19-Apr-10: Memories and reflections

A mother’s reflection on Remembrance Day

By FRIMET ROTH
Jerusalem Post  18/04/2010 21:02

Like many other bereaved parents, I desperately want the memory of my angel to live on.

A decade after the start of the worst civilian war Israelis have known, the second intifada, the memory of its victims is endangered. With few soldiers, celebrities or heroes among them, they were always step-victims: anonymous men, women and especially children who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

My daughter Malki was 14 when the war started in 2000. She kept a private journal of her activities, which unknown to me, included her thoughts about the turbulent news.

• “Today the disturbances in the territories continued and the roads leading to the settlements were closed, including the Givat Ze’ev-Ramot road. A soldier was killed because he was trapped at Joseph’s Tomb and they couldn’t manage to rescue him. Just shocking and frightening...” Malki’s journal entry – October 1, 2000.

The details of the ordinary Israelis killed by the terrorists were doomed to fade away for other reasons too. Their fates highlighted the initial inability of the government to confront the terrorist onslaught. Until Operation Defensive Shield was launched on March 29, 2002, Palestinian terror groups were acting with essentially a free hand. The “omnipotent” IDF seemed unable to stop them. In these circumstances, it is no surprise that governments have been reluctant to highlight this sorry chapter in our nation’s history.

• “The shooting at Gilo continued and in response the IDF returned fire on Bethlehem...” – October 22, 2000.

• “Shooting at Psagot and Gilo continued...” – October 24, 2000.

• “There was an attack near Kfar Darom. A roadside bomb exploded near a school bus. Two dead, one of them a brother-in-law of Gilad Ludveiss. Three of the injured are siblings from the Cohen family and all are now leg amputees...” – November 20, 2000.

• “A car driving on the Beit Horon-Givat Ze’ev road was fired on. The driver, 28, was lightly injured. He’s from Ramot [where we live] and works as a security guard in the the industrial zone...” – December 31, 2000.

The second intifada also dealt a serious blow to tourism and to the local economy. In 2000, for instance, there were 3 million overnight stays in Jerusalem by foreign tourists. By 2003, that number had fallen to 46,000. Minimizing the damage was understandably deemed essential to the renewed flow of tourist dollars.

The abiding grief and fury of the families of civilian victims has been a thorn in the government’s side whenever its decisions have been perceived as threatening to reignite terrorism. Family voices have been heard opposing mass terrorist prisoner releases, the reopening of Route 443 to Palestinian traffic and other appeasement measures directed at Hamas and Fatah.

THEN THERE is the matter of official foot-dragging in relation to the construction of memorials. Jerusalem was by far the city hardest hit by terrorism. Between 2000 and 2003, hundreds of attacks, fully 60 percent of the national total, occurred in the capital. Nearly 200 people were murdered, more than 1,000 wounded. Yet, as these words are being written, the Jerusalem municipality has still not erected a memorial in the city center to remind passersby of its civilian victims. Small, inconspicuous plaques bearing the names of victims have been posted at specific terror-attack sites but even some of those were placed thanks to pressure from the victims' families. Memorials, such as the hall proposed this week by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, are located at the military cemetery of Mount Herzl, a site visited exclusively by bereaved families and friends.

• “There was a suicide bombing in Kfar Saba today. Thank God there were no fatalities but there were many wounded, one very severely...” – April 22, 2001.

By neglecting the memory of the victims of the intifada, by failing to publicize their narratives, Israel has left a vacuum for our enemies to fill. The broadcasting of stories of Palestinian dead, whether true or fabricated, has helped their side to prevail in the media war. One example, the Muhammad al-Dura tale, has inspired many suicide bombers who detonated their explosives with his name on their lips. Despite overwhelming evidence against the authenticity of a video purporting to depict the shooting of the young Dura, it is still widely accepted as fact, not just in the Muslim world, but in the West as well.

MORE RECENTLY, the name of Rachel Corrie has become the terrorists’ rallying cry. Her suicidal blocking of an IDF bulldozer attempting to demolish a house that sheltered terrorists has been portrayed throughout the global media as an act of heroism. Since her death in 2003, Corrie’s parents have traveled the world, disseminating a distorted and hate-filled message. In March 2010, the government granted the Corries the right to sue the IDF in Israeli courts. Have our leaders gone mad?

• “Arye Hershkowitz, may God avenge his death, was killed one month ago in a shooting. Now his son was shot to death near Ofra!!! Only the younger son can say Kaddish...” – April 29, 2001.

This state of affairs has been a source of deep pain for the grieving families including mine. Like many other bereaved parents, I desperately want the memory of my angel to live on. Despite the fears she articulated in her diary, she managed to live a productive and exemplary life, devoting herself to children in the Ezra movement where she was a group leader, volunteering with disabled children, creating heavenly music with her flute and guitar.

If Malki’s life were properly remembered, her indomitable spirit would surely be a source of inspiration for future Jewish generations. The same is undoubtedly true of many other victims of the intifadas. Please do not forget them.

“Today I went to Shaikong and bought Mommy a scarf. Daddy bought her a magnificent card and also a cake, and it actually turned out very nice. Mommy enjoyed it quite a bit. Then I studied for several hours for my exam.” – March 14, 2001.

The writer co-writes This Ongoing War, a blog with her husband. Their daughter Malki was 15 when she was murdered in the terrorist attack on Jerusalem’s Sbarro restaurant in 2001.

11-Apr-10: Dark, darker and darkest: Spinning Gaza's electricity crisis

Agence France Press, in a syndicated report published on Friday, says:

Gaza power plant shuts down for lack of fuel

AFP - The sole power plant in the besieged Gaza Strip was shut down on Friday because fuel supplies ran out, with Palestinians and Israel blaming each other. "The power plant shut down completely this morning as a result of a shortage of fuel caused by the Israeli siege," said Kanaan Obeid, assistant director of Gaza's electricity authority, referring to the Israeli blockade of Gaza since its 2007 takeover by the Islamist Hamas movement. But Israel said the shut-down was caused by a rift over funding among the Palestinians, and that the Hamas rival, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, had stopped fuel purchases.

The whole report is here. Dark days in Gaza are nothing new. The blame is invariably placed at Israel's feet, as a briefer Saudi Arabian version of the same AFP story (here) illustrates. But - as we and many others have tried to point out in the past - closer inspection might reveal that having a terrorist regime in charge of both the local power generating resources and the rockets pointed at Israel can be a dangerous combination. You can see some of our previous attempts at throwing light on the issue here and here among others.

This time round, with the lights off again in the jihadist enclave, there are some interesting observations on the latest version of this Darkness in Gaza saga. One of them comes from a Palestinian Arab source that, wonder of wonders, suggests the cause might not be the wicked Zionists after all. The Maan News Agency, a Palestinian Arab business that publishes from Gaza and Bethlehem, is carrying this front-page story at the moment.

Gaza in darkness: PA, Hamas trade barbs over fuel shortage

Published yesterday (updated) 10/04/2010 21:11
Bethlehem – Ma'an report – As Gaza experiences a wide-scale blackout on Saturday, various factions have accused one another for bearing responsibility for the ongoing fuel shortage that has left the coastal enclave functioning below the population's needs. The Palestinian Information Center, affiliated to Hamas, published headlines accusing Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak for the extensive blackout. "The Israeli war minister has instructed Fayyad to tighten the noose around the Gaza Strip," one PIC headline read. Speaking to PIC, Gaza government spokesman Taher Al-Nunu said Fatah was responsible for the power outage, adding that the movement in Ramallah was "stealing sums of money donated by the EU to fuel shipments, giving them as increments to its employees."
Ghassan Al-Khatib, spokesman for the Fayyad government, said the PA pays approximately 90% of Gaza's electricity bills, adding that Hamas pays nearly 1 million US dollars for collecting the invoices, in response to a Ma'an query.
According to Al-Khatib, the PA transferred 185,000 liters of fuel into the coastal enclave during March and this month's shipment will amount to 210,000 liters.
The spokesman said Hamas did not want to contribute to paying for fuel shipments. "I ask Hamas leaders the following: There are between 70,000 to 80,000 employees whose salaries are paid for by the PA; 20,000 take their salaries from UNRWA, while Hamas pays the salaries of 50,000 employees. Are these people unemployed? Why don't they pay their electricity bills," Al-Khatib asked. One Ramallah-based official told Ma'an that certain Hamas leaders have left home electricity bills unpaid, worth more than 30,000 shekels. Palestinian Authority sources told Ma'an that Hamas' claims were invalid and that it pays their share of the fuel shipment, along with what is deducted from Egypt to serve Rafah with electricity.
The sources further said the PA pays 25 million shekels per month for industrial fuel needed to power Gaza's sole power station and that Hamas is only "fabricating a crisis for electoral and political purposes."
When Ma'an requested that the PA hand over statistics and numbers relating to fuel transfers into the Gaza Strip, sources said Fayyad's policy is to reduce depreciation and to arrange the financial situation, as there is a 500 million US dollar "leak."
They added that the Ramallah-based prime minister had begun a campaign two-years prior to resolve the finances surrounding fuel shipments, saying the crisis in Gaza is related to the EU terminating its monthly 10 million euro cash injection. Gaza's monthly electricity bill is 130 million shekels, of which the PA pays 90 million, sources said, adding that the remainder was previously paid by the EU.
The sole power generator in the Gaza Strip was completely closed down on Saturday, the head of the electric company announced , following a day of unheeded warnings that a humanitarian crisis was at hand.
Walid Sa'd Sayel, who also heads the Gaza power plant's board of directors, appealed to Arab, international, and Palestinian officials to urgently find a solution to the crisis, which has left two-thirds of the coastal enclave without electricity.
In a statement, Sayel termed the energy crisis "catastrophic," insisting that relevant authorities "rescue the Gazans, who are human beings first and foremost, and they rely on power as much as they need water and air. Without action, we face a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented scale." Shortages have plagued the power plant since December 2009, when European Union officials handed over responsibility for fuel transfers to the Palestinian Authority, apparently at the PA's request so EU aid could be channeled into civil servant salaries. Ever since the handover, as well as the corresponding closure of the main fuel transfer terminal at Nahal Oz, fuel imports have fallen to 50 percent of recent capacity.

And on it goes. Not the clearest or most illuminating of news articles. But there's enough here, including the reference to a $500 million "leak", for some fair-minded observers to wonder whether Israeli actions are the whole story. The whole report is here.

One thing seems clear from the Maan analysis and from past experience. Bringing light to their Gazan Arab brethren, both literally and in terms of disclosing what has really been done over the years with the oceans of aid money channeled into Gaza, rank among the lowest of the items on the Hamas terrorist regime's agenda. Something that the news agencies know but conceal.

9-Apr-10: Dealing with the Iranian toxic convergence

Six major powers - Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany - meeting at the UN in New York this week agreed to keep talking about sanctions against Iran. The leaders of the US and Russia (yes, the Russians) warned the Iranians their continued nuclear defiance will not be tolerated, while the Chinese and the Russians (yes, the Russians) have so far refused to back any new measures.

The foreign editor of London's Daily Telegraph offers a sobering opinion piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, entitled The Price of Iranian Sanctions. His case is that while there are risks in punishing Tehran with sanctions and other legal measures, inaction is more dangerous.

Prof. Irwin Cotler, a past minister of justice and attorney general in Canada, prepares the way, stating the Iranian problem by reference to what he cogently calls "the toxic convergence" of four inter-related threats emanating from the messianic lunatic jihadists who currently control Iran. In Cotler's words: "Nuclear weapons; state-sanctioned incitement to genocide; state sponsorship of international terror; and the danger of persistent assaults on the rights of its own citizens."

The Revival of Iran's International Terrorist Infrastructure  Con Coughlin

The revival of Iran's international terrorist infrastructure is evident in Afghanistan where NATO intelligence officers have reported a marked increase in cooperation between Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Taliban insurgents. Tehran has also revived its interest in Iraq, where the Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds force has a long history of attempting to radicalize the country's Shia community. The inconclusive election result last month has delivered the balance of power to Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iran-backed radical Shia cleric who waged war against U.S. forces at the height of Iraq's insurgency, who is living in exile in Iran. Saudi intelligence officials have blamed a detachment of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in north Yemen for the recent increase in al-Qaeda terror attacks against Saudi Arabia. Finally, there are Iran's well-documented ties with Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon. With so much Iranian activity taking place throughout the region, the message is clear: Any attempt by the West to increase the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program will result in an explosion of violence throughout the Middle East and beyond. The problem is that doing nothing about Tehran's nuclear ambitions would be even more dangerous.

The full text of Coughlin's WSJ article is here (even if you're not a paying WSJ subscriber).

4-Apr-10: Boys being boys

The next time we come across news media quoting statistics about tormented Gazan Palestinian Arab victims out of the mouth of Muawiya Hassanein (and it happens a lot), we plan to keep the following in mind 

The macabre count of Dr. Hassanein in Gaza [Online here]

(AFP) – Jan 11, 2009

GAZA CITY (AFP) — Doctor Muawiya Hassanein has no time for pleasantries these days. When a journalist calls, he barks out the latest number of the dead from Israel's war in Gaza and hangs up, getting back to his macabre count. The head of emergency services for the Gaza Strip, Hassanein is the sole person who keeps a running track of the ever-escalating death toll of Israel's deadliest offensive ever in the overcrowded enclave. "Every day, I get at least 200 phone calls from journalists and I give more than a dozen interviews," says the exhausted 55-year-old. "I never hold back on information..."

Four days ago, he was the source of this incendiary report that quickly grabbed front page prominence all over the world...

Gaza: Child killed by disputed fire [Online here]
Published Tuesday 30/03/2010 (updated) 01/04/2010 09:23
Gaza – Ma'an – A child was shot and killed east of the Yasser Arafat International Airport in Rafah on Tuesday, medics said. Muawiya Hassanein, director of ambulance and emergency services in Gaza, said Muhammad Zen Ismail Al-Farmawi, 15, was shot dead near the southeasterly border by Israeli forces...

No room for doubt about the man's certainty in this or any other story for which he is the source. A child murdered in cold blood, and at Easter no less. "Mohammad was apparently this year's "sacrificial paschal lamb" according to this especially scurrilous polemic. (The expression 'blood libel' is often overused. In this case, it's literally true, and as in the distant past, it's directed at the Jews. You can relax, Prof. Ira Chernus - no one over here is expecting you to retract or apologize. We more or less understand what drives you, and well appreciate that accuracy doesn't come into it.)

But in reality, the report was invented and false. The fifteen year-old is alive and well and back with his parents.

Gaza teen reported dead returns home alive [Online here]
April 4, 2010
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- A Gaza teen that Palestinian officials reported was killed by Israeli troops returned home alive. Mohammed al-Farmawi, 15, had reportedly been killed Tuesday during clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli troops on the Gaza border during Land Day protests. Gaza health officials had reported Tuesday that the teen was struck and then left to bleed for several hours before his body was collected, according to reports.

He was not left to bleed for hours - or at all. Ambulances were not "unable to retrieve the body because of ongoing clashes in the area" because no body existed. He was unharmed, whole, basically just doing what fifteen year olds sometimes do, even in battlezones.

And Muawiya Hassanein, the source of this beat-up, was doing what so many lazy and/or agenda driven journalists needed him to do. And will continue to do.

2-Apr-10: Today's really big news

The world's largest broadcasting organisation, whose self-described mission is to enrich people's lives, devotes the front page of its website at this hour (Friday morning) to a so-classically-BBC slanted and partial, cold-blooded report of what it presents as yet another merciless, vengeful Israeli attack on the defenseless of Palestinian Gaza.

A pity the article does such a characteristically poor job of setting the context and proportions, 'forgetting' for instance to mention the death, by Hamas rocket just two weeks ago, of an innocent farm worker on the Israeli side of this highly dangerous frontier. (Reminder to BBC editors here.)

Also a shame that the BBC's reporters and editors persist in depicting the now-near-daily terror attacks emanating from the jihadist lair of Hamas-controlled Gaza in such mendaciously misleading ways. Today's report helpfully explains the background this way: "On Wednesday, they [unidentified "militants" in customary BBC double-speak] fired a rocket into an empty field in southern Israel, but there were no reports of casualties or damage, military sources said."

Nonsense. The terrorists of the jihadist regime in Gaza have never fired into empty fields. That their explosive-packed rockets sometimes land there rather than in Israeli schoolyards, agricultural greenhouses or among their own long-suffering Gazan brothers and sisters (a regular phenomenon almost uniformly unreported) is fortunate for us. Their intentions are always far more deadly and calculated than this, as the BBC's editors know but routinely conceal.

And as the BBC also knows, the capabilities of the Hamas terrorists go well beyond rockets. News reports yesterday disclosed that the Egyptians "discovered a large weapons cache in an underground storage area in the Sinai peninsula", right next to some "13 underground tunnels running between Sinai and the Gaza Strip". The Egyptians maintain a blockade against the terrorist Hamas regime in Gaza but the BBC routinely reports only that Israel, not Egypt, does this. See a sidebar in today's BBC report by its Jerusalem man, Jon Donnison here where he writes: "Gaza remains under an Israeli economic blockade..." There is zero likelihood that he is unaware of the Egyptian blockade. But it is unmentioned.

When you paint a conflict in completely bogus "suffering innocent victims" terms, as the BBC habitually does when reporting on events in and near Gaza, you need to let your readers understand why the innocents (that would be the Gazan Palestinian Arabs) suffer and who causes them to suffer (that would of course be the Israelis). The BBC's correspondent writes that "these [today's Israeli] strikes were on a relatively small scale". Nevertheless the strikes constitute the largest news story in the world, as of this hour.

This is evidently what it means (see the BBC's mission statement) to deliver "programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain". The world's news consumers deserve much better.

UPDATE Friday 2.30pm: Yet another Gazan Palestinian Arab explosive projectile was hurled over the border into Israeli space in the past couple of hours. Fortunately this one, too, landed in an open space but this was not the intention of the terrorists. The BBC, as of this writing, has no mention of this on its news site. Its visitors will not know that this afternoon's attack is the 35th terrorist rocket to have been fired in the general direction of Israeli towns and communities in the month of March alone.