September 2008 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, September 29, 2008

Shana Tova u'Metuka! ! שנה טובה ומתוקה

May this be a year of peace, happiness, blessings, prosperity, and redemptio...

Today's search terms

Here's how one can tell that it is almost Rosh Hashanah - my blog is Google's number one link for "Shana Tova u'Metuka"! (Because last year's post was so popular in recent days, and Isaw people were looking for how to write it in Hebrew, I added the Hebrew to the title this year - and already it surpassed my last-year post in Google.)These are the keywords that people are using to find me today, in order of popularity:shana tova u metukashana tova...

A Palestinian vendor sells sweets as Muslims prepare for the Eid-al-Fitr festival in the southern Gaza Strip September 28, 2008. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)The packaging on the candy boxes is in Hebrew. (Although it is possible that the vendor is using old boxes...

Abbas in 2007 accused Israel of "desecrating holy places"

I couldn't find Mahmoud Abbas' full speech at the UN this year, but his speech last year included an amazing libel against Israel that I do not recall anyone condemning him for:Is it not time for the city of Jerusalem to become a city of true peace for all peoples of faith from all religions, and for Israel, the occupying Power, to cease all actions aimed at altering the character of the sacred city, imposing siege on it and forcing its inhabitants...

Religion of Peace firebombs book publisher

From the Guardian (h/t Yerushalimey):The London home of the publisher of a controversial new novel that gives a fictionalised account of the Prophet Muhammad's relationship with his child bride, Aisha, was firebombed yesterday, hours after police had warned the man that he could be a target for fanatics.A petrol bomb is believed to have been thrown through the door of Martin Rynja's £2.5m town house in Islington's Lonsdale Square, which also doubles...

Anatomy of a supposed "settler attack"

Ma'an, as well as the rest of the PalArab media, reports:Israeli settlers executed an 18-year-old shepherd boy in the fields outside Aqraba, a town in the Nablus district of the northern West Bank.Village municipal affairs representative Ghassan Douglas identified the young man as Yahya Atta Riahin. Douglas said that a gang of Israeli settlers from Itamar settlement shot the boy at least 20 times at close range.Yahya did not return home with his...

Iranian "Qods Day" pictures (updated)

Hat tip to commenter Marc El, who noticed that the turnout to this year's Iranian hatefest was pretty poor.From Iran's Fars News Agency:No rally is complete without the obligatory burning of the infidel flags:The "Holy War or Victory" sign shows a kid with a Palestinian Arab flag smashing a Star of David:"How many must die before YOU act?" says this sign held by an army of...

"Free Gaza" freaks delayed yet again

There is an old maxim that when someone gives you more than one reason, you can be sure that they are lying:Foreign activists who planned to sail to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade have delayed their trip to late October, an organizer said on Friday. Members of the U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement had planned to sail to the Palestinian territory from Cyprus this week, but said they were held up while attempting to find a boat. There...

Bolton on Iranian nukes

From the New York Daily News:A wakeup call on Iran's nukesBY JOHN BOLTONIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, just a few hours after President Bush. The contrast was palpable. Ahmadinejad expressed continued defiance of the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency, insisting that Iran would continue and even accelerate its nuclear program. Bush, by contrast, has overseen...

14 weeks in a row

For the fourteenth consecutive week, far more Palestinian Arabs managed to die from their own actions than from anything Israel did.According to the PCHR, the IDF killed one "child" this week (a boy who was lighting up a Molotov cocktail and who had, the week before, stabbed a 9-year old). Interestingly, they repeat the accusation that the IDF was responsible for a woman's death in Abu Dis, but they don't count it as someone the IDf killed. (The...

Happy Qods Day!

Today is the last Friday of Ramadan, a day declared by the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran to be "Qods Day," where a city that Islam essentially ignored for most of the first twelve centuries of its existence is suddenly considered vitally important - only after Jews recovered control of Jerusalem.Here is a roundup of posts I've made to celebrate Qods Day over the past couple of years:Introduction - An overview of how Muslims have ignored Jerusalem...

Guest post: Review of Paul McCartney's Tel Aviv concert

Guest post by commenter Yerushalimey:------------------------------------It's difficult to decide where - or when - to begin an account of Sir Paul McCartney's "Friendship First" concert last night in Tel Aviv. I could describe the closest train station, a couple of hours before the event where, besides the steady flow of people of all ages wearing Beatles T-shirts there were about 20 women standing in line outside the shirutim (public toilets),...

Haifa, December 1-7, 1947

In the comments to my posting of Peres' speech at the UN, devoted commenter (and sometimes adversary) Aaron said:Well,it was a half truth for Peres to say that "the Arabs went to war". The last weeks of 1947 saw a number of aggressive actions by both Arabs and Jews.I responded with a link to a previous posting of mine, showing that the first Arab massacre of Jews occurred...

For the sheer heck of it.Not that they have been so successful, but its nice to know they are there when needed!(This is a "random" image from the Internet.Literally. I typed in "random" at Google Images and chose the first picture. Although these numbers sure don't look random...

Shimon Peres' speech to the UN

Mr. President,Excellencies,Ladies and Gentlemen, Over Sixty years have passed since the United Nations General Assembly voted on the historic resolution that would have put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Resolution 181 called for the establishment of a Jewish and an Arab state. Its title was: "Plan of Partition with Economic Union". It envisioned two states for two peoples, each fulfilling a distinct national aspiration. The Jewish people adopted...

From NPR: (h/t EBoZ) Yemeni men don't invest as much time and money as some American men do in finding the perfect cell phone, car, hunting rifle or flat screen TV. In this society, where tribal Arab traditions still dominate, men have a different method of showing off their wealth and social class — they wear short, curved daggers tucked into the front of their robes, in...

Iranian nuke roundup - old news recycled

The EU has now officially stated that "Iran is likely to have the technical capability of arming a nuclear bomb" and that "Iran's nuclear program appears to be aimed at acquiring weapons." Also that "Iran is close to developing the ability to arm a nuclear warhead."The IAEA said that Iran appeared to be making plans to add nuclear warheads to its long-range missiles. And also that "the IAEA has recently found evidence of 'foreign expertise' in Iran's...

This morning's peaceful PalArab news

Another clan clash in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death of an 18-year old.Hamas continues to harass, arrest and torture doctors in Gaza. Yesterday they arrested a pediatrician.Doctors Without Borders still refuses to comment on Hamas' campaign of terror against doctors. The only mention I could find on their main website was just noting the strike, implicitly blaming the doctors, and not a word about the arrests and assaults that have been well...

Arabs upset that non-Muslims tour the Old City

An interesting, and telling, article in Palestine Today (Arabic):Israel is preparing to launch tourist activities in the walled Old City of Jerusalem, which goes back to the reign of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the legal and under a lot of effects and its holy places, Islamic and Arab Umayyad to the days of the first and entrusted warrior Saladin and the Mamelukes.It appears that Israel wants to weave their own story about the history of Jerusalem and...

The nutty ramblings of a madman

From reading the news reports on Ahmadinejad's UN speech one gets the impression that it was just another political speech at the UN, with some pointed attacks towards America and Israel but not much else.Only when you read the actual transcript can you appreciate the sheer messianic and twisted craziness that this man is filled with.Here are some parts of the speech that the mainstream media doesn't feel is very important.First, the entire first...

Quickies

5 were killed in a tunnel explosion in Gaza. Since it appears that Egypt set the explosion, these will not be counted in my self-death counts.In a move that symbolized the Gaza/West Bank split better than any other, both governments chose wildly different days to celebrate Eid at the end of Ramadan. The PA says it starts on September 30th, Hamas says the 25th.Finally, a purely anti-semitic anti-Palin screed in the Pakistan Daily sit...

Ahmadinejad's anti-semitism and the MSM

Yesterday's speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN was the most anti-semitic speech given there since the infamous 1975 UN resolution that equated Zionism (with a small z) to racism.While most of the mainstream media reported (as in this AP example) Ahmadinejad accused “a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists ... (of) dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers...

Autotranslation of the day

From Saudi Arabia's Okaz news agency, an article about a car accident:Path General Hospital announced a state of emergency and alert yesterday morning following a traffic accident on the road [[in] Mrbp near Brownish Discharge led to the death of one person and wounding of 17, according to the available details.Not my idea of a place to have a nice family outing, but to each his own.....

"Free Gaza" freaks continue to show utter disregard for Gazans

The latest "Free Gaza" ship, called the "SS Hope," is scheduled to set sail from Cyprus on Thursday.Now, they are sending some doctors, which sounds like the Freaks might for once actually be interested in helping the people of Gaza. But, alas, it is not true. According to the FG site, "Doctors and lawyers are going to Gaza at the request of the people of Gaza to assess the medical tragedy there and to talk to the people." So the doctors will not...

Moderate Palestinian Arab negotiator threatens violence

From YNet:The Palestinian chief negotiator with Israel cautioned on Tuesday that violence could erupt if peace talks collapse."The Palestinians will continue to negotiate. But, if the talks reached a dead end, what do we do? Capitulate? Resistance in all its forms is a legitimate right," said Ahmed Qureia in a message to newly-elected Kadima chairwoman, Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni. So sweet that this moderate leader greeted the apparent...

The keffiyeh has become standard garb for anti-war activists across the globe and a chic accessory for urban hipsters -- a vaguely subversive, vaguely exotic all-weather neck warmer.Do you think that Mahmoud's decision to join the hipsters will enhance or discourage the keffiyeh's us...

Tuesday PalArab press roundup

Another man was killed by falling into a smuggling tunnel. I believe that this makes 37 tunnel deaths this year.One more was found dead of gunshot wounds in Deir al-Balah in Gaza.An anti-Hamas news site is reporting more evidence that last July's beach bombing that killed 5 Hamas members and a girl was from internal fighting.A previously unknown Gaza group is threatening to shoot rockets at the Rafah crossing and to kidnap Egyptian soldiers unless...

Isn't it romantic?

The Israeli media is reporting on the apparent motivation of the driver in yesterday's terror attack: A broken heart!The terrorist who rammed his BMW into a group of soldiers at a central Jerusalem thoroughfare late Monday night has been identified as Kasem Mugrabi, 19, from Jebl Mukaber in east Jerusalem.Mugrabi, a resident of the same village as the Mercaz Harav terrorist who killed eight in March, wounded fifteen people before being shot dead...

Buzzworthy Open Thread

I just tried to add Yahoo Buzz! to my template, but it is not working as nicely as I would like.But since you guys asked, here is another open thread......

PalArabs thrilled with terror attack

Here are some of the autotranslated comments at the Fatah-linked Palestine Press news agency to the article about the terror attack in Jerusalem today: I hope more heroic operations Yahya God all the freedom fighters in the city of Jerusalem, especially the bomber We congratulate the process [operation] and wish [that the source was] the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and it is not with the [Hamas] resistance, the Iranian Hamas pigs who deliver [only]...