Military Court in Bethlehem Sentences a Palestinian to Death; PCHR Calls upon Palestinian President Not to Approve the Sentence, and for Abolition of Death Penalty in Palestinian Law

On Wednesday, 12 November 2008, the Military Court in Bethlehem sentenced Ayman Ahmed 'Awwad Daghamgha, 24, a member of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service, from al-'Arroub refugee camp north of Hebron, to death by firing squad. The trial was administered by a panel of 3 judges (Chief Justice Fares Douda; Judge Fadi Hijazi; and Judges Ahmed Jaddou'). It was held in the headquarters of the Military Court in Bethlehem. Representatives of the prosecution, Major Ibrahim Abu Saleh and First Lieutenant Akram 'Arar, and the defendant's lawyer, Khalil al-Heeh, were present in the trial.

The court convicted Daghamgha of treason in violation of article 131/A of the Palestinian Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979, and sentenced him in consensus to death, a sentence that needs the Palestinian President's approval and which can be appealed against. The bill of indictment presented against the defendant states that he started to collaborate with the Israeli intelligence service when he was working in a gas station in "Kfar Etzion" settlement, south of Bethlehem, in 1999. Since then, he had monitored stone throwers and students and provided information to the Israeli intelligence in exchange of little money. Later, he joined the Palestinian Naval Police in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) before he moved to the General Intelligence Service. He started to monitor Palestinian resistance cells and to provide information on them to the Israeli intelligence. Such information allowed the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to extra-judicially execute Jad 'Atallah Salem and Ahmed Is'haq Hamamda, members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (an armed wing of Fatah movement) on 8 March 2008. He also cooperated with IOF in arresting a number of Palestinians.

I'd point out that this "Military Court" is convened in Bethelem under the PA, not in Gaza under Hamas. And implementation of the sentence (under the law, anyway) requires the approval of moderate man of peace President Mahmoud Abbas.

So what will happen? Stay tuned.

US President-elect Barack Obama's White House chief of staff apologized to the Arab-American community on Thursday for remarks his Israeli-born father made to Ma'ariv.

Last week, Benjamin Emanuel talked about his son Rahm Emanuel's new job and told the Israeli daily that "obviously he'll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to be mopping floors at the White House."

That prompted an outcry from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which called on Rahm Emanuel, a former Israeli citizen, to condemn the "unacceptable smear."

On Thursday, Rahm Emanuel called the group's president, Mary Rose Oakar, to apologize on behalf of his family.

"These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family," the group quoted him as saying.

Oakar said the apology was accepted.

I think Dr. Emanuel's comment was taken the wrong way, but I can see how it could be interpreted badly. It would have been nice to see his son stick up for him and explain what he really meant rather than tossing him under the bus, but that wasn't how things were done during the Obama campaign and it looks like we can expect more of the same in the Obama administration. Too bad.

Shabbat Shalom.

Secular businessman Nir Barkat won the Jerusalem municipal election and will succeed Uri Lupolianski as mayor of the capital.

The result was officially declared Wednesday morning when votes had been counted at all 707 polling stations, with Barkat garnering just over 52 percent of the vote, MK Meir Porush of the United Torah Judaism Party just over 43%, Israeli-Russian billionaire Arkadi Gaydamak 3.5% and Dan Birron of the Green Leaf Party wining 0.5%.

However, despite his win, Barkat's party, Jerusalem Shall Succeed, did not win a majority in the city council, but rather came in second behind United Torah Judaism. Wake up Jerusalem, a new party made up of young, mostly secular Jerusalemites, won two mandates, while Gaydamak's Social Justice party did not win any seats.

Barkat made a victory speech to a crowd of celebrating supporters at a Bayit v'Gan hotel, calling the win "a victory for Jerusalem, Israel and the Jewish people... for the Left and the Right, the secular and the religious."

The East Jerusalem Arabs, as usual, mostly boycotted the election. Too bad for them. They don't seem to have a problem accepting all of the benefits that their Israeli ID cards provide, and they certainly don't want to lose those benefits by being turned over to gentle mercies of the Palestinian Authority. But participating in the choice of their next municipal government? That just might be seen as acknowledging Israeli Jewish sovereignty over our eternal capital. No can do.

Like I said, too bad for them. And warm congratulations to mayor-elect Barkat.

Once a year, we set aside a special day for this, but hopefully this day serves to remind us to thank them all year 'round. Because that's when they serve. Every day, every hour, every minute, they've had our backs, and the backs of freedom loving people all over the world. Those who are veterans and those who will be veterans when their service is over. Although their service is never really over. Those who have served usually continue to serve, in one way or another.

Without them, we wouldn't be here.

So thank you, one and all, from the bottom of our hearts.

Happy Veterans' Day.

After decades of war, invasion and occupation, Lebanon and Israel have plenty of tension simmering between them; but the latest source of strife is literally cooking.

From the deep-fried chick peas that make falafel to the parsley and burghul wheat of tabbouleh, the salad that's almost a national obsession - green-fingered enthusiasts once held the world record for making a dish weighing one and a half tonnes - Lebanon's foodies are pushing back against what they see as Israel's appropriation of their cuisine.

"At ethnic food exhibitions our producers go to the Israeli stand and find most of the specialities they are marketing as Israeli foods are Lebanese," said Fadi Abboud, president of the Lebanese Industrialists' Association (LIA). "Our culture goes back a few thousand years. It's time to set the record straight."

"Foods like falafel are not Lebanese but they're certainly not Israeli either. How can they be when Israel is only 60 years old?" asked Rami Zurayk, professor of agriculture and ecosystems at the American University of Beirut, and author of a book on "slow food" in Lebanon.

"But Lebanon's borders are only 60 years old as well. There is an instinctive response in the region against what is seen as Israel's theft of land and appropriation of culture, but to register falafel as Lebanese is almost as absurd and chauvinistic as Israel trying to register it as Israeli."

But the thing is that Israel has never tried to "register" any of these foods as Israeli, as far as I know. What the LIA is upset about is that Israel appears to be doing a better job of marketing them overseas than Lebanon is. Whose fault is that? (Sorry. Silly question.)

According to Ynet (via Wikipedia), the origins of falafel are murky but may date back to the Egyptian Copts, India or even ancient Egypt.

Likewise, hummus, although that dish may (or may not) have originated in or around eighteenth century Damascus (i.e., back when it was a part of the Ottoman Empire known as "Greater Syria"). The same would appear to be more or less true of tabbouleh.

According to this Beirut based website, the palestinian arabs also claim ownership of falafel although, again, the argument is anachronistic.

But Lebanon may be opening up a can of worms by claiming falafel, tabbouleh and hummus as Lebanese because the Israelis are not the only ones in the game.

Siham Baghdadi Zurub, a Palestinian chef in Ramallah and author of The Palestinian Cuisine, staked her own claim in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

Zurub argues that the Palestinians were in fact the first to make hummus from chickpeas given that they were plentiful in ancient Palestine, unlike in Egypt or Syria where the fava bean was more common.

But, said Zurub, "No one has the right to call hummus and falafel as his national dish. Putting copyright on certain dishes is a selfish trend that reflects insecurity and a lack of common sense."

Thank you. It's also an effort that's unlikely to get very far beyond an official nod by the Lebanese government. And, no, the "Greek precedent" isn't going to help them much. Greece has been around for a little longer than Lebanon and has a pretty airtight to feta cheese. And, nevertheless, the enforcement thing just doesn't seem to be happening, even there.

By the way, I'd like to take this opportunity to recommend this blog, which I keep forgetting to add to the blog roll over there. Hummus is one of my very favorite foods, even though it's (still) really hard to find much worthy of the name around these parts and I still haven't figured out a way to make it well. Anyway, here's heaven.

Shabbat Shalom.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The Second Coming
William Butler Yeats

Rapidly becoming one of the most over-quoted poems ever, it pretty much sums up my feelings today.

Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States (with 78% of the Jewish vote). Al Franken might very well soon be poisoning a seat in the U.S. Senate (though on this one, I still have hope).

Joe Sestak has been returned to the House of Representatives for two more years, due to the utter failure of the Pennsylvania GOP to advance even a modest campaign for his very worthy opponent (who nevertheless garnered an impressive 40% of the vote). And Proposition 8 passed in California.

Nothing makes sense.

Read the rest.

No matter how long the lines, no matter what you think your candidate's chances are. This isn't one to sit out.

And please keep this in mind.

As if there wasn't already enough excitement, Chase Utley just went and dropped an "f" bomb on live radio (link). The crowd didn't seem to mind. But I expect fallout.

What else? Well, there's this: Obama warns of overconfidence; Pa. polls still show Obama lead. Yes, but it's shrinking. I spent the afternoon working at my local McCain HQ. Who knows? We just might pull it out.

And speaking of elections, this is encouraging: Rightist bloc leads Left in 'Post' poll

The Rightist bloc led by the Likud will defeat the Left, led by Kadima and Labor, by eight Knesset seats in the national election on February 10, according to a Jerusalem Post/Smith Research poll.

The survey, taken on Wednesday of 501 respondents representing a statistical sample of the electorate, found that Likud, Shas, Israel Beiteinu, the National Union-National Religious Party and United Torah Judaism would combine for 64 seats, while Labor, Kadima, Meretz and the Arab parties would together win only 56.

If those numbers prove to be correct, Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu could form a right-wing government that would likely end negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and perhaps with Syria. However, Netanyahu told the Knesset this week that he wanted to see Kadima and Labor in his government.

Hey, it's Friday and it's the last day of the month. And the DJIA actually had a (very) positive week. Happy Halloween!

And Shabbat Shalom.

And Tommy is about to be coronated King of America. It doesn't get much more ironic than this. The generation that thought it invented the greatest challenge to blind obedience to authority and mind control has utterly succumbed to both and is about to elect a figuratively blind deaf and dumb candidate to lead this nation into the abyss.

If we weren't living it, it would be theater. But we are. So it's tragedy on a grand scale.

Update: Of course, it ain't over until the fat lady sings ...

I tend to post negative but I'm not ready to roll over yet.

(No, I'm not bi-polar ... there aren't enough poles to define my mood swings in this election)

The least I can do is share some of the most enlightening and elucidating essays and articles I've come across over the past several days. Some of them are more recent, others less, but these all focus on the upcoming presidential election, to varying degrees, and if you're still on the fence about it or wishing you had some lucid arguments to make to others who are, they may help.

Allies Want McCain by Richard L. Benkin

Poll after poll shows that respondents in every European (and Muslim) country want us to make Barack Obama president in November. On the other hand, those people who are on the front lines of our war against Islamist extremism feel just as passionately that an Obama victory will undermine their efforts.

TO THE UNDECIDED VOTER by Neal Boortz

The Republicans don't deserve power in Washington just as you don't deserve a boil in the center of your forehead. There are worse things, however. Complete Democrat control or, in the case of your forehead, a nice big melanoma. Pretty much the same things, actually.

It's not that the Republicans did everything wrong. They got the tax cut thing right, and they responded correctly, for the most part, to the radical Islamic attack on our country. They just did so much wrong at the same time. They got drunk with power, and the hangover affects all of us.

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights? by Orson Scott Card

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

However he may seek to deny it, all evidence points to the fact that, from his position as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama knowingly and persistently funded an educational project that shared the extremist and anti-American philosophy of Jeremiah Wright. The Wright affair was no fluke. It's time for McCain to say so.

McCain for President by Charles Krauthammer

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? [ ... ]

Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.

Indeed. Well, as they say, I hope these help.

Shabbat Shalom.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Japan handily defeated Iran for a non-permanent seat on the U.N. security council and Austria and Turkey edged out Iceland in secret ballot voting Friday.

Iran -- under U.N. sanctions for its nuclear program -- received only 32 votes from the U.N. members compared to 158 for Japan for the Asian seat.

Austria and Turkey beat Iceland in the battle for two non-permanent European seats on the 15-member council in voting at a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.

The Security Council is the powerhouse of the U.N. with the ability to impose sanctions and dispatch peacekeepers.

The other two seats went to Mexico, which will represent Latin America, and Uganda, which will represent Africa; both ran unopposed.

You would think Iran's defeat would be a foregone conclusion but, really, you can't take anything for granted when it comes to the U.N. Today, sanity prevailed. Somewhere.

Shabbat Shalom.

Wishing all a peaceful and refreshing Shabbat.

In Israel, of course, it's a different story. And especially in Jerusalem, where everyday life comes to a complete standstill. It's something to behold, something I've felt privileged to have been able to carry with me and retrieve every year back here in the USA.

The headline at JerusalemPost.com now reads:

Jpost.com will resume updates after Yom Kippur

And at Ynet, the latest Update banner, similarly:

Ynetnews will return after Yom Kippur

InContext, likewise, will resume after Yom Kippur. To all of you observing the fast, may it be an easy one.

G'mar hatimah tova (may you be sealed in the Book of Life for a good year).

I've never heard of Sarah Silverman before and I wish I hadn't now. She's an extremely unfunny and rude little girl with a very nasty mouth. Someone should wash it out with soap.

Meanwhile, I lost track of how many whoppers and bloopers Joe Biden pulled off in the debate last night. Little Green Footballs has a list (with backup). Some of them, I think, I hope, were just Joe's mouth operating without direction. Others were, well, clearly deliberate lies.

Ok. I know. Too much lashon hara, especially for this time of year. Who decided to put elections right after the High Holy Days anyway?

Hey, I finally got my lawn sign today! Two of them, in fact. I'm probably going to need more because, unsurprisingly, someone is going around the neighborhood ripping up the McCain Palin signs. Yes, so far, anyway, only the McCain Palin signs. Go figure.

I have more to say but I'm out of time, as usual. But, oh yes, thanks to the U.S. Congress for stepping up this week. Let's hope they weren't too late. Some of the speeches on the House floor today were truly memorable (Nancy Pelosi's wasn't one of them this time ... thank God). I realize there's no consensus whatsoever on this, but I do feel that we took a step back from the brink of the abyss today. We'll see.

Shabbat Shuva Shalom.

Here's wishing all a much better 5769, full of peace, prosperity, good health and many blessings.

Shana Tova!