Morocco has backtracked an earlier invitation extended to the former Israeli president Shimon Peres to pop in the Kingdom to attend the Clinton Global Initiative's First Middle East and Africa Conference set to kick off on May 5 in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh.
Morocco rescinded the invitation it had dispatched earlier to the notorious former Israeli PM Shimon Peres after his projected stopover stirred up a hornet's nest among the Kingdom’s pro-Palestine activists and organizations.
Earlier, on Friday, a series of protest rallies staged in observance of the International May Day also voiced firm rebuff of Peres’s stopover.
Additionally, according to new360, Hamas government agencies in Gaza had written to Moroccan officials asking that the infamous Israeli politician be blocked from entering Morocco.
The Moroccan government has not responded to any of the calls to arrest or deport Peres. It was noted on Sunday that his invitation had been rescinded and he would not be attending the conference.
ANSAMed, however, reports that Peres is the one who decided not to go:
RABAT, MAY 4 - Former Israeli president Shimon Peres will not be going to Marrakesh despite an invitation from the Clinton Foundation to speak at a conference on the Middle East and Africa. The decision was made after polemics following the announcement that he was to have taken part tomorrow.
Since the nation of Morocco isn't who invited Peres to begin with, it seems that the Turkish version of the story is not correct.
Peres is not Avigdor Lieberman. He is passionately dedicated to peace, whether you agree with him or not. Yet no one in the Arab world is coming to his defense. On the contrary - the only voices one can find in Arabic media were those calling for him to be dis-invited at the very least, and arrested and jailed should he step foot in Morocco.
Interestingly, even though the Clinton Foundation issues press releases every day, it has not mentioned this story. No regrets, no gentle scolding that it is antithetical to peace - nothing. One would think that if the Clinton Foundation is as dedicated to peace as possible, it would have done everything possible to allow Peres to attend.
Could it be because the Clinton Foundation has accepted some $40 million from Arab countries since it started? Arab countries give far more to the Clinton Foundation than to other NGOs doing similar work.
There will be no peace as long as there is no pressure on Arab governments to act in a peaceful way. If they truly wanted to see a peaceful two state solution they would welcome Shimon Peres anywhere he wanted to go.
And a strong condemnation by Bill Clinton on how Shimon Peres is treated by the Arab world would do more for peace than any number of conferences.
Palestine Times reports that Jews "desecrated" the Al Aqsa Mosque yet again, by...standing there.
They are "roaming in the courtyards" of Al Aqsa, attempting to establish "Talmudic rituals" in the area. These "Zionist extremists" are also doing "provocative tours."
As you can see, the photo shows how horrible they are acting.
Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the Washington Institute last night, where he strongly defended the White House's negotiating posture with Iran.
The tone of the speech was markedly different from previous communications from the administration. In the past, even when signing the Iran Sanctions Act, the White House has said things like "Iran can prove that its intentions are peaceful."
In this speech, Biden sais about as explicitly as can be that Iran's intentions are to build a nuclear weapon.
Iran, Biden argued, “has already paved its path” to a bomb and could build up to eight nuclear warheads in two to three months.
There is a big difference between the Cold War-style "trust but verify" model of negotiations and one where one side assumes, ab initio, that the other side is deceptive and is actively seeking to do the opposite of what the agreement is meant to accomplish.
If we are saying that we don't trust Iran at all, then any agreement that doesn't include comprehensive inspections anywhere in Iran that a secret facility may be built is useless. And Iran has a track record of building secret nuclear facilities.
Iran's president has bragged that he broke previous nuclear agreements. Yet the current framework agreement still has gigantic loopholes on weaponization and verification.
Worse, the White House knew that Iran was that close to a nuclear weapon for a long time, but insisted publicly that it was over a year away. That piece of information changes everything as to how negotiations should be conducted.
But from what we can see, the US kept the "trust but verify" mentality when negotiating with a party that is known to lie and hide its nuclear weapons program.
Biden may have made a good speech, but he showed that we have been deceived by Washington as much as Washington has been deceived by Iran.
A month ago, I reported that Goal.com's Arabic site included anti-Israel rhetoric.
Now the Simon Wiesenthal Center has noticed:
In a letter to the UEFA (Union of European Football Association) President, Michel Platini, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, drew attention to " the constant incitement and offence against the State of Israel on the Arabic site of Goal.com, a web site that prides itself in having a global constituency of over 64 million fans".
The letter listed:
- "a classic example (see photo and caption, upper case for emphasis, reads in translation 'Saturday 28 March 2015, Sammy Ofer Stadium, Haifa, THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Wales decided to enter the 2016 UEFA Cup Finals, for the first time ever, after defeating the ZIONIST ENTITY TEAM of the City of Haifa in the OCCUPIED TERRITORIES with three straight goals). This was the first ZIONIST loss in the play-offs...'"
Samuels noted that: " 'Zionist entity' is deemed as denying the legitimacy of the State of Israel and the very right to sovereignty of the Jewish people". See photo and Arabic caption:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2FCswRYn5xA_rTJUaBmjHRrr8MNFvaZeltP8hNaVYvJgFUZC_rKaKyg4I8LlG3-lJ6yEG7-uZi1dyyLpQWkMXj0gu3UXleggC9-R8anNxaPRC6q0ysfYj8XjuS5EeA-gyrhTrtvm__RR5/s1600/goal1.png- "Another article celebrated how the 'OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES ZIONIST TEAMS, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Beersheba' were unable to play in the summer of 2014 due to 'Palestinian Hamas shelling'.”
Samuels added "calling Haifa, Tel Aviv and Beersheba OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, in effect deletes all of Israel from the map".
- "Another recounts how Bosnian striker, Edin Dzeko, will not participate in the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifier against 'THE ZIONIST ENEMY' in 'THE ARAB CITY OF JERUSALEM'."
The Centre argued that "this language violates Goal.com's on-line Terms of Message and Content Use which forbids any expression that is:
- 5.7.2 is threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, offensive, pornographic, profane, sexually explicit or indecent - 5.7.3 [that] promotes violence - 5.7.4 [that] promotes discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age - 5.7.10 [that] will be likely to harass, upset, embarrass or alarm any other person".
The letter pointed to "an example of how far such words can reach, occurring this Friday, 1 May, when Raja Casablanca F.C. President, Mohamed Boudrika protested violence on the pitch by the Algerian Wikaf Stef team, to epithets from their Club President, Hassan Hammar, calling the Moroccan team “Jews Jews!". See:http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/05/157477/raja-president-terrorized-algeria-algerian-police/
Samuels claimed that "multiple appeals to Goal.com London headquarters have remained unanswered," continuing, "a similar complaint to pan-European sports network, EUROSPORT, resulted in immediate action.
It will be interesting to see if Goal.com responds to this.
Firas Press and other Arabic news sources are claiming that Hamas is putting a news blackout on events in Syria:
Reliable sources close to media officials in Hamas that they have issued strict instructions to all departments, editors of all news sites, forums, and radio TV that belongs to them not to cover or publish any news about events taking place in Syria and massacres there against unarmed citizens.
The sources said that instructions have been issued from the leadership of the Hamas political bureau living on Syrian territory to pursue all of its networks and not to offend any news of the Syrian regime and affect the feelings of the Syrian government.
The sources said the Hamas political bureau wanted to maintain its position with the Syrian regime, which embraced it many years ago.
And a Hamas Palestine network yesterday blocked news about the split within the Syrian army.
This may be a Damascus Hamas directive; the Gaza Hamas sites have some Syrian news and indeed they are sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood portion of the uprising.
You literally need a scorecard to keep track of all the different groups that make up Lebanon's political scene and their shifting loyalties. The three main groups are,of course, the Christians, the Shiites and the Sunnis, but each of those groups have splinter groups that may or may not be aligned with their co-religionists at any time. There are also the Druze and smaller groups, whose very survival depends on being able to anticipate which way the wind is about to blow and jump on the side of the winning team.
Add to this that these are not just political groups but they all generally were parts of militia in the 1970s and 1980s. Sometimes they have to take out their weapons to defend their towns and villages.
And add to this the entire recent history of civil war. Plus the collective memory of being effectively controlled by Syria, by Israel or (more recently) by Iran. Not to mention the French influence on Lebanese culture and the fact that it is a favorite vacation spot for decadent, rich Saudis. More ingredients in Lebanon's ratatouille is the generally liberal and Western-style of downtown Beirut compared with the poverty of the south and the traditionalism in other areas.
The resulting dish is dizzying in its complexity.
Michael Totten, in his great book "The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah, and the Iranian War Against Israel ," explains it all (or at least a lot of it) in a wonderful first-person journalistic style.
We learn about Lebanon as Totten does. We follow him as he interviews Shi'ite, Maronite and Sunni leaders and ordinary people as well. We tag along as he gets threatened by people with guns and eventually finds that he is somehow safer with armed people around.
Unlike many journalists who speak as if they are omniscient, Totten lets us see his mistakes and how he learns from them.
He takes us on his journey during the Israel/Hezbollah war of 2006 and mini-civil wars precipitated by Hezbollah in afterwards. He speaks to many people on most sides, and lets us know when he doesn't believe what they say. He and his friends get into dangerous situations that are inconceivable to Western eyes - but he knows that and explains it so the audience gets it.
Totten often uses that skill to great effect. For example, he mentions that he asks Eli Khoury, a leader of the March 14th movement, "What is the solution?" Totten then goes on to tell his readers that this is a very American question, one that he soon learned not to ask, because the Lebanese know that there isn't one. However, Americans are solution-oriented and cannot grasp that basic concept that is so integral to survival in the Middle East.
We cannot solve the problems. We can only manage them as best we can, today.
One other talent that Michael Totten has is the ability to see the entire picture and relate to it. It is easy to get lost in the minutiae, especially in Lebanon where there are so many groups competing with each other and none of them are in the majority. But Totten is always there to remind us what the real danger is. It is Iran, using Hezbollah as its proxy. All of the desire to be pacifist or pan-Lebanese is doomed as long as Hezbollah, effectively an arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, has effective veto power over the Lebanese government and controls its own state within a state. No one can confront Hezbollah militarily nor politically, and as a result Iran is extending its hegemony over the region.
Totten's journalistic style is especially appreciated in the Lebanese arena. While most other journalists will meekly follow whatever restrictions their interview subjects impose on them, Totten reports on the entire context of his interviews, letting us know that if he cannot find out a piece of information it is not because he didn't try. He also lets us know when his subjects are not being entirely truthful.
Totten was not in Lebanon for all the events he covers so he relies on his friends to fill in the personal stories. Also, he didn't talk much about the Palestinian Arab experience in Lebanon outside of broad historical strokes; there is no interview with the Arabs in refugee camps and the Nahr al-Bared fighting is glossed over as a "sideshow." While this is probably true, there are about as many Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon as there are Druze, and demographics do matter. I would love to have seen him highlight Lebanese discrimination against them across the board as well as what they have done to help destroy Lebanon from inside.
These are minor points, though. The Road to Fatima Gate is a brilliant combination of memoir and journalism, and it is highly recommended.
I reported a couple of months ago that one of the released "Palestine Papers" included this comment from the Negotiations Support Unit of the PLO:
Recognizing the Jewish state implies recognition of a Jewish people and recognition of its right to self-determination. Those who assert this right also assert that the territory historically associated with this right of self-determination (i.e., the self-determination unit) is all of Historic Palestine. Therefore, recognition of the Jewish people and their right of self-determination may lend credence to the Jewish people’s claim to all of Historic Palestine.
So did Abbas goof in his Passover tweet to the "Jewish nation"?
If there is a Jewish nation, does it not have the right of self-determination?
And if there is a Jewish nation, where is its land? It is obviously in the Biblical Land of Israel, which includes the entire West Bank.
So was this a gaffe, or just another of a long line of English language doubletalk by Palestinian Arab leaders? I could not find any Arabic version of his Passover holiday wishes for this year (in 2009 he gave a more generic message to Jews worldwide, which raised eyebrows among some Islamists.)
I reported last week that Hamas had won student elections in Birzeit University, which had generally been pro-Fatah in recent years despite a strong Hamas presence.
The PA apparently didn't think much about this show of student democracy, because Arabic media is reporting today that the PA arrested 12 Hamas supporters both at Birzeit as well as at Hebron Polytechnic University.
The reports say that the police broke into students houses to arrest them, damaging their contents.
Now that police beatings are in the headlines again, it is fashionable for so-called progressives to equate the police with Israeli soldiers - as if Israeli police and soldiers are the quintessential example of police brutality.
From The Guardian:
David Simon, the creator of The Wire, has again weighed in on unrest in his adopted city of Baltimore, turning his frustration from the protesters to the “army of occupation” of the city’s police.
“They were collecting bodies, treating corner folk and citizens alike as an Israeli patrol would treat Gaza, or as the Afrikaners would have treated Soweto back in the day. They’re an army of occupation. And once it’s that, then everybody’s the enemy.
I will bet anything that the lowest private in the IDF in Gaza last summer would act with more restraint towards those trying to kill him than David Simon would. I would also bet that the same private knows more about international law and the laws of armed conflict in protecting civilians than David Simon does.
To use Israel as the standard of brutality is not only an obscene slander, but it shows how successful anti-Israel propaganda is, and how open and susceptible otherwise intelligent people are to being manipulated by the haters.
Even more absurd is that the standard for treating Gazan civilians like subhumans comes not from Israel - but from those Israel was fighting..
This AFP report from yesterday will get about 1/10th of one percent of the coverage that stories about Israel do:
Police in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip beat and arrested protesters on Wednesday at a youth rally in the north of the besieged coastal territory, an AFP correspondent said.
More than 400 demonstrators gathered in Shujaiyeh, a neighborhood in eastern Gaza City that was razed during a July-August war between Hamas and Israel, urging reconstruction and calling for an end to intra-Palestinian division.
This undated video shows how much restraint Hamas shows towards civilians in Gaza.
It is not easy to find videos like this on YouTube in English. And coverage of daily Hamas brutality is minuscule compared to the much exaggerated, out of context and often fictional stories of Israeli law enforcement brutality.
Meanwhile, videos showing Israeli police helping Arabs - videos that completely destroy the lazy assumptions that journalists and writers like Simon make - are even more rare: This is not a coincidence. Journalists are lazy in accepting the fiction of widespread Israeli brutality, and anything that shows that to be false is naturally going to be buried because it is too hard to explain the reality to readers compared to reporting-by-meme.
This video shows an army patrol reviving an Arab in Hebron whose heart stopped after he was electrocuted.
Clearly, these soldiers are frantically trying to save the life of someone that David Simon thinks they passionately loathe.
People like Simon are well meaning - and are literally clueless that they are being brainwashed every day by an army of anti-Israel activists and a complicit media that discards even the appearance of objectivity while willing to accept and repeat the narrative of hate without question.
But when David Simon writes his own analysis for the public, he has the same responsibility as any journalist to get his facts right. His being exposed to lies for decades is not an excuse to skip fact-checking.
The irony is that much of the audience for these lazy reporters want to know the truth, even if Simon doesn't. There is a reason that the most popular video I've ever uploaded, with 400,000 views, shows IDF soldiers acting kindly towards Arab children.
(h/t Alexi, Ian)
UPDATE: Simon changed the text in his original article from Gaza to the West Bank. I suppose I could link to more videos of Israeli patrols playing soccer with Palestinian youths, but clearly he stands by his account of how Israel treats Arabs like dirt, and that turns him from someone who one could assume was duped by the media into someone who is doing the duping.
Official Palestinian Arab news agency WAFA reports:
A group of Jewish settlers prayed at Joseph’s Tomb on Thursday, east of Nablus in the north West Bank, under the protection of Israeli forces.
Local sources said the worshippers snuck into the site under the protection of Israeli soldiers, prayed until the early hours of the morning and left, with no confrontations reported.
Israeli radio said forces stopped and arrested some 13 settlers while they were on their way to the tomb, although another group managed to enter the site despite the road blocks the Israeli army had set up.
I always wonder how they know that the worshipers are "settlers." Oh, right - all Israelis are "settlers"!
Hamas' Palestine Times in Arabic is a bit more strident - and fanciful:
In a new level of arrogance, about twenty Zionist extremist settlers blew up a roadblock Thursday east of Nablus and stormed Joseph's Tomb, where they performed Talmudic rituals, under the protection of the Zionist army, which was spread extensively in the vicinity of the region amid flying reconnaissance planes nearby.
Witnesses said that the settlers went to sabotage public utilities, destroying the electricity grid and throwing dirt and rubbish on the street nearby. They also burned tires during their withdrawal.
Israeli media is apparently not aware of any visits to the tomb last night, saying only that the IDF stopped dozens of would-be worshippers.
