Tuesday, January 24, 2012

  • Tuesday, January 24, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From YNet:
An Iranian opposition website reported Tuesday that four former Revolutionary Guards commanders have mysteriously died in the past four days after suffering strokes and heart attacks.

The website did not point any fingers but hinted that other elements may have been involved in the deaths.
The Hebrew YNet article gives details.

The four are Wafa Afrian (52), Abbas Mahari(52), Ahmad Siafzada (55) and Mansur Torkan (50).

Afrian was the head of Iran Telecommunication Company and previously was a senior commander in the field of electronic warfare. He was reported ill for months.

Mahari, who died of a stroke, worked at the University of Imam Hussein in Tehran, and he had been linked in the past with developing non-conventional weapons.

Siafzada, who died of a heart attack, was high up in the Revolutionary Guards.

Torkan was one of the the senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guards during the Iran - Iraq war, between the years 1980 to 1988. He died of a stroke.

An Iranian army officer was killed in a motorcycle attack on Saturday.

Hmmmm.....

(h/t Yoel)

  • Tuesday, January 24, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Hamas' Palestine Times website shows a bunch of exotic animals that have been smuggled into Gaza for a zoo:







A few years ago, Hamas found another use for a zoo in Gaza:




  • Tuesday, January 24, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Last week reports began to filter out of Syria that members of Khaled Meshal's family, including his daughter Fatima and her husband, had been arrested by Syrian forces on the pretext of having property registered under fictitious names.

Hamas denied the report, but now Arab newspaper Elaph confirms it. Fatima and her husband were arrested on January 11.

According to the report, Meshal's wife and other children were also summoned by Syrian police on the 15th, and Fatima and her husband were released on 50,000 pounds bail (about $900.)

The harassment is allegedly to show Syria's displeasure at Hamas not supporting the Assad regime more strongly. Meshal has been trying to straddle the fence between supporting the Syrian revolution and not upsetting the regime.

Elaph's sources claim that Meshal's announcement that he will step down as Hamas' political leader is related to this pressure from Syria. Elaph says that Syria prefers that he be replaced with his current deputy, Mousa Abu Marzouk.


Monday, January 23, 2012

  • Monday, January 23, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Jamal Kanj, writing in the Gulf Daily News, explains it all:
Israel's survival kit is: Perpetuate conflict, insecurity to rationalise collective hate and finally play victim.

Devoid of conflict, Israel implodes internally; without hate, Zionism loses its justification; and playing eternal victim to continue blackmailing the West. In the absence of this holy trinity, Israel ceases to exist.
See? It is all so simple!

If Kanj really believes this, and he really wants to destroy Israel, then the prescription is clear:

Convince Arabs to make peace with Israel.

If all Arab countries and the PLO prioritize peace, accepting Israel's security concerns (which Kanj knows are just excuses to murder tens of thousands of innocent Arabs), then Israel cannot survive, according to Kanj. Israel will be "devoid of conflict" and will therefore "implode internally."

But if that is not enough, then the Arabs must learn to unconditionally love the Jews of Israel. If they truly love Israel, Israel cannot justify itse existence, in Kanj's view.

Putting the two of those together would make it impossible for Israel to "play the victim" anymore. And, soon thereafter, Israel ceases to exist!

I think Kanj is onto something. His plan has great merit. Arabs should put it in motion, in anticipation of the quick demise of the Jewish state. This is easier than incitement, and terror, and war - all of which makes Israel stronger, according to Kanj.

And Jamal Kanj is just the man to spearhead such an initiative.

What do the Arabs have to lose? According to Kanj, it has been Arab intransigence that has strengthened Israel so much. It must end now, so Israel can end as well..

The worst that could happen is that Kanj is wrong, and the Arabs will have to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors forever. Israeli Jews would tour all over the Arab world; Jewish backpackers would visit Iraq and Syria; Jewish scientists would work with their Arab counterparts to try to solve problems like water shortages and medical care; Arab Muslims would be able to visit Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque and other historic sites with a mere passport; and a Palestinian Arab state would be freely trading goods and services with their Arab partners.

I know- that is a pretty bad scenario, and one that Arabs are dead-set against happening. They's rather maintain the state of war and continue to incite against Israeli Jews.

But isn't the chance that they can destroy Israel with peace and love is worth the risk?

  • Monday, January 23, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Once again, a journalist wrote something that offended Jews , and they quickly forced him to resign.
The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times has resigned and is seeking a buyer in the wake of a column he wrote speculating that Israel would consider assassinating President Obama.

Andrew Adler, in an email obtained by JTA, announced Monday that he is "relinquishing all day-to-day activities effective immediately" following the publishing of his opinion piece saying that Obama's assassination was among Israel's options in heading off a nuclear Iran.

Adler named staff writer John McCurdy as interim managing editor until a replacement can be found. Adler said he would publish an apology in his next edition and that reaction from readers had been overwhelmingly negative.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta said earlier Monday that it would suspend its relationship with the Atlanta Jewish Times until Adler removed himself from the newspaper's operations. The federation also called on Adler to sell the weekly.

"While we acknowledge his public apology and remorse, the damage done to the people of Israel, the global Jewish people, and especially the Jewish Community of Atlanta is irreparable," the Atlanta federation said in a statement issued Monday to constituent groups.
Proving again that those Jews are against freedom of the press. Except for the press they own, which is all of it.  Except for the Atlanta Jewish Times, which they are against, even though they own it, like all the other Jew-owned media.

(I'm sure that some anti-semites will find a bizarre Jew-hating angle in this story, so I wanted to beat them to the punch.)

UPDATE: After I wrote this, I see that J-Street managed to almost do what I satirized here:

[T]he extremism evinced by the Atlanta Jewish Times’ editor is enabled by a broader communal atmosphere in which critics of Israeli governmental policy are regularly called anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic.

While we welcome the outrage that is being focused around this latest incident, we hope that the American Jewish community will take this opportunity to consider the state of discourse over Israel more broadly.

Yes, J-Street believes that being against President Obama's policies is but a small step away from calling for him to be assassinated.

I wonder how much J-Street stays up at night worried about the extreme anti-Israel rhetoric that is "enabled" by J-Street's public positions against the policies of Israel's democratically elected government?
  • Monday, January 23, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
This was on YouTube for months, but has gone viral in the past day. And for good reason.

The musician is Lukáš Kmiť.

The venue is the Preslov, Slovakia Orthodox Synagogue.

The interesting part starts at 0:36:

  • Monday, January 23, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Now Lebanon:

Senior Hamas official Mahmud Zahar said on Monday that the Palestinian Islamist movement will never give up its armed struggled against Israel.

The statement comes as Gaza Strip officials openly attacked the movement's leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal, who has decided not to run again this summer for the leadership of Hamas, for prioritizing "peaceful resistance."

"We are fighting for our dignity and rights. Jihad is our path, our life, our pride and we will not renounce it no matter the sacrifices," said Zahar, quoted on the website of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing.

Hamas will "never give up its armed struggle against the Zionist enemy," he said during a speech in Zeitun, a neighborhood in East Gaza, in honor of the "martyrs" of Israel's December 2008-January 2009 Cast Lead operation against the enclave.
Zahar is being mentioned as a possible successor for Khaled Meshal, who is stepping down as its political leader.
  • Monday, January 23, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Ma'an has a photo-essay:
Artistic glass products, hand-made ceramics and Palestine's one and only producer of the Keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf, Hebron’s factory district used to be flourishing.

Times have changed, however, amid an increase in settler violence, the economic crisis and a flood of cheaper-made Chinese products. The city's old, family-run factories are struggling to survive.

Here's a look into the secret life of the Hebron manufacturing district's graffiti-sprayed walls, ever-struggling businesses and the beauty of the unique products still being made.
The essay is centered around the Hebron Glass and Ceramics Factory:


Interestingly, at least past of its customers are Jews (see the "Shalom" tiles in the lower left:)


That graffiti the article mentions is Arabic:


So how exactly is "settler violence" affecting this shop?

Answer: It isn't. The shop is situated in around what is known as Glass Junction in this map (in north Hebron):


This is quite a distance from H2, where the Jews of Hebron live. The Jews are not even allowed to go near that section of town!

So when Ma'an blames "settler violence" for the financial woes of this shop, there are no facts behind it. It is just a reflexive condemnation, one that is as automatic as breathing - if a Hebron shop is in trouble, the Jews must be at least partially to blame. 


  • Monday, January 23, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From UPI:
As the Middle East frets about a regional conflict, Israel's military says it believes Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah has long-range surface-to-air missiles supplied by Syria, significantly boosting its defenses against the Jewish state's formidable air power.

The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday that the military command "is also working under the assumption" that the Lebanese movement, which fought Israel's armed forces to a standstill in 2006, has obtained several dozen long-range M600 surface-to-surface missiles from Syria, Iran's ally.

Hezbollah is already believed to have a substantial number of M600s, which are Syrian-produced clones of Iran's Fateh-100 missile.

The M600 has a range of around 190 miles and carries a warhead containing a half-ton of high explosives.

The Israelis estimate that Hezbollah possesses around 42,000 missiles and rockets, including long-range weapons capable of hitting anywhere in Israel and which are changing the nature of Middle Eastern warfare.

That's more than three times the number of missiles Hezbollah had at the outset of the 34-day war in July-August 2006. Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets and missiles, or around 200 a day, into Israel's northern Galilee region during that conflict.

That was the heaviest bombardment Israel's civilian population endured since the state was founded in 1948 but that pales against the threat the nation faces from the missile arsenals of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and the Palestinian radical of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Military officials have warned Israel's population of 7 million that Israeli cities could be hit by 500 projectiles a day for weeks on end if a new conflict erupts.

"According to Western intelligence assessments, Hezbollah is believed to have taken advantage of the ongoing upheaval in Syria to obtain advanced weapons systems, such as additional long-range rockets as well as Russian-made air-defense systems," Post military analyst Yaacov Katz wrote.

Apart from the addition of "several dozen" M600s to its armory, Hezbollah is believed to have acquired additional 302mm Khaibar-1 rockets from Syria. These have a range of around 62 miles.

The Israelis' big fear is that the Damascus regime, battling against a stubborn 10-month-old pro-democracy uprising aimed at toppling President Bashar al-Assad, will transfer advanced weapons systems, including chemical weapons, to Hezbollah if it looks like the opposition is going to win.

Never a boring week.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah was reported to have gone into Syria to defend an Iranian Revolutionary Guard site.
  • Monday, January 23, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Egypt's Youm7 reports that the leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi, told Hamas' Khaled Meshal that his organization supports the establishment of a Palestinian state "on the entire occupied land" as well as the Palestinian "right of return."

Hamas considers all of Israel to be "occupied." Morsi seems to have allowed himself some wiggle room to pretend that he meant only the land across the Green Line, although even the Youm7 headline understood him to mean "We will seek to establish a Palestinian state on the all of its territory."

Mosri also told Meshal that the Palestinian issue was, is and will remain in the heart of the Egyptian people at the core of the Freedom and Justice Party, claiming that it was one of the key drivers of the Egyptian revolution, protesting the actions of the former regime towards the Palestinian cause, "especially the brave resistance against the occupation."
  • Monday, January 23, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Does UN General Assembly resolution 194 give Palestinian Arabs the right to return to Israel?

Not according to a document written in 1950 by the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, analyzing paragraph 11 of the resolution that is often quoted today.

The document exhaustively analyzes every phrase in that paragraph, which states:
Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;

Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations;

One specific part of this 1950 UN document A/AC.25/W/45 is notable:

3. What is the meaning of the term "to their homes"?

There is no doubt that in using this term the General Assembly meant the home of each refugee, i.e. his house or lodging and not his homeland. This is indicated by the fact that two amendments using the term "the areas from which they have come" were rejected. Furthermore by implication it would appear that if the refugees not returning are to be compensated for their property, those returning would reoccupy their homes and be compensated only for losses and damages. 

The phrase "to their homes" does not mean "to their homeland."

Which means that if their houses no longer exist, there is no right to return to the area the homes used to be located in.

How many of the original homes of Arabs who fled in 1948 still exist? I'm sure there are some in Jerusalem and Jaffa, but probably not too many altogether. The majority of 1948 refugees were poor and rural, and those homes have by and large been gone for many decades now.

At any rate, the resolution that is used so often to justify the "right" of millions of Palestinian Arabs to flood Israel is very clear in calling for only the specific refugees (obviously not their descendants, but only "all persons, Arabs, Jews and others who have been displaced from their homes in Arab Palestine") to return only to their specific houses. Not land, not area, not village - but their former houses.

And if the houses no longer exist, then their only remaining claim is monetary compensation.

(Ironically, at the time Israel interpreted the resolution to mean "homeland" giving Israel the rights to relocate Arabs to other areas; the Arabs interpreted it the way the UNCCP interpreted the phrase.)

There's lots more in that document that is enlightening, and I plan to go into more detail in the future.
  • Monday, January 23, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Al Arabiya:
European Union nations agreed Monday to slap an oil embargo against Iran’s oil exports in a bid to halt funding of the country's disputed nuclear program, EU diplomats said.

“There is a political agreement on an oil embargo,” said a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity after early morning talks between ambassadors of the 27 EU nations. The deal is to be formally approved by EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.

Their agreement was the final step before EU foreign ministers can give their formal approval to the measure. The EU’s 27 foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Monday.

“(EU ambassadors) have agreed on Iran sanctions,” the senior EU diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Under the deal, EU governments will have to stop signing new contracts with Tehran from the moment the ban comes into place -- probably as soon as this week -- but will be able to fulfill existing contracts until July 1.
This is huge news.

And this part is heartening as well:
Meanwhile, the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln passed through the Strait of Hormuz and is now in the Gulf, the Pentagon said, after Tehran threatened to close the strategic shipping route, while the European Union readied to slap an embargo on Iran’s oil exports Monday.

“USS Abraham Lincoln ... completed a regular and routine transit of the Strait of Hormuz... to conduct maritime security operations as scheduled,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain John Kirby said in an email to AFP.

“The transit was completed as previously scheduled and without incident.”

The carrier, which can have up to 80 planes and helicopters on board, was escorted by the guided-missile cruiser USS Cape St George and two destroyers.

Earlier, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said a British Royal Navy frigate and a French vessel had joined the carrier group to sail through the waterway.

While allied ships often participate in U.S. naval exercises and sometimes are part of joint naval flotillas, the presence of British and French ships seemed to be a message to Tehran about the West’s resolve to keep the route open.

“HMS Argyll and a French vessel joined a U.S. carrier group transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, to underline the unwavering international commitment to maintaining rights of passage under international law,” said a spokesman from Britain’s MoD.

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