Middle East Mess

Three significant stories on the Middle East:

1. Palestinians continue to have trouble getting their act together, so to speak:

Gunmen loyal to the two main Palestinian factions openly fought each other in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank today after an alleged attempt on the life of the Palestinian Prime Minister last night.

Hamas officials accused members of the rival Fatah movement of trying to kill Prime Minister Ismail Haniya during a chaotic gunfight at the Rafah border crossing....

Many of the Hamas followers were on their way to a rally of an estimated 70,000 people in Gaza City, where Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas figure shouted to the crowd: "What a war Mahmoud Abbas you are launching, first against God, and then against Hamas." His call was answered by a chant of "God is Greatest" and bullets fired into the air. Mr al-Hayya also called for revenge against Fatah.

Closely guarded by bodyguards, Mr Haniya then addressed the crowd. In an aggressive speech, punctuated by bursts of celebratory gunfire, he said: "We tell all those who believe in the logic of assassination that this does not scare even little children in Hamas."

"We joined this movement to become martyrs, not ministers."

How encouraging...

(Incidentally, I would be curious to know just how many Palestinians die each year from "celebratory gunfire". I would have thought that if even the government of little Puerto Rico can recognize it as a stupid practice, the Palestinians might have cottoned on by now too.)

2. Former Dutch Parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes a very telling piece in the International Herald Tribunal in which she explains that growing up in Saudi Arabia meant she didn't even know of the Holocaust until she got to Holland at age 24! She writes:

Western leaders today who say they are shocked by the conference of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran denying the Holocaust need to wake up to that reality. For the majority of Muslims in the world the Holocaust is not a major historical event they deny; they simply do not know because they were never informed. Worse, most of us are groomed to wish for a Holocaust of Jews.

She claims that when she showed her 21 year old half sister her history book about the Holocaust, the reaction was this:

With great conviction my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed nor massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed."

3. In a typical wrong-headed reaction, a bunch of artists write to The Guardian to announce that they will respond to the Palestinian call for an "academic and cultural boycott " of Israel. I note that Brian Eno is a signatory. That'll hurt.

When I see a list of artists calling for the "radical" cultural change in the Muslim Middle East of teaching their children and young men and women:
a. about the Holocaust;
b. that Jews are not intrinsically evil, and
c. that good deeds on earth are more important than entry into Paradise by "matyrdom"
then I'll give the "cultural boycott" call against Israel some credibility.