April 2008 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Jordanian lawsuit against Danish newspapers over Motoons

I had missed this story:Amman - Amman's public prosecutor on Tuesday [4/22] began hearings in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of 30 Jordanian media establishments against a dozen Danish papers which reprinted controversial cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, judicial sources said. The coalition, which is waging a campaign entitled The Prophet Unites Us, is seeking 'moral and material compensation' for the damages caused by the reprinting of...

Al Jazeera and B'Tselem agree that missile didn't hit house

Apparently, Al Jazeera and B'Tselem are more concerned with the truth than most of the Western media who uncritically reported that an Israeli tank shell (or missile) went through the roof of the Abu Me'tiq home and that there were no terrorists outside. They don't quite believe the IDF version either, but it is abundantly clear that the initial Palestinian Arab reports were simply lies.Al-Jazeera:Reports suggest that the explosion was caused by...

Palestinian Arab nationalism and Islamism

In The New Republic, Benny Morris reviews Hillel Cohen's "Army of Shadows" (see my review here.) It is a lengthy and comprehensive review.At the end Morris expands on a theme that Cohen only peripherally touches upon but it is an important point that needs to be examined further:Cohen's learned book, especially its lengthy citations from Zionist intelligence reports and from Arab letters and memoranda, incidentally sheds light on a rarely illumined...

Egypt denies permission for any "Israel 60" celebrations

Palestine Press (Arabic) writes (autotranslated):Newspaper "The Egyptians" said the Egyptian Interior Minister Major General Habib Adli issued strict instructions rejecting any request by the Israeli Embassy to obtain the approval of ceremonies to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of "Israel" on the land of Palestine, which occurs in mid-May.Commenting on the news reported by "The Egyptians" yesterday about the desire of the Embassy...

April 2008 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 . Also, these are Qassams that don't make it to Israel; many that are fired explode in Gaza itself, often causing damage or even deaths.This list does not include mortars being shot...

Saudi Vice, episode 15: The Evil Western Press

Our heroes at the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice have been getting a lot of bad press recently, and it is time to put a stop to it:Western media is deliberately trying to malign the commission for unknown reasons, said the national head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in a wide ranging interview with Arab...

As Nakba celebrations get underway, nobody is talking about the 160,000 Arabs who didn't flee Palestine in 1948.This group of people put a lie to the "ethnic cleansing" calumny that will be tossed about like confetti over the next month. While it is undeniably true that they were not treated equally in the wake of a bruising war, they were hardly treated as subhuman. In fact,...

The definition of "nakba" depends on the audience

Most Westerners would say that when Palestinian Arabs refer to the "nakba", or catastrophe, that they are referring to the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from their homes in 1948, and their defeat in the 1948 war. Certainly pro-Palestinian Arab Westerners use the term that way, and Palestinian Arabs speaking to Westerners seem to keep that definition as well. Wikipedia:Nakba Day, meaning "Day of the catastrophe" is a...

From YNet:More than 60 years after it was buried, archeologists working an excavation in the Western Wall Plaza unearthed a completely intact 'Davidka' mortar shell on Tuesday afternoon.Sappers who were alerted to the scene removed the shell from the site and documented the finding before transported it outside city limits to detonate the explosives in a controlled environment.Largely...

I have spent a lot of time looking at the circumstances around yesterday's blast that killed much of the Me'tiq family and there is one thing missing from all of the press coverage:Pictures of the damaged house.Palestinian Arabs still claim that it was an Israeli tank shell that went through the roof of the house and exploded (presumably in the kitchen). Israel claims that...

Journalism hall of shame

Here is a list of selected news articles, published well after Israel denied that its fire directly killed the Gaza family, that take the Palestinian Arab lying version to be the truth or severely downplay Israel's version:Mirror (UK): A mum and four children died at the breakfast table as a shell flattened their tiny home in the Gaza Strip.It was fired from an Israeli tank in a raid aimed at militants after gun battles nearby.Glasgow DailyRecord...

Hamas stole 45,000 liters of fuel at gunpoint today

Palestine Press reports:head of the Palestinian Petrol Agency in Gaza Mujahid Salama said that elements of the Hamas movement looted today forty five thousand litres of fuel that were in the oil depots in the Nahal Oz crossing east of Gaza City.He added in an interview with the Voice of Palestine radio this morning that "these elements forced the officials of the Petroleum Authority to provide this amount of fuel at gunpoint."Salama added that this...

Five more tunnels discovered by Egypt

Fox News reports:An Egyptian security official says border guards have discovered five new underground smuggling tunnels north of the Rafah crossing point.The official says two tunnels were used to pump fuel to the Gaza Strip which is facing severe energy shortages. One of the tunnels was found in a kitchen with a pump connected to hose running through it.The tunnels were found early on Monday, added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity...

AP still wrong on Beit Hanoun blast

It has been a few hours since Israel determined that the Gaza blast that killed most of a family was the result of a secondary explosion from targeted terrorists outside the house carrying munitions.AP's Ibrahim Barzak is now reporting Israel's side of the story, but very skeptically:In a statement, the military said explosives carried by the militants were detonated by an Israeli airstrike, and the blast from the explosives hit the house, not a...

"World's Smallest Koran" not very impressive

From India's Economic Times:DUBAI: The smallest copy of the Koran, the Islamic holy book, on display at The Bride Show here drew huge crowds at the recently concluded exhibition.Almost one-third the size of its closest competitor, the 'miniature' Koran contains 10,000 lines engraved on sapphire measuring 58mm by 98mm which can be worn as pendant or a ring by brides and grooms on the wedding day, WAM news agency reported Monday.The Koran has been...

Kids were killed by PalArab bomb

After reading the IDF explanation as well as the PCHR preliminary investigation into the deaths of the mother and four daughters this morning, I am convinced that the IDF version is correct - the IDF shot a missile at two terrorists who were outside the Abu Meatak home, and the explosives that at least one was carrying exploded, killing most of the family.I would not count these as self-deaths, though, because it was a secondary explosion; it is...

Recent honor killing roundup

A survey of recent articles that talk about "honor killings:" Pakistan: Three weeks since Jagdeesh Kumar, a 22-year-old Hindu worker in a garment factory in Pakistan's largest city, was beaten to death by a mob for allegedly making blasphemous remarks about Prophet Mohammad, his murderers remain unpunished. ..."His murder may have nothing to do with blasphemy. What we saw was an honour killing, coloured as a killing for blasphemy. Most, if not...

This morning a mother and four children were killed in Beit Hanoun. According to Palestinian Arab sources, they were killed by either an Israeli airstrike or tank shell, depending on who is being quoted.While the IDF blames all civilian deaths in Gaza on terrorists operating out of crowded civilian centers, Ehud Barak's statement implies that Israel admits that it was probably...

10 North Koreans killed in Israeli raid on Syrian reactor

Bloomberg reports:Ten North Koreans may have been killed in an Israeli air strike on Syria in September, NHK reported on its Web site, citing unidentified South Korean intelligence officials.The 10 people, whose remains were cremated and returned to North Korea in October, had been helping with the construction of a nuclear reactor in Syria, Japan's public broadcaster said. Some North Koreans probably survived the air attack, NHK said.The U.S. government...

Hamas effectively bans any protests

From PCHR:PCHR is extremely concerned by the decision of the Police Force of the dismissed government in Gaza stipulating the acquisition of a permit prior to holding public assemblies or celebrations. The Centre views this decision as a violation of the right to peaceful assembly that is protected by the Basic Law and the Public Assemblies Law for the Year 1998, which calls for notifying the police rather than obtain a permit.The official web site...

Yet again, Gazans refuse to accept fuel

Something the UN can't quite seem to notice...From the increasingly pro-terror Ma'an:Fuel distributors in the Gaza Strip have refused once again to accept a severely inadequate fuel shipment from Israel, despite warnings of an imminent humanitarian crisis.The Deputy chair of the Gaza gas stations federation, Mahmoud Al-Khizindar, affirmed on Monday morning that the federation refused to receive the reduced fuel transfer from Nahal Oz terminal. "There...

UN again shows its anti-Israel bias in Gaza

It appears that the Jerusalem Post report I quoted yesterday about the UN blaming Hamas for preventing fuel trucks from entering Gaza is not quote accurate. Here is the UN press release, not quoting any UNRWA official but someone from UNSCO:The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) said today that he remains extremely concerned about the severe humanitarian impact that the continuing fuel shortages in the Gaza...

Hamas attacked fuel trucks meant for UNRWA, hospitals

From JPost:Hamas militiamen in the Gaza Strip on Sunday attacked fuel trucks headed toward the Nahal Oz border crossing, forcing them to turn back, sources in the Palestinian Petroleum Authority said.The fuel was supposed to go to the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the sources said."Dozens of Hamas militiamen hurled stones and opened fire at the trucks," the sources added. "The trucks were on their way to receive...