Obama rewards Palestinian terrorists with $148 million, promises more

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) – US consul general in Jerusalem Michael Ratney signed an agreement Sunday with Palestinian caretaker prime minister Rami Hamdallah upon which the US will pay the Palestinian Authority $148 million.

PA finance minister Shukri Bishara witnessed the ceremony along with the director of the United States Agency for International Development, David Harden.

Hamdallah applauded the US government for supporting the Palestinian people financially and noted that the latest grant would help Palestinian institutions continue to provide services to citizens.

Ratney, for his part, asserted that his country would continue to support the Palestinian people and the PA's efforts to develop state institutions.

In August, US President Barack Obama decided to waive restrictions set by Congress to allow sending money to the PA in order to bolster the Palestinian leadership after it resumed talks with Israel.

Video: Suicide Bomber Intercepted in Afghanistan

Report: 38 Muslim Brotherhood prisoners die "in disputed circumstances"

CAIRO (Reuters) - Some 38 Muslim Brotherhood supporters died in disputed circumstances at a prison on Sunday, as the leader of Egypt's powerful army warned he would not tolerate violence, urging Islamists to change course.

Latest government figures said at least 830 people had died since last Wednesday in clashes pitting followers of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi against security forces in the worst political bloodletting to rock Egypt in recent history.

Police have rounded up hundreds of Mursi's Brotherhood backers in recent days, in an effort by the army-backed government to end weeks of protests and to stamp their authority on the deeply polarized nation. The government said 70 members of the security forces were among the dead.

The Interior Ministry said a group of detainees had tried to escape from a prison on the outskirts of Cairo, adding that an undisclosed number had been suffocated by tear gas when police moved in to free an officer who had been taken hostage.

Three sources put the number of dead at 38.

Offering a very different version of events, a legal source told Reuters that men had died from asphyxiation in the back of a crammed police van while being drive to prison.

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Syrian Kurd refugees flee in fear of al-Qeada-linked al Nusra rebel group

Insight: Egypt seen as graveyard of Islamist ambitions for power

BEIRUT (Reuters) - As the army ruthlessly crushes the Muslim Brotherhood on the streets of Cairo, having swept away its elected president, Egypt is being painted as the graveyard of the Arab Spring and of Islamist hopes of shaping the region's future.

This week's bloody drama has sent shockwaves out of Egypt, the political weathervane and cultural heart of the Arab world. The effect on the region of the army's power grab will not be uniform, because while countries such as Egypt are locked in a battle over identity, other states, from Syria to Yemen, and Libya to Iraq, are in an existential struggle for survival.

The Egyptian chapter of the Arab awakening began with the uprising that ended the 30-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak and has moved on to the spectacular implosion of the Brotherhood that replaced him. Having been outlawed intermittently since their founding 80 years ago, the organization won parliamentary and presidential elections, then self-destructed in one year.

Deposed President Mohamed Mursi alienated all but a hard-core constituency by devoting his energy to seizing control of Egypt's institutions rather than implementing policies to revive its paralyzed economy and heal political divisions, analysts say.

"I was surprised by the rapid fall of the Islamists," said Jamel Arfaoui, an analyst on Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings.

"I was expecting that the Muslim Brotherhood would continue long in power and benefit from the experience of the Islamists in Turkey," where the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party has won three straight elections.

The Egyptian Brothers, or Al-Ikhwan, now have reason to fear they could be back in the wilderness for decades after the army, with much bloodshed, imposed a state of emergency last week. The last time emergency rule was implemented - after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 - it remained in force for more than 30 years.

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PLO charges Israel with ‘war crimes, anti-human, racist acts’... for building new houses

(JPost) The PLO leadership on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Israel and threatened to go to international agencies to punish it for its “war crimes, anti-human racist acts and violations of international laws.”

The attack came during a meeting in Ramallah of the PLO Executive Committee under the chairmanship of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The PLO leaders said they would not accept a situation where the peace talks with Israel, which resumed recently, would become a “political cover for the implementation of the largest settlement project.”

They accused the Israeli government of working toward undermining “all prospects for peace.”

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I really don't understand why Israel did not, long ago, have a thorough legal brief done detailing all the war crimes and crimes against humanity the Plestinians are guilty of.

If they were smart, they would do it and have it go back as far as necessary... certainly to the Maalot school massacre and on through Abbas' funding of the Olympic massacre, as well as all the more recent suicide mass murders.

Ayatollah Khamenei blames - yes, you guessed it - Israel and US for Egypt turmoil

(JPost) Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is placing the blame for Egypt’s political turmoil on Jerusalem and Washington.

The Shi’ite religious leader took to his official Twitter account on Saturday, to attack Egypt’s former leader Hosni Mubarak and his relations with Israel and the US.

“Mubarak’s collaboration w/ Israel&US made Egyptians feel humiliated so they made a #revolution&Zionists reacted against this revolution now,” he tweeted.

He pointed out that Egyptians acted against Israel in the past, saying “#Egypt was 1st country that entered into war w/ #Zionists for Palestinians.”

Khamenei also seemed to imply a parallel between current army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Mubarak, tweeting that Mubarak “was not a #freedom fighter or an anti-Zionist, but a servant to the Zionists.”

In another tweet earlier this month he stated that the “Zionist regime” is behind the turmoil, not only in Egypt, but in all of the Arab countries. “Muslims must beware,” the tweet concluded.

Also earlier this month, Khamenei tweeted that the “#Zionist regime sit and watch the situation of #Egypt w/ satisfaction.” A link in the text goes to a cartoon image of a group of American political leaders laughing hysterically at the turmoil in Egypt.

Tehran’s new foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Friday in an interview with Iranian Mehr News that the country needs a more “proactive diplomacy” and that one of his priorities would be to deal with the Egyptian crisis.

In what could become a common front against the military coup and crackdown in Egypt, Zarif and his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, discussed the situation on Friday, Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported on Saturday.

The Turkish government, led by the Islamist AK Party, has been criticizing the military since the coup that toppled Mohamed Morsi.

Shi’ite Iran identifies with the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist agenda even though it is a Sunni movement. Tehran, which historically has had poor relations with Cairo, had a warm relationship with former president Morsi’s government, and viewed the Muslim Brotherhood as part of the “Islamic awakening” in the region.

Hundreds of Iranian students and NGOs rallied on Thursday in Tehran against the Egyptian army’s crackdown.

Tehran’s provisional Friday prayer leader, Ayatollah Ali Movahedi Kermani, called for an immediate end to bloodshed in Egypt and for Egypt to prevent foreign powers from interfering in the country’s internal affairs.

Egyptian events should not be an excuse for the intervention of superpowers, said Kermani, according to a report in Tasnim.

Saudi prince fires celebrity preacher over Brotherhood links and "extremist inclinations"

Billionaire prince fires renowned Kuwaiti motivational speaker Tareq al-Suwaidan for "extremist inclinations."

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has fired a renowned Kuwaiti preacher and motivational speaker from the top job at the religious television channel he owns for what he described as "extremist inclinations" and links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Saudi Arabia has come out strongly in support of an army crackdown on the Brotherhood in Egypt following the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi last month. The Brotherhood's rise had unsettled Gulf Arab states which feared it would embolden Islamists at home.

The prince said Tareq al-Suwaidan, who has more than 1.9 million Twitter followers and is known across the Arab world for his lectures on self-improvement from an Islamic perspective, had identified himself as "one of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood" during a lecture in Yemen.

"There is no place for those who carry any deviant thoughts at Al Resalah Channel," Alwaleed wrote in a letter to Suwaidan, according to a news release from the prince's office.

Prince Alwaleed said in the letter that he had repeatedly warned Suwaidan against political affiliation.

Suwaidan responded on Twitter, "Only the weak worry about earning a living, and no one abandons his principles but he who cares about earthly matters."

Prince Alwaleed's uncle, King Abdullah, on Friday called on Arabs to stand together against "attempts to destabilize" Egypt, in a message of support for the military leadership.

Report: Hezbollah's Top Syria Commander Killed

Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah killing each other? It's a win-win.

(INN) Arab media reported Sunday that a senior Hezbollah terror leader was killed in recent days in a battle with Syrian opposition forces. The battle occurred in the Damascus area.

The reports did not identify the terrorist, but in recent days Hezbollah-affiliated news outlets showed images of the funeral of senior Hezbollah commander Ali Hossam Nasser. The funeral took place in the area of Nabatiya in south Lebanon. Nasser is considered the supreme commander of Hezbollah forces in Syria.

If the report is correct, the death of Nasser is just one of the latest in a series of setbacks for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Last weekend, rebels in Syria claimed that they had killed at least 42 Hezbollah terrorists, who were fighting with soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad on behalf of Iran. The deaths were reported by Arab television station Al-Arabiya, which quoted a rebel leader as saying that the operation was a “high quality one.”

Ahmed Jerba, leader of the National Syrian Coalition, the leading political coalition opposed to the government of Bashar al-Assad, said that at this point Iran and Hezbollah, and not Assad's army, were leading the fighting against Syrian rebels. “Assad no longer runs Syria,” Jerba told the Arabic language Al-Hayat newspaper. “The true rulers of Syria are the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah fighters,” he said.

Malawi National Museum in Minya, Egypt, looted

From Reuters:

The Malawi National Museum in Minya, Egypt was looted on Wednesday, and archaeologist Dr. Monica Hanna told Reuters on Thursday that the eastern desert road south to Minya was blocked by Egypt's government forces, and the western road was unsafe to travel.

The Associated Press visited the Malawi Museum, and collected a series of stunning yet tragic photos that show the destruction. Read the full AP account here (photo below).

#متحف_ملوي #مصر #Mallawy_Museum #Egypt pic.twitter.com/9yieuvDZ7z
— Monica Hanna (@monznomad) August 17, 2013

READ: Archaeologist in Egypt documents archaeological site damage and stolen museum artifacts

#متحف_ملوي pic.twitter.com/ea2XTtsCGm
— Monica Hanna (@monznomad) August 17, 2013

Hanna told Reuters on Thursday that more than 1,000 artifacts held in high regard by the international Egyptian archaeologist and historian community were taken from the Museum. The community, with Hanna, are using on-the-ground contacts and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to collect reports, photos, and video of attacks against Christian (Coptic) churches, schools, and orphanages.

Death toll in Egypt rises to 830

Reported #Egypt death toll rises to 830: 578 Wednesday-Thursday, 173 Friday, 79 Saturday http://t.co/By9CRY9DvJ
— Reuters World (@ReutersWorld) August 18, 2013

American-born al Qaeda leader Adam Gadhan urges attacks on US diplomats as "important and great deeds in the path of Allah"

He was born and raised in California, that liberal progressive, pro-Islamist nirvana.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An American al Qaeda militant has called for more attacks on Western diplomats in the Arab world, praising the killers of the U.S. ambassador to Libya on September 11 last year, a U.S.-based monitoring group said on Sunday.

Western nations shut embassies across the Middle East and North Africa early this month, after a warning of a possible militant attack. Many have reopened, and Britain said its Yemen embassy would open on Sunday after being closed for 12 days.

Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam with a $1 million U.S. price on his head, appealed to wealthy Muslims to offer militants rewards to kill ambassadors in the region, citing bounty set for killing the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Washington-based SITE monitoring group said.

"These prizes have a great effect in instilling fear in the hearts of our cowardly enemies," Gadahn said in the 39-minute video recording in Arabic posted on websites used by Islamist militants, according to SITE.

"They also encourage hesitant individuals to carry out important and great deeds in the path of Allah," he said, in an English transcript on SITE.

The Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda last year offered 3 kg (106 ounces) of gold for the killing of the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa or 5 million rials ($23,350) for an American soldier in the impoverished Arab state.

U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in Libya's Benghazi in 2012 when Islamist gunmen attacked the U.S. consulate during a protest by a mob angry over a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

Gadahn has called for attacks on U.S. diplomats before. In August 2007, he said al Qaeda would target diplomats and embassies in retaliation for U.S.-led military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The FBI has been trying to question Gadahn - believed to be in Pakistan - since 2004 and the U.S. government has offered up to $1 million in cash for information leading to his arrest.

Denmark Bans Meatballs to Accommodate Muslims

"The next thing could be that Danish nurses are forced to go under cover as Muslim women in order to please Muslim patients." — Martin Henriksen, Spokesman, Danish People's Party

(Gatestone Institute) One of the largest hospitals in Denmark has admitted to serving only halal beef -- meat that is slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic guidelines -- to all of its patients regardless of whether or not they are Muslim.

The revelation that Danes are being forced to eat Islamically slaughtered meat at public institutions has triggered a spirited nationwide debate about how far Denmark should go to accommodate the estimated 250,000 Muslim immigrants now living in the country.

The halal food row erupted in July when the Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet reported that Hvidovre Hospital near Copenhagen has been secretly serving only halal-slaughtered meat for the sake of its Muslim patients, for the past ten years. The hospital serves more than 40,000 patients annually, many (if not most) of whom presumably are non-Muslim.

Halal -- which in Arabic means lawful or legal -- is a term designating any object or action that is permissible according to Islamic Sharia law. In the context of food, halal meat is derived from animals slaughtered by hand according to methods stipulated in Islamic religious texts.

One such halal method, called dhabihah, consists of making a swift, deep incision with a sharp knife on the neck that cuts the jugular vein, leaving the animal to bleed to death. Much of the controversy involving halal stems from the fact that Sharia law bans the practice of stunning the animals before they are slaughtered. Pre-slaughter stunning renders the animals unconscious and is said to lessen their pain.

Amid a surge of public outrage over the decision to serve only halal beef, Hvidovre Hospital's vice president, Torben Mogensen, has been unapologetic. "We have many patients from different ethnic backgrounds, which we must take into account, and it is impossible to have both the one and the other kind of beef," he says.

"First," Mogensen adds, "I do not think that a slaughter method as such has anything to do with faith. Second is, of course, that all chickens in Denmark are halal slaughtered, and it has to my knowledge not caused anyone to stop eating chicken."

Mogensen also says the hospital is not trying to "push the Islamic faith down the throats of non-Muslim patients"

In a press release, Hvidovre Hospital states, "We introduced halal meat both for practical and economic reasons. It would be both more difficult and more expensive to have to make both a halal version and a non-halal version of the dishes. Then we have two production lines. It requires more people, more equipment and more money."

The hospital advises non-Muslims to take it or leave it: "We always have alternatives to halal meat such as pork, fish or vegetarian dishes. It is a question of attitude."

According to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, there is no comprehensive inventory of the number of hospitals in Denmark have halal meat on the menu. But officials at the University Hospital in Aarhus, the second-largest urban area in Denmark after Copenhagen, say the decision by Hvidovre Hospital to serve only halal is an example of political correctness run amok.

In an interview with the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Ole Hoffmann, the head chef of Aarhus University Hospital says: "We have never had a patient ask for halal meat, and therefore it is an issue that we have never discussed. I think it is a strange decision. If there was a desire to serve halal meat, then we would of course consider it, but we would never completely eliminate non-halal meat."

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Karzai suggests the man who brought bin Laden to Afghanistan should become the next president

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, right, has floated Abdul Rasoul Sayyaf, left, as a possible successor.

KABUL — President Hamid Karzai has suggested that the man who brought Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan could become the country’s next leader, say people familiar with discussions ahead of April’s presidential vote.

Former Islamist warlord Abdul Rasoul Sayyaf has emerged as an unlikely—and, to Western diplomats, unsettling—favorite in recent gatherings that aim to select a consensus candidate.

At an hourslong meeting with power brokers last week, President Karzai tried to persuade Atta Mohammad Noor, the main authority in northern Afghanistan and a potential kingmaker, to support a Sayyaf presidential candidacy, according to people with knowledge of the meeting.

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Egypt: Islamists hit Christian churches

CAIRO (AP) — After torching a Franciscan school, Islamists paraded three nuns on the streets like "prisoners of war" before a Muslim woman offered them refuge. Two other women working at the school were sexually harassed and abused as they fought their way through a mob.

In the four days since security forces cleared two sit-in camps by supporters of Egypt's ousted president, Islamists have attacked dozens of Coptic churches along with homes and businesses owned by the Christian minority. The campaign of intimidation appears to be a warning to Christians outside Cairo to stand down from political activism.

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Israel retaliates after Syrian shells hit Golan Heights

(INN) The Israeli army fired into Syria after shells from the neighboring country hit the Israeli side of the Golan Heights on Saturday, a military spokesman said. IDF Radio reported the Israeli attack demolished a Syrian military position.

"Today, several shells fired from Syria landed in the central Golan heights, adjacent to the Israel-Syria border," the spokesman told AFP.

Israeli military "forces carried out a pinpoint strike, targeting the source of the shooting. A hit was confirmed."

The spokesman said at least three shells were confirmed to have hit Israel. He could not say whether the army considered the incidents cases of stray fire spilling over from the conflict in Syria.

A defense source told AFP the Israeli response took place after the Jewish state filed a complaint to the UN Disengagement Observer Force, which monitors the 1974 ceasefire line between Israel and Syria.

The Golan has been tense since the beginning of the civil war in Syria more than two years ago, but so far there have only been minor flare-ups as Syrian small arms fire or mortar rounds hit the Israeli side, prompting an occasional Israeli response.

Also on Saturday, seven wounded Syrians were taken into Israel for medical care, the military spokesman said.

Dozens of Syrians, including women and children, have been treated in hospitals in northern Israel since the beginning of the uprising in their country.

Lebanese Sunni leader: Hezbollah dragging Lebanon into war

BEIRUT (AP) — One of Lebanon's most powerful Sunni politicians accused the leader of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah on Saturday of dragging the country further into neighboring Syria's civil war.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri's comments come two days after a deadly car bombing struck a Hezbollah neighborhood south of Beirut. Many people in Lebanon viewed the blast as retaliation for Hezbollah's armed support for Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

In a speech on Thursday, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah blamed Sunni extremists for the bombing and defiantly said he was prepared to double the number of his fighters in Syria if the bombing turns out to be linked to his group's intervention there.

Hariri responded Saturday, saying Nasrallah's address "did not break the cycle of tension" in the country but rather "drags Lebanon further into the Syrian fire, and it is a pity to squander the blood of Lebanese in such a way."

In comments posted on his Twitter account and confirmed by his office, Hariri also said that Thursday's bombing, which killed nearly two dozen people in the Hezbollah stronghold of Rweiss, was "surely an ugly crime, but Hezbollah's war in Syria is a crime as well."

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Security forces storm protester-held Egypt mosque, kill Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader's son

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian security forces stormed a Cairo mosque Saturday after a heavy exchange of gunfire with armed men shooting down from a minaret, rounding up hundreds of supporters of the country's ousted president who had sought refuge there overnight after violent clashes killed 173 people.

The raid on the al-Fath mosque on Ramses Square was prompted by fears that deposed President Mohammed Morsi's group, the Muslim Brotherhood, again planned to set up a sit-in, security officials said, similar to those that were broken up Wednesday in assaults that killed hundreds of people.

The arrest of the brother of al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri came in connection to the raid on the mosque. Officials said that he planned to bring in armed groups to provide support to those holed up inside the mosque.

[...]

Among those who died Friday was Ammar Badie, a son of the Brotherhood's spiritual leader Mohammed Badie, the group's political arm said in a statement.

Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, who leads the military-backed government, later told journalists that authorities had no choice but to use force in the wake of recent violence.

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Egypt mulls disbanding Muslim Brotherhood as death toll rises to over 700

(Fox News) Egyptian authorities are considering disbanding the Muslim Brotherhood group on the heels of security forces storming a Cairo mosque where hundreds of Islamist supporters of the country’s ousted president were barricaded inside, a government spokesman said.

Witnesses say that Egyptian security forces stormed the mosque after firing tear gas at hundreds former President Mohammed Morsi supporters.

Local journalist Shaimaa Awad told The Associated Press that security forces rounded up pro-Morsi protesters inside al-Fatah mosque, located in Cairo’s central Ramses Square and the sound of gunfire could be heard in the background.

Egypt’s official news agency MENA reported that gunmen opened fire on security forces from the mosque’s minaret. Local television stations broadcast live footage of soldiers firing assault rifles at the minaret.

Security forces in armored personnel carriers surrounded the mosque and appeared to be firing automatic weapons from their vehicles. It was not apparent to a reporter on the ground that protestors in the mosque were firing back, contrary to government arguments that supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were armed and committing terrorist acts that needed to be squashed by state security forces, The Wall Street Journal reported. [...]

The violence capped off a week that saw more than 700 people killed across the country. That toll surpasses the combined death toll from two and a half years of violent protests since the ouster Mubarak to the July 3 coup that toppled Morsi.

Scandinavia: Jews Deserve Terror, Not Us

Well, this is a classic example of "don't wish on others what you don't want to happen to you"... for it will come back at bite you on the ass.

(Commentary Magazine) In the view of many Europeans, and in particular Scandinavians, not all victims of terror are alike. If, for example, you are an innocent Norwegian child who is gunned down by a deranged right-wing fanatic, you are deserving of compassion and your killer must be punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, if you are a Jew who is gunned down or bombed by a Palestinian, you had it coming and your killer should be released and honored.

That’s the only possible way to interpret the anger being expressed in the region this week in response to remarks made by Israel’s Ambassador to Sweden Isaac Buchman. The ambassador is under fire for asking listeners on Swedish Radio to think about how they would feel if Anders Breivik, the perpetrator of the Utoya Island massacre, were released. Buchman complained that Israel wasn’t getting credit for it’s freeing of 26 Palestinian terrorist murderers in order to entice the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiating table. But rather than sympathize with the families of Israelis victimized by Palestinian murderers, people in Norway and Sweden are angry about any comparison between their sorrow and that of Jews killed by Arabs. Indeed, as one Swedish paper put it, the families of the Utoya incident are “seething” about the ambassador’s analogy.

In other words, there seems to be some sort of consensus that Breivik’s crimes are beyond the pale while the Jews have it coming when Palestinians kill them. While the Swedes and the Norwegians probably think they are speaking without prejudice, their views display how deep the roots of anti-Semitism run in European culture.

As the Swedish paper The Local reports:

“I think it is ridiculous to compare this with a mass murderer from Norway,” Trond Blattmann, whose son Torjusdatter was killed when Breivik opened fire on Utøya, told The Local. “There’s no similarity at all. This is a ridiculous way to talk.”

“The comparison does not make sense,” added Bjørn Ihler, who survived the massacre by hiding on the southern tip of the island. “Breivik was a solo terrorist whose actions were based purely on an unreal situation. The situation in the Middle East is very different. There is a real fight for Palestinian freedom going on.”

Middle East expert Per Jönsson with the Swedish Institute for International Affairs (Utrikespolitiska institutets – UI) also slammed Bachman’s Breivik comparison.

“The comparison with Breivik is insane in several ways. Breivik is very special. These people that Israel is now releasing are freedom fighters, murderers, and in some cases terrorists, but they are nevertheless rather normal people,” he told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

Contrary to the belief of the Utoya families, the blood of the Jews slaughtered in cold blood by the Palestinians that were acclaimed as heroes this week after their release was no less red than that of Breivik’s victims. The grief of their families was no less profound. The outrage of the people of Israel—and all decent people everywhere—about these wanton acts of murder carried out by Palestinians was no less justified.

The Utoya families view Breivik’s actions as “unreal” and therefore a random act of madness that must somehow be seen as on a different moral plane from Palestinian killings of Jews. But the rationale of each of those Palestinian murderers—some of whom were personally embraced by Israel’s peace partner, Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas—was no less mad or random. Most simply seized any opportunity to find a Jewish victim to kill and claimed the blood they shed was in the name of “freeing Palestine.” Perhaps they should read the accounts of some of these released prisoners to understand the brutality of their crimes and how divorced they were from any rational political struggle.

This is not just the old debate about one person’s terrorists being another’s “freedom fighter.” This is about what is, in the words of the so-called Middle East expert quoted in the Swedish paper, defined as “normal.” In his view, and apparently in the opinion of most of the Swedes and Norwegians who agree with him, there is something “normal” about an average Palestinian wanting to kill a Jew because it is part of an existential desire to eradicate the Jewish presence in the country. By being in Israel (and most of their victims were not “settlers” even though even the members of that apparently despised group also have a right not to be murdered), the Jew is transformed into prey. Like a deer or other animal during hunting season, Europeans seem to think any Israeli is a legitimate target.

Whatever you may think about where Israel’s borders should be drawn, by treating terror carried out by Palestinians against Jews as legitimate, Europeans are signaling not only that they approve of this cause but also that Jewish lives are less precious than their own. The families of the Utoya victims deserve our sympathy in their grief. But they, and other Europeans who are “seething” about any comparison between their children and dead Jews, have crossed the line into anti-Semitism.