Friday, April 30, 2010

  • Friday, April 30, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Ma'an writes:
A family apartment was seized and handed over to de facto government police after its owner temporarily moved out of the home to take care of her sick father-in law.

A’lyia Aweida said she returned to the apartment on 3 April to collect some belongings, only to find a de facto government police officer, who she identified only by his initials, RAH, and his wife living in her home.
The article goes on to quote a Hamas official as being totally shocked that such a thing happened.

So Hamas scheduled a hearing to see whether the family can return to their home - to take place in September.

The issue of Hamas stealing people's apartments was one of the issues that the PFLP complained about in a letter sent earlier this week.
  • Friday, April 30, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Weekly Standard links to a new web ad directed at the White House:



The organization behind it, Keep Israel Safe, is brand new and was founded by Tom Rose, former editor of the Jerusalem Post.

(h/t Love of the Land)
  • Friday, April 30, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
It wasn't Al Jazeera that first came up with the story that Jerusalem traffic lights were rigged to discriminate against Arab drivers - it was The Economist, in a side comment last month:
Further impeding access, traffic lights flick green only briefly for cars from Palestinian districts while staying green for cars from Jewish settlements for minutes.
Because such a respected magazine made this absurd charge, CAMERA asked them for details - and fisked it.

I predict it will be mentioned in some UN document as fact within six months, just like the charge that Israel kidnaps Arabs and steals their organs is now enshrined in an official UN document submitted by a lying - and award-winning - NGO, EAFORD, whose founding purpose is to promote the idea that Zionism is racism.
  • Friday, April 30, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
I had missed this Yom Ha'atzmaut video message, and it is worth watching:

Thursday, April 29, 2010

  • Thursday, April 29, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The big news in Hollywood is, of course, Sandra Bullock's adoption of a son in conjunction with her divorce with Jesse James, the tattooed weirdo with the secret Nazi obsession.

However, the EoZ gossip column is more interested in the question:

Why did Sandra give her new son a bris?

Not just a hospital circumcision, mind you. She hired a mohel who went to her house and did the whole ceremony with her family in attendance.

And she's not Jewish!

Neither is her soon-to-be ex, or anyone else remotely close to her (although, apparently, more Jews want her to be Jewish than any other shiksa.)

So, nu, what's with the goyishe bris? Is it trendy in Hollywood? Does she think it will get her better roles? Is she considering joining the Tribe? Is she raising little Louis to be Jewish? (At least one clueless news outlet thinks that the bris automatically made him Jewish. Unless his mother was Jewish, which doesn't appear to be likely.)

Now I'm going to have to watch The Blind Side.
  • Thursday, April 29, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Things are seriously messed up in Britain:

A lecture given by Israel's Deputy Ambassador to Britain Talya Lador-Fresher at the University of Manchester deteriorated Wednesday into violence when pro-Palestinian protesters stormed at the diplomat in an attempted attack.

The protesters were waiting for Lador-Fresher outside the lecture hall, but this did not deter her from entering as planned. Immediately upon her exit, the protesters lunged at the diplomat, prompting security guards to whisk her back into the hall. Following a consultation on the site, it was decided to escort her out of the premises in a police car.

The deputy ambassador was removed from the hall and into the police vehicle. However, this did not block the protesters, who surrounded the car and climbed on the hood, trying to break the windshield.
Let's make one thing clear: these are not pro-Palestinian protesters. Protesters who support something do not act this way. These are anti-Israel - and often anti-Jewish - rioters.

Last February, the same diplomat was forced to postpone her speech at Manchester because of threats of violence. And a student shouted out "Itbach al Yahud," which means "Kill the Jews," at Danny Ayalon at the Oxford Student Union.

A couple of months earlier, the Action Palestine movement at Manchester invited to speak a man who threatened to make pro-Jewish South Africans' lives hell, saying they are not welcome in their own country. After his statements were publicized, their members defended him.

This is nothing but hate. These students don't give a damn about Palestinian Arab rights or anything else - they just hate the idea that Jews have a degree of self-determination. This is today's anti-semitism, and people who claim that actions like these are merely anti-Israel are fooling themselves.

UPDATE: The British press has still not written a word about this incident, nearly 24 hours later.
  • Thursday, April 29, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
In Ha'aretz, in an article about how ordinary Palestinian Arabs are warming up to Salam Fayyad (and Fatah is upset), Avi Issacharoff mentions that the PA communications minister referred to Israel's "five-star occupation." The reporter's point was to contrast how well the PA was doing while it cooperates with Israel compared to how Gazans are faring.

A, EoZ reader emailed Issacharoff to verify the quote. He wrote back that he heard it himself at a press conference in Ramallah yesterday, and that "it was a kind of a joke but a serious one..."

It is not the first time that this expression was used. A prominent Ramallah businessman, flush with success of his Italian restaurant in Ramallah, used the same term to describe his situation.

It seems that the "occupation" is not nearly as awful as it is portrayed in the media. In fact, it appears that Palestinian Arabs living under the yoke of this oppression in the West Bank are living better lives than their Arab brethren across the Jordan River or the Syrian border - specifically due to Israel's policies of helping them economically and easing up restrictions in return for better security.

Which brings up the question - how would things be improved if the "peace process" moved forward? Because, arguably, the biggest gains for Palestinian Arabs have occurred while it was moribund.
  • Thursday, April 29, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
This morning, Hamas wrote a press release:
-Egyptian forces pumped gas into a cross-border tunnel used to smuggle goods into the Gaza Strip late on Wednesday, killing four Palestinians, Hamas officials said.

A Hamas security official in charge of the tunnel area along the border said the Egyptians filled the passage with some type of crowd dispersal gas.
The Hamas Interior Ministry later said in a statement the gas used to try to clear the tunnel was poisonous. Besides those killed, six people were injured, it said.

"The Interior Ministry confirms that the citizens' cause of death was the Egyptian security forces spraying poison gasses into one of the tunnels."

"This is a terrible crime committed by Egyptian security against simple Palestinian workers who were trying to earn their daily bread," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum to The Associated Press. "It was a killing in cold blood. Hamas and all the Palestinian people condemn it strongly."

The story gets even weirder. From Ma'an:
Wednesday night medics said workers had gone to the tunnel that had in fact been "filled with poisonous gas a week ago, to confirm the toxin had dissipated," Adham Abu Salmiya, spokesman for Gaza medical services, told Ma'an. "They were shocked to find it had actually remained in the tunnel, resulting in the deaths and injuries."
So they went into the tunnel to see if poison gas was still inside. Human canaries?

The entire idea of Egypt spraying poison gas in tunnels makes no sense, as there is nothing to be gained by such a move. Far more likely is that either an Egyptian explosion sucked the air out of the tunnel, or that fuel being smuggled caused the deaths by being exposed to air, or - very possibly - there was an explosion of munitions en route that Hamas doesn't want to admit.

Egypt denied the charges. Palestine Today writes that Egypt always coordinated tunnel demolitions with the Gaza government to ensure that no one is inside, and does not confirm that any demolitions occurred at the time of these deaths.

AP followed up:
The intelligence official confirmed that Egyptian security forces destroyed the entrances to several tunnels this week, but said that no gas was used in the operations. He said that Egypt routinely blows up the mouths to the tunnels to seal them off, and that the blast and an ensuing fire could quickly use up all the oxygen in the confined space, causing people caught inside to suffocate.

It was not immediately clear what evidence Hamas was basing its allegations on.

Mohammed al-Osh, the medical director of the Abu Yusef al-Najar hospital in the Gaza border town of Rafah where some of the dead and injured were taken, could not confirm those killed had inhaled poison gas. He said the hospital did not have the equipment or specialists needed to conduct the necessary tests on lungs and clothing.
Another strange part about this story is that, to the best of my knowledge, the names of the victims have not been released , which could indicate that they were not just smuggling candy bars. (UPDATE: Their names can be seen here. h/t Soccer Dad)

Either way, Hamas' flat accusation of "poison gas" is a lie, as no one in Gaza could possibly confirm that charge.
  • Thursday, April 29, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Interesting story from Al Arabiya:
As the heated debate about banning the face veil rages in France, a journalist with the women's magazine Marie Claire decided to put on the controversial cloth and walk the streets of Paris for five days.

In an article entitled "Ma semaine en Niqab" (My Week in a Niqab), published with photos in the May issue of Marie Claire, journalist Elizabeth Alexandre described her experience.

"I wanted to know what it feels to be fully veiled," she wrote. "I wanted to feel the fabric on my cheeks and forehead and see the world from this tiny slit. I also wanted to know how the world would see me."

"I felt as if I am inside a tent. I couldn't see my feet and when I walked the garment rolled around my legs and I had to slow down. I was terrified I was going to fall on my face."

She then went to a café where she found it very hard to drink her coffee or smoke a cigarette from under her veil.

"I had to keep lifting the veil in order to take sips from the coffee or to smoke. This was very difficult."

The full veil also proved impractical when Alexandre tried to read as couldn't wear her glasses because her entire face was covered. The fabric of the veil also rubbed against her eyelashes making it very inconvenient for her to blink.

Getting on the metro, Alexandre realized that people were reluctant to talk to her because they did not feel at ease talking to someone whose face they cannot see.

"They looked at me then looked away. I tried to start a conversation with the passengers, but I failed. I felt isolated."

When she went to her office in the magazine pretending she had decided to wear the face veil for real, her colleagues started treating her differently.

"I found out that I could neither see nor hear properly and that made team work nearly impossible."

Going back home and taking off the veil made Alexandre breathe a sigh of relief. She felt she was free.

"I discovered how the face veil isolates the woman as it turns her into someone who cannot interact with people. I felt that after only three days of wearing it."

On the fourth day, Alexandre drew the third conclusion: the full veil made her extremely self-conscious and overly sensitive about anything related to her body.

"I felt that I am both invisible and too visible. It felt like I was placed in a window ship and everyone was invited to watch."

Alexandre explained that wearing a full veil eliminated any feelings of vanity or self-esteem and made her ovely self-conscious whenever the smallest part of her body was revealed.

"Being totally covered made me feel that my body is a disgrace. All men around me turned into sexually obsessed beasts that want to devour me.

It is then that I felt I need the veil to protect me from this imminent danger. For the first time in my life, I felt I was a sex bomb and a source of sin."
Which is exactly how Muslim men who insist that women wear the veil think of them.
  • Thursday, April 29, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
When I was a kid and didn't know any better, I would eat and enjoy Pop-Tarts.

Unfortunately, as soon as my family discovered that Pop-Tarts were not kosher, I have been deprived.

For years now I have been looking for a decent Pop-Tart clone that tastes as I remember the original. Specifically: Strawberry, non-frosted.

I tried Pillsbury Toaster Strudels, which were kosher for a time, but they weren't the same. Not bad, though.

A couple of years ago Tradition Foods created a kosher version, but it wasn't very good - and not close to how I remember my Pop-Tarts tasting. Other consumers apparently agreed, and that product is no longer being sold.

Another company, Nature Path Organic, makes their own version of Pop-Tarts and they have a Canadian kosher certification. They were edible, but alas, not good enough (and that's not only my opinion.)

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed at Costco a product called Special-K Fruit Crisps. The picture on the box looked a lot like my old Pop-Tarts - and it is by Kelloggs! So I bought a couple of large boxes.

This is as close as I'm going to get.

They are not toaster-tarts, rather they are more like the size of granola bars. They are thinner than Pop-Tarts. They have a smattering of frosting. But - they taste just as I remember Pop-Tarts tasting!

And after 8 seconds in the microwave or a time in the toaster oven, they are even better! At 100 calories for two crisps, they are not too fattening either (unless you eat massive amounts, which is a serious danger for me.)

One of my goals in life is now fulfilled.

And, just maybe, some Muslim will read this and be equally happy.
  • Thursday, April 29, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Yesterday I reported that the PFLP accused Hamas of ten things that were contributing to Gazan misery:

1.New taxes on small shops, like falafel stands
2. Converting cars to taxis and levying large taxes on the owners
3. 60% tax on cigarettes
4. Confiscating private apartments owned by people outside Gaza and giving them to Hamas members
5. Restricting the activities on Gaza NGOs
6. Owners of apartments who had built (with permission) on government-owned lands now being taxed thousands of dollars
7. New taxes on groceries
8. Preventing many citizens from traveling outside Gaza
9. Restrictions on Gaza institutions and organizations
10. Violent and insulting treatment of Gaza citizens

Hamas' initial reaction was to arrest the people who made these accusations, which certainly must have increased the Gazan citizens' sense of security.

So, today Hamas' interior ministry issued a formal, point-by-point response to the PFLP charges.

In summation, Hamas is saying that all of the accusations are pretty accurate but that all of their actions are legal and justified. For example, the cigarette tax is meant to curb smoking by children, who could easily get inexpensive cigarettes. Taking over apartments is only done to people who have not paid their taxes; restrictions on people leaving Gaza is only being done for security reasons, and so forth.

Their response to the NGO accusation is especially interesting: Hamas says that many Gaza NGOs are corrupt:
Many institutions are delusional, founded during the previous authority to steal the money from donors without these associations doing any work. This money is going to the pockets of their leaders without their delivering any benefit to the people. This is an abuse of public money, in addition to ethical irregularities in a number of these institutions.

This story has still not been mentioned in any English-language source as far as I can tell.
  • Thursday, April 29, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Palestine Press Agency is claiming that Dubai authorities are about to name the Hamas mole responsible for tipping off the assassins of Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Mahbouh in Dubai.

A diplomatic source told the Palestine Press News Agency, on condition of anonymity, "The main suspect in the assassination of Mabhouh is a Palestinian businessman and member of Hamas, who owns real estate in Dubai and is responsible for detecting the travel plans of the martyr Mabhouh for the Mossad of Israel."

The source added that "the businessman was a resident earlier in Algeria and immigrated to the Netherlands and then transported between England and Dubai."
PalPress does not have the highest journalistic standards, so this could easily end up not panning out, but it is worth watching.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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