Sunday, March 27, 2011
Elder of ZiyonThe British media is failing to report the attacks upon Israel, and only reporting Israeli responses, thus creating the entirely false impression that Israel is the aggressor. Thus in turn creating the kind of hatred of Israel in the world which is leading to mass murder.(h/t Joel)
Sunday, March 27, 2011Elder of ZiyonWhat is the Government of Israel's official stance on the legal status of the territories? Are they occupied, disputed, or something else?
Sunday, March 27, 2011Elder of Ziyon
Sunday, March 27, 2011Elder of ZiyonDuring secret talks with Iran, the Argentinean government offered to "forget" the bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center in the capital Buenos Aires in the 1990s in exchange for improved ties between the two countries.The Prefil report is here.
The Argentine weekly Perfil reported Saturday that the negotiations were aimed at increasing the trade volume between Argentina and the Islamic Republic, which is currently estimated at $1.2 billion a year.
According to the report, Cristina Kirchner's government offered to suspend the investigation of the bombings, which are believed to have been orchestrated by Iran.
It was further reported that a memo sent by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that "Argentina is no longer interested in solving the mystery of these two attacks and would rather improve its economic relations with Iran."
Perfil said Argentinean Foreign Minister Hector Timerman asked Syrian President Bashar Assad and Foreign Minister Walid Moallem to relay the offer to Tehran. The three met at the Syrian city of Haleb on January 23, the weekly said.
In the 1992 embassy bombing, 29 people were killed and 242 were injured. In the bombing at the AMIA Jewish community center in 1994, 85 people were killed and more than 300 were injured. No one has been indicted despite the fact that Israel and the US have been assisting in the investigation.
Iran's Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi is wanted by Interpol for the attack on the Jewish center, as are four other Iranians.
Sunday, March 27, 2011Elder of ZiyonSenior members of Hamas' military wing told aides of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that it would not guarantee the Fatah leader's safety if he visited the Gaza Strip, Haaretz has learned.PalestinianArabs had been keenly interested in Abbas' planned visit so it will be interesting to see the reaction.
PA officials interpreted these statements as a threat to Abbas. As of last night, an Abbas trip to Gaza for reconciliation talks with Hamas has been dropped from the agenda.
Some Palestinian commentators attributed the increase in hostilities with Israel to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's proposal that Abbas visit Gaza for reconciliation talks.
Sunday, March 27, 2011Elder of ZiyonUnknown attackers attempted on Sunday to blow up an Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan, but the explosives failed to detonate, a security official said.
Six armed men stormed the gas terminal in the northern Sinai town of Al-Sabeel at dawn on Sunday and placed explosive devices there, the official said.
"They failed to detonate the bombs and fled the scene. Even the security guard was missing when police arrived," he said, adding police officers managed to remove the explosives.
Last month attackers used explosives against the pipeline, cutting off gas supply to Jordan and Israel for more than a month.
Sunday, March 27, 2011Elder of Ziyon
The SV annual convention goes to vote. The deranged junior partner in the current government coalition will among other proposals vote on a motion to use armed force against Israel should it attack Gaza.The motion is the blood money required to pay off SV card carrying members who find it hard to accept that they have taken the nation to war, again. Last time it did so was back in 1999, when the party backed the NATO bombing of Serbia. As a result, we got ourselves involved in a war crimes probe because of high number of civilian casualties and bombing illegal targets.Therefore, the only way it can be palatable to bomb Libya for these morally deranged people is if Israel can be bombed too.Here is the less than lucid reasoning behind the motion:- The credibility of the world community in its confrontation with the Gadafi regime is undermined when there is no reaction against other states in the region who commit injustices against civil population. The greater world community must therefore also react against Israeli air attacks on the Gaza strip.
The good news is that the comments to an Aftenblodet article about this shows universal derision for the SV party.Wow, a declaration of war from the governments very junior partner! And not to mention that thus Israel has become the only country in the world who will be denied the right to defend itself in the face of constant terrorism, rocket attacks against its own population. With a stroke of the pen, the entire body of international Law must be changed to accommodate for this perverse view, and taken to its logical conclusion, Norway would be unable to defend itself from attacks. Or maybe, we ought to bomb ourselves for bombing the Libyans?But at least now we don’t have to deal with the lies and hypocrisy of this lunatic fringe group, at least they have come clean and admit that they hate the guts of every living Jew to the extent that they would gladly help to blow the country to pieces.Roll over Ahmadinejad, even your antics look comical in comparison.I wonder if this kind of extreme agitation and war mongering is even legal?Please somebody, come and help us, we are in the hands of very evil people.Prof. M. McGonagall
Sunday, March 27, 2011Elder of Ziyon
Sunday, March 27, 2011Elder of Ziyon
Saturday, March 26, 2011Elder of Ziyon
Mahmoud Abbas, that intransigent leader that the world considers "moderate," had added another condition for "peace" with Israel:
Friday, March 25, 2011Elder of Ziyon
ElderToons
Ben-Ami’s paternal grandparents were, indeed, Zionist heroes. At great personal risk they moved from Czarist Russia to the Land of Israel as part of the First Aliyah (wave of immigration) of the late nineteenth century. They were among 66 Palestinian Jewish families who defied the warnings of their own community’s leaders and purchased a large plot of land from Arab effendis in 1909 on the sand dunes south of Jaffa. The families then conducted a lottery on the beach to distribute the plots on which they would build their individual homes — thus laying the foundation for Tel Aviv, the “first Hebrew city.” Two years ago Tel Aviv’s municipality celebrated the centennial of the city’s founding. Ben-Ami and his children took part in a ceremony reenacting the 1909 lottery on the beach along with other descendants of the original Jewish families.Jews building cities on empty land that they legally bought were heroes when they were a certain kind of Jews doing it in the last century on the west side of an imaginary line that wasn't to exist for another 40 years.
Writing about the event in the New York Times, Ben-Ami hailed his grandparents’ generation of Zionist settlers who created Tel Aviv as a center of Jewish learning, culture, and commerce. But he then contrasted that noble achievement with the allegedly atavistic attitudes toward the Palestinian Arabs of the “Netanyahu/Lieberman government.”
Friday, March 25, 2011Elder of Ziyon| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Thin Jew Line | ||||
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Friday, March 25, 2011Elder of ZiyonOnIslam, which is a breakaway website from Islam Online, has a fatwa section where someone recently asked this:Read the whole thing.
Can you answer the question why the Palestinians and the Israelis have been fighting for so long? What is it all about? Why do they seem to hate each other so much? Is it related to the Catholic/Protestant faith, Judaism and Islam?
The answer given is very illuminating.
It illustrates why real peace is impossible: because the other side doesn’t even know the basic facts about Judaism, Zionism and Israel. It is simply not possible to reach an agreement when one side’s entire conception of the others is, simply, filled with lies.
Friday, March 25, 2011Elder of Ziyon
Friday, March 25, 2011Elder of Ziyon
Friday, March 25, 2011Elder of Ziyon
Friday, March 25, 2011Elder of ZiyonIn post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.
It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.
As the best organized and most extensive opposition movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an edge in the contest for influence. But what surprises many is its link to a military that vilified it.
“There is evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military early on,” said Elijah Zarwan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. “It makes sense if you are the military — you want stability and people off the street. The Brotherhood is one address where you can go to get 100,000 people off the street.”
“We are all worried,” said Amr Koura, 55, a television producer, reflecting the opinions of the secular minority. “The young people have no control of the revolution anymore. It was evident in the last few weeks when you saw a lot of bearded people taking charge. The youth are gone.”
In the early stages of the revolution, the Brotherhood was reluctant to join the call for demonstrations. It jumped in only after it was clear that the protest movement had gained traction. Throughout, the Brotherhood kept a low profile, part of a survival instinct honed during decades of repression by the state.
The question at the time was whether the Brotherhood would move to take charge with its superior organizational structure.
It now appears that it has.As I said, I am shocked. Only last month the NYT's own Nicholas Kristof waxed lyrical about the courage of the Facebook youth of Egypt and said we should be ashamed to even think that they would not be taking Egypt in a new, liberal, democratic direction.
But the more secular forces say that what they need is time.
“I worry about going too fast towards elections, that the parties are still weak,” said Nabil Ahmed Helmy, former dean of the Zagazig law school and a member of the National Council for Human Rights.
Kristof is making a major mistake. He is confusing bravery for political maturity.How dare I disagree with such an outstanding pundit and accurately predict nearly everything in this article written by his employer a month later? How could I have the chutzpah to mention that the New York Times is paying someone to spout wishful-thinking nonsense while I, and many others, could see what was to happen from thousands of miles away?
No one doubts the protesters' bravery. No one doubts their integrity, or their desire for change, or even their desire for democracy.
But there are serious doubts at their ability to translate the raw desire for freedom into a functional, liberal, democratic government.
It is hard work to create the institutions necessary. More importantly, it takes time - and time is not on the side of the protesters.
It is now fashionable to pooh-pooh the dangers of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kristof's liberal circles, but no one can doubt that the Islamists are better organized and much more politically mature than the Facebookers of Tahrir Square. It takes time to set up an organization, to define a clear agenda, to build a fundraising mechanism, to attract volunteers, to build a means to communicate with all the people - including in rural areas, and to do all the myriad details from physical buildings to a phone system to a mailing list.
True freedom cannot flourish until Egyptians have been exposed to a wide range of ideas on a level playing field. The existing Islamist groups are running circles around the "Egyptian youth" we hear so much about. Kristof is so caught up in the emotions of the moment that he cannot think outside Tahrir Square, to the 99% of the country that is not as emotionally invested in who their leaders would be. To them, the nice people with beards who build a free Islamic school for their kids are the only game in town.
Enthusiasm does not ensure effective state building and true freedoms. Kristof, instead of spouting straw-man arguments, should be advocating ways for his jeans-wearing heroes to channel their sparks of enthusiasm and bravery into the hard, thankless and often boring work necessary to build a new Egypt from scratch.
Friday, March 25, 2011Elder of ZiyonA SCOTS Christian campaigner from Scotland who worked in the Third World has been killed in a bomb blast in Jerusalem.Beautiful Jerusalem, where bombs just appear and explode spontaneously.
Mary Gardner, 59, who previously taught in Orkney, was the only fatality. She was caught up in the explosion caused by a bomb placed in a phone booth as she stood at a bus station in the Israeli city.
She died in hospital from her injuries despite desperate efforts by paramedics following Wednesday’s terror attack.
The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Ms Gardner was killed by the blast across the street from the Jerusalem Convention Centre near the central bus station.
A spokesman said: “[Ms Gardner] was critically wounded as a result of the bombing, and rescue services transferred her to hospital, where doctors fought for her life for about an hour and ultimately were forced to declare her dead.”
Friday, March 25, 2011Elder of ZiyonHamas officials are praising Wednesday's deadly bombing of a bus station in Jerusalem -- a city they've vowed to conquer.Even if part of Jerusalem is considered occupied (and it clearly isn't,) that doesn't mean that the 'occupying power' has no right to arrest known terrorists in the territory. In fact, they have an obligation to.
Jerusalem is also a place where wanted Hamas members have found safe haven from Israeli authorities -- and they're getting help from one of the world's leading humanitarian organizations.
Although Hamas's main headquarters can be found in Gaza and Damascus, over the past several months, three officials from the terror group have also set up shop at the International Red Cross office in East Jerusalem.
Israel suspects these three Hamas legislators had a role in the 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. It ordered them to be deported from Jerusalem last summer.
Instead, the three found refuge at the Red Cross, where they've set up a tent and held court on a daily basis, with no protest from their hosts.
The three Hamas officials have been living there since July. During that time, they've held a number of press conferences and met with foreign dignitaries, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Every Friday, dozens of East Jerusalem residents gather at the Red Cross to hold prayers as a show of support.
Red Cross spokesperson Cecilia Goin told CBN News that hosting the wanted Hamas officials is in line with the organization's humanitarian mission -- despite Hamas' long track record of terrorism.
"Under international humanitarian law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory," Goin said. "So the Palestinians living in East Jerusalem are considered protected people."
Goin, who refers to Israel as an "occupying power" in East Jerusalem, said politics are not involved in the Red Cross's decision.
The first essential task is to restore public order and safety. ...If I am reading this correctly, the Red Cross is unlawfully interfering with Israel's obligations and allowances to create and enforce laws, under international law.
The third implied task is to review the local laws in order to enforce, suspend or repeal them and enact new laws in their place as needed. ...Although not commonly done, the
occupying power may also enact their own laws in the occupied country, as both Germany and Allied forces did during World War II. Clearly, certain procedures must be adhered to ensure any new laws are both effective and obeyed. Such procedures would include giving notice to the populace in their native language(s), publishing the laws in writing, and ensuring that new laws are not applied in an ex post facto fashion.
The fourth implied task to the restoration of public order and safety is supervision of courts, jails, and prisons. The Geneva Convention provides, “[t]he necessity of ensuring effective administration of justice, the tribunals of the occupied territory shall continue to function in respect to all offenses covered by the said laws.” The occupying power has considerable latitude to use a variety of courts, tribunals, and local government systems to adequately enforce and administer the law.
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