November 2010 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

"Human rights" groups' double standards on white phosphorus (Zvi)

From Zvi, commenting on this story about Gaza terror groups using white phosphorus in rockets towards Israel: Clearly, it is a "war crime" for Israel to use white phosphorus in such a way that its use is legal - as a smoke screen to protect maneuvering troops - but it's okay for Gazan terrorists to use it in such a way that it cannot possibly be legal; there are no maneuvering Gazan troops in the vicinity who could use these particular weapons as...

I can now reveal the official poster for the Elder's off-Broadway extravaganza, at Yeshiva University, scheduled for next Tuesday: I am still working on the slides - I am pushing a hundred Powerpoint slides, so the talk will likely last some 90 minutes or so (I speak fast.) There is a lot of information there, though.The organizers wanted some stats about my blog, so...

From The Austrian Independent: An Austrian has been fined for yodelling while mowing his lawn, according to a report. The Kronen Zeitung newspaper claims Helmut G. was told by a court in Graz, Styria, that his yodelling offended his next-door Muslim neighbours. The men reportedly accused the 63-year-old of having tried to mock and imitate the call of the Muezzin. The daily...

From the PA's WAFA news agency (Arabic): Settlers have just erected a huge brass candlestick on the outskirts of the city of Nablus in the West Bank. Witnesses said that the menorah was set by a crane near the Za'tara triangle a few kilometers south of Nablus, and pointed out that this area is at the center of a number of extremist Jewish settlements. The menorah is often...

Amnesty doesn't think the intifada ever happened

Reading the latest Amnesty UK report slamming Israel on not doing enough for Gaza is an unreal experience. Sprinkled throughout the report are comparisons and statistics that simply ignore the second intifada and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, all for the singular purpose of making Israel look as bad as possible. Here are some examples: Gaza’s economic output per capita is today 40% lower than it was in 1994, at the start of the Oslo peace process.Why...

Nablus TV and Firas Press report on how Palestinian Arabs are desperately trying to become citizens of Arab countries. Gazans are trying to prove that they have Egyptian roots to become Egyptian citizens, but Egypt forces them to go through a very difficult legal process that forces most to give up in frustration amid steep legal fees. Even people who have one Egyptian...

Ahmadinejad hangs out with the Hidden Imam

Interesting stuff from Amir Taheri in WSJ: Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a closet Persian nationalist trying to de-Islamize Iran? Is he part of a plot to send the mullahs back to the mosques to make way for an Islamist military regime? These are some of the questions raised in the Majlis, Iran's ersatz parliament, by members who are trying to impeach the president. As astonishing as this might be for Western observers, Ahmadinejad is challenged by people...

We all know that white phosphorus is the most hideous substance known to man, and represents the depths of immorality and scandal - but only when it is used by Israel. Otherwise, no biggie. From Israel's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center: 1. On November 19, a phosphorus-containing mortar shell was fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip. It was part of an unusual...

Erdogan accepts "human rights" award, criticizes freedom of expression

Palestine Today reports that Turkey's Prime Minister received Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights in Tripoli, Libya, on Monday. In his speech, he said that Turkey would not allow any attack on Islam or Islamic values under the pretext of freedom of expression. He mentioned that the lives of Gaza's children are sacred. He also said that Turkey would not remain silent and indifferent to violence in the world. For some reason, he did...

Jordanian kicks Israelis out of her restaurant. Jordanians cheer.

From Al Arabiya: A Jordanian woman gained tremendous fame after refusing to receive a group of Israeli tourists at her restaurant in protest of the crimes of the Jewish state against the Palestinian people. Several professional associations and rights organizations praised the action taken by Salwa al-Barghouti when she decided to kick Israeli tourists out of her restaurant in the coastal city of al-Aqaba, 370 kilometers off the capital Amman. Barghouti...

Latest nefarious Zionist plot to "storm" the Temple Mount

Palestine Today quotes Arutz-7 about the latest insidious Zionist plan to "storm the Al Aqsa Mosque." On Chanukah, Jews plan to peacefully go to the Temple Mount and study where the various parts of the Second Temple were. They quote an organizer of this plot as saying that the Islamic Movement in Israel brings hundreds of people there to teach them about the history of Al Aqsa Mosque, so this would be roughly the same thing, since both of those...

Maldives Islamic Foundation: "Israelis coming to steal our organs"

From Minivan News (Maldives): The Islamic Foundation of the Maldives has reiterated calls to the Maldives government to “shun all medical aid from the Zionist regime” with a team of seven Israeli eye surgeons due to arrive in the country next month, claiming that Isreali doctors and surgeons “have become notorious for illegally harvesting organs from non-Jews around the world.” An article on the Foundation’s website titled “Beware of Israeli eye...

Blog update

Still trying to recover the blog to a reasonable style, and not happy with spending this much time on it. On some browsers/machines, it seems to look reasonable; on others, the background is a sickly green. I cannot figure out why. Somehow there is a CSS or something that is overriding the template settings I chose, but for some reason they do not override when you view an individual post, just the home page. I do not think I will even try to put...

To counter a planned boycott action, a number of organizations have designated Tuesday as Buy Israeli Goods day. If you live in a major metropolitan area in North America, this site has a list of local stores that carry Israeli goods. Ask the store manager specifically what he sells from Israel - and buy the goods you need! Otherwise, you can go to one of the many sites...

OK, I screwed up the blog

I made some mistake as I was trying to upgrade the comments...and I made a very bad newbie mistake: I didn't back up my template. Now I am not sure I can recover. Working on it, but things will be screwy for the foreseeable future. Sorr...

Ahmadinejad admits Stuxnet damaged centrifuges

From the NYT: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that “undoubtedly the hand of the Zionist regime and Western governments is involved. ” He also publicly acknowledged, apparently for the first time, that the country’s nuclear program had been disrupted recently by a malicious computer software that attacked its centrifuges. Speaking at a news conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad vowed the nuclear program would continue, but acknowledged damage from the computer...

It didn't seem becoming to nominate anything I did this year for the Hasby Awards, since there is a little conflict of interest there, but a number of people did place nominations for postings and videos of mine. Here they are, with some of my favorites added. So here you can vote on what you think was the best/most effective EoZ activity this year: 1. Happy Nakba! What...

Afternoon links

Iran's war against the West on social media sites by Israeligirl Palestinian revisionism is the only obstacle to peace by Danny Ayalon (sorry, forgot who to h/t) Israel vs. the International Criminal Court by Anne Herzberg On Thanksgiving, Turkey is eating up US interests by Barry Simon Jeffrey Goldberg (and many others, including a major Farsi-language site) noticed my post on Iran sending weapons to Lebanon hidden as medical aid. But how...

Wikileaks: How to negotiate with Iranians (1979)

Here's a notable cable, from 1979 - in the wake of the Islamic revolution in Iran - on how Iranians think, and what precautions diplomats need to take in negotiating with Iranians. INTRODUCTION: RECENT NEGOTIATIONS IN WHICH THE EMBASSY HAS BEEN INVOLVED HERE, RANGING FROM COMPOUND SECURITY TO VISA OPERATIONS TO GTE TO THE SHERRY CASE, HIGHLIGHT SEVERAL SPECIAL FEATURES OF CONDUCTING BUSINESS IN THE PERSIAN ENVIRONMENT. IN SOME INSTANCES THE DIFFICULTIES...

"We're tapping phone lines - I know that that ain't allowed"

From Ha'aretz: The United States broke an Israeli code and tapped the secure phone line in the Israeli Embassy in Washington without Jerusalem's knowledge. That revelation about Israeli-American relations did not come from WikiLeaks, but rather from former ambassador to Washington Itamar Rabinovich, in a radio interview yesterday. Rabinovich did not say exactly when the code was broken and when Israel found out about it, but it was understood from...

Wikileaks: Netanyahu's critique of the Lebanon war, and more

An interesting memo from a meeting between Representative Gary Ackerman and Binyomin Netanyahu while he was opposition leader in April, 2007: Netanyahu commented that Shimon Peres had admitted to him that the Oslo process had been based on a mistaken economic premise, and as a result European and U.S. assistance to the Palestinians had gone to create a bloated bureaucracy, with PA employees looking to the international community to meet their...

Building boom in Gaza

From YNet: Gaza's residents are no longer complaining about a coriander shortage. Israeli snacks are flowing into the Strip as well, through the Kerem Shalom crossing – at the approval and under the full supervision of the Hamas government. The lifting of the siege in June gave the Gazans room to breathe. With the money in the Strip – and there is quite a lot of it in dollars, dinars, and even shekels – they can buy whatever they want. Food and...

Israel's "peace partner" wants to turn the clock back to 1947

Today, the anniversary of the 1947 UN Partition Plan which recommended the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state in Palestine, is now described by the UN as a "Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People." Israel's moderate, pragmatic peace partner has yet again expressed its wish for Israel to disappear. From Ma'an: The PA also said that 1947 UN partition plan "a dangerous turning point which led to our catastrophe and loss of our land and...

Draft law in Turkey: Foreigners can buy land - but not Israelis

From Hurriyet (Turkey): A draft prepared by Turkey’s Ministry of Public Works and Housing would ease rules for property sales to foreign nationals, but some will not be able to enjoy the relaxed conditions. According to the draft, citizens of Israel and Greece will not be able to purchase land in Turkey, while such sales to citizens of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab nations will be relaxed considerably. The Turkish government has pressed...

Turkey wants return to Ottoman-era influence - and no Israel (Ma'ariv)

Iranian-style rhetoric from Turkey, from Ma'ariv, translated by Coteret via Islamo-nazism blog: Turkey – “Israel will not be able to remain over time an independent country, and a bi-national state will be established on all of the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River in which Jews and Palestinians will live,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in a number of meetings that he held with journalists and academics,...

Wikileaks: The Gulf fear of Iran and the demolition of "linkage"

From the perspective of Israel, the Wikileaks revelations have vindicated Israel's prioritizing the Iranian nuclear issue above all else. The news that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other Gulf countries have consistently communicated their fear of - and sometimes recommended military strikes against - Iran prove, definitively, that the "Palestinian issue" is not the driving force behind peace in the Middle East. While the New York Times credits...

Dozens of "aid" planes filled with missiles to Hezbollah?

In the wake of the Wikileaks revelation that Iranian Red Crescent planes sent to Hezbollah during the Lebanon war were "half filled" with missiles, one may wonder how many planes are we talking about? One hint: The war lasted from July 12 to August 14. Here is a report from Radio Free Europe from August 1: The fifth consignment of Iranian aid destined for Lebanon arrived in Damascus on July 23, IRNA reported. The two aircraft carrying medicine...

Wikileaks: Iran and Syria lied to IAEA about nuke plants

From The Guardian: Iranian officials withheld from international atomic energy inspectors the original design documents for a secret nuclear reactor suspected of being part of Tehran's plan to build an atomic bomb, a US embassy cable reveals. The secretariat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was denied the blueprints when in October 2009 its inspection team visited the part-built facility in a mountainside at Fordow near Qom. It was...

Wikileaks: Iran used Red Crescent to send agents and weapons to Hezbollah

A heavily redacted memo in Wikileaks as presented by The Guardian shows that Iran has cynically used its Red Crescent to smuggle weapons -including missiles - and agents into Lebanon during the 2006 war as well as elsewhere. 8. (S) Per the IRC's regulations, following his election in 2005, President Ahmadi-Nejad was able to appoint four members (out of 16) of the IRC management group. These four [NAMES REMOVED] were opposed to the IRC's leadership...

Wikileaks: Mossad's advice to the US

The Guardian has trove of the Wikileaks documents. Here are excerpts of an interesting 2007 description of Undersecretary Burns' meeting with Mossad chief Meir Dagan. The problem is that little of his prescient advice is being followed by the US. In an August 17 meeting, Israeli Mossad Chief Meir Dagan thanked Under Secretary Burns for America's support of Israel as evidenced by the previous day's signing of an MOU that provides Israel with USD...

CiFWatch has a masterful piece that looks at the six month anniversary of The Guardian's Harriet Sherwood reporting from Israel, and seeing if she is meeting her own stated standards of objectivity and going beyond the wire-service coverage to find the deeper stories. The results aren't pretty: The entire article is worth reading. While you are at it, last week CiFWatch...

From Nyheter (Norway,) November 19th: Oslo City [Mall] was closed for fifteen minutes this afternoon after protesters took action against Israeli products in the mall. Socialist Youth and the Red Youth organized the demonstration. Over 100 young people blocked a booth inside the mall that sells cosmetic products, including Israel's Dead Sea products. The protesters shouted...

Inspiring American Muslim kids to kill their neighbors

From the WSJ: The November special issue of Inspire, a slick new English-language Web magazine produced by Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, aims to do more than report the news. It wants to make news, by inspiring young American Muslims to kill their neighbors. In addition to offering a wealth of fresh details about the attempted bombing of two U.S. cargo planes last month, the third issue of Inspire (the first issue came out in June, the second...

"Road to Hope convoy" meets with Hamas

The "Road to Hope" convoy to Gaza, which suffered a setback when its ship was taken to Greece by its captain, made it to Egypt on Friday. Practically no news media is covering the event outside of Iran and anti-Israel sites. The reason is simple: the symbolic aid arrived through proper channels in El Arish and Egypt allowed it through - even including flotilla nutcase Ken O'Keefe. Israel didn't object. Yesterday, the "humanitarian" group...