IRIS Blog

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas decided on Tuesday to appoint a security officer who had been accused by Israel of involvement in terrorist attacks as overall commander of his Force 17 "presidential guard" in the West Bank.

The decision to appoint Col. Mahmoud Damra, also known as Abu Awad, comes only days after Israel agreed to provide weapons and ammunition to Force 17 following increased threats on Abbas's life.

Damra was one of several fugitives who sought shelter in Arafat's Mukata compound in Ramallah in 2002 after Israel accused him of masterminding terrorist attacks. Damra was then commander of the Ramallah branch of Force 17 and was in charge of protecting Arafat and his top aides.

In March 2004, The Daily Telegraph quoted Israeli defense officials as saying that Damra was "a commander of terrorist actions, even suicide actions."

Israel and America have been openly providing support for Abbas as a "moderate" alternative to Hamas.

(Hat tip: Mickey)

Israel is run by a left-wing government, whose first inclination is usually to crack down on free speech:

When it was first announced that Nadia Matar of Women in Green was being prosecuted for "insulting a public servant" via a sharp letter she sent to Yonatan Bassi (see the bottom of this page for text) it was generally expected that this was simply another ploy by overzealous officials to try to silence opponents to their policies.

After all, in the early years of Oslo it took months for Israeli legal officials to finally reach the conclusion that a protestor who held a sign reading "There are 120 idiots in the Knesset" should not be charged for the same crime.

But it appears that Attorney General Mazuz has decided to make an example out of Matar and her trial has been set to open on 14 June 2006 at 10 AM at the Magistrates Court in Jerusalem.

Imagine if this standard were applied in the US--millions of Web pages match the search terms "Bush Hitler." Of course, the Israeli outrage is rather selective: Israel's first Prime Minister, Ben-Gurion, frequently described the Zionist statesman Zev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky as "Vladimir Hitler."

(Hat tip: Mickey)

From the Telegraph:

A leading Iranian pro-democracy and women's activist, who was jailed on trumped-up charges last year, has revealed how the clerical regime cynically deploys systemic sexual violence against female dissidents in the name of Islam.

Roya Tolouee, 40, was beaten up by Iranian intelligence agents and subjected to a horrific sexual assault when she refused to sign forced confessions. It was only when they threatened to burn her two children to death in front of her that she agreed to put her name to the documents.

Perhaps just as shocking as the physical abuse were the chilling words of the man who led the attack. "When I asked how he could do this to me, he said that he believed in only two things - Islam and the rule of the clerics," Miss Tolouee told The Sunday Telegraph last week in an interview in Washington after she fled Iran.

"But I know of no religious morality that can justify what they did to me, or other women. For these people, religion is only a tool for dictatorship and abuse. It is a regime of prejudice against women, against other regimes, against other ethnic groups, against anybody who thinks differently from them."

Miss Tolouee's account of her ordeal confirms recent reports from opposition groups that Iranian intelligence officials use sexual abuse against female prisoners as an interrogation technique and even rape young women before execution so that they cannot reach heaven as virgins.

Few women from the Islamic world are willing to discuss such matters, even with each other, but Miss Tolouee said that the regime routinely committed sexual attacks against female detainees....

"Four armed men and three armed women barged into my house at night and took me away," she said. "My kids were terrified and crying. I was questioned all night by different interrogators and then thrown alone into a cell."

She was held in solitary confinement in the prison of the feared internal intelligence service, with only a blanket and a cup that often had to serve as a lavatory.

For the first six nights, she was taken to a basement where interrogators demanded that she admit to organising the protests, and also that she identify co-conspirators on a list of names they put to her.

"When I wouldn't do what they wanted, they slapped me. But after the sixth night, the routine changed. I was left alone in a small dark room with two men. One was the assistant prosecutor and called himself Amiri. The other had a filthy mouth and said terrible things. They started slapping me again. For the rest of the night they did to me what no woman should ever experience. Amiri said, 'I'm going to hang you, but before I hang you, I will make an example of you so that no woman will dare to open her mouth here again'." He then sexually assaulted her.

When she asked Amiri how he could act like that, he told her that only Islam and clerical rule were important to him. The attack left her badly bruised and bleeding internally, but she refused to sign the papers they put before her. To her assailants' fury, she demanded to see a lawyer and cited international treaties on human rights.

The following night they did not sexually molest her again as she was still bleeding - and hence "unclean". Instead, they told her that they would kill her children by setting them on fire before her eyes.

Meanwhile, the world may be saved from a nuclear holocaust by a popular uprising now occuring across Iran and essentially unreported in the mainstream news media.

Jerusalem Day Commemorated on Thursday, May 25 - One Nation's Capital throughout History

British Muslim: "I'm Going to Bring this Country Down" Over Allah Ice Cream

Iran Students Protest Over Increased Restrictions

British Police Detain Nine in Anti-Terrorism Raids

Rocket Fire Turns Israel's Southern Coast into War Zone

Spain Becoming Favored Destination for Palestinians

Mohammed Zaghal and his friends have no doubt about where they would rather be: Spain. Since the Islamic group Hamas won Palestinian elections in January, the number seeking to escape has risen sharply, locals say. "Everyone in Jenin just wants to get out," says Zaghal, 24, who used to work in Israel until a Palestinian uprising began.

Zaghal's brother Fida, 26, is already in Spain. Earlier this year, he traveled first to Jordan and then boarded a flight to Cuba, for which he did not need a visa. When the plane landed for a brief stopover in Madrid, he got off and requested political asylum. He is now getting financial support and receiving Spanish lessons. Some have told Spanish authorities that they are supporters of Fatah, Hamas' rival, and that they need asylum to escape Hamas threats.

Two observations:

-Europe (and the West) continues to commit suicide by paying welfare to encourage the immigration of Palestinian terrorists, committed Islamists and a much larger pool of recruits in the form of general Muslim immigration. Here is an article about a number of terrorists in American through asylum, with the difference that they covered up their terror group membership.

-Israel is in a panic to cede territory based on a demographic hoax. The above story illustrates the widespread desire of Arabs to flee the Palestinian areas.

Hamas is seeking the ability to attack Israel using small airplanes laden with explosives to be flown September 11-style into Tel Aviv skyscrapers, a leader of Hamas' Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, Abu Abdullah, said Wednesday.

Palestinian security officials said they believe Hamas recently smuggled into Gaza three small airplanes that can carry explosives and be used to attack Israel.

They said the aircraft were purchased from Eastern European dealers and that Hamas members received flight training in Sudan, Iran, and Syria.

Clearly this Hamas leader does not realize that Israel has threatened to hit back really, really hard.

By Mitchell Prothero:

I started calling it a civil war when the family of a slain bodyguard took over the lobby of my hotel and began firing at the Hamas gunmen across the street. Bullets flying around, black-shirted gunmen counterattacking, and pools of blood on the floor of my hotel lobby - that's not journalism, it's getting shot at. A lot of the goodwill toward the foreign journalist dries up when it's Arabs fighting each other. Suddenly, you're not documenting a noble struggle against occupation, you're just some foreigner. And if you're in a hospital full of pissed-off Military Intelligence officials tending to their wounded, it's a disaster. As I tried to take pictures, I was suddenly surrounded by a mob of armed men grabbing at my cameras.

This was the first week Hamas had deployed men in the thousands with their faces uncovered. They were well equipped, with new guns. Smuggled guns are pouring in through Rafah on the Egyptian border. My driver Khalil and I devised a rule: Guys with masks, burning tires, screaming and waving guns at us were unavailable for comment. We also saw that Hamas guys shoot less and aim more than Fatah militiamen.

See also: Fatah Security Chief Killed in Gaza Blast

Highlights

As keynote commencement speaker, Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger "apologized" to graduates at the State University of New York at New Paltz on Sunday for the failure of his generation to stop the Iraq War and to sufficiently promote "fundamental human rights" like abortion, immigration, and gay marriage.

Daily Freeman reporter Paul Kirby quotes from Sulzberger's address, which he begins with a facetious "apology" to the class for being part of the generation that let them down due to insufficient liberal activism.

"'I will start with an apology,' Sulzberger told the graduates, who wore black gowns and hats with yellow tassels. 'When I graduated in 1974, my fellow students and I ended the Vietnam War and ousted President Nixon. OK. OK. That's not quite true. Maybe there were larger forces at play.'"

He went on to lament that his generation "had seen the horror and futility of war and smelled the stench of government corruption. Our children, we vowed, would never know that. So, well, I am sorry."

Some more from Sulzberger: "It wasn't supposed to be this way. You weren't supposed to be graduating in an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, be it the rights of immigrants to start a new life, the right of gays to marry or the rights of women to choose."

Kirby reports: "Sulzberger added the graduates weren't supposed to be let into a world 'where oil still drives policy and environmentalists have to relentlessly fight for every gain. You weren't. But you are and I am sorry for that.'"