of "plots".

Why are they not speaking of war? Plainly, their terrorist enemies understand matters far better.

MI5 tracking '30 UK terror plots'

MI5 knows of 30 terror plots threatening the UK and is keeping 1,600 individuals under surveillance, the security service's head has said. Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller warned the threat was "serious" and "growing". She said future attacks could be chemical or nuclear and that many of the plots were linked to al-Qaeda.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said the terrorist threat was "very real" and spoke of "poisonous propaganda" warping the minds of young people.

Hard choices

MI5 has increased in size by nearly 50% since 9/11 and now stands at roughly 2,800 staff. But according to Dame Eliza the current terror threat will "last a generation" and her concern is that even with MI5's rapid growth, the security service will not be able to investigate nearly enough of activities it deems to be suspicious. She said hard choices would have to be made about resources. "Tomorrow's threat may - I suggest will - include the use of chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials and even nuclear technology."

Dame Eliza's warning comes days after a UK man was sentenced to at least 40 years in jail for planning a series of attacks. Attacks planned by Dhiren Barot, 34, from London, included using a so-called "dirty bomb" using radioactive material.

Mr Blair also said he agreed with Dame Eliza's comments that the terrorist threat would last for a generation. "I've been saying, as you know, for several years that this terrorist threat is very real, it's been building up over a long period of time. It's not just in this country, as we've seen recently from incidents in India, France, other parts of the world. This is a threat that has grown up over a generation."

In response to Dame Eliza's warning, Massoud Shadjareh, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said he accepted there was a terrorist threat but it had to be put into perspective.

"Over 1,000 arrests have been made under anti-terrorism since 9/11 and out of those, 27 have been found guilty. Out of those 27, only nine have been Muslims," he said.

Dame Eliza, who rarely speaks in public, gave a speech to a small audience on Thursday, detailing what she believes her organisation and the UK is facing. She said that, since the 7 July bombings, five further major conspiracies in the UK had been thwarted. "Today, my officers and the police are working to contend with some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1,600 identified individuals - and there will be many we don't know - who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas," she said. "Today we see the use of home-made improvised explosive devices. Tomorrow's threat may - I suggest will - include the use of chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials and even nuclear technology."

Out of the 200 or so groups being watched by MI5, a smaller subset are of the highest priority because it is feared that they are plotting actual attacks.

"We are aware of numerous plots to kill people and to damage our economy. What do I mean by numerous? Five? 10? "No, nearer 30 that we currently know of. These plots often have linked back to al-Qaeda in Pakistan and through those links al-Qaeda gives guidance and training to its largely British foot soldiers here on an extensive and growing scale."

She added that of the 30 plots some may turn out to be less credible or advanced but it would be hard to be sure until they are fully investigated.

What is it going to take to shake them from their stupor?

10-Nov-06: European of the Year?

Over at the website of European Voice, produced by the same corporate publisher responsible for The Economist, they're in the last hours before closing the ballots later today (Friday) on the 2006 European of the Year titles.

This is not the typical sort of issue on which we focus. But if you check out this year's candidates, they reflect some disturbingly odd choices.

Among this year's batch of European of the Year candidates are such distinguished achievers as Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority and Tariq Ramadan, Swiss author and a notorious promoter of a radical Islamic message of hatred against Israel.

We'd like to suggest, for those of you as appalled as we are with these candidacies, to consider casting a vote right now for Cecilia Malmstrom, a European parliamentarian (pictured at right). She has played, and continues to play, a major role in supporting pro-democracy forces in the world with a special interest in Syria where democracy has - how shall we say this - some considerable way to go. In the European Parliament, hers has been one of the strongest voices consistently speaking out for democratic reforms. There's more about Cecilia Malmström here.

The deadline to vote is Friday (today) at 11.59pm, Brussels time. You may want to pass this message along to your more thoughtful friends. Be sure to register with a legitimate email address, and click here now to vote.

8-Nov-06: More Death in Gaza, and More Longing for Even More Death

Today's media reports of the deaths of women, children and other innocents in Bet Hanoun in the Gaza Strip are sadly focused, as is so often the case, on one-half of the disaster.

We're sitting here in Jerusalem this evening, listening to radio reports and watching television news, hearing Israeli political leaders, senior military figures from the IDF and prominent media personalities expressing their pain, upset, sadness. It doesn't matter whether (which we believe because it's so plainly true) the deaths were the result of mistake, an awful accident typical of the accidents that happen in war. Children died, lives were smashed, and the pain is palpable and crushing.

Israelis make no secret of the almost universally-held opinion that all of us in this region would benefit immeasurably if the lives of the Palestinian Arabs were better, more prosperous, healthier, more peaceful. To the extent it's up to us, we do what we can to make that happen. But it isn't really up to us.

It's a reflection of the asynchronous nature of this generations-long conflict that the feelings on the other side, on the Palestinian street, are the very opposite. We're strong, we're prosperous, we're healthy - and so they hate us, our lives, our strength, our prosperity, our health and well-being. We've mentioned in previous blog entries that this war is not about the Palestinian Arabs lacking a homeland. It's about the Jews having one. The core hatred stems not from what they lack, but from what we have.

A sense of just how far this goes can be guaged by a report put out today by the indispensible Palestine Media Watch. In a PMW report by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook entitled "PA Grants Religious Status to Suicide Terror", the authors/researchers point out that even before today's Israeli action that accidentally struck civilians, the government of Palestine continues, and has continued throughout its history, to promote Jihad, Shahada (Death for Allah) and suicide terror as religious imperatives. It grants the highest status and rewards to the shahids (martyrs for Allah) and terrorists.

The Palestinian Authority promotes suicide bombings constantly. A religious leader, Sheik Imad Hamato appearing on official PA television five days ago (3rd November 2006), compares suicide terror to a story found in the Hadith, Islam's holy writings, of a friend of Muhammad who died accidentally on his own sword. The point of the scriptural quotation is that Muhammad grants the man the status of martyr.

The lesson? Hamato says: "It’s like the conflict today! One who exploded with a bomb." With proper intent, the government-authorized preacher says, self-inflicted death is not suicide but shahada - the death of a martyr.

Hamato gives a graphic description of the corpse of a Shahid, with “no head, no legs, his body completely burned... intestines outside, fingers... gone”. While ordinary mortals fear such a death, this is “what the Shahids wish for most of all”, according to this man of the cloth. A video of his "religion" lesson as televised on state-run Palestinian television is here.

And here, courtesy of PMW, are some excerpts:

• "Hadith: There is one thing that causes Allah…to elevate his worshipper 100 levels in Paradise, and each level is like the space between heaven and earth. And what is this thing, Allah’s prophet [Muhammad]? It’s the Jihad for Allah. Jihad for Allah…
• “A man, when he sees one of his brothers being killed for Allah, those we consider Shahids for Allah, he sees [for example] a person with no head, no legs, his body completely burned. Yes? Intestines outside, fingers are gone, it’s a difficult image. The most difficult thing which we fear is what the Shahids wish for most of all.
• "They ask Allah: ‘Oh God, bring us back [to earth] to be killed by the Apache [Israeli helicopter]. Bring us back so that the planes will blow us up, that our heads will be cut off from the body.’ What is that? We have criteria, and Allah, praise him, also has criteria. Study the Hadiths that discuss this issue to understand the essence of Shahada for Allah…
• "Hadith: One of the Prophet Muhammad’s good friends was preparing a bow and arrow when his own sword struck him and killed him… Is he considered a Shahid or not? Did he commit suicide? It’s like the conflict today! One who exploded with a bomb. People talk about whether or not he’s a Shahid…"
• [Hamato continues with the Hadith, that people did not want to pray in memory of a man who was killed by his sword, because they didn’t know if he was a Shahid or committed suicide.] “They said: ‘The man died from his own weapon, and not from the weapon of the enemy.’ Answered Prophet Muhammad: ‘He died in an attempt to be a holy warrior… And his reward for that was doubled…'
• "Khamtu says: 'When we talk about Shahid and Shahids, we shouldn’t forget that Allah, praise him, in blessing the blood of the Shahid, he forgives him, from the first gush of blood. Yes, yes. And sees his place in Paradise. He is shielded from the Great Shock and marries 72 Dark-Eyed Maidens (virgins)...'
• “I once heard a father of one of the Shahids say: ‘I would pray with my son at night, and ask Allah for Shahada for my son.’ Allah Akbar, God is Great. ‘I asked Allah for Shahada for my son, until Allah gave me joy with his Shahada…”

Some may consider this an inconsequential theology lesson. They'd be very wrong. The hatred and incitement spewing forth from the state-sponsored mouth of this charlatan typifies the pervasive hate-based, death-adoring culture of the Palestinian Arabs. Any analysis of the six years of daily rockets fired into Israel from Gaza towns like Bet Hanoun that ignores this "theology" completely misses the mark, leaving half the story unreported.

1-Nov-06: Dark Clouds Over Gaza

Here's a laconic statement emanating from the spokesperson's office of the IDF this morning:

IDF forces have begun operating in the town of Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip. The operation is directed against terror organizations in the town and its goal is to disrupt and prevent the launching of Qassam rockets into Israel. Terror organizations have launched over 300 rockets into Israel from the Beit Hanun area since the beginning of the year.

No one knows at this stage whether this latest fighting in the Beit Hanun area or elsewhere in the Gaza Strip is going to be localized, or will spread beyond. Israeli society has little desire or appetite for another war, but most Israelis - and very few people outside Israel - recognize that the day-to-day bombardments from Gaza of never-occupied, never-disputed Israeli towns, cities, settlements and homes constitute an intolerable situation.

Three hundred rockets since 1st January 2006... where else in the world can you imagine a situation like that? No sane government or community would tolerate it. But over there on the other side of the fence, the government (some of the time, that means Hamas; some of the time, Fatah) not only don't stop it. They actively feed the flames, and provide it with an ideological and theological foundation. They're up to their eyebrows in premeditated murderous acts of terror on a daily basis, and don't deny it.

And the international media, never keen on interpreting events that might - Heaven forfend - place Israelis in a sympathetic light as victims, have done a first-class job of ensuring that very few people outside this region know the real reason why Israeli service personnel are now blowing up houses, roads and tunnels and placing themselves in harm's way.

As we never tire of explaining, this makes the members of the international media (editors, reporters, photographers, managers) complicit in the deaths and injuries that stem daily from ongoing terror.