In Middle East Bog the perceptive editors of the Washington Post write:

The trouble began within days of the Annapolis meeting, when Israel’s Housing Ministry made the first of a series of gratuitous and provocative announcements about construction in Jewish settlements beyond Israel’s internationally recognized border. The most tangible of these was a tender for the construction of 307 homes in Har Homa, a controversial Jerusalem neighborhood that is wedged between Palestinian areas of Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Palestinian negotiators — several of whom were closer to former president Yasser Arafat than they are to Mr. Abbas — seized on the action as a violation of Mr. Olmert’s commitment to “immediately” implement the first phase of a 2003 U.S.-sponsored “road map” that calls for a freeze on all settlement construction.

Let’s stipulate for the moment that tender to build on Har Homa was provocative. Could it still be possible that it was the post-Annapolis problems? Consider how the editorial continues.

Israeli ministers, including a couple who oppose the peace talks, rushed to tour Har Homa and to make the point that, in Israel’s view, it is part of Jerusalem and thus not subject to the building restriction. The European Union, the United Nations and, somewhat surprisingly, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized the Housing Ministry action. When Egypt joined the chorus, Israel’s defense minister said the real problem was not settlement-building but Cairo’s allowance of massive weapons-smuggling to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. A low-grade war between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants in Gaza has escalated in the past month, putting further pressure on the talks.

Notice, there are only Israeli ministers who oppose peace talks. But is Egypt’s complicity in supplying Hamas support for peace talks? Is it worthy of a single sentence dismissal?

And how, pray tell, do stepped up Israeli efforts to protect its civilians from rocket attacks put “pressure on the talks?” If Abbas objects to such defensive measures is he really committed to peace?

Herb Keinon rather explicitly rejects the Post’s spin:

While the Palestinians have done a good job over the last month convincing international public opinion that construction in Har Homa and the settlements is what is holding everything up, in actuality the more fundamental problem is not a few hundred housing units that will be built atop Har Homa, but rather the tunnels that are being constructed under the Philadelphi Corridor.When Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee earlier this week that Egypt’s performance on the Egyptian-Gaza border was “awful and problematic,” she knew well her words would complicate relations with Egypt, one of Israel’s key strategic allies. But she also knew that the ongoing smuggling from Egypt into Gaza also poses a strategic threat to Israel, as an emboldened Hamas strengthened with massive quantities of explosives and weapons would doom any diplomatic process with the Palestinians.

For a long time Hamas has been the elephant in the Annapolis process room that no one wants to talk about. But with the elephant being fed through Egypt and growing, it is impossible to ignore, and its size and strength cast a shadow over everything else.

Later on Keinon asserts that unless Israel defeats Hamas, the pressure on Abbas will be too strong for him to compromise. I am skeptical of the good faith of Abbas but this sounds a lot more plausible than to argue that Israel’s self defense “puts pressure” on the talks. Unless the Post means to imply that Israel’s self defense is not in the interest of peace.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Palestinians, who want only to live peacefully, side-by-side with Israel, have murdered two men whose crime was hiking in the Hebron hills.

Two Israellis were killed Friday in a drive-by shooting in the south Hebron Hills. The two men were hiking in the area of the Talam and Adura settlements with a female resident of Kiryat Arba, when a group of terrorists opened fire on them from a Jeep.

The two men were armed and managed to return fire, reportedly killing one of the terrorists.

Islamic Jihad is claiming the shooting. Watch for more PIJ members to meet Israeli missiles in the near future.

And of course, more rockets fell on Sderot today.

As for the PA stopping terrorism like this, well—the bodyguard who was killed yesterday? Turns out that Ahmed Qurea’s bodyguard was a wanted Tanzim terrorist.

Muatsam Sarif, who was also a member of the Palestinian security services and served as one of the bodyguards of Ahmed Qurea, was recently involved in transporting weapons to terror operatives in Ramallah. An IDF force arrived overnight in order to arrest Sarif. Sarif opened fire at the IDF force after he identified them approaching. During the ensuing exchanges of fire that took place on location, Sarif was killed.

You can take the boy out of the terrorism, but….

And it includes another one of our three-way chats, this time between Damain Penny, Brian of London, and me.

I seem to remember that sometimes when he left J. Jonah Jameson, Spiderman would say “See you in the funny papers.”

Apparently that’s where we’re now going to see the U.N. In the funny papers. With Spiderman. (via memeorandum)

He has fought against foes ranging from the Green Goblin to Doctor Octopus, but Spider-Man now faces an even more formidable challenge: improving the battered image of the United Nations.In a move reminiscent of storylines developed during the World War II, the U.N. is joining forces with Marvel Comics, creators of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, to create a comic book showing the international body working with superheroes to solve bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.

The comic, initially to be distributed free to 1 million U.S. schoolchildren, will be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature superheroes such as Spider-Man working with U.N. agencies such as Unicef and the “blue hats,” the U.N. peacekeepers.

HotAir exclaims:

This is a waste of a perfectly good ficticious super hero.

comments:

The UN has to resort to fiction to bolster its image because a book about the UN doing any good would by definition have to be a work of fiction.

and asks:

Why not set the book in an actual war-torn country and highlight the heroic acts of real, actual US military men and women to help the people who live there? There is no shortage of those real heroes. We don’t need to credit their deeds to made-up comic book characters.

While this doesn’t quite answer his question, Marvel did sort of honor the military, with a special series of comics including the recently deceased, Captain America:

Captain America may not be back from the dead, but he’s back — sort of.Four months after Marvel Comics unexpectedly killed off the champion of liberty and the American way, he appears in a comic made exclusively for U.S. soldiers. He is seen on a videotape made before his death.

One million copies of “The New Avengers: The Spirit of America,” the fifth in Marvel’s series for the military, will be available free starting Saturday at military base stores worldwide.

The impetus for the series comes from a boy.

Marvel Comics started the military series in 2005 after getting a call from a young boy, saying he could no longer afford to send comics to his two brothers serving in Iraq, Sabouni said.Marvel sent the boy a box of comics but wanted to do more, so the company started working with AAFES to develop something just for soldiers. The military series has been very popular, with books selling quickly after their release.

“You have the fantasy aspect, but they’re staying true to our culture,” said Lt. Col. William Thurmond, an AAFES spokesman. “You can’t ask for anything more if you’re a comic book fan.”

Blue Crab Boulevard really lets Marvel have it. Ed Driscoll notes that this isn’t the first time Marvel has engaged in dubious propaganda.

Let’s finish up with semi-related items:

OK so if you want Spiderman check the UN. But it you want spider webbing, check out Israel.

Now totally off-topic, a member of the U.S. Military got a writing gig with Marvel!

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Egyptians are annoyed that people are making money on replicas of pyramids. So they’re trying to copyright the shapes of their monuments. Yeah, that’ll go over well.

Egypt might copyright its pharaonic antiquities, from the pyramids to scarab beetles, in an attempt to get paid from the sale of replicas, an official said Thursday.

It was unclear whether such a copyright would be recognized internationally.

Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said it would apply only to exact replicas - including scale - meaning someone would have to build a full-size copy of the giant pyramids for it to violate the copyright.

“If you (want to) build an exact copy of the Great Pyramid we will stop you,” Hawass told The Associated Press.

You know, now I want to see someone do it, just to piss off Egypt.

Under the law, anyone seeking to make an exact replica of a copyrighted pharaonic artifact would have to seek permission from and pay a fee to Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The draft bill comes amid recent complaints in Egyptian media about money being made by the pyramid-shaped Las Vegas Luxor casino.

But Hawass said that and other ancient Egyptian-themed parks and malls around the world would not be affected by the copyright law.

Pardon me while I laugh. You know, this is from the same country that was going to sue Israel for the wealth the Jews took out of Egypt during the Exodus, until it was pointed out to them that if they sued Israel for that, Israel could sue Egypt for centuries of enslaving Jews.

I’d also point out that Egypt has no chance whatsoever of getting a piece of the action of the Luxor. I mean, c’mon. Las Vegas? The Mafia? The Egyptians are way out of their league with them.

One of the lead articles in this week’s Forward is Debate Underscores Orthodox Community’s Rightward Drift. Reporting on a recent debate between Michael Medved and David Luchins, Rebecca Spence reports:

The charged debate, attended by some 150 Orthodox convention-goers who hailed from Canada to California, opens a window onto the voting patterns of America’s Orthodox population. While the Orthodox, who make up 10% of the American Jewish population, once voted for Democrats — in keeping with American Jewry’s standing as one of the country’s most liberal voting blocs — in recent years they have slid heavily to the right, according to the O.U.’s own data. In addition, as Luchins’s own willingness to embrace Republican candidates underscores, they are more likely than other American Jews to cross party lines.

The next paragraph though, I think, explains the subject accurately:

“Orthodox Jews are much more of a swing-vote constituency and are more prepared to vote for a conservative Republican than other segments of the Jewish community,” said Nathan Diament, the O.U.’s director of public policy. “What we’ve seen over the past few election cycles is that Orthodox voters are very much issue-driven voters, with Israel and terrorism and security issues at the top of their list.”

Correct, Orthodox voters tend to be “issue-driven.” Those who pay attention to the issues find more in common with Republicans than Democrats. To say the Orthodox community has moved to the “right,” is to dismiss them. Obviously there are plenty of Orthodox Jews who feel more comfortable in the Democratic party, but those of us who are more conservative these days came to our conclusions by looking at the issues, not by mindlessly “moving to the right.”

Another article in the Forward shows the dismissive use of the term “right.”
GOP Leader Calls For Revisions to Fatah Movement’s Outdated Charter by Nathan Guttman - the Forward’s James D. Besser (and that’s not a compliment) starts:

A push by right-wing American Jewish activists to change the constitution of the governing Palestinian party is gaining momentum in Congress, even as Israelis are dismissing the document as “irrelevant,” and the umbrella body of American Jewish organizations has voted against taking up the issue.

Frankly I don’t care if some Israelis are saying that the Fatah constitution is irrelevant. They’re wrong. It’s just as wrong as ignoring the Palestinian National Charter. Yes, I know that in April, 1996 and in December, 1998 the Palestinian Authority supposedly took votes to abrogate those parts of the charter that were incompatible with making peace.

However as Prof. Yehoshuah Porat noted in 1997:

Several days after this resolution was passed, I asserted to the Israeli public that this was actually a sophisticated fraud. The resolution did not refer to specific articles that were apparently canceled, and therefore there was no way of knowing what was actually canceled, since there are deep differences of opinion over the questions of which articles of the Covenant run counter to the exchange of letters between the PLO and the Israeli government.Does this include only those articles which explicitly negate Israel’s right to exist, or does it also apply to the articles which deny any link whatsoever between the Jews and the Land of Israel, Zionism, the partition of the country, those which attribute the right of representing all Palestinians including Israeli Arabs to the PLO, and those which support the armed struggle to liberate Palestine?

The lack of clear action being taken was also notable in 1998, despite the presence of then President Clinton.

But even if the action to abrogate the offensive parts of the Charter were taken in one of those sessions, it really doesn’t matter. The Charter represents the beliefs that are still held today by even the “moderates” of Fatah. Prior to the Annapolis conference claimed that they could not countenance Israel as a Jewish state. This is the equivalent to the many articles of the Palestinian Charter that deny historical basis of Zionism.

But you say this is the Fatah constitution not the Palestinian Charter? Well Fatah is the main organization within the PLO, one must assume that its views are largely the same.

But don’t take my word for it, here’s what Morton Klein found:

Klein searched for the Fatah constitution on Google, the online search engine, and found several Web sites containing translations of the document. The translations contained explicit calls for the destruction of the State of Israel, the eradication of Zionism and the continuation of armed struggle against Israel.

Of course that summary could just as well apply to the Charter. Still there are doubters.

As the ZOA-led effort gathers momentum, Fatah members, Middle East experts and even Israeli officials are arguing that the campaign is a misguided distraction from the recently revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process, since the document no longer holds any significance and doesn’t serve as the party’s platform.“If it was such an important document, someone would be able to get hold of an authoritative copy of it,” said Nathan Brown, director of George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies and a leading scholar on Palestinian politics. “The governing documents regarding any ideological issue come from the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, not from the Fatah party.”

This isn’t misguided at all. If even the “moderate” Fatah doesn’t accept Israel’s right to exist will concessions from Israel really bring peace? Nathan Brown’s statement is a demonstration of willful ignorance. The Fatah party was the main constituent party of the PLO. So its ideology would be the dominant one. If Fatah still holds those views, well then the Palestinian Authority does too.

If in 1993 Arafat set out to create a state that could live in peace with Israel, maybe I could see saying that the document is irrelevant. But since 1993, Arafat was committed to terror and to violating many of the provisions of the treaties he signed. Absent concrete action to the contrary, there’s no reason to give the Palestinians the benefit of the doubt here.

Crossposed on Soccer Dad.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad is missing a few terrorists today, thanks to the IDF.

A series of attacks launched by the IDF in Gaza Thursday has claimed the lives of at least eight militants, including Mohammad Abu Murshud, head of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing in the central Gaza Strip.

According to Palestinian sources, Murshud was killed when the car he was traveling in north of al-Mugarka (near the former Israeli settlement of Netzarim) was struck by a missile fired by Israeli aircraft. Two other Jihad members were killed and a number of others were injured in the attack, which was the IDF’s third of the evening.

Five Palestinians were killed in two attacks in Gaza earlier in the day: Two Hamas members and two Islamic Jihad gunmen were shot dead by Israeli soldiers operating south of Khan Younis in the southern Strip, while two more Jihad gunmen were killed near the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

And some Hamas members, too. This is good news. That makes about forty dead terrorists in the last week and a half. Do I hear fifty? Fifty?

The political leadership, against the advice of the IDF, is allowing the Palestinians to receive 50 armored vehicles from Russia for use in the West Bank. The final barrier—mounting machine guns on them—has been dropped by the Palestinians. No doubt at a future date, they’ll get Russian assistance in adding machine guns to the vehicles, and we will see them used against IDF forces at some point in the future.

Palestinians have received Israeli permission to import 50 Russian-made armored personnel carriers into the West Bank next month, after resolving a dispute with Israel over arming the vehicles, the top Palestinian security official said Thursday.

Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al-Yahya said the Palestinians dropped a request to mount machine guns on the vehicles, clearing the way for the deal to proceed. Israel objected to the guns. Israeli officials had no immediate comment.

The arrival of the vehicles would be the latest step in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to impose law and order in the West Bank.

[...] Al-Yahya said his forces have made important strides, confiscating weapons from Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants and reining in the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed group linked to Abbas’ Fatah movement.

“The situation now is much better, but we still need more weapons to enhance our forces,” he said. “No one will be allowed to possess weapons besides the security forces.”

It should be noted that the weapons given to the PA and stored in Gaza have all been taken over by Hamas, who did thank the Americans and Israelis for them. I imagine there’s a bit of celebrating going on at Hamas HQ today, because they know those 50 armored vehicles will be theirs in a matter of, oh, months, probably.