August 2010 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Audio of the Herzog/Toynbee Debates

Last week, I posted an article from the Canadian Jewish Chronicle summarizing the 1961 debate on the morality of Israel between Arnold Toynbee and Dr. Yaacov Herzog. An email correspondent managed to get a hold of the original audio of the debate. Now I am making it available on the Internet, in four parts. Such a historic event should be available for everyone to hear. (I've never used this audio service before, so I hope it works OK for everyone.) ...

At least this way, he's a little more relevant, if harder to make out. (DoZ is too busy for me to get her to use her mad Photoshop skills and make this look better.....

"Rabbis for Human Rights" show where their loyalties lie

Here is the statement from "Rabbis for Human Rights:" May God comfort the families of those murdered tonight, and also protect Palestinian families from attempts at revenge. There was already one attempt this evening, and security forces are protecting the family. In another location there is currently an attempt to uproot trees. If we hear of other such attempts we will try to send security forces to do their job. However, we also need volunteers...

Al Arabiya reader reaction to the murders

Al Arabiya's coverage of the terror attack immediately drew many comments - over 150 so far. The initial responses from Al Arabiya readers in Arabic to the murders were ecstatic. The first reaction said "Mubarak (blessed) to you," and many more said simply "God is great." The vast majority were very approving of the murders. There were, however, a few exceptions. Commenter 5, from the West Bank, threw in a cautionary note, saying that now Israel...

Fayyad's fake condemnation

Salam Fayyad, that darling of the West who is the most moderate quasi-leader that Palestinian Arabs are ever likely to have, is following in the footsteps of Mahmoud Abbas and Yasir Arafat. His condemnation of the terror attack is the same as those given by Abbas and Arafat over the years. Not a word about how the attack is evil, or immoral, or wrong. Instead: "What happened tonight in Hebron was timed to coincide with the PLO's decision to engage...

Spinning SpongeBob

My SpongeBob poll can be used as an object lesson on how the media can make any survey appear to support literally any position. First, the facts. As of this writing, the poll results are: Bring him back! 55 (39%) Nah, we don't need him. 41 (29%) Don't waste time. Work on a new design already! 27 (19%) Who? 18 (12%) The spin for pro-SpongeBob people: By a commanding 10% margin, EoZ readers support...

From Ha'aretz: Four Israelis were killed on Tuesday night when gunmen opened fire on their car at the entrance to Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, in the West Bank. The attack occurred around 7:30 P.M. on Route 60. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Magen David Adom reported that the victims were two men aged 25 and 40 and two women, also aged 25 and 40. Channel...

"Moderate" Arabs praise murders, proud that they are from the West Bank

Firas Press, which is oriented towards Fatah, so far has five comments on its story about the terror attack near Kiryat Arba. All five are very happy about it. Two of them are proud that the real resistance still exists in the West Bank (as opposed to those collaborators in Gaza.) It is sort of like rooting for a hometown sports team - which side can kill more Jews? Others simply say "God is great." A new one says that this must have been done...

Hamas praises murder of "four Zionist rapists"

The Al Qassam Brigades of Hams referred to the four civilians, including a pregnant woman, who were murdered near Kiryat Arba as "rapists." They also praised the attack: "Hamas praises the attack and regards it as a natural response to the crimes of the occupation," said Sami Abu-Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, adding that the attack was proof "of a failure of security coordination" between Israel and the Palestinians. UPDATE: I am told that the...

Blogger/press conference with IDF spokesperson on attack

I just attended a bloggers conference with Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich of the IDF. She didn't shed too much new light on the attack. She said, "An hour ago, we had a severe terroristic attack at Kiryat Arba - which is very close to Hebron. The info we have is that it was a civilian car. Four people that were sitting inside the car were killed, amongst them a pregnant woman. This is a very severe terroristic attack. In the past two...

US funds left-wing, anti-Netanyahu ad campaign

From the Jerusalem Post: The Geneva Initiative unveiled a campaign partially funded by the USAID in which Palestinian leaders speak to the Israeli public in video clips, telling Israelis that there is a Palestinian partner for an agreement. Thus far, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee Yasser Abed Rabbo and Fatah Central Committee member Jibril Rajoub have recorded short messages, all of which...

From the Tehran Times: The Iranian vice president for parliamentary affairs said here on Monday that the list of firms related to the occupying Palestinian regime will be published by next week for further sanctions against these companies. The Mehr News Agency quoted Hojjatoleslam Mohammad-Reza Mir-Tajeddini as saying that three years ago a plan was approved by the Majlis...

Hamas complains that Egypt isn't allowing members through Rafah

Not only are the PA and Hamas restricting which Gazans can leave, but Egypt is as well. Hamas accused Egypt of stopping Hamas members from traveling through Rafah en route to Saudi Arabia for Ramadan. They accused Egypt of collaborating with the PA to restrict the movement of Hamas members and leaders. They also said that Egypt tried to blame Saudi Arabia for the rejection of Hamas members. It should be recalled that in the past, Hamas stopped...

Muslims freak over WJC meeting

The Muslims really have to scour the news to find things to seethe about. The World Jewish Congress is having a Governing Board meeting in Jerusalem over the next three days. It is not a huge convention; only about 200 people are in attendance. While there are some prominent speakers, like Shimon Peres and Elie Wiesel, it did not get any major press. But the Muslims noticed. From the Qassam website, as well as others: -The Islamic-Christian Front...

Increase in PalArab murders in Ramadan

While the number of Palestinian Arab murders has gone significantly down this year compared to the past two years, the past five days have seen four murders (and one person killed in a tunnel collapse.) On Friday, a man's body was found in an abandoned tunnel in Rafah. On Saturday, a man was found stabbed to death in Gaza City. On Sunday, a 15-year old boy was stabbed to death near Jenin. And on Monday, a man was killed in the al-Bureij camp...

YNet: New Hamas rockets can reach Tel Aviv

From YNet: Hamas has completed a series of experiments on its advanced Fajar rocket, which has a range of almost 80 kilometers (roughly 50 miles) and can as far Kfar Saba, northeast of Tel Aviv, experts say. In a few months, Hamas will be able to begin manufacturing the rockets, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Tuesday. The progress made by the Gaza group on the rocket front is huge, considering that Hamas' original Qassam rockets had a range of around...

Here is a video where Honest Reporting re-visits the event that helped start that organization - the mis-captioning of a September 2000 newspaper photo to make it look like an Israeli border policeman was beating up an Arab, rather than saving the life of a Jew. Since then, Honest Reporting and its blog Media Backspin has exposed countless cases of media bias and...

Life Magazine looks at the Arab world, 1957

I thought that this was interesting, part of a much longer two-part article, from Life, April 1, 1957. Click to enlarge....

Juan Cole writes in his blog: The spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, made waves this week when he included in his blessing for Rosh Ha-Shana, the Jewish New Year, a prayer that a plague should strike the Palestinians and wipe them out, including Mahmoud Abbas. He said, “Let Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority]...

Over the weekend, Elder Brother of Ziyon requested that I get rid of Spongebob Squarepants on the bottom of my blog logo. His reasoning was that he often refers other people to the site, or he quotes it in message forums for various newspapers, and he thinks that it should look more serious in order to be taken more seriously. At this point in time, he says, EoZ has content...

Story of a Mossad hit

On August 2, 2008, I quoted a Jordanian paper: Well known sources informed Albawaba that General Mohammed Suleiman, an adviser to Syrian president Bashar al Assad, was assassinated on Friday. Suleiman also served as Syria's liaison officer to Lebanon's Hizbullah movement. According to the sources, Suleiman was shot dead by a sniper in the Syrian port city of Tartous. They added the funeral service will be held on Sunday in Suleiman's home-town of...

What exactly did Ovadia Yosef say? (updated)

The initial reports over the weekend claimed that former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef called for a genocide against all Palestinian Arabs, wishing the plague on Mahmoud Abbas and all other Palestinians. The New York Times said he described the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as “evil” and called on God to strike “these Ishmaelites and Palestinians with a plague; these evil haters of Israel.” YNet originally reported and translated the sermon...

PA kids TV teach all Israeli cities are "occupied" (PMW)

Palestinian Media Watch shows a children's TV show, shown last week, that refers to a series of Israeli cities as "occupied." TV host to girl: "You live in Jerusalem. Do you visit the 1948 occupied cities (Israeli cities)?" Girl (Lujayn): "I’ve been to Hebron." TV host: "No, Hebron is a city [in the Palestinian Authority] that we all can enter. The occupied cities – such as Lod, Ramle, Haifa, Jaffa, Acre (all Israeli cities) – have you visited...

Hezbollah rejects call to remove arms from Beirut

For nearly a week, Lebanese politicians have been reacting to the fatal firefight between Hamas and al-Abbash in Beirut by calling for the elimination of arms in Beirut altogether. Two groups disagree: Hezbollah and their allies in Amal. Hezbollah first rejected the idea, saying that Beirut needs to be protected from that constant Israeli threat. Then they said that the only weapons that should be allowed in Beirut are "resistance weapons." And...

Arabs see that Abbas has no mandate for peace talks

From The National (UAE): Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, faces a crisis of credibility among his own people as he heads into direct talks with Israel in Washington this week. Perhaps nothing better illustrates this than a rather awkward security crackdown Thursday in Ramallah, when leftist factions convened a meeting to protest against Mr Abbas’s decision to accept the US invitation to the talks. Security officials justified the actions...

Salam Fayyad literally begs Arabs for money

Al Ahram has a sensationalist article that claims that in recent days, Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad has been "crying" and begging Arab countries to help prop up the finances of the PA. As opposed to Fayyad's public speech last week where he confidently predicted the PA's full financial independence by the end of 2013, in private he has been intensely lobbying and begging members of the Arab League to pay up on their...

Egypt finds 5 caches of explosives, weapons en route to Gaza

Over the weekend, Egyptian security forces discovered five separate caches of weapons, explosives and ammunition that were on their way to Gaza. 110 anti-aircraft missiles were found in one area, and 60 more in another. A third contained 100 kg of explosives. The others had ammunition, more explosives and weapon...

AP notices that Hamas and Fatah split worsening

A little late to the game, but at least the word is getting out: The rival Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have clamped down harder on opponents and critics in recent months — deepening a nasty split that could prevent Palestinian statehood even if peace talks with Israel kicking off this week succeed against long odds. New reports by Palestinian rights groups highlight a surprising symmetry in the abuse that the U.S.-backed...

Abbas lies and threatens. No one notices.

Mahmoud Abbas made a speech on the eve of negotiations with Israel. He said that the only reason he agreed to negotiations is because the Quartet publicly confirmed their statement from last March that Israel must withdraw to the 1967 lines, including East Jerusalem. In his words: The statement confirmed all previous statements of the Quartet ... the statement underlined the need to end the occupation that took place in 1967, including East Jerusalem,...

Saudi customs manage to confiscate 5195 books

Saudi customs officials are bragging that they have confiscated over 5000 books that were being smuggled into the Kingdom this year. Most of them were religiously offensive, although some were merely politically offensive. Good wor...

Muslims in Scotland threaten shops that sell Israeli goods

From the Scotland Sunday Herald: Asian shopkeepers in one of the biggest Muslim areas in Scotland are backing a boycott of Israeli produce. In a move that has worried Jewish groups, Muslim families who own stores in Glasgow’s south side are refusing to stock Israeli goods in protest at Israel’s West Bank settlements and policy towards Palestinians. Around 30 stores in Muslim communities in Pollokshields, Pollokshaws and Govanhill are supporting...

From YNet: The Consulate General of Israel in Shanghai recently was surprised to discover on the shelves of a local supermarket chain a canned beverage called "The Jew's Ear Juice." The drink is made of a black mushroom which does resemble a wrinkled ear. Israel's Consul-General in Shanghai Jackie Eldan stressed that this was not a case of anti-Semitism, as Judaism is considered...

NYT's latest op-ed nonsense (updated)

A co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah, who makes no bones about how he wants Israel to disappear, writes an op-ed in the New York Times. It remains amazing that the "newspaper of record" can deign to publish such absurdities as this: The United States insists that Hamas meet strict preconditions before it can take part in negotiations: recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by agreements previously signed between Israel and...

"Million dollar bill" in the UAE

Three years ago, a woman in a Wal-Mart in Georgia tried to purchase $1671.55 worth of merchandise - with a million dollar bill. She was hoping that the store would give her back $998,328.45 in change. That same year, also in Georgia, a man tried to deposit a million dollar bill into a bank. As the article says, such a move "would raise eyebrows even in Dubai." Well, the writer was probably right. From the Gulf News: Abu Dhabi Police have arrested...

A parenthetical note in an article about cricket

Sometimes, hope can be found in the unlikeliest of places. An blog entry in Pakistan's Express Tribune newspaper says: A British tabloid, The News of the World, gleefully revealed the sad truth that has haunted our nation for generations; that our international sporting ambassadors accepted bribes in exchange for altering/shaping their performance. Whether it was bowling a sequence of no-balls or playing out a maiden over, it’s blindingly apparent...

Whatever happened to that "blockade buster" Algerian ship?

One and a half weeks ago there were a number of news stories - from the Israeli media, then picked up by UPI and others - about an Algerian ship that was supposedly heading to Gaza. As I mentioned, those stories were wrong, and the ship was headed to El Arish where the aid would be unloaded and sent to Gaza via Rafah. None of the media outlets that mentioned the supposedly blockade-busting ship seem to have noticed that it never reached Gaza, that...

What is the worst insult Fatah can hurl against Hamas?

Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf has come out with an attack on Hamas, something which happens with some regularity from Fatah. But when Fatah insults Hamas, it is usually not because they are a bloodthirsty terrorist organization. Their problem with Hamas is that it is not terrorist enough against Israel. In this case, Assaf is mocking Hamas for cooperating with the hated Zionist enemy and even, he charges, meeting with them to negotiate. He claims...

WSJ sums up the Arab world's "dirty little secret"

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal: As Israelis and Palestinians prepare to visit Washington next week to begin direct peace talks, it's worth recalling what refugees the Palestinians are—in Arab countries. Last week, Lebanon's parliament amended a clause in a 1946 law that had been used to bar the 400,000 Palestinians living in the country from taking any but the most menial jobs. "I was born in Lebanon and I have never known Palestine," the...

Arab columnist almost gets it right

Diana Mukkaled in Asharq al-Awsat writes: Hamas police proceeded to close a water park in Gaza due to the presence of "degrading and unethical gender mixing" according to the justification reported in the news. Subsequent information about this incident revealed that the citizens who were removed from the water park, following the Hamas decisions, had just sat down to break their fast [during the holy month of Ramadan], and those evicted from this...