23-May-13: If we knew then what we discovered today about how France2's correspondent decided the IDF killed a child in Gaza 13 years ago

In "22-May-13: The post-Al Durah period: the challenges are starting to become sharper", we quoted Israeli journalist Ben Caspit's valuable analysis of the Al Durah Affair and of the role and responsibilities of the news-reporting media. 

Here's a key quote

The truth is a vital commodity, especially where we are. If we didn’t kill Muhammad al-Durrah, then I want to know that. If he wasn’t injured in the film clip screened by France 2, then I want to know that too... I have a lot of respect for correspondent Charles Enderlin from France 2, but as someone familiar with all the details at a very high resolution, I believe that he never should have determined that the al-Durrah boy was dead, as long as he had a video clip which showed him still alive. That footage was put into deep storage. It was censored and disappeared, only to show up again this week in the report by the Israeli Commission of Inquiry. A responsible journalist never would have broadcasted the footage without also showing the doubt, the full picture, and all of the details relevant to the story. [Source]

Today, this afternoon, in going back over some of the things we know about Charles Enderlin and France2, we came across something quite extraordinary. Enderlin, France2's man in Israel, the one who personally edited the original Al Durah "killing" footage that went to air all over the world on September 30, 2000, was interviewed in Haaretz on November 1, 2007, to mark the seventh anniversary, more or less of the events that we know as the Al Durah Affair.

It's a long interview with Haaretz reporter Adi Schwartz, and it appears in both the Hebrew and English editions. Both still online today: the Hebrew ("בואו נראה את זה שוב") here and the English ("In the footsteps of the al-Dura controversy") here.

The reporter, after reviewing the controversy about who fired at the Al Durahs and the way in which parts of the media made up their minds, asks Enderlin:

In hindsight, is it possible that you were too hasty that evening?

Here's the Haaretz English version of the answer:

I don't think so. Besides, the moment I saw that nobody was asking me anything officially, I started feeling more strongly that the story was true.

And here is the Haaretz Hebrew version of the Enderlin response to the same question:

לא חושב. אם לא הייתי אומר שהילד והאב היו קורבנות לירי שבא מכיוון עמדת צה"ל, בעזה היו אומרים, איך אנדרלן לא אומר שזה צה"ל? 

 We'll translate that for you. 

I don’t think so. If I had not said that the boy and the father were victims of gunfire emanating from the direction of the Israeli position, in Gaza they would have said “How come Enderlin doesn’t say it was the IDF?"

Got that? It's a helpful insight into how news gets reported in this area, at least by certain kinds of journalists and channels. 

Enderlin was in his Jerusalem office when those events took place in Gaza. All the visual evidence he had was video material sent to him by digital transfer from a stringer in Gaza. The source was a Palestinian Arab cameraman, Talal Abu Rahma. Did Enderlin check it? Given what most of us know about the relative accuracy of factual reporting on the two sides of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, did he harbour doubts? Seek independent verification? A second opinion? A third?

The answer, which we have not seen reported anywhere else in all these years (correct us please if we're wrong on this), is that evidently he felt he could not go off and check because (our understanding of his plain Hebrew words) what would they say about him, Enderlin, over there in Gaza? 

Woolwich, London, yesterday [Image Source]

Pause for a moment to digest this, while we replay a small segment of this morning's AP report on the grotesque savagery in London yesterday. Every news program on earth showed the video image last night of a man with blood-drenched hands, holding a knife, a machete, mouthing off in front of cameras about his religion, his god, what the British ought to do to their leaders. That this barbarism was an act of terror was obvious even to the BBC whose guidelines discourage the use of the T word other than when quoting others but which found a way to call this terrorism anyway. 

And yet look here at the somersaults one major news service did in order to be sure they had material that was true, accurate and unimpeachable:

The Associated Press examined the footage to verify its authenticity. The AP cross-referenced images from the scene, aerial shots, the location of a car behind the alleged attacker and appearance of a body and car in the background of the image. [Source: Associated Press,  London terror attack leaves 1 man hacked to death, two suspects hospitalized]

Seems to us those are the kinds of steps you take when you're genuinely concerned about the consequences of being wrong. But Enderlin tells us he decided to pin the blame on the IDF by considering what would be said about him in Gaza if he did not. Perahps we're naive, but this seems genuinely shocking. And it comes out of his own mouth.

As for Haaretz, those of us who care at all about this are left wondering who, why and by whom the decision was made to sanitize Enderlin's unprofessional admission by... simply erasing it from the record. While leaving it intact in the Hebrew version.

Two weeks after the publication of the Haaretz interview, on November 14, 2007 [see "Enderlin cuts the tapes that France2 presents to the court"], Enderlin and France2 delivered to a French court pursuant to a court order the raw footage of the events of seven years earlier. Prof. Richard Landes, an expert in the details of the Al Durah Affair, wrote at that time and has asserted for the past six years that Enderlin 

presented an edited version in which he took out at least three minutes, and at least one scene that I distinctly remember seeing. 

How would those law suits and appeals initiated by Enderlin and France2 .have fared had the courts known what Enderlin himself - the prime propagator of the imagery and the analysis of the Al Durah affair - said about why he blamed the Israelis?

Lethal journalism exists. The better its workings are understood, the safer we will all be. But we are not there yet.

22-May-13: Asking Norway to face up to the lethal consequences of its funding decisions

From the NRK site

Last week, the Norwegian state broadcaster NRK ran a serious analytic piece prepared by Tormod Strand, a respected investigative reporter. Based on a news segment that went to air on NRK television, it looks at how Norwegian aid money is playing a significant role in the Palestinian Authority's disgraceful ongoing encouragement of terrorism among its own people.

If we were writing their headlines, we might have thought to call this the Royal Norwegian Reward for Terrorism Program. But that might seem ungracious.

We traveled to Oslo a week earlier to speak to the Norwegian public and parliamentarians about the immoral ends to which their money is being applied. The May 14, 2013 NRK article (including a video interview with Arnold Roth) refers to that visit, and is online here.

Below is an English translation, provided by kind courtesy of friends in Finland, Norway and Hong Kong.

Daughter's killer receives honour payment 

• DAFINA SHALAdafina.shala@nrk.no
• TORMOD STRANDtormod.strand@nrk.no

Publisert 14.05.2013 17:58. Oppdatert 14.05.2013 18:28.

Palestinian prisoners serving time for terror acts will be granted a monthly salary from Palestine. Israeli Arnold Roth now wants to put a stop to payment of salary to those convicted of terrorist acts.  

Arnold Roth's daughter never made it past her 15th year. Her killer, jailed for terrorist acts, receives a monthly salary from Palestine. Now Roth is appealing to Norway to demand that Palestine stops paying money to Palestinians convicted of terrorism. 

Today the Stortinget's (Norway's parliament) Control and Constitution Committee received a letter from the Foreign Ministry about this case. The leader of the Committee claims the FM fails to answer the important questions.

Israeli Arnold Roth's daughter Malki was killed because a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001. 15 civilians were killed. The man responsible for making the bomb  - Abdullah Barghouti - is now in prison in Israel.

Palestine honours several hundred Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are terrorists, with a monthly payment. Abdullah Barghouti receives about 10.000 kroner each month from Palestine. Norway, one of the large economic contributors to Palestine, has to demand an end to payment for terror, Malki's father says.

"I think everybody wants to see peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But Norway and other countries must understand that to contribute indirectly to Palestine paying a salary to terrorists in prison is to contribute to maintaining a Palestinian culture supporting terrorism as a political tool. It doesn't contribute to peace, he continues. 

The Foreign Ministry has the last several years repeatedly denied  this. However, NRK now claims that the finance minister of Palestine, Salam Fayyad, even in  2004 wrote an article where he openly told about the arrangement of salaries to terrorists, among others.  

“Fayaad is one of our most important contacts, and for me and the Conservative Party it is inconceivable that the Foreign ministry didn't pick up this story in 2004”, says Peter Gitmark of the Conservative Party.

After NRK Dagsrevyen's breaking of the case, the Control and Constitution Committee of the Stortinget has asked for information from the Foreign Ministry. The committee will seek to find out whether the Foreign Ministry has informed the Stortinget following  correct procedure about the arrangement of paying salaries to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Les hele brevet fra UD her

Yesterday a new letter arrived from the Foreign Ministry. In it, the FM regrets that it still hasn't received the necessary information from Palestine. However the FM (UD) confirms that an arrangement is in place in which prisoners are paid a salary. This arrangement has existed since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in the middle of the 1990s.  

In 2004 the support was increased so that prisoners who had already served more than 25 years received 6400 kroner per month. The Palestinian arrangement, set down in law, also gives prisoners the right to be employed by the Authority after they have finished their sentence.  

The FM also confirm in its letter to the Stortinget that the longer you stay in prison, the more money you will receive. 

In 2010, the support paid to prisoners in Israeli prisons further increased, according to a bill passed by lawmakers.  For people serving more than 30 years, the payment was tripled to more than 19,000 NK a month. 

The families of 70 prisoners are now receiving this sum, according to the FM's letter to the Stortinget. As a comparison, a civil servant in the Authority earns about NK 4600 a month.

The FM writes to the Stortinget that the prisoners’ case is very sensitive, seen from the Palestinian point of view, and that economic support of prisoners and their families is popular in Palestinian society. 

The leader of the Control and Constitution Committee of the Stortinget, Anders Anundsen, claims the FM's letter doesn't provide enough answers. 

“What still remains unanswered is this: What did the Foreign Ministry know about this arrangement. Also, did the FM inform the Stortinget in the proper manner when this case was brought before the Stortinget in 2011 and 2012”, says Anundsen.

Høyre (Conservative Party) claims FM isn't answering the most important questions in the case. 

“What did the FM know about the case and when did they know it? These are questions no one has answered. Therefore we will seek new answers from the FM”, Høyre's Peter Gitmark says. 

“Norway now has the opportunity, together with other countries, to tell Palestine that a culture in which terrorists are made into national heroes who receive honorary salaries is not something Norway wants to contribute to”, Arnold Roth says. [END]

We first approached this topic in "14-Mar-13: Shock! Horror! Norwegian politicians awaken to discover they were played for fools by the terrorists". But please know there's considerably more background about the evolving Norwegian kroner-for-killers scandal on the Palestinian Media Watch site. Start here.

22-May-13: The post-Al Durah period: the challenges are starting to become sharper

www.aldurah.com

The matter of Mohammad Al Durah and what happened, or did not, to him at Netzarim Junction 13 years ago is suddenly news again.

This is because the government of Israel came out with a plain-spoken report that it published on Monday [it's here], saying that the central claims made in the September 30, 2000 France2 television report and the accusations it embodied

"had no basis in the material which the station had in its possession at the time… There is no evidence that the IDF was in any way responsible for causing any of the alleged injuries to Jamal or the boy" [Israel Government Report]

It's also because an important legal case that has been taxing the resources of the French court system for eight years will result in a reserved decision due to be handed down some time today [UPDATE: We have just heard from sources in Paris that the decision was postponed for the second time - evidently to June 26; more on this later]. That case is not an enquiry into a killing but rather an arcane look at whether French defamation laws ought to sanction an independent French media gadfly, Philippe Karsenty for making very critical statements about the actions of France2 and the French/Israeli correspondent Charles Enderlin in turning the events of that day in Gaza into an event that has resonated and cost many lives.

We have a lot to say about the larger issues thrown up by the France2 video: about the extraordinary failure of the media to ask the questions that ought to have been asked; about the inexplicable credulousness of analysts and observers ready to buy in to the narrative of a child, cowering beside his father, under assault by Israeli sharpshooters who fire and fire and fire until... He is never shown being hit, and though the French voice-over dramatically pronounces him dead, the video shows him unquestionably alive soon afterwards. No blood on him or on the ground or on the father, and no visible wounds. What does this say about the shrinking role of objectivity and the primacy of truthfulness in news reporting (discussed on this site here, here and elsewhere)? But this is not the time to address the larger issues.

Instead we defer to the Israeli journalist Ben Caspit. An analysis penned by him in Hebrew and translated to English appears today on the Al-Monitor website, though you need to be determined if you want to find it (there's no sign of it on their home page). It's a strong piece that defends some of what remains of the journalistic profession's tattered honour - and not by justifying what has happened in the media these past thirteen years but by describing it for the failure that it is and was. Al Durah is a symbol - not of the death of children or even of terrorism and anti-terrorism but of moral bankruptcy. But we're getting ahead of ourselves and Ben Caspit. Here's the whole text.

Israel Was Right to Publish Al-Durrah Report 

Ben Caspit for Al-Monitor Israel Pulse | May 21, 2013  

One can easily understand the Palestinian and the Arab responses to the findings of the official Commission of Inquiry established by the Israeli government to investigate the circumstances surrounding Muhammad al-Durrah’s death. Still, these findings are starting to assume a prominent position in the Palestinian narrative, and swiping the flag that once fluttered at the top of that flagpole. That isn’t easy to do. My problem isn’t with the Arab response, but with the Israeli response, and by that I don’t mean the Israeli Arabs, who have long considered themselves to be Palestinians, intrinsically linked to the Palestinian experience. 

My problem is with the Israeli response among Israeli Jews, Zionists, who lie within the Israeli mainstream and are well acquainted with the culture of fantasies and lies that surround us. My problem is with those who are intimately aware of the hypocritical business of delegitimization, which has thrived at our expense for an entire era. Shlomi Eldar is one of the most prominent journalists to cover the Palestinian issue for the Israeli media, but the article he published on this site yesterday [May 20], is an excellent example of the problems inherent in the Israeli response. 

Why are we suddenly bringing up al-Durrah, he wondered. After all, it happened 13 years ago. After all, the Agranat 1973 Commission was created immediately after the Yom Kippur War, and the Kahan Commission was established right after the first Lebanon War 1982. What took us so long to create this Commission of Inquiry, and more generally, who does it actually benefit? After all, it’s too late to change the Palestinian narrative.  

I have no idea where this comparison between the al-Durrah affair and the Yom Kippur and Lebanon wars actually came from. What could these events possibly have in common? After both the Yom Kippur and Lebanon wars, Israel engaged in an act of introspection in an effort to contend with thousands of casualties and a troubling decision-making process. The highest echelons of the political and military leadership went through a punishing grilling, as is customary in Israel. Ministers of defense were removed, governments fell and generals and chiefs-of-staff lost everything they had worked so hard to achieve. 

By the way, after spending 53 years roaming the Middle East, I’m still waiting to see one of the neighboring democracies form a single Commission of Inquiry like those. Just one. 

There simply haven’t been any. But I have something else that I want to say to Shlomi Eldar. Right now, I really don’t care about the Palestinian narrative surrounding al-Durrah. As far as I am concerned, the main square in the town of Givatayim could be named after him. I don’t pin a lot of hope in the mob that surrounds us. No official Commission of Inquiry created by the Israeli government will succeed in changing the culture of hypocrisy and lies that still permeates the Arab world surrounding us. 

What interests me is what would happen if an Israeli soldier, and not some Syrian rebel, were photographed taking a bite out of the still throbbing heart of his enemy, who is lying dead at his feet. I want to know what would happen if 100,000 civilians were slaughtered in Jenin and Ramallah and Nablus in two years, instead of in Syria. The reason that I’m not upset is that I know exactly what would happen. We’ve gotten used to being the punching bag for the violent mob that surrounds us. Welcome to the Middle East.  

There is no Israeli soldier who shot a Palestinian child in cold blood. I hope there never will be one, either. Deep in their hearts, the Arabs know that. No Israeli would don a suicide vest and blow himself up among a crowd of young people standing in line to get into a dance club. Baruch Goldstein was the one exception, and he remains a pariah until today. He reached the end of his tether and committed a terrible act, yet no one even considered naming a town square in his honor, not even in the settlement of Itamar. 

In the century-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the numbers of Palestinians or Arabs who were actually killed are relatively small, when comparing everything happening all around them. I oppose the continuation of the Israeli occupation of the territories. I think that the occupation causes great harm to Israel, and I don’t think that you would find another Israeli journalist who wrote a more scathing critique of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than me. I would sign the Geneva Peace initiative tomorrow and partition Jerusalem the day after that. 

But at the same time, I know that the Palestinian response to former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s far-reaching peace proposals in 2000 was the second intifada, which included many barbaric assaults against women and children. I also know that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s proposal to Palestinian Chairman Abu Mazen, as completely insane as it was, has not been answered until today. I also know that the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, was founded before the Six-Day War, before there even was an occupation. 

That is why I try to keep everything in the right perspective. Has it been 13 years since the al-Durrah incident occurred? So what? Since when should a lapse of 13 years keep us from that primal, perpetual urge to get to the truth? That’s what the media is there for, my dear Mr. Eldar. That’s exactly what it’s there for. If someone would come up to you now with incontrovertible proof that Israel assassinated former Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, would you say: Hold on a minute, people. It happened 10 years ago. Who cares? No, you would jump on the information, because a healthy journalistic impulse compels you to keep digging until you finally uncover the truth. Is there no shortage of convicted murderers in prison fighting to prove their innocence, even after 30 years in jail? Suleiman al-Abeid, the Bedouin who was sentenced to prison for the murder of Hanit Kikos, protested his innocence until the very last minute, with the help of a very respectable and dedicated group of Israeli patriots who believed that he did not kill her. They still believe that today. 

The truth is a vital commodity, especially where we are. If we didn’t kill Muhammad al-Durrah, then I want to know that. If he wasn’t injured in the film clip screened by France 2, then I want to know that too. I also want all the others to know that. 

And even if they won't believe it, they must at least hear it. Deep in their hearts they know that despite all the bad things we say and write about the Israeli government, it is still far more reliable than any of the governments surrounding us.  

And there is one more thing, which is no less important: the media. I have a lot of respect for correspondent Charles Enderlin from France 2, but as someone familiar with all the details at a very high resolution, I believe that he never should have determined that the al-Durrah boy was dead, as long as he had a video clip which showed him still alive. That footage was put into deep storage. It was censored and disappeared, only to show up again this week in the report by the Israeli Commission of Inquiry. A responsible journalist never would have broadcasted the footage without also showing the doubt, the full picture, and all of the details relevant to the story. 

When it comes to Israel, however, too many journalists and too many media outlets won’t let the facts ruin their story. Well, this week we tried to ruin that story, if only just a little bit. I am very happy about that. Even if it will change nothing. Because in the end, the truth should win out.

Much effort (some of its ours) has gone into creating a single, quality go-to-site for discussion about the Al Durah Affair and the weighty issues it throw up. Please give it a few minutes of your time. It's online at www.aldurah.com

19-May-13: In France, they prefer their terrorists to be of the 'lone wolf' kind, irrespective of the facts

Mohamed Merah, the one-man murdering band whose accomplices
keep getting discovered [Image Source]

Keep in mind the murder spree carried out in Toulouse, France, during March 2012 by Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old French-Algerian Islamist terrorist and (until his brief and bloody moment of infamy) a petty criminal. 

He attacked and killed several French Army personnel, blaming it on the war in Afghanistan. Then at 8 in the morning on March 19, 2012, he rode up to the gates of the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, part of a national chain of about 20 French Jewish schools:

He dismounted, and immediately opened fire toward the schoolyard. The first victim was a rabbi and teacher at the school who was shot outside the school gates as he tried to shield his two young sons from the gunman. The gunman shot one of the boys as he crawled away, as his father and brother lay dying on the pavement. He then walked into the schoolyard, chasing people into the building. Inside, he shot at staff, parents, and students. He chased an 8-year-old girl into the courtyard, caught her by her hair and raised a gun to shoot her. The gun jammed at this point and he changed weapons from what the police identified as a 9mm pistol to a .45 calibre gun, and shot the girl in her temple at point-blank range. [Source: Wikipedia]

He subsequently explained, before being shot to death in a face-off with French police, that the Jewish children needed to die because "The Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine."

Did he operate alone? For most parts of the mainstream news reporting industry, the answer was yes. In a blog post ["10-Feb-13: Suicides, haters and lone wolves"], we wrote:

Most media channels, up to and including those reporting on this week's Spanish/Moroccan jihadist, persist in referring to the lone-wolf profile of Mohamed Merah for purposes of comparison. But Merah made 1,800 phone calls to his 180 contacts. And his brother was arrested almost immediately. And now two additional men. So in what way was he a lone wolf? Could it be that it's less threatening, less discomforting, to their audiences if they are left to believe the man planned to do the killings on his own, devoid of an ideological/religious background? How unsettling is it for alert news consumers to try to make sense of the seemingly-endless ranks of young European men professing various expressions of the one religion as the justification for their acts of extreme prejudice, hateful murder and self-destruction?

Now here's a brief update via a Reuters bulletin of a few hours ago. 

France detains suspect in Toulouse killings investigation | Reuters News | May 18, 2013 | PARIS - French anti-terror judges ordered the detention on Saturday of a man on suspicions he aided an al Qaeda-inspired gunman prepare for a shooting spree last year, a judicial source said. Mohamed Merah killed four Jews and three soldiers in and around the southern city of Toulouse in March 2012 before he was shot dead by police. Anti-terror judges have put the unnamed 25-year-old detained man under formal investigation to determine whether he helped Merah steal a scooter that was used in the shootings. Merah's brother Abdelkader has also been in detention since March last year on suspicion of complicity in terrorism, murder and theft. He denies being an accomplice in the killings... [Reuters]

Another Merah-related terror plot emerged in March. We reported it in "12-Mar-13: French Islamists mark anniversary of the death of Merah, the 'lone-wolf' terrorist, via fresh plot to kill innocents"

From Reuters today: Three suspected Islamist militants arrested in southern France appeared to be planning an attack in the days ahead, the Paris prosecutor said on Monday, the anniversary of an al Qaeda-inspired shooting that rocked France. Police found weapons and explosives at the home of one of the suspects in the town of Marignane, near Marseille, and intercepted communications between the men suggested they were close to going into action, prosecutor Francois Molins said. The three men, who were taken in for questioning last week with a fourth man who was later released, were to be placed under formal investigation later on Monday... The timing of the arrests was poignant, coming exactly a year after 23-year-old gunman Mohamed Merah began a rampage that killed three Jewish children, a rabbi and three soldiers in the southern city of Toulouse. He was subsequently tracked down and killed in a shootout with police... Molins said the arrested men, in their 20s, wanted to emulate Merah. "It was clear they were training themselves in making explosives based on a jihadist radicalisation, a glorification of Mohamed Merah, and an affirmed desire to go into action."

There's little doubt that thinking about home-grown made-in-Europe Islamist terrorists is easier to do when you categorize them as one-man bands. You can't blame the French for wanting this to be true. The problem is with how reality keeps messing with comfortable theories.

18-May-13: Kabul. The faces of terror's victims

With no sign of body parts or of smoking car wrecks, the powerful news photo below from this past Thursday conveys nothing more or less than the human dimension. A father and two children, dressed like us more or less, caught up against their will in something so grotesque that it defies rational explanation. Kabul is presumably where they live. For us, it might just as well as be Mars. For them it's home, the place where they live their lives. The terrorists understand that.

The caption to this Associated Press photograph reads in full:

An Afghan man directs his children away from the scene where a suicide car bomber attacked a NATO convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, May 16, 2013. A Muslim militant group, Hizb-e-Islami, claimed responsibility for the early morning attack, killing many in the explosion and wounding tens, police and hospital officials said. The powerful explosion rattled buildings on the other side of Kabul and sent a pillar of white smoke into the sky in the city's east. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

An image not to forget.

Image Source

17-May-13: Gaza's gates to Egypt are now chained and padlocked. Could this too be Israel's doing?

Image Source: FirstPost.com where the headline above it reads
"Egypt police close Gaza border to protest kidnap of colleagues"

Those who hold fast to the Gaza-is-the-world's-largest-prison-and-the-Israelis-made-it-so meme can skip the report that follows.

Angry Egyptian policemen close crossing with Gaza | GAZA (Reuters) Friday, May 17, 2013 | Egyptian policemen blocked the crossing into the Gaza Strip on Friday to protest against the kidnapping of Egyptian security forces in the Sinai, witnesses and sources said. Locals said police had placed barbed wire across the entrance to the border and closed the gates with chains, leaving hundreds of Palestinians stranded on both sides of the fence. Islamist gunmen abducted seven Egyptian security forces on Thursday and have demanded the release of imprisoned militants in exchange for the men. Three of those abducted have worked at the Rafah crossing, sources said. The police at Rafah are calling on Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi to free their colleagues, the sources said.

Meanwhile on the Hamas side of the Egypt/Gaza border

Hamas tightens border security in Gaza, slams kidnapping of security officers as an 'act of cowardice' | Ahram Online, Thursday 16 May 2013 | The Hamas government has tightened security on the border of the Gaza Strip after the kidnapping of seven Egyptian security officers at dawn Thursday. In a statement released Thursday noon, the Islamist Gaza rulers condemned the kidnapping of the Egyptian officers, dubbing it “an act of cowardice.” The group also offered to assist Egyptian security to find the kidnappers behind the operation and bring them to justice. The kidnapped officers include one member of the armed forces, four port security officers, and two state security officers. They were abducted at a checkpoint near the Green Valley — on a road connecting Rafah and Al-Arish — in North Sinai, Reuters reported.

The Egyptian media spins events differently, depicting them as a function of domestic Egyptian politics. In a report headed "Sinai residents blame interior ministry policies for Thursday kidnapping", the semi-official Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram says today

Many Sinai residents seek to revenge themselves on security forces after years of heavy-handed security policies under Mubarak-era interior minister Habib El-Adly, who many accuse of failing to respect human rights and tribal traditions. Mohamed El-Asati, who hails from Sinai's Aleiqat tribe, told Ahram Online that interior ministry policies had left a painful legacy among local tribesmen, especially during the current rule of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. "The security apparatus did not respect tribal traditions or customs," he said. "We have always been regarded as shepherds, drug traffickers or spies for Israel. So after the revolution, you will find psychological reasons for their desire for vengeance. " He added that there was not a single family in Sinai that did not have at least one son imprisoned, detained or on the run from authorities... According to Sinai-based activist Ashraf El-Hanfy: "The ministry's iron fist is back again in Sinai, just like the days before the revolution. It's even worse under the new rule, which means the revolution did not accomplish its mission in Sinai... There is no real security now in Sinai, but only oppression," he added. "This is the main reason for today's kidnappings."

All of this is too nuanced for those who continue to propagate the version that blames all the problems of Gaza on the nasty Israelis. Doctrinaire ideologues like Noam Chomsky, the Australian state parliamentarians Shaoquett Moselmane and David Shoebridge and assorted other great and not-so-great analysts surely know that Gaza has a two-way border crossing with its fraternal neighbours, the Moslem Brotherhood-led Egyptians. But they work hard to conceal this from the readers of their Israel-bashing polemics.

17-May-13: Quote of the Week: How can there ever be peace...?

From Fatah's Drive Against "Normalization",  Khaled Abu Toameh, writing on the Gatestone Institute website today  

17-May-13: Prof. Karabus, according to news reports, has been released and is on a flight to Cape Town at this hour

[Image Source]

For those interested enough, there will soon be a plethora of news reports fleshing out the missing details of what is happening right this minute, in the final stages of the Karabus scandal. The hitherto-captive paediatrician is reported to have departed the UAE in the small hours of this morning ["Karabus on his way to SA" via SAPA, 8:45 this morning] and to be on a nonstop flight to Cape Town, South Africa right now. The hope is he will be on home turf before noon today, Friday. If there is justice in the world there will be a cheering crowd of well-wishers and a delegation of government officials on hand to greet and comfort him. May it all go smoothly and with zero surprises. The past nine months have produced far too much [see our posts] of a very different sort of experience.

It will be perfectly understandable if today's focus will be on the happy ending. That is completely fitting.

But it will be irresponsible and unjust to ignore the injustices, indignities and distortions to which the man and his family have been exposed and of which they have been undeserving victims. The problem is that the problems stem from a phenomenon whose political un-correctness makes it mostly un-reportable and un-discussed.

Far from being respectable nations in the modern sense, the UAE is a collection of family-owned businesses ('emirates', in the tight control of unelected hereditary rulers) with the extremely good fortune of either themselves possessing, or of being close neighbours of others who possess, epic quantities of subterranean resources. So many individuals and institutions partake of the feast created in the past three decades by the flow of oil, gas and hard currency that the dark underside is, by common agreement, rarely discussed out in the open.

The oppression, exploitation and disenfranchisement of foreign workers; the capricious meting out of self-serving rules and laws and punishments; the undisguised discrimination based on race, on gender, on religious faith - everyone who comes into contact with life in the region knows about the realities but it serves almost no one, other than the victims, to talk about them out in the open.

So the victims continue to be victimized and everyone else does whatever they need to do to avoid becoming one themselves. And so it goes on.

The bright lights of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the rest will continue to attract the moths, at least so long as the party goes on and the money flows. But it's good to keep in mind the blinding effect those lights can have. And it's always wise to recall how inadequately the news media can sometimes convey the realities of things that happen to other people in remote places.

Welcome back to the embrace of your homeland and your loved ones, Prof. Karabus.

16-May-13: Abstaining on the Syrian carnage

This is how the Syrian atrocities look when you're a diplomat
at the UN General Assembly [Image Source: UN]

Earlier today, we referred in a post to the nervousness of Israeli defence forces and of ordinary Israelis in the north living within range of the Syrians. Given the presence of berserk shooters, armed-to-the-teeth armies and terror groups, and chemical weaponry, you might be nervous too. It's understandable.

Considerably harder to understand is the passivity of outsiders, the so-called world community.

The UN General Assembly voted on a resolution yesterday

"condemning the Syrian government for human rights violations and call for a transitional government. The measure was approved by a vote of 107 to 12, with 59 member states abstaining. That was a tighter margin than in August of last year, when 133 states voted to approve a similar resolution. Russia fiercely opposed the resolution as a potential obstacle to peace talks... The vote came just after an announcement by Vuk Jeremic, the General Assembly president, that the death toll from Syria's two-year civil war is at least 80,000, an increase of about 20,000 since the start of the year." [Al Jazeera]

It's non-binding, it has no legal effect, it comes with zero sanctions. Yet despite its utter toothlessness, look at how many countries abstained: fifty nine of them. (The roll call is here, but only in map form). They're not sure they want the killing to stop? They didn't like the wording? They don't feel they should mix in?

Several more failed to vote at all or were not present. Those voting against the condemnation of the Syrian government include Assad's major sponsors and protectors Russia and Iran. Also China, North Korea, Belarus, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador as well (of course) as Syria itself.

For the record, most of those killed in the past two years in the Syrian bloodbath are civilians. And while 80,000 lost lives is a tragedy on an epic scale, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Tuesday it believes least 94,000 people have been killed, and that the death toll is likely to be as high as 120,000.

16-May-13: Syria may or may not have launched an attack on Israel this morning

The caption on this AFP press photo says it depicts
a poster in Naqura, Lebanon with Bashar Assad,
Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah  and Iranian president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP]

Several rounds of mortar fire have hit Israeli territory in the Golan Heights, close to the border with Syria, in recent weeks. The tone of the news reporting has been to convey that these were fired more or less by accident, part of the wild shooting-in-all-directions that is going on in the deadly Syrian bedlam, part of the ongoing bloodbath and murderous orgy.

This morning (Thursday), two mortar rounds were fired from Syria into the Golan region. Evidently directed at the Mt Hermon ski resort site, they exploded harmlessly. Fortunately, no one was injured and there are no reports of damage.

David Lev, writing on the Israel National News site today, says credit was claimed for today's firing by something called the “Shahid Brigades of the Abd al-Kajr al-Husseini Jihad Brigades”. Since adopting ferocious names actually costs nothing, it might be of no significance that this SBAKHJB entity claims to be part of something larger called “Free Palestine Movement”. But what does it all indicate? According to Lev:

The group [this SBAKHJB entity] apparently works in coordination with the Syrian government, which declared several weeks ago that it would encourage terror attacks against Israel, in the wake of the bombing of convoys that were transporting chemical weapons from Syria to Hizbullah terrorists. In a video message, the group said that it fired the rockets on the occasion of “Nakba Day,” the date Arabs have chosen to mourn their defeat when Israel was established in 1948. “We are taking revenge for the martyrs that have killed,” the message said. “We tell the Zionists that we are opening a campaign of revenge” [Israel National News]

If indeed the blood-soaked regime of the beleaguered Syrian despot [see "Arabs and Turkey see no role for al-Assad"] is behind this, then the timing might not have that much connection to those self-evidently-bogus claims of solidarity with Palestinian brothers etc etc.

More likely it's a Syrian riposte to a blunt well-publicized Israeli message to Damascus delivered yesterday:

Israel has warned Damascus that if President Assad chooses to hit back at Israel for any further Israeli military strikes, Israel will bring down his regime. An Israeli official confirmed Wednesday night that a dramatic and unprecedented message to this effect had been conveyed to Damascus, Channel 2 news reported... [Times of Israel]

They're quite a force to be reckoned with, these Al Assad forces. On the BBC World website, they reported a few hours ago that

The BBC has been shown evidence apparently corroborating reports of a chemical attack in Syria last month. A BBC correspondent who visited the northern town of Saraqeb was told by eyewitnesses that government helicopters had dropped at least two devices containing poisonous gas. The government has vehemently denied claims it has used chemical agents. The US has warned that such a development would be a "red line" for possible intervention... 

How credible are these latest reports?

Doctors at the local hospital told the BBC's Ian Pannell they had admitted eight people suffering from breathing problems. Some were vomiting and others had constricted pupils, they said. One woman, Maryam Khatib, later died. A number of videos passed to the BBC appear to support these claims, but it is impossible to independently verify them. Mrs Khatib's son Mohammed had rushed to the scene to help his mother and was also injured in the attack... "It was a horrible, suffocating smell. You couldn't breathe at all. You'd feel like you were dead. You couldn't even see. I couldn't see anything for three or four days" Mr Khatib told the BBC. A doctor who treated Mrs Khatib said her symptoms corresponded to organophosphate poisoning and that samples had been sent for testing... The BBC has been told that samples from the scene and from the alleged victims have been sent to Britain, France, Turkey and America for testing... Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer at the UK's Joint Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear Regiment, said the testimony and evidence from Saraqeb was "strong, albeit incomplete"... Both the US and UK have spoken of growing evidence that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons.[BBC]

Respectable assessments say Syria has stocks of mustard gas and sarin, a highly toxic nerve agent.

The CIA also believes that Syria has attempted to develop more toxic and more persistent nerve agents, such as VX gas. A report citing Turkish, Arab and Western intelligence agencies put Syria's stockpile at approximately 1,000 tonnes of chemical weapons, stored in 50 towns and cities... [BBC] 

All things considered, the anxiety of Israeli defence forces arrayed across the Golan, as well as ordinary Israelis living in the north, is quite understandable.

16-May-13: Another Gazan rocket seeks, but does not find, Israeli victims on Wednesday

AFP calls it an 'uptick':

Over the past two months, there has been an uptick in rocket fire on southern Israel after more than three months of complete quiet following a deadly confrontation in November which ended with an Egyptian-brokered truce.

They report that something explosive - either a mortar or a rocket - was fired in the customary indiscriminate way into southern Israel during yesterday afternoon, the festival day of Shavuot. Israel police say it crashed into the frequently hit Eshkol region; fortunately, no damage, no injuries. This is an accidental result - the terrorists who control huge arsenals of rockets and mortars and store them in Gaza under Hamas control have no interest at all in who or what is hit. Their goal is to sow terror, and if there are actual injuries or damage, then that's cream on their pie.

16-May-13: More trouble in already-troubled Sinai

Sinai, the travel-industry version [Image Source]. Today's realities are less photogenic.

On Monday, we blogged here ["13-May-13: Hamas, the thorn in Egypt's side"] about the escalating tensions in the Hamas/Egypt relationship. This morning (Thursday), there's a Reuters report that

A group of anonymous militants kidnapped early on Thursday seven Egyptian security officers in the lawless Sinai Peninsula, near the borders with Israel, security and Bedouin sources said. According to the sources three policemen and four army officers who were riding in taxis travelling from Arish to Rafah cities, both in North Sinai, were stopped by militants and kidnapped. It was not yet clear who was behind the operation or their motives or demands. Egypt’s government has been trying re-establish state authority that collapsed in Sinai following the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak. [Al Arabiya]

We have no better idea than Reuters about who issues orders to the 'anonymous militants'. But we pointed out earlier this week that Egypt's army has recently implemented a series of Hamas-hostile measures including restrictions on the movement of Hamas figures and the destruction of Hamas smuggling tunnels. And in March, an intriguing article in The Tower reported on efforts by Egyptian army officials and Egypt's Minister of Defense to hit back at Hamas. This was described as retaliation for perceived insults, offences and disrespect - the potent combination that often plays an explosive role in intra-Arab conflicts.

Sinai is the source of much of the anxiety in our neighborhood, as we have noted in several items here.

15-May-13: Emirates authorities 'bungle' visa, so Prof. Karabus continues to remain their captive

Emirates service: The web version differs somewhat from the
actual experience of some travelers, Prof. Cyril Karabus for instance.

The Cape Argus, a South African news source, reports tonight that:

There is yet another last minute scramble before Cape Town oncologist Professor Cyril Karabus can board a plane home – the visa he was issued by United Arab Emirates authorities was incorrectly dated and must be changed... The UAE prison authorities yesterday finally returned Karabus’s passport to him after making him wait for about two weeks following his final acquittal on charges relating to the death of a child patient of his in 2002... Apart from being acquitted in March and then winning an appeal which followed, Karabus also had to wait for his name to be cleared from the UAE’s records. The incorrect dates on the visa was the latest in a string of bungles by administrators in the UAE.

Readers of this blog might recall our mentioning in a previous post ["31-Jan-13: UAE's foreign ministry is "closely following" Prof. Karabus' nightmare"] four and a half months ago how the unelected government of the non-democratic Emirates defended the scandalous manner in which it legally ensnared and imprisoned the distinguished retired paediatric oncologist.

In view of the daily humiliations to which Prof. Karabus is being subjected even now, weeks after the criminal case against him was thrown out twice by the courts, let's recall what the bureaucrats in the service of the owners of the oil-rich statelets said in an official statement that even today remains posted on the website of their foreign ministry [here]:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is closely following the case of the South African oncologist
03 February 2013 | ...the judicial process in the United Arab Emirates is independently and wholly overseen and managed by the Federal Supreme Court.  The Government of the United Arab Emirates cannot and does not interfere in the independent judicial process... The Ministry of Foreign Affairs understands the difficulties involved for the family of any person who is on trial, especially when a trial is taking place in a country that is not their own. However, it is imperative that the proper judicial process is followed... 

There continues to be almost zero coverage in any of the Emirate news channels of the ongoing ordeal of which Prof. Karabus is a victim. Consequently, there is no reason to expect the sort of thing that a free press might have done if UAE had such a thing - calling the Emirates rulers and their bureaucrats to account. This innocent man's passport ought to have been handed back to him, without any need any his part to go chase it through the inscrutable maze of Emirate government offices, the minute the court threw the charges into the garbage. Instead he has been chasing its return for two weeks.

The people who issued the pompous press release we quoted above ought to have been told to demonstrate  just how "closely" they are "following" the Karabus case by (for instance) ensuring all UAE visas, records, computer entries and every other kind of idiotic formality were immediately removed or issued or fixed or whatever it takes so that he can get out of their territory and go home.

Chronically over-optimistic sections of the South African media are today running stories like "Cyril Karabus heads home", and "Karabus' ordeal finally ends". But the reality is harsher; he will be spending tomorrow chasing a visa with the right dates on it to replace the bungled version he was issued by the UAE today.

One more thing. That same SA news report today mentions in passing that

Yesterday, after Professor Karabus had a fight with them, Emirates Airlines agreed to reinstate the ticket he had from there to Cape Town but could not use at the time of his arrest. [Cape Argus] 

How appalling that, after all he has been through, Prof. Karabus has had to fight the people at Emirates, the airline that brought him into Dubai and which declined to extend basic courtesies to him as we mentioned here in January.

14-May-13: It's being reported that Prof. Cyril Karabus' passport was returned to him today

From the South African News24 site:

Cape Town - 2013-05-14 14:54 | United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials handed back South African doctor Cyril Karabus's passport on Tuesday afternoon, the international relations department confirmed. Spokesperson Clayson Monyela said the passport was handed to the SA embassy around noon. The UAE interior department also issued a letter which would allow Karabus to leave the region. "The SA Embassy in the UAE will tomorrow [Wednesday] morning assist Prof Karabus to obtain the exit visa from the UAE, in view of the fact that the relevant office in the UAE was already closed at the time of receiving his passport," said Monyela. He said Karabus would be assisted with travel arrangements to return to South Africa within the next two days...

Click for some of the posts we have written here during the nine months of Prof. Karabus' shameful and unjustified incarceration at the hands of the United Arab Emirates authorities.

14-May-13: About the 1949 armistice lines and occupation, Qaradawi explains beyond doubt the view his religion takes

Portion of the million-plus crowd in Cairo's Tahrir Square
listening on February 4, 2011 to a Qaradawi sermon: A powerful
voice [Image Source]

Not everyone who invokes terrorism as a solution to political problems carries a bomb vest. Sometimes they come with serious-looking business cards, quasi-academic or quasi-theological credential and large entourages.

The Hamas regime - terrorists of the bomb vest wearing sort - this week played host in Gaza to a world-famous Islamic scholar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The author of more than 120 books including "The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam" (Amazon: "This popular book dispels the ambiguities surrounding the honorable Shari'ah, and to fulfill the essential needs of the Muslims in current age") and "Islam: The Future Civilization" (Goodreads), he is a past-trustee of Oxford University's Centre for Islamic Studies, and the current president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. 

He has been awarded eight international prizes [source] for his contribution to Islamic scholarship and, in a word, is one of the most influential Islamic scholars living today. Part of that influence stems from his television program, al-Sharīʿa wa al-Ḥayāh ("Shariah and Life"), broadcast on Al Jazeera to a world-wide audience of 60 million worldwide. He is a founder of IslamOnline (renamed OnIslam), a website with a huge global following, and serves as its Chief Religious Scholar. The Guardian called him a "complex, international figure, whose religious pronouncements address the dilemmas confronting Muslims in the modern world... [and who] does not fit into the common stereotype of fundamentalist, militant preacher".

While there is no shortage of political pundits and politicians urging Israel to engage in 'painful' dialogue with the Islamists of Hamas, there are far fewer who appear to factor into their analysis what the Hamas people say about dialoguing with Israel (hint: not exactly in favour) or what they tell their subjects about Jews, Israelis and Zionists.

Qardawi, a man of undoubted influence and standing, is the perfect address for examining the ideological underpinnings of the official Hamas rejection of anything connected with their accursed enemy. He's also an invaluable resource for confronting what Islamic Gazans think and say about their enemy.

Some of those Qaradawi statements and ideas:

• He has praised Hitler for what he led the Germans to do to Europe's Jews (video), saying: "Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them—even though they exaggerated this issue—he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers."
• He advocates the beating by a man of his wife (source): "Because of his natural ability and his responsibility for providing for his family, the man is the head of the house and of the family. He is entitled to the obedience and cooperation of his wife, and accordingly it is not permissible for her to rebel against his authority, causing disruption. Without a captain the ship of the household will flounder and sink." Detailed guidance on how to carry out the beatings is included.
• Concerning female genital mutilation, he disingenuously terms it circumcision and concedes that it is not "obligatory". But in his book, Modern Fatwas, he writes: "I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world. Anyone who thinks that circumcision is the best way to protect his daughters should do it." In case anyone thinks female circumcision bears some relationship to the male version, we point out that it involves the removal of part of the clitoris to reduce female interest in sex before marriage and encourage faithfulness afterwards.

Then there's the matter of the great man's teachings on Israel and the Jews and it's not an uplifting picture. A sampler:

• "There should be no dialogue with these people [Israelis] except with swords." [Based on an AP report from 1998]
• He means it. In the past two weeks, he has made multiple public pronouncements explaining why an interfaith conference held annually in Qatar is not for him. Inter­viewed by the Qatari Al-Arab news­pa­per on April 22, he said as clearly as a person can: “I decided to not par­tic­i­pate, so that I would not sit with the Jews on one plat­form..." He went a lot further (as this interview on Qatar Television on April 26, 2013 shows) crit­i­cizing all efforts to have interfaith dia­logue between Islam and other reli­gious groups since "they are useless" [source].
• Concerning murderous human-bomb attacks like the one that caused the death of our daughter Malki, he said: "They are not suicide operations…These are heroic martyrdom operations." [See "Islamic Debate Surrounds Mideast Suicide Bombers", Los Angeles Times, 2001] His definition stuck; the media are filled with the self-justifying reports from terror-apologists who have adopted his sickening quasi-theological terminology.
• He prayed that "Allah take this oppressive, Jewish Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one." It's an especially clear and explicit televised sermon from January 2009, translated to English courtesy of the invaluable MEMRI team. Ten minutes of dropping the mask and educating whoever is willing to look classical religion-based Jew hatred in the face.
• As for female suicide bombers, al-Qaradawi encourages such acts: "The martyr operations is the greatest of all sorts of Jihad in the Cause of Allah." [IslamOnline]

He paid a visit to Gaza this week and was not short of pronouncements. Some are reported by the Arab/Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, writing this morning ["Al-Qaradawi and the New Religious Conflict With Israel"] on the Gatestone Insitute site.

The high-profile visit is seen as a major victory for Hamas and its supporters and a severe blow for Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and his "moderate" Fatah faction. Al-Qaradawi... came to the Gaza Strip to urge Palestinians to continue the struggle against Israel... Al-Qaradawi's visit has further bolstered Hamas's standing, enabling it to tighten its grip over the 1.5 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. Moreover, the visit has granted legitimacy to Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip and turned it, in the Arab and Islamic countries, into an acceptable Islamic party... During his visit, al-Qaradawi also urged Palestinians not to give up one inch of land to non-Muslims. He also warned against making any concessions on the "right of return" of millions of Palestinians to their pre-1948 villages and towns inside Israel. "Palestine was never Jewish," the 86-year-old sheikh told Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. "Palestine has always been Arab and Islamic." [Gatestone Insitute]

His 50-person delegation from 14 different countries was received formally by Hamas 'prime minister' Ismail Haniyeh. The 'other' Palestinian goverment, the PA, had demanded that its supporters in Gaza boycott Al-Qaradawi's visit for internal Palestinian Arab political reasons. Still, thousands turned out and provided him with a regime-sanctioned  hero's welcome. His standing in Gaza is enhanced by his well-earned reputation for robust anti-Semitism and explicit encouragement of Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.

Qaradawi's visit doesn't change much, of course, in itself. But it may be a catalyst in helping reshape the perceptions of outsiders on strategic issues. To be clear: peace is utterly essential and inevitably depends on painful compromise. Making peace is not simple. Abu Toameh makes a point that those who are convinced they know the necessary conditions for peace, the believers in 'confidence-building steps', those convinced of the urgent need for Israel to 'take steps for peace' and to 'show it is serious about its peace efforts', might do well to internalize:

Al-Qaradawi's visit and statements also serve as a reminder that the Israeli-Arab conflict is centered, more than ever, around religion. The sheikh's message to the Palestinians and Muslims is that this is a religious conflict and not a political issue. This is an unequivocal message that stresses that no Muslim is entitled to give up Muslim-owned land to non-Muslims. As far as al-Qaradawi, Hamas and their followers are concerned, the conflict is not about a settlement or a checkpoint. Rather, it is about Israel's presence - its right to exist at all - in the Middle East.

In simpler terms, the 'occupation' that has so many of Israel's critics vexed is irrelevant to the seething, religion-based anger of those with terrorism on their feverish brains.