Jerusalem fumes at Abbas and Fayyad

[shira]

Israel has complained to the US administration that the Palestinian Authority's President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are engaging in incitement by honoring a woman responsible for the worst terrorist attack in Israel's history, and calling the men who killed Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai last month martyrs.

<snip>

The complaint against Abbas had to do with his sponsorship in late December of a ceremony celebrating the 50th birthday of Dalal Mughrabi, the terrorist who directed the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, the worst terrorist attack in the country's history, where gunmen hijacked a bus and murdered 37 people, including 10 children. Mughrabi was killed during the attack.

On her recent birthday, the governor of Ramallah named a town square after her. A huge banner at the ceremony read, "Under the auspices of President Mahmoud Abbas, The Political and National Education Authority Ceremony on the anniversary of the birth of the bride of the cosmos, the shahida Dalal Mughrabi."

Israel's complaint against Fayyad stemmed from his visit to the families of the three slain terrorists suspected of killing Chai near Shavei Shomron three weeks ago. The three men were killed by IDF soldiers on a raid meant to apprehend them. Fayyad, according to what Israel told the Americans, referred to the men as martyrs.

more...
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339426930&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[howard112211]

1. "Israel complained to US ..."

i.e. older brother cannot handle business with little brother on his own without running to papa.

[shira]

3. does it bother you that Abbas and Fayyad praise, honor, celebrate terror against innocents?

[howard112211]

8. Perhaps, but what do the United States have to do with it?

[LeftishBrit]

14. The United States are at present trying to facilitate a peace agreement

so it's not surprising that they'd be getting some of the complaints.

I daresay Bill Clinton and George Mitchell had to listen to complaints from the various parties during the run-up to the Northern Ireland peace agreement.

[whattheidonot]

10. time running out.

Time is running out for Israel. Israel is going to have to give Palestinians a state to have a state. There is no way around it. They should make concessions, demand absolute security and get on with it. When the security breaches occur they will be in a strong position to retaliate. These tit for tat little battles they have play into insurgents hands.

[LeftishBrit]

13. Agree

[Selatius]

2. One thing my parents have said growing up in Viet Nam is that they opposed targeting civilians.

It was one thing to target an officers' club or a convoy or even a unit on foot patrol in the brush, but it was quite another to intentionally blow up or shoot up things like clubs, buses full of civilians, market squares, and other places where civilians gather. This was beyond the pale for quite a few people who were opposed to the US presence in South Viet Nam. Targeting civilians doesn't really hurt regimes that are hardened in their ways and would not budge if a million civilians were wiped out. Few, though, were above planting bombs and booby traps for soldiers and their armored vehicles.

[pennylane100]

4. unfortunately, both sides are guilty

of killing innocent civilians. And they both honor those who do the killing.

[shira]

5. really?

Israel honors terrorists who deliberately target innocent Palestinians for shits and giggles?

[Alamuti Lotus]

6. Besides putting them in government?

[shira]

7. like Baruch Goldstein?

[Alamuti Lotus]

15. like Ariel Sharon?

Yitzak Shamir? Yitzak Rabin? Ehud Barak? A hundred others that my slightly inebriated self cannot recall at the moment.

[shira]

17. sure, they're just like Hamas.....how can I forget?

[LeftishBrit]

12. No one targets anyone for 'shits and giggles'

Terrorists act out of fanaticism, not for the fun of it. No one becomes a suicide bomber for 'shits and giggles'. Terrorism is evil but it isn't frivolous.

And yes, in the past, former members of terrorist groups have held high rank in Israeli government: notably Begin (though he ended up as a peacemaker!) and Shamir.

[shira]

18. i'm responding to insanity that equates any kind of Israeli self-defense with terrorism

[proteus_lives]

19. Not many opposed targeting civilians.

My dad's a combat vet of Vietnam and he's told stories of going into villages and houses after the VC moved through, slaughtering "collaborators", people who wouldn't fight for them, wouldn't hide weapons or were religious. He said Vietnamese civilians were often caught between the VC and the ARVN.

He said a favorite VC tactic was to take a village honcho or brother/son/cousin of someone in the ARVN, lash them to tree and gut and castrate them. And this would set-off the ARVN. It was a civil war and he said they were almost always more vicious with each other.

[azurnoir]

9. One countries terrorist is anothers freedom fighter

and while what Ms Mughrabi did was undeniably an act of terror, she may very well be a hero to Palestinians'

Israel has honored it's former terrorists too, in at least one case making him PM after the murder of a Swedish UN diplomat who was trying to negotiate peace

Bernadotte was assassinated on Friday 17 September 1948 by members of the Jewish militant Zionist group Lehi, whom the British called "the Stern gang." A three man 'center' of this extreme Jewish group had approved the killing: Yitzhak Yezernitsky (the future Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir), Nathan Friedmann (also called Natan Yellin-Mor) and Yisrael Eldad (also known as Scheib). A fourth leader, Emmanuel Strassberg (Hanegbi) was also suspected by the Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion of being part of the group that had decided on the assassination.<34><35><36><37> The assassination was planned by the Lehi operations chief in Jerusalem, Yehoshua Zettler. By most accounts, it was carried out by six young members of the Lehi group: Yehoshua Cohen, Shmuel Rosenblum, David Ephrati, Yitzhak Markovitz, Yehoshua Zettler, and Meshulam Makover. By other accounts, a three-man team ambushed Bernadotte's motorcade in Jerusalem's Katamon neighborhood. Two of them, Yitzhak Ben Moshe (Markovitz) and Avraham Steinberg, shot at the tires of the UN vehicles. The third, Yehoshua Cohen, opened the door of Bernadotte's car and shot him at close range. The bullets also hit a French officer who was sitting beside him, U.N. Observer Colonel André Serot. Both were killed. In the immediate confusion, Col. Serot was mistaken for Dr. Ralph Bunche, the American aide to Bernadotte. Meshulam Makover, the fourth accomplice, was the driver of the getaway car.<38><39>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte

as for the 3 men accused of the murder of Rabbi Chai, Israel made them martyrs by executing them without trial

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x296621

much unlike Yaakov Teitel

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1133888.html

[Scurrilous]

11. Israel has a double standard on freeing 'terrorists' (28/12/2009)

<snip>

"In a few years, hopefully not too many, Palestine's education minister will publish a letter to students ahead of the launch of the new curriculum his ministry initiated, in cooperation with the Arafat Heritage Center. The curriculum will extol the work of the Palestinian freedom fighters who were executed by the Israeli occupation forces.

The program will include an essay contest on the life's work of Raad Sarkaji, Adnan Subuh and Ghassan Abu Shreikh, three young men from Nablus who were shot to death by Israeli soldiers on December 26, 2009, on suspicion of assassinating a Jewish settler on the land of Palestine. "I hope this curriculum, which tells of the devotion of the martyrs to Palestinian independence, will strengthen the students' bond to and knowledge of the Palestine Liberation Organization's struggle to establish the state," the Palestinian minister will write. "I believe that the stories of the martyrs, and their faith and willingness to sacrifice will set an example for our youth."

True, these lines, with the appropriate changes, are taken from the salutation by Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who has initiated new educational activities on the 12 Jewish men who were sent to the gallows or committed suicide during the British Mandate. An official at the Education Ministry said Sa'ar had tapped ministry experts to promote subjects that are close to his heart. The official protested to Haaretz reporter Or Kashti that the minister was injecting his ideology into the study material. A senior historian added that the fact that these 12 men were victims does not justify turning them into a subject of study.

So what should we tell the little girl who lives on Shlomo Ben-Yosef Street who wants to know about the first person sent to the gallows, who took part in an attack on an Arab bus and was hanged by the British on June 29, 1938? What shall we say to the boy from Etzel Street who asks about the the Etzel pre-state underground that set a "price tag" for the foreign occupier? Shall we change the subject, or shall we speak ill of the group that responded to the killing of its members by the British occupier with the murder of more than 70 Arab men, women and children in terror attacks in the markets of mixed cities?"

more

[shira]

16. ...and while Israel fumes, George Mitchell praises Abbas and Fayyad

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10796

[Tripmann]

20. Love that guy

The people of my country owe him a huge debt of gratitute. Obama could not have a better peace envoy over there. Mitchell knows that all parties must be engaged for the process to be effective.

You should comment on the rest of that video, he's pretty much spot on.

[LeftishBrit]

21. Agree

'The people of my country owe him a huge debt of gratitute.'

And mine. :thumbsup:

[shaayecanaan]

22. British anger at terror celebration

The rightwingers, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister, are commemorating the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of British rule, that killed 92 people and helped to drive the British from Palestine.

They have erected a plaque outside the restored building, and are holding a two-day seminar with speeches and a tour of the hotel by one of the Jewish resistance fighters involved in the attack.

Simon McDonald, the British Ambassador in Tel Aviv, and John Jenkins, the Consul-General in Jerusalem, have written to the municipality, stating: “We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated.”

In particular they demanded the removal of the plaque that pays tribute to the Irgun, the Jewish resistance branch headed by Menachem Begin, the future Prime Minister, which carried out the attack on July 22, 1946.

The plaque presents as fact the Irgun’s claim that people died because the British ignored warning calls. “For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated,” it states.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article690085.ece

[shira]

23. that wasn't a celebration of terror.....it was a 2 day academic conference commemorating 60 years

...since the bombing. Academics for and against the bombing both presented papers. As horrible as their actions were, Lehi and Irgun claim it was not their intention to kill civilians, that they were targetting British military offices within the hotel, and that they gave warnings beforehand. Their actions were harshly condemned then by the Hagana as they broke off from Irgun/Lehi and made those movements illegal.

To this day, there is no 'celebrating' the deaths of those killed in that attack and there is no incitement and encouragement to do more of the same.

Now contrast this with Abbas and Fayyad's reactions to recent terror operations.

[shaayecanaan]

24. Further...

Yesterday Mr Netanyahu argued in a speech celebrating the attack that the Irgun were governed by morals, unlike fighters from groups such as Hamas.

“It’s very important to make the distinction between terror groups and freedom fighters, and between terror action and legitimate military action,” he said. “Imagine that Hamas or Hezbollah would call the military headquarters in Tel Aviv and say, ‘We have placed a bomb and we are asking you to evacuate the area’.”

But the view of the attack was very different in 1946 when The Times branded the Irgun “terrorists in disguise”. Decades later, Irgun veterans are unrepentant. Sarah Agassi, 80, remembers spying in the King David Hotel.

She and a fellow agent posed as a couple. They danced tangos and waltzes, sipped whisky and wine while they cased out the hotel.

On the day her brother and his fellow fighters posed as Arabs delivering milk and brought seven milk churns, each containing 50kg of explosives, into the building. Ms Agassi waited across the street until her brother rushed out. She said that she then made the warning call to the British command in the hotel.

Sitting in the luxurious hotel lobby, she expressed no regret. “We fought for our independence. We thought it was the right way . . . If I had to fight for Israel, I swear even now I would do anything.”

[Tripmann]

25. Thats the thing about one mans terrorist being another mans freedom fighter

It works both ways.