Hamas Seizing Half of All Fuel Sent to Gaza, Creating False Gas Crisis

From Hamas Seizing Half of All Fuel Sent to Gaza, Creating False Gas Crisis:

Hamas seizes half the fuel Israel sends to Gaza and uses it in part for its military vehicles, Israeli and PA officials said Thursday. Hussein al-Sheikh, a PA official, said Hamas seizes 400,000 of the 800,000 liters of diesel fuel transferred to Gaza weekly and intended for uses such as generators, hospitals, water pumps and sewage pumps. Israeli sources said Hamas was preventing gasoline from reaching Gaza gas stations. "Hamas is trying to create a false fuel crisis in Gaza," a senior government source said. "The simulated strike by Gaza's gas station owners is also organized by Hamas. They want to create long lines for gas and a feeling that Israel is tightening the siege on Gaza, although this is not the case," he said. In addition, Hamas is trying to create the impression of a food shortage, although food supplies were sufficient.

Danes nab suspects in Muslim revenge plot against cartoonist

Excerpted from Yahoo News:

Danish police said Tuesday they have arrested three people suspected of plotting to kill one of the 12 cartoonists behind the Mohammed drawings that sparked a deadly uproar in the Muslim world two years ago. Two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan origin were arrested in pre-dawn raids in western Denmark, the police intelligence agency said.

The Dane was suspected of violating Danish terror laws but likely would be released after questioning as the investigation continues, said Jakob Scharf, the head of the PET intelligence service. The two Tunisians would be expelled from Denmark, he said.

The agency did not mention which cartoonist was targeted. However, according to Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, the Muslim suspects were planning to kill its cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

The cartoons were later reprinted by a range of Western publications, and they sparked deadly protests in parts of the Muslim world.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

Westergaard, 73, and his wife Gitte, 66, had been living under police protection, Jyllands-Posten reported.

In the uproar that followed the publishing of the cartoons, Danes watched in disbelief as angry Muslim mobs burned the Danish flag and attacked the country's embassies in Muslim countries including Syria, Iran and Lebanon.

Jyllands-Posten was evacuated several times because of threats and posted security guards at its office outside Aarhus and in Copenhagen.

The paper initially refused to apologize for the cartoons, which it said were published in reaction to a perceived self-censorship among artists dealing with Islamic issues, but later said it regretted that the cartoons had offended Muslims.

The Danish government also expressed regrets to Muslims, but noted that it could not interfere with the freedom of the press.

Kasem Ahmad, a spokesman for the Copenhagen-based Islamic Faith Community, a network of Muslim groups that spearheaded protests against the cartoons in Denmark, said he hoped Tuesday's arrests would not rekindle the uproar.

"We urge Muslims to take it calmly," he told the TV2 News network.

The rage over the caricatures resonated beyond Denmark. In Germany, two men were accused of planting bombs aboard a pair of German commuter trains in 2006 that failed to explode.

One of the men, Youssef Mohammed el-Hajdib, a Lebanese citizen, is on trial in Duesseldorf. The second man, Jihad Hamad, was convicted in December in Lebanon and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

El-Hajdib told the court last week that Hamad planned the attacks as revenge after some German newspapers reprinted the Muhammad caricatures.

Hamad, however, testified at his trial in Lebanon that el-Hajdib was the initiator of the failed plot. He said el-Hajdib brainwashed him and exposed him to extremist videos and propaganda.

Hamas Confiscates Jordanian Aid Sent to Gaza

As we deconstruct poverty and occupation as the root causes of Muslim terrorism, it becomes clear once again that the disease is within Islam itself. From Hamas Confiscates Jordanian Aid Sent to Gaza:

At least 10 trucks with humanitarian aid sent to the Gaza Strip by the Jordanian Red Crescent Society were confiscated by Hamas police shortly after the trucks entered the territory on Thursday evening, according to aid officials in Jerusalem. Eight trucks had food products and another two had medicines. They were reportedly taken to Hamas-run ministries.

Initial reports said the intended target of the aid was the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Gaza. Hamas and the PRCS had a run-in in the past, when the Islamic group diverted another aid convoy. A spokesman for the Hamas police in Gaza said that the number of trucks was in fact 14 and they would be "delivered to Palestinians in need in the Gaza Strip."

He added that Hamas was the responsible body in the territory and it would decide how to distribute the aid.

A Barrage Against Israel

Muslim apologists, take note. From A Barrage Against Israel via Daily Alert:

Apologists for extremism had long argued that occupation rather than ideology was the "root cause" of terrorism. Terrorism would therefore cease once occupation ended. That argument has now been conclusively defeated. Since Israel withdrew, Palestinian militants have fired more than 4,000 rockets from Gaza at Israeli civilian targets.

There is not a state in the world that could ignore this kind of barrage. So what were the options? One was reoccupation. Another was to carpet-bomb the areas from which the rockets are being fired. Many states would have done both. Israel has done neither.

What has Israel actually done? First, it has built a barrier around Gaza to limit the ability of suicide bombers to kill civilians. Secondly, it makes incursions to target the terrorist infrastructure. Thirdly, it has restricted imports into Gaza to stop bomb-making equipment from getting to the terrorists in aid and food packages. Fourthly, it has applied economic sanctions against the Hamas regime. Israel, in other words, has chosen the strategy least likely to cause heavy loss of life while still exercising its right to self-defense.

The condition of the residents of Gaza is dire. But ultimate blame for this surely rests with Hamas, other militants, and the culture of violence in Palestinian society that sustains them. In the absence of all this there would, of course, be no security barrier, no military incursions, no trade restrictions, and no sanctions.

The frenzied, rhetorical onslaught against the Jewish state is at best intellectually lazy. At worst it forms part of a hateful agenda that shames those who indulge in it.

The writer is a senior fellow at Chatham House, home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

The Kassam Rocket as Collective Punishment

From The Kassam Rocket as Collective Punishment:

Imagine a situation in which thousands and thousands of people, many of them children and the elderly, are plunged into a reality in which they must fear for their lives day in and day out, in which their livelihoods are crippled, with their schools and even pre-schools under siege. Entire communities are trapped, paralyzed. Whole childhoods are spent in a state of post-traumatic stress. They are the victims of collective punishment. And they live in Israel.

Migron Sentenced to Destruction in Six Months

The Jewish town of Migron, mentioned in the 5,000 year old Jewish holy book in Samuel 1 14,2 and in Isaiah 10,28 is to be forcibly evacuated of all of its Jewisch citizens, by the left wing turds of Peace Now in order to make room for the thieves and barbarians of Arabia, so that it can turn into another sh'aria sh*thole the same way that Gaza has. May tragedy beset each member of Peace Now for dedicating their adult lives to the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Jewish people from their indigenous homeland. Via INN:

Responding to the Supreme Court and the radical Jew-hating Peace Now group, the Prime Minister and Defense Minister said that the 43 families currently living in Migron, north of Jerusalem, would be evicted by this coming August.

Migron (Samuel I 14,2; Isaiah 10, 28) is a strategically critical hilltop community north of Jerusalem, overlooking the Jerusalem-Shomron highway. It grew very quickly following its founding in March 2002, swelling to 40 families within less than a year and a half - but the government then clamped down, and barely a single new caravan (trailer home) has been allowed in since then. Migron, as well as 25 other outposts in Yesha (Judea and Samaria), is considered "unauthorized" outpost because they were built after March 1, 2001 - the date ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised U.S. President George Bush that no new communities would be built.

Some of the land in Migron was clearly purchased by Jews, but the Supreme Court has been asked by Peace Now to rule that other parts of the community are situated on private, Arab-owned land - and to order the destruction of the entire community.

Peace Now's objective is to ensure the erasure of all vestiges of Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.

Analyzing the NGO Campaign on Gaza - Beyond the Rhetoric

Promoting accountability in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Via NGO Monitor:

~~ In January, Israel reduced fuel supplies to Gaza following rocket barrages aimed at Sderot, Ashkelon and other cities. (Between June and December 2007, 475 missiles and 631 mortar bombs were launched; in January 2008 these attacks intensified). While the Israeli measures were limited, and designed to force an end to the attacks without resorting to a full scale military operation, the Hamas leadership sought to create an image of widespread suffering and “collective punishment”. In parallel, supporters are again pressing efforts on a UN resolution to condemn Israel.

~~ As in the past, a number of international NGOs have joined in this campaign, including Amnesty International, Oxfam, and World Vision. (As of January 22, 2008, Human Rights Watch and Christian Aid had not issued statements.) These NGO statements and press releases use the politicized rhetoric of human rights, such as “collective punishment” and "crimes against humanity," in selective and one-sided condemnations.

~~ Amnesty International has been the most active NGO in the current campaign, and its January 21 statement (Gaza Blockade: 'collective punishment' condemned) demonstrates the exploitation of human rights for political goals. The headline and most of the text focuses exclusively on the “Gaza blockade”, and accuses Israel of "collective punishment" – an inappropriate term used frequently to promote political objectives.[1] While Amnesty "acknowledged Israel's right to take measures to protect its population from rocket and other attacks," this statement was disconnected from the rest of the condemnation.

~~ In addition, Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, demonizes Israel by claiming (against all evidence) that Israel's border closure "appears calculated to make an already dire humanitarian situation worse”, one in which "the most vulnerable -- the sick, the elderly, women and children -- will bear the brunt, not those responsible for the attacks against Israel…" The Amnesty statement also incongruously claims that "the Israeli authorities cite unspecified 'security' reasons" to justify closures, erasing the use of “civil” materials for Palestinian rocket bombardment, and the incidents, including one last week in which tons of potassium nitrate used for explosives were found in humanitarian shipments from the EU to Gaza.

~~ Oxfam’s statements parallel Amnesty’s. In a January 20, 2008 press release, this NGO accuses Israel of "collective punishment," and Barbara Stocking, Oxfam UK's executive director, blamed both sides, erasing the distinction between terror and defense (as in Oxfam's statements in November 2007 on similar issues). World Vision, a frequent contributor to such campaigns, issued a statement on January 21, 2008 headlined 'Gaza: worsening violence and humanitarian conditions' . This statement included a general condemnation of the "wave of violence between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces […]," and then focused on accusations against Israel.

Activities by Palestinian and Israel-based NGOs

As in many similar instances documented by NGO Monitor, NGOs that promote the Palestinian narrative by using the language of human rights and international law have been very active in this campaign.. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions – ICAHD (funded by the EU), Alternative Information Centre (funded by the Irish Government via Christian Aid), Physicians for Human Rights (Israel), Bat Tsafon, Gush Shalom, and The Women’s Coalition for Peace issued a joint declaration on January 21, 2008 – 'Gaza: An Israeli Call for Urgent Action' – which accuses the Israeli government of “serious war crimes” and claims Israeli policy represents "a clear and unequivocal crime against humanity." In a separate statement issued January 21, ICAHD referred briefly to the suffering of the residents of Sderot and Ashkelon, and then blamed Israel for the "siege", which, it asserted, is the 'root cause' of all Palestinian suffering and violence, asserting “The siege is an immoral act and a violation of International Law…."

Other groups (many funded by the European Union and the New Israel Fund) including Adalah, B’Tselem, Gisha, Ha-Moked, PCHR, Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, and others, published a statement and petition on January 21, demanding an Israeli Supreme Court injunction to "prevent Israel from continuing to bar fuel from reaching Gaza." This statement repeated the slogans of the NGO campaign: "Israel’s continuing punitive sanctions against the population of Gaza are intended to harm Palestinian civilians for political purposes, and amount to collective punishment, which is illegal under international law.” (The NGOs ignored B’Tseslem’s January 16 statement headline: Ecuadorian citizen killed by Palestinian gunfire in the south of Israel. Addressing Hamas, they declared “Attacks aimed at civilians undermine all rules of morality and law. Specifically, the intentional killing of civilians is considered a 'grave breach' of international humanitarian law and a war crime. Whatever the circumstances, such acts are unjustifiable.”) Criticism of NGO Statements

A January 21, 2008 op-ed in the The Jerusalem Post by Erik Schechter – 'Prisoners of Gaza', challenged the double-standards of NGOs such as Amnesty International and Gisha, as well as Human Rights Watch, in their condemnation’s of Israeli policy on Gaza. Schechter notes that Gisha's January 2007 report, Disengaged Occupiers: The Legal Status of Gaza (analyzed in detail by NGO Monitor), "comes off vague and arbitrary…The group offers no formula for how much 'indirect control' makes an occupation. Nor it does explain how [Israel's] domination of Gazan airspace and waters differs from an ordinary blockade."

Schechter also reports that "most other military occupations (i.e., foreign rule, troops and settlers) go unremarked upon by the human rights community," citing the conflict in Western Sahara. But "none of this registers with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Both groups insist on calling Western Sahara a 'disputed territory' or 'Moroccan-administered' - anything but 'occupied. … This legal conservatism stands in stark contrast to the super-elastic category used for Gaza." Schecther continues: "Explaining, the contradiction, Human Rights Watch legal adviser James Ross tells me that his group uses terms "widely accepted" by the international community. True, interested parties often shape this discourse, but not to worry: The law, not the label, is what counts. And human rights law is applied to Western Sahara…"

In a separate analysis, Prof. Elihu Richter, from the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health, has noted that “There is no hope for change in the current dismal situation until the international NGO's stop applying paradigms in which the perpetrators of terror directed against entire populations are presented as the victim, and the targets of such terror are seen as the perpetrators. …Outsiders who tolerate, condone or endorse or remain silent about genocidal terror are as much a part of the problem as the perpetrators.”

---[1] The term "collective punishment" in these statements is inconsistent with international law, morality and common sense. Article 33 of the IV Geneva Convention of 1949 states that "collective penalties and likewise all other measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited [by the Convention]". Drafted following World War II, the provision was designed to outlaw killing of civilians by an occupying power as a retaliatory response to acts of sabotage or resistance. Such acts included Nazi atrocities including the 1944 massacre of thousands of Polish civilians in Warsaw. The exploitation of this term to condemn Israel's policy in response to terror attacks reflects the politicized agenda of the NGO community.

Oppose UN Resolution Condoning Hamas Rocket Attacks

The UN is at it again, targeting Israel with charges of crimes against humanity for defending themselves. They have and will do the same thing to the United States, because by the standards of the "international community" we do NOT have the right to defend our sovereign land from terrorist thugs (probably because they provide kickbacks to many of the UN careerists). In any case, please read this and forward it on.

Urge world leaders to oppose a proposed UN resolution condoning Hamas rocket attacks.

Click this link to take action now!!

Hamas' Dupes

Deconstructing poverty as a root cause of Muslim terrorism. From Hamas' Dupes via Daily Alert:

A Hamas official warned that the reduction in fuel shipments to Gaza's power plant meant: "We have the choice to either cut electricity on babies in the maternity ward or heart surgery patients."

Not exactly. Hamas has the choice of supplying the electricity it has first to hospitals and other essential humanitarian needs. Hamas also has the choice of stopping the Kassam rocket attacks against Israel. Instead, as usual, Hamas' leaders have chosen to deliberately increase the suffering of Palestinians, knowing the international community will cooperate with this cynical choice and blame Israel. There is no greater act of "collective punishment" than randomly firing missiles at the homes of innocent Israeli civilians. Where is the concern for the "humanitarian crisis" of Israelis who have had to live under the threat of rocket fire for the last seven years? Power outages cannot compare to the deadly and indiscriminate threat from missiles landing on kindergartens and homes. If Western officials uniformly blamed Hamas instead of amplifying its propaganda, it might be forced to stop its aggression, ending the "humanitarian crisis."

Deconstructing poverty as a root cause of Muslim terror

This paper investigates the ways in which terrorism is linked to education and poverty using data newly culled from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) documentary sources. The paper presents a statistical analysis of the determinants of participation in terrorist activities by members of the Hamas and PIJ between the late 1980s and May 2002.

The resulting evidence suggests that both higher education and standard of living are positively associated with participation in Hamas or PIJ and with becoming a suicide bomber, while being married significantly reduces the probability of participation in terrorist activities.

Read it and weep, arabist apologists.

Questions about Palestinian Aid

From Questions about Palestinian Aid:

The argument for increasing foreign aid to the Palestinians stems from the belief that the way to defeat radicalism is to eliminate its ostensible cause - poverty and ignorance. But as early as 1958, Daniel Lerner discerned that political activism in the Middle East was not driven by the "have nots," but rather by the "want mores."

Claude Berrebi of Princeton University analyzed Palestinian terrorism and determined that "if anything...those with higher education and higher living standards are more likely to participate in terrorist activity." Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova in the Journal of Economic Perspectives found that Palestinian suicide bombers were more likely than the general population to have completed secondary education and were less likely to come from an impoverished environment. They also found similar results associated with membership in Hizbullah.