Palestinian Media Watch

More documentation of flotilla planning violence against Israel Abbas: Israel was determined “to kill” Three of the four Turks killed on ship sought Martyr’s death Gaza flotilla participants created war atmosphere before confronting Israel

Israeli Defense Forces

Video of Flotilla passenger: “I want to be a shahid (martyr)” Footage of Flotilla Boarding & Violence Used Against IDF Personnel IDF Spokesperson Update – Clarification Regarding Number of Injuries and Casualties in Today’s Incident at Sea Close-Up Footage of Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers Now Available PM Netanyahu Responds to the Security Events IDF SPOX: Video eyewitness account by soldier: “They shot at us the entire time” IDF SPOX: Video: Supply of weapons discovered on board the Mavi Marmara Gaza flotilla: Excerpts from press conference with DM Barak, CoS Ashkenazi and Naval Commander Marom Video: Humanitarian aid from flotilla transferred into Gaza Video Release: “They are firing on us with live fire!” Breaking Footage from Mavi Marmara interception IDF Military Advocate General: Interception of Gaza flotilla is legal under international law A Danish research institute exposes the links the Turkish organization IHH had with Al-Qaeda and global jihad networks IDF SPOX/COGAT: Hamas Refuses to Allow Flotilla Aid into Gaza Strip 2.6.10 Statement by PM Netanyahu EJC calls on the European Union to ban the IHH and other terrorist front organizations to ensure no repeat of flotilla events Video Footage: Flotilla Activists Getting Ready to Attack IDF Soldiers

Both the Methodist Church of Britain and the Presbyterian Church (USA) have issued slanted reports on the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Presbyterians’ 172-page report, entitled “Breaking Down Walls” – apparently referring to the security barrier – will be discussed at that denomination’s 219th General Assembly in Minneapolis, Minnesota on July 3-10. 

Divestment is not on the agenda, as it was in 2004 when Presbyterians were the first Protestant church to brandish such economic pressure against Israel. In 2006, after a bitter struggle, the motion was rescinded. But at July’s assembly, Presbyterians will consider putting pressure on the Obama administration to stop US aid to Israel until the Israeli government “ends the expansion of settlements in Palestinian territories,” ceases its “occupation” of Gaza, and relocates “Israel’s separation barrier” outside of Palestinian territories.

British Methodists, meanwhile, will be considering divestment. This after America’s Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) of the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted on June 15 to divest all holdings in three international corporations – General Electric, Caterpillar and Terex – that “profit from the occupation of Palestine.”

ALTHOUGH METHODISTS and Presbyterians are the most aggressively anti-Israel among liberal Protestant denominations, all five of the mainline denominations in the US – Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Evangelical Lutheran and United Church of Christ – have debated and in some cases adopted policies intended to bring direct or indirect economic pressure on Israel to compromise with the Palestinians.

These mainline denominations stand in stark contrast to the adamantly pro-Israel position adopted by evangelical Protestant sects.

Unlike American evangelical theology, liberal Christian denominations do not believe the Jewish people have a continuing role in God’s plan. Nor do they see the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel as an inevitable step in the redemption process. As a result, liberal Christians supported Zionism in the same way that they have supported the national movements of other oppressed groups.

For the same reason, they have switched their support to the Palestinian national movement as Israel, in the wake of the two Lebanon wars, the two intifadas and the Gaza conflicts, has increasingly been portrayed in “progressive” circles as the aggressor. Contributing to this trend are the ties mainline denominations have with Palestinian Protestants such as Naim Ateek, head of Sabeel, whose liberation theology likens Palestinians to the persecuted Jesus and views Jews, not Muslims, as the persecutors.

Liberal Protestants are particularly susceptible to a leftwing agenda that is anti-globalization, anti-capitalist (though liberal Protestants are among America’s most affluent) and rabidly anti-Zionist. Unlike more fundamentalist Protestants, mainline denominations tend to have a less literal reading of the Gospel. They are, as a result, more likely to contemporize the fight to establish the kingdom of God as a call to support progressive political causes. Theology is more malleable and, as Walter Russell Mead put it in a 2006 essay in Foreign Policy entitled “God’s Country,” liberal Protestants tend to “evanesce into secularism.”

They may be environmentalists belonging to the Sierra Club and Greenpeace or human rights activists involved with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Their sincere desire to pursue justice might be motivated by faith, but implementation often puts them under the sway of organizations with rabidly anti-Zionist or even anti-American agendas.

One study by the Institute on Religion and Democracy found that 37 percent of the statements made by mainline Protestant churches on human rights abuses between 2000 and 2003 focused on Israel. No other country came in for such frequent criticism, though the US was a close second with 32%. China, North Korea and Saudi Arabia were not critiqued at all.

Interestingly, the same amorphous theology that has blurred the boundaries between mainline Protestantism and left-wing secularism has also led to a steady decline in membership. As sociologists of religion have pointed out, the more demanding and unambiguous a religion’s principles, the more respect and commitment it is likely to enjoy. Who can take seriously liberal Protestant denominations that consistently fail to make moral distinctions that set them apart from progressive secularism? For their own good, Presbyterians, Methodists and other mainline denominations would do well to reexamine their policy on Israel. Perhaps they will find their own distinctive voice resonating with a more balanced view of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. They might even reach the conclusion that Israelis have the right to defend themselves.

In another sign of the growing importance Israel attributes to China in the battle against Iran’s nuclear program, OC Home Front Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan flew to Beijing Saturday night at the head of an Israeli military delegation, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Golan will hold talks with top Chinese military and defense officials on a wide range of issues pertaining to Israeli security, including the Iranian nuclear threat. 

He will also meet with Chinese officials to discuss civil defense and will brief them on the recent nationwide Home Front exercise Turning Point 4 that was held in Israel.

Golan’s week-long visit comes two months after head of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin and head of the IDF’s Strategic Planning Division Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel visited China as part of an Israeli effort to get Beijing to support new sanctions on Iran.

Ties with China are a sensitive issue for the IDF. In 2005, a crisis erupted between the Defense Ministry and the Pentagon, which accused Israel of selling American military technology to China.

The crisis was resolved several years later after Israel agreed to suspend all military sales to China and instituted new safeguards and supervision on defense exports.

Nevertheless, the IDF attaches importance to maintaining a solid relationship with China due to the role Beijing plays in stopping Iran’s nuclear program. In April, the spokesman for the Chinese military and Defense Ministry visited Israel as a guest of IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Avi Benayahu.

Anti-Israel television for children: The Birds of Paradise band has released a new song in which children express their desire to be shaheeds (martyrs).

The song, sung by young children on the Birds of Paradise television channel, includes the lyrics, “When we die as shaheeds we’ll go to paradise. No, don’t say we’re young. This life has made us old. Without Palestine, what significance is there to our lives? Even if they give us the whole world, we’ll never forget her (Palestine).”

During the song, an older man appears. “Children, we must keep our religious commandments,” he sings. “There is no god but Allah, and Allah loves shaheeds.”

At the end of the song, the children sing, “Allah watch over the children of Palestine. Allah will make our prayers come true.”

Shaheeds and birds. The kid’s website

The channel has also produced other songs against Israel, such as “The lion cubs of Gaza” and “The upright ones – the return to Palestine.”

The songs are broadcast over the station which began operating in Bahrain in January 2008. It was established by Jordanian-Palestinian businessman Khaled Maqdad.

Maqdad, who formed the kids’ band of the same name in 1994, has raised funds over the years to set up the station, which specializes in broadcasting the band’s clips. In addition to the children’s songs, there are also an abundance of love songs to the homeland and songs praising “heroes like (Sheikh) Ahmad Yassin,” the wheelchair bound founder of Hamas whom Israel assassinated in March 2004.

“This is a private low-budget project,” Maqdad said in a past interview with the al-Jazeera newspaper Al-Shuruq. “The channel has captured the hearts of millions of children. It succeeds where the educational system has failed, such as multiplication table songs. It helps teachers work on it with the children.”

The recent Turkish-sponsored terrorist flotilla to Gaza is being seen by pundits as a trend towards a larger rejection of the West by Ankara. 

The Christian Science Monitor’s Robert Marquand writes from Paris that “there’s wariness here over Turkey’s emerging persona under an Islamic-rooted party and murmurs about whether it wants to reassert an old Ottoman Empire sphere of influence.”

Marquand notes that Turkey has taken the trouble to re-establish its diplomatic ties with Iran and tighten its ties with Syria and Brazil. Turkey and Brazil were the only two nations to vote on June 9 against strengthened sanctions imposed on Iran by the United Nations Security Council, in the ongoing battle against its headlong rush towards nuclear capability.

Ankara’s rejection of the West, he says, may be a reaction to a rebuff from Europe: Turkey’s application for membership in the European Union has been stalled repeatedly for some 18 years.

During a Belgian parliamentary debate several years ago, then-MP Herman Van Rompuy was quoted as warning his colleagues, “The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigor with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey.” Van Rompuy, who eventually became the country’s prime minister, currently also serves as the president of the European Union.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is another opponent of Turkey’s application for membership in the EU, because the Middle Eastern nation is not geographically located in Europe. Another world leader who opposes Turkey’s membership is German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Turkey’s long-standing dispute with Cyprus has also created additional difficulties in various negotiations, causing further delays.

Strategically located between the East and West, Ankara meanwhile presents an excellent opportunity for non-Western investors who are looking for a way in to the worldwide economic and political playing field. Disaffected by Europe’s rejection, Turkish leaders have instead begun to draw closer to their Muslim neighbors, cementing ties with Syria, Iraq and Iran.

But Europe is not taking the hint. Marquand reports that “Europeans have become more fearful of welcoming Turkey” following the clashes aboard the Mavi Marmara, when footage of demonstrators yelling “Death to Israel” on the streets of Turkey “looked un-European.”

Turks, meanwhile, blame “populist politicians in France, Germany, Austria and the Greek Cypriot government” for attacks on the member application process. According to Hugh Pope of the Istanbul-based International Crisis Group, “They use it for domestic political purposes to play on people’s fears, and this has done a great deal to make Turks angry towards Europe.”

The news that Afghanistan’s mineral wealth could exceed $1 trillion is an important opportunity for both Kabul and Washington to change the narrative from counterinsurgency to locally controlled sustainable development.
By doing so, the government of Hamid Karzai and the Obama administration can leverage a range of converging interests in South and Central Asia to put Afghanistan and the region finally on the only viable path to security — rising economic prosperity in the larger region.
Natural resources are both a blessing and a curse. For some countries strong government and civil society can manage them so the larger society benefits and profits are invested in the human resources of the country. The BP oil spill notwithstanding, this has been the case for the United States, Canada, Norway and the United Kingdom.
For many other countries, natural resource wealth has been a curse. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been at war over its resources for more than 15 years. Angola’s oil wealth fueled a multidecade civil war, and Iraq’s strategic position at the heart of the Persian Gulf oil patch led to a dictatorship that was both sponsored by the United States and then destroyed by it.

Video: Afghanistan’s mineral wealth

Video: $1 trillion of minerals in Afghanistan

So the question is, how can the Afghans exploit this impressive inheritance while laying the foundation for a peaceful future? The first step is to not wait for the mining companies to start operating. This large a reserve estimate creates an immediate opportunity to use the mineral wealth as collateral to secure funding for key development activities that need to happen today. 

Done properly, borrowing against the nation’s mineral wealth provides a mechanism that helps Afghanistan avoid the unsustainable mining practices that in the long term might leave it worse off or ecologically damaged.
Where the money comes from is important. Instead of the traditional development agencies providing the funds and putting a counterproductive American face on development efforts, the Afghan government has the opportunity to seek loans backed by tangible mineral assets.
Instead of U.S. Agency for International Development or Defense Department funding and all the contractors and consultants that come with it, the Afghan government can to go to the Export-Import Bank or the Overseas Private Investment Corp. for funding.
To avoid corruption, Kabul should place those funds in a transparent national escrow account to be used for critical development programs.
Here too, the timing is good. In an annex to the Afghan government’s peace and reintegration program, released in April, the Karzai government proposed a major program that needs exactly this kind of stable, long-term funding. Called the Public Works and Agricultural Conservation Corps, the “Corps,” reminiscent of our own Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, would build on successful, locally focused and Afghan-owned efforts such as the National Solidarity Program and the Community Development Councils.
It would recruit, train, educate and pay insurgent-age young men to participate in small-to-medium scale civil engineering and agricultural development projects. By taking large numbers of young men, providing them with meals, pay, literacy and basic vocational training, the program would provide a powerful, Afghan-led alternative to the Taliban while thinning their ranks and improving the productivity of the Afghan nation as a whole.
The saying in Afghanistan is that the Taliban starts where the roads — the police pay — end. By focusing on the two core challenges facing the largely agrarian nation, roads and jobs, the Public Works and Agricultural Conservation Corps can turn the tide against the insurgents by demonstrating that the Afghan government is capable of meeting the short-, medium- and long-term needs of its people without endless American intervention.
In the medium term, using this advance on the nation’s mineral wealth can create the missing link in Afghan development: reducing dependence on donor funding while unifying the development agenda under the leadership of the Afghan government.
Today, the Provisional Reconstruction Teams and the military’s Commanders’ Emergency Response Program are providing the bulk of development funding in the country. The problem is that they are also creating a parallel government that only exacerbates corruption and confusion. By transitioning to a unified program using the Engineering and Agricultural Corps as the human resource foundation, the Afghan government can solve a number of problems with one design.
Ultimately, a sustainable, Afghan-centric approach to mineral development is also in the interest of the United States. Success in Afghanistan will be dependent on a growing Afghan economy being situated in and contributing to a prosperous South and Central Asia.
By Kabul tapping Afghanistan’s mineral wealth to fund its own economic development, the future of Afghanistan can be returned to the hands of Afghans — a condition that will only expedite the safe return of American troops.

If once only a small group of analysts recognized Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist outlook, this fact is now obvious.  

As typical Islamist-leftist theater to delegitimize Israel, late May’s Turkishsponsored “Free Gaza” flotilla was tediously repetitious. As an illustration that Israelis don’t understand the kind of war they now must fight, the outcome was drearily predictable. But as a statement of Turkey’s policies and an augur of the Islamist movement’s future, it bristled with novelty and significance.

Some background: After some 150 years of faltering efforts at modernization, the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed in 1923, replaced by the dynamic, Western-oriented Republic of Turkey founded and dominated by a former Ottoman general, Kemal Atatürk. Over the next 15 years, until his death in 1938, Atatürk imposed a Westernization program so stringent that at one point he had rugs in mosques replaced by church-like pews. Although Turkey is nearly 100% Muslim, he insisted on a purely secular state.

Atatürk never won the entire Turkish population to his vision and, with time, his laic republic increasingly had to accommodate pious Muslim sentiments. Yet Atatürk’s order persisted into the 1990s, guarded over by the military officer corps, which made it a priority to keep his memory alive and secularism entrenched.

Islamists first acquired parliamentary representation in the early 1970s when their leader, Necmettin Erbakan, served three times as his country’s deputy prime minister. As mainstream Turkish political parties frittered away their legitimacy through a disgraceful mix of egoism and corruption, Erbakan went on to become prime minister for a year, 1996-97, until the military asserted itself and threw him out.

Some of Erbakan’s more agile and ambitious lieutenants, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in August 2001 formed a new Islamist political party, the AKP. Just over a year later, it won a resounding 34 percent plurality of votes and, due to the vagaries of Turkish electoral regulations, dominated parliament with 66% of the seats.

ERDOGAN BECAME prime minister and, by dint of good governance, AKP won a very substantial increase in vote and reelection in 2007. With a renewed mandate and an increasingly sidelined military, it aggressively pursued elaborately fake conspiracy theories, fined a political critic $2.5 billion, videotaped the opposition leader in a compromising sexual situation, and now plans to alter the constitution.

Foreign policy, in the hands of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who aspires for Turkey to regain its former leadership of the Middle East, overreached even more blatantly. Ankara not only adopted a more belligerent approach to Cyprus but recklessly inserted itself into such sensitive topics as the Iranian nuclear buildup and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Most surprising of all has been its backing for IHH, a domestic Turkish “charity” with documented ties to al- Qaida.

If Ankara’s irresponsible behavior has worrisome implications for the Middle East and Islam, it also has a mitigating aspect. Turks have been at the forefront of developing what I call Islamism 2.0 – the popular, legitimate and nonviolent version of what Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden tried to achieve forcefully via Islamism 1.0. I have predicted that Erdogan’s insidious form of Islamism “may threaten civilized life even more than does 1.0’s brutality.”

But his abandonment of earlier modesty and caution suggests that Islamists cannot help themselves, that the thuggishness inherent to Islamism must eventually emerge, that the 2.0 variant must revert to its 1.0 origins. As Martin Kramer posits: “The further Islamists are from power, the more restrained they are, as well as the reverse.” This means that Islamism presents a less formidable opponent might be the case, and for two reasons.

First, Turkey hosts the most sophisticated Islamist movement in the world, one that includes not just the AKP but the Fethullah Gülen mass movement, the Adnan Oktar propaganda machine and more.

AKP’s new bellicosity has caused dissension; Gülen, for example, publicly condemned the “Free Gaza” farce, suggesting a debilitating internal battle over tactics could take place.

Second, if once only a small band of analysts recognized Erdogan’s Islamist outlook, this fact has now become self-evidently obvious for the whole world to see. Erdogan has gratuitously discarded his carefully crafted image of a pro-Western “Muslim democrat,” making it far easier to treat him as the Teheran-Damascus ally that he is.

As Davutoglu seeks, Turkey has returned to the center of the Middle East and the umma. But it no longer deserves full NATO membership and its opposition parties deserve support.

Internet giant Yahoo! and the Apple computer firm have apparently decided to pre-empt those pesky Israel-Palestinian Authority negotiations and divide the holy city of Jerusalem on their own. 

Yahoo! — which runs the weather software application for the slick Apple iPhone — last month removed Israel’s capital city from its list of international locations from which to view weather conditions.
Instead, one must now choose between East Jerusalem or West Jerusalem in order to figure out what the weather is going to be in the city.
The latitude and longitude coordinates for both locations are exactly the same, as is the temperature and other weather details.
On the Yahoo! weather page, which is linked to The Weather Channel, one is offered two Middle East options when requesting weather information for Jerusalem – Jerusalem, Yerushalayim (IL), Jerusalem, and Palestinian Occupied Territories > West Bank, Jerusalem (PS). 

Clearly Yahoo! and Apple executives have decided to recognize the Palestinian State long before direct negotiations have even been contemplated by the parties themselves, let alone conducted to determine actual borders.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, expressed his disappointment with the fact that “Jerusalem, which has been united for 43 years, has been divided by the computer giant and the popular search engine.”
Oren sent a letter of protest to both Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Apple CEO Steve Jobbs. He added that he and the rest of the Israel Embassy staff use the iPhone.