The Bilin weekly fence protests have just picked up some major support.  Here's the quite sympathetic New York Times report :

"The protesters chant and shout and, inevitably, a few throw stones. Then just as inevitably, the soldiers open fire with tear gas and water jets, lately including a putrid oil-based liquid that makes the entire area stink.  It is one of the longest-running and best organized protest operations in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it has turned this once anonymous farming village into a symbol of Palestinian civil disobedience, a model that many supporters of the Palestinian cause would like to see spread and prosper."

I would take issue with that characterization.  Only "a few" throw stones?  Need it be inevitable that stones be thrown?  Why initiate such violence?  For sure stone-throwing is not a peaceful protest, nor is it civil disobedience.  It is violence.

But, of course, if retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu compares it to Gandhi's nonviolent struggle in India, to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and declares, as he does in that story, that "people here in Bilin are leading a nonviolent struggle”, then maybe understandably the New York Times got a bit mixed up.

But does its news bureau here, as well as the foreign news desk editors in New York, consider that, perhaps, stone-throwing is but practice and preparation for tossing molotov cocktail firebombs and grenades and that that is the real inevitability?  

Or that stones kill, like in the case of my neighbor, 5-month old Yehuda Shoham, who died as a result of a rock being thrown threw the window of his parents' car in June 2001.

In fact just a few days later an Arab teenager was shot in a clash and died.  But was he throwing stones?

No.

"IDF soldiers shot a Palestinian man dead and lightly wounded a second after the pair threw firebombs at homes in Beit-El, north of Ramallah, on Friday evening."

Sorry, that was in April last.

Now, where is this week's story?  Ah, here:

"The Israeli military said the boy was one of three attackers who on Monday night hurled Molotov cocktails at a guard post near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank."

Just one more point.  It has been reported that:

"Arab educators expressed outrage Monday at Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar's intention to remove the phrase Nakba from textbooks in the Arab education system, and threatened civil disobedience if the ministry follows through on its decision...".

"Civili disobedience"?

Like in Bilin?

Will they be throwing stones?

Following the news that Madonna has visited the Western Wall tunnels to view the actual foundations of the First and Second Temples, Sheikh Whatever of the Pal. Waqf Trust has announced that Madonna really doesn't exist.

"She's just a fantasy," he declared.

In making this pronouncement, the Whatever Sheikh is continuing in the propaganda line the Muslim authorities have taken that the First Temple built by Solomon and the Second Temple, first constructed by Ezra and then enlarged by Herod, simply are historically in doubt (see here and here).

Of course, this seems to be their only defense versus the Jewish claim that "Palestinian Arabs" don't really exist as a separate and distinct ethnic-national grouping.

On the other hand, From the Hills of Efraim has learned that the Sheikh has offered ten camels, three sheep and five goats (all of them material virgins) for a front-row seat at Madonna's concert. He has revealed to his associates that "first, I'm already sticky, second, I haven't seen Tel Aviv since my last dishwashing job and third, she is my fantasy but what a fantasy".

His associates have reacted by being very cross with him.

Let's start at the end.

If you go to this web site, MEPI, you'll find there programs under "MEPI in the Palestinian Territories" which are all directed at the Arab populace in that area but not to any Jewish Community in Judea and Samaria.  Not for Jews.  There is an office for Israel but all the programs likewise are directed only at Arabs.

How did I arrive there?  Well, a good friend sent me this item:

"New road signs in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank will be in Arabic and English, without Hebrew, a US official said Thursday. Mindy Masonis, spokeswoman for the US Consulate in Jerusalem, said the new signs will be part of a larger program aimed at improving conditions in the West Bank. The development is seen as part of the preparation for a future Palestinian state.  Masonis said no signs are being taken down, but the new ones in the Palestinian areas will be in Arabic and English. The sign project accounts for about $175,000 of a three-year, $20 million U.S. aid project to improve services in the West Bank."

I asked myself:

a. $175,000 for how many signs? How much per sign? Is this a rip-off?

b. Who is being contracted, only Arabs need apply?

and then,

c. Is this a reaction to this news item? -

"...the newly installed minister of transportation, Yisrael Katz, now threatens to fill the roads with signs that use only the Hebrew place names for locations which have had their English and Arabic equivalents for centuries if not millennia."

Now, if it is, I wonder if the Consulate read the rest of what far left-winger former MERETZ MK Naomi Chazan had to say there:

...BEFORE HE ventures forth on another foolhardy, costly and flauntingly nationalistic escapade, he would do well to apply some common sense to correct the near chaos which greets travelers today.

Some signs are designed to give critical driving instructions. Most of these consist of internationally recognized symbol...for safety's sake.  The Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway is full of such signs. A few are written in all three languages; others appear only in Hebrew...

Will they ask themselves at the State Department, 'do we really want to run afoul of Naomi Chazan and her friends for, after all, liberal progressives should wish too apply equal standards for Jews in Yesha as much as they want the same for Arabs in Israel', yes?

and lastly,

d. Is the US engaged in the promotion of rabid ethnocentric Arab nationalism or is it interested in helping a peace process - or does that peace process exclude Jews while making sure that Arabs benefit twice, once inside Israel and once in something they want to call the "State of Palestine"?

I have for some 20 years been suggesting that the Consulate (and all other interested outside players, EU, UK, etc.) engage the two populations beyond the Green Line in non-political activities so that coexistence can be built up. Like baseball between Shiloh and Deir Dibwan.  But what do I now find that that the Yanks have done?

This here, item #4:-

PeacePlayers International – Middle East (PPI-ME)
Ramallah & Tulkarm
BasketPal Leadership Development Program
This project uses the game of basketball to teach leadership and life skills to socio-economically disadvantaged girls ages 10 – 16 years and provides professional development training for young Palestinian coaches and educators. By engaging young girls in basketball activities, the project promotes equal participation of women in the public domain. Outstanding youth are then invited to BasketPal’s Leadership Development Program (LDP), giving them a chance to become intern basketball coaches. This grooms them as leaders in their communities and creates role models for young Palestinian girls.

So, not only do they Consulate staff seek to create a "State of Palestine", not only do they do all they can to do so, not only to they presume no Jews are to be there when it arises, but they are also avoiding any attempt previously suggested to assure relative peace between Jews and Arabs after the event.

How clumsy. This is discrimination and prejudicial. These are unilateral steps taken to avoid direct negotiations.

A lot of money is flowing into this pursuit pf "Palestine" effort like this info:

At a signing ceremony in Aida Camp today, U.S. Consul General Jake Walles announced an $81 million contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to support its emergency programs in the West Bank and Gaza.

U.S. Consul General Walles said that the $81 million will provide critical humanitarian assistance to one million Palestinian refugees in Gaza...The United States is UNRWA’s largest bilateral donor. This contribution will bring the United States total contribution to UNRWA in 2009 to $267 million, including over $116 million to its General Fund, $30 million to its Lebanon Emergency Appeals, and $119.5 million to its West Bank/Gaza Emergency Programs.

Hello, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, aides Ron Dermer, Dore Gold, anybody out there listening?

Let me congratulate Robert Fulford who published a defence of Israel, or rather an attack on the style and methodology of Israel's cricis, writing in "When criticizing Israel becomes ritual" that

"Opposing Israel has become an institutionalized ritual....In my personal observation, enemies of Israel often turn out to be anti-Semites as well. The true agenda of anti-Israel activists often is reflected in their style of propaganda, and in the exclusive attention they give to one particular country...[their way is] a way of setting the final terms of an issue before it can be discussed.  The most distressing quality of the attacks, however, is their singularity...Those who oppose Israel's policies have a right to their opinions and their anger, however unreasonable. And those, like me, who are infuriated by the relentless and totally selective drumbeat, also have a right to our grave suspicions."

What made me latch on to that?

Try these three examples of anti-Israel propaganda:

1.     Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has rejected Israeli calls for an official condemnation of a Swedish newspaper article about organ harvesting, saying freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy.

Er, does he support publishing a new batch a Muhammed cartoons?

2.  Five Israelis were taken in for questioning this week after they accidentally entered Palestinian-controlled Jericho.   Israelis are forbidden from entering Jericho, defined by the military as Area A.

Is that "apartheid"?  Or is the threat of Arab terror not included in that definition?

3.  I read that "Since 1947, the Christian Exodus from the Holy Land has reduced their numbers from 20% of the total population to less than 1.3%".

Really?  Well, ask yourselves:

a. What is the territorial definition of "Holy Land"? Israel only, Israel and Judea and Samaria, Israel and Jordan, Jordan and Judea and Samaria?
b. Since 1947 to include the first Arab-Israel War initiated and launched by the Arabs in an aggressive illegal act of violating a UN resolution?
c. Can we have a breakdown: 1947-1949; 1949-1967; 1967-1993; 1993-2009?
d. How many Christian women have been raped by Jews, how many by Muslims?
e. Has the Christian population in Israel, within its Green Line borders, grown or decreased since 1948?

These three cases illustrate the lopsided battle that supporters of Israel from all over the world, no matter what nationality, gender, religion or race, have to deal with.

But we can do it.

If you haven't as yet, go read a story about IDF soldiers "farming" Pal. bodies for organs.

But if these Swedish antisemites want atrocity stories, they should go to the English Historical Review, Vol. 124, No. 507 to read an article by Matthew Hughes on "The Banality of Brutality: British Armed Forces and the Repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39*.

It seems that the British killed Arabs with their rifle butts; left them out, in Halhoul, in a cage in the sun with no water to die; loaded 50 Arabs on to a bus and drove it over a landmine after one of their patrols had earlier been ambushed near Bassa in the North; regulary smashed, slapped and beat up Arabs in police stations and machine-gunned villages as part of 'punitive' measures; and it goes on and on.

Now, I wouldn't want you to think that I am asking you to forgive immoral and illegal actions taken by IDF troops just because someone else did something similar or even worse.

But I just can't fathom the warped minds who hate Jews not because we actually did anything but because they need someone and something to hate.