29-Feb-12: Atomic energy agency says today Iran is hiding something "very concerning"

IAEA chief inspector Herman Nackaerts

From a Reuters report this evening:

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which serves as the UN's nuclear watchdog, told diplomats today in a three-hour long closed-door briefing in Vienna that they are "very concerned" about what is going on at Iran's Parchin military facility. The IAEA's request to visit the site, which has been flatly refused by the Tehran regime, is now more urgent. Chief inspector Herman Nackaerts said the U.N. agency was monitoring the site, southeast of Tehran, via satellite imaging. A Western diplomat who participated today is quoted saying "It is very clear that Iran doesn't want the agency to go to Parchin because it has something to hide".

What might that be? Last November, the agency reported that there was “a large explosives containment vessel” at Parchin for large-scale conventional explosives tests consistent with designing a nuclear warhead for Iran's Shahab-3 ballistic missiles. At this point, we want to remind our readers that almost exactly two years ago to the day, we wrote a blog entry under the headline "19-Feb-10: Iranian migraine - finally recognized for what it is": 

Finally, after years of double-talk and wink-wink-nod-nod looking the other way, the International Atomic Energy Agency now - when it's basically too late to do anything about it - announces, in effect, that the Israelis were right all along and the Iranians are cooking up a doomsday plot with their eyes wide open. Why now? Perhaps because the unlovely and certainly unlamented Mohammed Mustaffa El Baradei who ran the IAEA for years has left and gone back to Egypt to run for the presidency. Four months ago, speaking (of all places) in Tehran, this Nobel Peace Prize laureate said "Israel is the number one threat to Middle East". He was in Iran, as the newsagencies like to put things, "for talks with Iranian officials over Teheran's nuclear program"...but those talks somehow never lead this highly ideological individual to say what Blind Freddie could see: that the Mullahs and the Ayatollahs are in a headlong rush to become a nuclear force. A month before his visit to Teheran, El Baradei was quoted by the BBC saying that there was "no credible evidence" about an Iranian weapons attempt. He said: "I do not think based on what we see that Iran has an ongoing nuclear weapons programme." Thank heavens he's gone. If only it had been much sooner.

29-Feb-12: Mahmoud Abbas is truly a man of his word

Jerusalem's Mamilla Quarter

One of the key speeches at this week's "International Conference for the Defense of Occupied Jerusalem” in Doha, Qatar (see "26-Feb-12: A moment to think about Jerusalem") was the one delivered by Mahmoud Abbas. He has been the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization since 2004 and president of the Palestinian National Authority for the past six years on the Fatah ticket as  Wikipedia puts it, adding: "Elected to serve until 9 January 2009, he unilaterally extended his term for another year and continues in office even after that second deadline expired."

We're not here to teach the Palestinian Arabs about democracy and terms of elective office. If they want Abbas, or are unable to find the way to jettison him and the gerontocracy that accompanies him, it's doubtless a sad problem... but it's emphatically their problem.

In Doha, Abbas spoke in blunt terms about how he sees Jews relating to Jerusalem, and about what ought to be done about it. The official website of the Doha conference quotes him saying:

"The Israeli occupation authorities are using the ugliest and most dangerous means to implement plans to erase and remove the Arab-Islamic and the Christian character of east Jerusalem. [Israel is] surrounding Jerusalem with an Apartheid wall and a band of settlements in order to isolate the city from its surroundings in the West Bank".

Reports say he accused Israel of pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing. Israel is destroying Jerusalem’s infrastructure and economic resources, he said. Not only is East Jerusalem the eternal capital of Palestine, but "Jerusalem is our identity. It is the beginning and the end for us... Jerusalem is the key to peace and the beating heart of our homeland.”

To prove how very sincere Abbas is about totally denying a Jewish connection to our faith's most important place on earth, the terrorist organization at whose head he stands - Fatah - took credit last night for the rocket attack on Israel's southern coastal city of Ashkelon. To quote the Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency:

"Fatah said Tuesday that its operatives fired a locally made projectile at the Israeli city of Ashkelon. The Al-Aqsa brigades said in a statement that the rocket was fired at 8:30 p.m. in response to Israeli attacks on Jerusalem."

So how surprising is it that the political party of Abbas, who has famously (but absurdly) been referred to by many parts of the news commentariat as "moderate", would shoot rockets into a residential community and then take public credit for it?

Ashkelon

Not very.

Consider "Fatah Official Does Not Rule Out Armed Resistance, Abbas Threatens Violence" and "Fatah Official: We Have Not Given Up The Military Option" Hat tip: Challah Hu Akbar ("Fresh Baked Middle East Nonsense").

One of the few things that ought to be absolutely clear about both overt terrorists (like the entire leadership and membership of Hamas) and less-overt terrorists who pretend to be democracy-minded elected politicians (like Abbas and the aging kleptocrats of his clique) is this: when they make a clear statement, particularly when it's a threat and certainly when it's said in the Arabic language to an Arab audience, they should be believed. For a man like Abbas and all that his life represents, there is perfect logic in firing a rocket into Ashkelon "in response to Israeli attacks on Jerusalem".

The vitality, the beauty and the progress of Jerusalem since 1967 are an insufferable insult and threat to Abbas and those aligned with him.

28-Feb-12: Gazan rockets targeting southern Israel again

There's a late winter storm brewing throughout the region, and Jerusalem is soaking wet tonight. But this is not enough to deter the terrorists of Gaza. They're out tonight, hunting Jewish victims. Again.

Around 8:30 pm this evening, reports Ynet, yet another Qassam rocket exploded in an open area of the Ashkelon Coast region. Fortunately there are no reports of injuries or damage. The Color Red alert sounded in the region, effectively terrifying the thousands of families who call the area home. No doubt whatever that the terrorists will continue doing this until someone stops them.

28-Feb-12: Quote of the day: Respect human rights [UPDATED]

This might have been a tiny bit funny if it weren't so truly tragic.

[Image source]

"Iran has the most successful record in terms of human rights among Muslim countries in the contemporary world, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday. Salehi made the remarks during a speech at the 19th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which opened in Geneva on February 27 and closes on March 23... He also called on the governments of regional countries to respect their people’s rights."

From today's edition of Tehran Times

UPDATE Tuesday 11:00 pm - Our thanks to Daled Amos who suggested we link to an excellent and highly relevant Washington Post article entitled "Some human rights questions for Iran’s president". It contains some sharp and challenging questions addressed to the Iranian regime, by Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Example:

In March [2011] you claimed that Iran is “the best example for asserting human rights in the world.” So why has your government refused to allow the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, to visit your country and investigate allegations of human rights violations?

There's also a 2010 piece by Sadjadpur in the Wall Street Journal questioning Iran's Ahamadinejad about Iran's human rights abuses. 


UPDATED Thursday 00:15 am: Iran publically executed around four times as many people in 2011 as in 2010, a new Amnesty International report published Tuesday said. “Casting a shadow over all those who fall foul of Iran’s unjust justice system is the mounting toll of people sentenced to death and executed,” the report said. The regime uses public hangings to intimidate the public and make of example of those it regards as seditious.

28-Feb-12: Israel's relations with Egypt: The good, the bad and the ugly

Sinai Desert, ad agency edition

Setting aside the image conjured up by travel brochures, Post-Mubarak Egyptian Sinai is a dangerous place, and a persistent and growing headache for the Israelis in charge of our security. (For background, you might want to review our blog entry "30-Aug-11: Dark clouds over Israel's south - hard to see from most newspapers, TVs and web pages"). Last summer, a major attack involving several co-ordinated terrorist groups (we blogged about it) who crossed from Sinai into Israel resulted in the deaths of eight Israeli civilians. A BBC report at the time connected the murderous attack to what it called the "decline in security in Sinai since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February". That, from an Israeli viewpoint, is a considerable understatement. Sinai is the wild west, and the proximity of Gaza's terror-addicted, missile-rich Hamas regime right next to it makes matters pretty serious.

A week ago, an IDF patrol [source: AFP] intercepted a gang of what appeared to be smugglers working the Egypt/Israel border. One of them hurled a bag at the Israeli soldiers; it turned out to contain explosives that  fortunately  failed to detonate. Two days later on February 23, in about the same border location, an IDF patrol found another bag containing a large explosive device. A syndicated AFP report then said that similar incidents had been on the increase in recent months and that Israel was warning that "lawlessness in post-revolution Egypt is allowing militants to use Sinai to stage attacks against the Jewish state".

This morning, a further escalation in about the same place as those two incidents. The IDF says today that soldiers patrolling the Israel-Egypt border spotted several suspicious-looking individuals attempting to infiltrate across the Sinai border and into Israel. Acting according to defined procedure, the soldiers called on the intruders to stop. No response but instead a firefight broke out. Most of the suspects fled to Egyptian territory leaving behind one who was shot dead.

Israel's Project Hourglass security fence
now under accelerated construction  

The dangers from Sinai are worse but not new. Since 2005, Israel has been planning a security barrier to blunt the threat of terrorism from the Sinai Peninsula as well as drug and weapons smuggling from there. The project is called Hourglass, and a November 2011 report in Haaretz said it is planned to be completed by about October 2012. The cost, in Israeli terms, is huge: about NIS 1.35 billion (roughly US $360 million) for a fence of 240 kilometers stretching from Rafah to Ein Netafim, about 14 kilometers north of Eilat. (The cliffs in that area will be enough, it's thought, along with Israel's customary technological surveillance methods). The mission statement was defined in that Haaretz article by the head of the company doing the construction: "The fence must stop a person trying to break through for at least half an hour, until the security forces arrive".

Fences have not managed to prevent a series of sabotage attacks [we wrote about them here: "5-Feb-12: Gas pipeline is attacked and blown up for twelfth time in a year" and earlier] on the pipeline that brings gas from Egypt to both Israel and Jordan. A Reuters report getting wide coverage today calls the pipeline "an easy target for anti-Israel Islamists" and one of the "first victims" of the ongoing revolution in Egypt that brought down the Mubarak regime. Reuters quotes Israel's Energy Minister speaking of blackouts this summer: "We may not be able to keep the power switch on".

It's not all darkness and gloom. Israel made several huge offshore natural gas discoveries over the past three years (says the same Reuters report today) that will eventually ensure Israeli energy independence for decades and even make it an exporter. But that gas will not start to flow until the second quarter of 2013. And in another much less-publicized report, the supply of gas from Egypt to Israel resumed today. No one is saying for how long. And yesterday, an Israeli diplomat, Yaacov Amitai, started his official duties as ambassador to Cairo. Yitzhak Levanon who preceded him, left Egypt in September in a rush after Egyptian rioters stormed the Israeli embassy in the wake of those Sinai killings we mentioned above.

The gyrations of post-Mubarak are unlikely to settle down soon. There's a three-way power struggle underway among the military (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces led by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein who are in tight charge of government), the Islamists (now in effective control of the parliament) and the Tahrir Square liberal/student/Facebook/democratic revolutionary/activists (not in charge of anything except perhaps the mindshare of many of the Western journalists covering the turbulence).

Tahrir Square, Cairo, 2011: Chaos and clashes [source]

While this resolves itself (or not), there's an unfolding story that is going to make many Americans increasingly uncomfortable as they realize this is all happening on their nickel and precisely at a time when much of Egypt is sinking into bedlam.  Egypt’s Planning and International Cooperation minister, Faiza Abou el-Naga, a holdover from the Mubarak regime, has brought charges against an array of American and European aid workers and peace activists on the grounds that they were "operating without a license and using illegal foreign funds to foment unrest". The minister has said [source] “the Egyptian government will not hesitate to expose foreign schemes that threaten the stability of the homeland.”  The names we know are:

• Julie Ann Hughes, Egypt Country Director, National Democratic Institute. Plus Layla Gafar, Michael James, Sitia Nilhaj, Robert Becker (Political Party Trainer, Middle East and North Africa), Dana Diaconu (Senior Program Manager) and Kabir Moderibee from the same organization
• Samuel LaHood (Country Director for Egypt), International Republican Institute (his father is US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood). Plus Elizabeth Dugan (Vice President), Hans Chris, Osama Azizi, John George Toma, Sian Mark and Sherine Nafeet from the same organization.
• Charles Dunne (Director of Middle East and North Africa) and Sharif Mansour (Senior Program Officer of Middle East and North Africa), Freedom House
• Natasha Tynes (Program Director) and Patrick Butler (Vice President) for the International Center for Journalists. Plus Megan Mitchell from the same organization.

An Egyptian court has adjourned their trial until April 26 after a chaotic opening session this past Sunday. Thirteen Egyptian defendants were held in a metal cage, as is customary in Egyptian trials. The case has severely strained U.S.-Egyptian relations with American officials threatening to cut off $1.5 billion in aid funds.

In Egypt, the starkly uneven distribution of poverty
 makes a bad situation truly explosive

Which brings us to the economic dimension. The New York Times says:

"An acute financial crisis could undermine Egypt’s political transition. With mounting debts, negligible economic growth and dwindling foreign reserves, the military rulers and the new Islamist-led Parliament now confront some difficult choices, beginning with an all but inevitable further devaluation of Egypt’s currency that could send the prices of food and other goods soaring."

All things considered, that Hourglass fence is looking like a good Israeli investment.

27-Feb-12: The power of the camera [FOLLOW UP]

On Thursday 23-Feb-12, we wrote here about the sickening, frightening scenes being played out on the roads around Jerusalem: scenes in which clusters of thuggish Palestinian Arabs set up roadside ambushes of Israeli vehicles and Israeli drivers and passengers; scenes in which professional camerapeople working for media organizations stand beside the thugs waiting for "action" and then capturing it.

If you have not yet witnessed an actual rock-throwing attack, be ready to learn. The video below, from Israel National News and translated to English via subtitles, shows what such attempts to murder innocent civilians look like from the vantage point of the rock-throwing thugs and the camerapeople who are often the reason why such attacks happen (what's the impact of a rock throwing attack on a car if no one sees it?)



Notice that cement blocks are involved here too. But the fact is that rocks alone are enough to cause lethal damage. Remember the tragic deaths of Asher Palmer and his baby son Yonatan six months, among many others.

26-Feb-12: A moment to think about Jerusalem

In the centuries-long conflict between the Jewish people and the Arabs, few issues capture the differences between us so well as the matter of Jerusalem. 

Palace of King Hussein, as seen from a suburb
of northern Jerusalem. It's the flat topped structure
on the crest of the hill in the distance.

Half of this city was captured by the army of the Jordanian king during Israel's desperate war of survival in 1948. Jordanian forces then set about destroying and desecrating anything Jewish on which they could lay their hands. The United Nations and other international agencies (to their eternal shame) did nothing to prevent or condemn this or the fact that the Jordanians prohibited access by Jews to all of the holy sites under their control. Then, in an unconscionable act of self-tribute, the Jordanian king built himself a large mansion on a Jerusalem hill-top that we can see as we type these words. Ostensibly a tribute to his dominion over a city holy to three religions, it serves as an indictment of his hypocrisy and that of the nations of the world who were evidently content with what was done by and in the name of the Hashemite regime to eastern Jerusalem and its historical and religious uniqueness during those nineteen miserable years.


The war of 1967 that was explicitly intended to drive the Israeli Jews into the sea (a euphemism for mass killing) resulted in the east and west parts of Jerusalem being reunited under Israeli rule. The city began to flourish in ways that it had not for two thousand years. Its splendour today is greater than at any time in the past. The freedoms it offers its residents and visitors in 2012 are the polar opposite of how things were when the Jordanians ruled. 

The same palace from a closer vantage point.
Construction was interrupted (permanently)
by the astonishing events of June 1967

The palace that King Hussein ordered built in his own honour on one of the highest points in Jerusalem still stands today. But it was never completed and remains an empty, dilapidated shell. Empty shell also happens to be an accurate way to characterize the undertakings Jordan gave in the framework of the 1949 Armistice Agreement to allow "free access to the holy sites and cultural institutions and use of the cemeteries on the Mount of Olives." Throughout those dark years of Jordanian control, tourists entering East Jerusalem had to present baptismal certificates or other proof they were not Jewish [source]. Under the Jordanians, the ancient Jewish Quarter and its ancient synagogues were systematically destroyed, and gravestones from the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives were used to build latrines for Jordanian army barracks. These were among the blackest years of one of the world's oldest and most important cities.

The Jordanians eventually abandoned their territorial claims to Jerusalem in a formal act on July 31, 1988, ceding their claims to the West Bank to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Mahmoud Abbas stands at the head of the PLO today. Carefully ignoring the infamy of those 19 years of Arab rule in half of Jerusalem - the only Arab rule the city has ever known - he has propounded an invented heritage and a bill of complaints, both of them fashioned from ideological claims, both of them bearing only the slightest connection to the reality of then or now.

This brings us to a conference being held in Doha, the Qatari capital, this weekend. It's called the "International Conference on Jerusalem" but Commander J. E. Dyer of The Optimistic Conservative Blog reminds us that its full and official name is  “International Conference for the Defense of Occupied Jerusalem” with the implication of "a sense of momentum behind, and mainstreaming of, anti-Zionist themes".


We want to defer to the excellent Elder of Ziyon blog which has some sharp observations to make about this major event. Elder quotes from the conference keynote speech delivered this morning Mahmoud Abbas which is notable for its distortions, inaccuracies and air of incitement. Elder quotes Abbas saying this:

"The Israeli occupation authorities, using the ugliest and most dangerous methods, are accelerating in an unprecedented way the implementation of plans ...to erase and remove the Arab-Islamic and the Christian character of East Jerusalem. The occupying power is attempting to change the parameters and the structure of the Maqdisi scene the smallest details, believing they can wipe from the memory of the world and consciousness that are immediately evoked by the name of Jerusalem the image of the shimmering golden Dome of the Rock, the remarkable image of the juxtaposition of the brotherhood of the minarets of mosques and the domes of the churches, in the shadow of the city walls that are witness to the history and memories and facts, and the illusion that they are able to replace them, and bring a different scene serving illusions of superstition and arrogance of power, and they are by virtue of brute force that are able to invent history and install their allegations, and the abolition of facts, religious and historical."

Elder notes that:

"Abbas here is not claiming that the Jews are trying to destroy the Dome of the Rock. He is referring to the building of synagogues in the Old City, specifically the Hurva. When the Hurva was rebuilt and dedicated, on the exact spot that it had been destroyed by Jordanian troops along with some fifty other Jerusalem synagogues in 1948, the major objection by Palestinian Arabs was that - given that the Jewish Quarter is on a hill - the Hurva's dome is taller than that of the Dome of the Rock. (Islamic law says that the tallest structure in a city must be a mosque.) So now photos of the skyline of the Old City prominently show a synagogue, just as they did before 1948. This is what Abbas is objecting to, as he hypocritically is claiming that Israel is fabricating history of the city. And he himself is now claiming that Jerusalem historically only had churches and mosques - but no synagogues. In other words, the liar Abbas is trying to destroy the Jewish character of Jerusalem, today, while he falsely claims that Israel is destroying its Christian and Muslim character... Israel demolished the area in front of the Kotel in 1967 in order for Jews to be able to worship there, as the Arab homes there would have made that impossible..."

Elder continues:

"Abbas is stating as fact that Israel plans to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque, a lie designed to incite Muslims to rise up against Jews. He is also lying in saying that Israeli archaeological work has not found any evidence of Jewish history in Jerusalem. In fact, the most important findings in recent years came not from Israeli digs - but from sifting the discarded remains of the disgusting wanton destruction of priceless artifacts by the Waqf on the Temple Mount, in the news again today. Beyond that there have been exciting findings nearly every week that prove beyond all doubt the ancient Jewish character of the city - as if that is even in dispute by anyone... Of course, Jews have formed the majority of Jerusalem's population since the mid-1800s. And there is no "ethnic cleansing" - there are more Arabs in Jerusalem now than at any time in history."

Elder quotes Abbas telling a disgraceful whopper:  

"The occupation authorities [he means the Government of the State of Israel] work through the impoverishment of the holy city and the destruction of its infrastructure and hit its economy, which has always been in all ages the booming center and head of economic activity and tourism, medical, educational, and an incubator for cultural, intellectual and artistic endeavors in Palestine."

The reality, as Elder says correctly, includes the fact that in 1967, the part of Jerusalem controlled by Jordan was a slum. An UNRWA refugee camp, called Mascar, located in what had been (and is again) the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, was shut down by UNRWA itself in 1965 because conditions there were so horrendous and unsanitary. Elder reminds us that

"Between 1948 and 1967, Jerusalem was a neglected backwater of the Arab world. There were essentially no Muslim pilgrims going there. And while thousands of Christians would indeed visit Jerusalem every Easter, that number increased dramatically after Israel regained possession of the holy city." 

Yesterday

But pause now and note that throughout those nineteen years, not a single rock-throwing protest or suicide bombing was directed against the Jordanian occupation regime. This cannot be because international law supported the Jordanians. The opposite is true: Jordan’s annexation of Jerusalem - the so-called Greater Syria Plan - was treated as illegal and void by almost everyone including the Arab states. Great Britain, Iraq and Pakistan formally recognized it, but no one else did. More importantly, Jerusalem's Arab residents who are so careful to term themselves Palestinians today accepted it, if their actions are a guide. The total number of emergency sessions of the UN Security Council called to deal with the Jordanian Arab occupation of the Holy City throughout all the years of its occupation was of course zero. 

The spinning of a myth about a glorious Jerusalem under Arab (and even Palestinian Arab) control and its endangerment and diminution under the Israelis has become the malicious basis for an increasingly intense and deliberate campaign of dangerous incitement. 

The people behind the campaign saw some early results yesterday when rioting young Arabs took to the streets with rocks (see image above). As we know from the sad history of this noble, troubled, sacred city, rocks become grenades become bombs, and wanton killing of innocents is too often the outcome. Jerusalem's future, and especially the future of its Arab and Islamic heritage, deserves far better custodians than those people gathered today in Qatar.

25-Feb-12: New week, new rocket attacks on southern Israel tonight [UPDATED]

The Sabbath is barely over and we have the first incoming Gazan Palestinian Arab rocket of the week. A Ynet report of half an hour ago says a Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in an open area of the Ashkelon Coast region. No injuries or damages are reported so far.

We're still collecting information about Friday night: the IDF Spokesperson's Unit filed a note saying there were five overnight rockets into southern Israel from the terrorist-infested Gaza Strip. More details when we know them.

UPDATE Saturday 10 pm Israel time: There's another attack in the past few minutes. Ynet reports a second rocket this evening, again exploding in the Ashkelon Coast region (where, the IDF points out, some 13,500 people live). Initial reports say no injuries, no property damage - but this is a lottery, and relying on the odds of no damage, no injury next time - and of course there is going to be a next time - is not a policy upon which a self-respecting government under terrorist attack can rely. We can expect military measures from the Israeli forces in the coming hours.

UPDATE Saturday 11:30 pm Israel time: Ynet says yet another Gazan Qassam rocket crashed into an open area of the Eshkol region in the past hour. No injuries or damage are reported so far.

23-Feb-12: The power of the camera

We don't know much about the man in the picture above. Clearly he's a photographer, wearing a vest with the name of his occupation in large letters. (This is meant to keep him safe in dangerous neighborhoods like the one in which he's standing.) He's just doing his job, standing by the side of the road, in a town a few kilometers south of Jerusalem. A moment before this shot was snapped by Nasser Ishtayeh (who takes excellent pictures for several international syndication agencies), this photographer was standing and waiting, camera at the ready, while young men around him gathered cement blocks and rocks and prepared to hurl them at people inside cars with yellow license plates. Around here, yellow license plates mean Israeli vehicles. The people inside are statistically quite likely to be Jewish.

We know a few things, but not much, about the woman in the picture above. 

Her name is Zahava Weiss. She is Jewish, a school-teacher. She is driving a family wagon on her way home to Karmei Zur. She wrote a Hebrew-language note that was translated into English earlier today and we published it here a few hours ago. She's not alone in the car. There's a female hitch-hiker sitting in the seat behind her. This is because in the front seat, there is a special seat/harness which under normal circumstances would be holding the woman's young child as securely as possible. The infant is not in the car which, as it turns out, may have saved the child's life, and the hitch-hiker whom we don't see also escaped injury because of that safety device. The woman is hunched up and looks frightened. The larger context tells us why.

Same picture as the two above (Image source) but cropped differently. And also cropped differently from the similar one we published this morning (see here). Unlike that one, here we see the photographer standing on the far side of the road. And here we see the young Palestinian Arabs who have been waiting, rocks at the ready, to attack a car and its passengers, once they are able to ascertain that the license plate is yellow and the people inside Jewish. This picture tells us more than the earlier version. 

How about the caption given to it by the Associated Press editors?

Palestinians hurl stones at a car driven by an Israeli woman on the main road between Jerusalem and Hebron after a demonstration in solidarity with Islamic Jihad member Khader Adnan, who has been on hunger strike for two months, in the West Bank village of Beit Omar, Feb. 21, 2012.(Nasser Shiyoukhi/AP Photo)

While these particular rocks thrown on this particular day at that particular vehicle with its particular driver were connected to a demonstration for this or that Palestinian Arab grievance, people living around Jerusalem and especially in Gush Etzion south of the capital know that rock-throwing or cement-block throwing by Palestinian Arabs don't always have a clear connection to a hunger striker or any other cause. Violence directed at Jews and Israelis by Arabs in the area has been a constant for much more than a century. It predates 'occupation' and Hamas and Fatah. It predates the State of Israel. And this particular spot, in the town called Beit Ummar, is very frequently the scene of dangerous hurling of rocks at cars [like this and this and this.]

The most disturbing dimension of all this, for us, is the role of the photographers. At a certain point, their presence is not just the fulfillment of their professional obligation. They become collaborators and co-conspirators. The event they are covering is happening not just when they are there but because they are there. There's a variation of this, fauxtography, in which their work product is deliberately manipulated to illustrate a story that never happened like the one below.

The man on the ground writhing in agony is a Palestinian Arab construction worker. "An Israeli army driver drove a trailer hooked to a tractor over his legs", according to the caption writers at AP, but as the analysis by CAMERA shows, he is uninjured. It's a kind of pantomime, but the public that saw this image in newspapers and websites all over the world didn't know that and certainly were not told it by the news organizations that published it. The photographer may or may not have known the truth, but that hardly matters once the picture is published. Once it's out there, retractions and corrections have very little effect - the message has been delivered and absorbed and is as real - even more real - than the reality which the photo presents.

There are other pictures where context changes everything. If the audience knows the context, the message changes form completely. But often the context is simply hidden from the audience's view, as with these famous snaps.

The power of the image of Palestinian Arab rock throwers and flag wavers is considerably less heroic once you comprehend that it's all happening for the cameras.

The misery of the crying Jerusalem woman, again a Palestinian Arab, in the well-known image below captured beside the still-under-construction security barrier in East Jerusalem 

takes on a different meaning when you understand, from the context, that it's a performance; crying on demand in order to create a visual image for the photographers whose work demands one.

We don't say that photographers who capture news pictures are always complicit when bad things happen to innocent people in front of their lenses. Or that it's their responsibility when the image they create is then marketed, along with a misleading or fabricated caption, to tell a story that serves someone's agenda but that never happened. 

What we do say is that understanding what is happening around us in general and in this ongoing war in particular calls for all of us to exercise judgement, to not take matters at face value, and above all to demand appropriate context whenever important conclusions have to be reached.

23-Feb-12: Thursday evening rocket attack on southern Israel [UPDATE]

Ynet says a Qassam rocket was fired from the northern Gaza Strip into southern Israel this evening. It crashed into the Shaar Hanegev region, and so far there are no reports of injuries or property damage. A Hebrew forum reported incoming-rocket sirens (Color Red or Tzeva Adom) at about 7:10 pm. The IDF Spokesperson's unit tweeted that the area where the rocket struck is home to some 6,000 civilian Israelis.

UPDATE Friday morning 1:00 am - A second overnight rocket despatched by Gazan terrorists has crashed into the Eshkol region of southern Israel. The rocket attack came at about 11:00 pm Thursday night, according to Ynet. The IDF Spokesperson's united tweeted that some 11,000 Israelis live in the Eshkol region. JPost says no injuries or damage are reported.

UPDATE Friday noon - Ynet says two additional rockets were fired indiscriminately (as they always are) into Israel from the Gaza Strip at about 2:30 this morning. Both exploded in the Eshkol region, like the single rocket of 3 hours earlier (see above). Fortunately, again, there are no injuries or damage reported. The IDF Spokesperson's office is reporting that the overnight incoming rocket total for Thursday night stands at 5. We're only aware of four at this point.

23-Feb-12: Wishing for life (No one was killed so why give it even a moment's thought, right?)

This striking image of the moment of impact appears on the
Ynet website today. In a matter of hours, some of the photos
captured by the cameramen described in Zehava's short testimony
(men who stood by, as they customarily do in this part of the world,
waiting for a picture with some blood and/or drama) begin to appear.

This is written (translated from the original Hebrew - hat tip to Yisrael) by the terrified woman in the photo at right.

This past Tuesday, 28 Shvat, February 21, I was returning home to Karmei Tzur from Efrat where I work. At Gush Etzion Junction, I collect a female hitchhiker who got into a back seat since the front passenger seat was where our infant seat was affixed. What luck. While traveling between El-Aroub and Bet-Omar on the ascent, I noticed a car approaching from the opposite direction with a damaged front window from a rock that must have previously landed.  I naively presumed that that was the result of an old incident that hadn't yet been fixed.
When I came close to the gas station at Bet-Omar (a location that usually requires a driver's attention due to wrongly parked taxis, bypassing and pulling out into the highway in a careless manner), I observed a man running across the road from right to left.  At first, I thought that this was a soldier with a rifle and I slowed down to take in what was happening. Then I noticed dozens of people, old, young and teenagers, congregating on my right. It became apparent that the "soldier with a rifle" was actually a photographer with a camera.  He was seeking a better picture angle to snap away at what was about to happen. On my left were at least two other photographers, waiting for the action.
I should emphasize that I was not the first victim and other cars had already been stoned. So these press photographers were well aware what was happening and was about to happen to me. None of them, it seems, thought to call for assistance from the police or IDF, none of whom were present.
Knowing I had no choice but to continue and surely not stop - for otherwise, if I had slowed down, I would have been trapped and blocked off - the only thing in my mind was to get home and not be caught at that crossing.
It was difficult to pass since the rocks were flying from a distance of just a few feet from my car... 'zero-range' as we say.  The rioters clearly could see that the car contained two young females, and that we were completely defenseless.
We were hit by a large number of rocks. My view was blocked by the cracked windshield glass. All I could so was concentrate on getting out of there as fast as possible. At the time, as well as at this moment of writing, I did not fully grasp the danger of the situation we were in.
Only when I got home did I realize that the entire front end of the car was covered with shattered glass, including me, the infant seat, the back seat, everything. There was plenty of damage to the sides of our car.  At least eight large rocks and cement blocks had hit my vehicle. I learned that the rock-throwing continued for a good few minutes afterwards with the damage to other vehicles and psychological damage to the drivers and passengers.
I had to tell my children what happened in a normal, non-hysterical fashion so as to prepare them for further conversations that they would likely hear from grown-ups talking about this.
I have never before experienced such a serious and difficult incident as this. I pray it is my last. We have been living in Karmei Tzur for the past eight years. Now I know first-hand experience and with certainty that rock-throwings happen all the time, especially on Highway 60 between Gush Etzion junction and Halhoul.  My first-grade son's school bus has also been stoned.
Another point: these terrorists had no qualms about leaving their faces uncovered during this attempt to murder.
We try to overcome the fear and to live our everyday life.  We are believing people, a people with faith.  After an event like this, we will pronounce the customary Gomel benediction: "Blessed is He who Who bestows good things on those unworthy, and has bestowed on me every goodness". We believe in goodness, and that it will overcome evil.
We only pray and hope that people in Israel and around the world will finally recognize the truth, that our enemies, the Arabs who fight us, wish for evil. They want destruction while we wish for good and want peace, even with our neighbors. We wish for life.
Zehava Weiss
Karmei Tzur

You might also want to consider the comments of Elder of Ziyon ("A popular resistance brick harmlessly hurled at evil Zionist woman") here.

Here at This Ongoing War, we have tried in the past to capture the madness of giving the rock-and-cement-block-throwing thugs the benefit of a relaxed liberality. Please look at "5-Dec-11: Attempted murder by rock", "6-Oct-11: Those rock throwing "youths" are proliferating", and "25-Sep-11: "Only" rock throwers - but now a father and his infant son are dead".

How does the law deal with stone-age attempted murderers in your community? How would it treat photographers who stand on the side, watching the assault take shape and then recording the death and injuries that follow?

23-Feb-12: Might have been funny if the stakes were not so high: the ongoing farce in which straight-faced people defend the messianic terrorist regime of Iran

Source

Wife of Assassinated Scientist: Annihilation of Israel "Mostafa's Ultimate Goal"

Source: The FARS news agency [21-Feb-12] TEHRAN (FNA)- The wife of Martyr Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, who was assassinated by Mossad agents in Tehran in January, reiterated on Tuesday that her husband sought the annihilation of the Zionist regime wholeheartedly.
"Mostafa's ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel," Fatemeh Bolouri Kashani told FNA on Tuesday. Bolouri Kashani also underlined that her spouse loved any resistance figure in his life who was willing to fight the Zionist regime and supported the rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation.
Iran's 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, a chemistry professor and a deputy director of commerce at Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was assassinated during the morning rush-hour in the capital early January. His driver was also killed in the terrorist attack.

Russia Warns Against 'Hasty Conclusions' Over Iran

Source: ABC News [22-Feb-12]  VIENNA February 22, 2012 (AP) Russia said Wednesday the world should not draw "hasty conclusions" over Iran's most recent rebuff of U.N. attempts to investigate allegations the Islamic Republic hid secret work on atomic arms, but the U.S. and its allies accused Tehran of nuclear defiance.

IAEA expert inspectors were barred this week from a specific military site suspected of being part of Iran's nuclear bomb project

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency press release [22-Feb-12]22 February 2012 | A senior IAEA expert team is returning from Iran after two days of discussions with Iranian officials held on 20 and 21 February 2012. The meeting followed previous discussions held on 29 to 31 January 2012. During both the first and second round of discussions, the Agency team requested access to the military site at Parchin. Iran did not grant permission for this visit to take place. Intensive efforts were made to reach agreement on a document facilitating the clarification of unresolved issues in connection with Iran's nuclear programme, particularly those relating to possible military dimensions. Unfortunately, agreement was not reached on this document. "It is disappointing that Iran did not accept our request to visit Parchin during the first or second meetings," IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said.

Noam Chomsky refutes US allegations against Iran N-program

Source: Chomsky Watch [17-Feb-12]  Renowned American academician Noam Chomsky has censured the US allegations against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, and described Israel as the major threat to the global security. In his latest articled published in the Guardian, the senior American historian and philosopher argued that Iran’s “strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion.” He lashed out at the propaganda campaign by the US media outlets aimed at portraying Iran as a “threat” and argued that Tehran would never even “come close to initiating a nuclear war.”

23-Feb-12: More post-Shalit-deal arrests [UPDATE]

From Challah Hu Akbar's excellent blog this morning:

Over the past few weeks, Israel has arrested a number of terrorists released in the Shalit deal. A number of Palestinian news sources are reporting that Israel arrested another terrorist released in the Shalit deal on Wednesday. The arrested terrorist is reportedly Majdi Atiya Suleman Ajuli. Ma’an News Agency says that Ajuli’s wife and daughter were also arrested. Ajuli was born in 1961 and arrested in 1989. He was serving 1 life sentence for murder before his release on October 18, 2011. He had been released to the West Bank under a security arrangement. The IDF has yet to confirm the arrest. The other day a Hamas official said that the rearrest of those released in the Shalit deal was “a declaration of war on the Palestinian people.”

See also our earlier blog notes "21-Feb-12: Shalit-for-murderers-and-other-terrorists: Part 2" and "1-Feb-12: One down, 1026 to go".

Thursday 23-Feb-12 UPDATE at 4:30 pm: Challa Hu Akbar says: "I emailed the IDF for comment on the arrest and they told me "we did not arrest him.""

21-Feb-12: Adnan the simple baker... who fronts for one of the most bloodthirsty of the jihadist organizations and has human shields in some of the most influential newspapers in the world

A baker

Sometimes the sheer silliness of public figures, analysts, politicians and political "activists" - and especially those who have usurped the word "peace" to mean the precise opposite - becomes too much to bear.

The name Khader Adnan has shot to the top of the hero-for-an-hour hit parade and a greater distortion of the truth it would be hard to imagine. We wrote about this deeply committed jihadist on Saturday (please read our blog entry "18-Feb-12: Bread, hunger and detention"). Khader Adnan, aka Sheikh Adnan Khodr aka Khader Adnan Mohammad Musa is not a simple baker. He's not a "peace" "activist". What in fact he is, is 

• "one of Islamic Jihad leaders" [the WAFA Palestinian news agency]
• "one of the main leaders of the Palestinian militant movement Islamic Jihad" [Al Arabiya]
• "Sheikh Adnan Khodr, the political leader of Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine" [Uruknet]

In short, he is a well-known leader of one of the world's nastiest terror organizations, and death and pain is what he not only wishes on us and our children and neighbours, but it's what he lives for and - according to what his promoters want us to believe - it's what he's ready to die for.

Behold the unambiguous cry from the heart of this lifelong terrorist:

Islamic Jihad Leader Khader Adnan: Baker or Terrorist? from CiF Watch on Vimeo.

The fact that Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs chief, said at the weekend that Adnan's case was of "great concern" suggests to us that she and her staff have too much free time on their hands or they lack a basic understanding of how to tell the difference between the terrorists and their targets.

21-Feb-12: Iranian naval ships complete Syrian mission and head home, leaving behind... what?

The Iranian supply vessel, the Kharg. Looks to have the
capacity to carry a large load of... 'maritime training'. [Image source]
The Kharg was one of two Iranian vessels that made
a delivery to the same Syrian port a year earlier.

The New York Times says the two Iranian warships that docked in a Syrian port this past weekend have left. (See our comment: "20-Feb-12: Those Iranian warships are making their presence felt in Syria"). The NYT article says the vessels have already left the Mediterranean, and are sailing south through the Suez Canal toward the Red Sea.

"State media in Iran quoted the defense minister, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, would continue to “beef up” its presence in international waters. It was not clear whether the vessels unloaded cargo or had docked in the port as a symbolic display of Iranian support for Syria, a critical regional ally whose government it has supported against the uprising that started in March, 2011... Russia recently sent ships to the same Syrian port, activists said."

The purpose of the vessels arriving in the area on Friday was said to be

“to provide maritime training to naval forces of Syria under an agreement signed between Tehran and Damascus a year ago.”

If so, the Iranians have proven to be super-efficient users of time. But given that the vessels were a destroyer and a supply ship, and that the Iranians have for decades been the principal supplier of weapons of destruction (mass and individual) to the terrorist groups, notably but not only Hizbollah and Hamas, and to the blood-drenched Al-Assad regime in Damascus, most analysts are looking for non-pedagogical factors to explain the visit.

21-Feb-12: Shalit-for-murderers-and-other-terrorists: Part 2

Wish we could say more about what this really means, but for now there is a notable lack of available detail (and we would welcome any insights offered by informed readers of this blog). From a Ynet report published on line in the last ten minutes:

Report: IDF arrests 2 Palestinian released as part of Shalit deal
Published: 02.21.12, 11:43 / Israel News
Palestinian sources said that two Palestinian released as part of Shalit deal were arrested by IDF troops operating in West Bank city of Qalqilya overnight. Five Palestinians released as part of the prisoner exchange deal were re-arrested in the past few weeks, the Palestinians said. 

1,027 terrorists were freed from Israeli prisons in October and December 2011 as ransom payment by Israel for the return, safe and sound, by the Hamas terrorists of the hostage Gilad Shalit.

20-Feb-12: Those Iranian warships are making their presence felt in Syria

Iranian naval forces [source]

Egyptian security sources and members of the Syrian opposition are quoted today claiming that those Iranian ships docked off the Syrian coast (we wrote about them on Saturday) have "military communications jamming devices that are disrupting communications made by the Syrian opposition via satellite". The report notes that Egyptian security sources say the Al-Assad regime in Damascus had been running into difficulties in monitoring the opposition's phone calls.

The Iranians are known to stand by their clients.

A Reuters report this morning says despite the ruthless full-scale military attacks on their civilian fellow Syrians by the Al-Assad forces, the opponents of the House of Assad managed to pull off one the biggest demonstrations yet in the capital Damascus yesterday. The uprising against the Assad regime is nearing its first anniversary, and the bloodshed is increasing.

What effect might the Iranian naval presence have on that?  Wikipedia knows a few things about the Iranian talent for stamping out democratic opposition.

As for live news coverage and analysis from Damascus, let's not hold our breath. As Aljazeera pointed out a few days ago, the Syrian government bars most independent journalists from the country, making first-hand reporting impossible. If you were interested in murdering upwards of 5,000 of your countrymen (so far), you would probably do the same.

20-Feb-12: Strategically, what is the most striking aspect of Israel's response to the ceaseless rocket attacks from that nest of terrorist vipers, the Gaza Strip?

We had rockets raining down on the heads of Israelis living in southern Israel in the cold dark hours of this past night, and before that on Saturday night. The previous rocket attacks from the same source were a few days before that. And the rocket attack before them was a few days earlier.

There have been so many rocket attacks, entirely of a terrorist nature and with not the slightest connection to a military assault (they don't even claim to be firing on our army, and even if they did claim it, it would be a complete nonsense) that even the most concerned resident of the Israeli communities under bombardment will have a hard time recalling one attack from another.

Goods vehicles lined up to deliver supplies to the Gaza Strip
[Source: IDF] 

We keep track of the numbers in the box on the right side of this page (Challah Hu Akbar's Counter of rocket attacks on Israel). But anyone who has had to face up to terror knows it is not the numbers that change lives. What really impacts on you is the daily (and nightly) fear that accompanies the raising of children, living constructive lives and building a community worthy of the name, while just over the fence are people ready to give up their own children if only they can inflict pain on you. Becoming aware of this does change your life.

But while it's not the numbers, today we do want to share some numeric data.

Week after week, the military of this country are engaged in constant interactions with the people responsible for the Gaza Strip. This is no mere abstraction; it comprises countless trivial steps that, together, allow life to go on for the people on both sides. Thankfully, we don't need the army intervening in the day to day minutiae of our lives - Israel is a robust society in every sense. But the lives of most Gazan Arabs, manipulated by several generations of Egyptians, Palestinians, "allies" and NGOs, are a well-documented catastrophe. Phenomenal, unprecedented sums of foreign aid - relatively little of it coming from Arab nations for reasons too shameful to detail here - poured in over decades have kept people alive. But they have done virtually nothing to turn their lives and communities into something sustainable and better. Gaza's electric power supply is subject to massive shortages with frequent blackouts in the past few days - no small problem in this unusually chilly winter. Unusual too is that few voices are blaming Israel for this. Yes, of course there are people who are responsible for the mess. But it's not the Israelis, so the miserable situation does not rise to headline-level news. It's just not news-worthy if Israel can't be blamed for it.

What's also not news is the volume of food, supplies and materials that pass through Israeli hands into Gaza week after week without fanfare. This goes literally unreported on a constant basis. Why? Not worth explaining if it's not obvious to you. According to the IDF (statistics here), deliveries into Gaza in the six days starting Sunday February 12, 2012 included

• More than a thousand cargo trucks delivering 25,342 tons of goods including 905 tons of cooking gas.
• 169 international organization staff members entered Israel via the Erez Crossing
• 206 international organization staff members left Israel to go into the Gaza Strip (Erez)
• 307 Gazan Arabs entered Israel for medical treatment (Erez)

Every box, every package, every crate passed through border crossings that frequently come under shooting attack from gunmen of the terrorist groups that have made Gaza a by-word for chaos, stagnation and cynical exploitation of the weak.

UNRWA, the unique refugee agency about whom it is sometimes said that it does more to perpetuate than to solve the problems of the one refugee group for which it has responsibility, cares (according to its own promotional materials) for no less than 80 percent of Gaza's 1.5 million people. 

It has more than 2,000 people on the ground in Gaza, an astonishingly large, non-indigenous public service. Still, given the astronomical wealth of so many of the Arab potentates and states in the area, we should not be complaining about such petty matters like waste, inefficiency and hidden agendas. 

But wait. We have just gotten some additional data. It's about the funding that enables the very strange work of UNRWA to go on for decades while leaving Gaza dark and miserable. These numbers scream out for an explanation.

While we created the table, these are official donation numbers
provided by UNRWA itself [source] covering all donations for the year 2010
and ranked by size of overall contribution.  "Overall" includes payments for the core programme,
projects, emergency appeals for West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon and NBC.

Count the Arab countries in this list. Look again and notice that there is only one non-Western country/union, the Islamic Development Bank, in the table and it comes in at nineteenth place, with a contribution that is 3% the size of the hated Americans' and 3.5% of what Australia (Australia!) contributes. Why? The answer may be in the IDB's mission which is "to foster the economic development and social progress of member countries and Muslim communities individually as well as jointly in accordance with the principles of Shari'ah".   

Clear enough?