Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Islamists take over Syria border post with Turkey; Kurds take control of their lands

Rebel forces gained control of the Bab al-Hawa crossing between Syria and Turkey on Thursday.

But by Saturday evening, a group of some 150 foreign fighters calling themselves as Islamists were in control of the Bab al-Hawa post, an AFP photographer said.

Some of the fighters said they belonged to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), while others claimed allegiance to a group called Shura Taliban.

They were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket launchers and improvised mines.

The fighters identified themselves as coming from a number of countries: Algeria, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and the Russian republic of Chechnya.

But there is some better news, as the Kurds are asserting control of their lands in Syria:

On the second day of events in Syrian Kurdistan, several more cities have fallen into the hands of Kurdish groups.

Fawzi Shangal, the leader of the Kurdish Accord Party in Syria told Rudaw that the city of Amude and Efrin fell on Friday and they expect Derek city liberated within hours.

Shangal maintained that the Kurdish cities fell without any major clashes. The forces of the Assad regime withdrew from the area, he said.

“According to the Erbil agreement [signed between Syrian Kurdish political factions] On June 11, the Kurdish National Council and the Council of Western Kurdistan have formed a joint leadership to run those cities,” he said.

Members of the Democratic Union Party [PYD] raised the Kurdish flag alongside the official flag of the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK] on all government buildings in the newly liberated cities on Friday.

Kobane, in the province of Halab [Aleppo], was the first Kurdish city near the Turkish border to be liberated yesterday.

On Thursday PYD stopped soldiers of the Free Syrian Army [FSA] from entering Kobane as the news of the liberation reached other parts of the country.

“The Kurdish forces rejected a request by the FSA and told them that they [Kurds] can control their own areas,” Hussein Kochar, a PYD official told Rudaw.

Kurdish leaders are preparing for the full liberation of Syrian Kurdistan and the responsibility of restoring peace and order in those cities.

And another city was liberated from Assad's troops this morning in Syrian Kurdistan.

The biggest wild card in Syria is still Assad's chemical weapons.

(h/t Yoel)

Israel-haters know they are lying (followup to Metro-North Map that Lies ad) (UPDATED)

Last week I reported on the lying advertisements that were posted in Metro-North railroad stations this month, showing the ridiculous Map That Lies.

The person who put the ads up, Henry Clifford, told Fox News, “There’s always room for discussion of different sides of every story, but there’s no room for discussion on fact. Anyone who challenges these maps and the content of these ads, it’s their obligation to show that they’re historically wrong. The ball is in their court.”

I responded with a point-by-point refutation of the maps, pointing out that now the ball is in his court. Besides an initial response claiming he is too busy to do a full response, and even after I sent him a reminder email on Friday, he has not bothered to respond.

But Yaacov Lozowick emailed him a similar reply to mine - a bit shorter and better written. And Clifford's response to that email proves, yet again, that the anti-Israel crowd knows that they are lying, but they pretend they are lying for a good reason.

Here is his entire response to Yaacov:

In any format the bottom line is irrefutable - the Palestinian people have lost most of their homeland.

What happened to your professed interest in facts, Henry? You issued a challenge to disprove the ads based on facts, and they were disproved easily. But now, instead of admitting that your ads are lies, you are appealing to what you clearly consider "the bottom line."

Your pithy response indicates that you cannot respond to the facts. It indicates that you believe that lies are justified for the Palestinian Arab cause you advocate.

If you were a real man, consistent in your words and deeds, you would publicly admit that the ads were deceptive and have no relationship to the truth.

But you aren't. You are just a hater, and lying to further your hate is par for the course for you and the anti-Zionist crowd.

UPDATE: He finally replied to me, similar to his non-reply to Yaacov:

I'm sorry, I have received at least 500 emails, 90% positive, am flooded with requests for comment or interviews, I just don't have time to debate. The Palestinians have lost most of their homeland and the earth is not flat. You can't change fact.

Yet that is exactly what this hypocrite is trying to do with these ads.

Gas pipeline to Israel/Jordan bombed yet again

From Egypt Independent:

February 2011 explosion

The pipeline transporting Egyptian natural gas to Israel has been bombed for the 15th time since the January uprising last year, according to North Sinai Governorate sources.

The explosion, which took place in the Taweel area, 10 km east of Arish city, would appear to confirm that gas exports to Israel have restarted.

The source referred to information about the resumption of gas exports to Israel four days ago.

However, Mohamed Ayyoub, head of the Gasco Company in Arish, denied that exports had restarted, saying the gas inside the pipeline was left from before Egypt had announced it was halting gas exports. According to sources, the company continues to pump gas to keep the equipment efficient but does not pump the gas to Israel.

The blast apparently took place in a depopulated area and was caused by improvised explosive devices. No casualties were reported.

Reuters adds:

The blast occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning at al-Tuwail, east of the coastal Sinai town of al-Arish, at a point before the pipeline splits into separate branches to Israel and Jordan, security officials and witnesses said.

An official in the company that manages the pipeline said exports of gas to both Israel and Jordan had been halted since an explosion that hit the pipeline in April and that the flames were caused by residual gas.

Residents in al-Arish, however, said gas shipments had begun three days ago through the pipeline, which at one point supplied Israel with about 40 percent of its natural gas.

Egypt in April terminated its agreement to supply gas to Israel because of what it said was a business dispute.

Piecing this together, it seems that Egypt never resumed pumping gas to Israel, nor to Jordan, since April. Some testing or maintenance probably occurred a few days ago and Sinai residents assumed that the shipments were resuming, so they arranged for another bombing.

Given that Egyptian officials have been sentenced to prison for selling gas to Israel at low prices, it seems very unlikely that any gas shipments were resuming.

The main party to be impacted by these explosions is not Israel - but Jordan. Jordan was far more dependent on Egyptian gas than Israel was, and it is interesting that this time the pipeline was bombed before the split.

Arabs being hurt by other Arabs isn't news, though.

Just some Muslims planning terror attacks

Two articles from The Times of Israel:

BOSTON (AP) — A Muslim-American man admitted Friday that he plotted to use remote-controlled model planes packed with explosives to blow up the Pentagon and US Capitol.

Rezwan Ferdaus, 26, pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to terrorists and attempting to damage and destroy federal buildings by means of an explosive.

Ferdaus was arrested last year after federal employees posing as members of al-Qaeda delivered materials he requested, including grenades, machine guns and plastic explosives.

Under a plea agreement, federal prosecutors agreed to drop four other charges. Prosecutors and Ferdaus’ lawyers also agreed to jointly recommend a 17-year prison term. Sentencing is set for Nov. 1.

Ferdaus grew up in Massachusetts and has a physics degree from Boston’s Northeastern University.

Prosecutors said Ferdaus began planning jihad, or holy war, against the United States in 2010 after becoming convinced through jihadi websites and videos that America was evil. He later contacted a federal informant and began meeting to discuss the plot with undercover agents.

And:

A Muslim husband and wife convicted of planning a terror attack against Jews in Manchester, England, were jailed Friday.

Shasta Khan, who was convicted of preparing for acts of terrorism and two counts of possessing information likely to be useful in an act of terrorism, was sentenced to eight years in prison. The 38-year-old hairdresser, who had pleaded not guilty, will serve four years minus the 350 days she spent on remand.

Her husband Mohammed Sajid Khan, 33, an unemployed car valet, was given an indeterminate sentence for public protection, which means that after a minimum of seven-and-a-half years, his position will be regularly reviewed by a parole board. He had pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorism.

The sentences “reflect the fact that Mohammed Sajid Khan was clearly the dominant character in this terror plot, and we hope he spends a long time behind bars,” said Mark Gardner, spokesperson for the Community Security Trust, an organization which provides security advice, infrastructure and manpower to British Jews. “We will never know if Shasta Khan would have turned to terrorism had she not married her husband.”

The Khans were in the early stages of building a home-made bomb, following instructions they found on the internet, when their plot was discovered in July 2011. Police had been called to their home in Oldham, greater Manchester, following a domestic dispute.

They had spent months scouting out potential Jewish targets in Manchester, including two synagogues and the Jewish Agency building.

They couple, who had met on the internet in 2010 and married just six weeks later, had become radicalized by material they read on the internet, including an English-language magazine published by an al-Qaeda affiliate.

Both Muslims.

Both became would-be jihadist murderers based on stuff they read on the Internet.

Both chose targets that have only peripheral involvement with Israel.

Now, certainly they only represent a "tiny minority of Muslims" that we hear so much about.

But if that tiny minority is only 14% - which is the number of Muslims who felt 9/11 was completely or mostly justified - that is still tens of millions of adult Muslims who are potential jihadists. (And 23% felt that 9/11 was "partially" justified.)

It is not exactly a comforting thought.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Saturday night links

From Ian:

‘Base of Islam’ claims responsibility for Burgas attack

The Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday dismissed a claim by Qaedat al-Jihad that it was responsible forWednesday’s terrorist attack in Burgas.

Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Vesela Cherneva dismissed the previously unknown Islamist group’s assertion of responsibility for the attack in an email sent Saturday to Elnashra, a Lebanese newspaper.
The previously unknown group is a possible affiliate of al-Qaeda, commentators in Israel said Saturday evening, noting its name in Arabic — “Qaedat al-Jihad.”

Muslim bus driver killed in Burgas bombing laid to rest

No Bulgarian officials present to pay respects at Mustafa Kyosev’s funeral
Kyosev, 36, belonged to Bulgaria’s ethnically Turkish, Muslim minority, which comprises 8% of the country’s 7 million people.
He was survived by his wife Emine and 10-year-old daughter.

The Levy Report and the ‘Occupation’ Narrative by Dore Gold

“Levy’s discourse is relevant for the Palestinian side in one important respect. If the Palestinians are constantly fed by the international community the “occupation” narrative, their propensity to consider making a real compromise, which is critical for any future agreement, will be close to nil. In fact, this false narrative only reinforces their mistaken belief in the delegitimization campaign against Israel as an alternative to seeking a negotiated settlement of the conflict. Rather than creating a setting for diplomacy to succeed, it only makes a real Middle Eastern peace more remote than ever.”

Palestine – United Nations Perfidy Exposed by David Singer

“The canard – supported by countless United Nations General Assembly Resolutions – that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal in international law – has been dealt a crushing blow with the the recent release of the Levy Committee Report in Israel rebutting that claim.”

[By the way, it's been a couple of weeks since the Levy report was released. Has anyone seen any attempt by its critics to rebut its arguments? - EoZ]

Obama administration sends CIA officers to find biological and chemical weapons in Syria

Israel ‘will have to strike’ if Syrian weapons are moving to Hezbollah, says top analyst

Islamic Jihad leadership abandons Syria for Iran

“Circumstances in war-torn country force terrorist organization to relocate, reports London-based Arabic daily”

BBC pictures reveal more about their attitudes to the Middle East Conflict than they might wish

"With the BBC continuing to report on the Middle East conflict in the way it does - who needs the Balen Report?"

Batsheva Faces Ugly BDS, But The Dire Plight Of Gaza's Christians Is Ignored

“The acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company is due to perform at the Edinburgh Playhouse from 30 August to 1 September as part of the Edinburgh International Festival.
But inevitably the usual suspects have mobilised against the visit – "Don't Dance With Israeli Apartheid" is the name of a Facebook page, for example.”

Pat Condell: American Dhimmi

MEMRI:
Egyptian Retired General Ahmad Mansouri: If Iran And Syria Are Attacked, Egypt Will Join Them In Taking Action
Egyptian Screenwriter Wahid Hamed: The Muslim Brotherhood Has Reneged On All The Promises It Made

Israeli scientists see through walls, barriers

"Move over Superman, scientists have found a way to see around corners and through solid materials.”

Also, The Daily Telegraph declares the Galilee Judenfrei

Egypt's Seventh Day newspaper reports that Egyptian officials are charging Raafat Hashim, 57, with a misdemeanor for possessing 63 toy machine guns that "insult Aisha."

The article notes that after an investigation, the guns were indeed found to be insulting Mohammed's favorite wife, and Hashim is being charged with "exploiting religion in promoting the dissemination of extremist ideas and sedition."

He says that he bought the toys six months ago in Cairo's Jewish quarter.

This story has been going around the entire Arab world since at least last year. We have shown video of a cleric in Sudan railing against the toy and then "proving" how it insults Aisha.

"Go, go, go. Pull over. Save the hostages." is being interpreted as "Shoot Aisha!"

One would think that Mr. Hashim has a good, solid defense. But then we must remember exactly what kind of judge is going to listen to him.

Friday, July 20, 2012

"Nine Iranian plots against Israelis and Jews in 2012" (updated)

From Reuters:

New York police believe Iranian Revolutionary Guards or their proxies have been involved so far this year in nine plots against Israeli or Jewish targets around the world, according to restricted police documents obtained by Reuters.

Reports prepared this week by intelligence analysts for the New York Police Department (NYPD) say three plots were foiled in January, three in February and another three since late June. Iran has repeatedly denied supporting militant attacks abroad.

The documents, labeled “Law Enforcement Sensitive,” said that this week’s suicide bomb attack in Bulgaria was the second plot to be unmasked there this year.

The reports detail two plots in Bangkok and one each in New Delhi, Tbilisi, Baku, Mombasa and Cyprus. Each plot was attributed to Iran or its Lebanese Hezbollah militant allies, said the reports, which were produced following the bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria of a bus carrying Israeli tourists.

Wednesday’s bombing in the Black Sea city is listed in a document headed “Suspected Iranian and/or Hezbollah-linked Plots Against Israeli or Jewish Targets: 2012 Chronology,” the latest of the nine 2012 plots linked to the Islamic Republic or its proxies.

U.S. officials say they increasingly concur with Israeli assessments that Iran and its proxies organized the killing of seven Israeli tourists in Burgas by a suicide bomber after they boarded an airport bus.

One U.S. official said Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militia, had in the past carried out suicide bombings.

A second U.S. official said U.S. federal authorities’ tally of alleged Iran-linked plots in 2012 largely paralleled the NYPD list.

AFP adds:

The Pentagon said Friday that there were "distinctive Hezbollah markings" linked to the Burgas terror attack which claimed the lives of five Israelis.

Also, Walla reports that US ambassador Dan Shapiro said that there are some signs that Hezbollah was involved in the attack.

(h/t Yoel)

UPDATE:

In the past year Israel successfully prevented numerous terror attacks against Israeli targets abroad – most of which were not reported.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday revealed never before published information about one of the foiled attacks. He said that an attack against Israelis was prevented in South Africa, but did not disclose any further details.

A very senior defense official said that since May 2011 more than 20 terror attacks have been prevented, including in Azerbaijan (twice), Kenya, Turkey, Thailand Cyprus and Bulgaria (prevented at the beginning of the year) and in Turkey (an attempt to attack the Israeli Consul in Istanbul).

"Iranians and Hezbollah members are incarcerated in jails throughout the world, the senior security official said. “We don’t know how long the wave of terrorism will continue – it's global.”

Friday links

From Ian:

Latma Summer Series:
Alone in the dark
The stiff-necked sheikh

Prayer to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich

Antique Pictures of the Western Wall to Be Released Online. How Antique? Think Abe Lincoln's Days

Who Will Save the Christians in the Gaza Strip? by Khaled Abu Toameh

"We only hear voices telling us not make too much noise. Today it is happening in the Gaza Strip, tomorrow it will take place in Bethlehem. In a few months, there will be no Christians left in Palestine." — Christian man, Gaza City

Al Jazeera: Mark Regev on the Bulgaria bus attack (Freudian slip at 4min)

Terror Gives the Lie to Iran’s Pose as Rational Actor by Jonathan S Tobin
More "rationality" from Iran: Iran Could Ban Images Of People Eating Chicken

“As a last resort to fight soaring food prices, a top Iranian official has proposed a ban on images of people eating chicken on television.”

The Arab Education Problem, a Decade On

“A decade ago, the UN’s Arab Human Development Report made waves when it found that “The Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one fifth of the number that Greece translates.” The Report also noted that the Arab world had become a scientific desert:”

What America Gets for Its U.N. Blank Check by John Bolton

Honest Reporting has more on the BBC Olympics site, inc. Mark Regev’s letter: BBC Olympic Coverage Declares East Jerusalem as Palestinian Capital

The BBC's tainted spectacles

“It's of little wonder the BBC has spent eight years and over £270,000 in taxpayers’ money on legal fees to prevent the public from seeing an internal “Balen” report”

An inevitable move: Glenn Greenwald joins Guardian US from Salon

Swiss call for moratorium on death penalties in Gaza - (What about the rockets?)

“Following the hanging of three men by Hamas earlier this week, Geneva says capital punishment is a violation of the most fundamental of human rights”

UK Muslim couple convicted of plotting terror attack on Manchester Jews

“Husband and wife downloaded ‘Make a bomb in the kitchen’ manual from the Internet, cased synagogues and Jewish Agency building”
“This trial has shown the reality of anti-Jewish terrorism in Britain today. It explains why Jewish communities take security and antisemitism seriously,” said Mark Gardner, spokesperson for the Community Security Trust, an organization which provides security advice, infrastructure and manpower to British Jews."

Mellanox provides 562% return on two-year investment

Analysts look ahead at Mellanox, which has provided by far the best return of any technology share on either the TASE or on Wall Street.

Also, the always thought-provoking Diana Muir Appelbaum on Time for Population Separation in Syria.

And the always worthwhile Yaacov Lozowick on his answer to The Map that Lies, and his

NormanF is also asking me to post this.

Photos: Ramadan in Gaza, 2012

This year's edition of Starving Gazan photos:

"Switched at Birth in Gaza?" update

Radio Netherlands addressed the issue I brought up, and I commented further, in my "Switched at Birth in Gaza?" post. Since the post has received thousands of views and is still going strong, I decided to keep the updates in that post itself.

Islamist sites have the best photos

From Qudsmedia, in an article railing against the idea that Israeli law extends to the Temple Mount:

Now if we can just get rid of that ugly spherical thing on the left side....

HuffPo writer insinuates Bulgaria was Israeli "false flag" operation

Sometimes you will run across a self-proclaimed "journalist" who will try to write halfway sober analyses for mainstream, leftist sites and go whole-hog crazy in the unfettered nutcase sites.

Meet Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich.

Her Huffington Post bio page says:

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has a Master's in Public Diplomacy from USC Annenberg for Communication. She is an independent researcher and writer with regular contributions to various online blogs. Soraya is a public speaker and political commentator.

While her articles at HuffPo are sympathetic to Iran, they don't show her crazy side.

Like this:

Netanyahu, one of the most dangerous Israeli leaders, is demanding another war so that he may continue the aggressive usurpation of Palestinian and Arab lands uninterrupted by public opinion and disregard for international laws. The thuggish Netanyahu came to Washington to demand surrender from its puppet master, America, like every other Israeli politician before him. He demands sacrifice from Americans in the firm belief that all sacrifice is justified having witnessed his own brother Yonatan Netanyahu get killed in a 1976 Israeli false flag operation in Entebbe, Uganda.

Lending support to his conviction is the American cover-up of US servicemen murdered by Israel. When the USS Liberty was attacked by Israelis and the servicemen deliberately massacred, the Johnson Administration’s cover-up of the tragic event send a clear message to Israel: American leaders have your back, even if you murder our citizens.

Or when she spouts bizarre conspiracy theories about the United States and Osama Bin Laden.

Or when she describes a secret Jewish conspiracy to fool Americans into loving Jews and Israel in the 1950s and 1960s:

Imperative data indicates that Anti-Semitism in the U.S. was at its peak at the end of WWII. ... One cannot erase from history the fact that the United States was so critical of the Jewish people that Woodrow Wilson was criticized for his nomination of Brandeis to the Supreme Court - he was not considered 'white'. In the 1920s there was widespread discrimination against the Jews including housing and "Christians Only" employment advertisements. What changed?

In the 1950s, during the Cold War, a widespread acceptance of the Jews came about. The change, a geo-political necessity, took place with the help of propaganda. In 1953, John Foster Dulles ...stated that "the world religious community has claims in Jerusalem which take precedence over the political claims of any particular nation." ( Dulles speech, June 1, 1953, Israel Relations (6), Subject Series, Papers of John Foster Dulles, box 10, Eisenhower Library ).

Israel bonded the Christian Americans with the geo-strategically vital oil-rich region. Americans 'ties' to Israel required a unity of religions with a strong sense of belief in the ' Holy Land '. Hollywood helped cement the bond with movies such as "Samson and Delilah" which promoted the Jewish male as strong and masculine and "The Ten Commandments", shown in the Knesset ( Moses and Ben-Gurion," Time, May 30, 1960 ) to cement the bond.

America 's most famous journalist, Edward Murrow (who went on to become the USIA Director in the Kennedy administration), led the way to promoting Jerusalem as the city where Jesus walked. Jerusalem as a territory gained importance, was connected to 20th century America and played in the psyche of the American people. Not long after, the tables were turned on Americans.

So it is not too surprising that this Iran-supporting, Jew-hating "journalist" is being quoted by Russia Today:

RT: But Israel is the victim in this case. Somebody bombed those buses. Do you think there is a legitimate concern that it could be Iran, or who else do you think could be possible suspects here?

SSU: I think many in your audience will know that Israel excels at false flag operations. And in fact in 2004, the New Zealand Herald revealed that Israelis tried to steal New Zealand passports in order to carry out assassinations. And they had stolen Canadian passports to kill members of the Jordanian political elite.

I can’t say for certainty that Israel was behind this or that this was a false flag attack, but I only look at who gains by this operation judging from their past behavior. And to me it does not make sense that Iran would want to carry out this operation.

How equivocal. She's only 98% sure that Israel bombed its own citizens.

(h/t Zach, Lori, and HuffPo Monitor had this as well)

Hamas blaming Egypt, PA for restricting fuel delivery

Ma'an reports:

Egyptian authorities have restricted the amount of Qatari fuel entering the Gaza Strip through an Egyptian crossing with Israel, an Egyptian source said Monday.

While the Al-Ouja crossing in Egypt's northern Sinai has the capacity for ten trucks of fuel per day, Egypt only permits six trucks to cross, the official said, noting that this amount cannot meet Gaza's energy needs.

And Hamas is now also blaming Egypt, not Israel, for the current fuel shortage, saying that it has documented Egyptian fuel trucks arriving late to the Al Ouja crossing while Israeli fuel trucks are waiting to receive it.

Hamas charges that Egypt comes up with new excuses every day for delays and problems, blaming transportation issues, or security issues, or a lack of vehicles. In a statement, Hamas said that it has heard many excuses from Egypt that all indicate that this is a deliberate policy to restrict the amount of fuel going to Gaza.

Moreover, Hamas charged that the amount of fuel that Egypt is claiming to be sending is not matching up with the amount that Israel says it is receiving and shipping to Gaza, demanding an investigation and implying that Egypt is skimming some of the fuel. Interestingly, Hamas is not blaming Israel for doing anything wrong.

The amount of fuel entering Gaza has not been enough to keep the power plants running at close to their capacity.

Another Hamas spokesman decided to blame the PA instead, saying that they are behind the power crisis and charging that they are stopping the implementation of agreements to build power lines to Gaza from Egypt.

Because of these issue, Hamas is bizarrely threatening to not accept fuel from Egypt altogether, presumably to pressure Cairo into opening up Rafah when the photos of Gaza kids with candles go over the wires.

US officials agree Iran behind attack; A'Jad gloats about it (UPDATES)

The NYT reports:

American officials on Thursday identified the suicide bomber responsible for a deadly attack on Israeli vacationers here as a member of a Hezbollah cell that was operating in Bulgaria and looking for such targets, corroborating Israel’s assertions and making the bombing a new source of tension with Iran.

One senior American official said the current American intelligence assessment was that the bomber, who struck Wednesday, killing five Israelis, had been “acting under broad guidance” to hit Israeli targets when opportunities presented themselves, and that the guidance had been given to Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group, by Iran, its primary sponsor. Two other American officials confirmed that Hezbollah was behind the bombing, but declined to provide additional details.

The attacks, the official said, were in retaliation for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, for which Iran has blamed Israeli agents — an accusation that Israel has neither confirmed nor denied. “This was tit for tat,” said the American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way.

A senior Israeli official said on Thursday that the Burgas attack was part of an intensive wave of terrorist attacks around the world carried out by two different organizations, the Iranian Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as well as by Hezbollah.

“They work together when necessary, and separately when not necessary,” the Israeli official told reporters on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss national security issues.

While the Burgas attack fit the modus operandi of Hezbollah, the Israeli official said, it was not clear whether the bomber intended to blow himself up or had suffered what the official called a “work accident,” adding, “We will never know.”

The bomber had a fake Michigan driver’s license, but there are no indications that he had any connection to the United States, the American official said, adding that there were no details yet about the bomber like his name or nationality. He also declined to describe what specific intelligence — intercepted communications, analysis of the bomber’s body parts or other details — that led analysts to conclude that the bomber belonged to Hezbollah.

“This looks like he was hanging out for a local target, and when this popped up he jumped on it,” the official said, referring to a bus carrying Israeli tourists outside the airport in Burgas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a news conference on Thursday in Jerusalem that the attack in Burgas was carried out by “Hezbollah, the long arm of Iran.”

And Iran's president seems to admit it.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gloated publicly on Thursday over the deaths of Israelis in a terror bombing in Bulgaria, and hinted that Iran was responsible for the attack.

Speaking hours after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly blamed the bombing Wednesday at Bulgaria’s Burgas airport on “Hezbollah, directed by Iran,” Ahmadinejad described the attack as “a response” to Israeli “blows against Iran.”

“The bitter enemies of the Iranian people and the Islamic Revolution have recruited most of their forces in order to harm us,” he said in a speech reported by Israel’s Channel 2 TV. “They have indeed succeeded in inflicting blows upon us more than once, but have been rewarded with a far stronger response.”

He added: “The enemy believes it can achieve its aims in a long, persistent struggle against the Iranian people, but in the end it will not. We are working to ensure that.

Ahmadinejad’s speech was interpreted in Israel as asserting that the Burgas bombing was a revenge attack for the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists, for which Iran has repeatedly blamed Israel.

His remarks contrasted with a condemnation of the Burgas bombing by the Iranian Foreign Ministry earlier Thursday.

(h/t Yoel)

UPDATE: The speech was mistranslated, according to the BBC:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not gloating over the Burgas bombing in a speech Thursday in which he spoke of Iran’s enemies getting hit back with greater harm than they cause, the BBC’s Persian Service correspondent in New York said Sunday.

Bahman Kalbasi, a native Persian speaker who follows Ahmadinejad’s speeches closely, said any Persian speaker would confirm that the Iranian president “was in no way referring” to the previous day’s attack in Bulgaria in which five Israelis and a Bulgarian was killed, and which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly blamed on Hezbollah and Iran just hours earlier.

Israel's Channel 2, according to this report, apparently mixed up the tense he was using in their translation of the speech.

Kalbasi said the key sentence was in the future tense, rather than the past — “And if anytime they harm us, we will harm them back. And usually the harm we cause is greater than the harm they cause” — and that Ahmadinejad has said “things like this” many times before.

However, while the description of the speech on the Iranian presidential website uses future tense, the official translation of the speech on the Iran presidential website uses present tense:

President Ahmadinejad said: “The enemy deals a blow to the Iranian nations step by step; but, in return, it receives a stronger, heavier blow."

It is not obvious that Ahmadinejad is talking about Burgas, but the fact that he made this speech the day after the bombing makes that interpretation a reasonable - if arguable - one. "Gloating" may be too strong a word - "strongly hinting" might be more accurate - but given that before Bugras there had been no major successful Iranian attacks against Israeli targets since the wave of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists (and Stuxnet,) I'm not sure how else to interpret the speech.

(h/t Hasbara Buster, Yoel)

Ha'aretz removes idiotic piece by Amira Hass (in English)

On Wednesday, Ha'aretz published a piece by one of their resident Israel-haters, Amira Hass, called "The Anti-Semitism that Goes Unreported:"

Here's a statistic that you won't see in research on anti-Semitism, no matter how meticulous the study is. In the first six months of the year, 154 anti-Semitic assaults have been recorded, 45 of them around one village alone.

...It's no accident that the diligent anti-Semitism researchers have left out this data. That's because they don't see it as relevant, since the Semites who were attacked live in villages with names like Jalud, Mughayer and At-Tuwani, Yanun and Beitilu. The daily dose of terrorizing (otherwise known as terrorism ) that is inflicted on these Semites isn't compiled into a neat statistical report, nor is it noticed by most of the Jewish population in Israel and around the world - even though the incidents resemble the stories told by our grandparents.

This is the especially dumb argument that has been used by anti-semites for years, purposefully ignoring the definition of anti-semitism and the history of the term. Helen Thomas is only one of the more recent morons to push this argument in order to push her own anti-semitic agenda.

Of course, Hass actually engaged in anti-semitism in the article itself, by saying that "They are grabbing as much land as possible, using pretexts and tricks made kosher by the High Court of Justice."

The weird thing is that while the piece was of course gleefully picked up by the usual Israel-haters, it has disappeared from Ha'aretz' website.

As stupid as the piece is, it is a wonder that this is what Ha'aretz decides crosses the line, after all the vicious invective in the newspaper over the years against Judaism, Israel and Zionism.

(h/t Warped Mirror)

UPDATE: :The article is still on the Hebrew Ha'aretz site. (h/t EOL)

The victims

Here are photos of the Israeli victims of the terror attack in Bugras:

The Jerusalem Post has details:

The Interior Ministry on Thursday released the names of the five Israelis : Itzik Colangi, 28, Amir Menashe, 28, Elior Price, 26, Maor Harosh, 25, and Kochava Shriki, 44.

Itzik Colangi and Amir Menashe were good friends from Petah Tikva. Colangi's wife GIlat gave birth to their first child, Noya, four months ago, and his birthday was two weeks ago. The couple decided to celebrate in Burgas with their friends Natalie and Amir Menashe, who have a ten-month-old son, Rom. Gilat was severely injured and Natalie was lightly injured from the terrorist attack, while Itzik and Amir were killed while packing their luggage onto the bus.

Colangi will be buried Friday at 10:30 a.m. at the Segula cemetery in Petah Tikva. Menashe will be buried at the same cemetery at 11:30 a.m. Harosh and Price will both be buried at Nahalat Asher cemetery next to Kefar Mecher at 12:00 p.m. and 15:00 p.m. respectively. Shriki will be buried at the old cemetery in Rishon Lezion at 12:30. Elior Price, a student, and Maor Harosh, an electrician, grew up together in Acre and went on vacation to Bulgaria with another close friend, Daniel Fahima. Harosh and Price were killed, while Fahima was severely injured.

Kochava Shriki of Rishon Lezion, was pregnant for the first time after years of fertility treatments. She gave her family the good news shortly before leaving for vacation in Bulgaria with her husband Yitzhak. After the attack, Yitzhak, who was injured, searched for Kochava in the rubble and in the hospital in Bulgaria, and learned of her death a day later.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

"The children are ready" (video)

From Israel's Temple Institute, to commemorate the beginning of the Nine Days of mourning over the destruction of Jerusalem that starts tonight:

Too many Jews are ceding the holiest place in Judaism while the Muslims fight tooth and nail for it every hour of every day.

We need more videos like this.

(Plus, the idea that Islamists might see this and freak out makes it well worth posting.)

Meanwhile, the Im Tirtzu video that I created subtitles for last month now has an official English version:

Israel saving the world, again

From Israel21C:

“Monoclonal antibodies” may sound like a great name for a heavy-metal band, but actually they’re the basis of best-selling pharmaceuticals raking in about $50 billion dollars a year.

The two-year-old Israeli company Immune Pharmaceuticals is fast emerging as a leader in developing new ways to use these antibodies, which are found in drugs such as Herceptin for breast cancer, Remicade to treat autoimmune diseases and Erbitux for head, neck and colorectal cancer.

“We are building an Israel-based Center of Excellence for Monoclonal Antibody Drug Development with access to best-in-class novel technologies from world-class academic institutions including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science,” says founder and CEO Daniel Teper. “We expect to initiate collaborative research programs with biotech and pharmaceutical companies later this year.”

Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science played a significant role in developing these drugs, which are prescribed selectively to patients likely to respond best. “This is a big step up from the 1990s, when everyone with a certain disease got the same drug,” says Teper.

Today’s monoclonal antibody drugs must be administered together with chemotherapy, which often is effective but can cause significant collateral damage.

At the recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, the buzz was about new drugs combining the power of anti-cancer drugs with the targeting abilities of antibodies. The first generation of those drugs, antibody drug conjugates, is now being approved for resistant cases of Hodgkin’s disease and breast cancer.

Immune is going one step further, using nanotechnology and biotechnology to deliver existing and new cancer drugs more safely and effectively.

While currently only a few chemo pharmaceuticals can be attached to each antibody, Immune’s “guided missile” system “puts thousands of toxic drug molecules inside a nanoparticle like a spaceship, so it’s imprisoned until it gets to the cancerous tissue,” says Teper.

The method was developed by a team under Hebrew University Pharmacy School dean Shimon Benita, who chairs Immune’s scientific advisory board. Immune licensed it from the university’s technology transfer company.

“It has a double targeting mechanism — it goes through vessels into tissue, and the antibody gets it right into the cell. People are now saying the future of medicine, and specifically the future of treating cancer, is in the targeted missile.”