Monday linkdump

From Ian:

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Intellectual savages?
Ferocious Palestinian anti-Semites have been sanitized by the Western public opinion which calls them “militants,” as The New York Times did last week.

"The Palestinian hatred has not been deciphered by our writers and intellectuals. It’s because we have been told that “they hate us” is the language of xenophobes, the illiberal, the intolerant; that genocidal anti-Semitism was buried in the ashes of Auschwitz; that we have to be polite and self-critical.
A seductive combination of post-colonial white guilt mixed with liberal condescension has dulled our moral senses and made us blind to an Islamism that conveys unleashed hatred, contempt, physical aggression, the desire to expel, to destroy and to eliminate the Jews."

On Army Radio, Erekat Again Accuses Israel of Arafat's Death
The results of an investigation into Arafat's death are not due for a few months, yet Erekat continues to hope Israel will be to blame.

"In an interview Sunday morning with Army Radio, Erekat again made conspiratorial accusations in regards to the death of Arafat, saying he was sure the former PLO Chairman did not die naturally but was killed, all the while implying that Israel was behind it. Erekat added that the November exhumation of Arafat's body will certainly lead to this conclusion."

BBC Watch: Accuracy issues in BBC report on death of Gaza ‘farmer’

"Interestingly, BBC chooses to omit completely from its report the fact that Anwar al Mamlouk was given a Fatah funeral, with his body wrapped in the Fatah flag, attendees carrying Fatah flags and an official Fatah poster made in his honour. "

CIF Watch: How big is E-1? The geographic reality of an alleged “impediment to peace”

"Is the world-wide fuss over an area between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, less than four times the size of Central Park, and a fraction of the size of Manhattan, that the Palestinians know will be included in the area of Israel if an agreement is ever reached, really worth making?"

Peter Beinart vs. the American Jewish community

"Contrary to Beinart’s claims, the research indicates that American Jewish opinion is solidly in alignment with Israeli Jewish opinion on the most important issues regarding peace and security for the Jewish state."

The Daily Beast: passing off fiction as truth

"Here we go again: Open Zion, Peter Beinart's blog at the Daily Beast has posted another article denying the existence of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, offensively putting the word 'refugee' in quote marks. The author, an MSc Politics student at SOAS, Zachary Smith, gets into a semantic tangle about the terms 'Sephardi' and 'Mizrahi' - irritatingly plumping for 'Arab Jews' - as if a common language or culture was ever a barrier to persecution and murder of Jews. As for the rest of his shopworn arguments, we have heard them all before."

Beinart, Pro-Hagel Bloggers Lie About Hoenlein's 'Jewish Lobby

"That has not stopped Hagel's defenders from twisting Hoenlein's words to make it seem as though he had made the term "Jewish lobby" kosher. The latest to do so was Daily Beast columnist (and frequent Israel critic) Peter Beinart, during a debate with Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. Beinart said he agreed that that the term "Jewish lobby" was inaccurate, but that it "also happens to have been used by Malcolm Hoenlein, the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations last December."

Chuck Hagel Joins the Palestine Firsters

"Chuck Hagel established himself as a Palestine Firster on October 27, 2009, speaking at J Street’s first national conference: “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central, not peripheral, to US vital security interests in combating terrorism, preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon, stability in the Middle East and US and global energy security.”

Really?!"

Only 0.6% of world’s Christians live in Middle East
Pew study finds fewer than 13 million Christians, out of 2.2 billion adherents worldwide, still in the region where faith was born

"According to Pew’s newly released December 2012 “Global Religious Landscape Study,” just 0.6 percent of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians now live in the Middle East and North Africa. Christians make up only 4% of the region’s inhabitants, drastically down from 20% a century ago and marking the smallest regional Christian minority in the world."

Egypt's Coptic Christians fleeing country after Islamist takeover
Tens of thousands of Egyptian Christians are leaving the country in the wake of the Egyptian revolution and subsequent Islamist takeover of politics, priests and community leaders say.

Egypt’s Nour Party to Run Against Muslim Brotherhood in Election
"The ultraconservative Salafist Nour Party will compete with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party in parliamentary elections, signaling a rift between the country’s two largest Islamist movements."

Iran spying on Israel from Syria, says Pentagon
Signals intelligence stations, including one in the Golan, are meant to supply information to Hezbollah

"Signals intelligence stations are reportedly being set up by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) throughout the Middle East, and the US believes they are meant to supply information on Israel to the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah."

Modern, moderate, Turkey: Muslim protesters burn flag, demand expulsion of U.S. troops from Turkey over rumor of Qur'an desecration

Scandal as rapper posts anti-Israel map
"German rap star Bushido (Anis Mohamed Youssef Ferchichi) caused outrage over the weekend when he posted on his Twitter profile a map of the Middle East next to the words “Free Palestine,” on which Israel was nowhere to be seen."

Mali is France’s Gaza

"France is now going to war in Mali because it says “we cannot have a terrorist state at the door of Europe,” but when Israel launches a defensive operation to protect its citizens from missile attacks from terrorists in Gaza, all the French newspapers and television commentators scream about Israeli aggression."

Clean fuels made in NJ with Israeli talent and financing
Primus Green Energy, soon to make alternative jet and auto fuels, is backed by the renewable energy arm of the Israel Corporation.

"George Boyajian, VP for business development, tells ISRAEL21c that the company is about to close a deal with “a major global airline.”
Though the company’s proprietary process can use a variety of feedstocks, including pelletized wood waste or energy crops, Primus is focusing for now on cheaply obtained natural gas."