CNN [christiane amanpour] Does It Again -- The Jewish Holy City of Hebron is "Arab land"

One of the things to think about when watching a "news" report or a feature story on TV is: What are they leaving out? What did they not mention? What has been omitted?

CNN & Christiane Amanpour did that big time today in an excerpt that I saw of her three part series "God's Warriors." The excerpt focussed on the suffering of Hebron's Jewish community. However, CNN & Amanpour manage to blame the Jews there for the fanatical Arab violence against them. Indeed, one interviewee, the bearded but short on brains Gershom Goremberg, suggested that Muslim fanatical violence world wide was due to the Jews in Hebron. The context that CNN gave to his words indicates that that is CNN and Amanpour's position.

1- The male announcer introduces the story by saying that some Jews are living on "Arab land." This is false history and racist Judeophobia as well.
a) during the excerpt that I saw there was no mention that Hebron was continuously inhabited by Jews from First Temple times until 1929, with a possible break during the Crusades. See earlier posts on Hebron on this blog, especially the lengthy quotes from the American writer John Lloyd Stephens who stayed with the Hebron Jewish community in the early 19th century.
b) CNN & Christiane did not mention that Hebron is considered one of four Jewish holy cities. The others are: Jerusalem, Safed, and Tiberias.
c) nor did anyone mention the massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929 which was perpetrated by Arabs but in which British officials collaborated. See Pierre van Paassen's books, Forgotten Ally [circa 1944] and Days of Our Years for more on the Hebron massacre, including Van Paassen's interview with the acting British High Commissioner at the time.
d) Amanpour claimed that only "500 Jewish settlers" live in Hebron. That number has been given by the media for about 15 years now. The true number is probably more like 900, including Yeshiva students.

2- Attention was given the murder of Rabbi Shlomo Ra`anan who was murdered by an Arab in Hebron about ten years ago. His daughter was allowed by Amanpour to narrate the story of his murder. He was in the kitchen of his home [a modular, mobile home called a "caravan" in Israel] when the murderer entered and killed him. Yet the impression was given that it was all because the "Jewish settlers" had infringed Arab [or "palestinian"] rights and sensitivities by living on "Arab land."

3- Yet CNN & Amanpour did show that the hatred and violence and fanaticism come from the Arabs, not the Jews, who are shown studying Jewish holy books in Hebrew. To be sure, Amanpour had already belittled the Jewish holy books and the Biblical accounts of Jews in Hebron by her use of the raised eyebrow and the pregnant pause. Naturally, she is ignorant [sincerely ignorant, I believe] of the Greco-Latin accounts, including those of Christian Church Fathers who wrote about Jews in the Land of Israel and Hebron after Emperor Hadrian had changed the name of the Province of Judea [IVDAEA] to "Provincia Syria-Palaestina" [135 CE]. That is , Jews were living in large numbers in the Land of Israel and in Hebron in the late Roman and Byzantine periods. It is quite possible that neither Amanpour nor anyone else at CNN knows anything about this.

4- Amanpour brought in one bearded but short-on-brains-&-knowledge Gershom Goremberg to make her point that Muslim violence worldwide is on account of Israel's possession of any part of the Land of Israel, Hebron in particular. Goremberg may defend himself, saying That's not what I meant. But he remains an ignoramus.

Islamic hatred of Jews goes way back to the Middle Ages and is evident in the Qur'an and the Hadith traditions. The Hamas charter [Article 7] contains a medieval Muslim Hadith fable that goes like this: At Judgement Day, the Muslims will fight the Jews who will hide behind rocks and trees. The rocks and trees will cry out: O Muslim, a Jew is hiding behind me. Come kill him.

How plain do the Muslims have to be to convince a fool like Goremberg?

Anyhow, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden's lieutenant [successor?] has recently made it clear that Spain too is "occupied territory." El Pais reported [on 29 July 2007]:

On the past 19th day [of July], Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Number Two of Al-Qaeda, took credit for the attack against the Spanish troops in Lebanon that caused the death of six soldiers. And he mentioned once again Al-Andalus [= Spain] and Ceuta and Melilla [enclaves on the Moroccan coast that have been in Spanish hands since before 1492 when the Arabs were defeated in Granada in southern Spain. Spain considers them its sovereign territory] as occupied territories.

El pasado dia 19 [de julio], Ayman Al Zawahiri, el numero dos de Al Qaeda, se atribuyo' el ataque contra las tropas espanolas en Libano que causo la muerte de seis soldados. Y cito' una vez ma's Al Andalus y a Ceuta y Melilla como territorios ocupados.

It seems to me that the Islamist fanatics have set their eyes on a lot more than just Hebron or Israel. Spain too is considered "occupied territory."
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Coming: more on Time whitewashing Hamas in Gaza, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, James Baker & US policy on Israel, etc.

Time Magazine whitewashes Hamas

Slightly Revised 8-12-2007, 2nd video added 8-14-2007

Time Magazine was notorious as long ago as the 1920s for whitewashing Mussolini's Italian fascist government of the time. Then they claimed that Mussolini was straightening out the Italians, giving the "wops," as Time called them, a taste of discipline. Mussolini was making the trains run on time. And Time gave the rest of the pro-fascist propaganda line too. Today Time has found new fascists --or their equivalents-- to admire and adulate. Now they are flattering and fawning over the Hamas, the branch of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood that rules the Gaza Strip. Indeed, the Italian fascists were relatively mild and civilized compared to Hamas, although it may not be politically correct to say so. To be sure, this judgement is "relative" and "comparative."

Anyhow, we have previously shown that many Establishment books on Middle Eastern issues, including supposed histories and works by historians, have long sugar-coated the story of the brutal Arab conquests of the Middle Ages. Previous posts at Emet m'Tsiyon have quoted embellished versions of the Arab conquests from Carl Brockelmann, the German, and William Polk, the American. What is Time saying about Hamas in Gaza now? Andrew Lee Butters wrote a fine specimen of sugary falsification in the Time issue of 13 August 2007 (Time dates its issues ahead about a week after they actually come out). Not only is Hamas prettified but Israel is besmirched.

The rule of law has returned to Gaza. Just two months ago, it was one of the most dangerous places on earth.

Butters depicts the Hamas "Executive Force" demonstrating its respect for law, order, and kind policing.

On patrol in Shaja`iyah, the toughest neighborhood in Gaza City, Lieut. Naim Ashraf Mushtaha, 31, an officer of the Hamas Executive Force, spots a man in civilian clothes carrying an M-16 assault rifle and walking through the street suqs [market places] in broad daylight. [My goodness, carrying a gun in Gaza -- in broad daylight of all things!!! How does he dare??] His officers quickly encircle the suspect and demand that he identify himself and turn over the weapon. The man turns out to be a member of one of the neighborhood's most powerful clans, and he refuses to give up his gun. "What's my name, boys?" he shouts to the gathering crowd of curious onlookers. "Mohassi Abbas!" they shout back. "See everyone knows who I am," says the gunman.
"I don't care who you are," says Mushtaha calmly, without raising his voice or his weapon. "No one is above the law."

Wow, what a great cop!! Calm but firm, avoids the use of force, rejects favoritism in policing, and respects the law. But it gets better:

Security is key to support for Hamas. Within a week after the takeover [by Hamas of Gaza], crime, drug smuggling, tribal clashes [clan vendettas] and kidnappings had largely disappeared. According to human-rights groups, the ability of the Executive Force to achieve such a result is an indictment of the corruption and criminal collusion at the top of the Fatah-dominated security services that once controlled Gaza. . . Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center forHuman Rights [said] "Gaza became like Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Thugs and gangsters were ruling and some were even supported and protected by our own security services" [under the orders of Fatah's Muhammad Dahlan].
There have been isolated cases of civil rights abuses by the Executive Force since the takeover. But Hamas hasn't set up Shari`a courts. Without any help from the regular police, prosecutors, and judges. . . Hamas is slowly trying to train itself in the administration of Palestinian law. Mushtaha and his officers spend most of their time delivering subpoenas and telling the families of wanted men to turn the suspects in.

The people of Gaza are in good hands now.

One of the "law and order" events that Andrew Lee Butters couldn't know about when he wrote his gushing paean of praise to Hamas was how [see here] [OR here] the Hamas' "law and order" Executive Force raided a wedding celebration in Beyt Hanoun in the Gaza Strip. This raid seems to have taken place after slippery Butters wrote his propaganda tract, his pro-Hamas PR copy.It seems that the marrying couples belonged to a pro-Fatah clan [hamulah] and now Fatah doesn't have a right to celebrate. Of course, Fatah are terrorists too but does this raid by Hamas "security" men have anything to do with law and order? The wedding celebration was filmed, according to Reuters, by a "palestinian authority" TV cameraman. Apparently, he transferred the video cassette to PA TV [pro-Fatah] in Judea-Samaria who put the video on PA TV. He was probably there because several Fatah leaders were guests at the wedding. Some were arrested. I saw the video on Israel TV with the Arabic sub-headings copied from PA TV. The raid took place despite the amnesty that Hamas had promised to Fatah after the conquest of Gaza.

Then there is the matter of the Christian Arab woman who was a professor at Palestine University in Gaza. She disappeared for two weeks, then turned up in the hands of Hamas government officials and said she had converted to Islam and was going to marry a Muslim. She met her family under the supervision of Hamas officials. I guess her disappearance was just part of Hamas' "law and order" policy.

Be that as it may, whatever troubles or problems there may be in Gaza are all Israel's fault.

Israel's stranglehold remains as tight as ever.

But this "stranglehold" is not tight enough to stop Hamas from bringing law and order to Gaza. The next post will give more detail. Meanwhile, I suppose we should blame Israel for raiding the wedding party and for kidnapping the woman professor. Actually, when Egypt ruled Gaza between 1948 and 1967, Egyptian control was very tight. There was no possibility for Arab Gaza residents to cross the armistice line into Israel. And crossing into Egypt required a permit from the Egyptian officials that was granted only in special cases. All imports and exports to and from Gaza went through Egypt. So basically, Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip restored the pre-1967 status of Gaza, except that now the Egyptian forces are not actively controlling the area.
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Coming: more on Time and Gaza, Jim Baker & US foreign policy, peace follies, propaganda, Jews in Jerusalem, etc.

"Peace Conference" on the way; Can War Be Far Behind?

Abu Mazen -terrorist master in a suit- claimed that George II and Condi have promised him a state of his own. Despite all the proof given by Abu Mazen and his Fatah gang and Hamas and the other Arab-Palestinian terrorist gangs that such a state could only be a base for intensified terrorism against Israel, as well as a socioeconomic disaster for its own people, Bush and Condi insist that there must be such a state and that an "international conference" is the way to achieve it. Abu Mazen reported the promise in an interview with Maariv, one of Israel's finest fishwrappers. Then Condi came to Israel and made the promise more public. She said that Israel was ready

to discuss the fundamental questions for the creation of the Palestinian state. . . The word "fundamental" speaks for itself. The desire to achieve a solution through the United States seems common to both parties (El Pais, " August 2007)

In other words, this conference is to have a foreordained conclusion. It will not be one conducive to peace, to be sure. It must lead to a another Arab-Muslim state, one to be called "Palestine." But does the likelihood of more and more intense war ensuing from such a state matter to that impassioned species --we don't say fanatic in order to be polite-- that promotes and lives off of "peace conferences." By the way, another peace nut, Miguel Moratinos, invaded Lebanon in order to bring all the fellows there together --all together now, boys-- eventhough someone in the Spanish foreign ministry must know that various outside actors long-interfering in Lebanon do not want peace there, and that Lebanon's various and sundry communities and factions have often been at daggers drawn.


Of course, Uncle Sam thinks that selling weapons to everybody in the Middle East is a great way to promote a future peace. El Pais rightly claimed that this would enrich the weapons manufacturers. Duh.


Meanwhile, the unspeakable olmert, Israel's worst prime minister ever, is happy that "the United States is aiding the moderate Arab countries. . . against a common enemy, Iran." [El Pais, 30 July 2007]. I hope we don't wake up to find out that the Arabs' common enemy is Israel, as always.

Despite all this, nutty professors, like one Norman Birnbaum of Georgetown U in Washington, DC, the favorite university of the State Department, complain that the "Israel Lobby" controls Bush and his foreign policy!!! [El Pais, 5 August 2007]. It seems that our deep thinking scholar Norman has never heard of the oil lobby or the Petro-Diplomatic Complex, nor does he even sense that such a phenomenon exists.

To demonstrate that Bush is not controlled by the Israel Lobby, we may point out that George Bush II is the first American president to have come out in favor of another Arab-Muslim state to be called "palestine." This hardly indicates Israel Lobby control of Bush, of the White House, of the State Department, the CIA, or of Madame Condi who seems lately to have lost the intelligence that seemed to characterize her during Bush's first term, before she came to the State Department. Condi not long ago demonstrated her own hatred for Israel, or maybe her obseesion with power politics, big weapons contracts and perhaps some nicely paid speaking engagements in Abu Dhabi or Dubai after she is out at State. She recently told a Congressional committee that the Hamas jihadists and Judeophobes were a "resistance movement." Indeed. It's all a matter of definition. Then, Bush and Condi have seen to it that Abu Mazen and his Fatah terrorist pets get more money and weapons from Uncle Sam. Olmert, being the crook and swindler that he is, facilitated the transfer of weapons to Fatah, doing Bush's bidding.

We may ask what have past Arab-Israeli "peace conferences" led to in the past? If you don't know that they have facilitated more bloodshed, more killing, more tears, then you don't know your recent history. Maybe Bush & Condi & Moratinos don't know this history either. While Moratinos' European Union gives the PLO government of Abu Mazen about 1/2 billion euros per year [and that ain't hay], thousands of homeless people sleep in the streets of Paris, and probably in Madrid too.

And all this devotion to peace, while exponentially increasing US weapons sales to the Middle East, is in favor of creating a state for a people that never existed in history. There never was a "palestinian people" in history nor a "palestinian state." The very notion of a "palestinian people" seems to have been the invention of psychological warfare experts, apparently British. Does such a people deserve a state when they really deny that they are a separate people. The PLO is pan-Arabist, whereas Hamas is pan-Islamist.

It's funny isn't it, that kooks like Professor Emeritus Norman Birnbaum pop up with such lies [or fantasies, to be polite] just when Washington, DC, is aiming to harm Israel by extracting "concessions for peace"?

Professor Francisco Gil White, fired from the University of Pennsylvania for pro-Israel positions, has recently argued that the CIA has been anti-Israel for a very long time.

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Coming: More -- in a few days, when I'll have more time for blogging.