Another story in the Jerusalem Post has to do with Arab reactions to reports about Israeli Prime Minister’s Ehud Olmert’s corruption trial for receiving $150,000 in cash over 14 years. While it is clear that some of the posters don’t like Israel, it seems as though most of them respect the fact that Israel’s justice system works even against elected representatives in the highest positions of power. Some are even critical of Ehud Olmert for taking so little money! Many responders laud Israel as an example that Arab countries should use, as it’s clear that the Arabs realize the corruption that occurs in their countries. Comments include:

• “the reason why Israel has lasted for so long is because of its independent and fair judicial system. I challenge the Arabs to have such an independent judicial system.”
• “Only a few thousand dollars? What a fool! This is what an Egyptian minister gets in a day or what a Saudi CEO gets in 45 minutes, or a Kuwaiti government official in five minutes. This is what the physician of the emir of Qatar gets every 30 seconds.”
• “Unfortunately, this is the real democracy. Our enemies are very good in practicing democracy. In the Arab world, our leaders steal everything and no one ever dares to ask a question.”
• “I swear Israel is a state that will succeed. They are prosecuting their prime minister because of tens of thousands of dollars. What about the millions of dollars that Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority stole? How come the Palestinian people are still hungry?”

Is the Arab world finally seeing the virtues of Israel? Do these sentiments reflect the consensus in the Arab world? Unlikely. But given the Arab world distaste for Israel, to put it lightly, the fact that these opinions are shared in public forums (albeit online) could be a step in the right direction. Perhaps it’s no reason to be overly optimistic, but it is a step in the right direction. Let’s hope justified criticisms of leadership in the Arab world, by Arabs, continues - it shows that people are waking up to the reality that Israel is not their enemy - their own leadership is.

So we’re going to jump to a conclusion here - these first generation non-Palestinians coming on their “Birthright” trip are NOT going to be taught about peace, tolerance and co-existence, and will likely be taught alot about “Israeli brutality”, the “illegal Israeli occupation”, etc. According to the birthrightpalestine.com website, the trip was “created to maintain Palestinian unity on an international level” and to “nurture relationships between participants of Palestinian ethnic
origin whom were born in different countries around the world”, with the hope of an exchange of ideas that will “possibly lead to a cohesive consensus on core issues of importance to the Palestinian Nation.”

Now, in the past we’ve been quite clear about our thoughts about the claim of “Palestinian Nationalism” - there is no Palestinian nation and there never was. The Arab Palestinian national movement began in the 1960s - before that, Arabs living in Palestine identified themselves as being South Syrian or simply as Arabs. In fact, before World War I, many of the Arab countries that exist now didn’t exist back then. Here’s a map:

So now, 100 years later, the Arabs who happened to live in “Palestine” when Jews began to move their, invent a nationalism that historically never existed and are using it as a cynical political tool. I expect this plan to run into some roadblocks, primarily getting people to come in the first place. To get to “Palestine”, the participants must fly into Tel Aviv, Israel, since there is no international airport in Palestine (for if there were, Israel would be in grave danger). In the FAQs on the site, the organizers site “security precautions” for not releasing a list of participants - surely the insinuation is that people participating have to be worried about their security from Israelis. They likely have a point - surely if a participant list was distributed ahead of time, Israel would get their hands on it and be able to investigate the participants before they land in Tel Aviv and deny entry to any with suspicious backgrounds.

Whatever the goal of “Birthright Palestine”, we don’t think it is going to be pushing for a two-state solution or a solution that leaves any Jewish presence in the Middle East. Surely peaceniks will love this concept, but will it bring about peace? Like everything the Palestinians do, that is unlikely.

As a follow-up to this story, we’d like to write about the “Palestine Center for National Strategic Studies”. Does anybody know anything about this organization and where it gets funding from?

On the Egyptian side of Rafah, Alaa Ghoneim, who sells electric appliances, said he was able to restock his whole store three times as sales soared. Ghoneim hired a doorman for crowd control. He fought with a customer who kept coming for more and then sold Ghoneim’s goods for a higher price just a few blocks away. Gaza trader Basel Arabeed bought 20 Chinese-made motorcycles, and quickly sold 18 for $1,000 apiece - a 100 per cent profit.

Abdel-Karim al-Ashi, a Gaza distributor, was loading his trucks with electronics for the fifth time in two days which will last for the next six months. In a market in Gaza City, vendors offered their Egyptian wares. Gazans filled duffel bags with garlic cloves and cigarettes. Another sold a computer case and a webcam. Egyptians driving into Gaza bought blankets, jeans and scrap metal that had been destined for Israel but could not be shipped because of border closures.

Previously Hamas took over the estimated 150 smuggling-tunnels from Egypt into Gaza, and charged the owners $3,000 each per day. The 150 tunnels brought in a total of some $150 million annually, the value of men, weapons and other merchandise smuggled in each year totalled over a half-billion dollars not including heroin which tally’s over 1 billion annually. In the last 10 years Gaza smuggling earned revenues of over 15 billion dollars. The tunnels were run in a systematic manner, with compensation being paid to the family of a tunnel-digger who dies during the work and with judges who mediate in various disputes that arise.

The Palestinians have brought into Gaza more than 30,000 rifles during the past two years, more than six million rounds of ammunition, more than 230 tons of explosives, and scores of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. Rafah was divided between Gaza and Egypt when the border was drawn according to the Israel-Egypt peace treaty of 1979. In the fall of 2005, just weeks after the last Jew was forcibly removed from Gush Katif and other areas in Gaza, Israel transferred control of the Gaza-Egyptian border to Egypt. The agreement stipulated a 750-man Egyptian border force patrolling the border line known as the Philadelphia Route.

Thus, we were happy to see that various religious groups, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others, prayed TOGETHER to end climate change.

For more on this story, please see Prayer to Give Up Climate Change.

December 1947 - Small kibbutzim were subjected to attacks - Gvulot, Ben-Shemen, Holon, Safed, Bat Yam and Kfar Yavetz. Sixty-two Jews were murdered by Arabs around Palestine.

December 30, 1947 - 39 Jews were killed by Arab rioters at Haifa’s oil refinery

January 16, 1948 - 35 Jews were killed trying to reach Gush Etzion

February 22, 1948 - 44 Jews were murdered in a bombing on Jerusalem’s Rehov Ben-Yehuda

February 29, 1948 - 23 Jews were killed all across Palestine, eight of them at the Hayotzek iron foundry.

January and February 1948 - Rishon Lezion, Yehiam, Mishmar Hayarden, Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliahu, Ein Hanatziv, Magdiel, Mitzpe Hagalil and Ma’anit were all subjected to attacks. Arab attackers also bombedThe Palestine Post
April 13, 1948 - 35 Jew were murdered during the Mount Scopus convoy massacre

March and April - Assault on Hartuv by 400 Arabs based in the village of Ishwa and an attack on Kfar Darom by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Jewish Agency, the Solel Boneh building in Haifa and an Egged bus were bombed.

May 15, 1948 - 127 Jews were massacred at Kfar Etzion, after 30 others had died defending the Etzion Bloc.

During this timespan(November 29, 1947 to May 15, 1948), a total of 1,256 Jews had been killed, most of them civilians. These deaths were caused by Arab militias, gangs, terrorists and army units which attacked every place of Jewish inhabitation in Palestine. During this time, all Jewish villages in the Negev were attacked, and Jews had to go about the country in convoys. In every major city where Jews and Arabs lived in mixed neighborhoods the Jewish areas came under attack. This was true in Haifa’s Hadar Hacarmel as well as Jerusalem’s Old City.

The above list does not include Jews killed and synagogues burned in Arab countries during the timespan in question. However, it is known thatmore than 100 Jews were massacred and synagogues were burned in Aleppo and Aden, driving thousands of Jews from their homes.

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These event beg the question - who governs the Palestinians? There are two main factions in Palestinian politics - Hamas and Fatah. Fatah, considered by most to be moderate (feelings not shared by us who run this website), lost the 2006 election to Hamas (by a margin of 74-45), but retained the presidency. Now, Abbas doesn’t like what he’s seeing, so he’s asserting his authority to undermine Hamas.

Our personal view of what will come of this is a situation similar to what happened to Pakistan in 1971. Between 1955 and 1971, East Pakistan (now know as Bangladesh) was a province of Pakistan. As we know from history, the only people that Muslims hate more than the infidels is each other, and thus East Pakistan broke off and became an independent country. Given that Gaza is primarily Hamas territory, it will be virtually be impossible for Fatah to assert control over it. The West Bank is primarily Fatah territory and given recent events, will likely maintain it’s allegiance. We don’t believe that these two rival parties will ever be able to reconcile and will effectively break ties in the not too distant future, leaving the West Bank to be governed by Fatah and Gaza to be governed by Hamas.

The above events are likely to be viewed as negative by the Arab world, Palestinian activists and the UN, the events could be a great victory for Israel, given that previous peace agreements with the Palestinians stipulated that Israel would have to give the Palestinians a way to move between Gaza and the West Bank, which would surely cause security issues for Israel. Should these two territories be ruled by different parties for an extended period of time, this demand will not be realistic and Israel will not have to put itself in a terrible position. Time will tell whether our prediction is correct, but given the events of the past week, this scenario is looking more and more realistic as time passes.