Iran sanctions and Swedish greed (Zvi)

From Zvi:

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Ha'aretz reports:

The Swedish government is trying to prevent the European Union from imposing further sanctions on Iran for fear of losing a lucrative deal for Swedish communications company Ericsson, according to a Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.

Why does the EU refuse to take effective action to halt Iran's march toward nuclear weapons? That march will, if not stopped, lead to the slaughter millions of people in an instant. It will allow the IRI to realize its genocidal ambitions. It will allow Iran to terrify its neighbors into submission. It will poison the air, water, land, and of course everything that lives on them. It will destroy any hope of peace in the middle east for decades.

And why does the EU drag its feet? Are EU countries afraid?

No, it's not about fear.

It's all about greed..

The greed of European politicians, who are in the pockets of European corporations.

The greed of European consultants, who are paid water carriers for European corporations and for middle eastern dictators.

The greed of European businessmen, whose companies grow bloated on the profits that they gain by helping dictators to clamp down on their own people and by providing dual-use technology.

It's not just about fear of terrorists, as bad an excuse as that would be.

It's about rampant greed - in this case, centered in Stockholm.

The Swedish government is evidently an ethics-free zone in which the most incredible hypocrisy is king.

Care about peace? Not if it means that Ericsson doesn't score a deal with a pack of thugs.

Care about human rights? Not if it involves losing an Ericsson deal.

Care about the environment? Not if it involves paying a real price.

Care about minorities? Not if they're Jews.

Swedish politicians must evidently check their consciences at the door before they enter government.

Does the Swedish king have anything to say about this? About the terror of Jews in Malmo? About the Swedish government aiding and abetting the regime in Tehran, a regime that stole elections, murdered Nada and her fellows and beat the protesters into the dirt? A regime that sends heavily-armed soldiers to slaughter Syrians and occupies Lebanon?

Why not?

Why NOT?

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Friday morning snippets (Zvi)

From Zvi:

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This year, Israel issued 200,000 entry permits to Palestinians for Eid al-Fitr and Ramadan

"Israeli authorities issued 130,000 entry permits to Palestinians to observe the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Even young men, whom Israelis normally regard with suspicion as potential militants, were permitted entry....Tallied with entry permits issued during Ramadan, the number of permits reached 200,000."

This figure is interesting. 200,000 entry permits constitutes roughly 10% of the entire Arab population of the West Bank.

[AP says that "Israel has allowed the entry of over 1 million Palestinians from the occupied West Bank since the beginning of Ramadan due to improved security." It sounds like Palestinian Arabs used their permits multiple times. - EoZ]

Add this to your list of Israeli goodwill gestures that the PA will throw back in Israel's face, and which will be completely ignored by most of the world's media.

Apparently, a lot of the visiting Arabs made straight for the beach. I hope that they had fun.

The move was initiated by Israel's Defense Ministry, which Israel-haters and various western news media consistently paint in terms that recall the Nazis.

The world is a very different place from the world as portrayed by the BBC or Human Rights Watch... .

Israel saving the world again... .

"Taking the idea of solar thermal hot water heaters to the next level is Tigi Solar, a new Israeli company that was inspired by the busy bee.The inside of Tigi's solar energy collector looks like a honeycomb. This unique shape helps collect more sun power more efficiently than regular solar collectors -- so efficiently that boiling hot water made from the sun can even be piped in to heat homes."

Israel and Germany team up to help Kenya

"Israelis, Germans and Kenyans have teamed up to increase the tilapia (St. Peter’s fish) population and improve wastewater treatment in Lake Victoria.Last week, high-level representatives from the three parties signed a trilateral agreement in Kenya for a project that has been in the works for roughly a year, to upgrade commercial fishery and wastewater purification systems in Africa’s largest lake, officials from the Foreign Ministry told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday... .If successful, the team may carry out similar projects in Uganda and Tanzania, both of which also rely on the lake, and representatives have already started talks with Ugandans about the idea."

Israel and the US are Natural Allies

Just what it says!

"An honest American broker would no longer ignore blatant Palestinian myopia. Just this week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared Jerusalem a Muslim and Christian city, insisting that there will be no peace until the Jewish occupiers depart. The Jews, he said, wish to “destroy the Al Aqsa mosque and build the alleged Jewish temple.”"

Eyesight for Israel's Blind

In this column, a person who has internalized a bogus caricature of Israel is surprised to find that the scene in an Israeli hospital demolishes that caricature - but then fails to draw the obvious conclusion and crawls back inside his shuttered world-view. What a shame... .

Warning - the column demonstrates in many places that the author simply doesn't "get" Israel or the local Arabs.

"This distrustful ignorance of the other can be found everywhere in Israel. Or almost everywhere, for there is a place that escapes this reality: the hospital. Because of an urgent eye problem upon my arrival in Israel in late June, I had to spend seven hours in the ophthalmology department of the Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem, which is the main centre of treatment, teaching, and research in Jerusalem.What I saw during those hours were, despite my personal condition, the most comforting and hopeful signs that I have encountered in the entire region in many years. Arab citizens of Israel – that is, Palestinian doctors and nurses – were treating Jewish and Arab patients. Israeli doctors and nurses attended to Arabs' needs. I even saw some inter-action among patients themselves. Old Israelis who had clearly come from eastern Europe before the Second World War were playing with very young Palestinian children. There was an atmosphere of reassuring tolerance of the other....What I encountered that day in Ein Kerem was the best of Israel – and a direct rebuttal to the frequent accusation that Israel is an ‘apartheid state'. "

The author is wrong to think that this scene is unique; there are scenes in many places in Israel - and not only in medical settings - where cooperation and tolerance are the rule. But he is right that Israel's doctors represent [some of] the best of Israel and that the scene at the hospital blows out of the water the ludicrous claims about "apartheid." The story also reminds me a bit of Yaakov Lozowick's blog post about a hospital emergency room.

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Tuesday links - two sets for the price of one!

From Ian:

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No Future in France: Dire Times for French Jews

The Toulouse massacre did not bring French anti-Semitism to a halt. It actually increased.
“Any time young people approach me in order to get married, I ask them various questions about their future. Eighty percent of them say they do not envision any future in France.” This is what one rabbi in Paris told me last week. I heard similar statements from other French rabbis and lay Jewish leaders: “We have a feeling the words are on the wall now,” one leader in the Lyons area confided to me. “It is not just our situation in this country deteriorating; it is also that the process is much quicker than expected.”

Honest Reporting Op Ed Righting a capital offense

“When HonestReporting filed a complaint with the UK’s Press Complaints Commission in response to The Guardian’s labeling of Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital, we did so expecting accuracy and common sense to prevail.
Outrageously, the PCC not only ruled in favor of The Guardian but actually went as far as to unilaterally declare that Tel Aviv was Israel’s legitimate capital, based mainly on the fact that many foreign embassies are located there.”

Hezbollah Leader: Our Rockets Can Hit All of Israel

Speaking in Lebanon on Monday ahead of “Quds Day”, Sheikh Nabil Kaouk said Hezbollah will continue its attempts to free “Palestine”, rid Israel from its presence in Jerusalem, and that the group’s missiles can reach anywhere in Israel.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Accuses Israel of Ruling World by Proxy

Fars: Senior Cleric: Regional Revolutionary Nations Able to Annihilate Zionist Regime

TEHRAN (FNA)- Tehran's provisional Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami underlined the importance of this year's International Qods Day rallies, and said the revolutionary nations of the region are able to annihilate the Zionist regime.

Security services record Islamist exodus to Egypt

German security services have recorded a leap in the number of radical Islamists traveling to Egypt, according to a report due to be published in Monday's Der Spiegel magazine.

Captured Syrian pilot calls on Assad forces to defect

Video posted of pilot who rebels claim they shot down during bombing run

Catholic Church picks Bahrain as Gulf HQ

In February, it was reported that a Kuwaiti parliamentarian was set to submit a draft law banning the construction of churches and non-Islamic places of worship in the Gulf state.

Jewish groups protest ‘revisionist plaque’ at Babi Yar

Victims, formerly identified as Jews, now referred to as ‘peaceful citizens and Soviet prisoners of war’

Canada to release Raoul Wallenberg stamp

Israeli Innovation: Helping to Solve Global Water Issues

“The Israeli desalination company, IDE Technologies, which has been in operation for more than 40 years, has made many advances in desalination technology, installing over 400 desalination plants in 40 countries, including the Caribbean Islands and United States. In recent years, IDE won major contracts with Cyprus, India, Australia, and China.”

HIV peptide packs a punch for cancer treatment

Hebrew U. medical researchers find a tiny peptide encoded by the HIV virus could hold the key to making cancer therapies more successful.

Israel Trail named one of world’s best

National Geographic compliments the 620-miles stretch for its combination of ancient and modern history, Middle East wilderness

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From Zvi:

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Israel Home to Former Olympic Legend

"Agnes Keleti, 91 now, won 10 Olympic medals in gymnastics, including five golds, for Hungary in the 1950s before defecting and emigrating to Israel."

Danger to Israel-Egypt Ties

"The dramatic development also caught Israel by surprise. Several Egyptian officials who were "retired" by Morsi had close working relations with their Israeli counterparts over a period of many years. The personnel changes may have an adverse effect on the diplomatic and security relations between the neighboring countries."

Israel and Uganda Remember Entebbe

"Ayalon will today inaugurate a new trauma center and emergency Ward at Mulago hospital, funded and constructed through MASHAV – Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation."

India-Israel Free Trade Talks

"In an important step that will scale up their economic ties, India and Israel will hold the fifth round of negotiations over a free trade area (FTA) agreement in New Delhi from Tuesday.The negotiations, to be held Aug 14-16, will be led by D.S. Dhesi, joint secretary in the Indian commerce ministry and Ohad Cohen, deputy director general of the Israeli ministry of industry and trade."

South Africa is boycotting Israel

"The sources said a call by South Africa’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ebrahim Ismael Ebrahim on Sunday to his countrymen to refrain from visiting Israel “let the cat out of the bag,” and demonstrated the hollowness of South African government protestations that it was against boycotts, and that the recent move to label items from the settlements was just trying to “promote transparency.”"

North African Jews originated in biblical-era Israel, DNA analysis shows

"North Africa’s Jews originated in biblical-era Israel and are more closely related to Jews from other parts of the world than they are to non-Jewish North Africans, according to a new genetics study. The study “strengthens the case for a biological basis for Jewishness,” said medical geneticist Harry Ostrer of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who led the study.However, his research also found that Ethio­pian Jews are so distantly related to other Jews that their community must have been founded by only a few itinerants, who converted local people to Judaism.The latest research builds on an earlier study that found significant genetic similarity between European and Middle Eastern Jews. Among the new findings: Jews from Morocco and Algeria are more closely related to Jews from Europe, while Jews from Tunisia and Libya are more closely related to those in the Middle East.That DNA evidence lends credence to accounts that in 312 B.C., Egypt’s king settled Jews in what is now Tunisia. The traditional belief, now bolstered, is that after the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70, 30,000 Jews were deported to Carthage, in what is now Tunisia.One surprising finding: Georgian Jews are closely related to those of the Middle East, including those in Iraq and Iran."

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Also, at CiFWatch:Islamic Human Rights Commission & Al Quds Day: Tip of the UK’s Iranian support network iceberg

Plus: Neo-Nazi flash mobs strike German cities, aim to become 'immortal' on YouTube (h/t O)

And at Palwatch: PA TV music video honors killer of 13

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Sunday links (Ian and Zvi)

From Ian:

Andrew Bolt covered Kuwaitti MB leader Al-Suwaidan 
on his Sunday TV show The Bolt Report - Ep20 Segment 3 - Video
“What worries me most. How many Muslims here want this kind of preacher?”

A music video of the Kinder Jihadis pictures Why isn't there peace between Israel and the Palestinians?

StandWithUs: Kasim Hafeez, Pro-Israel British Muslim

PMW: PA children taught to hate Jews and Christians

Romney vows to do ‘opposite’ of Obama on Israel
“Romney on Saturday told the Faith and Freedom Coalition he believes the president is more concerned about Israel attacking Iran than he is about Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.His hawkish speech was the first time he’s discussed policy toward Israel at length since becoming the likely Republican presidential nominee.”

Digger graveyard desecrated again in Libya
“THERE has been another war graves attack at a cemetery in Libya which contains the remains of Australian soldiers.”

 From Zvi:

Israel in India

"JAIPUR: Israel's Facebook page in India ranks in top three foreign country pages. The Israel in India Facebook page, launched by the Embassy of Israel in August 2010, has received almost 20,000 'likes', a figure surpassed only by the pages of the US and the UK."

Alan Dershowitz: J Street Iran policy undermines US defense

"J Street, in addition to undercutting both mainstream Israel and American policy toward Iran, has also mischaracterized the views of those it cites in support of its benighted position.""Either J Street must change its policy, or truth in advertising requires that it no longer proclaim itself a friend of Israel, a friend of peace, a friend of truth or a friend of the Obama Administration."

Noble Energy brings gas well online a month ahead of schedule

Good news for Israel this summer... .

Gilad Shalit will attend NBA finals as sports writer for Yediot Ahronot

(A few) Arab Israelis speak out against the ongoing massacres in Syria

"A group of Arabs from Tel Aviv have erected anti-Assad billboards in Nazareth, calling the Syrian leader an animal."

Some Israeli Arabs are angry about this.

Only in Israel: democratic socialist companies as leading-edge exporters

(and yet leftists hate Israel)

"Shluhot, located in the fertile and intensely hot Beit She’an Valley, isthe source of 30,000 tons of carrots annually, 85 percent of them for export to Europe and Scandinavia. The kibbutz has grown carrots for morethan 60 years, and Kanner has run the factory for 20 — an unusually long term for a kibbutz company CEO. A second-generation son of the kibbutz, born to parents who came to what was then Palestine by way of Austria and Poland, Kanner has always been around carrots."

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The hypocrites who voted against Syria resolution at UN (Zvi)

From Zvi:

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Who voted against the UN resolution condemning the brutal crackdown by the al-Assad regime? Who voted in favor? (Israel supported the resolution, for one) Who abstained?

The usual suspects.

Here is what various countries had to say about it at the podium.

Voting against - the usual crew of raving hypocrites (notice how many of them have served on the Human Rights Council!):

* Bolivia (*cough lapdog of Venezuela cough*)
* China (anti regime change)
* Cuba
* Ecuador (ditto)
* Iran (anti foreign intervention)
* North Korea (sovereignty)
* Russia (wanted resolution to restrict rebels)
* Syria
* Venezuela
* Yemen (claimed surprise at appearance of Article 19)

I think that the others were Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

Abstainers included Algeria, Armenia (historically abstains, possibly for fear of persecution of Armenians in Syria), Comoros (said that they had screwed up and failed to cast their votes properly), Burundi (said that they had screwed up), Kyrgyzstan (said that they had screwed up) and 11 others.

The Venezuelan regime launched into a conspiracy-theorist tirade that included accusations that the West wants to occupy Syria and the claim that "instead, the Assembly should be concerned about recognition of a Palestinian State, the end of Israeli rights violations and ending the blockade on Cuba." Because of course the slaughter of thousands of Arabs by other Arabs doesn't matter at all; what do they care about dead Arabs? What matters to the Chavez regime is trying to destroy Israel and attacking the US.

The representative of Syria also made a general statement, saying that a “Trojan horse” had been unmasked today as the resolution’s Western co-sponsors had paved the way to internationalizing the situation. It was clear that the Arab League had been kidnapped by the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, he added. Syria had left the Arab League temporarily; it was broken, politically and morally, he said, congratulating it on its new alliance with Israel. Syria no longer wanted the League to stand by it following its shameful actions, but it did want them to save whatever face it had left and cease the plotting against other Arab States.

He went on to warn that the wealth of all the Gulf Cooperation Council countries would be squandered on losing causes and the price would be borne by all Arabs, who would be used as fuel to obtain the objectives of Israel and the West.

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I would add that Iran's representative said, "As long as armed groups continued to resort to violence, the crisis would continue, serving the interests of the Zionist regime."

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Turkey's seeming correction (Zvi)

Zvi comments on this post:

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Well, you know, when your (meaning Erdogan's) shiny-new Arabist foreign policy blows itself to smithereens in the most spectacular manner possible,

And when you realize that some of the Europeans that you spurned are now voting to condemn you for the genocidal rampage that your country has always refused to acknowledge, and you've realized that threatening them just makes Europeans think that you're an idiot,

And when you realize that even the irrevocably anti-Israel UN supports the legality of the Gaza blockade that you insisted was illegal,

And when you realize that the Israelis whom you stabbed in the back immediately discovered the most promising energy bonanza in the eastern Mediterranean, and when this rapidly brings Israel together with Cyprus, partly because you gave up your influence with Jerusalem when you stabbed Israel in the back,

And when you realize that your "great friend" al-Assad is courting the PKK again,

And when you realize that your new buddies the Iranians are "smuggling weapons to terrorists through your soil" ... without your approval,

And when you realize that your new "friends" the Russians simply won't listen to you, and are going to protect their old friends in Damascus, the ones who are feeding the PKK,

And when you think about it honestly and realize that because you threw all of your reliable, sophisticated, influential friends under the bus, YOU HAVE NO RELIABLE AND INFLUENTIAL FRIENDS LEFT AT ALL,

Well, you really must start thinking "maybe I'd better start picking my battles." Certainly, hosting the overtly genocidal Hamas terror group would piss off not only the US but the EU. Not to mention certain Gulf Arab regimes who view anything connected with Iran, Syria OR the Muslim Brotherhood as poison.

So you (Erdogan) try to turn down the temperature on the completely unnecessary fights that you started in order to get "in" with the crowd that is now self destructing. After all, you don't need yet another diplomatic train-wreck to your credit, do you?

Maybe you (Erdogan) start courting the poor, stupid, forgiving Jews who used to stand up for you - yeah, we're very stupid and very forgiving - the Jews whom you stabbed in the back. You show "Shoah" on a TV station and hope that everyone will get all excited by this "signal" and forget about "Valley of the Wolves." You put out press about how you held Holocaust Remembrance Day events, and hope that everybody will forget about the Armenians. You say that hosting Hamas is "out of the question" and hope that everyone will forget your warm cuddles and diplomatic cover for Hamas in the very recent past. You blast Russia for its support for the Syrian regime, and hope that everyone will forget your own snuggles with al-Assad only a year before. You hem and haw after an earthquake and accept only a tiny portion of the assistance that Israel offered, and hope that your voters care more about burning Israeli flags than they care about freezing Turks.

Not to mention that you (meaning Erdogan) accepted the Qaddafi Human Rights Prize scant months before that vile dictator's people rose up and extinguished him. THAT one is a "must" for the "Most Epic Fails" album. You (Erdogan) wish that you could forget about that one yourself.

But Erdogan has not decided to make peace with Israel. He's not going to do that. Attacking Israel is too ingrained in many within his party, and his support for a bunch of psychopaths on the Mavi M. has left him no line of retreat without completely humiliating himself and his country (more than he already has, that is). The right-wing Islamist ideologues within his AKP remain vehemently anti-Semitic.

Erdogan has stopped throwing fuel on the bonfire, but he has not put it out, and I see very little likelihood that he will do so. If the Turkish people have any sense, they will evict the AKP and its disasters from office in the next elections. But I don't see that as a very likely possibility.

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