Palestine Think Tank

It is written in the Torah if any one cares to read and know: “Destroy all the land, beat down their pillars and break their statues and waste all of their high places, cleansing the land and dwelling in it for I have given it to you for your possession” Numbers 33:52,53. “ And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city both men and women, young and old and ox and sheep and ass with the edge of the sword” Joshua 6:21 

The PLO /PA leadership decision to withdraw support through postponement of Judge Goldstone’s Report on Israeli War Crimes in Gaza presented to the UN Human Rights Council did not and should not come as a surprise.  The Ramallah leadership is now making all kinds of excuses to justify its positions including denial with contradictory statements coming from Mahmoud Abbas and his representative in Geneva and senior members of Fatah.  The claims of surprise and the entire PLO/PA leadership are bunch of liars and collaborators with Israel. 

So Mahmoud Abbas, whose term expired a long time ago as president of the Palestinian Authority, is trying to whitewash the strong condemnation and anger by the people and organizations across Palestine and the Arab world? Abbas decided to form a “commission” to investigate the decision as if he was not in the loop when such a decision was made. Ibrahim Kreshi confirmed in his interview on the Al-Arabiya Television program October 4 “Panorama” that the decision to withdraw was taken in coordination with the Palestinian Presidency.  Mahmoud Abbas's failure to even mention the Goldstone Report in his address to the UN General Assembly should be seen as part of this whitewash.  Ramallah leadership had too much vested personal and financial interests with risk to lose and make hundreds of millions out of the newly formed company (Watanya Cellular Company) and of course are afraid to face Lieberman's blackmail to expose Fatah senior leadership prompting and cheerleading Israel in its war against Hamas and Gaza. If the past is an indication of the future, nothing will ever come out of such a commission, like so many commissions organized by the Palestinian Presidency to look into an investigate death and murder in its prisons and of course the missing billions and corruption. 

One has to look at how Israel and Jews deal with crimes committed against Israelis and Jews and how the Palestinian and Arab leadership deals with crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians and Arabs.  What a difference. Everyone knows that until the day they die, those responsible for the death and murder of a “Jew” will pay for it with a bullet to the head and have every reason to live in fear for the rest of their lives. Israel’s history is full of such operations tracking those responsible for the death and murder of Israeli Jews. And yes they are right to do so. The care and importance given to the death and injury of a Jew must be seen as a commitment by the Israeli government that no one should get away with murder, especially if the victim is a Jew. One has to appreciate the meticulous care and attention given to the scene where Jews are murdered, nothing is left on the ground, and even the blood is cleaned from the scene. I have never seen this meticulous care given to the dead body of a Palestinian or an Arab. Sometimes bodies are left for days to rot. True, no one gives a damn if a thousand Arabs die. 

Israel has been committing crimes against the Palestinians and Arabs since the very start of the Zionist invasions and colonization of Palestine. Gaza was but one station in the long history of crimes and massacres committed by the Zionist militias and subsequently by the Israeli Army.  It is clear that the Israel leadership is following the Torah to the letter in its treatment and dealing with Non-Jews, knowing well that they will never pay for such crimes.

There is a long history of massacres and crimes committed by Israel. One needs to mention but a few; the massacre of Dier Yassin where hundreds of civilians where murdered in cold blood by none other than the Noble Prize winner Menachem Begin. Moshe Kalman leading the 3rd battalion of the Palmach shot dead some 50 Palestinian civilians in a mosque in Lydda soon after they finished cleaning the mosque in the aftermath of fight with Palestinian resistance fighters. 

Members of the Lehi gang threw a hand grenade on a Haifa market on March 6, 1938 killing 18 Arabs and injuring 38. On January 20, 1947 in a gruesome killing scene reminding us of the grenade attack on the market in Sarajevo, members of the Lehi terrorist gangs left a booby-trapped bomb in the Haifa market killing 78 and injuring 24. In Nahalin and on April 13, 1989 the Israeli army opened fire on civilians killing 13.  May 20, 1990 in the village of Uynoon Qara a member of the IDF opened a machine gun killing 7 civilians. Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israel settler and a captain in the reserve opened fired on Muslim worshipers in the Ibrahimi Mosque killing 39 Muslim worshipers and injuring 125. This massacre took place on February 25, 1994. 

During the Suez war an Israeli soldiers opened fired on civilians in Gaza killing 35 public work civilians. In the 67 War, the Israeli Army captured and executed 250 Egyptian prisoners of war. The only action taken by Egypt was to cancel the scheduled visit of Ben Elieser as reported in Haarerz on March 6, 2007.  There was an investigation and there was never a pursuit of any civil and legal actions to bring those responsible for such crimes to justice. The Egyptians knew of such crimes committed when Israeli papers published such reports. 250 executed Egyptian prisoners of war were of no consequence to the Egyptian leadership of Nasser, Saddat and Mubarak. In Qana I over 109 civilians killed and 116 injured when the Israeli army under the leadership of another Nobel Prize winner opened fired on a UN Camp in south Lebanon on April 18, 1996. 

July 17, 1994 was another day when the Israeli army opened fired on Eretz Checkpoint killing 11 Palestinians and wounding 200. On March 28, 1994 in Jabalia camp an undercover Israeli police officer simply opened fire killing 6 and inuring 49.  October 8, 1999 saw another major crime committed by Israel when Israeli border police opened fire on worshipers in Al-Aqsa Mosque killing 23 and wounding 850.  Biet Hanoun, Jenin are also added to the long list of murder and massacres. 

Qana 2 and the more than 2 million cluster bombs dropped on Lebanon during the Israel summer war of 2005 are added to the long list of crimes and massacres committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon. There was never a commission to investigate the war and crimes committed, let alone filing formal charges against Israel with the International Criminal Court. Simply put: no one gives a damn. 

In Dier Al-baqr in Egypt more than 350 school children were killed when the Israeli Air-Force targeted the school.  In Sabra and Shatilla more than 3,000 were killed and murdered in cold blood in a joint operation between the Israeli Army and the Lebanese Christian Militias. This is a partial list of many other places where innocent Arab blood was spilled with impunity. One thing is common to all of this. None, and I mean none of the Israelis responsible for such crimes where tracked down and killed, let alone brought to trial. Yes, it is true Palestinian and Arab blood is cheap. It is even cheaper when it is spilled by Arabs and Palestinians. 

In the Arab world the crimes committed by Israel seems of small consequences when we take a look at the number of dead and injured, crimes committed by Arab officials and governments and crimes and murders committed by warring factions including Palestinians factions. 

In Sudan over 450,000 were killed and murdered in Darfur and the Arab world remained silent continuing to support President Omar Al-Bashir in his fight against the arrest warrant issued by the chief prosecutors of the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Omar Al-Bashir remains free enjoying the hospitality of Arab capitals. Two millions die in South Sudan and no one gave a damn. 

On February 2, 1982 Hafiz Al-Assad, the late president of Syria sent his brother commanding the infamous “Saraya Al-Defa’a” to Hama bombarding the city and killing some 40,000 by some claims. No one was ever charged or brought to trial and families of victims never brought criminal or civil charges, simply put no one gives a damn. 

In Iraq, Saddam Hussein outdid Israel and all the other Arab leaders combined by the number of people his regime killed and murdered. Halabja was one such place where on 16 March 1988 after two days of conventional artillery attach on the Kurdish town, Iraqi jet fighters dropped gas canisters on the town killing some 5,000 civilians. It should be noted that the late President Ronald Reagan who stood before the Berlin Wall and demanded Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, sent none other than the disgraced former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld to greet Saddam and confirm US commitment and support for Saddam Hussein and his regime only a few days after the news of the massacres of Halbja became known. Arab media and governments simply ignored the news since no one ever gives a damn. 

Some 100,000 Kurds were killed and massacred in what is called the “Anfal” operation.  In the after math of Saddam routing in the First Gulf War, Saddam went on a vengeance against the Shiites of South Iraq killing and murdering hundreds of thousand of civilians under the watchful eyes of George Bush Senior. If one is to count the number of soldiers who died in Saddam's war against Iran and his war against Iraq, Saddam breaks all records with some 2 million dead and a similar number inured as a consequence of Saddam's regime. 

The bloodbath in Iraq continued with factional and sectarian fighting causing the majority of the 1.3 million Iraqi dead since George Bush's invasion of Iraq. Hundreds are killed and murdered in cold blood by sectarian suicide bombers, Sunnis and Shiites every day and every week. Iraqi civilians are killed in markets, in hospitals, in mosques, in schools, killed by Iraqis, yet no one was ever brought to trial. It seems the present Iraqi leadership of Sunnis and Shiites does think that the more than 2 million Iraqis killed by Saddam's regime were not enough and they want to break the records. No one gives a damn. 

In Lebanon’s civil war more than 250,000 were killed during the civil war that started in 1975 and nominally ended in 1999. Some 50,000 remain missing and unaccounted for. No one dares to open the files or investigate the missing because everyone is afraid of the truth and the leaders do not give a damn. Lebanon was the scene of some of the most gruesome and vengeful killings with all sides of the war committing war crimes and massacres. In Tal-Zaater where some 5,000 Palestinians were killed. The Lebanese Christian militias with full support of the Syrian Army laid siege against the camp and after an assault that lasted 35 days, the camp fell on August 12, 1976.  The Palestinians also committed similar crimes however to a much lesser extent when they attacked the town of Damour.  The attack on Damour was in retaliation for the massacres of some 1,500 Palestinian civilians in Karantina on 18 January 1976. A few days later the Palestinian fighters attacked the town of Damour, stronghold of Lebanese Christian militia, murdering between 300-600 civilians. 

Palestinians were no exception to inter-factional fighting of killings and murder. From the very inception of the Palestinian Liberation Organization under the leadership of the late Yasser Arafat, the Palestinians were involved in inter-factional fighting among the different factions of the PLO and other factions until today, and were engaged in inter Arab fighting in Jordan and in Lebanon. 

Soon after the Karama battle in March 1968, when a joint Jordanian –Palestinian fighting units routed an invading column of Israeli tanks, the late Yasser Arafat sought to establish a state within a state similar to what he later did in Lebanon when he established his “Fakhani Republic”. However Jordan was not Lebanon and King Hussein was not about to have anyone challenge his rule. After the Palestinian fighters under Arafat began to take over key and critical locations within and outside Amman, the late King Hussein decided to take on Arafat's militia. Over 3,000 Palestinians were killed in the fight with Arafat escaping with his skin to Syria and then to Lebanon to establish his Fakhani Republic, leaving wounds that never healed between Jordanians and those citizens of Jordan of Palestinian origin. 

Palestinian inter-factional fights were a key trademark of the history of Palestinian resistance and marks the long and torturous presence of the Palestinian presence in Lebanon. Sabri El-Banna better known as Abu-Nidal head of the Fatah Revolutionary Council/Arab Revolutionary Brigade is responsible for the cold blooded murder of some 300 people, most of them Palestinians, including the late Salah Khlalaf known as Abu-Iyad who was gunned down in January 1991. Abu-Nidal did succeed in killing a couple of Israelis but most of his victims were Palestinian leaders and Palestinian intellectuals. Many Palestinian intellectuals were gunned down by the different Palestinian militias including Arafat's own militia. One only needs to remember the late Naji Al-Ali killed by Arafat's factions. 

Arafat's own militia not only engaged against Lebanese militia but also engaged in factional fighting with the dissident group of the National Salvation Alliance of Said Musa Maragha better known as Abu-Musa where hundreds of Palestinian fighters were killed in the personal fights between Arafat and Abu-Musa. 

Leopards do not change their spots and Arafat, the ever-conniving he was, did not drop his old habits of inciting and promoting inter-factional fights. The establishment of the Palestinian Security Forces under Oslo was a replacement for his failed “liberation army”. With the support of Israel and the West, mainly the Americans, Arafat went ahead with building his own militia that later engaged in the Palestinian “civil wars”. 

Using the Palestinian Security Forces as his own private militia, Arafat was not about to accept any challenge to his private deal with Israel under Oslo. He committed to the safety and security of Israel, soldiers and settlers and Hamas was seen as a threat to this commitment. As such he made sure he built a powerful “Preventive Security Forces” in Gaza under the command of Mohamad Dahlan making sure that Hamas is never a threat to his regime and making sure that Hamas is not a threat to Israel.  In the West Bank Arafat organized the Preventive Security under Jibril Rajoub, a security force that simply terrorized Palestinians and ran a racketeering protection racket, detaining without charges hundreds of Palestinians. This criminal abuse of power continued after the death of Arafat, prompting a number of international civil and human rights organizations to condemn the systematic abuse of the Palestinian Security Forces. Human Rights Watch both on June 22, 2008 and July 29, 2008 called on the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas to end the systematic abuses and violations of civil rights and human rights committed by Abbas's security forces. 

The conflict between Fatah and Hamas was also prompted and incited by Israel and the United States and of course by certain Fatah leadership in Gaza such as Mohamed Dahlan. Between 2006 and 2007 the US supplied guns and ammunition worth some $60 million to Fatah militias in Gaza and did sponsored training camps in Egypt and Jordan for Fatah militias with the purpose and objective of taking on Hamas, deploying two battalions well armed and well trained and transferred them with Israeli approval and support to Gaza. The well sourced Vanity Fair reports” The US initiated covert initiative approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams to provoke a Palestinian civil war,” and this is exactly what happened and what the disgraced corrupt Fatah leadership prefers to call “Inqilab” a coupe. 

“March-December 2006 saw and witnessed great factional tension between Fatah and Hamas with Fatah commander refusing to take orders from the National Unity government while the Palestinian Authority initiated a campaign of assassinations and abductions against Hamas.” Some 600 Palestinians were killed in factional fighting between January 2006 and May 2007. Some 90 people where killed in less than 20 days between December-January 2007. 

Of course we all know what happened in Gaza where Hamas took the initiative routing Mohamed Dahlan and Fatah militia out of Gaza, forcing many of Fatah fighters and thugs to seek safety and refuge with their allies the Israelis. These factional fights continued with a well-known confrontation taking place in Qalqilya as recent as May 31, 2009 where 6 were killed and scores injured in factional fights between Fatah militia and Hamas. 

Of course Hamas is no angel in all this. It too engaged in its own murderous games against many supporters and sympathizers of Fatah. It also tried to cover its reckless disregard of the safety and security of civilians by placing a truck loaded with ammunition and dynamite among large crowds and of course with its own trademark of reckless disregard to the lives and safety of people some 40 civilians were killed and hundreds were injured. Hamas of course blamed Israel for the explosion.  Hamas also continued to commit reckless disregard of civilians by placing bomb factories in large housing complexes and placing rocket factories in civilians' shops and in crowded places. However Hamas's major crime was the use of suicide bombing against Israeli civilians. Of course it commited crimes against the Palestinians by allowed the continued use of useless, reckless, worthless rockets fired against Israeli targets that subsequently put all of Gaza in harm's way. 

With the exception of Saddam and key members of his regime (perhaps thanks to the Americans) no Arab, certainly no Palestinian responsible for all of these killings and murders was ever brought to trial. No Lebanese militia leaders responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths were ever brought to trial, let alone faced the threat of charges. Some Lebanese leaders such as the late Elie Hobieka, the main leaders responsible for the massacre in Sabra and Shatilla not only escaped facing charges but were sponsored by the late Hafiz Al-Assad who became a minister, a member of the Lebanese cabinet shortly after the end of the Lebanese civil war. What a joke! 

Among the Palestinian leadership, no one responsible for the killings and murder of Palestinians ever faced charges, let alone trial, with the commanders responsible for the death of so many commanders especially those cowards who ran away from battle with Israel in Lebanon and those like Jibril Rajoub who ran away from his headquarters in Bietunya leaving behind his men and prisoners trapped were promoted to leadership positions within Fatah and the PLO. 

No one should be surprised by the decision of the Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas to withdraw its support for the Goldstone Report and the recommendation to bring the report before the UN Security Council and the filing of criminal charges against Israeli leaders and military commanders. 

We only hear so many contradictions, excuses and outright lies. Mahmoud Abbas, a few hours ago, announcing in Sana’a that the decision to delay was taken after consultations with key Arab and Muslim delegations and at the same time he ordered the formation of an independent “commission” to look into the decision to postpone and pull the support of the Palestinian Authority for the Goldstone report. If Abbas's claims is correct (he is s liar and collaborator) why the need to form a commission and waste everyone's time? It is nothing but a whitewash, hogwash. On the other hand, Abbas's representative in Geneva claimed in TV on the Panorama Program that the decision was taken by the Palestinian Presidency to avoid the chance that Hamas leadership is brought to trial. A hogwash at best. Yes, let Hamas leadership face the charges if that means Israeli leaders and commanders will face trial too. I called in a previous posting that Israeli and Hamas leadership should be brought to trial to face criminal charges. No one would believe the decision of Ramallah leadership is made save the Hamas leadership. If Fatah's leadership did not prompt the war on Gaza it certainly did support it. The PLO leadership never ever brought charges against Israeli leaders and commanders for the hundreds of massacres and the hundreds of thousands killed. It never brought charges nor ever established an independent commission to look into the massacres committed in Sabra and Shatilla, in Tal-Zaater, in Jenin, in Beit Hanoun and in Hebron. The PLO leadership is indeed a true and loyal partner of the Israeli Occupation and is made up of liars, criminal collaborators and financial racketeers. With a Palestinian and Arab leadership like this, no wonders Arab blood is much cheaper when spilled by Arabs. I am sure the poor victims in Gaza wish that they were Jews and not Palestinians and that Bibi Netanyahu is their leader not Mahmoud Abbas. Yes no one gives a damn. 

PS. The PLO paid over $ 8 million to the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the crippled American Jew who was pushed overboard in his wheelchair by senior members of the PLO. The PLO also stands to pay $120 million in compensation to the family of an American-Israeli Jew killed in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem. The US Federal Court ordered the freezing of $120 million in PLO assets in the US.  Arafat could find the millions to send to his wife to enjoy Paris, and could give his cronies millions to buy homes and spend on lavish weddings yet he did not find the money to give to the thousands of families left homeless in Dir El-Balah after an Israel raid that destroyed their homes.