Monday, March 21, 2011

THE BANK JOB

I came across this article form earlier in the month in which Reuters was quoting a bank official who claimed Hamas police had forcibly taken $250,000 (i.e. stolen) from a Palestinian Authority-backed fund's account - Gaza banks close in protest at Hamas cash seizure

"All banks closed their doors today to protest against Hamas's assault on the Palestine Investment Bank," said the official, who declined to be identified.

A Palestine Monetary Authority official has described the grab as "armed robbery" which sits nicely with allegations of murder,  bribery and various human rights abuses, most of which are generally excused in the eyes of the Western media but which go together to confirm that Hamastan under this regime with its Muslim Brotherhood connections is worse than Ghaddafi's Libya.

In recent days, it has been alleged that Hamas has beaten several journalists in Gaza who were covering demonstrations - Hamas Targets Journalists: Media, Human Rights Groups Silent.
Hamas believes that intimidation of the media will prevent the truth from coming out. Like most Arab dictatorships, Hamas does not tolerate stories that reflect negatively on its radical regime in the Gaza Strip - the reason the Hamas government has been cracking down on local journalists who fail to toe the line.

Although some of the journalists who were assaulted work with international news organizations, many of these foreign media outlets ignored the story, apparently out of fear of retribution by the Hamas authorities.

These journalists who chose to defy Hamas should be supported not only by their foreign colleagues, but also by Western governments and human rights organizations.

Among the media that routinely ignores Hamas' abuses is the Fairfaz media in Australia. Hamas and the Muslim Botherhood are treated with such respect and reverence by this media organisation that the very word "Hamas" was omitted when Paul McGeough's six page puff piece on the Gaza movers and shakers was published last November.

To understand the background of the Muslim Brotherhood and its evil past read Richard Cohen in the Washington Post - Can the Arab world leave anti-Semitism behind?    
During World War II, the leader of the Palestinians lived in a Berlin villa, a gift from a very grateful Adolf Hitler, who clearly got his money's worth.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and as such the titular leader of Muslim Palestinians, broadcast Nazi propaganda to the Middle East, recruited European Muslims for the SS, exulted in the Holocaust and after
the war went on to represent his people in the Arab League. He died somewhat ignored but never repudiated.

...

Israel's critics have a case. Yet they make no case when it comes to Arab anti-Semitism. The prominence of Qaradawi cannot be reassuring to Israelis.

They know that words can be weapons and hate is a killer. Nonetheless, since the days of Husseini, a true Hitlerian figure, Arab nations have shamefully been granted an exception to the standards expected of the rest of the world, as if they were children. If I were an Israeli, I'd be worried. If I were an Arab, I'd be insulted. If I were a critic only of Israel, I'd be ashamed.

In answer to the question Cohen poses, I'd like to be positive but it ain't easy and will require a large educational effort, a great deal of goodwill and a massive overhaul of Arab propaganda machines, notably those of both Hamas and the Palestine Authority.

But what of the anti Semitic fixation of journalists who give Hamas and the PA a free pass every time there's an unsavoury incident like Hamas' latest bank grab and its attacks on journalists? We know what to expect from the usual suspects in the Guardian and the Age. The answer is silence - the same silence that has people asking why they were never informed of the dreadful human rights records of Tunisia, Egypt and more lately, Libya. 

Good question. 

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