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The United States' recent request for a public clarification from National Security Adviser Uzi Arad following the IDF's killing of three wanted Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorists in Nablus is unusual and raises questions. . . .
[T]he US demanded a public clarification on behalf of the PA. This clearly represents heightened US sensitivity to Palestinian protests over the IDF's "unjust" incursion into Area A of Judea and Samaria/the West Bank, where the PA has overall security responsibility, to net the Fatah-associated terror cell that resulted in its elimination.
THIS IS where it seems more appropriate that the US issue clarifications to Israel. At least one of the Aksa Brigades commanders - Annan Sabuh, who was found with two M16 automatic rifles and two other firearms - had been part of the amnesty program for former Fatah-affiliated terror group commanders and operatives that was predicated on turning in all weapons. The amnesty program was implemented in no small part at the behest of the United States and its security reform program, which began under Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton in 2005.
Dan Diker, “Washington, not J’lem, needs to issue clarifications,” Jerusalem Post, December 28, 2009
Making the trip from Italy to Hevron for the second time in recent years, the head of the Italian Muslim Assembly, Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, met with local Jewish leaders in a show of solidarity. The sheikh, an Italian national who received his Islamic education from leading mainstream Saudi and Egyptian Sunni institutions, believes that his religion obligates its followers to support Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. In support of his position, Sheikh Palazzi quotes Koranic passages and traditions that affirm God's assignment of this land for the Jews.
Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, “Muslim Sheikh Pays Solidarity Visit to the Jews of Hevron,” Israel National News, December 28, 2009
Iran’s panicking regime is once again seeking to suppress the Green Movement by decapitating it.
Just as it did after June’s hotly-disputed presidential election, it is arresting high-profile reformists, academics and journalists who support the opposition. . . .
The tactic will prove as futile now as it did in June. Decapitation will not work because the opposition is a bottom-up movement run not by Mr Mousavi or Mehdi Karroubi, its nominal leaders, but by its grassroots members. It is a massive campaign of civil disobedience. . .
One activist said: “Do Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the elite of the Revolutionary Guards really think that I, or anyone else, after being beaten by the police, witnessing the murder of Iranians on the streets, hearing stories of rape and murder in the prisons, and knowing of electoral cheating, will ever remain passive and quiet? None of us will ever accept the rule of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei after what they have done.”
Martin Fletcher, “Iranian protest is grassroots and unstoppable, say activists,” Timesonline, December 30, 2009
Fatah sources in the Palestinian Authority accuse the Hamas government in Gaza of inventing a supposed “medicine shortage” and preventing sick patients from receiving treatment abroad. . . .
Fatah’s Al-Nasser noted that the Ramallah ministry had sent last week no fewer than 13 truckloads of medical equipment and medicines for various diseases and medical conditions to Gaza. The deliveries, worth three million shekels, were paid for by the PA health ministry, and were sent to Gaza on Tuesday, Dec. 23.
Al-Nasser called on Hamas to stop “playing with patients’ lives” by placing various restrictions on their trips outside Gaza for treatment. He further said that Hamas had similarly lied when it denied receiving advanced medical equipment for the detection of swine flu.
Hillel Fendel, “Fatah: Hamas is Harming Sick Gazans for Propaganda,” Israel National News, January 1, 2010
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