Liberman-Livni Parallel lines.

 

Liberman-Livni. Parallel lines.

I was invited to the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference in Herzlia on December 12, 2012.

It turned out to be a special moment in Israeli politics when straight-talking Avigdor Liberman, Israel’s Foreign Minister and smooth-talking Tzipi Livni converged in demanding that international diplomats and politicians get their perspectives right when approaching Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. Although each have differing positions on the Israeli political landscape, they united in criticizing the diplomatic world for their one-sided attitude that encourages rejectionism and extremism on the Palestinian side and unjustly isolates Israel.
There was no advance coordination of their message as Liberman left before Livni arrived.

Livni appealed to the attending diplomats that “it should be part of the understanding that a secure Israel is in the interest of the international community, and not just our own interest. While it is true that there is criticism over Israeli policy, this must be separated from the support of Israel as a state.”

She reminded that the wrong condemnation of IDF actions against Palestinian terror restricts our freedom of movement leading to disgraceful scenes where Israeli soldiers are ordered not to fire at rock-throwing mobs. She also criticized diplomats for not doing enough to bring the two sides back into negotiations and for not condemning Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

Avigdor Liberman was more scathing accusing the international community of duplicity. “When push comes to shove, many world leaders will be willing to sacrifice Israel without batting an eyelid in order to appease the radical Islamic terrorists and to ensure quiet for themselves.”

Expressing his disappointment at the European stance in supporting, or merely abstaining from, the Palestinian resolution at the UN for non-member status, he said, “My sense is that all the promises and commitments to Israel’s security is mere words. Despite clear announcements by Hamas leaders that they will never accept or respect any agreement with Israel and their intention to destroy Israel, the Europeans decided to place pressure only on our side.”

Liberman reminded the audience of past European commitments to protect Czechoslovakia in 1938 and the pressure put on the Czech government to partition Sudetenland. After all the promises and guarantees that were provided, Nazi Germany occupied all of Czechoslovakia bringing an end to its existence at that time.

“We are not willing to become a second Czechoslovakia,” Liberman told the diplomats. “We are not willing to compromise Israel’s vital national interests.” Reflecting on the diplomatic attitude towards Israel he closed by quoting Winston Churchill when he said at the outbreak of World War Two, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you got war.”

I have long made an issue of the situation in which a future Palestinian state will fall into the hands of Hamas. Until this conference I have never heard a prominent Israeli politician express the danger to the international community.  Liberman voiced his strong opposition to Israel returning to 1967 lines. He warned that Judea & Samaria would be placed in a similar situation to that of “Hamastan” in Gaza. “What happens the next day?” he asked rhetorically.

 

My disappointment was that he did not go on and portray, for the attending diplomats and journalists, the danger to towns in central Israel of having a Hamas Palestine bordered on Kfar Saba, Kfar Yona, and overlooking Ben Gurion Airport and our main national highways. It is the height of dangerous naivety to ignore, or push aside, such threatening scenarios.

 Barry Shaw,

Author of ‘ISRAEL RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE’.

www.israelnarrative.com

 

 

God works in mysterious ways.

God works in mysterious ways.

Israel, the Palestinians, and Manchester City.

 

She, who must be obeyed, said to me the other day.

“He doesn’t want us to give land to the Palestinians. Have you noticed?”

I knew who she was referring to. He - with a capital “H”.  I was distracted. I was too busy watching Manchester City chase a two goal deficit on the telly, as they have been wont to do this season.

I don’t know what had gotten into her. She wasn’t watching the TV. I was doing that. She wasn’t reading the newspaper. I had trashed it after failing to complete the Sudoku.  She had been brooding into space before she had disturbed by soccer frustration.

“God doesn’t want us to give our land to the Palestinians. Haven’t you noticed the signs he sent us?”

“No,” I replied, not really wanting to follow her train of thought. I was more interested in having Him throw His mercy on the team in blue.

“Rabin agrees a deal with Arafat and, out of the blue, he gets killed by an assassin. Then Arik Sharon forces thousands of Jews out of their homes in the Gaza Strip and, puff!, he suddenly gets a stroke. Not an ordinary stroke, one that leaves him in a coma but alive. It’s almost as if God wanted to preserve him as a warning to others.”

“That’s a cruel thing to say,“  I protested, watching yet another futile attempt at goal by Balotelli.

“Maybe,” she concedes, “But you have to admit it’s strange. Why them? You have to admit the timing is strange. It must be for a reason. And what about Olmert?”  She was referring to Ehud, another Israeli Prime Minister.

“What about him?”  Why did I ask. I should have known better. She was in full flow.

“He chased after Abbas,” the Palestinian leader, “to close a deal with the Palestinians, even though Abbas jerked around like a stuck pig because he didn’t really want one, and then suddenly he had to resign to spend years chasing after criminal charges that proved nothing against him. Don’t you find that strange? It’s more than a coincidence. God is trying to tell us something.”

By now I was doing my impression of a goldfish out of water.

“So what about Barak?” I asked referring to another Ehud. “Nobody put a hand on him and he wanted to give Arafat the kitchen sink.” I gloated, sensing victory, which was more than City was doing.

“Him?” she answered scathingly. “He’s Israel’s Mister Bean. Nobody takes him seriously. Not even God!”

That remark, and City’s lethargic play, stunned me into silence. Then she turned the attack onto me. If only City were that aggressive.

“You remember how you said that God was on our side when nobody got killed by all the Scud missiles that Saddam Hussein launched at us from Iraq, and how He kept us safe from all the Hezbollah rockets, and how CNN and BBC are so upset that so few Israelis were killed by a thousand Hamas rockets from Gaza…” 

She was in full flow and, you know what, she began to make sense.

As if to prove it, Tevez blasted in a goal for City. It was a sign from above, surely?

“It’s supernatural what Israel has withstood. It’s not normal how Israel rose out of the ashes of Auschwitz. The whole thing feels like the hand of God.”

“Well,” I volunteered, “if the Arabs want to attack us in the name of Allah, it’s good to know that He is active in our defense.” 

There I go again with my footballing metaphors, watching City block an Arsenal attack out of the corner of my eye.

She looked at me as if I was a moron. I tried to appease her. I am not a religious Jew, but I am a believer. One of the things that makes’ me a believer is that, despite our blundering politicians, we Israelis feel safe and confident in the future even as we are increasingly surrounded by life-threatening enemies. There has to be a divine hand that is protecting us.

Then another miracle happened. With seconds left on the clock, a long pass fell at the feet of Dzecho, a lanky misfit of a player, caught it on the bounce and smashed it into the top right corner of the net.

God does work in mysterious ways.

Barry Shaw is the author of “Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.”

Miraculously available on Amazon, Alibris, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository UK websites, from good Steimatzy bookstores, and from the author himself at www.israelnarrative.com

Get ready to answer the condemnation of Israel by EU ministers.

Get ready for the blanket condemnation of Israel by EU ministers against Israeli notification of the lodging of plans to build homes in Jerusalem and Maale Adumim areas.

 Here are some of the facts that fly in the face of their condemnation and shouts of "illegality."

 1. The E1 area is 12 sq.kilometres adjacent to Maale Adumim, home of 40,000 Jewish inhabitants located just 4 miles from Jerusalem. Maale Adumim will remain within the boundaries of Israel in any future peace agreement.

 2. This fact was reaffirmed by every leading Israeli politician including Rabin, Peres, Barak, Yosi Beilin, Olmert, and Livni.

 3. At the outset of the Oslo Accords, and as a clear understanding of the future framework of the Road Map approved by the EU, Yizchak Rabin provided the mayor of Maale Adumim with annexation documents for E1 as this, in no way, breached the Oslo Accords.

4. As quid pro quo for Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2004, the Bush administration agreed to take into account the demographic changes caused by the Gaza residents being dislodged from their homes in Gaza to live in the E1 area in existing Jewish settlements like Maale Adumim.

 5. There is no truth in the rumour that building in E1 would prevent contiguity to a future Palestinian state.

 

6. The Jerusalem areas including in the E1 planning permit are within the legal boundaries of Jerusalem Municipality.

 6. For more than a decade, Israel deferred to international requests to delay planning and construction in E1 to appease the Palestinians. During that period the PA refused peace offers, refused to neogtiate with the current Israeli Prime Minister, incited hatred against Israel, perpetrated an intense rocket attack on Israeli civilians, and in breach of all signed agreements sidestepped israel to demand improved status at the UN.

 7. The European Union abrogated their responsibilities to the Oslo agreement by not condmening the Palestinian move at the UN. In fact, most of them actually voted with the Palestinian in defiance of their obligations according to the Interim Agreement of Oslo.

 8. The EU ministers did not condemn the violently anti-Israel Palestinian declaration coming out of Gaza and Ramallah that calls for an end to the Jewish state. They did not meet to condemn the deadly Palestinian attacks against Israel. It decided only to condemn Israeli building in areas already agreed to be integral parts of Israel, and call it "illegal."

 9. None of the land included in the E1 planning belongs to Palestinians.

Delivering weapons to terrorists for a good cause is never a good idea.

What was US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, doing in Benghazi without adequate security that led to his murder? What was so important that caused him travel from Tripoli to insecure Benghazi on 9/11? 

There is speculation that he was in Benghazi to arrange the transportation of weapons from post-Gaddafi, crisis-stricken, and unruly, Libya to war-torn Syria. The altruistic reasoning behind the transfer of weapons is to make Libya more stable by denuding it of its weapon stockpile while helping the Syrian rebels overturn the Assad regime. 

Catherine Herridge of Fox News, researching shipping records, confirmed that a Libyan ship, the ‘Al Entisar,’ sailed from Libya and entered the Turkish port of Iskenderun, thirty five miles from the Syrian border, on September 6. This was just five days before Stevens was killed.

On 9/11, Stevens’ last official duty was a meeting with Ali Sait Akin, the Turkish Consul-General, at the US Consulate. This was the main reason for the Ambassador’s visit to Benghazi.

At the end of his meeting, he escorted his Turkish guest to the gates of the compound. This was one hour before the start of the terror attack that left him and three other Americans dead. 

Retired Admiral and former head of the Pacific Fleet, James Lyons, claims that “one of Stevens’ main missions in Libya was to facilitate the transfer of much of Gaddafi’s military equipment, including the deadly SA7 portable SAMS (hand-held anti-aircraft missiles) to Islamists and other Al-Qaeda affiliated groups fighting the Assad regime in Syria.”

Former CIA Director, Porter Goss, told Fox News that there was no question that some of the weapons that flooded Libya during the uprising are making their way to Syria and that the CIA knows about it.

A former CIA officer and now Senior fellow at the center of Security Policy, Clare Lopez, claims that two large warehouse-type buildings linked to the US Consulate in Benghazi were raided during the 9/11 terror attack and they may have contained weapons.

All this was confirmed by the New York Times who reported on October 14 that “most of the arms shipped to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Basher Assad are going to hardline Islamist jihadists and not to the more secular opposition groups that the West want to bolster.” 

Is the Obama Administration engaged in gun-running between Libya and Syria? Somehow, America’s and Israel’s enemies are being strengthened with a huge arsenal that may be used against us in the future.

With this is mind, is it not time to question and investigate a dangerous covert policy that puts us in jeopardy? 

Although the State Department denies that Stevens was involved in weapon transfers we are reminded that Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced in November 2011, in Tripoli, that the US was committing $40 million “to help Libya secure and recover its weapons stockpiles.”

Surely it is time to ask for a progress report and the official records of this mission to date? What weapons have been recovered, and where are they now? Are they securely in American hands? Or have they been shipped to dangerous extremists in Syria? 

A shady character by the name of Abdelhakim Belhadj, a tribal war-lord, is the leader of the Al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. He has been linked to weapons shipments. What was his involvement in the Al Entisar shipment? Who does he know in the Obama Administration? What are his connections with those fighting the Assad regime in Syria? Qatar is the prime funders of this weapon transfer. Some of that money goes to Belhadj. 

Relating to the September 5 ‘Al Entisar’ shipment, the Times of London reported that the ship carried 400 tons of cargo that included the largest consignment of weapons to Syrian rebels. The inventory included surface to air anti-aircraft missiles.

Apparently there was an angry exchange between the Free Syrian Army and the Muslim Brotherhood over who got the weapons. It is evident that anti-Assad fighters now possess anti-aircraft missiles. The question is, who has them? A Syrian helicopter was shown on TV worldwide being shot down by such a missile on October 17.  

The supply of weapons from Libya to Syria via Turkey links neatly into the new geo-political map. The close relationship between America and Turkey, forged in the last four years has done no favors for Israel.

An Israeli warship was prevented from participating in a NATO joint naval exercise due to Turkey’s insistence. Israel was disinvited to a NATO Summit in Chicago in May 2012. Erdogan objected to Israel participating in an international counter-terror conference. As ‘The Algemeiner’ reported on July 15, 2012, “The US was so concerned about offending Turkey that Under-Secretary of State, Maria Otero, did not invite Israel to be among the countries that have been victims to terror attacks.”. Obama has done little to stop Turkey pursuing provocative legal steps against Israel about the Mavi Marmara incident in which people linked to the Turkish terror group IHH attacked Israeli soldiers with clubs and knives leading to an on-board battle that left nine dead. Istanbul has now opened a show trial against leading IDF officers in abstentia. 

It is unlikely that America did not know about the weapon shipment on the ‘Al Entisar’. Was Stevens killed while coordinating yet another shipment with his Turkish counterpart in Benghazi? And was he killed by Libyan terrorists because he was depriving them of their weapon supplies? 

A covert understanding between America and Turkey to facilitate the transport of sophisticated military hardware to Syrian rebels, that include Islamist jihadi terrorists, opens a Pandora’s box of dangers and implications for Israel and for America. How does Israel cope with lethal weapons and terrorist insurgents over our eastern border, armed with military hardware shipped from Libya? What power and freedom of action will these dangerous characters enjoy if Assad is overthrown and yet another Islamic regime takes over Syria?  The idea of our planes and helicopters coming into the sights of a jihadi terrorist with an SA7 is frightening.

Even worse, what if one or more of these deadly weapons were smuggled into the West Bank overlooking Ben-Gurion Airport in central Israel? Which airline would fly to Israel tomorrow if a terrorist downs a British Airways flight over Israel’s international airport today? 

Then came the news that the most lethal and effective anti-Assad fighting force in Syria is the Nusra Front, which is a direct offshoot of Al-Qaida in Iraq.  Al-Qaeda, its affiliates, Islamic terror groups, and jihadists are proven enemies of Israel and America. Providing them, directly or indirectly, with deadly weapons that may be used to kill Israelis and Americans is surely a dangerous ploy. However much the international community wants to see the end of the brutal Assad regime in Syria, it would be foolhardy to allow trained anti-West Islamic terrorists to be the recipients of sophisticated weapons. The cause may be just, but the execution could be fatal later.

We see Libya disintegrated into lawlessness with no central government and with heavily armed gangs controlling large parts of that country. The Syrian war will surely fracture any cohesiveness in that country as power goes to those with the heaviest military capability.

If the outcome of the laughingly named “Arab Spring” has proven anything it is that a secular Syria will be replaced with a radical Islamic faction, and this will add to the instability of the region leaving Israel prone to attack from the east. 

The American disposition for arming dubious groups is nothing new. President Reagan supplied arms to Iran. The altruistic reasoning behind that wrong move was an attempt to obtain the release of fifty two Americans held hostage in Tehran in November 1979. This was a covert operation. Reagan denied his arms dealing with the Ayatollahs, but was forced to admit it when the evidence became overwhelming.

A plane crash in Nicaragua revealed America’s covert arming and training of the Contras in that country. This brutal group conducted grotesque terror and massacre against civilians.

These two covert activities cut Reagan’s image to shreds. After Oliver North became the fall guy, Reagan was forced to apologize for what became known as the Irangate Affair. 

Rumors swirled about the CIA covert links to Osama Bin Laden in order to push Russia out of Afghanistan. A simple search on Wikipedia reveals US involvement with Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Mujahedeen. 

Seymour Hersh exposed in the New York Times of January 26, 1992, that “The Reagan Administration secretly decided to provide highly classified intelligence to Iraq in the spring of 1982 -- more than two years earlier than previously disclosed -- while also permitting the sale of American-made arms to Baghdad in a successful effort to help President Saddam Hussein avert imminent defeat in the war with Iran, former intelligence and State Department officials say.” 

More recent exposure was given by Daily Mail journalist, William Lowther, who in his November 6, 2012 article headlined “Rumsfeld ‘helped Iraq get chemical weapons.’” In his article he tells how US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, as envoy for President Reagan, made it possible for Sadaam Hussein to buy supplies, including anthrax and bubonic plague, from American firms. The extraordinary details have come to light because thousands of State Department documents dealing with the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war have just been declassified and released under the Freedom of Information Act.  It has long been suspected that the reason Jonathan Pollard is languishing in isolation in an American jail is because he provided Israel with sensitive information relating to the covert WMD deal with Iraq.

It remains to be seen who supplied weapons to the terrorists that killed the four Americans in Benghazi. One thing is for sure. Throwing weapons at unlawful people in the chaotic background of civil war, or regime change, is a risky form of altruism. It is naïve give your enemy weapons because you want to remove a tyrant. In the hostile Middle East the motto is “the enemy of my enemy is my enemy” and not the mistaken version so prevalent elsewhere. When you have a brawl between the Boston Strangler and Jack the Ripper it’s best not to take sides. The weapon you provide to one of the violent actors may be used against you one day. 

Lessons, it seems, have not been learned. Those involved in the weapons trade between Libya and Syria needs to give full disclosure. Its control must be strictly enforced. The risks are simply too great to let the chips fall where they may. They may have fallen on America in Benghazi. They may yet fall on Israel. 

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com

He is also the Special Consultant on Delegitimization Issues to The Strategic Dialogue Center at the Netanya Academic College.

Destroying Israel in stages.

I am writing an article about the Palestinian plan to destroy Israel in stages.
It is written up in the Palestinian National Council Charter.

Part of my research dug up this 2005 sermon by a leading Palestinian cleric.
It will be part of my evidence of their intentions for Israel.

Please read and distribute, especially to those who think that if only Israel would withdraw to 1967 lines everything will be lovely and peaceful.
Please delude them of their wishful thinking with a dose of reality.

Palestinian goal: Destroy Israel in stages;
Ibrahim Mudayris, Official, PA Ministry of Religious Trusts and Religious Affairs: 

 "We might return to the 1967 borders by diplomacy, but we shall not return to the 1948 borders [i.e. eliminate Israel] by diplomacy. The 1948 borders- no one on earth recognizes as ours. Therefore we shall return to the 1967 borders, but we have not given up on [Israeli cities] Jerusalem and Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramle and Tel Aviv. Never. Your father's blood was shed here, at the villages, at Ashqelon, Ashdod, Hirbia [all in Israel] and hundreds of villages and towns that demand it from us. [Their blood] shall curse anyone who will concede a grain of earth of those villages. The land of Palestine will demand the Palestinians return as Muhammad returned- as a conqueror." 

This remains the Palestinian goal by both Hamas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. Everything they can can be seen through this perspective.

(Attribution to PMW Org for the above quote. You can see the actual video of this cleric on their website.)

ABBAS AT THE UN.

Mahmoud Abbas refuses to acknowledge Israel as the Jewish state since that would recognize Israel’s rights to the Land of Israel. He has repeatedly said, “I will never accept the Jewish state of Israel. Not in a thousand years.”

Jewish links to the Land of Israel are constantly denied. He asserts that Israel has no historical attachment to Jerusalem and the Western Wall as the remnants of the Temple.

In his 2011 New York Times article he admitted that his quest for UN membership for Palestine was for lawfare. “Palestine’s admission to the UN would pave the way for the internationalizing of the conflict as a legal matter, not only as a political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the UN’s human rights treaty bodies and the International Criminal Court.”

Abbas has not disassociated himself from the “right of return” for Palestinians. This “right” is a code word for annihilating the Jewish state. As Nasser said in 1961, “If the refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist.”

He complains that Palestinians have suffered “under occupation for 63 years”. That is since Israel’s creation, not 1967. This confirms that he is not for a Palestinian state alongside Israel but that Israel’s very existence represents “occupation” for him. That is the root of his strategy.

He has failed to retract his doctoral thesis completed at Moscow University, which is devoted to Holocaust denial. He has never apologized to the Jewish people for his gross distortion of the historical record.

He, and the Palestinian Authority that he leads, have regularly glorified terrorists, including suicide bombers, who have murdered and maimed hundreds of Israeli men, women, and children.

It is worth remembering that Mahmoud Abbas only represents the Palestinian Arabs symbolically by virtue of his title as President of the Palestinian Authority. He does not represent Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian Salafists, and other disparate groups. Recently, his Fatah party lost out heavily in local West Bank elections when they lost every major city to opposition candidates.

In short, the UN vote in favor of granting non-member status was predicated on its presentation by an anti-Semite, with blood on his hands, bent on eliminating the Jewish State of Israel, and who barely represents a minority of Palestinian Arabs.

 

The Death of Arafat.

The Death of Arafat by Barry Shaw.

They decided to dig up Yasser Arafat’s decaying body in Ramallah. Rotten in life, now

rotten in death.

Arafat was often heard proclaiming “I want to be a shahid!” Now, belatedly, they want to ‘prove’ that he died as a holy martyr.  Why not? According to their crazy narrative the Jews killed Jesus. They also believe that the Jews poisoned Mohammed. So why not Arafat. 

Earlier in the year Yasser Arafat’s widow, Suha Arafat, asked for her husband’s body to be exhumed after a laboratory said it had found traces of polonium in his clothing.  Mrs. Arafat claims her husband was poisoned.

Arafat’s relatives believe that Israel poisoned Arafat. His nephew opposed having Arafat’s tomb “opened up and desecrated” because “he already knows the real truth.” That is, he says, that Israel killed Arafat.

Surely that evidence would have been recorded in the medical report from the French hospital that treated Arafat up to his death.  Arafat died on November 11, 2004, in a French military hospital, where the doctors never gave a concrete explanation for his death.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon considered Arafat a terrorist and an obstacle to peace. In 2002, Sharon told the Israeli newspaper Maariv that he regretted not "eliminating" Arafat in 1982, during the Lebanese war. Arafat's death would have “saved many lives,” Sharon said, "but we had a commitment" not to harm him, "and commitments must be honored." He went on to say that "we have no intention of harming Arafat personally."

Despite this, in September 2003, Ehud Olmert, then Sharon's vice prime minister, said of Arafat that "killing him is definitely one of the options. We are trying to eliminate all the heads of terror and Arafat is one of the heads of terror."

Under American pressure, Sharon agreed to isolate Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters after the Israeli military operation to retake control of the West Bank in the spring of 2002.

Sharon’s biographer, Uri Dan, recounted Sharon informing President George W.Bush, on April 14, 2004, that he no longer felt bound by his promise not to harm Arafat.

"President Bush replied that it would perhaps be best to leave Arafat's fate in the hands of the Almighty,” Dan  added, “Sharon said that one should sometimes help Him."

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Sharon, denies the rumor by pointing out that Sharon offered Arafat any help necessary including allowing doctors to visit him and letting him seek medical care abroad.

During the three years leading up to his death, Arafat’s Jordanian doctor, Dr. Tirawi, met Arafat on an almost daily basis.

"I saw very clearly how things got increasingly worse with him," he says. "At first, he had spots on his face. Then, he was constantly throwing up, he lost weight, and the skin on his feet dissolved so that he could only wear sandals."

Then he gave a non-professional, unproven, medical diagnosis, "We were always certain that the Israelis had poisoned Arafat." 

Since his death, top Palestinian Authority officials never made any real effort to solve the cause of his death. Their first investigative commission was dissolved six months after Arafat's death and was only reappointed in 2010. In fact, they were complicit in not undergoing essential tests at the time of his death.  Suha Arafat refused to allow a liver biopsy to be taken.  She also prevented an autopsy at the time of his death.

What was in the detailed medical report that the doctors at the French hospital gave to Arafat’s nephew, Nasser al-Kidwa, and why did he oppose the exhumation of Arafat’s body?  Maybe he knows something?  He took until late 2011 before saying, “We shall not tire of demanding to receive an answer concerning the martyrdom-death of our commander, who was poisoned by Israel. We are convinced of this, but we want proof, and we want to submit the murderers and criminals to justice."  Yet, he is holding the secret French medical report. 

The French clinic released a 558 page report. Neither Suha Arafat nor al-Kidwa published the contents of this report.  

Arafat spent the last days of his miserable life holed up in deteriorating conditions in his bombed-out headquarters in Ramallah, isolated and made impotent by Israel’s political and military leadership backed by America. He was no longer the lethal threat to Israel. 

The Times of Israel reported a radioactivity specialist, who worked at the Paris hospital in which Arafat died, saying that it was impossible for Arafat to have been poisoned. The specialist, Dr. Roland Masse, said that if Arafat had been the victim of polonium poisoning, as some have suggested, the symptoms would have been “impossible to miss.” He said that levels of polonium high enough to be lethal could “not go unnoticed.”

As for the actual cause of death, initial reports said that Arafat had died of a stroke. However, many questioned the report and rumors abounded. Many Palestinians said Israel was behind the death, while others suggested that Arafat had HIV. Indeed, according to Haaretz, Arafat’s Jordanian doctor Dr. Ashraf Kurdi told Al Jazeera that doctors had discovered “HIV anti-bodies in Arafat’s blood.”

Ahmad Jibril, head of the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command) told Al-Manar TV (Hezbollah) that at a meeting with PA Chairman Abbas, he was told by one of the delegation that the French medical report concluded that Arafat died of AIDS:

"When Mahmoud Abbas came to Damascus, I asked: ‘What was found in the inquiry of the death of brother Arafat?’ One of the delegation said: ‘Frankly, the French gave us the medical report, and the cause of Arafat's death was AIDS.’" 

Perhaps Mahmoud Abbas should be interrogated over the death of Arafat, if the Palestinians really want to get at the truth.

 

John Loftus, author and intelligence expert, said on a WABC  radio show on October 26, 2007, before Arafat's death,  that it was widely known in CIA circles that Arafat was dying from AIDS and this was the reason that the US prevented Israel from killing Arafat so as to allow him to be discredited by his ailment.

Hospital documents detailing Arafat’s treatment that appear to reject the theory he was poisoned by polonium. The report revealed Arafat first fell ill on October 12, 2004 suffering from “nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain”. He was admitted to hospital 17 days later before falling into a coma on November 3. He was pronounced dead eight days later.

A specialist in medical toxicology who wished to remain anonymous told FRANCE 24 that the findings in the hospital report were not consistent with polonium poisoning.  “Most poisonings would have had a faster effect on the target and the deterioration would not have stretched out over several weeks,” he said.

Dr Philippe Hantson, a toxicologist at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, declared “If you want to stick to the theory he was poisoned then you should be looking at metal poisoning, possibly by arsenic or lead, which take effect over a longer period,” He told FRANCE 24 that traces of poisonous metals should have been easily detectable in any blood tests carried out on the patient.

Findings argue strongly against poisoning. The French doctors sent specimens to three laboratories for standard toxicology tests to detect metals and drugs like barbiturates, opiates and amphetamines. None was detected. 

The records make no mention of an AIDS test. Many experts find this negligent,  granted the suspicions surrounding Arafat.  An Israeli infectious disease specialist said he would have performed the test, which is now standard, if only to be thorough and to refute the rumors that surrounded the case.

Arafat's final illness began suddenly when he vomited and had abdominal pain and watery diarrhea hours after his supper in his compound in Ramallah, where the Israelis had kept him isolated for three years. These symptoms, including a constant urge to defecate, but without fever, continued for two weeks. He became dizzy and lost three kilos in weight.

He was treated for thrombocytopenia, an abnormally low platelet count, with transfusions of platelets and injections of gamma globulin. The Ramallah doctors apparently did not realize that he was experiencing the bleeding disorder DIC which was not treated and may have led to his death. According to the French records, the doctors at the hospital did detect this bleeding disorder.

The experts said that Arafat did not suffer the extensive kidney and liver damage they would expect from a poison, although he did have jaundice.

He did improve for a time in the French hospital, talking and walking with members of his entourage. Then he slipped into a coma on Nov. 3, when he was transferred to intensive care from the hematology service. This behavior seems to contradict the idea of poisoning.

Arafat had an infection that seemed to start a prolonged, irreversible, bleeding disorder. The consultants, like the French doctors, could not determine where in the bowel the infection was located and what microbes caused it.

During his medical care in Ramallah before he went to France, four Egyptian doctors came to treat him, as did five doctors from Tunis. They failed to recognize that he had DIC and did not start prescribing antibiotics quickly enough.

The Ramallah doctors initially thought he had flu. His own physician, Dr. Ashraf al-Kurdi, Arafat's private physician for 18 years until his death, did not visit Ramallah until Oct. 28, the day before Arafat was evacuated to Paris. The consultant also said that prescribing heparin for Arafat's disseminated intravascular coagulation probably hastened a death that it was inevitable by this stage.

Without the benefit of an autopsy, Kurdi refused the invitation of the Palestinian Authority to be part of a committee to investigate Arafat’s death.

 Suha Arafat claims Polonium poisoning.  A Swiss laboratory verified that the items provided by her belonged to Arafat but its spokesman, Darcy Christen, significantly concluded that, "We have never said there was Polonium poisoning. Yes, we found Polonium 210 in more elevated levels than what one might have expected, but the clinical description of Chairman Arafat's symptoms prior to his death is not compatible with Polonium poisoning."

Ely Karmon, of IDC Herzlia, suggested that someone planted the polonium that has led to the current investigation. 

“The half-life of the substance would make it impossible for polonium to have been discovered at such high levels if it had been used to kill Arafat eight years ago.  If it had been used for poisoning, minimal levels should be seen now. Yet much higher levels were found. Someone planted the polonium much later.”

A Jordanian media outlet quoted Dr. al-Kurdi as saying that the HIV virus had been injected into Arafat's bloodstream close to his death.  Now Suha Arafat claims he was poisoned by Polonium.

If he was poisoned at all it leads us to ask who had close personal access to an isolated but protected Arafat in bombed-out Mukata in Ramallah?  Israel?  The Palestinian leadership?  Suha Arafat?  

Common sense points to the latter two options, if indeed he was poisoned.

Palestinian leaders were unable to grab power as long as an ailing Arafat clung to life. Mrs. Arafat couldn’t get her hands on her husband’s stash until he shuffled off his mortal coil.

It’s as easy as playing Cluedo, really. First go for the obvious candidates with easy, even intimate, access to the victim. It’s much more palatable than the concocted theories of secret Israelis somehow making their way past a phalanx of security, bodyguards,  and personal attendants to get at the ineffective Arafat.

Another factor is the total lack of whisper, innuendo, or gossip that always leak from Israeli security and intelligence sources after decades of silence. If Israel had been involved there would have been a whiff of something by now.

Yigal Palmor, spokesman of Israel's foreign ministry said, "The truth is that Arafat did not die due to Polonium. He died from an overdose of Palestinium."

I think it will all end on a mundane note. Evidence will probably show that Arafat’s death can be put down to medical incompetence rather than to Israeli meddling or intrigue.

 

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com

He is the Special Consultant on Delegitimization Issues to The Strategic Dialogue Center at the Netanya Academic College.

The sad story of a child in conflict.

The sad story of a dead child in conflict by Barry Shaw.

 

Have a look at this distressing picture. It portrays a small dead child being carried by Hamas leader, Ismael Haniah, and kissed by the Egyptian Foreign Minister Kandil, in Gaza.

The media, in their rush to judgment, claimed that the child, Mahmoud Sadhala, was killed by an Israeli air strike near his family home. CNN carried a video of the child being carried into the hospital where Haniah and his Egyptian guest were visiting. CNN reporter, Sara Sidner, visited the child’s family home and interviewed the parents. She pointed out the property damage, and spoke repeatedly about planes and air strikes.

But there is one thing wrong with this image. The child was not killed by an Israeli air strike. Mahmoud Sadhala was killed by an errant Hamas rocket.

There have been at least seventy Hamas rockets that have fallen within the Gaza Strip, according to the IDF tracking teams, during the crazed Palestinian rocket frenzy on Israeli civilians. Some of them were badly aimed or faultily constructed causing Palestinian civilian casualties and death. Mahmoud Sadhala was one such victim.

Neighbours say that about 9.45 a.m., an explosion hit the doorway of a house killing 20 year old,  Aidan Abu Wahdah, and 4 year old Mahmoud. They said the explosion wasn’t powerful enough to have been from an Israeli war plane. It needs to be added that Israel refrained from air strikes during the period that the Egyptian Foreign Minister was visiting Gaza. This was the period that Mahmoud was killed. Hamas and other terror groups did continue their rocket attacks on Israel. The shrapnel damage that was filmed before Hamas security officials mysteriously took the pieces away was identical to the shrapnel damage of Hamas rockets fired into Israel.

The Telegraph newspaper confirmed that the child had been killed by a Hamas rocket;

“There were signs on Saturday that not all the Palestinian casualties have been the result of Israeli air strikes. The highly publicised death of four-year-old Mohammed Sadallah appeared to have been the result of a misfiring home-made rocket, not a bomb dropped by Israel.”

Undoubtedly civilians on both sides suffer terribly in war, but Israel has been forced to fight a war not of its choosing but in response to incessant rocket strikes from Gaza that left little Mahmoud Sadhala as one of its sad victims. He should not have been used as a propaganda ploy by those responsible for his death.

Operation Pillar of Defense. What next?

With a call up of 75,000 reservists and thousands of troops, tanks, armoured vehicles, waiting to enter Gaza, the question is what next?

Following three days of Israel’s response to the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel the early assessment is that Hamas has suffered an embarrassing beating up to this point, both militarily and diplomatically.

Sounds of depression and disappointment are coming out of Gaza. Their depression is also over the fact that Israel is hitting their targets massively, with ease, and with significant effect. Up to now, Israel is achieving these results without the massive loss of life that would bring sympathy from the international community and pressure on Israel to desist.

Hamas requested that Egypt tear up its peace agreement with Israel and open the Rafah border crossing. Despite the anti-Israel bluster, and moral support for Hamas, President Morsi of Egypt did none of these things. He is under enormous pressure from the Obama Administration not to step over the line. The threat is the withholding of billions of dollars in American aid.

The Hamas rocket barrage failed to inflict heavy loss of life on Israel, or cause a break in the resolve of the residents of southern Israel. On their side, they have suffered a loss of face and a huge amount of damage to their infrastructure and terror leadership, including the total destruction of their government offices and facilities, the degrading of their long range missiles, and the identification and destruction of their drone development project.

The people of Gaza, subject to proud boasts from Hamas leaders that they will destroy ‘the Zionist entity’, now witness the impotence of their words. They see instead a leadership that keeps them prisoner in Gaza by their vacuous ambitions to defeat Israel.  This latest rocket campaign has rebounded on Hamas and has cost them dearly in prestige and image.

In the military, as in business, it is always vital to have an exit strategy at hand. Israel entered into Operation Pillar of Defense to bring peace and quiet to the citizens of southern, and now central, Israel. Nothing more. They did not start the campaign with a strategy to destroy and remove Hamas, or to re-occupy Gaza.  Clearly Israel has the upper hand. With troops poised to enter the Gaza Strip perhaps this is the time for Israel to employ that exit strategy.

It should tell Hamas to immediately stop all further rocket fire or face the consequences. This enables Hamas to also use it as their exit strategy. Hamas is aware of the Israeli troop build-up across its border and should be gravely concerned. With the obvious and growing military presence, Israel can tell Hamas that, if they do not stop all further violent acts, what happened to them up to now is nothing compared to what will fall on them as a result of their ongoing crimes against the citizens of Israel. 

Should they continue their missile assaults against the Jewish State the Israeli government can decide to change the aims of the operation to remove Hamas from power and replace him with the Palestinian Authority to rule over Gaza.  It’s better for Israel to have the PA as a buffer between them and Islamic Egypt than Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Tighten your safety belts, Israel!

“Tighten your safety belts, Israel! We’re in for another four years of Obama.”

Americans apparently overlooked four years of economic waste, and a failed foreign policy of sucking up to the Muslim world, by re-electing their president.  What now?

Israeli people in the know predict that Obama will shortly reveal an agreement with Iran that will position Tehran stopping their uranium enrichment program in return for easing of sanctions.  Incredibly, Obama will launch it as a success story while Israel will present it as a fair story. Obama will want to put Iran out of reach for the world so as to enable him to take a harder line on his Socialist plan for America and to progress his global vision of leveling the playing field for a better world, which implies weakening America further, economically and militarily. As almost immediate proof of this, expect to see swinging defense cuts, including sizeable unemployment, in the early part of 2013.  In fact, we will be hearing of unemployment soaring over the 8% mark again as early as February 2013 in America. Their national debt will grow accordingly.

All this will embolden a growing Islamic world that will be stupefied to see America give their leader another mandate to continue his apology policy towards them. A new Obama Administration, pleading with the Muslim world “to be nice, please, because we don’t hate you,” is not going to cut it in this violent and crazy neck of the woods. They consider him weak and will view America in decline.

There is no way that Obama is going to change his personal animosity towards Israel’s Prime Minister. Benjamin Netanyahu is fully expected to win the January Israeli elections with a bloc linked to Israeli Beitenu. He is expected to cobble together a center-right government together with Shas, the Sephardi religious party, the new Yair Lapid party of Yesh Atid (There is a Future), another national religious party and, perhaps, the remnants of what will be left of the centrist Kadema party. If Obama continues to express views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict that did nothing to ease the parties into talks, as he repeatedly did during his first four years, this issue will be log-jammed for the foreseeable future. It was Obama blurting out pre-conditions to Israel on completely stopping “settlement activity” and withdrawing to 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, instead of encouraging the parties back into the negotiating room, that encouraged Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to climb further up the tree of rejectionism, a tree that he has been unable to climb out of. “Why should I be less Palestinian than the man in the White House,” he has repeatedly said. In fact, the previous Obama Administration did nothing to pressure or cajole the Palestinian leadership to stop their intransigence and incitement against Israel and get back to the table. As a result, they now see an adamant Abbas turning again defying America and going to the United Nations for non-member statehood stat (whatever that means), and a divided Palestinian society with the Hamas wing maintaining their violent hardline not only against Israel but also against the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. Obama can blame Bibi if he wishes, but he is guilty of a lion share of the blame for failing to progress the peace process. At least under Bush the two sides were talking to each other.

It is clear that Obama 2 will be too busy tackling the US economy, trying to progress Obamacare, and leading from behind internationally, to give too much attention to Israel and the Palestinians. He is in enough difficulties in the rest of the Middle East to burn his fingers sorting out this problem. This leaves Israel more isolated than before. True, are being backed militarily but look closely at what we are getting. The budget will be primarily for defensive anti-rocket hardware. Expect future restrictions on our attack capabilities. In other words, it will be a policy of providing us with the umbrella to protect ourselves from incoming missiles while leaving us limited in our long distance strike options. Israel will not put their faith in the Ayatollahs no matter what agreement Obama signs with Iran. Ahmadinajad will be replaced by another puppet of the religious leaders in 2013. The West may project him as a moderate, compared with the outgoing president. The new guy may talk less publicly about wiping Israel off the map, but the ones pulling the strings will still be there, behind the scenes, plotting the fate of the Zionist entity.  Israel will be further encircled with an alien enemy. Assad’s Syria will fall. It will not be replaced by a pragmatic secular government. Can anyone predict who will be ruling Jordan by the end of 2013? In fact, what will be the fate of unpopular and aging Mahmoud Abbas in 2013? Will Fatah fall and be replaced by Hamas in the West Bank?  Will the Palestinian Authority fracture?

What are these implications for Israel? With Obama in power, free to pursue his ideas until 2016, it must point to going it alone. Obama was caught with an open microphone while chatting with Russian President Medvedev in March 2012.  “Let me get reelected first,” he said, “then I’ll have a better chance of making something happen. This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”  “Flexibility” as far as Israel is concerned will be a harder line than before, and "before" left a mess.

Thanks to the result of the American election, and the return of Obama to the White House, Israel is more isolated now than it was before.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.”

www.israelnarrative.com

 

 

A timely message from the Queen to America.

                            
                                  A MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN TO AMERICA.     

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except North Dakota, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

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1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.' Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

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2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.'

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3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

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4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

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5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

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6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

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7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

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8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

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9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

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10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialect in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

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11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

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12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

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13.. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

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14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

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15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

This message should be distributed only to people who have a sense of humour. That’s ‘humour’ and not ‘humor’, you ignorant Americans!