Report: Israel planning gas pipeline into Jordan

From Bloomberg:

Israel, seeking to tap recent natural-gas finds for export, plans to build a pipeline from the Dead Sea to the Jordanian border to supply its neighbor, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The Ministry of Energy and Water Resources expects to begin work on the 15-kilometer (9-mile) link in 2015 and complete it in 2016, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The ministry commissioned the project on behalf of U.S. gas producer Noble Energy Inc. (NBL) and a Jordanian partner, they said.

The 2010 discovery of the offshore Leviathan field, coming after the nearby Tamar find, proved a bonanza for Israel, which expects the gas to meet its needs for a quarter of a century while also enabling exports. For Jordan, which has seen fuel imports from Egypt disrupted by pipeline bombings in Sinai, deliveries from Israel would help to boost security of supply.

An Israeli Energy Ministry official, who asked not to be identified, declined to comment, while calls to Jordan’s energy minister weren’t answered. A spokesman for Noble Energy in Tel Aviv declined to comment when contacted by phone.

Israel, which itself imported Egyptian gas until bombings cut deliveries, reached its first export agreement earlier this week, a 20-year deal to supply a planned Palestinian power station. Noble and its partners at Leviathan, the larger of the two fields, said they’ll get about $1.2 billion to send gas to the plant to be built in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

Partners in the offshore Tamar field, which include Houston-based Noble, also are in talks to sell gas to Jordanian potash plants for 15 years for $500 million to $700 million, Israel’s Calcalist business newspaper reported last month.

Jamal Sarayreh, the chairman of Jordan’s Arab Potash Co., declined to comment when contacted last week. Noble Chief Executive Officer Charles Davidson said in November the company would prefer to export Israeli gas to neighboring countries than to the Far East, which would require seaborne-tanker shipments.

“We will be able to market more gas regionally at lower capital cost because all of these regional markets are basically using pipes, and in some instances they’re connecting the pipes that already exist,” Davidson said.

The new pipeline will start at Sdom, according to the two people. It will be an extension to an existing link that brings gas to the Dead Sea Works Ltd. chemical plant there.

This is very big news, and it shows the importance of a strong economy to Israel's defensive posture.

Jordan (and Egypt) keep doing an interesting dance, publicly inciting hatred against Israel in their media but privately cooperating with the Jewish state. Deals like this strengthen existing peace agreements but they don't reduce the hate - and this seems to be a governmental decision to keep the old mentality of using Israel to divert attention from internal crises.

The contradictory messages cannot easily coexist, but widespread Arab antisemitism would not allow for the governments to act friendlier towards Israel in public. Note how no one will dare confirm any deals - publicizing them is a dangerous business when the Arab media is so invested in hating Israel and Jews.

Normalization with the Arab world will never happen, even if Israel signed a "peace plan" with the Arab League.  From Israel's perspective, the best that can ever be hoped for is detente, not peace. Deals like these (and you can be sure that there are negotiations to export gas to Egypt as well) help strengthen Israel's position in this detente, and other under-the-table agreements will be made, but there will never be peace in the way that Israelis yearn.

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Israel, Cyprus, Greece sign MOU on energy and water

A great followup to my earlier post on the political issues of Israel distributing natural gas:

CYPRUS, ISRAEL and Greece will sign a “historic” memorandum of understanding (MOU) on energy and water issues today, paving the way for the further strengthening of relations between the three countries.

Speaking after a meeting with Agriculture Minister Nicos Kouyialis in Nicosia on Wednesday, Israeli Minister of Energy and Water Resources Silvan Shalom described today’s signing of the memorandum between the three countries as a “historical moment”, as it was the first of its kind between the three countries.

On the initiative of Cypriot Energy and Trade Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis, Shalom and Greek Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change Yiannis Maniatis are in Nicosia to discuss issues concerning tripartite and regional cooperation in the energy sector, including protection of the environment from offshore hydrocarbon activities and connecting the electricity grids of Israel, Cyprus and Greece through submarine power cables.

The signing of the MOU on energy and water collaboration, due today, shows how far the three countries have come in terms of cooperation, said Shalom. Relations are better than ever, he said, adding that the MOU will enable the three countries to strengthen relations even further.

“The fact that we are here shows that we do not only work well on (issues concerning) water, but it’s also about geopolitics, strategy and political issues between the three countries,” he said.

Shalom and Kouyialis yesterday held a bilateral meeting to discuss water development, management and protection.

The Israeli minister hailed the meeting as an indication of the good relations enjoyed between Israel and Cyprus these days, adding, “I believe we can do more”.

He spoke of a “big change” in relations and the “good will between the two sides” to help one another.

Enhanced relations between the two countries was also a major theme of President Nicos Anastasiades’ speech at the opening of a fifth desalination plant, which Israeli companies had helped build, near Limassol last night.

Anastasiades said energy cooperation between Israel and Cyprus, given their common interests in the exploration and exploitation of significant natural resources, could “become the driving force for an enhanced partnership between our two countries”.

Given the government’s determination to move ahead with the construction of an LNG plant, he invited Israel “to seriously consider committing to exporting Israeli gas” from the Cypriot LNG facility.

“This is all the more pertinent if one takes into account that Cyprus is perhaps Israel’s most stable partner in the region. In addition, our proximity to the Suez Canal is an important factor favouring the creation of a regional energy hub in Cyprus for the transportation of natural gas from Eastern Mediterranean countries, not only to Europe, but also to the Far East,” said Anastasiades.

It's really funny how Iran pretends that Israel is the most isolated country in the world in light of deals like this.

(h/t Professor Pelotard)

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The political roadblocks of Israel exporting gas have little to do with Arab/Israel conflict

Reuters reports:

A group of energy companies that discovered large amounts of natural gas off Israel's Mediterranean coast said they were in talks to export the gas to Europe via a pipeline to Turkey.

They are also studying options to export gas to Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, Avner Oil & Gas said on Tuesday.

"The partners are negotiating with various officials," Avner, one of the partners in the project, said.

A spokesman for Delek Group, the parent company for Avner and for Delek Drilling, said the group - led by Noble Energy - was already in advanced talks with companies in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority about buying Israeli gas and building pipelines.

As always, there are some hitches. World Bulletin reports:

An Egyptian energy official has dismissed reports saying that the country is in talks with Israeli energy companies for gas imports and possible pipeline projects.

On Tuesday, Avner Oil & Gas, leading a group of energy companies that discovered large amounts of natural gas off Israel's Mediterranean coast, said that they were in talks to export the gas to Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. The talks, the company said, also covered the possibility of building pipelines to help export the gas to Europe.

However, Taher Abdel-Rahim, chairman of the Egyptian Gas Holding Company (EGAS), which runs Egypt's gas pipeline network, dismissed the claims.

"We have not made such negotiations and will not go into talks in the meantime with any international companies about such proposals," Abdel-Rahim said.

Abdel-Rahim said such deals cannot be completed without the knowledge of his company.

But the real issue isn't the Arab/Israeli conflict - so far I have not seen any pushback from Jordan or the PA about buying Israeli gas - but from political issues in other parts of the Mediterranean:

What form should those exports take? One early idea was a pipeline to Turkey. Great. Turkey is nearby; it’s a booming market that is expected to see demand grow from 43.5 bcm in 2012 to around 60 bcm in 2020; and it favors diversity of sources. Moreover, at present, its only completed agreement to cover the extra 16-17 bcm/y of gas it needs to import (and, since domestic production is minimal, its increase in demand is tantamount to an increase in imports), is for 6 bcm to come from Azerbaijan, starting in 2018-19.

But that’s a political minefield. The foreign ministry likes the idea because it would help improve ties with an important neighbor. But it still has no clear answer to the question as to whether maritime boundary issues first must be settled–or even a full solution of their 40-year Cyprus dispute.

The reason is that waters to the east of Cyprus (if not actually Lebanese or Syrian), may be Cypriot in international law, but in practice a good part of any route taken by a pipeline from Israel to Turkey to the east of Cyprus would have to pass through waters controlled not by the Government of Cyprus but by the self-proclaimed breakaway state which calls itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

As for a possible line to the west of Cyprus, that would need to pass through waters that are even more diplomatically murky. The problem here is that Greece, Turkey and Cyprus have yet to state, let alone agree, just what they consider their respective Exclusive Economic Zones to be in this area. Judging by maps produced by Turkish and Greek analysts, any formal claims would be fundamentally incompatible, with Turkey likely to argue that its EEZ would have a common boundary with Egypt’s EEZ; Cyprus would looking to support prospective Greek claims that Greece and Cyprus share a common EEZ boundary. Perhaps it is just as well that neither Athens nor Ankara seem to wish to oppress this point at present. After all , they’ve been arguing over their maritime boundaries in the Aegean for half a century, with no solution in sight.

Some Turkish sources have suggested the simplest solution would be to lay a subsea line from the Israeli and Cypriot fields to southern Cyprus, then run an overland pipe to northern Cyprus, followed by a subsea line across to Turkey. In terms of cost, and engineering, they are almost certainly right. It’s just that laying a pipe from southern Cyprus to the north is politically improbable, and perhaps impossible, in the absence of a solution to the underlying Cyprus problem.

As for various occasional suggestions that Cyprus and Israel might want to look at a pipeline to Greece, this not only poses similar problems, unless a route can be found through Egypt’s EEZ, but it’s also extremely complex, requiring state of the art technology to lay pipes at depths as great as 3000 metres. It thus can be ruled out on grounds of cost, unless, of course, Greece itself finds gas at some convenient intermediate location.

The writer concludes that the only way to make this work is to build a liquefied natural gas plant, one that Israel and Cyprus could both use. LNG can be shipped anywhere. But that has problems as well:

So it looks to be LNG. That’s certainly the goal of the memorandum of understanding signed with the government of Cyprus on June 26 by the Delek Group and Noble Energy, the companies currently developing the major offshore gasfields discovered so far in both Israeli and Cypriot waters. The MoU aims to put in place the basic terms of a formal agreement to develop a joint two-train LNG plant at Vasilikos on the southern coast of Cyprus, with operations to start in 2018-19.

Can Noble and its partners pull this off? No government has yet approved the construction of an LNG plant primarily designed to serve its own resources but to be located in another country. This may be the first time it happens. There are still options for Israel to go it alone, but that would require building an LNG plant in Israel itself, which, given its limited Mediterranean coastline, would be likely to cause serious environmental protests; or to develop floating LNG, already criticized for constituting an obvious target for missile attack from Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

Maybe it makes sense for Israel to build its own LNG plant just so it can not have to worry about any future political issues with Cyprus. It certainly would seem to be the most flexible solution giving Israel the most freedom to sell to whom it wants without worrying about the conduits being attacked.

Even so, it is funny to see that that from the perspective of building a pipeline from Israel to Turkey and Europe, the existing political minefield seems to be more intractable than any issues Israel has with its Arab neighbors!

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"Israel as a Gulf state"

Malcolm Lowe at Gatestone has a thought-provoking essay that argues that the EU is a lot more pro-Israel than it seems, and things will only get better:

It is a longstanding complaint that Israel is unfairly harassed in those international forums that deal with human rights. On the other hand, countries that are too big to harass, such as Russian and China, or that are oil rich, such as the Gulf states, get away with anything. Well, here's news: Now that Israel has discovered vast offshore deposits of natural gas and even some oil, it can aspire to the status of a Gulf state. Not quite geographically, but in terms of the scruples that others can brush aside in their eagerness to do business.

This applies above all to the European Union (EU). According to a recent report, "Valeria Termini, vice president of the Council of European Energy Regulators, has held talks with senior Israeli Energy and Water Ministry officials" on the proposal to link Israel's natural gas fields to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline. The EU would benefit from reduced dependence on Russian natural gas, while the cost to Israel of marketing the gas would be greatly reduced, since there would be no need to liquefy the natural gas (LNG) and ship it on tankers. "An LNG terminal is estimated to cost between $7 billion to $10 billion while a pipeline to the European network can be built for $2 billion-$3 billion."

Yet Israel is not putting all its gas eggs in the EU basket. Another report tells us: "In July 2012 President Vladimir Putin visited Israel, largely to discuss the gas fields. The Russian Gazprom has signed a deal with Israel on the future distribution of the large Israel gas resources, and plans to build a floating facility off Cyprus to convert the product to LNG." The reason given was that the civil war in Syria has frustrated an earlier Gazprom project to pump gas from Iran to the Lebanese coast. In other words, Israel is being courted by both Russia and the EU and can choose what to award to either of those suitors. "Human rights" issues are off that agenda.

Now, there has been a lot of fluttering of feathers over the recently publicized EU guidelines on Jewish settlements across the "green line." We shall turn to that in a moment, but it should not distract our attention from a series of remarkably friendly gestures toward Israel, emanating from Europe in recent months.

Precisely at the last meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, the EU took vehement exception to Special Rapporteur Richard Falk's most recent report, aka baseless diatribe against Israel. It denounced the report in these words: "The EU continues to regret the unbalanced mandate of the Special Rapporteur and is also concerned that parts of the report include political considerations. In the past, the EU emphasized that future reports should be based on a more factual and legal analysis, and we regret to see no genuine progress in that direction. The council needs to be provided with accurate, factual information and solid allegations to fulfill its role and address the human rights situation in occupied Palestinian territory." In short, please stop trying to fool us with fictions about Israeli human rights violations.

There's lots more, read the whole thing.

I'm not so certain I agree with his optimism.

There are two tracks in Europe: a business/pragmatic track that wants to be as close to Israel as possible, and an "activist" track that wants to pollute the European mind with the idea that Israel is a genocidal regime.

The first is not a counter to the second; it simply ignores it for as long as it can.

But the worry is that there will come a tipping point in the future where anyone who publicly backs any aspect of Zionism will be marginalized and berated. It already is happening with a few clueless entertainers who are more worried about appearances than other people, but the entire point of BDS is to create an atmosphere throughout the world that would equate Israel with the worst human rights violators in history. By extension, it would paint anyone who doesn't condemn Israel as evil themselves. Right now the idea is marginal but the single-minded haters behind BDS have patience and a strategy.

The existence of business ties with Israel will dampen any economic consequences to these actions, but if businesses perceive that their own reputations are being damaged to a larger extent than the benefits of working with Israel, they will act in self-interest.

Look how one anti-Israel group responded to the Pet Shop Boys' decision to play in Israel, pictured to the right. 99% of the Europeans who read that Israel kills one child every three days or jails two children a day would have no problem believing it, even though these are outright lies. This is because there is no decent hasbara campaigns in Europe to expose the lies and the hate behind the BDS crowd. They are far more guilty of blind hatred and bigotry than Israel could ever be - yet they suffer no consequences from baldfaced, bold-faced lies. Their campaigns of distortions and slander will continue to gain traction among the clueless, as indeed most people are.

The BDS drones are happiest when Palestinian Arab kids are killed because that gives them more ammunition. One Israeli screw-up that results in too many civilian deaths can be a major tipping point towards the haters.

Yes, it is true that Bahrain and other Gulf states can shrug off human rights accusations because of their economic power, but on the other hand there has never been a systematic anti-Saudi or anti-Bahraini campaign in Europe demanding boycott or divestment. Is such a thing really so impossible to imagine?

I admit, and have even argued in the past, that the most effective thing Israel can do to combat the delegitimization campaigns is indeed to build up its economy so that it is indispensable to the world. That doesn't mean that Israel should sit back and allow the haters free reign to lie and poison the minds of millions. Complacency in the face of concerted, directed campaigns against the Jewish state is not smart.

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Egypt's gas line to Jordan bombed again

At dawn today, the gas pipeline from Egypt to Jordan was bombed, for the second time this month.

Unidentified gunmen riding in a four-wheel drive car bombed the pipeline that carries natural gas from Egypt to Jordan in the Kharouba" area, east of El Arish.

While the Egyptian police arrested a Gaza man for the last explosion, the incentive to blow up these lines is unclear.

In possibly related news, ever since the Egyptian coup, the energy crisis in Egypt has apparently, temporarily, disappeared. Gas lines are gone and electricity shortages have been vastly reduced. Cooler temperatures may be responsible for less pressure on the electrical grid, and many are saying that the crackdown on illegal smuggling of diesel and petrol to Gaza is helping the situation in Egypt.

It could also be that people are not hoarding as much as they were before the revolution.

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Egypt arrests a Gazan for blowing up gas line to Jordan

A week ago I noted that the gas pipeline from Egypt to Jordan had been bombed, and that this has happened just as often as it used to when the pipeline also went to Israel.

Which makes this story interesting:

Egyptian security officials arrested a Palestinian man late Friday in relation to a bomb blast which targeted a gas pipeline in Sinai last week, security officials said.

Mohamed Abu Hashem, 30, was detained in the Sinai peninsula while trying to return to the Gaza Strip, Egyptian officials said, and faces charges of blowing up a gas pipeline in north Sinai last Sunday.

Saboteurs blew up the pipeline, which supplied natural gas to Jordan, in two places.

One explosion shook the city of El-Arish, causing flames which could be seen from the distance, witnesses and security officials said.

A Jordanian government official confirmed that gas supplies to the energy-poor kingdom were cut.

"The gas supplies to Jordan stopped due to the attack," the official told state-run Petra news agency.

"The Egyptian authorities have informed us that they are currently evaluating the situation and the damage," he added without elaborating.

Egyptian gas covers 80 percent of electricity generation in Jordan, which imports 95 percent of its energy needs.

Why would Gazans want to disrupt gas to Jordan?

Are they being hired out as mercenaries by Islamists, knowing they can hide in Gaza?

Or perhaps hired by other Egyptians who are against subsidized gas deals with other countries while Egypt doesn't have enough for itself?

Perhaps the new anti-Hamas government in Egypt is using any Palestinian they can find as a scapegoat?

Or maybe terrorism is sometimes just a habit, and when Jewish targets aren't convenient then the terrorists turn to lower-hanging fruit?

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PA says Jews are stealing "rich soil"

They aren't happy enough with stealing land - now they are stealing dirt, too!

From the official PA WAFA news agency:

Israelis from the settlement of Susiya stole rich soil from Palestinian land and took it to their settlement, a local activist said Wednesday.

Rateb Jbour, from the Committee against the Wall and Settlements, told WAFA that the settlers razed a large area of privately owned agricultural land near the settlement and stole the fertile soil.

He said this act has destroyed the farm land.

I wonder how many trucks and how much time it takes to steal enough soil to destroy a farm.

From this source, we can see that one acre of topsoil weighs a million pounds (450,000 kg.) It would take 40 dump trucks to move only that amount. A single truck could take only about a 10x10 meter square of soil.

I have no idea how long it takes to fill a dump truck with soil, but you would need some heavy equipment to do it in a reasonable timeframe.

Yet, as usual, there are no photos of this extensive operation to steal - soil.

But you know those Jews will do anything to torture their neighbors, no matter how expensive,  time consuming and pointless it is.

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"Khaybar" actors, writer describe its incitement against Jews (VIDEO) (updated with transcript)

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from statements made by actors in the anti-Semitic Arab TV series "Khaybar," which were aired on various Egyptian TV channels and posted on the Internet on March 14-17 and May 13, 2013.

Akhbar Al-Youm, posted March 14

Actor Ahmad Abd Al-Halim: I play one of the Jewish characters, who demonstrates the behavior of the Jewish human being. All he thinks about is accumulating money.
Actor Ahmad Maher: History has shown that the Jews are a people with no moral values, who do not honor their agreements.
Screenwriter Yusri Al-Gindi: This series is more historical and political than religious. We have a problem with these people. This problem has continued for a long time, and it still exists. This justifies addressing it all the time. The idea that we wish to convey is that these people have not changed one bit. Their conduct in Medina when the Prophet was trying to build his state there… He allowed them to live there as citizens and extended his hand in cooperation, but this was met by treachery and conspiracies. The only language they understood was the language of force, and hence, they were banished from the Arabian Peninsula.

Rotana Misriyya TV, posted March 17
Ahmad Maher: Al-Gindi created a historical document showing how these people are oppressors, who do not honor their agreements. History shows that they are the people who disputed Allah. They are the slayers of prophets.
Actor Farouq Flux: The “Khaybar” series takes place back in the early days of Islam. It shows the major role the Jews played in fighting Islam, and in the attempt to fight and deceive the Prophet Muhammad. This series shows the truth about the Jews, and about making agreements with them.
[…]

Dream 1 TV, May 13, 2013

Ahmad Maher: I play the character of Hareth Ibn Al-Awf. Through this character, we enter a Jewish home, and we learn how they raise their children, how they immerse their children in these odd modes of behavior, and how they teach them to live their lives in a vile, treacherous, depraved, and Machiavellian manner. They teach them that in order to achieve their aims, all means are justified and all values may be disregarded.
[…]
Actor Mustafa Hashish: I play one of the most prominent Jews, who hatches plots and schemes. He is, of course, very miserly-the purely typical Jew. He is called Abu Khallad. He is killed by his son. So this gives you an idea what the Jews are made of.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have adamantly refused to condemn this miniseries even after numerous emails and tweets.

Sign the petition and join the Facebook campaign to condemn this imminent mass incitement against Jews that will be broadcast to  hundreds of millions of Arabs in the next few days.

Keep in mind that it will not only be shown in the Arab world, but certainly copies will be distributed to Muslims in Europe and the Americas so they can learn to hate their Jewish neighbors as well.

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Lebanon accuses Israel of stealing gas it doesn't know it has

From Now Lebanon:

In what appears to be an attempt to pressure caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati, caretaker Energy Minister Gebran Bassil on Friday warned that Israel could be stealing offshore oil and gas resources from Lebanese waters. He called for the caretaker government to immediately act on passing the decrees needed for Lebanon to begin its own exploration and potential development.

Bassil pointed to a 'new' Israeli discovery that he said was four kilometers from the countries’ disputed maritime border. Exploratory drilling in Israel’s Alon C block – conducted in late May – revealed that, indeed, there is natural gas in what is known as the Karish reserve.

According to a map from Israel’s Delek Energy, the reserve is around 20 kilometers south of the border Lebanon claims.

Bassil warned of a technique called horizontal drilling, where oil and gas companies drill a well beneath a rig and then turn their drilling equipment once under the sea to get extra quantities of oil and/or gas.

Just so you can see, the Karish reserve is fully within Israeli waters.

The article goes on:

Enzo Zappaterra, a geologist with PetroServe International, noted that it would not make sense for a company to employ horizontal drilling to blindly move from one reserve in search of another.

Drilling companies, he said, “are capable of anything, but it wouldn’t be a practice, just sending a probe up for nothing.”

Noble, it should be noted, has not bought access to seismic surveying of Lebanon’s waters and therefore likely has very poor knowledge of where Lebanese reserves are potentially located.

Without the slightest bit of evidence, Lebanon's energy minister is claiming that Israel is drilling horizontally over 20 kilometers, blind, to access Lebanese gas that no one knows is there.

In 2011, I discussed the legal issues around Israel and Lebanon sharing the same oil/gas field as far as who gets to benefit. The ironic conclusion is that if Lebanon wants any of the natural resources it may share with Israel, it needs to sign a treaty with Israel - or lose it, as otherwise Israel can just resort to taking everything it wants on its side of the border. Lebanon is still years away from pumping.

So given a choice of recognizing Israel and sharing in potentially billions of dollars, or choosing to shun Israel, Lebanon has made its position clear.

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Girls on PA TV: Jews are "most evil among creations, barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs"

From Palestinian Media Watch:

PA TV reporter: "Let's meet these girls who want to recite a short poem."
Girl 1: "I do not fear the rifle because your throngs are in delusion and ignorant herds.
Jerusalem is my land, Jerusalem is my honor
Jerusalem is my days and my wildest dreams.
Oh, you who murdered Allah's pious prophets (i.e., Jews in Islamic tradition)
Oh, you who were brought up on spilling blood
You have been condemned to humiliation and hardship.
Oh Sons of Zion, oh most evil among creations
Oh barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs
Girl 2: Jerusalem is not your den
Jerusalem opposes your throngs
Jerusalem vomits from within it your impurity
Because Jerusalem, you impure ones, is pious, immaculate
And Jerusalem, you who are filth, is clean and pure.
I do not fear barbarity.
As long as my heart is my Quran and my city
As long as I have my arm and my stones
As long as I am free and do not barter my cause
I will not fear your throngs
I will not fear the rifle."
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, July 3, 2013]

But don't say that the PA teaches antisemitism. They respect Jews, except (1) the ones who are Zionist, (2) the ones who believe in their religion, and (3) the ones that the Koran called "sons of apes and pigs."

All the others are just fine!

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Did you know the Jews control Swedish media too?

Radio Islam has an extraordinarily long article in Swedish that seems to list every Jew who ever worked at, or appeared in, any Swedish TV or radio station, or any Jewish-themed TV show to ever air, over several decades, in its zest to prove that the Jews own the media.

It uses the exact same methods as those used by antisemitic sites in the US and Europe, ferreting out Jews or people with Jewish-sounding names in obsessive detail.

I noticed it because "Iraq4AllNews," an Arabic Danish site indexed by Google News, is translating it as a series of articles, so Arabic speakers can know about the incredible Jewish conspiracy to take over the huge Swedish television and radio market.

A quick glance at Radio Islam itself shows that it is pretty much an Arabic translation of Jewwatch or any of dozens of other virulently antisemitic websites. Here is only a small section of the psychotically obsessed homepage:

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Writer of "Khaybar" says the series reveals Jews' evil throughout the ages

Note the photo behind him

On Al Jazeera, the screenwriter of the "Khaybar" miniseries that will be aired this month in many Arab countries described its antisemitic motifs in detail.

Yusri al-Jindi tells the network that "Khaybar" raises two issues.

The first is that the Mohammed set up a state with equality between citizens, including Jews.  The Islamic state is the finest with respect to equal rights and, what he would say, is "democracy," in ways that modern man can learn lessons from.

The second issue is that despite these civil rights, the Jews didn't respond with equal goodwill. Instead, the Jews greeted the benign Muslim rule with with treachery and intrigue, and outright treason.

Al-Jindi notes that the series emphasizes that Jews are Jews, still practicing their treasonous nature throughout the centuries, and they have wrought havoc in every society they have lived. They were the first to fight against this "civil Islamic state", and stand now against the restoration of the Umma for its civilization and glory.

The Jews have been consistent with this opposition to their hosts, such as in Babylon, with the Romans in the Levant, in Tsarist Russia, in Arab states and in Hitler's Germany.

The current crisis experienced by the Arab world is, he says, the best witness to this fact, and here the series takes its modern meaning.

Once again, it is clear that "Khaybar" is meant to incite Arabs against Jews today.

Please "like" our "Condemn Khaybar" Facebook page and sign the petition urging Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to condemn this series before it goes on the air.

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Hamas columnist blames Egyptian coup on..The Jews!

You knew this had to happen.

In Hamas' newspaper Felesteen, Dr. Fayez Abu Shamala (they are always "doctors" for some reason) spins a worldwide conspiracy theory to take down Egypt's democratically elected government, and - as usual - the Jews are central to the plot.

Shamala states that the coup was not done by the Egyptian people who are united and hate division, but rather "what is happening on the land of Egypt is a purely Zionist initiative with a Jewish seal and laminated by America," where they managed to find some Egyptian puppets to help Israeli sabotage against Egypt's energy industry (I guess to create long lines for fuel.)

This is especially funny since Egyptians damaged the gas pipeline to Israel many times!

The writer goes on:

What is happening on the land of Egypt is an intercontinental conspiracy, and the results go beyond the borders of Egypt, to affect the Arab Middle East as a whole, this is not only an Egyptian affair but Arabic and Islamic, which has an effect on each region. Israeli Knesset member Ben-Eliezer when he spoke to Israel Radio, said: "Egyptian society was a secular society with songs, movies and tourism, and suddenly someone comes along trying to turn the clock back by 400 years."

The Jews have lost this bet, and the Zionists lost the battle in Egypt, because the Egyptian society is a Muslim society that lives on dignity and chivalry and has high motivations, a community that clings to Arab morals, and is proud of its place of leadership in Islamic history, and is pouring all his energies to the next stage. Egypt will triumph, and will emerge from the crisis, and move beyond the trap installed by Jews towards Arabs and Muslims on the land of Egypt. ..Egypt will not retreat backwards again, and will not put Zionist restrictions on its wrist again.

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The Jewish-Thai conspiracy to stop Turkey's - space program?

Hurriyet's Burak Bekdil is withering in his attack on Turkey's leaders:

Egypt’s deeply troubled president, Mohamed Morsi, proved to be too uncreative compared to his Turkish brothers in arms when he blamed the mass protests against his Muslim Brotherhood regime on foreign countries only. He could have been better inspired by his Turkish comrades. Even Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay was able to add some (well, the usual) sauce on his "evil foreign powers recipe": The Turkish unrest had been sparked by the Jewish diaspora.

So, where, President Morsi, in your assessment of "Tahrir Square – Revisited," are the Jewish conspirators, Western capitals, financial lobbyists, global capitalists, BBC, CNN International, the Economist, Kemalists, Syrian Baathists, Iranian intelligence, the intergalactic forces, and Michael Rubin?

Yes, Mr. Rubin. The zealously, passionately government-friendly press in Turkey discovered weeks ago that the anti-government protests in nearly 80 Turkish cities were the result of a plot hatched at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and the plotters are, of course, Jews, including the intergalactic chieftain Mr. Rubin who, in a posting he called “A little bit of crazy from Turkey,” confessed to the global cabal:

“Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan can’t even get Jewish conspiracies right: Doesn’t he know that on Sundays, we control the banks. On Mondays, we control the newspapers. On Tuesdays, we think about how we can stage terrorist attacks and blame al-Qaeda. On Wednesdays, we attend meetings with George Soros to discuss interest rates. On Thursdays, we plan atrocities and then order the international media to broadcast cooking shows so no one need see the violence. On Fridays, we hunt Christian children so we can use their blood to make matzoh. On Saturdays, exhausted, we rest.”

But the plot that pushed tens of millions of Turks and Egyptians out to the streets to protest the Turkish and Egyptian Muslim brothers is not confined merely to Mr. Rubin and the AEI (secretly known as “Abraham’s Evil Israel”). I have found on-the-record evidence of Thai collaboration in the big game. Yes, Thai. But no, not avatars disguised as tuk-tuk drivers. Juthaporn Remgronasa, a senior official from the Tourism Authority of Thailand, said that the former Siam country saw potential opportunities in penetrating German and other European markets to draw more tourists to Thailand, and openly confessed to the plot: “Turkey’s political problems will benefit Thailand.”

Earlier, a Turkish Cabinet minister unveiled the big game. Economy Minister Zafer Cağlayan said (financial) speculators, lobbyists and bankers were united in a coalition against Turkey. Without these lobbies, he said, Turkey would now have built and launched its own spaceship.

The situation is very serious: All the dark forces of the intergalactic lobbyists, Abraham’s Evil Israel, Mr. Rubin and Thailand’s Union of Tuk-Tuk Drivers have joined their forces to stop the supreme Turkish engineering from building a spaceship which, who knows, could one day save the world from an alien attack. Of course, a more plausible interpretation could be that the dark forces are trying to stop the Turkish spaceship to prevent possible casualties in case the Sultan I crashed into the kitchen of a Bolivian farmer. And I feel guilty because I was the first journalist to reveal Turkey’s plans to build a spaceship (“We’ll make fighter jets! And spaceships too...” this column, Dec. 16, 2010).

In the meantime, it might be a better idea if Mssrs. Erdoğan and Cağlayan devoted less time and efforts to spaceships and intergalactic conspiracy theories and more to making Turkey a better place to live in. Turkey has just ranked last among 34 nations according to the OECD’s Better Living Index (based on 11 selected criteria including health, education, environment, personal security and income). Unless of course Abraham’s Evil Israel, Mr. Rubin, the tuk-tuk lobby and Turk-hating avatars have already taken control of the OECD.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

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Egypt will run out of strategic fuel reserves within a week (updated)

From Al Ahram last Friday 6/21:

Egypt's strategic reserves of three vital fuel products will run out by end of this month, Turkish news agency Anadulo reported on Thursday, citing Petroleum Minister Sherif Haddara.

According to Haddara, Egypt has enough diesel fuel to last eight days, butane enough for ten days and petrol enough for 14 days.

Ministry officials declined to comment on the Anadolu report when contacted by Ahram Online.

The news agency stated that the government was currently providing the nation's gas stations with 18,000 tonnes of octane per day and 37,000 tonnes of diesel fuel, while also providing the country's power stations with 23,000 tonnes of low-quality mazut fuel.

In recent weeks and months, Egypt has seen a spate of intermittent power blackouts, which government officials have attributed to chronic fuel shortages.

Haddara said that the current fuel quantities were meant to meet national demand, attributing ongoing shortages to hoarding and smuggling activities.

Former petroleum minister Osama Kamal recently estimated that smuggling and black market activity accounted for as much as 20 percent of all fuel the ministry provides to the local market.

He also blamed bad public energy-consumption habits. "Fuel isn't consumed rationally because it's sold at very cheap prices," he said.

According to Anadolu, the Egyptian government has requested a $265 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank to finance the import of diesel in the first quarter of 2013/14.

The news website of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party quoted Supply Minister Bassem Ouda on Thursday as saying that the state's current reserves of diesel fuel were "sufficient."

In August, the government intends to introduce a smart-card fuel allocation system aimed at reducing energy subsidies. The new system will allow consumers to purchase limited amounts of subsidised fuel, beyond which they will have to pay market prices.

Daily News Egypt adds:

According to Reuters, Egypt, which owes more than $5 billion to fuel suppliers, has shifted to large Swiss trading houses after small firms stopped delivering to the financially crippled nation, fearing that it will fail to pay.

The Egyptian government has been struggling with a shortage of fuel, a predicament symptomatic of an ailing economy stuck in a downward spiral since the revolution in 2011. While some attribute this crisis, which has hit the country’s industrial sector, power plants and fuel stations, to smugglers and bootleg markets, the American Chamber of Commerce said it’s the result of “the government’s recent inability to pay its fuel suppliers.”

Litasco, Glencore, Gunvor, Trafigura, Vitol and Mercuria are currently Egypt’s main suppliers; smaller firms such as BB Energy, AOT Trading, Eminent, Augusta and Sahara have stopped selling it fuel, Reuters reported earlier this week.

Egypt is doomed.

(h/t Missing Peace)

UPDATE: Commenter Niklas points to this new video on YouTube showing a line to get fuel in Egypt that takes over four minutes to drive past:

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Extremist Muslims get their wish; riots on Temple Mount

From YNet:

Friday prayers at Jerusalem's Temple Mount turned into a scene of major riots as protesters hurled stones at security forces who in turn broke into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Hundreds of Muslim worshippers at the Mughrabi Gate hurled stones at police and Border Guard forces who raided the compound to evacuate them. No injuries or arrests were reported as of yet. Dozens are currently refusing to leave the mosque itself.

Islamist extremists have been calling for Muslims to "defend" Al Aqsa for the past couple of weeks because some Jews publicized that they would peacefully visit among the hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish visitors who visit every year.

Here is video from earlier this week as Muslims broke chairs and tables to find projectiles to hurl at Israeli police outside who were escorting peaceful visitors:



Here is the view from the outside as pieces of wood are hurled at the police from within, with the Muslims clearly starting the violence (starting around 1:15, also around 2:20). At the end you can see all the tables and chairs broken to be used as weapons.



In watching dozens of Muslim videos on the Temple Mount showing Jews "storming" the area, I have not once seen any actions by the Jewish visitors that was the least bit provocative. Invariably, they walk around quietly. But I've seen plenty of videos of Muslims hurling objects and screaming at the Jews.

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Palestinian Arab hysteria increases as Jews visit Temple Mount

The amount of incitement (and bigotry) in Palestinian Arab media about Jews visiting the Temple Mount has reached new heights in recent days.

Today, Rosh Chodesh Adar, a group of Jews peacefully went up to the Mount to visit. It was described in Palestine Today this way:

Zionist extremist groups on Thursday morning stormed the courtyards of Al Aqsa Mosque from the Mughrabi Gate, with the occupation forces protecting them.

Our correspondent in Jerusalem said that the first batch of 12 extremists stormed the mosque, under police protection of the occupation, as occupation forces arrested four young men and took guard Samer Abu Qwaider out of the Haram al Sharif courtyard.

Also another group of settlers entered into the courtyards of Haram, 9 women and 8 men, as their numbers rose to 36. The "Israel" police restricted [Muslim] worshipers entering to be 45 years old or older.

Our correspondent reports that groups of settlers are walking around in the Old City of Jerusalem and in the vicinity of the Haram, joyfully singing to bring in the Hebrew month.

Palestine Times has photos of the "usurpers" walking around:

Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh charged Israel with calling on Jews to "storm" the Mount with the goal of Judaizing Judaism's holiest site and performing religious rituals there. For some reason he also mentioned that Zionist women were allowed there; apparently this is an especially grievous sin.

What does that moderate Mahmoud Abbas, who supposedly supports full access to holy sites by everyone, have to say? Why, he implicitly threatened violence, like always!

The President condemned intrusions ongoing Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said in a press statement on Thursday, "This is a serious escalation and provocation, and completes a series of attacks by extremists on the sanctuaries of the mosques and churches, and will have serious and ominous consequences '.

Abu Rdainah said Israelis are responsible for this escalation, and demanded that the international community intervene to force the Israeli authorities to stop such provocative actions that affect the freedom of worship.

Well, the freedom for Jews to worship there is still pretty much zero.

Is today's group visit a huge provocation on the part of Israel?

Not at all.

Makor Rishon reported some statistics. In January, 1,119 Jews visited the Temple Mount. In 2011, some 9,000 Jews visited, among 370,000 tourists.

In other words, if thirty Jews visited today, that is pretty much the average number of Jews who visited every day for the past year (excluding Shabbat.)

This is a manufactured hysteria that is meant to incite Muslim Arabs against Jews and to try to pressure Israel to ban Jews from their holiest spot.

Thankfully, the Israeli police allowed Jews to visit anyway despite the rhetoric and threats.

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Latest dangerous Arab rumor: Israel to divide Al Aqsa into Jewish, Muslim sections

Over the past two weekends, Muslim clerics and officials have been pushing false rumors about Israeli designs on the Al Aqsa Mosque. The first time they got Israeli police to bar Jews from peacefully visiting; the second time they started stoning Christian tourists who they claimed were Jewish extremists.

Clearly, spreading false rumors is an effective weapon.

So, emboldened by their success in keeping Judaism's holy site free of Jewish tourists, they have started a new rumor for this week.

The Al Aqsa Center has released a statement saying that they have received information that Israel plans to divide up the Temple Mount into separate Jewish and Muslim sections, they way that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron is divided. Jews would be able to - horrors! - perform "Talmudic rituals" (i.e., pray) in the sacred site.

They say that under this plan, Israeli police will cleanse the Mount of Muslims under flimsy pretexts (like, for example, they are stoning Christian tourists).

Another plan has Jews freely entering the mosque between 8 AM and 11 AM, between Muslim prayer times.

These alleged plans will be implemented this year, according to the inciters of violence who released the statement.

There is only one reason why these rumors are started - to keep Jews off of the holiest site in Judaism. They want to stir up riots because, according to these defenders of Islam, it is better than no one go to the Temple Mount than to allow Jewish "filth" from "desecrating" it.

These incitements have worked in the past, so the Al Aqsa defenders will keep churning out the lies that Arab Muslims are more than happy to believe, fed by hateful terrorist-supporting media like Palestine Today.

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Palestinian Arabs stone Christian tourists on Temple Mount

First, the lie that is being published by countless Arab media:

Dozens of Palestinian residents foiled, on Sunday morning, an attempt by dozens of fundamentalist Israeli Zionist settlers to break into the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.

Local sources reported that the settlers gathered near the Al-Magharba Bridge, that leads to the Al-Magharba Gate, west of the Al-Aqsa mosque, while dozens of Israeli policemen were deployed in the area.

The police allowed the settlers through and prevented all Palestinians, aged 45 of under, from entering the area while on their way to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque, an issue that led to clashes between the Palestinians, and the Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Now, what really happened:

Police arrested three Palestinians during clashes with stone-throwers who targeted tourists at the Temple Mount on Sunday.

Three officers were wounded during the clashes, Police Spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said, describing the incident as a "disturbance on the Temple Mount."

Stone-throwers attacked a group of Christian tourists that were visiting the site. At least 40 officers entered the Temple Mount to deal with the situation, where Rosenfeld said some 50 Palestinians were participating in the rock throwing.

Police arrested three suspects on the scene who were involved directly in the attacks.

Despite Palestinian claims of religious Jews trying to storm the Temple Mount, police said that no Jews were around the site.

The incident came after unfounded Palestinians reports that a group of "religious [Jewish] Israelis" tried to "storm" the Temple Mount - where the Aksa mosque and Dome of the Rock are located - on Sunday morning, according to Jordanian semi-official newspaper Ad-Dustour.

Palestinian sources claimed over the weekend that a group of Jews would attempt to storm the Temple Mount in order to "strengthen Israeli sovereignty over the site," according to the Jordanian newspaper.

The official PA news agency, of course, is pushing the lie, making it indistiguishable from Hezbollah's media in embracing incitement and falsehoods rather than the truth.

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"Israel weakening Al Aqsa with underground chemicals"

The Hamas-run, British-based Palestine Info site "reports":

The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) is using chemical materials to accelerate excavation underneath the Aqsa mosque in occupied Jerusalem, Kamal Al-Khatib, the deputy leader of the Islamic movement in 1948 occupied Palestine, said.

He said in a press release on Tuesday that the use of chemical materials was meant to speed up the erosion of the rocky layer or foundation that protects the Aqsa mosque.

He opined that the IOA was planning to weaken the foundation of the holy site in preparation for demolishing it and building the alleged temple in its place.

The network of tunnels underneath the mosque had caused a big hole and any explosion of any kind or a minor earthquake could pose a dangerous and permanent threat to the Aqsa mosque, Khatib warned.

He charged that the IOA was hoping that such a natural phenomenon would occur in order to appear as if the mosque was destroyed due to a natural cause.

Challah Hu Akbar reported on this a couple of days ago; Arab media even ran photos of the tunnels that are adjacent to the Temple Mount and the newly re-opened Roman-era Jerusalem water channel as "proof" somehow of this chemical attack.

I'm sure that people who build tunnels underneath mountains would be most interested in this new, high-tech method of excavating tunnels using only chemicals.

And who is pushing this absurd story in English? Why, Mondoweiss, of course! Because according to the high journalistic standards of the anti-Zionist crowd, any accusation against Israel must be true by definition.

(h/t Dan C)

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