The international community's double standard

When Jews shoot at Palestinians in defense against Palestinians who throw lethal stones at Jews in order to satisfy their hunger for Jewish blood and sinew, there is grotesque international outrage. Because, let's face it, as far as the international community is concerned, a Jew's life has no value. But when a Palestinian shoots at another Palestinian when no provocation exists, the international community hides their heads in the sand. Let's face it. Arabs are scary people and do not take well to criticism, so its best to just ignore their barbaric behavior and continue to diaper and bottle-feed them. That way, the world can proceed with their mindless vapid consumerism and socialist godlessness. Here's another example of the silence from the international community and the double standard when it comes to Jews. From JPost:

Hamas security forces on Monday opened fire at a mass rally commemorating the death of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, violently dispersing close to 250,000 people who had gathered in the largest public display of support for the rival Fatah movement since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.

Six civilians were killed and at least 85 people were wounded, hospitals and witnesses said. Among the critically wounded was a Hamas policeman who was shot in the head.

Hamas security officials said they fired toward protesters who threw stones at security compounds. Hamas police were positioned on rooftops around Gaza City, and protesters were seen running for cover at street corners.

Smoke was rising around the edges of the rally court yard, but thousands of supporters still milled around, as firing was heard from around the rally.

Eyewitnesses said Hamas gunmen roamed the streets later and started detaining protesters.

Hamas said one of the dead was killed by Fatah gunmen who had fired from rooftops, but that could not be confirmed. A Fatah official said the person, a Fatah supporter, was shot on his way to the rally by a racing car, accusing Hamas of the shooting.

Hamas said five of its policemen were injured, one seriously, and accused Fatah gunmen.

I have not heard of any international outrage or protest against Hamas, have you?

Images that Shock

Google Earth helps Muslims kill Jews. From Images that Shock:

The Guardian has filmed rare scenes inside Hamas-controlled Gaza - Hamas beating up Fatah dissenters, Palestinian doctors forced by their Fatah paymasters to go on strike or forfeit their salaries, the militants who log on to Google Earth to search for Israeli targets for their Kassam rockets. What these films show is not a Gazan population turning against the gunmen who took the enclave over by force in June, but its opposite - the hatred that Mahmoud Abbas is incurring among his own people.

Expectations for the forthcoming peace conference in Annapolis are rapidly being lowered. It may now be put back to December. The star guest, Saudi Arabia, looks less, not more, likely to turn up.

Islam's double-standard

Hamas has admitted that it has fired on Fatah demonstrators in Gaza because they threw stones at them. Seems like some Hamas members asked Reginald Denny if throwing stones could be painful. Thanks to Colin for sending in this excellent mirror of the hypocrisy embedded in the palestinian Muslim culture. The moral of the story? Jews can't defend themselves when Muslims throw stones at them, but Muslims *can* defend themselves when other Muslims throw stones at them. From Reuters:

Hamas security men opened fire after protesters hurled rocks at them in the Gaza Strip on Friday [Aug 24, 2007] in the biggest demonstration against the Islamist group since it seized control of the territory in June.

No injuries were reported, but the confrontation between supporters of President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction and Hamas's Executive Force policing the Gaza Strip underscored the volatility of the bitter rivalry between the two movements.

"Jihad, jihad! (Holy war)," demonstrators chanted as they marched down the streets of Gaza City, applauding as others smashed an unmanned Hamas security post on the roadside.

When the Lights Went Out in Gaza

h/t Daily Alert, from When the Lights Went Out in Gaza:

Last Friday, the lights went out in Gaza because the electric bill wasn't being paid. The European Union which, for humanitarian reasons, is financing the Palestinian enclave's power supply, suddenly refused to continue the subsidy because of allegations that Gaza's government - run by the Islamist party Hamas - was about to tax electricity to bolster its armed militants. On Wednesday, the lights were coming back on in Gaza after Ismael Haniyeh, Prime Minister of Gaza's government, assured the EU that electricity funds were being properly utilized.The Palestinians living in Gaza, however, were seething - not at Haniyeh and Hamas but at Abbas, who sat out this crisis in air-conditioned comfort in the West Bank. Gazans believe he is trying to force them to rebel against Hamas and that he is doing this by breaking their backs. Sources in Ramallah said Abbas' advisers provoked the power cut by falsely warning the Europeans that Hamas was pocketing the electricity bill payments.

Terror in Gaza: Two Months Since the Hamas Takeover

From Terror in Gaza: Two Months Since the Hamas Takeover:

After Hamas completed its takeover of Gaza in mid-June 2007, terrorist groups there have carried out rocket and mortar fire toward Israel. During the last two weeks in June, 61 rockets hit Israel. A number of Israeli civilians were wounded in the attacks and more suffered from shock; property was also damaged. During July, 55 rockets hit Israeli territory. During the first two weeks of August, 34 rockets were fired. During the first half of July, 42 mortar shells were fired, compared with 37 in June.Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah elements (which continue operating under Hamas aegis) claimed responsibility for most of the attacks, yet on July 7, Hamas itself began claiming responsibility for rocket fire. Hamas has also taken credit for mortar attacks, sniper fire and anti-tank rocket fire at IDF forces.

As Mortar Shells Fall, Goods Go to Gaza

From As Mortar Shells Fall, Goods Go to Gaza:

Alongside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the gritty business of coexistence marches on. Since the Islamic militants of Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, Israel has kept the main commercial crossing point at Karni shuttered. Hamas seeks Israel's destruction, making border crossing etiquette more precarious than elsewhere. On Wednesday, between mortar attacks by Hamas and other militants, about 20 truckloads of milk products, meat, medicines and eggs passed from Israel into Gaza, ordered by Palestinian merchants from Israeli suppliers, relying on contacts built up over years. At the fuel depot at Nahal Oz, Israeli tankers pour diesel, gasoline and cooking gas into Gaza through pipes that run beneath the border. At Karni, the Israelis have adapted a 650-foot-long conveyor belt, previously used for gravel, to send in grain. Col. Nir Press, head of the Coordination and Liaison Administration, the Israeli military agency that deals with the civilian aspects of the Gaza border, noted that in April 2006, a vehicle loaded with half a ton of explosives got through three of four checkpoints on the Palestinian side of Karni, and was stopped at the last security position by members of the American-backed Presidential Guard, loyal to Mahmoud Abbas. But the Presidential Guard is no longer there, having been routed by Hamas.

Hamas' Hidden Economy

From Hamas' Hidden Economy:

Military insurrections cost money. To take over Gaza last month, Hamas had to pay salaries, procure weapons, manufacture rockets, buy help from local crime families, bribe opponents, print leaflets and banners, produce media propaganda and even order up Hamas hats and bandanas. How did Hamas fund the Gaza coup?

In the face of international sanctions, Hamas has successfully transferred funds into the West Bank and Gaza through its charity committees and social service organizations. Mixing funds across its political, charitable and militant wings, Hamas supports its Executive Force militia and Izzidin al-Qassam Brigade terror cells under a veil of political and humanitarian legitimacy.

The U.S. and EU should expand their designation of terrorist entities to include the long list of Hamas-controlled entities in the West Bank and Gaza that receive foreign charity. Designating charity committees tied to Hamas would prompt international banks to block such transactions.

As long as its political and social wings are allowed to operate unhindered, Hamas will be able to fully fund all of its activities, including its terrorist attacks against Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Arabs Losing Faith in "the Cause"

I am a proponent of "you get what you deserve", and believe me, the palestinians do not deserve a damned thing. From Arabs Losing Faith in "the Cause":

Why is America trying to pour new money and more weapons into Palestinian Arab hands barely days after the Gaza debacle? It is an ill-considered policy, both premature and useless. The only sure result will be that warring gangs in the West Bank will use every new weapon to continue the mayhem and that the money will end up in the pockets and bank accounts of the same crooks who lost Gaza.

America and Israel may want to wait for what may turn out to be a changing of the guard: Arab voices, both expert and popular, are rising in vociferous denunciations of the once sacrosanct Palestinian Arabs. A widely read opinion commentator for the Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Mamoun Fandy, thundered on Monday. "We need to tell the [Palestinians] the only thing they have proven over 50 years is that they are adolescents who cannot and should not be trusted to run institutions of state or any other important matters."

While it could be argued that the outrage in Saudi Arabia reflects resentment over the collapse of the much-vaunted reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah - which was personally brokered by King Abdullah earlier this year in Mecca - the anger expressed across the Muslim Arab world reflects deep embarrassment at the discredit Hamas has brought, in the name of Islam, through its savagery against Fatah.

For its part, the Egyptian press has become unhinged, spewing vile denunciations of what is universally known as "the cause" - support for the Palestinian Arabs - and describing it as dead.

Palestinian journalist Abdelbari Atwan, writing in the London-based Al Quds International, argued that "the cause" may have lost its legitimacy: "I never thought the day would come when we would see Palestinians throwing other Palestinians from the tops of buildings to their death, Palestinians attacking other Palestinians to tear their bodies with knives, Palestinians stripping others naked to drag them through the streets."

Waiting Until It's Safe

From Waiting Until It's Safe:

The events in Gaza reinforce a truth about much of the so-called human rights community: they care when the villain is Israel, but are indifferent to acts of violence committed by Palestinians against Palestinians. The seizure of Gaza by Hamas is the final happening in a chain of events that began with the Oslo Accords in 1993. Israel opted to give the Palestine Liberation Organization - the Fatah faction - authority over Gaza and much of the West Bank in the hope that Yasser Arafat and his henchmen would crack down on Hamas. Arafat never complied, and Fatah focused on building personal villas on the Mediterranean Sea instead of building a nation.

Hamastan

From Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2007, no link:

With the seizure of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, a new Islamist state is being established and it doesn't bode well for the West or regional stability.

Since the peace process began in 1993 with the Oslo Accords, the Fatah leadership made hardly a single effort to move Palestinian society toward peace and moderation. Fatah did have an attractive alternative it could have offered: We will get a state, return the refugees to live in it, develop our economy and culture and enjoy large-scale international aid in exchange for ending the conflict. Instead it continued to glorify violence, spread hatred of Israel and America, and raise a new generation with a belief in eventual "total" victory and the extinction of Israel.

Unwilling to make peace and uninterested in governing well, Fatah dug its own grave. Why should anyone be surprised that Hamas replaced it?

Let's get this straight: There is no near-term solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is no Palestinian side with which a compromise agreement can be negotiated. Western and especially U.S. policy must get beyond an obsession with solving this conflict. It is going to go on for decades.

Hamas will not be persuaded to moderate - why should it when it expects victory at home and appeasement from Europe? Hamas is the enemy, just as much as al-Qaeda, because it is part of the radical Islamist effort to seize control of the region, overthrow anything even vaguely moderate, and expel any Western influence.

It is time to support Israel proudly and fully. Israel has done everything possible for peace, taking great risks to do so.

Collaborators Face Death in Town Where They Hoped to Find Safety

Running from their own shadow. From Collaborators Face Death in Town Where They Hoped to Find Safety:

More than a dozen Palestinian collaborators with Israel who fled Gaza with their families have since settled in Sderot, where they are forced to dodge rockets fired at Sderot from Gaza. In some cases their relatives are tied to the very militant groups behind recent rocket attacks on the town.

The Consequences of the Civil War in Gaza

From The Consequences of the Civil War in Gaza:

After Ariel Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza two years ago, Israel didn't get the security it wished for; the daily shelling of Israeli towns continued and even intensified. However, he did succeed in transforming Gaza from an Israeli headache into a Palestinian problem. "The American strategy has totally collapsed," Israeli officials said this week. First, they carried out an exercise in democracy, and that led to the election of Hamas. Then they abandoned democracy and tried to arm Fatah operatives in Gaza so they would fight Hamas. This approach didn't work out very well, either. The next step will be to isolate Gaza and hope to prevent the internal struggle from spilling into the West Bank. The one idea no one in his right mind is taking seriously this week is the old formula of the two-state solution that will solve, once and for all, the "Palestinian problem."

Hamas Takeover in Gaza Makes Defining Targets Easier for IDF

The silver lining in the Hamas cloud over Israel. From Hamas Takeover in Gaza Makes Defining Targets Easier for IDF:

Some Israeli defense officials said there was reason to be thankful for Hamas' takeover of Gaza. Prior to this, Israel had to distinguish between Fatah and Hamas gunmen in Gaza and make sure that Abbas loyalists were not targeted. Now, all gunmen are Hamas and therefore fair game. "The bank of targets has grown tremendously with Hamas' takeover," explained one official involved in planning policy in Gaza. "Hamas is a clear and defined enemy, and that means that when we decide to respond it will be easier than before, since all their buildings are now targets, as is anyone walking around with a weapon."

Hamas operatives man roadblocks throughout Gaza with laptops that contain lists of Fatah officials, supporters and families. Anyone found on the list is either executed or severely beaten. Hamas' brutality was demonstrated on Wednesday when it raided Shati in central Gaza and rounded up female members of the Baker clan, known Fatah supporters. Hamas gunmen executed three of them, aged 13, 19 and 75.

Regarding proposals to send a multinational force into Gaza, the assumption in Israel's defense establishment is that no European country would be willing to send troops unless Hamas supported the idea.

Fundamentalists Threaten Israel from All Sides

The Telgraph is too cowardly to use the term "Muslim", so they choose the term "Fundamentalist". Cowardly pukes. From Fundamentalists Threaten Israel from All Sides:

Hamas makes no secret of the fact that it now receives most of its financial and military support from Iran. The Iranian government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Hamas leadership in June last year in which it agreed to fund the militant group to the tune of £400 million. In addition, Iran provides military training to Hamas members by sending them to camps in Lebanon and Iran run by the elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards.

Earlier this year, the Iranians sought to establish new supply lines to Gaza. On February 24, Khaled Mashaal, Hamas' supreme leader, traveled to Khartoum where he met senior Quds Force officials and Sudanese politicians who are broadly sympathetic to Hamas' political objectives. The main topic of conversation was setting up a supply route that would enable Iran to smuggle rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles, guns and explosives through the porous border between Gaza and Egypt.

Ordinary Palestinians, it is true, in both Gaza and the West Bank, are suffering hardship. But this is not because of a lack of funds entering the Palestinian territories: it is because successive Palestinian administrations have made no effort to distribute the resources available equably among the population. By forcing the majority of Palestinians to exist in dire poverty, Hamas succeeds in attracting widespread sympathy from international do-gooders who do not understand the sadistic economic manipulation that is taking place.

Hamas is trying to replicate Hizbullah's success in Gaza, not a pleasing prospect for Israel, which now faces the threat of having two Iranian-backed, Islamic fundamentalist organizations dedicated to its destruction camped on its northern and southern borders.

As Gaza Unravels, Palestinians Flee

Run, you cowardly bastards, run. From As Gaza Unravels, Palestinians Flee:

Figures collected by European monitors at Rafah, the crossing into Egypt, show that some 14,000 Palestinians have left Gaza in the past year. Palestinian officials had asked to close the Rafah crossing into Egypt when they saw they could not protect European monitors there. "The real people controlling Rafah are Hamas, because they're just outside the checkpoint and they're controlling who can come and go," said Shlomo Dror, Israel's spokesman for the coordinator for government activities in the territories. Gazans who hope to leave are turning to agents who demand several thousand dollars for a plane ticket and a visa. The idea is to get to Egypt, and then, when the plane stops somewhere in Europe on its way west, to get off and ask for political asylum. Assad Abu Nihad paid $2,500 to a broker to arrange his son's trip. The son got off the plane in Spain on his way to Cuba and claimed asylum.

Explosive-Filled Tunnels Targeting Abbas Found in Gaza

From Explosive-Filled Tunnels Targeting Abbas Found in Gaza:

Tunnels filled with explosive devices were discovered under Salahaddin Street in Gaza City, Palestinian security sources announced Wednesday. According to these sources, the explosives were targeting Mahmoud Abbas in anticipation of future visits to Gaza. After Palestinian television networks showed footage of the tunnels and explosives, Hamas' armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, accused PA TV of "treason" for broadcasting images of their fighters preparing tunnels.

Hamas Gunmen Hunt Down Fatah Rivals in Gaza

From Hamas Gunmen Hunt Down Fatah Rivals in Gaza:

Security officers loyal to Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction were fleeing Gaza City as Islamist Hamas death squads roamed the streets. After the battles, Hamas men hunted down their foes, blowing up their houses, witnesses said. One Fatah member, who called himself Ahmed, said Hamas gunmen had killed eight of his friends: "I escaped by a miracle. Hamas is carrying out an execution campaign against us." Hamas gunmen deployed near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and the Erez crossing with Israel to prevent any Fatah officials from escaping. "There is no dialogue with Fatah any more. It is only the rifle between us and them," said top Hamas official Nizar Rayyan.

Hamas Executes Fatah Men as Their Wives and Children Watch

From Hamas Executes Fatah Men as Their Wives and Children Watch:

A witness named Amjad said men were killed as their wives and children watched. "They are executing them one by one," Amjad said by telephone. "They are carrying one of them on their shoulders, putting him on a sand dune, turning him around and shooting." Fatah officials said Hamas shot and killed seven of its fighters outside the Preventive Security building. A doctor at Shifa Hospital said he examined two bodies that had been shot in the head at close range.

Palestinians may be crossing point of no return to national suicide

So what? Considering the "Palestinians" are from a manufactured entity and not from a real nation to begin with, what's the loss? If they want to commit suicide, let's not get in their way. From IMRA:

May 15 is always a "black date" on the Palestinian calendar, representing the founding of Israel and the Nakba (or "catastrophe" in Arabic) of the Palestinians. But after yesterday, May 15 may also come to symbolize the date that the Palestinians passed the point of no-return toward national suicide.

At least 20 Palestinians were murdered yesterday in Gaza (May 15), according to the most conservative Palestinian accounts, by liquidation squads of the Hamas Islamic movement that often grabbed gunmen and officials of the rival Fatah movement and publicly dragged them from cars and executed them in the streets.

UN: Internal Violence Killed 55 Palestinians, Injured 243 Last Week

From UN: Internal Violence Killed 55 Palestinians, Injured 243 Last Week:

According to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued on Tuesday, 55 Palestinians have been killed and 243 injured during the last week as a result of internal violence. Since the beginning of 2007, more than 150 Palestinians have been killed as a result of factional violence and over 750 injured, OCHA reports. OCHA says that Palestinian militant groups have fired 173 Kassam rockets towards Israel in the last week.