Who Needs Israel? Arabs Kill Arabs All By Themselves

Consider the following:

1.

On Thursday, two separate bomb blasts left at least 60 people dead and more than 110 injured in Baghdad and Muqdadiya, north of the capital city. The attacks resembled past incidents linked to AQI, but it remains unclear who was responsible for them. Earlier this month, AQI launched a coordinated strike detonating seven car bombs in Baghdad that killed at least 37 people.

2.

...SOS Disparus, an [Algerian] advocacy organization which has worked for over a decade on behalf of families to draw attention to the fate of those who vanished in the war, estimated at between 6,000 and 15,000 people.

The group accuses the government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who recently won a third term in office, of refusing to investigate what happened to their missing relatives. Instead, they say, the state tries to harass them to stop their work on the issue and offers to pay them for their losses.

"They want to give us money and then just close the case, but we don't want their money, says Mr. Ferhati, whose brother disappeared in 1998 – two years after another brother died in the fighting. "We want to investigate what happened to our families."

In a region that's been wracked by internecine conflicts from Beirut to Baghdad, the question of how a divided society reconciles after years spent peering into the abyss is an emotionally explosive one.

3.

A total of 252 Iraqis were killed in violence in March, almost the same casualty figures as in February when the toll was 258, Iraq authorities said on Wednesday.

Statistics compiled by the defence, interior and health ministries showed that 185 civilians, 14 soldiers and 53 policemen were killed across Iraq, while the total number of those wounded stood at 647. The March and February tolls were nevertheless higher than January when a total of 191 Iraqis were killed -- the lowest figures since the US-led invasion in 2003.,,In 2008, 6,772 Iraqis were killed in violence. But in January 2007 alone 1,992 civilians, 40 soldiers and 55 police were killed.

4.

Gaza human rights groups expressed concern this week as a woman from An-Nusseirat in Gaza was murdered in an “honor killing.” The woman was the fourth to die in an honor killing in one week, and another murder had been reported the week before...The murders in Gaza, and the “honor killing” death of a teenaged Muslim girl from Samaria, caused one feminist activist to write to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas this week and request action...

PCHR and other groups have recorded a number of other violent incidents beyond honor killings. Armed groups in Gaza continue to bomb cafes and other businesses seen as violating the precepts of extremist Islam, and clan warfare has been reported as well. Since mid-February, anonymous attackers in Gaza targeted a cafe, killing one person, a journalist's office and a child care center.

5.

Gunmen wearing the headbands of the armed wing of Hamas shot and wounded three civilians in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, last Thursday evening, a leading human rights organization reported on Sunday.

6.

Terrorists Kill 18 In Tripoli Bus Bombing

A bomb killed at least 18 people, including nine soldiers, at a bus stop in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Wednesday.

The bomb had been placed in a bag at the bus stop where soldiers usually gather, the army said in a statement, describing the attack as a "terrorist bombing" - a phrase used in the past by the military when it suspects militant Islamist involvement

And after compiling the above, quite limited list as an example of Arabs killing Arabs without Israel involved, I found this, in which Melanie Phillips had referred to a Bret Stephens piece:

Twenty seven years ago, when I was an editorial writer at the Guardian, I asked my senior colleagues there the same question – except that rather than Chechnya I wondered why the paper scarcely covered Arab atrocities against other Arabs. It’s because, they said, third world cultures don’t have the same respect for human life that we do in the west. So it would be wrong for us to expect the same standards from them that we do from ourselves. Which was another way of saying that people who happen to live in the third world do not have the same rights to life and liberty as those in the west; which was to say the lives of people in the third world were worth less than the lives of people in the west...it’s the default calibration on the morally relativised, ‘anti-racist’ left. Factor in on top of that the particular bundle of resentments and prejudices towards Jews, and you go a long way towards explaining the pathological obsession with Israel and routine neglect of the world’s actual tyrannies and persecutions, which is such a bizarre feature of public discourse in the west.

And this is neat:

Egypt: Islamic leader blames Islamists for Israel's wars

Cairo, 22 April (AKI) - The Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader, Sayed Imam Abdel Aziz Sharif, has blamed Islamist movements in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon for recent wars that have resulted in pain and suffering for their people.

"Hamas and Hezbollah have lit up the fire of Israeli wars to then unload their burden on the population," said Sharif, also known as Doctor Fazel.

He expressed his views in the second part of his latest book, 'The Gaza Shirt', published from his prison cell at al-Aqrab in southern Egypt, according to a report in the Arab daily, al-Sharq al-Awsat.

He strongly criticised both groups for their actions.

"Their way of acting and governing is in strong contrast with what the Prophet Mohammed did. During his time there were many disenfranchised and oppressed Muslims in Mecca, however, the prophet never declared holy war at the beginning," said Sharif.

Sharif said what the Islamist Hamas movement did during the latest Israeli offensive in Gaza "has nothing to do with Islam" and said Islamist movements should "take responsibility and assess whether they are capable of fighting a war before unleashing it."

and read this, too:

Liberal Kuwaiti Journalist Ahmad Sarraf: The Palestinians Would Have Been Better Off If the Arabs Had Disengaged from the Palestinian Cause

Interviewer: "In the recent war in Gaza, you were opposed to Hamas. Many people thought that this was an attempt to justify the Israeli aggression against Hamas, against Gaza."

Ahmad Al-Sarraf: "Nobody justifies aggression against an innocent, defenseless people. My problem with Hamas is that it gave Israel the pretext to carry out this treacherous aggression."

Interviewer: "So you think that Hamas bears greater responsibility than Israel?"

Ahmad Al-Sarraf: "Without a doubt, Hamas bears greater responsibility for this aggression. At the time, there was a truce, which Hamas staunchly refused to renew. If this [non] renewal had stemmed from the beliefs of Hamas or of the people ruled by Hamas, we could have lived with it. But the fact that the decision was influenced from abroad, according to what has been said and published, makes it even more painful."

Interviewer: "What do you mean by ‘influence from abroad?’"

Ahmad Al-Sarraf: "I believe that Iran was involved in the non-renewal of the truce. They thought that the ‘celebration’ they had in Lebanon in 2006 could be repeated in Gaza."

Interviewer: "Do you mean the July war?"

Ahmad Al-Sarraf: "Yes, the 2006 war between Hizbullah and Israel. The attack and the destruction were ultimately the influence of Iran."..

...If the Palestinians had been left to deal with their Israeli enemy on their own, they would have reached agreements and made peace a long time ago. The problem is that we all want the Palestinians to sign an agreement with Israel according to our terms - the Saudi want them to sign an agreement according to their terms, the Egyptians want them to... and so on. They have not been able to reach common ground with Israel.

[...]

"In my opinion, there is no such thing as a justified war. Peace is justified. Nothing justifies the collective killing of people. In my opinion, what happened in Lebanon - the 2006 war - was a crime against Lebanon."

Interviewer: "But it was Israel that attacked."

Ahmad Al-Sarraf: "No, it wasn't Israel that kidnapped soldiers."