March 2008 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, March 31, 2008

Moses, Khidr and free will

Saudi Gazette includes an Koranic story in today's issue:THE story of Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) with Khidr, mentioned in Surah Al Kahf, the Cave (65:82), is one of the most important didactic stories in the Qur’an.The story begins when Moses was delivering a sermon and one of his followers suddenly asked him “Who is the most knowledgeable person on earth” and Moses (peace be upon him), immediately answered him: ‘I (am the most learned).’...

NYT notices that Hamas really hates Jews

A milestone in mainstream journalism, as the august New York Times recognizes that Hamas' rhetoric is not only the Western-acceptable, rabidly anti-Zionist type but it includes real Jew-hatred:In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was discussing the wiliness of the Jew.“Jews are a people who cannot be trusted,” Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. “They have been traitors to all agreements — go back to history. Their...

Today's madrasahs: "Young minds are not for thinking"

A nice article from Foreign Policy that highlights the differences between madrassahs in decades past and today. Excerpts:As a 9-year-old boy, I knelt on the bare floor of the neighborhood madrasa (religious school) in Karachi, Pakistan, repeating the Koranic verse, “Of all the communities raised among men you are the best, enjoining the good, forbidding the wrong, and believing in God.” Hafiz Gul-Mohamed, the...

PA prime minister Fayyad said that fully 60% of the PA budget has been going to Gaza (up from 58% last month) and that the PA has given Gaza $962 million in the past six months.This money, of course, allows the Gaza infrastructure to go on so that Hamas can make sure that 100% of the money it smuggles into Gaza goes towards weapons and none of it to help real Palestinian...

Let's play the Peace Process Game

The Peace Process Game, which in no way should be confused with anything peaceful, is the game that Palestinian Arabs play with gullible Westerners to prove that their intent is something different than ultimately genocidal towards Jews in the Middle East.One of the earlier incarnations of the game was when Arafat promised that he changed the PLO charter to not advocate the destruction of Israel, something that never occurred (unless anyone can point...

Kuwait building synagogue?

A recent Al-Arabiya article on the race among Gulf states to build huge mega-skyscrapers - one planned to be a full mile high in Saudi Arabia - included this detail:Kuwait has unveiled a plan to build a 1,001-meter (3,284 foot) tower. Its height is a reference to the classic work of Arabic literature, One Thousand and One Nights.Three blades that will be built near the top of the tower will carry a mosque, a church and a synagogue to signify the...

Saudi murders daughter. Saudi news blames Facebook.

I don't know why I'm coming across so much Saudi news lately, but.... A woman was beaten up and shot dead by her father for talking online with a man she met on the website Facebook. The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as an example of the "strife" the social networking site is causing in the Islamic nation. A leading Saudi preacher told Al-Arabiya.net that Facebook was a "door to lust" for women and called for it to be blocked....

Novel Saudi idea: Treat maids as if they're human

The Saudi-based Arab News, which goes out of its way to appear progressive to Western audiences, shows again its racist mentality with this unreal article:JEDDAH, 31 March 2008 — Spoil your housemaid if you want to keep her. Give her a salary hike, a day off each week and above all be gentle with her. This is the advice people should heed if they want to ensure their maids do not begin looking for employment elsewhere.An estimated 7,000 maids run...

Saudis don't go to prostitutes. They "marry" them.

Everyone knows that it is a farce, but their "moral codes" are so strong that they all pretend anyway.From Saudi Gazette:Single men, and even married ones who are unhappy or just bored and don’t mind polygamy, can easily find a foreign matchmaker in the Holy City.All a man has to do is contact one of them, and she will find him a bride from among the numerous overstayers in town. Most probably, she will be Indonesian, Mauritanian, Burmese or, if...

We have already seen many of the adventures of our heroes, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. But what happens to the perps after the crime was committed? How does the Commission ensure that these lowlife immoral scum - especially the women - are never allowed to corrupt upstanding Saudi citizens any more?The brilliant mullahs who guide...

Saudis block access to human rights websites

From Saudi Gazette:RIYADH – The National Society for Human Rights is seeking to unblock some internet sites of some Arab and international human rights organizations, the Arabic daily Al-Watan reported on Saturday.Dr. Saleh Al-Khathlan, head of the Observation and Followup Committee at the society and a professor of politics at the King Saud University, said the society had taken note of the bans applied to some websites like those of Human Rights...

Tunnel collapse!

From JPost:An Egyptian security official says a tunnel used for smuggling between Egypt and Gaza has collapsed and killed at least one Palestinian. The official says Sunday's collapse occurred when the tunnel's fragile sand ceiling fell under its own weight. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media....

Bahrainis fear: "Soon we'll see Israelis living among us"

The ultimate nightmare scenario for some Bahrainis:A PROTEST group pushing for the re-opening of the Israel Boycott Office in Bahrain is hosting a major conference next month to highlight its cause. It claims that as a result of the office being closed, Israeli produce is now finding its way into the Bahrain market. The group also accused the US military of bringing in Israeli goods to be consumed at its naval base in Bahrain.The Bahrain Society...

Gazans claim to have hit Kiryat Gat with rocket

Palestine Today quotes a Reuters report I cannot find anywhere that claims that a Qassam rocket hit Kiryat Gat on Saturday, some 30 kilometers from Gaza. Firas Press quotes the same report, although it looks more like they copied the PalToday report.Seems unlikel...

Fitna

The release of the Dutch film Fitna has provoked much reaction in the blogosphere, and not a huge amount yet worldwide.If you haven't been following the story, Wikipedia describes it like this:Fitna is a film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Dutch parliament. The movie offers his views on Islam and the Qur'an. The film's title comes from the Arabic word fitna which is used to describe "disagreement and...

Muslim expert weighs in on pedophilia (MEMRI)

The depths of depravity and ignorance of "Islamic legal experts" is mind boggling.Check out this guy: Iraqi Expert on Islamic Law Calls to Allow Young Girls to Get Married: In Islamic Countries, Girls Get Their Periods at the Age of 8-10. Westerners Criticize the Prophet Muhammad for Having Sex with His 9 Year Old Wife, But Allow Fornication with Underage Girls Following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-'Ubeidi,...

PA "cuts salaries" of Gaza Al Aqsa Brigade terrorists

Firas Press (Arabic) reports that after much negotiation, PA prime minister Fayyad decided to "cut" the salaries of the Al Aqsa Brigades terrorists in Gaza.The PA had offered to let them keep their salaries if they would promise not to shoot rockets at Israel and they rejected that offer. This means, of course, that up until now the PA has been using western funds to pay salaries of terrorists in Gaza - for many months after the Hamas coup, when...

Peacekeeping, PalArab style (grim milestone watch!)

Ma'an Arabic reports on a clan clash that happened while the two families tried to reconcile:Twowere killed and eight others injured, four of them seriously, when a reconciliation took place this afternoon to end a family quarrel in the ancient town of Kafr third, south of Qalqilya.Eyewitnesses said that Kamal Kassim Mara'abe (45 years old) and Muhammad Qasim Mara'abe were killed this afternoon and injured eight others on the background of an old...

Today's Gaza news you won't see anywhere else

Hamas abducted two teachers in Khan Younis, suspected of Fatah activitiesHamas also arrested one of their own, suspected of spying for IsraelHamas arrested three students in Khan Younis from a secondary schoolIt is reported that Hamas was searching cars to prevent the firing of rockets by Islamic Jihad towards Israel toda...

Newsweek: Let's blame the non-Muslims for Muslim violence!

An unreal article by Christopher Dickey in Newsweek, who bends over backwards to minimize Muslim violence and to blame it all on stupid mistakes by non-Muslims who end up provoking the violence. With the equally unreal title:Christian Rage and Muslim ModerationSome lowlights:If the satellite networks allow their lenses to zoom back from the book burners, they may discover there's no raging crowd there, just the usual collection of unemployed malcontents...

Israeli saving the world's birds

This is the sort of story that almost never gets told about Israel.From Science Alert (Australia):Each northern spring an awesome aerial torrent of 500 million birds pauses at a tiny fleck of a sanctuary at the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, en route from the heart of Africa to the vastnesses of Europe and Asia. Many birds have flown non-stop from the Central Highlands of Ethiopia, devouring their own muscle and intestines in the 40-hour flight. When...

Earlier this week I posted a link to a Time article from 1948 that parenthetically mentioned a number of blonde Palestinian Arab leaders. It turns out that at least one's Aryan features helped cement his bond with Heinrich Himmler. From the March 28, 1948 Palestine Post: Himmler understood then what most people stubbornly refuse to acknowledge today - the Arab enemy has...

Just the first paragraph tells you all you need to know:JERUSALEM (AFP) — Amin al-Siyam says he is awakened nearly every night by the sound of Jewish settlers tunneling under his east Jerusalem house towards the Old City's deeply sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound.Settlers are digging tunnels, willy-nilly, under the Old City? Only at night? Are they building apartments to live...

That old black magic

From the Saudi Gazette:Education authorities in Bisha are investigating accusations a father made against the principal of his daughter’s school, saying she threatened students with black magic.The parent, Fayez Al-Shahrani, accused the principal of claiming that one of the students, who is 23 years old, is possessed by a genie and that she uses the student to terrorize the others.Al-Shahrani added that the student banged the head of his 16-year...

As a followup to my first Weeds post:I just found another book showing a large number of photographs of Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land, these from 1904. Called "The Cruise of the Eight Hundred to and Through Palestine: Glimpses of Bible Lands" it is a pictorial recounting of a trip of 800 Sunday School teachers to Palestine.It is fully downloadable in PDF format,...

Hate crimes against Jews underreported in NYC

From Northeast Intelligence Report (h/t JammieWearingFool):By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director 25 March 2008: A source inside the Manhattan District Attorney’s office admitted to me during a telephone conversation yesterday that “hate crimes,” specifically those occurring against Jews, are frequently omitted from such classification. Meanwhile, acts that victimize Muslims, regardless of their motivation, are usually reported as "hate crimes." Consequently,...

Arab summit a failure before it begins

From Monsters and Critics:A deep inter-Arab rift over Lebanon's political standoff has hit the upcoming summit of Arab heads of state hosted by Syria, with leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt staying away and lebanon boycotting it.Yet the Syrians are pretending the non-attendance is not uncommon, and saying the Lebanese absentees are missing a 'golden chance.'But the absence of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak, two...

Ten Qassams so far today

As of 10:12 PM Israel time, ten Qassams have been shot into Israel from Gaza so far today, the highest number in two weeks.Yet I cannot find any newspaper articles anywhere talking about this. Nothing about the rockets being a "threat to the calm" or "endangering the tacit cease-fire" or anything like that. In fact, I have yet to find anyone who even added the numbers for today up (you can see the individual Qassam reports on the YNet Updates page...

International Federation of Journalists admits its pro-PalArab bias

In a press release condemning Hamas for restricting press freedom, the International Federation of Journalists states:“This intimidation and political bullying of journalists does great damage to the Palestinian cause,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. “It undermines efforts of journalists throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip to work together to build a unified media movement in favour of stability and democratic development.”So the major...

Today's peaceful Gaza news

So far today, six Qassams were fired from Gaza into Israel, but at least one of them landed near Gaza's Beit Lahia, seriously injuring a 65-year old man.A leader of the Army of Islam in Gaza was abducted by Hamas two days ago, tortured and killed.Egyptian president Mubarak was revealed to have referred to Rafah a few weeks ago as "Egypt's border with Iran."The International Federation of Journalists condemned Hamas for intimidating journalists and...

The second-most hated people in the Middle East

The most hated people in the Middle East? That's easy.But who comes in at #2?It is, hands down, the Iraqis of Palestinian origin.Saddam Hussein gave huge privileges to Palestinian Arabs (short of citizenship, of course.) He gave them subsidized housing, forcing Iraqi landlords to charge less for Palestinian Iraqis. When Saddam fell, jealous Iraqi landlords started evicting them - and worse. Many were killed and blamed for terror attacks.Hundreds...

"Bomb voyage" - Lebanese girl panics at SMS, plane emptied

From AFP:A Beirut-to-Paris flight was grounded today after a passenger who had left her boyfriend behind said she feared he might have put a bomb in her luggage to keep her from leaving. "The girl, Katia Salha, was either in love with this guy called Hussein Mughnieh, or they were engaged, and as the plane was taxiing to the runway she got an anonymous message on her phone telling her that he wished her bon voyage," a security official said. "She...

March Qassam Calendar

As usual, this is far from complete, and it is more to show how ignored the Qassam issue is rather than to show how many are being fired. Many Qassams never make it in the news, and the rare times that the IDF publishes statistics shows that I am usually undercounting by about 50% (although that number os probably less in recent months.) Also, these are Qassams that don't make it to Israel; many that are fired explode in Gaza itself (March 10 and...

The funniest anti-semite of the week

Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV has brought us a real winner in the shape of Wael Al-Zarad. Check out the video courtesy of MEMRI and then let's look at his words:In short, these are the Jews. As Muslims, our blood vengeance against them will only subside with their annihilation, Allah willing, because they tried to kill our Prophet several times.Hmmm...all Jews deserve to die because they supposedly tried to kill someone many centuries ago. Sounds familiar, but...

Snapped Shot points to this beauty from Reuters:Israeli army officers stand in front of the remains of rockets, fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza, during a military briefing at the police station in the southern town of Sderot March 25, 2008. REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis (ISRAEL)Is it just me or is this picture framed to highlight...

Gaza news you won't hear anywhere else

On Sunday, Hamas militias attacked the Egyptian embassy in Gaza City. The embassy officially moved to Ramallah but it still seemed to maintain a skeletal presence in Gaza. According to Palestine Press Agency, Hamas assualted a guard and ransacked the building, taking down the Egyptian flag.100 truckfuls of food entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, including 10 trucks from Egypt.Israel also sent some 61,000 animal vaccines to Gaza and is...