August 2009 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Monday, August 31, 2009

Comments on comments

This blog got 1466 comments in August, a little higher than July's previous high. Monday alone saw 75 comments.Most of the comments are quite good and the debates have been enjoyable, and it is making this blog not only a destination for reading posts but also a community, which is particularly gratifying.I just wanted to thank everyone who jumps into the fray and who avoids ad hominem attacks. I would like this nascent community to be as welcoming,...

Can soccer players break the Ramadan fast?

Controversy has erupted around a recent fatwa out of Egypt:Egypt’s top religious institution has exempted the national football team from fasting during the holy month of Ramadan ahead of an international tournament, officials said, but the players have refused.The fatwa or religious edict, which comes ahead of the World Youth Championship in Egypt due to kick off on September 24 just days after the end of Ramadan, has sparked the fury of the country’s...

100,000 Hamas campers learning to kill Jews

From the IDF:700 summer camps, for children and teenagers, operated this summer by terror organizations along the Gaza Strip – operating under the slogan – A "Victory for Gaza – The Glory of Jerusalem". The camps are operated by the Hamas in order to encourage the next generation of this organization. In the same area many summer camps are operated by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) – the main "competition" of Hamas’s summer camps....

Hamas calls Holocaust education a "war crime"

I am hard pressed to come up with a better example of turnspeak:A Hamas spiritual leader on Monday called teaching Palestinian children about the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews a "war crime," rejecting a reported U.N. proposal to include the Holocaust in Gaza's school curriculum.Hamas spiritual leader Younis al-Astal lashed out after hearing that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the main U.N. body aiding Palestinian refugees, planned to introduce...

Looking through some Palestinian Arab forums, I saw this image, edited from a Pirates of the Caribbean logo:A dead al-Qassam Brigades member. What's not to lik...

Hamas confiscates charity's cars

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas confiscated some 50 vehicles belonging to the National Center for Community Rehabilitation in Gaza, an organization that helps out disabled Gazans. The cars were used to transport the disabled to rehabilitation programs.As a result, the organization today closed some of its offices and around 50 employees are out of a job.Hamas at the time justified its seizure by saying that the organization didn't need...

"Islamophobia" virtually nonexistent in NY

From the Times Herald-Record (h/t Vicious Babushka): Jews were the top targets for hate crimes in New York state last year, followed by blacks, gay men and Hispanics, according to a report by the state Department of Criminal Justice Services.The report analyzed crime data submitted to the state by police agencies from all 62 counties. The results of the state's number-crunching are distilled in an eight-page report made public last week.The report...

Bloggers' block open thread

I couldn't come up with anything else good this morning so I have to fall back on my old stand-byes, looking at whatever the Saudi Vice Squad is up to - and the dreaded Open Threa...

Saudi Vice squad vs. the circus

If this report is correct, the Saudi vice squad is sometimes going against the wishes of the Saudi government itself:The Commission for Promotion of Virtues and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) is cracking down on summer festivals that the government hopes will promote domestic tourism.“These acts contradict the faith and must not be done, taught, spread or encouraged,” the Hai’a spokesman Abdullah Al-Mashiti told Al-Watan Arabic daily this week, referring...

Honor, humility, and realism in Islam

Amr Khaled, the charismatic Egyptian preacher I just mentioned who is under fire for being to sympathetic to Jews, has an English section to his website. I found the following passage fascinating:We have previously discussed the importance of not being passive and that we should take positive actions, and the importance of seriousness and perfecting what we do. This time we will talk about the Honor and Dignity ('Ezzah) of the Muslim Ummah. ...

Followup on Egyptian preacher

Al Arabiya finally translated the article I mentioned last week about Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled's Ramadan TV show about the life of Moses and the criticism it came under for being too sympathetic to Jews.While I was pretty accurate, one important subtlety was lost in the autotranslation.Khaled's website asked general questions about the life of Moses to get his viewers to think out of the box:"Think about these questions," he wrote on the website....

Today's PalArab news (8/30/09)

There were two bombs set off in Gaza, one outside Hamas security headquarters and another outside Mahmoud Abbas' (presumably empty) Gaza residence. A third bomb was discovered and dismantled. Looks like Jund Ansar Allah is not quite dead yet.Hamas abducted five Fatah members in Gaza. Happy Ramadan!Hamas called in members of the Independent Commission for Human Rights for questioning. The commission had criticized Hamas for how it treats prisoners,...

Gaza groups against UNRWA Holocaust education (UPDATED)

From Ma'an:A group of refugee camp committees in the Gaza Strip wants the United Nations to remove history of the Jewish Holocaust from its classroom curriculum.In a letter to director John Ging, the committees urged the refugee agency to scrap its program because mention of the genocide "confirms the Holocaust and raises sympathy for Jews."Holocaust denial is not uncommon in Gaza's refugee camps, where many feel marking legitimate Jewish suffering...

Terrorist Innovation: The Ass Bomb

From the Saudi Gazette:The failed assassination attempt on Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs, Thursday night was planned by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which operates from Yemen, sources confirmed.According to Okaz sources, the bomber who detonated himself only a meter away from the Prince was part of a terrorist cell formed to target oil installations and public figures.He had slipped into the Kingdom...

Now is the time to lobby for Jonathan Pollard's release

No matter what you think of Jonathan Pollard, he has paid for his espionage many times over and it is way past time for him to be released.Here are the facts of the case.Now that the Obama administration is seeking to increase its credibility among people who support Israel, it would be an obvious move for President Obama to pardon Pollard and set him free.This is the time to call and email the White House, every day, and ask them politely to pardon...

More and more "civilians" being added to the list

PTWatch and t34zakat continue to scour various sources to identify more of the "civilians" killed in Gaza on the PCHR list that were in fact terrorists.As the widget on my upper right corner shows, so far we have identified 331 terrorists who were named as "civilian" by the PCHR, in statistics that were unquestioningly used by other NGOs.19 of them were also listed as "children."Perhaps most importantly, we now have identified, by name, over 70%...

Tunnel Collapse! Work Accident! And more...

Ma'an reports:Three Palestinians were killed and another injured after a tunnel collapsed in southern Gaza on Friday morning.Medics at Yousef An-Najjar Hospital told Ma'an three bodies were brought in after the Rafah tunnel collapsed. Another injured Palestinian was taken to the European Hospital, they said.All four men were thought to be from the same family, the Al-Lahhams of Khan Younis.I'm not sure if they are from the same al-Lahham family who...

US supporting Judenrein PalArab state

From UPI:A U.S. agency says it is replacing West Bank road signsonly in areas under full or partial Palestinian Authority control with English and Arabic ones.The U.S. Agency for International Development denied reports claiming it was removing existing road signs in Hebrew in the Israel-controlled portion of the West Bank and replacing them with English and Arabic road signs.Media reports Thursday implied the new road signs were in preparation for...

About that two-state solution that Hamas supposedly endorses...

There have been no shortage of people over the past few years trumpeting various Hamas statements as indicating that Hamas would accept a two-state solution.Of course, these same people ignore Hamas when it says the exact opposite, in plain language.So here is something else for them to ignore:Hamas and Islamic Jihad rejected caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s plan to establish a de facto Palestinian state within two years, arguing that “resistance”...

Radical Islam: Totalitarianism, Mark III (TNR)

Today's must read, by Jeffrey Herf and published on TNR: The Totalitarian Present: Why the West Consistently Underplays the Power of Bad IdeasAs uncomfortable as it may make some tolerant and well-intentioned souls, an intellectually respectable case can be made that radical Islam constitutes the third variant of totalitarian ideology politics in modern history. The first version emerged in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The second was that...

Egyptians upset: Exodus story too sympathetic to Jews

An Egyptian TV preacher has brought up the apparently sensitive topic of the Exodus on his show being seen during Ramadan, causing controversy in Egypt.According to Al Arabiya (Arabic), Amr Khaled created a Ramadan TV show called "Stories of the Koran." The second episode tackled the story of Pharaoh and the Jews, which very roughly parallels the Biblical story.Khaled discusses Pharaoh's reasons for slaughtering the Jewish males. In his website,...

Don't play with firecrackers!

From PCHR: ...A family dispute took place between members of the al-Jamala family and those of the al-Bughdadi family in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north Gaza city. The dispute took place when a member of the al-Jamala family asked children from the al-Bughdadi family, who were playing with firecrackers in front of his house, to leave the area. The issue developed into a dispute between the two families. During the dispute one of the parties...

Shalom Sesame will return

From JPost:Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Stiller and Christina Applegate are just a few of the stars slated to appear in a new Sesame Street-style production geared at teaching Jewish-American children about Jewish culture."Shalom Sesame," a 12-part series for preschoolers featuring the globe-trotting Muppet Grover, will explore Jewish identity and traditions and will film on location at several Israeli sites, including the Western Wall.Big-name guest stars,...

Nefesh B'Nefesh offering free blogger flights to Israel

Nefesh B'Nefesh is asking Jewish/Israeli bloggers to nominate other bloggers to fly to Israel on a NbN flight, with the proviso that they must write about their experience.The catch is that we can only nominate other bloggers and must write a blog post as to why we chose that person.So, as much as I'd like to win (hint, hint), I need to nominate someone else.For the same reasons given by JoeSettler, I would choose Soccer Dad. He has done more than...

Ma'an shows us pictures of DFLP female terrorists training:Once again, Gaza just doesn't seem that crowded. Plenty of room - for practicing killing Jew...

Predicting the next Arab rumor

Rumor prediction is a very inexact science, but the fact that Ma'an chose to highlight a single story about an Israeli scientific experiment makes me think this one is on the horizon.You see, Israeli scientists have a joint research project with the University of Hawaii where they detonate tons of explosives underground in the Negev to simulate a small earthquake. Even more nefarious is that this research is being paid for by the US Defense Department.Meanwhile,...

Erekat and the "Jewish State"

Ha'aretz has an interesting interview with chief Palestinian Arab liar/hypocrite/negotiator Saeb Erekat where all the questions come from readers around the world. One of his answers is:Will you ever recognize Israel as a Jewish state? Thank you Asked by Jon P, from Buffalo, U.S.A.Saeb Erekat: That's so amazing of Israel. The birth certificate of Israel as embodied in the UN is called the State of Israel so I'm asked to recognize the State of Israel....

Saudi husband is 80, wife is 10

From the Arab News:AL-LAITH: A 10-year-old bride was returned last Sunday to her 80-year-old husband by her father who discovered her at the home of her aunt with whom she has been hiding for around 10 days.A local newspaper said the husband, who denies he is 80 in spite of claims by the girl’s family, accused the aunt of meddling in his affairs. “My marriage is not against Shariah. It included the elements of acceptance and response by the father...

Israeli dates being eaten for Ramadan

Al Quds has an article about how Jericho-area farmers are trying to market their dates in competition with Israeli dates grown in settlements.Arab farmers have increased their date yields this year so that Muslims can more easily avoid eating the imperialistic Israeli dates. The article seems to imply that Israeli dates are cheaper and more plentiful, as they are an export product. If I am reading it correctly, Arab farmers are also saying that their...

PFLP not happy with Hamas

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist terror group that thrives in Gaza, is less than happy with the slow Islamization of Gaza by Hamas.The latest edict by Hamas mandating that girls in government schools cover up their hair is being criticized by the PFLP:[The PFLP statement said these are] "irresponsible actions occur that crack the Palestinian social fabric and will reflect negatively on the situation of education, and is...

Seth Freedman eliminates anti-semitism!

Seth Freedman, one of The Guardian's house Jews whom we last saw trying hard to dissociate himself from those "other" Jews who support Jewish self-determination, has just singlehandedly eliminated almost all anti-semitism in the world today.According to him:Last week's allegations in a Swedish newspaper sparked an inferno in diplomatic circles, the flames of which are being fanned higher with every passing day. Despite dealing specifically with the...

Saudi women: "My guardian knows the best for me"

From the Arab News:RIYADH: Describing themselves as activists, a number of Saudi women have launched a campaign supporting the Kingdom's male guardianship system.As part of the campaign — entitled “My Guardian Knows The Best For Me” — the women have written a letter to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in which they confirmed their full support for an Islamic approach in administering the Kingdom.The campaign has been launched to counter...

A new, old honor killing?

Palestine Today reports on an 86-year old man who murdered his 50-year old daughter in his house in Tulkarem. Maybe he thought she was talking to a man on the phone. The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 16...

Another step towards Hamastan

Hamas has denied repeatedly that they want to turn Gaza into an Islamist regime. For example, in this interview last year with Hamas senior advisor Ahmed Yousef: Q: Some people have claimed that Hamas is trying to establish an Islamic emirate and is about to impose Sharia law in the territories under its control. Is this true?AY: It's totally false, and from the time of the Hamas takeover of Gaza I don't think any Palestinian observed any change...

Notable commenter blogs

Two commenters have interesting blogs of their own.The Definition of a Horse (not sure if I have permission to say who writes it) is a new blog that goes in depth on a number of topics, in more detail than I do, and with copious footnotes. It is definitely worth checking out.Also, Charlie H. Ettinson brings us Thoughts: A Buck Each, which also has some nice original essays.Check them ou...

Golden Oldie: Psychological History of Palestinian Arabs, part 13

Since I am (probably) unavailable, here is another classic from a previous August, this one two years ago. This was the most recent of my series on Palestinian Arab history. I would change a little of what I wrote since then, but it is pretty much on target. Feel free to read the earlier chapters.The stateless Palestinian Arabs became more and more fragmented as the 1960s dawned. As their numbers increased, so did their value to the ever-growing...

Since I am unavailable to post, check out this article from August 2006:Normally, I see articles like this drivel in the op-ed sections of Al-Jazeerah.info or similar sites that pretty much publish anything anyone wants to say as long as it fits their agenda, facts be damned. But this is slightly more interesting because it was written by the Editor-in-Chief of the Arab News,...