Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Apple detente

Palestine Today mentioned that on Sunday, Israel allowed the export of 700 tons of apples grown by Golani Druze - to Syria.

A little further research brought a fascinating recent Ya Libnan (Lebanon) article that says that the annual trade in apples between Israel and Syria is much higher than that:

The economic position of Golan Druse is far better than that of their coreligionists and relations in neighboring Syrian-controlled villages. Druse horticulturalists have been permitted to export 11,000 tons of apples to Syria per annum since 2005 - the only existing economic relationship between the two countries.

The entire Ya Libnan article is worth reading as it goes into the complexity of the issues facing the mostly Druze residents of the Golan who have divided loyalties between Syria and Israel.

But the apple trade was news to me.

Gallup spinning numbers of radical Muslims

Gallup polled some 50,000 Muslims over a six year period to see how Muslims think, and they will be releasing their results in a book. Ahead of publication they are putting out weekly press releases with some statistics. But based on the press releases, we can already see that they will be spinning the numbers to minimize Islamic radicalism.

Look how deceptive this release is:

Understanding extremists and the nature of extremism requires a global perspective that extends beyond conflicting opinions of experts or anecdotes from the "Arab street." What do Muslims polled across the world have to say? How many Muslims hold extremist views? What are their hopes and fears? What are their priorities? What do they admire, and what do they resent?
According to the Gallup Poll, 7% of respondents think that the 9/11 attacks were "completely" justified and view the United States unfavorably. Among those who believe that the 9/11 attacks were not justified, whom we'll call "moderates," 40% are pro-United States, but 60% view the United States unfavorably.

Analyzing and comparing the answers of the 7% with the moderate majority produced some surprising results. By focusing on the 7%, whom we'll call "the politically radicalized" because of their radical political orientation, we are not saying that all in this group commit acts of violence. However, those with extremist views are a potential source for recruitment or support for terrorist groups. This group is also so committed to changing political conditions that they are more likely to view other civilian attacks as justifiable: 13% of the politically radicalized versus 1% of moderates say that attacks on civilians are "completely justified."

Firstly, notice that they only give numbers for those who call 9/11 "completely justified" and they do not let us know the numbers who consider it "partially justified". They say that the "moderates" are a majority but is this a significant majority, a tiny majority or a plurality? By only giving the 7% number they are trying hard to imply a large difference which may not exist.

Notice also their choice of nomenclature: those who are pro-terror are merely "politically radicalized" while those who were against it - but perhaps support blowing up Jews - are "moderates." The word choice indicates that moderation is normal and expected, but extremism doesn't exist - it is just a learned behavior. This is a huge bias.

The press release also doesn't bother to explain the glaring contradiction that only 13% of those who already declared support for 9/11 claim that all civilian attacks are justifiable. Perhaps the question was stated in a way where Muslim civilians were implied?

Finally, as they try hard to make it appear that "only" 7% of Muslims worldwide support terror and hiding numbers that may indicate otherwise, they don't bother to run the calculation: assuming a conservative number of 1.2 billion Muslims, this means that "only" 84 million are extremist terror supporters that want to see, say, all Americans dead.

One can only imagine how the book will try to bury the real numbers that are so inconvenient to mention in the press release.

British jihadist preacher caught on tape

From News of the World (UK):

A FANATICAL preacher of hate has been recorded urging impressionable young British Muslims to go to WAR against our troops.

Watch hate preacher on video

Yet, sickeningly, crazed cleric Anjem Choudary and his wife rake in more than £25,000 a year in welfare BENEFITS—while he plots to destroy British society.
Now Choudary —who once called for the Pope to be executed and described the September 11 hijackers as "magnificent martyrs" — could face arrest under anti-terror laws for his evil ranting on the tape, which was passed to the News of the World.
After hearing his latest inflammatory remarks, terror experts asked: "What more does this man need to do before he is locked up?"

Choudary, 41, was taped lecturing a secret meeting in west London earlier this month. On it he urges his Islamic followers to persuade would-be terrorists to sign up for killing campaigns.
The bearded mullah describes non-Muslims as "the enemy" and tells his sympathisers they should brainwash at least TEN Britons a month into becoming al-Qaeda supporters.
He also urges his clan to preach that:
FIGHTING jihad against Western society is an obligation.
BRITISH Muslims should travel abroad to fight our troops.
TERRORIST wannabes should "put fear into the hearts" of non-Muslims in the UK and spread al-Qaeda messages.
Choudray's lecture tour was launched with the aim of teaching Islamic extremist recruiting teams how to win new members and brainwash them into backing the mass-murdering terror group.
His speech was made days before Osama bin Laden's new video message warning Britain will soon be hit by new attacks.
Choudary says: "Even in the jihad you can see people carrying the dawah \ and inviting to Islam. The latest video from Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri \ was dawah, at the end of the day.
"Dawah and, obviously, putting fear into their hearts to say, look, no matter how many people you send in your army, it will not make a difference. We have enough land to bury the whole lot of them."
Choudary then claims that, by sheer weight of numbers, radicalised Muslims can make anti-terror laws obsolete. He brags: "So, your job is to create propaganda, our role here in Britain is vital.
"We undermine them, we undermine their ideology, we break their back." He adds: "If we carry on en masse, commanding good and forbidding evil, we say you and your laws can go to hell."
Choudary reminds his fanatical followers: "Remember, our ultimate objective, apart from pleasing Allah, is domination of the sharia \ all over the world."
When we spoke to Choudary he refused to discuss our recording but admitted he WAS on a recruitment drive.
He ranted: "I would like to recruit enough to turn the whole country into an Islamic state within a month...by tomorrow.
"You can put that down. I'm trying to recruit 5,000 a week."

Tunnel collapse!

Another dead Palestinian Arab terrorist, this one from a tunnel collapse on the Egypt/Gaza border:

The body of a 29-year Palestinian was pulled out from a collapsed smuggling tunnel between Gaza and Egypt on Saturday, hospital officials said.
Trapping Under the Rubble

Five diggers were in the tunnel when it collapsed Friday. Four were rescued with serious injuries, and the body of the fifth, a 29-year-old man, was retrieved Saturday, hospital officials said.

The tunnel had been shut down several days earlier by Egyptian security officials, and the diggers had returned to try to reopen it.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 45.

In other Peaceful PalArab news, a rocket that was meant to kill Jews landed in Beit Hanoun, Gaza causing a "powerful explosion."

And PA police officers got into a gunfight with "gunmen" yet somehow 4 civilians were injured, one seriously.

Recent keywords - how people find me

It is always fun to see what people type into search engines to find this blog. Today, predictably, there are a lot of Purim-related searches, but as always there are some that are funny and some that are slightly scary:

purim torah
isaac newton jew
arab death video
arabs news paper
dubai carpool
coptic tv
iran's sahar 1 tv is currently airing a weekly series that premiered on december 13 called zahra's blue ey
arabs porn (always a popular search term)
flowers shaped like stars (an oldie but a goodie)
ali al-quradaghi
beauty contest israeli winner
israel, purim, photographs, children, costumes,
picture of purim costume
homemade rockets
photos of the crown prince of bahrain
tosfos in engllish
modeiin israel
jews everywhere
the truth about mohammed
arab porn
lynching video
translation ??
algerian family atallah
americans marrying saudis blonde
the truth about muhammad book
photos of poor
independent arab masseuse
gaza sderot blog, israel insider
arab newspaper
soup kitchens, bklyn, jewish
purim torah christmas
elders of ziyon (you mean there are others?)
israel purim costumes
almas palestinian businessman bring together hamas fatah
examples of bias in textbooks
holocaust denial video
purim israel torah
second jewish temple artifacts pictures
muslim miracle
freilechen purim
palarab (is my term catching on?)
mecca accord 2006
the truth about mohammad by robert spencer
hebrew names from english
how to defend the prophet
prostitution in islam
religous bottles
elder of ziyon mercaz harav attack
interactive methodies of learn english
adar 11
jewish world domination (always a favorite)
sderot mishloach manot
hatzalah video new motorbikes
terror alert israel purim
israeli rescue mission 90 seconds hero
arab holiday

A PalArab death I missed from February

PHRMG's list of Palestinian Arabs killed by internal gunfire, while far from complete, adds one murder I missed in early Febraury:

Jaser Hussein Abu Jarghoun, 28, Khan Yunis, Feb 1, Killed by shooting from unknown gunmen.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is at 44.

Megillah trivia question of the day

How many parties are mentioned in the Megillah?

Egypt likes Israeli "occupation" of Gaza

Yesterday:

Palestinian and Israeli sources said yesterday Israeli and Egyptian representatives agreed in principle to a deal that would replace Israel with Egypt as the Gaza Strip’s sole electricity provider.
Under the deal, Egypt would set up a new power line from the Sinai Peninsula town of Arish to the nearby Gaza Strip. The 150-megawatt line would cost $35 million and be operational within two years.
Egypt currently provides the Gaza Strip with only 7 megawatts of power, while Israel provides 124 megawatts through 10 different lines. A local power station produces the remainder.
Omar Kittaneh, chairman of Palestinian Energy Committee, who is in charge of the project on the Palestinian side, said the Egyptian plan would be funded by the Islamic Development Bank. According to Kittaneh, tenders will be floated in the next few days.

But, as Palestinian Press Agency reported later, Egypt denied any such deal (autotranslated):

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry denied news media reports today that Egypt accepted assumed responsibility to provide electricity to the Gaza Strip.

Why would Egypt prefer that the poor, cold, starving Palestinian Arabs in Gaza remain in a situation where they do not have a reliable electricity supply?

It must be that, even though Israel is not legally occupying Gaza, Egypt prefers that fiction - and its resultant consequences to Gaza residents - to actually helping their fellow Arab "brethren."

See also:
Gaza and International Law
PalArabs try to have it both ways in Gaza
Egypt's violent reaction to idea of expanding Gaza into Sinai

Work accident of the day

From AFP:

A Hamas activist was killed and two other members of the Islamist movement were wounded in an accidental explosion at a training camp in Gaza, the second such incident in as many days, medics said.
Wael Hammudeh, 30, was killed in the explosion in a camp of the armed wing of Hamas in southern Gaza, medics and witnesses said.

Isn't it amazing that the number of Gazans who are known to be killed in such a manner increase dramatically when Israel isn't bombing Gaza?

Just more evidence that Hamas was moving the bodies of those that died by other means in places that Israel was attacking so as to inflate the "martyr" count.

Ma'an is still reporting yesterday's work-accident as an Israeli air raid, after even Hamas backtracked, showing that "Palestinian Arab journalism" is an oxymoron.

Meanwhile, a Hebron man was murdered as well at his gas station, bringing the 2008 PalArab self-death count to 43.

IBD notices the terror poll

From Investor's Business Daily:

Hate That Dares Not Speak Its Name

The Mideast: When a poll reveals all but a fraction of Palestinians support the murder of eight innocent Jewish seminarians, it shows a people wedded to evil. It's a short trip from this hate to the kind Hitler espoused.

The West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a professional and independent polling agency that surveys Palestinians four times a year, has found that no less than 84% of 1,270 Palestinians questioned by the center in personal interviews said they supported the March 6 shooting inside Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav yeshiva.

The slaughter was carried out by East Jerusalem resident Alaa Abu Dheim, who was himself eventually killed during his attack. All but one of the eight he killed were teens, two of them only 15 years old. Another 11 were wounded.

Pollster Khalil Shikaki was understandably shocked at the results, which also found 75% support for scrapping Israeli-Palestinian talks and 64% support for the Hamas terrorist group's thousands of recent rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip on Israeli towns.

Asked for their preferences for president of the Palestinian Authority, 47% chose Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas while 46% chose their current "moderate" president, Mahmoud Abbas.

But the chilling significance of the poll numbers goes beyond media commentaries about them reflecting "increased tensions." Imagine if more than 80% of some sector of the American public supported an Oklahoma City-like terrorist attack carried out on our soil. It would be viewed as a breakdown of civilization.

And consider the fact that such a large proportion of Palestinians approve of slaughtering of victims who not only were civilians and religious students, but minors. A true slaughtering of the innocents.

The message we get from this is very clear: The vast majority of Palestinians advocate such acts of terrorism against young innocents because the victims were Jews.

Their version of the Final Solution may not entail gas chambers and concentration camps, as Germany's National Socialists did in the last century. But it does apparently include murdering, at random, Jews because they are Jews.

Read it all.

The classic of the Purim Torah genre

One of the best recent additions to the ever-growing canon of Purim Torah - far better than my original contribution this year - was written in 2000 by Immanuel Burton. It is a hilarious piece of scholarship.

The author writes:

In each and every year on the twenty-fifth day of December the Nazarine world celebrates Choggoh, which is the festival of the birth [Christmas], and many people who are not Nazarines also celebrate then. And there are many customs which people follow during Choggoh. Even though Choggoh is not a Jewish festival, the author wondered in his heart to work out and to know how the Mishnah would appear were this the case, and so the author therefore gathered the customs and other matters which celebrants of Choggoh are accustomed to in this pamphlet. The student has to realise that this pamphlet is presented in the style of "Purim Torah". However, the author has left it as an exercise to the student to find in the writings of the true Torah the sources of phrases and conjectures found in the pamphlet, and by this the student will be amused on Purim and will merit to study Torah at the same time. Anyone who does not consider a matter of jesting such as this an amusing matter - it is appropriate that he stop immediately.

Here's the first page of his Mishnah Choggoh - the Halachos of Christmas:

A rough translation of the part of the first two lines, with the commentary in parentheses:

The tree (Christmas tree) that is taller than twenty cubits: in the house, it is invalid (because people don't look up higher than twenty cubits and therefore the decoration at the top of the tree isn't visible) but in the marketplace it is permitted (it does not say it is kosher because [the outdoor tree] is not part of the day's obligations, but is only used to publicize [the holiday]. From here on the mishnah will only refer to the house-tree.) If [the tree] is not three hands-breadths high it is invalid (for it lacks importance.) Rabbi Noel allows a bonsai tree (even if it is less than three hands-breadths [high] because this is the way that it grows and it has importance...) but the Sages (there are three Sages) forbid it (for the tree must be able to be decorated and have presents [fitting] underneath.)

It is well worth the download.

UPDATE: For those who don't understand Hebrew, a similar project in English is shown here.
There are many contradictions between the two, which will need to be resolved by someone greater than I.

Some "fast" links

Conspiracy theories and victimization at Shrinkwrapped

Russian blood libel: Jews use children's blood for matzot at YNet

Half shekel found in Jerusalem at JPost

"Meet the world's most incompetent ethnic cleansers" by Evelyn Gordon

Laugh with Firas!

Here are what I believe are four autotranslated jokes from the Arabic Firas website.

Humor doesn't translate well:

in one jar was pregnant and gas guy on the stairs Chavth his words: Just

She said if: God opened Man ...

-

-- Unit once said to her husband? You what Coltli word Zlzaaaaaaaaaaal concern about me ...
-

3 pupils once they were late on the first portion, and when he arrived the school said they tagged you Kintua Fein?
I said I lost my seal my blog, and the second said I play him, asked third and you go?
I Daes concern about it !!...

-- Entered a doctor in a hospital psychiatric patients in the room and told them anything Kalfshar jumping all patients except one.

Asking the doctor: Why did you jump

He answered saying: I am stuck at the bottom Tngerh
-
-- One mother was killed in the section Zabott Pisalh name any?

.... Told him: Write the best actor ....
I do not like pride

However, they did have one joke I recognized, that would be considered Islamophobic if any non-Muslim would say it (I'm paraphrasing):

George Bush and Tony Blair go out to eat lunch and then they hold a press conference.

One journalist asked them, "What did you speak about during your meeting?"

Bush replied, "We decided to kill 20 million Muslims and one surgeon."

The journalists were perplexed, and finally one asked, "Why do you want to kill one surgeon?"

Bush laughed and turned to Blair: "See, I told you no one would be interested if we killed 20 million Muslims!"

-----------
Many of the commenters didn't seem to get it.

Orgy of anti-semitic cartoons in Arab media lately

The ADL has compiled a list of blatant anti-semitic cartoons from the Arab world in the wake of Reuters' mistranslating Matan Vilnai as threatening a "holocaust."

While the "Zionism=Nazi" imagery is nothing new in the Arab press, they have turned it way up recently, as the ADL report shows.

Of course, Palestinian Arabs don't have to look far for their own, very real, historic connections to Nazis. Nazis wooed Islamists to get them on their side, Nazis armed Arab terrorists in Palestine before World War II, Nazis tried, semi-successfully, to work with them during WWII, the biggest Palestinian Arab leader helped in the genocide of Jews, Arabs drafted Nazis to help fight Jews after WWII, today's Palestinian "moderates" consciously imitate Nazi symbolism, and even today neo-Nazis explicitly support Islamic terror against Israel.

My First Rule of Arab Projection is alive and well.

(h/t Suzanne)

Work accident!

YNet reports:

Palestinian security officials reported Thursday of an explosion at a beachfront facility of the militant Hamas organization. According to an initial report, two people were killed in the incident and one was injured.
Palestinians claimed that the facility was attacked by the IDF, but the Israeli army denied striking in the area.

Palestine Today (Arabic) describes it as a "mysterious explosion" which, ironically, leaves no doubt as to its source.

Ma'an Arabic, which used to be a reasonable source of accurate news, continued its slide towards Hamas propaganda by claiming it was an Israeli airstrike and declaring the dead terrorists "martyrs." Palestine Press Agency reported it more accurately.

The known 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 40.

UPDATE: Tunnel collapse!

A young Palestinian man was killed on Thursday when a tunnel collapsed on top of him in the As-Salam neighborhood of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources said.

According to the sources, 23-year-old Ashraf Ataya was dead on arrival at Abu Yousif An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah. Medical checks revealed the man suffocated under the debris when the tunnel collapsed.

41.