Shalit around the blogs

[Mediocrates]

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/201...ho-should.html
Some of the maniacs who shouldn't have been released:
Walid Anajas, from Ramallah, a commander of Hamas' armed wing, the Qassam Brigades. He was given 36 life terms in 2002 for his involvement in a number of suicide bombings, including that of a Jerusalem cafe in 2002, in which 12 people lost their lives.

Nasser Yataima, who planned a suicide bombing which killed 30 people as they were about to celebrate the Passover festival at a hotel in March 2002, was sentenced to 29 life terms.

Khamis Zaki Aqel, a member of the Qassam Brigades, which carried out a string of suicide bombings and other attacks, was arrested in 1992 and sentenced to 21 life terms. It was not immediately clear for which crime he was sentenced.

Majdi Muhammed Amr, arrested in 1993, is serving 19 life sentences after being found guilty of coordinating the work of suicide bombers, including one who blew up a bus in the northern city of Haifa in March 2003, killing 17 people. [He also murdered David Cohen in a drive-by shooting in July 2001. - EoZ]

Maedh Abu Sharakh was also sentenced to 19 life terms for his role in planning the Haifa bus bombing.

Abdel Hadi Ghanim, of Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, was serving 16 life sentences after he hijacked an Israeli intercity bus in 1989 traveling from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and drove it over a steep drop, killing 16 passengers.

Muhammed Daghales was sentenced in 2001 to 15 life terms for his role in planning the 2001 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria, which killed 16 Israelis.

[Mediocrates]

Murderers will do 'whatever it takes, at any price' to continue:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/201...-whatever.html

I noted that one of the released terrorists was Yehye al-Sinwar, who had tried to orchestrate a Shalit-style kidnapping while in Israeli prison. Today, at the Gaza border, he congratulated the terror groups that were involved in Shalit's kidnapping and he vowed that Hamas would do whatever it takes to get the remainder of Arab terrorists released from prison, "at all costs."

[Mediocrates]

Shalit intentionally mistranslanted on Egyptian television:
http://mideastparalleluniverse.blogs...-egyptian.html
I am so relieved to see Gilad alive and to witness his extraordinary dignity in dealing with this exploitative interview*. The Egyptians are clearly looking to squeeze the most propaganda out of their role in implementing his release.

According to Ynet.com, "(Israeli) Security officials noted that the interview was held despite Israel's refusal, and significantly delayed his return to Israel."

http://mideastparalleluniverse.blogs...-egyptian.html

To drive the point home, Gilad Shalit was dragged in front of Egypt TV cameras to allow the Egyptians to spike the ball at Shalit’s expense. As if the “interview” wasn’t already asking a bit much, Amir Mizroch writes that the Egyptian translator mistranslates some of Shalit’s answers to maximize the propaganda effect. Haaretz has already picked up the story–without Mizroch’s correction–and the video is making the rounds. The worst translation, Mizroch writes, comes when Shalit says, “I don’t feel very well, am not used to seeing so many people,” which the TV station translates to: “He feels well, thanks the people who freed him.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=gfZNUEhhjMU

[Mediocrates]

Robin Shepherd:
The lesson of the Shalit deal is that it is Israel not Gaza that remains under siege

http://www.thecommentator.com/articl...ns_under_siege

[Mediocrates]

Amnesty International (which never once called for Shalit's release...)
Amnesty International’s Moral Equivalence

Inasmuch as Amnesty International bans pro-Israel advocates from entering their meetings – the latest to be denied entry, just last night, was Zionist Federation Vice Chair Jonathan Hoffman – it’s easy to see how they could cocoon themselves into producing mindless anti-Israel propaganda. And given that the organization pointedly never called for Gilad Shalit’s release, it’s predictable they would do so in the context of Israel’s kidnapped and now released soldier.
But Amnesty’s statement on the Shalit trade, titled “Israel-Hamas prisoner swap casts harsh light on detention practices of all sides,” is a barrel-scraping embarrassment even by the organization’s notoriously low standards. The vast majority of the press release is handed over to criticizing Israeli detention policies, while a grand total of two paragraphs are spent condemning Shalit’s ordeal.

Shalit’s name does not even appear below the fifth paragraph of the 20-paragraph statement, while alleged Israeli human rights violations- relevant to the swap or not – are repeatedly noted. Israel is explicitly and twice accused of Geneva violations. By the end of the statement, Amnesty is even demanding freedom of movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which would be a boon to (among others) the Hamas terrorists they’re wringing their hands over.

Moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas has become a tired mainstay on the human rights left, and criticizing it sometimes becomes a paint-by-numbers exercise for those who differentiate between civilized countries and genocidal lunatics. But just for the record, Israel is a fully-functioning democracy with the legal right to arrest and imprison criminals. Palestinian terrorists, regardless of the fanatic splinter group from which they hail, are not uniformed soldiers, do not represent a state, and – Amnesty’s weird implication aside – are not entitled to Geneva protections.

That’s in contrast to Gilat Shalit, who was a uniformed soldier, did represent a state, and was entitled to the Geneva protections denied to him for half a decade.

During that half-decade Amnesty specifically, and human rights groups in general, mixed their bare-minimum calls on Hamas with mass campaigns demonizing Israel:

International non-governmental organizations played a critical role in the political warfare against Israel. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International – ostensibly neutral watchdogs – led the campaign. In 35 days, they issued over 40 press releases, statements and pseudo fact-finding reports, comprising hundreds of pages, largely ignoring the war crimes committed by the terrorist organization and instead focusing overwhelmingly and negatively on alleged Israeli crimes. The HRW and Amnesty allegations were immediately accepted, at face value, by the world’s media. Politicians and diplomats then echoed the war crimes accusations, without any fact-checking.

Not satisfied with having their obsessive campaign merely echoed by politicians, diplomats, and journalists, Amnesty has also spent considerable time and money pressuring European governments to actively join in their anti-Israel demonization.

Elsewhere in Europe they’ve recently held discussions about how “Zionists” control the media and hosted Palestinian writers who publicly call Jews “s.” Quite the force for good, these folks.

See also: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/201...even-more.html

Amnesty International put out a nonsensical press release:

The prisoner exchange involving Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and 477 Palestinian prisoners highlights the need for the humane treatment of all detainees in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Amnesty International said today.

“This deal will bring relief to Gilad Shalit and his family after an ordeal that has lasted more than five years. Many Palestinian families will feel a similar sense of relief today when they are reunited with their relatives, many of whom have spent decades under harsh conditions in Israeli detention," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Director.


Cable TV, free college degrees, excellent medical care, smuggled cell phones...the horrors never stop.

Since 27 September, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners have been on hunger strike in protest against recent punitive measures imposed by the Israeli authorities.

Prisoners are demanding that the Israel Prison Service end the arbitrary isolation of prisoners and allow them regular family visits.

Amnesty forgot to mention the whole chickens! I'm sure there is an international convention on the rights to have whole chickens! And unlimited satellite TV of terrorist channels, which is another demand.

[Mediocrates]

Palestinians woop it up for their heroes:
There is no shortage of Palestinian heroes and heroines. When the Israeli novelist David Grossman journeyed among Israel’s national minority to write ‘Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel’ he found enough people ‘with whom one can build a country,’ enough for him to dream of ‘a real life for ourselves that contains spiritual space and expansive thinking and a place for us to discard some of our rusty armor.’
The 1,027 Palestinians who are coming out of prison today are mostly not people with whom one can build a country. And one of the worst who will walk free is Ahlam Tamimi, a female Hamas terrorist who played a leading role in the murder of 15 people (a 16thremains in a coma to this day) at a Sbarro pizzeria in Jewish west Jerusalem in August 2001.
Who is Ahlam Tamimi?
The Guardian’sPhoebe Greenwood offers us a broadly sympathetic portrait, drawn largely by Tamimi’s brother, Mohamed. She emerges as a young idealist tragically caught up in a world she did not really understand. We are told that she was targeted by Hamas while a student at Bir Zeit universityand only drove a car on the day. ‘Her involvement in the bombing came as a huge shock to her family,’ says Mohamed – ‘I don’t think she fully thought through what she was doing.’ We hear of his hope that his sister, now 31, will start a new life, ‘with political activism behind her’ and will soon be ‘in a white veil getting married.’
His main worry is how his poor sister will cope in exile in Jordan. ‘Deportation will be so painful for Ahlam. I don’t know how she will cope with being banished from the land she is so devoted to.”
The Guardian’s portrait of an idealistic nationalist, earnest if perhaps misguided, has caused great pain to the father of Malka Chana Roth, one of Tamimi’s victims. Frimet Roth has objected that the portrait of Tamimi is a wrong about her role in the atrocity, wrong about her being pressured into participation and wrong about her future intentions.
First, according to Roth, Ahlan Tamimi ‘was actually the planner and engineer of the attack’:

Contrary to what Phoebe Greenwoood writes from Ramallah, Ahlam Tamimi did not drive the Sbarro restaurant suicide bomber to his target. On the day of the massacre she personally transported a bomb weighing 10kg from a West Bank town into Jerusalem. The bomb was concealed inside a guitar case. She arranged for a taxi to bring her and an accomplice by the name of Al Masri, a young newly religious fanatic, to an Israeli security checkpoint. To reduce suspicion, they were dressed to look like Israelis. It worked. The bomb was not detected, and Tamimi led her “weapon” – Al Masri – to the target that had been carefully selected by her.
That target was a pizza restaurant, selected because it was located in the heart of Jerusalem and on a hot summer vacation afternoon it would be teeming with women and children. Tamimi instructed Al Masri to wait fifteen minutes before detonating the explosives to give her sufficient time to flee the scene safely.

Second Roth objects to ‘the contention, in Greenwood’s report, that Tamimi was pressured into committing this barbaric act,’ he argues, ‘is patently false.’

Since being sentenced to 16 life terms, she has been interviewed twice, once for a full-length documentary. She has repeatedly stated that she does not regret her actions. … Tamimi was also found guilty of a failed attempt at a terror attack several months before her “success”. On that occasion she planted a bomb in a wastebasket in a large Jerusalem supermarket. Fortunately, the bomb did not explode. Now, I ask you, are these the deeds and words of someone who simply “was a perfect target” for Hamas and who hadn’t “fully thought through what she was doing”, as her brother contends in the Guardian story?

Third, Roth doubts that this ideological zealot will now retreat to a private life.

I watched Israel’s Channel 2 News on Friday night. It showed Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi being asked: “Do you feel sorry for what you did?” She answers her interviewer without a trace of hesitation: “No. Why should I feel sorry?” The interviewer persists: “Would you do it again if you had the chance?” Her unwavering response: “Yes.”

But maybe we are listening to a still-grieving parent who even now is understandably unbalanced by the murder of his 15-year-olddaughter? It seems not. The much-praised New York Times journalist Ethan Bronner thinks Tamimiwas‘a key figure in the pizzeria attack’ and he chimes with Roth.

“I’m not sorry for what I did,” she told an Israeli news organisation in 2006. “I will get out of prison, and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence. Discussions will only take place after Israel recognizes that this is Islamic land.” … In a documentary on Palestinian prisoners, she was asked whether she knew how many children had been killed in the attack. She did not. When told the number was eight, she smiled.

http://hurryupharry.org/2011/10/18/w...-ahlam-tamimi/

[Mediocrates]

Arabs being retarded and violent:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/201...-ramallah.html

Ha'aretz reports that Palestinian Arab protesters burned tires on the planned route that prisoner buses were going to take.

So Israel re-routed the buses to avoid the burning tires.

Which prompted Palestinian Arabs to clash with the IDF, angry that the original route wasn't being used.

Which is the entire conflict in a nutshell. Palestinian Arabs so something pointless, counterproductive and destructive; Israel responds in the only way possible while preserving life, and Palestinian Arabs then turn on Israel for reacting to their idiocy.

An infinite loop of futility, fueled by self-destructive stupidity, perpetually blamed on others.


See also:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/20...murder-shalit/
Mass rallies and celebrations are being planned in Ramallah to celebrate the freedom of those who were convicted of mass murders. Who will they be cheering? As the New York Times reports:

Those being freed include the founders of Hamas’s armed wing and militants who kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers and civilians. A mastermind of the 2001 bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria who killed 15 will walk out of prison, as will a woman who used the Internet to lure a lovesick Israeli teenager to a Palestinian city and had him murdered.
Most of the prisoners were serving life sentences, some for being involved in attacks like the 2001 bombing of a Tel Aviv nightclub that killed 21 people and a suicide bombing a year later of a Netanya hotel in which 29 died.

Apologists for the Palestinians will argue those in Israeli jails were resisting the “occupation” of the country, though few will own up to the fact that as far as the prisoners are concerned, the territory of pre-June 1967 Israel is just as “occupied” as the West Bank. But even if you think the Palestinian cause is just, how can anyone justify the slaughter of innocents such as at the Sbarro bombing in Jerusalem? Even if you think Israel should withdraw back to the 1967 lines, how can any civilized person condone the Palestinian decision to treat those who committed such atrocities as heroes?

[Mediocrates]

Mel Weighs In:
http://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/...al-choice.html

All great points. But it's pointless. They are childlike savages no more capable of normalcy than my dog.

[Mediocrates]

Releases prompt calls for the DEATH PENALTY to prevent future releases:
http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2011/1...rists.html?m=1

Also in the same article:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...135989,00.html
Arab Israeli citizens were ALSO released.

If you're an an Israeli Arab citizen, mass murder some Jews, get freed become a hero.

[Mediocrates]

More on al Guardian's exploitation and mistranslation of Shalit:
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/10/18/save-one-life/

UPDATE 2
Chris McGreal in The Guardian:

He was asked whether, now that he was free, he would campaign for the release of remaining Palestinian prisoners. He said it would make him very happy to see all Palestinian prisoners released.

Gilad Shalit, correctly reported in Ynet:

“I would be happy if they are released, on condition that they stop fighting against Israel.”

(via CiFWatch)
Gene adds: Contrary to Yvonne Ridley’s expressed hope, it appears Gilad Shalit has not “embraced Islam.” Poor Yvonne.

[Mediocrates]

Los Angeles Times: An emotional paen to mass murderers:

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/201...ampler_17.html

She keeps the home fires burning

The LA Times has a touching story about Raeda Omjamal, who awaits the return of her husband Rawhi Mushtaha, one of the 1027 prisoners whom Israel plans to release in the deal to gain the release of hostage, Gilad Shalit.

Omjamal was 23 years old, a freshly transplanted Palestinian refugee from Jordan who only met her husband two months before their wedding. The had another six months after the marriage. Now, at 47, Omjamal is preparing to welcome her husband back home after seeing him only once during 24 years of incarceration. Though they exchanged occasional messages and letters through attorneys, personal visits were mostly prohibited. Today, the young, bearded fighter she married in 1988 is a gray-haired, wrinkled stranger. Asked how it will feel to live in the same house again, she laughed and turned red, noticeable even though a pale green veil covering most of her face.

Worst of all was this sentence:

Israel called him a murderer for his role in helping to run Hamas' military operations.

He was involved in an organization that murdered (Palestinians) and was convicted. The New York Times in Israel Releases Names of 477 Prisoners to Be Freed in Tradeis a little less sentimental and doesn't spend time on Omjamal's sentimental regrets:

The list includes Rawhi Mushtaha and Yehya Sinwar, two founders of Al Majd, a forerunner of Hamas’s military wing. Al Majd killed Palestinian collaborators, cracked down on behavior regarded as immoral and gathered weapons. Both were arrested in early 1988, less than two months after the outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising and the formal creation of Hamas by Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Mr. Mushtaha, 52, was serving four life sentences for murder through an act of terror, military exercises, manslaughter and incitement. His wife, Raeda, wearing a full face niqab veil, confirmed Sunday that her husband was a founder of Al Majd. Asked if he regretted his actions she said, “No.” Speaking from her Gaza City home, she continued: “Rawhi is with Hamas until we restore all our Islamic holy places and the return of refugees. Our method and path is resistance. We will not lay down weapons, because resistance is a legitimate right for any people fighting for their freedom.”

Interesting statement about that lack of regret. I couldn't find this elsewhere, so I have to (regretably) use Al Jazeera as a source. What is one of the terms of release?

"They will have to sign a declaration that he or she will not be involved in terrorist activities any more, but after that, there is no monitoring," Emi Talmor, director of the Israeli justice ministry's pardons department, told Al Jazeera.

That quote - if it accurately conveys Mushtaha's feelings - would be a repudiation of that declaration wouldn't it? (I've been informed that the declaration is a formality; with no legal significance. The Al Jazeera article is interesting in that it says that the released terrorists will be monitored. Will Israel take any action if they travel to a prohibited area?) The New York Times associates Mushtaha with Al Majd, effectively acknowledging his guilt and not just attributing it to an Israeli declaration. For a description of what Mushtaha did, here's a 1993 op-ed from the New York Times, The Hamas way of death. Israel found a training tape of Hamas, and the New York Times thought it was newsworthy enough to publish.

At first, every collaborator denies his crimes. So we start off by showing the collaborator the testimony against him. We tell him that he still has a chance to serve his people, even in the last moment of his life, by confessing and giving us the information we need. We say that we know his repentance is sincere and that he has been a victim. That kind of talk is convincing. Most of them confess after that. Others hold out; in those cases, we apply pressure, both psychological and physical. Then the holdouts confess as well. Only one collaborator has ever been executed without an interrogation. In that case, the collaborator had been seen working for the Border Guard since before the intifada, and he himself confessed his involvement to a friend, who disclosed the information to us. In addition, three members of his network of collaborators told us that he had caused their isqat. With this much evidence, there was no need to interrogate him. But we are very careful to avoid wrongful executions. In every case, our principle is the same: the accused should be interrogated until he himself confesses his crimes.

So anyone who became "inconvenient" could be denounced for helping Israel and then judged and executed.

[Mediocrates]

NGO equate mass murderers with Shalit
http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2011/1...erers.html?m=1
Examples of NGO statements:

• Amnesty International stated, "This deal will bring relief to Gilad Shalit and his family after an ordeal that has lasted more than five years. Many Palestinian families will feel a similar sense of relief today when they are reunited with their relatives, many of whom have spent decades under harsh conditions in Israeli detention" (emphasis added).
• HRW used most of its statement to attack Israel's policy in Gaza and immorally equate Shalit's captivity to convicted Palestinian criminals: "The prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas should mark the beginning of an era in which all parties respect basic rights."
• Al Haq and Addameer referred to "political prisoners" and stated that "the exchange deal should be a cause for celebration, notably for the 1,028 concerned families." Regarding prisoners who were released outside the West Bank and Gaza, they claimed, "Unlawful deportation or transfer also constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV) and qualifies as one of the most serious war crimes."
• The NGO Gisha wrote, "We join in...of course the relief felt by the Shalit family and the families of the prisoners who will be released." (emphasis added)
• Adalah, Al Mezan, and Arab Association for Human Rights "consider the release of 1,027 Palestinian and Arab prisoners from Israeli prisons a positive step."
• Shawan Jabarin of Al Haq, an alleged senior activist in the PFLP terror group, claimed that "This transfer and deportation of protected persons goes against the Geneva Conventions...This latest deportation is just another step in Israel's policy to drive Palestinians out...[The Israeli] philosophy behind that is that if you live outside, you won't come back and you will take your family with you."
• Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) released a statement entitled "Closure of Gaza Must Be Lifted as Shalit's Pretext Diminished."

[Mediocrates]

NY Times turns over their op ed page to Hamas for Shalit commentary:

From news article:

Not only does the newspaper omit the context of Hamas's mistreatment of its hostage; it also allows a Hamas spokesman to claim that Shalit was treated well, in contrast with Israel's supposed mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners. The allegation is featured prominently in paragraph seven of the online story by Ethan Bronner and Stephen Farrell:

[Hamas spokesman] Abu Obaida ... said that Hamas treated Sergeant Shalit “according to the Islamic morals,” while Israel “deliberately dealt with our prisoners with torture, compulsion and revenge.” (Accessed 10/18 at 4:30pm)

If readers are exposed to this dubious claim, surely they deserve to be informed immediately that the conditions of Shalit's imprisonment were deemed by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and even human rights organizations generally hostile to Israel, to be in violation of international law. The ICRC noted that "Hamas, by not allowing contact between Mr Shalit and his family, was violating international humanitarian law." Human Rights Watch, a routine critic of Israel, said the conditions of his detention were "cruel and inhuman," and added that "the prolonged incommunicado detention ... may amount to torture." And B'tselem charged Hamas with a "war crime" for holding Shalit as a hostage.

But the New York Times ignores these assertions, which cast serious doubt on the Hamas spokesman's claim. And although it would have been easy to find an Israeli spokesperson who agrees with the ICRC, the reporters didn't bother to secure a quote from Israel on the subject.

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_co...x_article=2135

[Mediocrates]

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/201...e-why.html?m=1
BBC reporter unsure, not clear what mass murder is.

From news article:

At the BBC website there is a video clip of reporter Jon Donnison speaking to one of the freed terrorists in Gaza, Ahmed Abu Taha.

Donnison starts the interview off by saying, "'You are 31 years old, 10 years in prison, serving a life sentence for being a member of Hamas, I mean, how do you feel today?"

Was Taha serving a life sentence only for being a member of Hamas? Well, it seems he was a bit more involved than that.

From the MFA site:

Ahmed Abd Al Karim Ali Abu Taha was born in 1980 and resides in Ramallah. Abu Taha was involved in preparing explosives for Hamas terrorists in Ramallah, including the car bomb that exploded in Giva'at Ze'ev in Jerusalem on 29 July 2001. A member of the Ibrahim Abu Rub and Ballal Baraguti organizations, he transported the suicide bomber Ra'ad Baraguti from Ramallah to Jerusalem, where he exploded on Hanevi'im Street on 4 September 2001 and injured 14 people. It is interesting to note that his father, Abd Al Karim Ali Mustafa Abu Taha, works in the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Also, according to the list of prisoners given out by Israel, he was sentenced to 27 years, not life. He only intended to kill scores of people, but he wasn't successful.

But when the BBC gets such a great interview, with someone who actually knows English, why should they bother reporting those little inconvenient facts? It might insult Mr. Taha, and that wouldn't be polite.

[Aliyah1995]

If anyone can promise me that none of those released will go back to terrorism, then I promise I will bring Shirley Temple back to life....