January 2006 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Poor Hamas schizophrenics

Here is a comparison of what Hamas has been saying in Newsweek and the Washington Post over the past couple of days, and what their charter says (which they still accept in full.) Hat tip to The Zionist Conspiracy for the idea. Hamas Media Blitz Hamas Charter There must come a day when we will live together, side by side once again. For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal...

The Arafatization of Hamas III

Once again, an American "news" source allows a Hamas terrorist to give unfiltered opinions on its own pages. Once again, the Hamas terrorist uses the key words of the liberal "progressive" movement to support his terror aims (taking care not to make the liberals think that Hamas is promoting a theocracy.). And once again, Hamas is saying the exact opposite message in Arabic.This time it is the Washington Post:DAMASCUS, Syria -- A new era in the struggle...

This month's Muslim outrage has been directed towards Scandinavians over the Danish newspaper printing cartoons of Mohammed: Norway's Foreign Ministry was heeding a warning Monday from Islamic groups that want all Scandinavians out of Gaza. The groups claim the Scandinavians have offended them by printing controversial caricatures of their prophet Mohammed.One Islamic group...

The Arafatization of Hamas II

From MEMRI, a Hamas leader on Al-Jazeera, in Arabic of course:Hamas Leader Khaled Mash'al: "Some people believe it is impossible to combine resistance with politics. As long as we are an occupied people, resistance is our natural right."[…]"The Legislative Council is one of the Oslo Accords' political frameworks, but the Oslo plan is over. It is no longer effective, and no one follows it anymore, and I don't think our people will accept the revival...

Warning about posting on newspaper sites

At least one on-line newspaper will publicly leak out the IP address of a person making a comment on an article. This means that if you say something provocative, you can end up inviting hackers to attack your PC.Knowing this information would have a dampening effect on free speec...

Another academic idiot

Yet another example of a terror-sympathizer masquerading as an unbiased academic. This one is at the University of Wisconsin.My impression from the entire interview is not so much that he is maliciously against Israel as he is brainwashed from his academic forebears. He strives so mightily to be "even handed" that he completely loses his sense of morality, equating Israeli actions aimed at terrorists to suicide bombs aimed at children.He is speaking...

Iran will make its move on influencing Hamastan

Shin Bet (Israel Security Services) head Yuval Diskin said Sunday that Iran was considering giving financial aid to the Palestinians if Europe and the US cease funding the Palestinian Authority in light of Hamas's victory in the PLC elections.Sometimes, I hate it when I'm righ...

The Democracy Pandora's Box

News-First Class (Hebrew) reports (translated by Daily Alert):Islamic movements throughout the Middle East are lifting up their heads after Hamas's election victory. The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is demanding "true democracy" from the Jordanian king in order to win in elections there, and is threatening a popular uprising if the government continues to ignore "the will of the people."Here is another case where the President's mantra of "democracy"...

The Arafatization of Hamas

Hamas is starting down the road well-worn (and successfully managed) by Arafat.Until the Islamic 'ummah is self-sufficient, it requires the West and it needs to speak soothing words to the West. The West, especially the media and the EU, is so starved to hear the words it wants to hear that it will happily and uncritically listen to whatever the terrorists say. And the terrorists, in turn, have learned what key words they need to say to feed the...

The cult of the "Peace Process"

Rarely has there been a real-life doublespeak term as egregious as "the peace process." Just in Googling the news from only today, I see 248 entries using that term - invariably without the scare quotes.Hamas' win "casts a pall" over the peace process, we read.What exactly is the "peace process"?It is, bluntly speaking, the process where Israel dismantles itself "piece by piece" in exchange for empty Palestinian Arab promises. Israel concedes land,...

JIB jab

OK, I have not once asked for votes for the JIB awards and I'm not going to start now, despite this blog's abysmal performance in the voting for Best Designed Blog.But to see Cross-Currents in first place in this category?I just asked the esteemed Daughter of Ziyon her opinion of the CC design, without telling her that it was in first place, and she said, "Honestly? Ewwww."It is plain, it is boring, and worst of all - it has ugly ads tacked on to...

The day's best pun: ותמלא הארץ חמס

Thanks to Blog HaMincha, which is an excellent pun as well.(To those who don't understand Hebrew: It is a quote from Genesis 6:11. In English it is translated as "and the earth was filled with violence." The Hebrew word for violence in this verse is "Hamas....

Interesting Holocaust article on alt.muslim

A flawed but illuminating article from a Muslim perspective about what the author claims represents the Muslim role in the Holocaust:By Mas'ood Cajee, January 27, 2006Six decades on since the slaughter of World War II and the Nazi holocaust, we hear extremist voices alternately exploiting or denying the Holocaust for political gain. By warping our memory of the Shoah (the Hebrew word for the Holocaust), both exploiters and deniers miss the stark,...

The nightmare Hamas scenario

My initial lack of concern over the Hamas victory may be premature. I had forgotten one of my own recent blog themes.There is a way for Hamas to refuse to talk to Israel, ignore Western economic pressure, stay true to its Islamist roots and to appear to help the Palestinian Arabs in their day-to-day lives.And the answer is Iran.Iran would be overjoyed to have an Islamist fundamentalist terror statelet right next to Israel. It will provide more than...

"Hamas without veils"

Emanuele Ottolenghi makes my points far better than I made them. Contrary to initial responses, Hamas’s projected victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections is a positive development. Not, as its apologists claim, because the proximity of power will favor a process of cooptation into parliamentary politics, and therefore strengthen the pragmatic wing of Hamas. There is no pragmatic wing in Hamas, and all differences within the movement —...

YNET reports:Organizers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, are working on a new conference booklet after the initial draft containing an article blasting Israel caused uproar.The head of the Forum publicly condemned the incident and apologized on behalf of organizers.The apology is nice, but this is hardly the first time such things happened at this "prestigious"...

Backgrounders on Hamas

It is interesting to see how media outlets are writing their background, color articles on Hamas.Somehow, suicide bombs and attacks against civilians are now relegated to minor side points. Here are links to articles that are backgrounders on Hamas and which paragraph they mention attacks against Israeli civilians:Times of London: paragraph 7.BBC - paragraph 5.Xinhua - paragraph 11 (barely)AP - paragraph 4On the contrary, the Jerusalem Post printed...

Hamas' spiritual forefathers

It is worth reposting a link to this article from the Palestine Post about the origins of fundamentalist Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas and al-Qaeda were bor...

Why Hamas won

I have mentioned before that there are two very consistent patterns that explain the entire Arab/Israeli conflict for the past century:1) Israelis want security.2) Arab leaders want to destroy Israel.Essentially every political and military move done by both sides since before 1948 can be remarkably explained by those two concepts. There are rare exceptions, perhaps Jordan is one of them, but on the whole it is a very good rule of thumb that can...

Anti-semitism, courtesy of the World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum happening now in Davos, Switzerland, included a booklet that included an anti-semitic and anti-Israel screed of the types normally only seen in fringe websites. Every delegate got one.Excerpts:Boycott Israel Mazin Qumsiyeh Global civil society ought to boycott Israel until it ends its apartheid-like treatment of Palestinians, says Mazin Qumsiyeh Millions of activists have come to see an organic link between the occupation...

The root cause

A senior Iranian official threatened that Tehran may forcibly prevent oil export via the Straits of Hormuz if the UN imposed economic sanctions due to Iran's nuclear program, an Iranian news Web site said on Monday.This is the first time an Iranian official makes military threats in a public statement on Tehran's recent disagreements with the West. I hope it happens.It has now been over four years since 9/11. Analysts and politicians have been falling...

Reviews! I feel so important!

At least three blogs have reviewed the blogs nominated for Best Design in the JIB awards, and while there is a snowball's chance in hell that this blog would win anything it is still nice to be reviewed. Luckily, most reviews aren't vicious.Ezzie started off during the first round with this:ElderofZiyon's header is okay, though I don't like the fade all the way to white. I also am not a fan of pure white backgrounds, though it actually looks decent...

Notable articles

An interview of a German Holocaust historian in Der Spiegel.It's impossible to combat obsessive historical revisionism using arguments and even the most basic logic. It is quite simply absurd to, on the one hand thank Hitler's Germany for the Holocaust -- which unfortunately does happen -- and then in the next breath say that the murder of six million Jews never took place. It's hard to understand how a state, which accepts aspects of modern life,...

Who will cave in first?

Hamas?Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas leader, struck back in the campaign's final days, playing to Hamas's political base in the destitute Gaza neighborhoods and refugee camps that have supplied many Hamas suicide attackers and that revere them as martyrs. Before crowds of thousands, he and other candidates went out of their way to deny they would ever give up their insistence on the destruction of Israel and the right to armed struggle.Zahar hammered...

Made it to the finals!

Amazingly, this blog made it to the finals in the JIB awards for Best Designed Blog!I would like to once again emphasize that the header logo and color scheme of the blog came from the always beautiful and talented Daughter of Ziyon, who is really starting to irritate me with her now having gotten better than me at guitar, keyboards, Photoshop and general design including web design.Check out the competition and vot...

Interesting article on Iranian worldview

This is a very long article where the author claims to interview some Iranian politicians and military men. The author is clearly sympathetic towards his subjects and it is hard to know how much of what they say is true and how much is bluster. Also, it is not clear that the average Iranian agrees with them - the level of patriotism in Iran is almost certainly not as described. Even so, their analyses are interesting. One excerpt:When I asked them...