Yes we’ve heard of the terrible siege that Israel has laid against Gaza. Mere Rhetoric catalogues all of the charges against Israel and shows them to be bogus.

The latest to fall is how Israel’s blockade harmed the sick and injured in Gaza. Israel actually allows the vast majority of those who apply to leave for medical treatment to get treatment in Israel.

Elder of Ziyon has more.

Which means that during this horrible “siege,” Israel has been doubling and re-doubling the number of patients allowed from Gaza to Israel or the PA for treatment.

Additionally as the JCPA - the source for these figures - points out

# The facts are that Israel has provided ever increasing numbers of approvals of permits since the Hamas takeover of Gaza, despite increasing rocket attacks on Israel’s civilian population, including mortar and terror attacks directed at the Erez crossing used by patients.
# At the same time, there have been at least 20 incidents where Palestinians used medical missions to attempt terror attacks.

Reading things like this makes me wonder if Israel actually cares more about Palestinians than the Palestinian leadership does. The most recent medical efforts we saw from Hamas was its persecution of Fatah affiliated doctors, making health care in Gaza even less available. Yet it’s Israel that will be in the dock, accused by the likes of Amnesty International of preventing access to health care and other crimes:

Amnesty International raises concern over human rights violations entrenched in the normative and institutional structure of the Israeli state: the failure of Israel to recognize the applicability to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) of humanitarian and human rights law; the unlawful settlements in the OPT; the construction of a fence/wall mostly within the OPT; the demolition of Palestinian homes in the OPT and of Arab Israeli homes in Israel; policies which undermine the rights of the occupied Palestinian population to health, education, housing, work and an adequate standard of living in the West Bank and, in particular, in Gaza where Israeli authorities have imposed a stringent blockade; torture or other ill-treatment of detainees;

This goes beyond irresponsible. There exists no charitable explanation for AI and the other NGO’s who will be doing the will of the Arab world next year at Durban II and demonizing Israel. This isn’t about helping the Palestinians but about hating Israel and the Jews.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The AP couldn’t manage to write a Rosh Hashana story without criticizing Israel. Because gee, when they write Ramadan stories, the first thing they do is bemoan Muslim terrorist attacks. Oh, wait. No they don’t. Here’s what went ’round the world:

Israelis ushered in the Jewish New Year on Monday with festive family dinners - and a warning from their outgoing prime minister that they’ll have to return virtually all the land captured in 1967 to win peace with the Palestinians and Syrians.

Ehud Olmert, who is giving up his office amid a corruption investigation, also exchanged holiday greetings with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. The Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashana, coincides this year with Eid el-Fitr, one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar.

Let’s see what the AP says the Palestinians have to do.

Palestinians, meanwhile, prepared for Eid el-Fitr, the three-day holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Eid el-Fitr will start here Tuesday.

In Gaza, outdoor markets were selling nearly all the supplies needed for the holiday, but prices were up sharply, compared to the period before the start of the blockade. Gazans get many of their supplies through smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.

A tunnel operator, who would identify himself only as Abu Nidal, said he had been working double time in the run-up to the holiday.

“Before we used to enter 1, 2 tons a day of goods in general,” he said. “These days, from 5 to 6 tons.” He added that the smuggled goods range from clothes and chocolate to balloons.

Got the narrative? Israel will have to give up all the territory captured in 1967. Because Ehud Olmert, the unelected Prime Minister of Israel, who is operating without any kind of mandate and is being forced out of office due to corruption investigations, said so. The Palestinians, meantime—have to smuggle Eid food into Gaza. Lots of it.

Now let’s look at the holiday itself. The AP can’t simply describe Rosh Hashanah. Nope. Gotta have the narrative.

Rosh Hashana, which began at sundown, ushers in 10 days of soul-searching capped by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. But the New Year holiday itself is a time for festive meals, which traditionally include an apple dipped in honey to symbolize a sweet new year.

Israel closed off the West Bank until late Wednesday, barring Palestinians from entering Israel. It is a measure common during Jewish holidays, to deter possible attacks by Palestinian militants.

The Gaza Strip, the other Palestinian territory, has been virtually sealed off since June 2007, when the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control by force. The vast majority of the territory’s 1.4 million Palestinians have been trapped there since then.

Got it? While Israelis will be having festive meals, after days of soul-searching, the Gazans are trapped inside the Gaza Strip (and there’s almost no context save for the reference to Hamas above), and working double-time to smuggle in Eid feast goods.

File this under, “Why we hate the AP.”

I’m not a big fan of Jackson Diehl. Earlier in his career he was the Israel correspondent for the Washington Post. More recently, he’s been a foreign affairs columnist for the paper. As columnist he has consistently favored Arab “reformers,” even when said reformers are virulently anti-Israel. (He’s advocated talking with the Muslim brotherhood because they’re reformers.) But now he’s listening to someone else in “Peace from the Bottom Up.”

Natan Sharansky and Bassam Eid have been suggesting something different.

The timeline for success would be measured in years, not months. The goal would not be a document that Livni and Abbas could sign but the construction of a healthy and vibrant Palestinian civil society — that is, independent media, courts, political parties and nongovernmental organizations that could stand behind a settlement with Israel.

The former Soviet refusenik and Israeli political gadfly Natan Sharansky has been proposing this course for years — mostly to the irritation of peace-process supporters in both Jerusalem and Washington.

Why are “peace processors” skeptical?

Some suspect Sharansky of touting his strategy because it would indefinitely delay the necessity of Israeli territorial concessions. Others blame him for talking President Bush into a fleeting policy of supporting Palestinian democracy that led to the victory of Hamas in legislative elections.

Well, that’s been the problem. Sharansky was never invested in empowering the likes of Arafat or Abbas, so he was against “peace.”

Diehl even plays up a point that I usually only read about at Elder of Ziyon:

By the count of Eid’s Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, 2,000 Palestinians have been killed by Palestinians in the past eight years, but not one suspected killer has been charged or brought to trial. In August, it says, one Palestinian was killed by Israel and 36 by other Palestinians.

Of course the bottom line is that this means that the peace processors - in governments, in academia and in the media - will have to abandon their very premise. They’ll have to acknowledge that the bet on Arafat and the PLO was a poor one.

But for every peace processor who insists that an agreement must be reached now, Sharansky has an answer:

“People say we don’t have three years,” Sharansky said. “But that same idea caused them to favor Arafat over reform” — and that was 15 years ago. “The same idea continues all the time: ‘We must back the Palestinian leader over building civil society.’ And the result is always the same.” On that broken record, at least, Sharansky is right.

I don’t know if this could work. Recently I blogged about a New York Times report on some efforts near Jenin to form some governing authority on the ground. Of course that was also related to Abbas, so it suffers from the same problem as peace processing has until now.

I’d also argue that this is similar to the approach advocated by Menachem Begin while he was Prime Minister. Begin was against allowing the PLO a foothold into Judea, Samaria and Gaza. After he read an article by a Professor Menachem Milson in Commentary, he asked Milson to be the civilian administrator of the territories. Milson’s plan was to create “village leagues” with whom Israel would deal instead of the elected politicians who were affiliated with the PLO.

The Labor Party during the 70’s had changed its policies allowing the PLO linked politicians to push out Jordanian linked politicians among the Palestinians. Begin sought to empower those who remained free from the PLO. The effort was met with condemnation - after all Begin sought to ignore the “sole legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people.” Those who joined the village leagues were often killed. And in the end Milson quit his position after the 1982 war in Lebanon started.

It’s important to note that the end point for Begin was not a Palestinian state but “autonomy,” presumably meaning that the Palestinians would have control over government services within their own cities, but would not be trusted with any security responsibilities. The idea of a Palestinian state at that time was reserved only for the left wing fringe in Israel. It’s a mark of how far Israel has come (for better or worse) that most of Israel now accepts a Palestinian state. It’s also a strong contrast to the Palestinian “moderates” for whom compromise remains a dirty word.

I’m aware that there are those who claim that Hamas evolved from the village leagues. I’m not sure that this is accurate. It makes a great story to say that Israel is responsible for Hamas, but the people designated for the village leagues were not as far as I know, Islamists.

Still the Sharanasky-Eid approach has the advantage of not following the same failed formula. The big problem is the number of people and institutions whose professional status and success is invested in failure and will, therefore, be unwilling to try something new.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Notice what’s missing from this headline from the NYT?

Hamas Strikes at Gaza Clan Known for Criminal Activity

Well, let’s look at the first paragraph of the story:

Eleven members of a large Palestinian clan, including a 1-year-old, were killed along with a Hamas police officer late Monday and early Tuesday, when Hamas forces clashed with gunmen at the family’s compound here, witnesses said.

The number of dead. If Israel had targeted a Qassam launching site and it had been close to a home and the resulting explosion killed eleven people including a baby, what would the headline have read?

Israeli raid in Gaza kills baby, ten others

Now notice what’s missing from my hypothetical headline. I didn’t include the reason for the Israeli raid, but the headline defending a Hamas assault on a residential neighborhood mentions “criminal activity.”

Elder of Ziyon, points out that the Doghmush clan was hardly innocent.

To be fair, the Doghmushes are hardly innocent. According to the usually anti-Hamas Firas Press, the Doghmushes fired rockets and mortars from their compound towards Mahmoud al-Zahhar’s house in Gaza City during the fighting as well. So both sides have wanton disregard for civilian lives.

Still that doesn’t change the implication of the headline. No headline about an Israeli raid that killed eleven people in Gaza would contain the phrase “to halt terror attacks,” or “to halt militant attacks.”

Israeli raids that kill Palestinians are reported by identifying the number killed as if the death toll by itself stands as an indictment of the Israeli action. But it’s not just that the headline that justifies the Hamas attack. Here’s the second paragraph:

The assault on the powerful Dagmush clan, notorious for both militant and criminal activity, signaled an apex in the campaign by Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, to impose internal order, and it was welcomed by many people here. The Dagmush family was considered the last large clan challenging Hamas authority in Gaza, after Hamas cracked down in early August on the Hillis clan, which is loyal to Hamas’s rival, Fatah.

Again phrases like “impose internal order” and “welcomed by many people here” would not be found in an article about an Israeli raid. The clan is described as “notorious” and “criminal.” In an article about an Israeli raid, we’d get the term “militant” but never “terrorist” even if the actions precipitating the raid fit the dictionary definition of a terror attack.

Also the terror activity that Israel was defending against would have been qualified with “Israeli military sources say,” instead of described in definite fashion as the “militant and criminal activity” was presented here.

The headline and second paragraph were both written in exculpatory fashion. If Israel had been defending civilians in Sderot the tone would have been accusatory.

More from Israelly Cool and Meryl.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Say, how many headlines you think this would create if it had been the IDF that killed a baby?

Baby among 11 dead after Hamas raids criminal gang’s Gaza base
Forces from Hamas, the Islamist movement in control of Gaza, attacked a compound belonging to a powerful criminal gang yesterday in a heavy street battle that left 11 dead, including a baby boy.

The fighting began on Monday when a Hamas policeman was killed with a shot to the head while Hamas forces were trying to arrest a wanted member of the Doghmush clan inside the headquarters of the Gaza municipality. After the shooting, Hamas mounted a major raid on the clan in al-Sabra in eastern Gaza.

The attack lasted until dawn yesterday, with heavy fighting in the streets of the city. Another Hamas policeman was killed along with 10 members of the clan, all young men apart from two children, a boy aged one and a 16-year-old, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. A further 42 people were injured.

Hamas said its forces had been involved in an operation against “fugitives”.

But it’s not Israel, it’s Hamas, so the AP doesn’t bother putting out hourly updates. The AFP doesn’t even mention the dead baby. Reuters barely mentions it. But there are no breathless updates, no constantly circulating death and casualty updates, no quotes from mourning relatives, no pictures of the bloody child held out to dozens of screaming Palestinians.

Funny, that.

I guess dead Palestinian babies don’t count when Palestinians are causing the deaths by virtue of not caring that they’re sending RPGs into a house. Funny how Desmond Tutu doesn’t come out and call those war crimes.

Well, actually, no, not really. We all know about Israeli Double Standard Time. This is just more evidence of the media bias.

In-fighting in Gaza:

Hamas forces, responding to the killing of one of their policemen during an arrest raid on Monday, raided a clan stronghold in Gaza City before dawn on Tuesday in search of a suspect in that slaying, officials said.

Ten clan members, including an infant, and a Hamas operative were killed in ensuing clashes that went on for hours and continued into Tuesday morning. Dozens of people were injured on both sides.

This is interesting:

The exchanges of fire included the use of mortar shells, and according to one report one of the mortars landed near the home of senior Hamas member Mahmoud al-Zahar. This report has yet to be confirmed by Hamas officials or by the movement’s security officers.

Mortars in a residential neighborhood?

Anyway it’s hard to have a lot of sympathy for the clan involved:

Some clan members, allied with al-Qaeda, were involved in the March 2007 abduction of BBC reporter Alan Johnston, who was held hostage for four months before being released.

Others in the clan are divided between supporters of Islamist Hamas and those who back Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, whose fighters were defeated when Hamas seized control of Gaza last year.

It’s between thug and thugger. And it’s about having a monopoly on force. Hamas has gotten used to targeting Israeli civilians with impunity, so now it turns its guns on its own. No doubt Bishop Tutu will return to Gaza to investigate.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

In recent years there have consistent attempts in the Western media to portray Hamas as just another political party.

Ahmad Ayyad, candidate No. 3 on the Islamic bloc’s slate, ran down a list of what he considered to be Abu Dis’s most pressing needs: new roads, services for women, public parks, a central slaughterhouse that would abide by health codes.

His full beard signaled his affiliation with a radical Islamic movement that rejects the existence of Israel, but Ayyad also sounded like a garden-variety grass-roots policy wonk who said he wanted to “bridge the gap between the citizens and the local authorities.”

And a year later there was this:

The mayor won a landslide victory from the inside of an Israeli jail, and still sits there today. The city banned a cultural festival from its grounds, in no small part because singing, dancing and the mixing of men and women reflects “a Western mentality.”

And yet, the budget deficit has been tamed, city employees are getting raises and more roads are being paved courtesy of the new party in power - Hamas.

In the months leading up to the 2006 Palestinian election that brought Hamas to power there were plenty of articles portraying the rejectionist, terrorist group as a bunch of good government moderates.

And yet what has happened since Hamas has come to power in Gaza?

Well Hamas has looked after its own financial well being:

The ceasefire has also been detrimental to Hamas, because the underground border traffic is one of its key revenue sources. The Islamists are believed to collect about $10,000 (€6,450) a day from the tunnel owners in the form of “usage fees,” as well as “value-added taxes” — all payable in cash to armed money collectors who wait at the tunnel exits. If a pack of cigarettes costs 74 cents in Egypt, it goes for €1.85 ($2.87) in Gaza, with half of the profits going to Hamas. And a lot of people smoke in the Gaza Strip.

The Islamists also control the distribution of gasoline. Anyone who wishes to buy gas must first buy an “insurance policy” from Hamas, for about €170 ($264), in return for a coupon that entitles its holder to buy 20 liters (5.3 gallons) once every two weeks — even now, with Israel allowing 1 million liters (264,000 gallons) of fuel for cars into the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, many residents still drive with a mixture of vegetable and used deep-frying grease. As a result, the Gaza Strip smells like a French-fry stand.

Its heavy handed politicization of medicine has led to a doctors’ strike.

The medical official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Hamas-run security forces had started rounding up doctors and health workers and taking them to hospitals by force.

The doctors went on strike Saturday to protest the sacking of some 50 doctors and other health workers by the Hamas-run health ministry, saying the decision was politically motivated.

They’ve cracked down on the teachers’ union too:

According to the organizers, several protesters were arrested. The teachers claimed that about a quarter million students are suffering from disruptions in their studies caused by the struggle between the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

The teachers, members of Palestinian Authority’s professional unions, called for the strike at the beginning of the school year in Gaza.

The unions identifying with Fatah, including the teachers and their colleagues in the medical field, are protesting what they call illegal appointments made by the Hamas government.

(h/t Solomonia)

They’ve desecrated a mosque:

CBC News recently entered what is, theoretically, a closed military area in the grim Shejaiya section of Gaza City. This was the stronghold of the Hilles clan, one of Gaza’s well-armed mafias, and it was recently the scene of the worst violence in Gaza since the Hamas takeover.

All the dead were Palestinian. Hamas used the minaret of the local mosque as a firebase in a bloody assault on the Hilles clan, many of whom are allied with the secular Fatah movement.

Eleven Hilles men were killed. Dozens of others ran for the border — the Israeli border. In a humiliating scene, wounded and terrified Hilles clansmen begged the Israelis to save them from Hamas. They were strip-searched, interrogated and treated in Israeli hospitals before being shipped to a refuge in the sweltering West Bank town of Jericho.

Not surprisingly, support for Hamas in Gaza, where they have complete control is eroding:

Someone says that Hamas is firmly in control.

“No, Hamas does not control Gaza,” she cuts in. Waving her finger, surrounded by children, she issues a challenge. “All our young men will be back. The children will grow up and fight for revenge. The most important thing is to take revenge.”

Considering the neighbourhood is full of Hamas gunmen, it’s a gutsy statement. But she is not alone in voicing opposition. In Gaza City’s market square, a crowd gathers as people pour out their own anger about the siege to the CBC crew. Essentials are in short supply, they say.

“We have no jobs, no fuel,” says one man, “and the borders are closed.”

More here.

In the meantime plenty of news organizations highlight Lauren Booth’s adventures in Gaza ignoring the tyranny of her sponsors. Though we hear comparisons to Darfur - and though Hamas supports Sudan! - there’s no evidence of mass starvation in Gaza. And yet the petty tyrannies of Haniyeh and company go largely unreported.

One would think that, in the name of due diligence, news organizations that were so keen to claim that Hamas stood for good government would want to report that the reality has not matched the promise.

Apparently keeping the illusion of a pragmatic Hamas alive is more important than exposing their corruption.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Seth Freedman as an apologist - this sounds strange, no matter what entity he is supposed to apologize for. The opposite was believed to be true - as one of the main contributors of the Guardian political cesspool called Comment is Free, he became rather prominent as an attacker. His attacks are directed against the Zionist Entity - which happens to be precisely what is expected from him by his editors and the shoal of his faithful followers that cheer him as kind of a new Guardian Messiah.

Frankly, a terrible disappointment. Some years ago, with appearance of his first articles, my friends and I had high hopes for the youngster. Not afraid to decry injustice of his own side, he was not blind to the behavior of Palestinians. No more - the guy clearly figured out which side his bread is buttered. And this side has no trek with criticizing Palestinians, obviously.
(more…)

Medical professionals and paramedics from 18 countries will be competing in a lifesaving “Olympics” hosted in Israel.

The first MDA Olympics, initiated by MDA director-general Eli Bin and medical division director Dr. Zvi Feigenberg, took place in 2006 around the Kinneret and the Western Galilee. But this year’s competition will bring more medical teams - 40 - from more countries and will open on the top of Masada.

The competitions are aimed at testing the professionalism and capabilities of the medical teams - in saving lives. Medics and paramedics from MDA, the IDF and international emergency services from Turkey, Canada, Ireland, England, Holland, Norway, the US, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, Jordan and Poland will participate.

On the two consecutive days, the teams will go through 11 stations of treatment and safety, including one at night, during which they will have to deal with various scenes that will test their capabilities for giving proper treatment responses, medical response for “victims” of a mass casualty incident, treatment for conventional and non-conventional incidents and also giving life-saving treatment to patients and victims with problems in the fields of trauma, cardiology, pediatrics and respiratory emergencies.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, medical professionals are engaged in a different kind of lifesaving Olympics. They are running as fast as they can to get away from the Hamas authorities in order to save their own lives.

Speaking from Ramallah, Zakarnah told Ma’an, “De facto government police on Tuesday arrested Maysarah Fayyad, a nurse who works at Mubarak Hospital, Dr Kamal An-Namlah, head of surgeons at Nasser Hospital, Dr Abdul-Halim Al-Masri, from Ash-Shifa Hospital, Wisam Karim, administration employee at Muhammad Ad-Durrah Hospital, Usamah As-Sa’idi and Muhammad Lafi from Muhammad Ad-Durrah Hospital.

He added that de facto government security assaulted the arrestees, beating while them in detention at Al-Mashtal prison in order to pressure them to end strike.

“The one who supervised interrogation of the arrestees was Salih Kaheel, director of de facto government detectives in Gaza City,” Zakarnah added.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Tony Blair’s sister in law and other “peace activists” sailed to Gaza to express solidarity with the Gazans who are under “siege.” Neither Israel nor Egypt will let Ms. Booth leave by land, so currently she’s been trying to stay busy. She wanted to go shopping, but the shelves at the grocery store were bare due to the Israeli siege.

No they weren’t.

British journalist and peace activist Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of former British premier Tony Blair who is now an international Middle East peace envoy, shops at a grocery store in Gaza City on September 3, 2008.

No words of concern from her about the plight of Gazan doctors or of the patients who can’t get treated. But she’s awfully chummy with the guy who ordered the crackdown. Apparently her concern for Palestinians only extends as far as the camera’s lens can reach.

(Despite the impossibly high concentration of photographers in Gaza, there are relatively few pictures of people waiting for health care and none of the violence against doctors. But there are plenty of Booth with or without chief Gaza thug Haniyeh.)

Tim McGirk of Time seems more interested in promoting the legend of Lauren Booth than the plight of Gaza’s doctors.

Booth’s two young kids started school on Tuesday and she frets about how they’ll handle their mother’s absence. “When they ask: ‘Mummy when are you coming home?’ I have to say ‘I don’t know.’ And that’s a frightening answer for a child.”

Given that she’s smiling in at least half of the available pictures of her, I find it hard to believe that she’s suffering all that much. Neither does Israelly Cool!

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

There seem to be a higher concentration of news service photographers relative to the population in Palestinian areas than any place in the world. So there’s a lot of news. Among the most popular images are people waiting for their terrorist friends and relatives to be released, Palestinian policeman undergoing incomprehensible training and “militants” training to attack Israel. (I’m not sure there’s a difference between those last two groups.)

The pictures are so obviously staged, I fail to understand why they have any news value. (The number of “militants” training to attack Israel during the ceasefire has seemingly increased. That this is going on is a news story, I suppose, but not the angle the news organizations want to emphasize.)

Anyway what do you make of this?

Looks like a movie poster of “The Karate Kid at Iwo Jima,” doesn’t it?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Poor, poor Lauren Booth, Tony Blair’s sister-in-law. She can’t get out of Gaza.

She’s one of the tools that led the “protest” against the IDF shutdown of Gaza by sending two boats in the other day. And now, neither Egypt nor Israel will let her into their territory.

Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, who arrived in Gaza with a boatload of activists protesting an Israeli blockade, said on Tuesday she was stuck there because both Israel and Egypt had denied her entry.

Lauren Booth, sister of the former British prime minister’s wife Cherie, revealed her predicament as Blair visited the region to further Western-backed efforts to achieve a limited Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Booth was one of 44 foreign “Free Gaza” activists who set sail from Cyprus, docking in Gaza last month, and was one of 10 who remained when the others sailed back to Cyprus on Friday.

[...] Booth said she has tried unsuccessfully in the past few days to leave through Gaza’s land crossings with Israel and Egypt. “I tried through the proper channels, through the United Kingdom’s embassy, but I was told I was not allowed to come through,” she said after trying in vain to enter Israel.

An Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman, Peter Lerner, confirmed Israel had denied Booth entry, saying there was a policy of refusing entry to anyone from Gaza who did not get there via Israel.

“There is no possibility to let in those people who entered by the sea. They cannot enter Israel,” Lerner said.

I have a suggestion. Swim.

Despicable. Worse than despicable.

In this framework dozens of children have undergone training in the past few days by gunmen from the Salah al-Din Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees. The training included firing pistols and rifles.

“I am learning how to fight the Jews and kill Jewish children,” 11-year-old Muhammad told Ynet, “the parents of the Jewish children are the soldiers and officers who kill us here. I want these parents to get a taste of what it’s like to have your children killed, just as the Palestinians experience every day.

“I would rather die fighting the occupation than die at home from a missile, which is what happened to hundreds of Palestinian children,” he said.

But of course, it’s anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism. Religion doesn’t enter into this conflict at all, right?

Plus, it’s been a while since we heard an open-the-gates-of-hell statement, so here you go:

The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad on Saturday threatened to unleash “the fires of hell” on Israel, as it staged a military parade in the south of the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip.

“We will unleash the fires of hell if the Zionist enemy continues its crimes,” said the group’s military chief Abu Hamzeh after the parade by around 800 Islamic Jihad members, an AFP journalist reported.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the gates of hell will be opened. If those children fight in battle and are killed, watch for the AP to blame the Israelis—not the Palestinians, for putting them in harm’s way to begin with.

Never mind that Israel allows large quantities of goods into Gaza and the Palestinians themselves smuggle even more in via tunnels from Egypt. But a bunch of anti-Israel activists decided to make some PR and “run” Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.

Two wooden boats carrying dozens of human rights activists reached the Gaza Strip on Saturday afternoon after the Israeli navy decided not to hinder the challenge to Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian enclave. Thousands of Palestinians turned out to welcome the group, which brought token humanitarian aid, including hearing aids and balloons.

The Post’s headline proclaims that the boats “broke” the blockade, but Israel let them pass unhindered.

(In some of the early publicity - it wasn’t news, it was unvarnished PR - it was noted that a Holocaust survivor was going to be on the boat. The Post’s PR release doesn’t mention her among the celebrities on the boat. Did she change her mind or was the Post just unaware of her presence.)

Meryl points out that since the ship of fools didn’t meet any resistance they charged that Israel jammed their instruments to prevent them from reaching Gaza.

However Backspin points out that the activists may not have such an easy time leaving Gaza as they did arriving.

And despite the crowds cheering their arrival, left unreported by many organizations was

once it turned out these boats contain too little food and mostly activists…some people left the beach disappointed.

(h/t Judeopundit - read the whole thing! )

Funny but there was a whole lot else going on in Gaza this weekend that somehow the Post’s Linda Gradstein failed to report:

Hamas stormed Al Azhar University in Gaza and the ensuing riots saw many injuries, including professors and a vice president of the university.

A teachers’ union in Gaza decided to go on strike to protest these sorts of attacks against teachers by Hamas. Hamas responded by abducting a Rafah school principal, one of the leaders of the union.

So a bunch of self promoting dweebs shilling for the Hamas government go sailing and that’s news. But when the government they’re supporting suppresses academic freedom that’s not news.

If the sailors wanted to do good, why couldn’t they go to the Sinai find some smuggling tunnels, stand in front of them and demand that the Palestinians not smuggle weapons into Gaza? Or at least insist that the Palestinians build tunnels that meet OSHA standards?

Crossposted on Yourish.

The Palestinian welfare culture is so incredibly ingrained, that no good deed goes uncriticized.

The big lefty boat extravaganza—the ones that Israel allowed to land in Gaza after all, rather than cause front page pictures of the Israeli navy forcing the “peace protesters” away from Gaza’s shores—landed in Gaza to, well, not cheers. Jeers.

A Gaza activist told Ynet Saturday that local residents were disappointed by the small quantities of food brought in by two boats carrying international leftist activists.

“Many people thought these boats will make a significant contribution to break the siege, not only politically but also in terms of brining in goods, equipment, food, and medicine,” he said. “However, once it turned out these boats contain too little food and mostly activists…some people left the beach disappointed.”

So, basically, the activists didn’t coordinate their activities with the Palestinians—not surprising, as Hamas isn’t Fatah, and Gaza isn’t Ramallah. But the ingratitude of the Palestinians is a wonder to behold. Not as good as the Israeli foreign ministry, however.

The Foreign Ministry slammed the leftists and said that they did not deserve to be referred to as “peace activists,” branding them as a “handful of provocateurs seeking a public relations stunt who initiated a political protest aimed at boosting Hamas’ regime of horrors in Gaza.”

“How does such delusional journey promote peace?” the Foreign Ministry added. “What kind of contribution does this journey make to the promotion of ideas of reconciliation and compromise? None.”

Israeli officials noted that genuine humanitarian groups can provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population through existing land crossings, branding the leftist activists as “propagandists.”

Funny, though, how the L.A. Times has a different spin.

Arriving to a boisterous reception, the international activists aboard the boats said they hoped their symbolic breaking of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip was just the beginning.

“We will surely try to bring the boats back again,” said Huwaida Arraf, one of 44 passengers who overcame rough seas and communications problems after setting out Friday from Cyprus. “The goal is to open a route between Cyprus and Gaza.

Really?

But Mekel warned that future attempts might get a different reception.

“I don’t know if others will want to do this,” he said, “but this is not a precedent for future.”

There’s something else that happened to the boats on leaving Cyprus. Now remember that previously, this mission was stopped by storms. Twice.

The two boats ran into trouble almost as soon as they left Cyprus. The navigation and communications systems on both failed, and some activists accused Israel of jamming them. Israel denied the allegation.

Paranoid much? But it wasn’t Israel that did it. I think it was a force far more powerful than the nation of Israel. Like, the power behind the nation.

Those “activists” better watch their asses if they put out to sea again, I think.

“I don’t care who will stamp my passport, a minister in Gaza or the president in Ramallah,” he said. “Both are using us as tools in their internal conflicts … I wish that an earthquake would come and take both sides from our life.”

The context.

I was watching some Get Smart last night.

In one episode, Cutback at Control, a Senate sub-committee is seeking to de-fund Control. Siegfried of KAOS knows of Control’s financial troubles and recruits Max to join KAOS. When Max meets him to discuss his defection, Siegfried informs he needs to undergo training. There’s dialog that goes like this:

Siegfried:… either you graduate or we shoot you.
Max: Graduations must be confusing, you don’t know whether to bring a cap and gown or a blindfold.

I’m guessing that at Hamas graduations, they bring both.

Apparently Hamas folks don’t just learn to fight, they also learn to dance. First there was Riverdance: Gaza. Now there’s Twinkletoes.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Back when the news of Israeli negotiations with Hamas were starting to make the news, Col. Jonathan D. Halevi wrote what Hamas was looking for:

The tahdiya agreement for a lull is an important achievement for Hamas. Hamas will gain the recognition it wants as the legitimate ruler of the Gaza Strip. Despite the fact that the Israeli government has defined Hamas-ruled Gaza as a hostile entity, Israel agreed to the continuation of trade with it, and even recognized the hostile entity’s authority to operate the Rafah crossing. Hamas regards that as immensely important and wants to exploit it as a lever to open the door to official relations with Europe, and to have itself removed from the various lists of terrorist organizations.

Another important objective for Hamas is winning the Palestinian presidential election, which will be held when Mahmoud Abbas finishes his term of office in December. Hamas wants to present itself in the contest as a legitimate ruling body worthy of inheriting the presidency. High-ranking Hamas figures have already stated that the organization will not recognize Abbas’ authority as president after December 2008.(5)

As Elder of Ziyon noted, though, Hamas didn’t just have political goals in mind, it also had military objectives too.

Everything that goes into Gaza, either from Egyptian tunnels or from Israel, gets taken by Hamas. Hamas takes everything it needs first and then places the rest on the market, heavily taxing it to ensure that the “international boycott” against that terror organization is meaningless.

Cement is a major item that Hamas covets. As the Shin Bet’s Yuval Diskin testified yesterday, Hamas is using the cement it is receiving to build fortified bunkers and tunnels to transport and store weapons.

This is not just Israeli propaganda. Even last January, when Hamas breached the wall to Egypt, it was reported that Hamas was taking delivery of hundreds of bags of cement to build bunkers and tunnels.

A few days later, Elder of Ziyon noticed the degree to which Hamas had been emboldened by the tahdiya. And earlier this week the threat became somewhat more explicit.

The strength of Hamas reflected in its new brazenness was noticed by others. Noah Pollak noticed that King Abdullah of Jordan is now starting to talk with Hamas.

Abdullah has his finger in the breeze, gauging the exact extent to which lines of communication should be opened with Hamas, to correspond with the group’s improving prospects. King Abdullah understands that the recipients of his phone calls might soon have to be Ismail Haniyah and Khaled Meshal — not Abu Mazen.

So having achieved a number of advantages over these past few weeks a group in Gaza (likely speaking on behalf of Hamas) declared that the truce is almost over;

Gaza’s Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) militant group on Thursday warned Israel that a truce between Israel and Hamas which went into effect on June 19 was in danger of collapse, saying it could end in three weeks.

Abu Mujahed, one of the group’s leaders, told dozens of fighters undergoing military training that Hamas, the PRC and other factions were disappointed at Israel’s slow action on opening Gaza’s border crossings and prisoner release talks.

“(Israel) has until the end of the tenth week (since the declaration of the ceasefire) and if they do not abide by the obligations of calm, politicians will stop talking and military men will act,” Abu Mujahed said.

So Hamas has been using the respite to strengthen its fortifications in Gaza, project its expanded political reach and openly train its forces in anticipation of further conflict with Israel.

In other words, as Col. Halevi predicted, Hamas observed the ceasefire as long as it suited its needs.

Israel’s attempt to boost Abbas’s standing by freeing prisoners is likely to fail miserably, especially after handing Hamas an undisputed victory that cost Hamas nothing.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, only this time, he uses religion as an excuse for his tyranny:

Order also means torture, even if this isn’t exactly something Abu Ras is willing to admit. Palestinians who have fled to the West Bank report being nailed to the wall, confined in coffins or subjected to mock executions by Hamas. “We will take the best aspects of the Iranian and the Saudi Arabian system,” says Abu Ras, stressing that women, of course, can continue to attend the university, go to the market and drive. “We aren’t the Taliban, after all,” he says.

The Islamists’ influence is becoming more and more visible. Most men now wear full beards and many women are fully veiled. New minarets are being built throughout Gaza, alcohol is no longer available, and Hamas has restricted mixed dancing at weddings and extended religious study in schools. There have been arson attacks against Christian organizations and Internet cafés, and a few months ago radical Islamists even launched a grenade in front of the Hotel Deira, because it had been said that a waiter there had served whisky in espresso cups.

And the corruption is getting worse.

Although people are venturing out into the streets again at night, because there is a police officer at every corner, says Zaeem, this is about the extent of Hamas’s achievements. “Hamas is in power, but it still thinks like an opposition party,” he says. It ignores the garbage piling up in the streets, does nothing about repairing traffic lights, roads and water pipes and pays no attention to the children begging at intersections.

Hamas has even reneged on its most important promise: to fight corruption. “You can buy your way out of prison, and it’s even cheaper than under Fatah,” says a man who prefers to remain anonymous. A traffic policeman recently asked the man for a “donation to buy breakfast.” But the corruption is emanating from the top rather than the bottom of Gaza’s power structure.

Gaza’s de facto leader Ismail Haniya, has gained 28 kilos (62 lbs) and set up his office in the former government guesthouse — with an ocean view, of course.

There is also more evidence that there is no such thing as a Palestinian “security” force:

Ayman joined the Al-Aksa Brigades as a fighter six years ago, later becoming of member of Fatah’s presidential guard. He defected to Hamas after the coup. Today he is a police officer by day and a member of the Qassam Brigades at night. He doesn’t even have to change clothes from one job to the next. It’s the same uniform for both.

The same people who pretend to keep the peace are the ones firing the rockets. This is what the anti-Israel forces, and the media, have ignored for, well, decades. And the cease-fire? What cease-fire?

Before the ceasefire, he transported rockets to the northern Gaza Strip and fired them from there. But now there is a ceasefire, and yet he still isn’t any less busy. “On the contrary,” he says, “we are training for the next major attack.” This means spying on Israeli positions and depositing explosives near the border.

The only good news in all of this is that Hamas is still training to fight the last war. Israel has trained to fight the next one, and the armed forces have learned their lessons from the battle in Lebanon. Volunteers for the tank forces have doubled, and the Armor Corps is ready now for the inevitable battle that will come. As soon as Hamas feels strong enough, the rockets will return. They’re already starting up again. But read the article in full. It goes into great detail about the smuggling tunnels, and how they help Hamas—and how Egypt’s turning a blind eye to them damages Israel.

Two months ago the State Department embarrassed Israel into allowing a number of students from Gaza travel abroad as Fullbright scholars. At the time the NYT reported:

The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave.

Abdulrahman Abdullah received word on Thursday via an e-mail message in Gaza City that the American State Department had withdrawn his Fulbright grant to study in the United States.

Israel has isolated this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas. Given that policy, the United States Consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been “redirected” to students elsewhere out of concern that it would go to waste if the Palestinian students were forced to remain in Gaza.

A letter was sent by e-mail to the students on Thursday telling them of the cancellation. Abdulrahman Abdullah, 30, who had been hoping to study for an M.B.A. at one of several American universities on his Fulbright, was in shock when he read it.

Something about the reporting makes me think that it was the State Department that informed the NYT in order to ebarrass Israel. I can’t be sure of that, but that remains my suspicion.

The other day the Fullbnights were back in the news, 3 Fulbright Winners in Gaza Again Told They Can’t Travel

Four of the seven were cleared but three were told by Israel that they were security risks and could not enter the country. Skeptical American officials asked for details but said they only got broad accusations of links to Hamas; the officials still wanted to offer the grants. The consulate brought from Washington high-priced mobile fingerprinting equipment and sent several officials to the Israel-Gaza border to interview the three Palestinians on July 10.

Three weeks later, on July 30, all three were informed that they had cleared the security screening and were granted their visas.

Two days later, the visas were revoked although not before Israel allowed one of the grantees, Fidaa Abed, to leave Gaza to fly to Washington unaware of his changed status. He was informed at the airport that his visa was no longer valid, flown back to Amman, Jordan, and instructed to return to Gaza. He remains in Amman.

On Monday, the American Consulate in Jerusalem sent letters to Mr. Abed and the two other grantees still in Gaza saying “information has come to light that you may be inadmissible to the United States,” and therefore their visas were being revoked. In Washington, Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, declined to get into specifics, but said that the visas were revoked because “we got more information” about the grantees.

So Israel did additional checking and found information that made them judge the remaining three as possible security risks.

A senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Ms. Rice was very unhappy about how these cases had been handled and that a thorough review had been ordered to prevent a recurrence. The official added that the latest information about the three Palestinians was enough to give pause but that “we really have to scrub it and are now going to take a good look to see if it holds.”

Well for one thing, the State Department ought not try to do end runs around an ally. According to the original story, the Fullbright candidates were allowed to appeal to Israel authorities and had not done so. The State Department instead opted to make the matter public and get Israel to review the cases by embarrassing Israeli authorities.

But despite the skepticism expressed by the official, my guess is that the State Department wouldn’t have revoked the visas this time without something rather convincing.

Israel Matzav:

Don’t hold your breaths waiting for Condi or anyone else at State to apologize.

Boker Tov Boulder emphasizes something that Israel Matzav does too. In the first paragraph the reporter, Ethan Bronner refers to the State Department’s reversal as “reneging” and comments:

And here’s the kicker - Ethan Bronner has the chutzpah to twist the story

Backspin notes an earlier Times editorial about the incident boasting of its role in getting the Fullbright candidates out of Gaza and asks:

What does this say about the way the MSM relates to Israel’s security concerns?

It also doesn’t speak well about the State Department’s concern.

The AP reported the latest like this:

After international pressure, US officials intervened to facilitate Abu Shaaban and several other Fullbright scholars to leave the coastal trip, only to later deny them entry into the US for apparent security reasons.

“apparent” Apparently that lack of concern runs through quite a bit of the MSM.

And Mere Rhetoric observes that the State Department is trying to engage with Islamists. Maybe the reason the State Department is so cavalier about Israeli concerns, is because they have no such concerns themselves.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad,

Ethan Bronner contributes an analysis of the rescue of the Hilles clan by Israel. He gives one explanation why Abbas didn’t want to receive the Hilles clan.

In truth, the relationship between the Fatah leadership in the West Bank and the Hilles clan was poor. President Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah, who is allied with other former Fatah leaders in Gaza, was angry that the Hilles clan stood on the sideline when street fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza in June 2007. Some Hilles members are with Hamas. And generally the clan cares about itself more than about either party. Send them back, Mr. Abbas told the Israelis.

The results of this incident?

So for now, the Hilles clan has been neutralized, Hamas has increased its power, Fatah leaders are seen as two-timing and indecisive, and Israel helped save the lives of some of its enemies. The streets of Gaza were deserted Monday night as Hamas police officers raided apartment buildings where Fatah loyalists lived.

So it does appear that Abbas’s claim about wanting more of a Fatah presence in Gaza had some truth. Still it’s hard to say that he comes of as looking good.

Finally Bronner concludes with two interpretations of the episode:

Israel felt it was not getting the credit it deserved. As Avi Benayahu, an army spokesman, said on Army Radio, “There is no other army in the world that would take such a humanitarian approach to help Palestinians, some armed, being chased and fired at by Hamas.” He added that “Israel has not received any praises for its actions. Yet this is the kind of army we have.”

Sufian Abu Zaida, a Fatah lawmaker, told Army Radio he had a slightly different interpretation of what the Hilles drama meant from a Palestinian perspective.

“When a person is faced with the choice of being killed by his own people or arrested by his enemy, he will prefer to be arrested by his enemy,” he said. “And this gives you a pretty good picture of how bad and cruel the situation is in Gaza.”

(”[B]ad and cruel,” do you think that Gershom Gorenberg stays up at night ravaged by his conscience? More on the Israeli army’s view here.)

Khaled abu Toameh (h/t Elder of Ziyon, Daled Amos) writes that it wasn’t simply a rejection of the Hilles clan that led Abbas to hesitate before allowing them in, it was a general prejudice against Palestinians from Gaza.

Past experience has shown that the Palestinians in the West Bank have never been enthusiastic about the presence of their brethren from the Gaza Strip among them.

Shortly after the establishment of the PA in 1994, former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat deployed dozens of policemen from the Gaza Strip in a number of West Bank cities. This resulted in an “intifada” by the residents of these cities, many of whom openly rejected the presence of the Gazans in their communities. In many cases, West Bank families refused to rent out apartments to the “undesirables” from the Gaza Strip.

The experience was repeated in June 2007 when hundreds of Fatah members fled the Gaza Strip following Hamas’s violent takeover of the area. Most of those who arrived in Ramallah are still finding it impossible to rent apartments in the city.

The reporting on this incident has, of course, used the word “clan.” There’s a story behind it.

Back in 1997, IMRA republished an article by Graham Usher, Arafat revives tribal power. After describing the lethal results of a clash between two clans in Gaza, Usher wrote:

“Since the PA was installed in 1994, Arafat has based his rule on two crucial constituencies. One was his Fatah movement, many of whose cadres were absorbed into the PA’s burgeoning and often lawless security forces. But the other was Arafat’s deliberate reempowerment of Palestine’s traditional or tribal families, like the Abu Samhadanahs or, for that matter, the Al-Dhairs. In Rafah, the two constituencies have become one, with tribal and political loyalties so interwoven as to be inseparable.

“For Palestinian analysts like the sociologist, Isah Jad, the PA’s “revival of tribal structures” is not only inimicable to Palestinian hopes for a law based and democratic society. It is corrosive of the modern national consciousness Palestinians have forged out of their conflict with Israel. For 30 years, says Jad, “the national movement conducted a long struggle to weaken loyalty to the family and the tribe and strengthen the concept of nationalism and loyalty to the homeland. Any rebuilding of tribal structures will reinstate the family and the tribe as the individual’s first loyalty.”

Arafat’s revival of the clans was done to ensure his hold on power, even at the expense of national aspirations. The events over this past weekend show how corrosive Arafat’s effort has been. My guess is that identification with clans also is behind the disdain shown towards Gaza’s Palestinians by their brethren in the West Bank.

More on clans here.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I*Consult reflects on the recent rescue of a number of Fatah loyalists from Gaza who were saved by Israel over the weekend. He points out that Israel was simply doing something it had done a number of times before and casts the effort in a positive light.

Israel Matzav writes that this is an ill-conceived effort to prop up a weak (and undeserving) ally.

IDF reserve officer Yoel Tzur accused the government of ordering an ‘idiotic’ rescue when it ordered IDF soldiers to risk their lives to rescue the Fatah-affiliated Hilles clan, which was fleeing Gaza on Saturday. According to Tzur, the rescue was not a ‘humanitarian’ act, but was an attempt once again to prop up the flimsy government of ‘moderate’ ‘Palestinian’ President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen.

Fatah’s refusal to receive the members of the Hilles clan is being spun:

Mr. Abbas ordered nearly 200 fighters from his own Fatah faction back to Gaza, insisting that Fatah must retain a presence there. Gaza has been controlled by Hamas since a violent takeover in June 2007.

Fatah is not ready to write off Gaza, and Mr. Abbas also fears that Hamas there could export rebellion to the West Bank, which Fatah still dominates.

This is, of course, only spin. It’s hard to see how 200 Fatah terrorists could hold any sway over thousands of armed Hamas terrorists.

Marred by a single gratuitous swipe at Israel, Fugitive Peace portrays this flip flop as Abbas making another bad bet on Mohammed Dahlan.

At any rate, bad tactical mistake by Abbas to backtrack. His most reliable ally in Gaza, the Hillis clan, must now feel like it has no backing from him. This makes Fatah’s foothold in the strip even weaker than before, and it makes Abbas more dependent on Dahlan.

So Israel is betting on Abbas who has now shown weakness by turning to Israel to aid his allies and then betraying those allies, ostensibly to strengthen his position in Gaza. In all likelihood this makes him appear increasingly weak, undermining his own standing in Ramallah.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The racist apartheid state of Israel is allowing 90 members of Fatah, many of whom are no doubt terrorists, to flee Gaza and resettle in the West Bank—because they are in imminent danger of being killed by Hamas terrorists.

But hey, don’t let this stop the anti-Israel narrative.

Three buses carrying 90 Palestinians who fled Hamas persecution in Gaza will arrive in the West Bank city of Jericho on Monday afternoon, following an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Earlier in the day it was reported that the group would be transported to Ramallah. Military officials said the change of venue to Jericho is due to an internal Palestinian disagreement. The PA however insists Israel dictated the change.

In Jericho preparations are underway to welcome the members of the Hilles clan, who fled Gaza over the weekend after violent altercations with the ruling Hamas movement. In all, 11 people were killed and dozens wounded Saturday during a Hamas raid on the clan. About two dozen wounded were taken for treatment in Israeli hospitals and the rest were kept in army custody.

Yeah, that awful Israel. How could they be so horrible? Allowing 90 more possible terrorists into Ramallah and Jericho. Someone alert the UNHRC. Oh, wait. They’re too busy getting ready to demonize Israeli in Durban II.

It looks like simply killing off one another is not enough anymore for Hamas and Fatah:

The internecine fight between Hamas and Fatah has gotten ugly - at least for Palestinians who favor men with mustaches. Hamas has resumed its policy of shaving the mustaches of rival Fatah members to humiliate them as a form of punishment…

A Fatah activist has his mustache shaved in solidarity with a fellow member, whom Fatah says Hamas shaved as a humiliating punishment.

The next step in the escalation is already looming ahead: according to our sources, a large shipment of Braun Silk-épil EverSoft Solo 2170 Epilator is on its way to Ramallah. Very soon members of Hamas will be easy identified (see the before/after image below):

I shudder at the thought of the future Hamas’ retaliation to this atrocity. Enforced self-mutilation of the type shown below cannot be rejected as a possibility.

And then…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

The typical Palestinian way to end internal strife is to attack Israel. Like clockwork, here come the mortars.

Three mortar shells struck the western Negev late Saturday night, causing neither damage nor injury.

The shelling come amid fears that Palestinian infighting in the Gaza Strip would spark renewed rocket attacks against Israel.

But it looks like the battle is over, and Fatah lost again. Although they did take out a couple of Hamassholes (as Lair calls them) before giving up.

Hamas security forces asserted control in a Gaza stronghold of political rival Fatah on Saturday, following a day of battles with mortars and machine guns, ending with the surrender of the Fatah-linked Hilles clan.

Four Hamas gunmen and two members of the Hilles clan were killed and at least 80 others were injured, including one critically, during the clashes. Among those injured were 12 children and a woman.

Sources in Gaza said following the clashes that Hamas gunmen fired mortars at Palestinians who were trying to escape to the Gaza-Israel border fence, near Kibbutz Nahal Oz. Other Gazans turned themselves in to Hamas forces, the sources said.

Please note that there will be no outraged statements by the UN SecGen, or any other politician, over the fighting in Gaza, nor the fact that children have been wounded and killed. Because once again, Israel didn’t do it, so it doesn’t count.

Meantime, those Fatah clan members who headed for Israel? They got in.

Several dozen Fatah members who fled Gaza City following Hamas’ raid on a stronghold of the Hilles clan were allowed to enter Israel through the Nahal Oz terminal after laying down their arms and undergoing an initial interrogation.

Three Palestinians who suffered injuries during the infighting were taken to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba for treatment. One of the Palestinians was reportedly in serious condition, while the other two sustained modrate and light wounds. Seven more Palestinians were taken to the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon; six of them were listed in serious condition and another suffered moderate wounds.

Remember that the next time the Palis and their pals try to tell you how bigoted and awful the Israelis really are. Israel: The civilized country. Gaza: Still living in the Middle Ages. The proof is out there.

The UN is really, really worried about the economy of the Gaza Strip. UNRWA workers claim poverty is at “unprecedented” highs.

The number of households in the Gaza Strip below the poverty line has reached an unprecedented high of nearly 52 percent, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said in a report published recently.

“The number of households in Gaza below the consumption poverty line continued to grow, reaching 51.8% in 2007, despite significant amounts of emergency and humanitarian assistance,” UNRWA said in a statement late last week. Meanwhile, poverty rates in the West Bank fell to just over 19%.

The report, based on figures provided by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), said that “the real average unemployment rate in the occupied Palestinian territory (as a whole) remained amongst the highest in the world at 29.5%,” with Gaza reaching “an unprecedented high of 45.3%” during the second half of last year.

Phew. Those are some pretty bad statistics. Why, you’d think the Gaza economy was on the verge of collapse or something. Well, you might—except it was declared just that a year ago:

Gaza’s already weak economy could collapse unless the main commercial crossing between Gaza and Israel is reopened, Gaza businessmen and United Nations officials said today.

The Karni crossing has been shut since June 12 because the Fatah-affiliated Palestinians who operated it fled after Hamas took over Gaza in bloody fighting. But both Israel and the Fatah leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, have been in no hurry to help Hamas by working to regularize Gaza’s economic life.

Karen AbuZayd, who is the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which deals with Palestinian refugees, said in an interview: “Without Karni the Gaza economy will collapse unless it is opened for exports and not just for imports, so we don’t punish this whole people.”

Huh. Imagine that. The economy was on the verge of collapse a year ago, and yet, it survived. So the Chicken Littles at the UN are declaring it at the height of poverty, instead.

Say. Why is it, exactly, that the Gaza economy is so crappy, do you think? Let’s take a trip back through time to 2005, after the disengagement, to see what happened.

Amid the rubble of the former Jewish settlements, Palestinians have sown the first seeds of a modest economic revival.

Less than three months after the Israelis departed, Palestinians have repaired scores of greenhouses left by the settlers, planted an autumn crop and are preparing to harvest an estimated $20 million worth of strawberries, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and an array of herbs and spices. The produce is intended mostly for export to Europe, but some will also be headed to Israel, Arab countries and the United States.

So. Whatever happened to those greenhouses that they needed repair in the first place, I wonder?

Palestinian police on Tuesday blocked off abandoned Jewish settlements and chased after scavengers in a first attempt to impose law and order after chaotic celebrations of Israel’s pullout from Gaza, but the overwhelmed forces were unable to halt looting of the area’s prized greenhouses.

Egyptian guards, meanwhil