Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Virulent discourse between the two sides (ElderToons)

International aid pledged to rebuild Gaza has not been forthcoming:

Donors have been urged to meet their financial pledges to fund the reconstruction of Gaza following the conflict with Israel last year.

The appeal was made by the UN deputy head of political affairs, Jens Toyberg-Frandzen during a briefing to the Security Council on Thursday.

Last year, international donors pledged US$5.4 billion at a conference held in Cairo Egypt.

"Most pressingly, donors have largely failed to fulfil their pledges, three months after the Cairo conference. This has severely handicapped the ability of the Government of Palestine, the United Nations and other development actors on the ground to make significant progress on recovery and reconstruction work. The importance of donors urgently meeting their pledges cannot be overstated."

One of the major reasons is that Fatah and Hamas are attacking each other.

On Tuesday:

Unidentified assailants blew up a private car belonging to a security officer of the former Hamas-run government in Gaza City early on Tuesday morning.

Initial investigations suggest that an improvised explosive device was set under the vehicle which was parked in front of the officer's house.

Today:

Unidentified assailants blew up a car belonging to a Fatah leader in Gaza City early Thursday.

Witnesses told a Ma'an reporter that a vehicle belonging to Ahmad Alwan went up in flames after a flammable substance was poured on it.

The incident is the latest in a series of attacks on the cars and homes of Fatah leaders in the Gaza Strip, where many are angry over the failure of the Fatah-dominated PA to hold Israel accountable for its promises to ease the blockade.

But even though the blame for the current Gaza problems is squarely because of infighting and the donors' reluctance to send money to kleptocrats and terrorists in Gaza, Hamas still stages photo-ops to blame Israel.

Dozens of Palestinian children protested against the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip at the coastal enclave's port on Wednesday, hoping to highlight the effects of a blockade entering its eight year.

The protest came as part of a series of rallies across the Gaza Strip designed to draw attention to the Israeli siege and how it has prevented the reconstruction of Gaza in the wake of Israel's 50-day summer war that destroyed tens of thousands of homes.

Israel is transferring whatever materials that are being paid for. The issue is the money, not any Israeli "siege." And the money isn't coming because Hamas and the PA are playing power games.

Good luck getting the media (and NGOs) to push back on the false "siege" narrative, though.

UPDATE: Buzzfeed had this earlier this week:

A U.N. spokesman told BuzzFeed News that out of $5.4 billion pledged to Gaza following the war, only $100 million has actually been delivered.

During the conference in Cairo in October 2014, Qatar promised $USD 1 billion and Saudi Arabia $USD 500 million. The United States and the European Union pledged a combined $USD 780 million. Along with a myriad of other Arab States, the total in pledged funds was $5.4 billion – of this total, only $100 million has been received. All of it, said U.N. officials, has come from European states.
“The Arab countries haven’t paid anything until now,” Mufeed al-Hasayna, the Palestinian housing minister, told Reuters last month. “The Europeans just a few millions, maybe something from the Swedes.”

Representatives from donor states would not comment on the lack of delivered funds when contacted by BuzzFeed News. One, who only spoke off-record, said it had become increasingly difficult to transfer money to the Gaza Strip due to the lack of progress made in reconciliation between Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), in the West Bank.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Party with UNRWA and help support their pro-terror, antisemitic activities!

Next week, you can party with UNRWA in Washington DC at The Gryphon!

It isn't only fun, but part of your money goes to UNRWA, where it will do so much good:

Using Muslim teachings to instruct kids to hate Jews
Paying teachers who deny the Holocaust
Raising children to want to go on violent jihad
Redefining the concept of "peace" to cover up for the hate that they teach
Paying full-time professional liars
Turning ordinary student elections into propaganda
Painting pictures of terrorists on school walls
Supporting teachers who praise Hitler for genocide
Teach kids every single day that Israel has no right to exist

What a great way to spend a Wednesday night!

Maybe, just maybe, some people who care about real human rights and real peace will decide that they can spend that Wednesday night protesting an UNRWA fundraiser.

After all, why should Zionists be the only ones nervous about protesters marring their social events?

01/21 Link Pt2: “I Am Nisman”; Argentine Hostel Popular With Israelis in Violent Antisemitic Attack

From Ian:

“I Am Nisman”

Nisman had been building the case against Iran and Hezbollah for their involvement in the AMIA bombing since 2005. In May 2013, he issued a lengthy indictment charging one Lebanese Hezbollah operative and seven Iranians, including former President Akbar Rafsanjani, with involvement in the attack. One of the Iranians indicted, Mohsen Rezaei, is currently a high official in the Iranian government, while others have served it in diplomatic and military capacities. The indictment came only months after the Kirchner government entered a controversial agreement with the Iranian government agreeing to establish a “Truth Commission” to examine the AMIA bombing.
At the time, President Cristina Kirchner hailed the agreement as a historic one that “guarantees the right to due process of law, a fundamental principle of international criminal law.” It would have allowed five judges (none Argentine or Iranian) to question those allegedly involved in the bombing, offering effective immunity for the perpetrators. Last year, an Argentine federal court barred the implementation of the agreement and ordered the courts to reinstate all extradition orders against the suspects in the bombing.
This is why Argentines are taking to the streets demanding, “Enough with the lies.” It is not simply because the Argentine government dragged its feet in investigating the bombing two decades ago, and it is not because justice has been so woefully delayed in this case. It is because Alberto Nisman, the principal champion of the truth in this sordid affair, stood ready to present evidence that the Kirchner government attempted to trade impunity for oil, and he paid for it with his life.
Initial reports detected no gunpowder residue on Nisman’s hand. The only note found in his apartment seems to have been one he left for his housekeeper: a shopping list for the coming week. Friends, colleagues, and journalists alike report that Nisman did not appear to be suicidal. Yet he did appear to be aware that his days were numbered. “I might come out of this dead,” he told reporters on several occasions. One can only hope that in the weeks and months to come, the people of Argentina continue to pressure their government for the truth, uncompromised and uncorrupted by deals with criminals.

Argentine Hostel Popular With Israelis Targeted in Violent Antisemitic Attack

A group of Israeli tourists has been forced to leave a hostel in Lago Puelo, a national park in Argentina’s Patagonia region, following a violent antisemitic attack which left ten people injured.
Argentine newspaper Clarín reported that three assailants carried out the attack against the Onda Azul hostel, which is popular with Israeli backpackers. Sergio Polak, the owner of the hostel, said, “There were several hours of terror. They shouted, ‘f***ing Jews, you are stealing Patagonia.’”
Israeli website 0404 reported that there were no casualties among the Israeli group, comprised of youngsters who have just completed their army service. However, Polak confirmed that there had been “serious damage” to his property and that the assailants had also stolen the belongings of several guests.
In a separate radio interview, Polak said that the assailants were locals and had been identified. He added that this was not the first time that his hostel had been the target of an antisemitic attack, noting that two cabins had been burned down during the Jewish holiday period in October last year by an assailant who threw a Molotov cocktail. Polak also said that INADI, Argentina’s official anti-discrimination body, had received several complaints in recent weeks concerning antisemitic behavior and attitudes on the part of several local hoteliers and businesses.
Another hostel popular with Israelis in the town of Bariloche, also in Patagonia, was targeted by local antisemites last year, who warned the owners not to accept Israeli tourists. In 2012, the Chabad House in Bariloche, another popular hangout for Israelis, was targeted three times in a single month.

Orim Shimshon: Moderate Muslim mask slips and reveals Jew hatred

FYI: Orim is talking about Ammar Nakshawani, described in Wikipedia as:
"Ammar Nakshawani (born 1981) is a British Iraqi Islamic historian, lecturer, and author. He is listed as one of the The 500 Most Influential Muslims, and is the youngest person on the list at the age of 32. He is one of the most discussed English language Shia speakers in the world today."

AFP reports:

A leading Islamic organisation has called on the United Nations to make "contempt of religions" illegal and urged the West to protect Muslim communities following the attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars, headed by influential preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, appealed to Muslims to continue peaceful protests against images of the Prophet Mohammed but "not to resort to any violence".

The latest cartoon of the prophet in Charlie Hebdo has angered many Muslims and triggered protests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

In a statement released Tuesday, the union said there should be protection for "prophets" and urged Islamic countries to submit a draft law to the UN calling for defamation of religions to be outlawed.

The union said the UN should then issue a "law criminalising contempt of religions and the prophets and all the holy sites".

In 2004, Qaradawi said:

Judaism is the No. 1 propagator of violence. As I said in the last program, the Torah itself states that when you enter a certain country, you must offer peace, and if they agree, all their residents are your slaves. In other countries, you should not offer peace or conversion. You must destroy them all, do not leave a living soul. In the first country you must slay all males and leave only the women, but in the second country, you must not leave… you must uproot them. This is in Judaism, in the Torah.

He is not saying that Jews are violent, but that Judaism is violent. Sounds defamatory to me!

Arrest that man!

After all, many Muslim countries already have a law against "defamation of religion" in place. Yet defaming Judaism or Christianity is never prosecuted.

I guess when Muslims say they wan tto outlaw "defamation of religions" they really mean "defamation of Islam."

Arab nations, specifically the OIC, has tried numerous times (with varying success) to get the UN to issue statements against defamation of religion. If you want to see how deep Muslim control of the UN is, see this 2011 post about how Arab nations got Brazil to abstain on these votes, rather than to opposed them.

Palestinians Form Elite Unit To Cry For Foreign Cameras (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Palestinians Form Elite Unit To Cry For Foreign Cameras

The first group of alumni is scheduled to perform for a compliant video crew from the BBC next week

Hebron, January 21 - After an embarrassing incident in which a woman was caught on camera being coached to cry just so when Western media personnel were present, the Palestine Liberation Organization has established a crack unit of agents specially trained in producing the necessary heart-rending sobs and wails without the potential awkwardness of it appearing staged.

The incident in question occurred earlier this week in Hebron, where Israeli troops were enforcing an order to seal off an empty house from which firebombs had been thrown. In a video distributed by pro-Palestinian activists, an elderly woman could be seen and heard weeping over the loss of access to her family's home that they had inhabited for "hundreds of years." However, a wider, more comprehensive recording of the incident emerged showing the woman being coached outside the frame of the other camera's view, indicating a setup to exploit the moment rather than an authentic episode.

Palestinians have long exploited Western media to play to the viewers' emotions, and the media personnel have largely played along in pursuit of a compelling story, if not outright sympathy for the Palestinian cause. The ubiquity of mobile devices with video capability, along with footage from surveillance cameras, has occasionally served to expose the rehearsed, contrived nature of confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli forces, a phenomenon known as "Pallywood."

To forestall such fiascos, the PLO has now trained a cadre of actors to portray the victims in the set-piece drama for the benefit of Western audiences, journalists, and activists. Cultural and religious sensibilities initially threatened the project, which was not budgeted to account for separate programs for male and female participants, but a last-minute infusion of funding from Qatar helped secure the necessary personnel. The first group of alumni is scheduled to perform for a compliant video crew from the BBC next week, though the venue has not been disclosed.

A Palestinian official speaking on condition of anonymity suggested the location would be an olive orchard, a tried-and-true venue for libeling Jewish settlers over cut-down trees. He said, however, that the backstory had yet to be fleshed out. One faction of the creative team favors an elderly man and his descendants glumly surveying olive tree stumps, while another favors the more dramatic picture of having people dressed like Jews "caught" in the act of felling the trees and fleeing when confronted.

If successful, the organizers intend to deploy the unit across areas of friction with the IDF, especially where homes are demolished either for their illegal construction or their use as a base for terrorist activities. Those scenes will call for more of the heart-rending weeping and cried of desperation, skills that the members of the unit have honed intensely. Shortly thereafter, officials see daily incidents in which Israeli drivers will be filmed "running over" Palestinians and leaving them for dead.

An earlier program to train Palestinians to pretend to attack Israelis, and thus provoke them into violence that would them be filmed, was scrapped when the trainees repeatedly ignored the "pretend" element and used deadly materials such as Molotov cocktails and improvised firearms.

01/21 Link Pt1: Hamas's Liberation Army, Thanks to the EU; "State of Palestine" Army thanks to the US

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas Forms "Liberation Army" in Gaza, Thanks to EU Support

The Palestinian Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, has intensified its efforts to achieve the destruction of Israel.
Hamas has obviously interpreted these two decisions -- by the EU court (to remove Hamas from the list of terror organizations) and the International Criminal Court -- as a green light to proceed with its plans to eliminate Israel.
The main goal of Hamas's "Liberation Army" is, of course, to prepare for war against Israel, according to Hamas spokesman, Mushir al-Masri. "The main purpose of these training camps is to prepare an army for the liberation of Palestine and its holy sites in the near future."
The EU court that removed Hamas from its list of terror groups has committed a crime not only against Israel, but also against the Palestinian teenagers who are being trained as jihadists in the movement's camps throughout the Gaza Strip.
The happy feeling among Hamas leaders is that the Europeans and the ICC are helping them achieve their goal of wiping Israel off the face of the earth.

The West Bank Army of the "State of Palestine," Thanks to the United States

Last week, officials from the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem attended a Palestinian protest over Israel's removal of olive trees illegally planted in the West Bank. Coordinated with the Palestinian Authority [PA] but not Israel, the Consulate personnel ended up clashing with Israelis living nearby. It was, perhaps, the quietest international almost-incident you never heard of.
This week, with the focus off Paris, the Middle East Quartet (the U.S., EU, Russia & the UN) plans to meet. The U.S. Consulate's determination to provide the trappings of Palestinian statehood to the PA outside the negotiating process should come under scrutiny.
The olive tree incident prompted an article in the Israeli press about the Consulate, including the use of Palestinian security, rather than IDF combat veterans as required by a 2011 agreement. Some IDF guards were fired, according to the article. Others resigned, blaming the appointment of a new consulate security officer, who they said, established a Palestinian armed militia. "He is training them with weapons, combat and tactical exercises. There is a lack of responsibility here - who ensures that such weapons, once given over to Palestinian guards, won't make their way to terror groups?"

Palestinian stabs Tel Aviv commuters in terror attack

A Palestinian man stabbed commuters on a Tel Aviv bus during rush hour Wednesday morning, injuring some 17 people, several seriously, police said.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said it was a terror attack.
Four of the victims were hospitalized in serious condition, another five were left in a moderate condition, and the remaining were lightly injured according to media reports.
The attacker was identified as a Palestinian from the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 23. He was shot after a short chase, during which he continued to stab people on the street, and taken into police custody.
He was named later as Hamza Matrouk, 23, a resident of the West Bank refugee camp of Tulkarem. He had crossed into Israel illegally. Matrouk said he was motivated to carry out the terror attack by the Israel-Hamas war this summer, and recent tensions surrounding the Temple Mount. He also said he had seen and been influenced by material promising paradise to “martyrs” who kill Jews, investigators who questioned him said.

Tel Aviv: Another Target of Terrorism

From The Wall Street Journal, a book review of two new books on Nazi Germany, ATATÜRK IN THE NAZI IMAGINATION by Stefan Ihrig and ISLAM AND NAZI GERMANY’S WAR by David Motadel.
:

‘It’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion,” Hitler complained to his pet architect Albert Speer. “Why did it have to be Christianity, with its meekness and flabbiness?” Islam was a Männerreligion—a “religion of men”—and hygienic too. The “soldiers of Islam” received a warrior’s heaven, “a real earthly paradise” with “houris” and “wine flowing.” This, Hitler argued, was much more suited to the “Germanic temperament” than the “Jewish filth and priestly twaddle” of Christianity.

For decades, historians have seen Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 as emulating Mussolini ’s 1922 March on Rome. Not so, says Stefan Ihrig in “Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination.” Hitler also had Turkey in mind—and not just the 1908 march of the Young Turks on Constantinople, which brought down a government. After 1917, the bankrupt, defeated and cosmopolitan Ottoman Empire contracted into a vigorous “Turanic” nation-state. In the early 1920s, the new Turkey was the first “revisionist” power to opt out of the postwar system, retaking lost lands on the Syrian coast and control over the Strait of the Dardanelles. Hitler, Mr. Ihrig writes, saw Turkey as the model of a “prosperous and völkisch modern state.”

Through the 1920s and 1930s, Nazi publications lauded Turkey as a friend and forerunner. In 1922, for example, the Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi Party’s weekly paper, praised Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the “Father of the Turks,” as a “real man,” embodying the “heroic spirit” and the Führerprinzip, or führer principle, that demanded absolute obedience. Atatürk’s subordination of Islam to the state anticipated Hitler’s strategy toward Christianity. The Nazis presented Turkey as stronger for having massacred its Armenians and expelling its Greeks. “Who,” Hitler asked in August 1939, “speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?”

...
As David Motadel writes in “Islam and Nazi Germany’s War,” Muslims fought on both sides in World War II. But only Nazis and Islamists had a political-spiritual romance. Both groups hated Jews, Bolsheviks and liberal democracy. Both sought what Michel Foucault, praising the Iranian Revolution in 1979, would later call the spiritual-political “transfiguration of the world” by “combat.” The caliph, the Islamist Zaki Ali explained, was the “führer of the believers.” “Made by Jews, led by Jews—therewith Bolshevism is the natural enemy of Islam,” wrote Mahomed Sabry, a Berlin-based propagandist for the Muslim Brotherhood in “Islam, Judaism, Bolshevism,” a book that the Reich’s propaganda ministry recommended to journalists.

By late 1941, Germany controlled large Muslim populations in southeastern Europe and North Africa. Nazi policy extended the grand schemes of imperial Germany toward madly modern ends. To aid the “liberation struggle of Islam,” the propaganda ministry told journalists to praise “the Islamic world as a cultural factor,” avoid criticism of Islam, and substitute “anti-Jewish” for “anti-Semitic.” In April 1942, Hitler became the first European leader to declare that Islam was “incapable of terrorism.” As usual, it is hard to tell if the Führer set the tone or merely amplified his people’s obsessions.

... The Palestinian Arab leader Haj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, recruited thousands of these “Musligermanics” as the first non-Germanic volunteers for the SS. Soviet prisoners of Turkic origin volunteered too. In November 1944, Himmler and the Mufti created an SS-run school for military imams at Dresden.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, the founder of Palestinian nationalism, is notorious for his efforts to persuade the Nazis to extend their genocide of the Jews to the Palestine Mandate. The Mufti met Hitler and Himmler in Berlin in 1941 and asked the Nazis to guarantee that when the Wehrmacht drove the British from Palestine, Germany would establish an Arab regime and assist in the “removal” of its Jews. Hitler replied that the Reich would not intervene in the Mufti’s kingdom, other than to pursue their shared goal: “the annihilation of Jewry living in Arab space.” The Mufti settled in Berlin, befriended Adolf Eichmann, and lobbied the governments of Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria to cancel a plan to transfer Jews to Palestine. Subsequently, some 400,000 Jews from these countries were sent to death camps.

Mr. Motadel describes the Mufti’s Nazi dealings vividly, but he also excels in unearthing other odious and fascinating characters. Among them: Zeki Kiram, the Ottoman officer turned disciple of Rashid Rida, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood; and Johann von Leers, a Nazi professor who converted to Islam and became Omar Amin, an anti-Semitic publicist for Nasser ’s Egypt.

This review is being translated to Arabic websites, without comment.

Did Obama really "halt the progress" of Iran towards nukes?

In President Obama's State of the Union address, he said:

Our diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where, for the first time in a decade, we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material. Between now and this spring, we have a chance to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran; secures America and our allies - including Israel; while avoiding yet another Middle East conflict. There are no guarantees that negotiations will succeed, and I keep all options on the table to prevent a nuclear Iran. But new sanctions passed by this Congress, at this moment in time, will all but guarantee that diplomacy fails - alienating America from its allies; and ensuring that Iran starts up its nuclear program again. It doesn’t make sense. That is why I will veto any new sanctions bill that threatens to undo this progress. The American people expect us to only go to war as a last resort, and I intend to stay true to that wisdom.

The fact is that the interim agreement included loopholes for Iran to continue its quest for nuclear weapons - and the delivery systems for them.

Here's a chart that describes it with footnotes:

[1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/23/fact-sheet-first-step-understandings-regarding-islamic-republic-iran-s-n
[2] http://hibbs.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1748/reconverting-irans-u3o8-to-uf6
[3] http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/analysis-of-status-of-irans-compliance-with-the-joint-plan-of-action/
[4] http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-americans-have-very-clearly-surrendered/
[5] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/01/236076.htm
[6] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2015-01/11/c_133911462.htm
[7] http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931023001531
[8] http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-11-27/us-backs-iran-claim-that-some-work-ok-at-arak-site
[9] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/us-iran-nuclear-arak-idUSBRE9AQ0U120131127
[10] http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/uk-iran-nuclear-arak-idUKBRE9AQ0AC20131127
[11] http://freebeacon.com/national-security/white-house-iranian-ballistic-missile-test-not-a-deal-killer/
[12] http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-still-on-track-for-2015-icbm-flight-test/

Obama is also not being honest about the nature of the "new sanctions" being considered in Congress. Josh Block of The Israel project responds (received via email):

Those are ridiculous claims. First, the bill imposes no sanctions on Iran during talks whatsoever. If there is a deal by 6/30 -- a deadline the president set and says will tell us if Iran is willing to make a deal or not -- there are no sanctions.

Second, it is totally counter-intuitive to suggest that Iran will walk away nuclear talks it desperately needs to save its broken economy because of some sanctions that will never come into being if there is an agreement -- which they claim they want.

Like past dire claims -- like central bank sanctions will drive the world into recession or oil prices will soar to $250 a barrel (yes they really said these things) these latest inexplicable claims are worthless and false.

(Chart courtesy TIP)

Of course Abbas is responsible for incitement to terror

One could almost hear the eye-rolls among the intelligentsia in the State Department, EU and Ha'aretz when Netanyahu made his statement about this morning's knife attack on a Tel Aviv bus:

In a statement released by his office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blames the Palestinian Authority for the stabbing attack.

“The attack in Tel Aviv is the direct result of the poisonous incitement spread by the Palestinian Authority toward the Jews and their state. The same terror tries to harm us in Paris, Brussels, and everywhere.”

This poster was published on the Fatah Facebook page this week with Fatah's official logo:

We began with stones and we will end up with a state
Palestinian National Liberation Movement

This is the "non-violence" that Abbas is instructing his people to perform.

And if you claim that Abbas has nothing to do with the Facebook page of the organization he heads, remember that only a couple of weeks ago when the mainstream media actually noticed one of their posters inciting Arabs to genocide against Jews, Fatah took the poster down..

Abbas doesn't just encourage Facebook posters. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades groups - considered terror organizations - still say they are loyal to Abbas' Fatah party, and still openly parade with their weapons in West Bank cities along with the Fatah flag.

Have you ever heard of any groups that are against violence parading in cities controlled by the PA? Has there ever been a Fatah "peace march?"

The incitement to terror and war is constant and thoroughly embedded in Mahmoud Abbas' political party and in the streets of the areas under his control. This is one of the least reported stories in the mainstream media, because no one wants to admit (or believe) that Abbas is just as supportive of terror as Hamas leaders are and that his statements against terror are window dressing for Western ears.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)
.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Free speech, Arab style

Three separate stories within the past day:

A Tunisian military court sentenced blogger Yassine Ayari to a year in prison Tuesday for defaming the military, in a case that has been criticized by human rights groups.

The 33-year-old was arrested on December 25 on his return from Paris, following an initial three-year sentence handed down the previous month in his absence.

Ayari told the court before the new ruling that the charges were a "settling of scores against me for criticizing officers in the army."

He had accused officers and defense ministry officials of financial abuse.

-----------

Kuwait has scrapped the commercial license of leading newspaper al-Watan, which has been highly critical of the government, citing its failure to comply with legally required financial terms.

Al-Watan, owned by a member of the al-Sabah ruling family, said on its website, which was still operating, that it had challenged the decision in court.

An urgent hearing had been set for Wednesday, it said.

The decision was issued late Monday by the ministry of commerce and industry, which said the newspaper had violated minimum capital requirements.

------------

Prominent Shiite activist Nabeel Rajab was Tuesday sentenced to six months in prison after a Bahraini court found him guilty of insulting public institutions in his tweets, a judicial source said.

But Rajab, who was released from custody one month after his arrest on October 1, could stay out of prison on bail if he pays 200 dinars (530 dollars), the source told AFP, citing the court ruling.

Yes, all in one day.

01/20 Links Pt2: Noam Chomsky, Please Shut Up; Two Rabbis Question Anjem Choudry

From Ian:

Noam Chomsky, Please Shut Up

The professor of linguistics at MIT loves the attention he gets from his extreme views on a variety of subjects (none of which, oddly enough, is in linguistics, his actual field of expertise.) And for reasons we cannot quite fathom, the mainstream media love giving space to his ridiculous notions. This time, as the world mourns the horrible terrorist attacks in Paris, CNN gives him a stage to voice his opinion that these cold-blooded murders are really no different that Western military actions in Serbia and Iraq.
But, as always, his favorite target is Israel. Hence his bizarre comparison of the attacks to Israel’s fight against the terrorist group Hamas.
Did Chomsky somehow see a different conflict from his lofty perch at MIT than the rest of us? Or does he really think that the thousands of rockets, the terror tunnels, the murder of the three Israeli teens, and the other terror attacks endorsed by Hamas are inconsequential?
One wonders how close his “examination” was if somewhere in his convoluted thinking he can compare those who were murdered in Paris with those who support murderers in Gaza.
A few years ago, we posted excerpts of an article by Robin Sheppard on Israel’s ban on Chomsky, and how some in the mainstream media embrace his oddball, ranting views.

IsraellyCool: What Happens When Two Rabbis Question Anjem Choudry (Updated)

Including a wonderful riff on the classic line… what has Islam ever done for us! I love Ari & Jeremy! Stop whatever you’re doing and listen to all of this NOW! (Updated to include the FULL show including the discussion after Anjem leaves).
Update: I’ve now listened twice, I posted before I even completed the whole show. I’m going to sort out a time to go on the show with Jeremy and Ari because there is so much to say about Anjem Choudry’s Islam. I’ve always felt that it isn’t for us infidels to define Islam. Islam is defined for us by the actions of its followers. If they don’t impact us, that’s great. But where the actions of Muslims impact directly on the lives of those who do not want to follow Islam, that’s where I’m interested.
It’s not for me (or Barak Obama) to say what is or isn’t real Islam. But when someone professes his faith and clearly explains the actions he will take (if given the chance) toward people who DO NOT want to follow his faith, I think we should listen very carefully.

Ryan Bellerose: Ryan’s Ark: Building A Better Boat

Last night Kasim Hafeez came and spread his message of hope and truth to Calgary. If you haven’t heard him speak, you do not know what you are missing.
I think his message is important: to understand that “muslim Zionists” are not as rare as you may think, but they are often silenced. It is important to support the moderate people who speak up because they are often hit from both sides, and most importantly to reach out to anyone who is willing to talk honestly and openly and to not waste time with those who are not.
I am rarely as impressed with someone as I was with Kaz. We went for supper beforehand and chatted about the state of advocacy in general, and his insights were brilliant. But I’m biased because at some point I felt like I was talking to myself.

After Sodastream: Another Israeli company is advertising in the Super Bowl

After last year's smash hit Sodastream ad, another Israeli company - Wix - is preparing a Super Bowl ad this year with 30-second spot in the fourth quarter.

Wix allows anyone to make attractive websites. Here is how they describe their Super Bowl plans:

While we can’t give away too much… we certainly can’t keep all the details to ourselves. The ingredients go a little something like this: it’s 5 parts NFL legends, another five parts quirky small businesses (to be revealed soon), one part TV star (can you guess who?) and some laughs thrown in for good measure.

We don’t mean to name drop but Brett Favre, Terrell Owens, Emmitt Smith, Larry Allen and Franco Harris just happen to be our new BFFs. They also just happen to be proud owners of brand new businesses that just may surprise you.

We could go on and on, but we think we’ll just let Terrell Owens and his friend Matty Matheson give you a taste of what they’re baking:

OK, the message isn't exactly as clear as Scarlett Johansson's

Will there be a groundswell of BDSers going crazy over Wix this year? Well, ask Cornell University Students for Justice in Palestine, who proudly use the Israeli technology in Wix - and hilariously justify it.

I also found a number of other BDS sites and anti-Israel sites who rely on Wix for their webpages.

Good old BDS hypocrites. They hate everything to do with Israel - until they want to use it themselves.

2015 Hasby Award: Best English Language Pro-Israel Media Outlet

This year's nominations for Best English Language Pro-Israel Outlet are:

Algemeiner

Israel HaYom

Jewish Press

Tablet

JPost

Israel21c

Mosaic Magazine

YNet

Arutz7

(Previous winners: Times of Israel and The Tower)

And the winner of the Hasby Award goes to....

01/20 Links Pt1: UN, EU Think Oslo Accords Bind Only Israel; Fighting Hamas and The Hague

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Iran and Hezbollah

Imagine that the sword-rattling speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that aired Friday on Lebanon TV was backed up by an Iranian patron with an atomic bomb.
Nasrallah bragged about Hezbollah’s ability to strike every inch of Israel with advanced, long-distance rockets that were not in its possession back in 2006. What if these missiles were placed under Iran’s nuclear umbrella? Iran with a nuclear-weapon capability would radically change Israel’s military calculations. Operations like the one carried out on Sunday would have to be reconsidered in light of a whole new set of dangers. Even if Iran never used a nuclear weapon, the very fact that it had one would transform its international status.
Even a country like North Korea, that has a tiny, failed economy and a starved population, gains the attention of the world solely because it has a nuclear weapon. In the case of Iran, not only would possessing nuclear arms mean power – it would mean the empowerment of madmen like Assad, who used chemical weapons against his own people, and Nasrallah, who dragged Lebanon into a pointless war with Israel.
Israel’s reputed air strike in Syria and the potential for fallout is a diversion from the real challenge: preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

JCPA: The Attack in the Golan Exposes Iran's Growing Presence along Israel's Borders

In an official statement, Hizbullah threatened that its response “would be painful and unexpected.” Hizbullah’s media outlet, al-Manar, reported: “Tel Aviv is playing with fire which would threaten the security of the whole Middle East.” Unidentified sources quoted by the Lebanese daily al-Safir, assessed that the response would be “controlled and would stop short of an escalation leading to an all-out war.” In parallel, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Muhammad Zarif condemned the operation attributed to Israel but he refrained to issuing a concrete threat against Israel.
Ayatollah Mahari, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s personal representative, called upon the world and its religious authorities — including the Sunni center of al-Azhar — to condemn the attack against “the heroes of Hizbullah.” Mahari stressed that the attack exposed Israel’s failure to thwart the Iranian achievements in the nuclear negotiations by means of a provocation against Tehran. Mahari expressed his hope that Hizbullah would respond wisely. Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Iranian National Security Council, promised that Hizbullah would respond at a convenient time and place.
The fact that at least three high-ranking IRGC officers were killed in the attack highlights once more that Iran perceives Syria and Lebanon as Tehran’s first line of defense against Israel. Iran has repeatedly demonstrated its steadfastness towards Syria and Hizbullah as it enjoys the strategic-military and political benefits arising from maintaining its ongoing radical military and political presence in Syria. Assistance to Syria and Hizbullah and an active ground presence in both countries are seen as additional expressions of Iran’s national defense doctrine. This is meant to distance the Iranian homeland from any threat and to conduct the campaign against Israel and the West in areas distant from Iran’s borders.

Slain Iranian was planning Hezbollah missile base — report

The Iranian general who was killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike near the border with the Golan Heights on Sunday was a ballistic missile expert who was visiting Syria as part of a project to set up a missile base near the border with Israel, according to a Tuesday report.
General Mohammed Ali Allahdadi, whom Tehran acknowledged was killed in an Israeli missile strike near the Syrian city of Quneitra along with several Hezbollah fighters, was tasked with building four new Hezbollah missile bases near the Israel-Syria frontier, the London-based Times reported.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed that Allahdadi was ostensibly dispatched to Syria “provide military advice to Syrian government and nation in their war with Takfirist and Salafist (radical Sunni) terrorists, and provided valuable analysis and advice in neutralizing the plots of this Zionist-backed conspiracy in the Syrian soil.”

Karen Armstrong is a historian and "religion expert" who is a consistent apologist for radical Islam, and a frequent guest on TV programs. She has a lucrative career speaking and writing about religion.

In a recent interview, she makes this outrageous claim:

We’re piling all the violence of the 21st Century on the back of religion, sending it away, saying we have nothing to do with religion. While we still have to deal with the political situation. The supermarket attack in Paris was about Palestine, about Isis. It had nothing to do with antisemitism; many of them are Semites themselves. But they attempt to conquer Palestine and we’re not talking about that. We’re too implicated and we don’t know what to do with it.

Are the kosher-consumer French Jews guilty because they support Jews living in their historic homeland, or because most of them will end up moving to Israel because of these types of attacks on their stores and schools and synagogues that have nothing to do with anyone hating Jews?

OK, maybe the "they" in that sentence referred only to Jews in general, or unnamed "Zionists." Her use of the incredibly stupid "they are semites themselves" argument shows that Armstrong has no intellectual honesty whatsoever.

Who knows what goes through her mind as she tries to justify widespread Arab antisemitism and incitement (as I have documented time and time again)? Clearly, Armstrong doesn't care about the human rights of Jews to make a statement like this.

When you use "scholarship" to consistently justify terrorism and tear down others, then it isn't scholarship.

(h/t Yair Rosenberg)

An article by Dr. Azh Ahmed Heikal in Al Wafd starts with Shakespearean antisemitism and then goes downhill from there.

The Shylock character in «The Merchant of Venice» by William Shakespeare is the finest embodiment of the Jewish character, which reflects his greed and hatred and desire for bloody revenge better than any other...

The famous comedy shows how Europe dealt with the Jews until they reached Hitler's alleged Holocaust in World War II but there was a [real] Holocaust when global Zionism united in the land of Palestine, claiming it was the Promised Land. Zionism managed to penetrate the world economy and media in European countries, in the US and through US policies in banks and the stock exchange and satellite channels owned by the largest Zionist families who act like Shylock to cut the flesh of innocent people and shed blood, a triumphant and euphoric endeavor under the glare of all international and global organizations that have passed laws to prevent and punish anyone who dares to refute the Holocaust deny it as if it was a holy book. There is woe and punishment, war and imprisonment for anyone thinking anything bad or rude in words or hints of any Shylock or any Jewish Zionist from near or far ...

...Pictures of Netanyahu Prime Minister of the global Jewish state of Israel, wearing a yarmulke and his fellow Jews, who have declared a war against Semitism and Islam and Islamists who are the real enemies of the Jews and humanity while Jews are peaceful always ..
As the Holocaust was a gateway to more blood on the land of the Arabs, the Charlie incident will be an excuse to Western intervention in the Arab world after the Arab Spring has failed and the growing influence and power of religious militias, which appeared even give Israel the political justification and legal cover in the creation of the Jewish religious state in the occupied Arab Jerusalem under international cover...

This is only a sample. But even this doesn't go quite as far as Palestinian Arab Hisham Munawar in Al Quds, who goes through an elaborate conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the terror attacks in France to begin with.

As usual, the enlightened Western intelligentsia is silent about the unbridled antisemitism and incitement that comes out of the Arab world, incitement that directly leads to murders of Jews in Paris and Toulouse and elsewhere. It is how Arabs are expected to act, and they happily live up to those expectations.

A few years ago the Arab world was a little embarrassed to be publicly antisemitic, even in Arabic. They paid lip service to pretending that they hated only Zionists, not Jews, in their media.

Those days are long gone, and that is partially because "human rights" groups don't give a damn about real antisemitism and incitement that results in the slaughter of Jews.

But if you can find any condemnation by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch of Arab antisemitic incitement, by all means, share it with me.

I was on Voice of Israel today on the Yishai Fleisher show, which airs 9 AM EST/4 PM Israel time.

It was taped yesterday.

I talked about the Jim Clancy story as well as some general topics on news blogging and how the West misunderstands the Arab world.

Here is the extended interview.

Pallywood in Hebron: Elderly Arab woman cries on cue for cameras (UPDATE)

So heartbreaking! From the Christian Peacemaking Team in Hebron:

Today Israeli forces welded Aamal Hashem Dundes front doors shut. Living in a rented apartment across the street, her family had owned these two houses for centuries on Shuhada Street, most of which is closed to Palestinians.

Aamal sat on a chair, at times crying, as she, her daughter, Palestinian residents, activists and journalists, and internationals from CPT and ISM questioned the soldiers who were carrying out the illegal act. At one point she picked up her chair and sat in front of her house in an act of resistance, before she was forced to move.
Soldiers soon began pushing the crowd back across the street and away from the houses, violently shoving a CPTer who was taking photographs. Meanwhile, settlers were allowed to stand close and antagonize the crowd.

Aamal has high blood pressure and diabetes, and after fainting was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Aamal asked that a CPTer accompany her in the ambulance, but the IDF prevented the CPT from joining Aamal. By 1:30, the soldiers had finished welding the doors shut, and a few remained with a settler, who was seemingly in a jovial mood.

From Algemeiner:

In a striking illustration of the belief held by many Israelis of slanted, pro-Palestinian media reporting, footage uploaded on Monday by the 0404 News site shows a Arab mother in Hebron bursting into tears on cue for a group of press photographers as soldiers seal up the door of a nearby home.

Two weeks ago, Palestinians hurled two firebombs at Israelis living in nearby Beit Hadassah from within the nearby abandoned building, which had been unoccupied for several years due to a military order, according to the Srugim website.

One of the flaming devices ignited the exterior of a mobile home where Jews were living. The residents of the structure were lucky, however, and there were no injuries in the attack, which caused only minor damage.

However, when an IDF team on Monday came to seal off the entrance of the previously unoccupied building, a group of pro-Palestinian foreign and Israeli agitators quickly arrived – including the woman and her daughter – and began to harass the welding crew.

“Did you see?! He [a waiting photographer] asked her to cry during the photography, and she cried [on cue] – I can’t believe this,” one shocked Israeli man said, as he himself filmed the scene from behind the press gang, dubbed by some observers as “fauxtography.”

“And here’s her daughter instructing her to ‘cry, cry’ … she’s laughing as she tells her mother to cry,” the Israeli viewer noted with astonishment.

“Just take a look at this scene!” he exclaimed. “She [the daughter's] laughing as she tells her mother to cry,” as a photographer goes for a closeup shot.

Spokesmen for the ancient contested city’s Jewish residents said the incident was an glaring example of a trend by extreme left-wing squatters to take over such structures.

We report, you decide.

(h/t Bob Knot)

UPDATE: The final edited video product, courtesy PalMedia, with tight shots of the woman as well as pictures of her being placed into the ambulance that she obviously doesn't need.

Even in this video, at one point she looks up from her "crying" as if to ask "Is that good enough?"

Monday, January 19, 2015

The marketplace of ideas, Turkish Islamist style

One group wants free speech, the other wants the right to attack the first group. It is all very even-handed..

A group of Islamists at Ankara University have clashed with another group of students who were commemorating both the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was killed eight years ago.

Both groups gathered at Ankara University’s Cebeci campus on Jan. 19. According to the Doğan News Agency, stones and bottles were thrown after one of the groups attempted to release a press statement in favor of the Charlie Hebdo victims and Dink.

Police dispersed the groups by using tear gas.

The students, who had announced the Jan. 19 demonstration earlier through Ankara University’s Facebook page, were threatened by Islamist students on the same platform. Referring to the students who had pinned posters that said “Je Suis Charlie” and “We Are All Hrant,” an Islamist student had written on Facebook that the campus “would see unprecedented violence” if the posters were not taken down.

"If you peacefully rally for free speech, then we have the right to violently attack you."

I shouldn't make fun of the hateful, violent Islamists like this. It might be considered Islamophobic.