May 2008 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Work accident!

From AP:Health officials say an explosion in the house of a Hamas militant has killed the man and wounded 16 relatives and neighbors.The Palestinian Interior Ministry says it's investigating the cause of Saturday's blast at the home of Hamas activist Nader Abu Shaban. Our 2008 self-death count is now at 7...

Cairo University professor wants to ban kisses

From Firas Press (autotranslated, edited)):Dr. Adel Ashour, Professor of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, announced his desire to establish a Society for the Prevention of Kisses between friends.Dr. Adel stressed that all scientific research published in major medical journals world were unanimous in serious medical harm caused by an exchange booth by the spread of infection from serious diseases and microbial and viral diseases,...

Another PalArab self-death that I missed

PHRMG keeps it own counts and it lists some deaths that were not reported in the Palestinian Arab press. Here's one:Fa'ed A'mar , 44, married with 8 children, from sineidya-qalqelia 17.04.2008 killed by kidnapping him and putting him in a car and then burning the car while he was in it.Our count is at 7...

UAE arrests doctor who surgically restores "virginity"

From DPA:Police in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) arrested on Wednesday a German doctor of Arab descent for performing hymen reconstruction surgery and illegal abortions.Police investigation indicated that the 61-year-old gynaecologist carried out the surgery to restore broken hymen for about $1,000), according to a police statement.The surgery known as hymenoplasty is illegal in many countries in the Middle East and the Gulf where women...

A chicken crosses in front of Palestinian stone throwers standing in an alley during an Israeli army operation in the village of Nilin near Modin, Thursday, May 29, 2008. (AP)The caption must answer the question: Why did the chicken cross the roa...

UAE: "Mixed-sex schools cause cross-dressing"

There is a plague happening in Dubai:Police in Dubai have arrested several men and women for cross-dressing in what they said was a campaign to preserve the social values of the cosmopolitan Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub, newspapers reported on Monday. "We have noted an emerging trend of men dressed as women and vice versa in the UAE markets and streets," the Khaleej Times daily quoted Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfan as saying. ...

Lyndon Johnson, hero

Two stories came out today about Lyndon Johnson, both showing what a mensch he was.First, AP has a story on LBJ's feelings towards Israel as revealed in newly-discovered White House recordings:Tapes of Lyndon Johnson's Oval Office conversations, released to the public for the first time on Wednesday, reveal that the American president had a personal and often emotional connection to Israel.In the first public presentation of the tapes Wednesday at...

14 year old Egyptian boy tries to join Gaza terrorists

From Firas:Egyptian security forces seized a boy from east of Cairo while trying to infiltrate into Gaza through one of Rafah international border points. The Egyptian security sources said the 14-year old boy had been seized during his attempts to cross the barbed wire fence that separates between Egyptian Rafah and Palestinian Rafah.The boy admitted that he was on his way to Gaza to fight against Israeli occupation forces after seeing the massacres...

The evil Zionist settler pigs are back

Once again, Ma'an publishes this story with a straight face:Settlers from the Ariel settlement have dumped wild pigs on Thursday in 'Ein Al-Qabileh neighborhood south of Salfit where they smashed the farmers' plants.Farmer Mohammad Faleh 'Omran said that the pigs destroyed his tomato seedlings, ruined the earth and trampled on his plants.Farmer Mahmoud Hassan said that the pigs smashed his apple shrubs and his field at night.He added that the farmers...

Palestinian police show off

From AP:Members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' security force demonstrate their martial arts skills during a graduation ceremony in the West Bank city of Jericho, where they arrived earlier in the day from Jordan, Wednesday, May 28, 2008. Six hundred members of Abbas' police force graduated in Jordan and returned to be deployed in Jericho Wednesday. ...

Arab boycott not doing too well

From Globes:Direct exports to Arab countries continue to grow. Exports to Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco were 45% higher in the first quarter of 2008 compared with the corresponding quarter of 2007, the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute reports. It estimates the potential of exports to Arab and Muslim countries which with Israel has no current trade relations at $1 billion. Obviously, realizing this potential is contingent...

Hamas smugglers reportedly kill two Egyptian troops

Palestine Press Agency quotes "media reports" as saying:that two Egyptians were killed last night in violent clashes between smugglers and the Egyptian army stationed at the border.This may have been related to the half-ton of explosives and other arms found by Egypt last night.Hamas has a monopoly on Gaza smuggling, netting the terrorists organization some $150 million each month in profit...

Arabs might hate Israel but the ones who live there wouldn't trade their lives for anything else.From a new survey on Arab/Jewish co-existence in Israel:Do you think that any Arab nation can boast such numbers?Other interesting findings include that most Israelis would like to see Arabic taught in Jewish schools, and an overwhelming majority of both Israeli Jews and Arabs...

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

Hamas attacked a medical clinic in Rafah. The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced that this is only the latest incident where Hamas has closed down Gaza medical centers and fired health workers, as well as confiscated medicines and equipment.Jamal Watt, the Palestinian Minister of Religious Endowments, said that Hamas has embezzled many funds meant for charity. Watt said that this is not a crime against his ministry, but against Islamic law....

Hundreds of Arabs killed, no one cares

There are some Arabs in the Middle East who have been in a constant state of war against a professional army.Their food supply has been cut, and they are desperately short on fuel. The government forces have cut all communications links. Hundreds have been killed in a short period of time.And nobody really cares, because it isn't a Jewish government doing the fighting:SA’ADA, May 25 — A fifth war between the Yemeni army and Houthis has broken out...

Best metaphor for Iran contest

Recently, Iran's president Ahmadinejad referred to Israel as, among other things, a "stinking corpse." He has also called Israel a "dead rat."Since we have scientifically proven that Iran's government is much closer to extinction than Israel is, we need to find a better metaphor for Iran than the rather prosaic "stinking corpse."So, at the suggestion of the illustrious EBoZ, who better than my beloved readers to come up with the best pithy description...

Another "mysterious explosion" injures Gaza mom, daughters

PalPress reports: Palestinian medical sources announced at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Tuesday morning the injury of a mother and her two children in a mysterious explosion in the Shojaeya district east of Gaza City. This is the same neighborhood in which a Qassam rocket fell on Saturday.A real mystery, I tell y...

Hamas porn filter slowing Gaza Internet service

The "pornography" Internet filter that Hamas had installed for all of Gaza - which probably is also used to spy on the Internet habits of everyone in Gaza - has slowed down all of Gaza's online access to a crawl.The poor Gazans, most of whom supposedly eat only one meal a day, are having a hard time going online with their computers that run on the non-existent electricity in Gaza.Hamas admitted that this slowdown was caused by its filtering software...

Terror attack in Jerusalem yesterday?

Palestinian Arab press is reporting that the "Galilee Freedom Brigades" that claimed responsibility for the Mercaz HaRav massacre is claiming to have killed an Israeli in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem in his apartment.I cannot find any stories about a murder in Jerusalem yesterda...

Hamas contines to arrest and harass journalists

From Reporters Without Borders:A TV crew working for the German television station ARD was detained on 15 May in Jabaliya, in the north of the Gaza Strip, by Hamas security forces after covering a demonstration organised by members of Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Cameraman Mohammed Al-Arabid and soundman Mwatasam Rashid were questioned for an hour and their equipment was confiscated. Two journalists working for...

Last month, a book was published named "Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out". Some predicted that Muslims would get very upset over the cover, which depicts a picture of Mohammed being ripped in half:Even so, it seems to have sailed under the Muslim radar - until now.I just saw a story about this book, and especially the cover, in the Palestinian Arab Firas Press.So...

Gaza crossing roundup

Since my last round-up on May 19, here are some of the things that have happened at Gaza crossings:May 22 - massive truck bomb at the Erez crossing, killing the suicide bomber but no one else.May 23: One mortar shot at Sufa.May 24-25: Several mortars shot at Nahal Oz, three shot at Sufa.But Hamas and Jimmy Carter want the crossings opene...

Jimmy betraying national secrets?

Once upon a time, strange as it may sound now, Jimmy Carter was the President of the United States. As president, he was privy to a great deal of secret information that he was honor-bound to keep private.Now, everyone assumes that Israel has nuclear weapons. No one really knows how many, though. Chances are that the United States government does have a much clearer idea of how many such weapons Israel has, and, as Israel is an ally of the US, it...

Hamas mirroring Hezbollah's fiber optic network

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is building its own communications network similar to the private one that Hezbollah built in Lebanon. The network uses a fiber-optic backbone.A fiber optic network has two major advantages to the terrorists: it cannot be jammed electromagnetically, and it is very difficult to tap. Any attempts to tap fiber optics require a physical presence on the ground, and they are easily noticed and isolated by the network...

Academic terror supporter update

A couple of stories from this morning from the rarified world of academia....The British University and College Union (UCU) is slated to debate once again whether they should boycott all things Israeli next week (h/t Global_Freezing). The very existence of Israeli universities - most of whom churn out people whose hatred of Israel rivals some of their British colleagues - is deeply offensive to some British academics, because of the "occupation"...

Carter to EU: Stop being wimps. Defy the US. Support Hamas

Jimmy just takes every opportunity he can to prop up his Hamas pals:Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza, former US president Jimmy Carter told the Guardian yesterday. Carter, visiting the Welsh border town of Hay for the Guardian literary festival, described the EU's position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as "supine" and its failure to criticise the Israeli blockade of Gaza as...

Women screaming at mosque. Helpful Imam prays faster.

From Arab News:Worshippers at the Imam Malik Mosque in the Al-Rawdah district of Jeddah had their attention drawn to the screaming of women in the mosque’s women section during Isha prayers on Saturday.The commotion was caused after two men entered the women’s part of the mosque to rob women worshippers, while two of their accomplices stood guard outside. According to eyewitnesses the four men then fled in a blue car.“My mom went out with two of...

Poll: Iran inching toward collapse

A recent poll suggests that, nearly thirty years after the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Iranian regime is moving toward collapse.Over 99.8% percent of the 2672 votes in an Elder of Ziyon online poll are of the belief that after the Islamic revolution in 1979, which started an Islamic regime responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the regime's power is nearing collapse.(For more exposition, see my previous entry...

Utterly unscientific poll

I saw the Iran's PressTV had a poll that they reported on in this way:A recent poll suggests that after 60 years of the Zionist occupation of the Palestinian territories, Israel is moving toward collapse.Over 50 percent of the 2255 respondents to a Press TV online poll are of the belief that after 60 years of the establishment of Israel, the regime's power is nearing collapse. The only people who participated in this poll are the ones who look to...

Bahrain making overtures to Jews they kicked out?

Firas Press quotes Bahrain's quasi-governmental Al-Watan newspaper as saying that over the past six months, Bahrain has been quietly contacting the families of Jews who left Bahrain in the 1950s and offering to restore their citizenship.Notably, one of the very few Jews left in Bahrain was expected to become Bahrain's ambassador to the US earlier this mont...

More Palestinian Arab news you won't read anywhere else

The Palestinian press is buzzing over a package sent to Palestinian "prime minister" Salam Fayad which contained a powdered substance. His guards opened it and went to the hospital for treatment. It is being called an assassination attempt by at least one newspaper. One of the guards was sent abroad for treatment.Egypt is reported to have discovered and sealed 12 more smuggling tunnels.Iran pledged to increase support for Hamas and to send it more...

Iraqi mothers refuse to let Jews save their children's lives

Here is a follow-up of last week's story about Iraqi opposition to Israelis saving their children's lives - for free. From the Sunday Times:The parents of Iraqi babies with congenital heart problems are facing a dilemma: should they allow their children to be treated in Israeli hospitals when they have been brought up to believe that Israel is their mortal enemy? Hostility towards the Jewish state in Iraq is so strong that many parents refuse to...

UNRWA head compliments Hamas

Palestine Today reports that the UNRWA Commissioner-General, Karen Abu-Zayd, complimented Hamas yesterday, saying, "[Hamas] has displayed good organization and discipline .. crime rates have plummeted, and clearly there is no longer the fear of being kidnapped among the staff of relief organizations [in Gaza.]"She said that Hamas' strength in Gaza is because of "international isolation," blaming the world community for Hamas' strength and saying...

One more for the count

I just saw that one of the people injured in a "work accident" last month succumbed to his wounds a few days later.So our 2008 PalArab self-death count is at 7...

Palestinian Arab site links to anti-Hamas censorship software

On May 15th, Hamas started blocking pornographic sites from sections of Gaza. It can be reasonably assumed that if Hamas is making deals with the Internet service providers in Gaza, that they are also watching where people are surfing to use against them later.In response, the anti-Hamas Firas Press site put up a link to software that can get around the Hamas censorship and can also anonymize Web surfing. I don't know how good that software is,but...

Another Qassam falls short, injuring PalArabs

Firas Press and Palestine Press Agency both report:A number of citizens were injured after the fall of a rudimentary domestically manufactured missile on a Palestinian house in the Al-Shojaeya neighborhood east of Gaza City.Eyewitnesses said, "The 'missile' missed its target and landed on a house, which led to the injury of a number of citizens." Earlier in the day Ma'an reported that Israel had shot artillery shells at a Qassam cell in that same...

May 21, 1948 Arab leader: "War is peace"

One of the best examples of 1984-style doublespeak comes courtesy of Arab League Secretary General Azzam Pasha, whose comments have to be seen to be believed:How many lies and absurdities can be fit in such a short article?War is peace, Jews will invade all Arab countries, Jews would never offer citizenship to Arabs and would never treat them as well as Arabs treat Jews, and...

Another PalArabic news site hacked

Yesterday, Firas Press published an article saying that they had suffered cyber-attacks before and were not going to cower in the face of such activities.Last night the site went down and has not recovered since.A few weeks ago the Palestine Press Agency site was hacked and was down for a while. They have a similar anti-Hamas orientation as Firas.It looks like the Hamas script kiddies are restles...

Anti-semitism disguised as "Palestinian Unity" in Anaheim

Recently, Anaheim hosted the Sixth International Al-Awda Convention, where Palestinian Arabs worldwide converged to talk about their "right of return" and the "ethnic cleansing" that was inflicted on them.It is striking how much Jew-hatred can occur without the single mentioning of the word "Jew." It is also interesting to contrast how Palestinian Arabs speak to each other, how Palestinian Arab Muslims speak to each other and how they speak to the...

Hamas losing its mojo?

Palestine Press Agency reports on internal Hamas fears of its collapse.According to the article, Hamas commissioned its own investigation into its current problems in Gaza. It appears that Hamas has lost much of its popularity, and can no longer create huge "spontaneous" rallies and protests as it used to, as the people of Gaza are not cooperating any more (autotranslated, cleaned up):The Palestine Press News Agency received a special document prepared...

The first victim of the Gaza fuel crisis

Firas Press reports that a man stabbed his brother to death in a fight over a container of cooking fuel.The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 7...

The "Peace Index" - Moonbattery masquerading as statistics

Yesterday a group called the "Economist Intelligence Unit" came out with a ranking of world countries based on how "peaceful" they are (h/t Michael Fridman for the link.) The US came in 97th out of 140 countries, and Israel came in 136th. It was heavily covered in newspapers worldwide.They have a very elaborate methodology, taking into account many different factors. The factors themselves seem to be the product of an interesting mindset.First,...

Hamas digging weapons tunnels underneath schools

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is furiously digging tunnels in anticipation of an Israeli invasion of Gaza.The tunnels serve two purposes: to hide caches of weapons and explosives, and to provide an escape route for Hamas leaders through Rafah.The source quoted mentions that no matter what happens during any Israeli activity, Hamas plans to declare themselves "victorious conquerors" as soon as the IDF leaves by claiming that they "repelled...

The dangers of "peace" with Syria

As I mentioned yesterday, during the NORPAC trip to Washington a congressman asked my group what we thought of the news about the negotiations between Israel and Syria.My answer, after stressing that this was not NORPAC's position, was that I was extremely skeptical about the sincerity of Syria in wanting peace. I pointed out that the Syrian border was the quietest of all Israel's borders and the borders where Israel made compromises for "peace"...

Jordanian media against freedom of speech

From Arab News:A coalition of Jordanian media outlets, professional syndicates and political parties plan to launch a national campaign on June 10 for the boycott of Danish and Dutch products to protest anti-Islam moves in the two European countries, organizers said yesterday.The campaign, entitled “The Messenger Unites Us,” came into existence after a dozen of Danish papers reprinted blasphemous cartoons in February.The controversial pictures were...

Today we really had a "Zionist-Occupied Government"

Today, I am attending the annual NORPAC mission to Washington. Some 900 committed Zionists came down to speak to virtually every Senate and Congress office, sometimes to the congress members themselves and sometimes to their aides.Before and after the meetings we are hearing speeches from some of Israel's best friends on the Hill. Most of them sound more pro-Israel than Kadima.My group had three meetings. The first two were with aides, who politely...

When detente is better than "peace"

Israel and Syria have started "peace" talks in Turkey.At the moment, Syria's stance against Israel is entirely passive-aggressive. Everything that it has been doing - arming Hezbollah, building a nuclear weapons site, hosting terror groups - has a veneer of deniability, no matter how implausible. Which means that any agreement to stop those activities is essentially unenforceable, because they cannot be officially monitored.On the other hand, the...

Palestinian Arab news roundup

Lots of stuff going on in the Palestinian Arab press tonight...Mostly from Firas Press:There are rumors that Hamas was planning to hold a demonstration, shoot a Qasssam rocket into the crowd, blame Israel and use the situation to open Rafah. The Popular Committees nixed the idea.An AP report is elaborated on where Palestinian Arabs are reluctant to embrace Bin Laden's support....